Agia's Weapons

David Stockhoff · 20 Dec 2011, 22:07 · from 2011-December.txt.gz

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From: dstockhoff at verizon.net (David Stockhoff)
Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2011 17:07:25 -0500
Subject: (urth) Agia's Weapons
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On 12/20/2011 4:13 PM, Daniel Petersen wrote:
> Wow, wow, wow.  I can't tell you all how pleased I am that my 
> pagan-gods-fulfilled-in-Christ comment didn't bring down a firestorm. 
>  Quite the reverse!  It seems all who've commented agree Wolfe does 
> this - Gerry wants to then take it in a certain direction, with which 
> the Catholics (and my lily white Protestant butt) disagree.  And 
> that's fine.
>
> I would hasten to clarify:  though Wolfe takes this, to me, generous 
> and wise approach that doesn't mean he's not up for some 'ass-kicking 
> for Jesus' sake' (as his fellow Catholic novelist Walker Percy said of 
> his own fiction).  That is, just as much as he weaves this fulfilment 
> motif into his fiction, he also weaves an expos? of the 'evils of 
> religion' (as the late Christopher Hitchens might have said) into his 
> works as well.  I.e. I *do* think he knows that people are often 
> deluded, deceived, and imprisoned by their false religious beliefs, 
> even if there is *some* important truth to aspects of their 
> worldviews.  (I don't think his Catholicism escapes this critique 
> either - if we distinguish between 'eternal truths' and more 
> transitory teachings and practices of the Church, of course, as others 
> have pointed out.)

Hearty agreement on that last point---in fact I may be one of the 
"others." Indeed, I hope I am.

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