I know, I know: It has been ages since I last posted anything here. I have been wanting to reboot this site for a while, so we’ll see how that goes.
For now, though, I just wanted to give a quick update on the status of the book I have been working on for Random House. Its working title is (or was?) I Fought the Church, and the Church Won, and it was a somewhat apologetic defense of my leaving Protestantism behind and entering the Catholic Church. Yet despite having completed an entire first draft, the more time went on the less comfortable I began to feel about the project. As those of you who know me will understand (especially from listening to Drunk Ex-Pastors), since “poping” I have become pretty uninterested in apologetics and polemical argumentation. Sure, I love a good debate as much as the next guy, but I have lost that foaming-at-the-mouth intensity that a crusader for his cause really needs. In short, I am way too live-and-let-live to perform well in the apologetics arena anymore.
To my delight and relief, my publisher suggested a radical shift in our vision for the project, one that captures the kind of Catholic I actually am (rather than just reflecting the kind of Protestant I used to be).
My suggested working title is Musings of a Misfit Catholic. Here’s a snippet from the Preface:
As usual, G.K. Chesterton said it best: “If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly.” I heartily agree, and have taken up this maxim and made it into something of a motto for my own life (although my version of it is more along the lines of, “I’d rather suck at something awesome than be awesome at something that sucks”). So true to form, I am now a really bad Catholic. . . .
As I said in a note to my publisher about my thoughts on this new direction, “Being a Catholic is something worth doing poorly, because I’d rather suck at trying to be a saint than succeed at being a smug theological asshole.”
Stay tuned, more to come. . . .
As a cradle Catholic who went through a spell of questioning everything about religion/theology, to a guy that listened to Catholic Answers for apologetic musings, and now a fellow “live and let live” Catholic, I can’t wait until this comes out!
Haha, thanks, Nick!
How many times and in how many ways can you say “…..huh, huh, and we were wasted, bro”?
Maybe just go on You Tube, light some farts on fire, and hope it goes viral.
Donald Miller kind of already wrote this book. “Blue Like Jazz”.
You may recall over at DXP last month you expressed some surprise at the suggestion that you had referred to yourself as a “marginal Catholic.” Evidently you couldn’t remember, or it struck you as perhaps something you wouldn’t say. But now you are describing yourself as a “really bad Catholic” or “a misfit Catholic.” So what does this mean? Is figurative speech meant as a form of humility, i.e. you’re simply new to and therefore fledgling at a good thing, or is it more literal speech meant to confess personal fault, i.e. you suck at being Catholic the way Comcast sucks at customer service?
Well I’m sure we’d both agree that sucking at being Catholic is way easier than sucking at being Reformed, right? I mean, geez, it is Lent right now. . . .
Dunno, never been Cath-o-lick. Looks easy though.
As easy as resting in a passively-imputed extra nos extrinsic alien righteousness?
As easy-schmeasy as submitting to an infallible interpreter immune from error, who cannot deceive or be deceived, is the vicar of Christ on earth defining faith and morals for all believers.
Jason, so this was really about Reformed Protestants being assholes and your not wanting to associate with such assholeness? With 1.2 billion RC’s you think you left behinds behind? Haven’t you heard of Joseph Pearce or Mark Shea?
Yes, Mark is a friend of mine. Are you calling him an asshole?
FWIW, this post was about the effects of these respective theologies on me, not about who I associate with. I look back and don’t really like the kind of person that Reformed theology encouraged me to be (constantly threatened, smug, dismissive, narrow).
I’m still a lot of those things, but at least Catholicism makes me want to be less like that, rather than more.
Best to you, Jason. I’ll probably keep listening to DXP, I hope you don’t mind. I find it curious you keep alluding to your Calvinist past and speaking for what Calvinists believe – it’s something that always irked me since finidng these theology blogs in 2012 (the CtC approach), but I can be charitable and give you converts the benefit of the doubt. Peace.