{"id":1961,"date":"2013-04-16T21:22:00","date_gmt":"2013-04-16T21:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2013\/04\/a-blogging-lesson-from-the-wolf-man.html"},"modified":"2013-04-16T21:22:00","modified_gmt":"2013-04-16T21:22:00","slug":"a-blogging-lesson-from-the-wolf-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2013\/04\/a-blogging-lesson-from-the-wolf-man.html","title":{"rendered":"A blogging lesson from the Wolf Man"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
<\/a><\/div>\n

So I got a little bit of a rebuke for my post on three kinds of Catholics<\/a>. \u00a0Sure, I was being somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but I was also setting up a point, one that needs to be reflected on. That point being the tendency, largely across the Internet (though probably not unique to it) of Catholics adopting the idea that\u00a0imitating\u00a0Christ is voting the right way, supporting this or that geopolitical strategy, and opposing gun control, or torture, or gay marriage or whatever. \u00a0It\u2019s headline ethics. \u00a0It\u2019s having drawn out discussions about whether we should forgive the bombers in Boston. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just on the Internet either. \u00a0It\u2019s media in general. \u00a0I heard the topic of forgiving the Boston terror bomber on local Catholic radio going to work today. \u00a0Forgive the bomber? \u00a0Really? \u00a0And what does that cost me? \u00a0Not a damn thing. \u00a0What about opposing military action in Iran? \u00a0Sacrifice? \u00a0Anyone? \u00a0Perhaps in that it could become a long, drawn out war, someone in Congress would finally get a draft (only if the president was Republican), and my military age boys could be pressed into service. \u00a0But otherwise, what is it to me if I\u2019m wrong in opposing force against Iran? \u00a0If Iran gets a nuclear device, hands it to terrorists, and then detonates in some city, killing tens of thousands? \u00a0The odds of that being within a\u00a0light-year\u00a0of my little corn field of the world is about zilch. \u00a0So defining my holiness on something that if I\u2019m wrong wouldn\u2019t cost me a brass farthing demonstrates what?<\/p>\n

So you see the problem. \u00a0Following gushing\u00a0tributes\u00a0to Christopher Hitchens, Andy Warhol, and the late Roger (I\u2019m an atheist who can\u2019t get enough of sexting up the movies) Ebert, while granting no mercy or grace to people over a growing list of issues that vary greatly on their direct impact on us, I felt it was time to speak.<\/p>\n

Does my little piece mean I think all Catholics fit neatly into three\u00a0categories\u00a0 \u00a0No. \u00a0Obviously. \u00a0Nor does it mean I think all Catholics are part of that group that is common across the blogosphere. \u00a0But they are out there. \u00a0And in recent years, I\u2019ve seen several cases where Catholic leaders, including the USCCB, have been encouraging ways to harness the blogosphere,\u00a0promote\u00a0it, and use it. \u00a0And when you notice the number of\u00a0Catholic\u00a0bloggers invited to parishes, Catholic conferences, and given growing\u00a0visibility\u00a0as spokesmen and women for Catholicism, it\u2019s\u00a0worth\u00a0looking at, especially if several of them have adapted this new, modern take on Catholic Holy Living.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n

So, what does this have to do with The Wolf Man<\/i>? \u00a0Here\u2019s the point. \u00a0That little rebuke focused on the folks, those folks around us, the ones we see everyday. \u00a0The suggestion was that I spend too much time on the blogosphere, and not enough hanging with the real people. \u00a0But that\u2019s the rub. \u00a0Those bloggers are someone\u2019s real people. \u00a0And in my dealings, I\u2019ve learned Catholicism does has quite a bit of variety. \u00a0Most probably aren\u2019t in that blogosphere gang that concerns me. \u00a0Most, however, do seem to be\u00a0pretty\u00a0much divided down the progressive\/traditional line that has caused so much mischief in Protestant circles. \u00a0Still, the fact that a minority represents this, or that real folks doing real things are the majority, is pointless.<\/p>\n

How do I know? \u00a0Because I\u2019ll wager that, if we could borrow from Wells and go back in time, we\u2019d see that most people in most cases throughout history were just basic folk, doing their thing, being good, naughty, going to work, paying bills, playing video games with the kids. \u00a0 That\u2019s what people always are. \u00a0Part of this, siding with that, but usually just folks putting their pants on like I do, Hitler did, Washington did, and so on. That was the point of the screenplay for MGM\u2019s classic 1940 movie The Wolf Man<\/i>. <\/p>\n

Written by Curt Siodmak, a Jewish refugee escaped from Nazi Germany, many of the \u2018legends\u2019 of werewolves came straight from his creative genius. \u00a0It\u2019s true. \u00a0No autumn moons or silver bullets in most werewolf legends, those were just creations for this movie. \u00a0But the important part, the part that concerns us here, was the idea that the werewolf\u2019s victims sported a pentagram somewhere on their hands. \u00a0The werewolf knew then who the next victim would be.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n

It shouldn\u2019t take a genius to pick up on the symbolism of a Jew imagining a star being the sign of a soon to be victim. \u00a0Nor was it lost on those who knew him when realizing the theme of the movie itself: a kindly, thoughtful young man is bitten and becomes a savage, murderous monster. \u00a0That\u2019s what Siodmak had experienced. \u00a0Those he knew, those he had grown up with, played with, worked with, those real folks he knew, were suddenly becoming monsters, brutal savage beasts, hanging stars on people and marching them to their deaths. \u00a0The\u00a0Wolf Man<\/i>\u00a0in a nutshell.<\/p>\n

And thus, we come back to the point. \u00a0It\u00a0matters\u00a0not a lick in history that most people are good people, caring people, kind people, or whatever. \u00a0I\u2019m sure most people in\u00a0the\u00a0south, even slave owners, were good people (just watch Gone With the Wind<\/i>). \u00a0I\u2019m sure most people in Germany were good people. \u00a0So are most\u00a0atheists, most Muslims, most Protestants, most fundamentalists, most liberals, most Catholics, and so on. \u00a0In the end, it\u2019s not what the majority does, but what the passionate minority is able to convince them to do that so often makes the difference in the course of human events.<\/p>\n

But what I do, on this blog as my main outreach, is focus on those movements that are concerns, problematic if you would. \u00a0Yes, Catholics can broadly be defined as liberal and conservative. \u00a0Those terms may not be the same as they are in other circles, but they\u2019re there. \u00a0Within\u00a0those groups, I\u2019m sure, like\u00a0anywhere\u00a0else, there\u2019s much variety. \u00a0But there is a growing tendency across much of the\u00a0Catholic\u00a0web to\u00a0interpret\u00a0the Church\u2019s changing teachings as one that puts a premium on standing on the right side of a host of issues. \u00a0In this movement, the
\nre is a tendency to believe that the Church is finally hitting its stride, going to true perfection, and all had better jump on board or else. \u00a0It takes the Church\u2019s teachings on these broad topics as the\u00a0essence\u00a0of the Gospel, that which divides life and death, good and evil. \u00a0And what\u2019s more, increasingly they care little to nothing for the law of life that tells us how we should act on a daily basis. \u00a0Quick to say it\u2019s better that a thousand children die than tell a lie to save them, the same Catholics would scoff at the idea that we should\u00a0physically\u00a0and literally sell everything we have to follow Jesus. \u00a0That would be me doing something. \u00a0Far easier is it to base my holiness on supporting this or that topic that may not impact me in the least. <\/p>\n

That was the\u00a0point\u00a0of the post. \u00a0It was actually a set up for unpacking this growing trend across many blogs to elevate social and political stances to the source and summit of holiness, while increasingly acting as if such quaint teachings as not judging and calling others Raca should be dismissed as puritanism and rejected outright. \u00a0Not all on the\u00a0Internet\u00a0of course. \u00a0Nor all on the blogosophere. \u00a0But enough. \u00a0Enough to take notice and take it seriously, especially as some of the bloggers themselves are getting the stamp of\u00a0approval\u00a0from Church leadership. \u00a0After all, that\u2019s where those hard working and good hearted average Catholics\u00a0get their teachings from, or should. \u00a0Hence, the\u00a0concern \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So I got a little bit of a rebuke for my post on three kinds of Catholics. \u00a0Sure, I was being somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but I was also setting up a point, one that needs to be reflected on. That point being the tendency, largely across the Internet (though probably not unique to it) of Catholics […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2805,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nA blogging lesson from the Wolf Man<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"So I got a little bit of a rebuke for my post on three kinds of Catholics.  Sure, I was being somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but I was also setting up a\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2013\/04\/a-blogging-lesson-from-the-wolf-man.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" 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