My commentator wasn’t actually confused about the devotion known as the Seven Last Words– or, at least, he may have been at first, but then he just got obnoxious on purpose. He refused to educate himself on what was meant by the Seven Last Words, but instead tried to educate me on the Gospel and the number seven. He assumed that he knew better because he was an enlightened atheist and I was a silly Christian. Mind you, his stubborn refusal to even try to understand what he was mocking was not due to his atheism. I have many regular readers who are atheists, and we have good respectful dialogue. I also have readers who aren’t atheists but who do apply that trick of deliberately misunderstanding everything just as much. Many Bible Believin’ Protestants do it when they insist that Catholics worship Mary no matter how often we explain that we don’t. Many Catholics do it when they take the most asinine interpretation of what consubstantiation means and use it to mock the devotion of Methodists. Some Muslims do it when they claim Catholics aren’t really monotheists and Catholics do it right back when they quotemine one little bit of the Koran to claim they know what Muslims believe.
And it’s stupid.
People who do it are not defending their faith or lack thereof. They’re not engaging in grown-up dialogue. They’re acting like Amelia Bedelia.
Let’s all try something else.
Those of us who are confronted by an Amelia Bedelia troublemaker really shouldn’t engage them. They’re only trying to mock and pretend it’s dialogue. Don’t bother trying to explain unless there’s a third person watching whom you hope to reach.
Those of us who are engaging in a dialogue about faith with someone who believes differently than we do, ought to take care not to be an Amelia Bedelia. We mustn’t make the absolute dumbest interpretation of somebody’s belief and insist that we, the enlightened ones, really understand. If a certain devotion or tenet of a person’s belief sounds like nonsense, we can’t assume we’ve understood. We should ask the person we’re in dialogue with to help us understand, or do some research. It might still sound like nonsense after it’s explained. We might never come to a real understanding. We’re not required to agree with one another. But we ought to be respectful.
At minimum, if a person from a different faith tells us we’re mistaken about their religion and shows us a Wikipedia page, we should read it.
Don’t be an Amelia Bedelia.
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