I came upon a classic example of “clickbait” online the other day, which says a lot about the state of our fractured society and my own algorithms. It was a “choose one of these options” proposition: are you a “Charlie Kirk” Christian or are you a “Dolly Parton” Christian?
I had no intention of joining the fray, but I did read a half-dozen of the hundreds of comments. Returning quickly to the real world, this made me think about the fractures, fissures, and the internecine skirmishes within our own Church.
It also took me back to a time and place where I was presented with a similar either/or pronouncement. I was attending a roundtable lunch in a Catholic setting with a discussion on a wide variety of Catholic topics. I was out over my skis in this group. They were all well-educated members of the Thomistic wing of the Catholic faith. It was quite clear that as the outsider in the circle, they wanted to know if I was an “us” or a “them.”
When they spoke of themselves as, and I quote, “disciples” of St. Thomas Aquinas, I cringed a little on the inside. To me, that was a descriptor reserved only for followers of the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. At best, a “disciple” of a “disciple” sounded redundant.
These people were a lot smarter than me, and I thought that even if I did voice an objection, I would be shot down with some arcane reference from the Fourth Council of Constantinople, so I kept it to myself. As lunch progressed, though, they dug deeper and hinted strongly that a devotion to St. Thomas Aquinas was an essential component of the true Catholic faith and went even further, suggesting that without such commitment, a person’s salvation could be in jeopardy.
As I am wont to do, I allowed my mouth to get ahead of my brain and responded, “You know, people had been getting to heaven for over a thousand years before St. Thomas Aquinas was even born.” If there was a candle in this room, it would have gone out for lack of oxygen. Visions of my lunch companions sharpening their salad forks to go after the heretic in the room filled my head and left only because they were being squeezed out of my brain space by a sense of panic.
My years as a television writer and all the pitching I did in production offices came to my rescue as I mumbled a backpedal pronouncement that even though my chronology of the great saint was correct, that did not discount his wisdom and power that had been helping people reach their final destination for more than 750 years since his death. It worked — the torches and pitchforks were put away — and lunch continued, but I could tell my lunchmates were no longer sure of my doctrinal orthodoxy.
In the following years, I got a better grasp of the Thomistic approach and the more recent Ressourcement theological paradigm. But I remain a rank amateur in both disciplines. So, if St. Thomas Aquinas was once called the “dumb ox,” what does someone like me do when I am actually the dumbest ox in the room?
There is an answer, and it is KISS — not the band, the acronym: Keep It Simple, Stupid. That plan of attack with deep theological or even plain old everyday dilemmas is usually foolproof, with emphasis on “fool.” There is so much in both the Old and New Testament that is easy to digest, and they are usually the most important things. God saw his creation as “good.” Jesus said there were only “two” great commandments, and if we just followed those two, how different this world would be. The faith should not be as complicated as a 4,763-piece Lego model of the Mona Lisa, and it is not. Jesus left behind a Church to see to that.
I used to use identifying terminology like “Roman Catholic.” I try not to do that anymore, as the Latin Rite is just one of several expressions of the one true Faith, all under the umbrella being held by the pope. Plain old Catholic should be good enough for all of us with no need for a hyphen.
And for all those theologians who are grinding axes on the internet about whether someone is a “Charlie Kirk” or “Dolly Parton” Christian, I would suggest they say they are a Jesus Christ Christian.
Remember … KISS.
