The Curse of Wordcounts

Matthew Lee Anderson attempted to reply to my post on his theology of the body piece but for some reason the Patheos comment apparatus locked him out. So he e-mailed it to me. Here’s what he had to say for himself:

The short version [for why I didn’t namecheck John Paul II] is that I was asked to keep myself to 1000 words, and all the necessary throat-clearing and qualifying that I feel like I would have had to have done to generously commend the Pope’s work to that audience simply wouldn’t fit. That and I’d already written a fair amount elsewhere about my indebtedness to JPII on the issue, as in my chapter in my book and in my CT cover story last June. I’d prefer to not have any word count or content restrictions at all, but for some reason people won’t let me yet. I can’t imagine why.