The past couple of days have been pretty illuminating. I’ve been wrestling with faux-theologians on social media and I’m as surprised by their incompetence and ignorance of theology as I am of the Protestants’ ignorance of Church history and theology.
It worries me, because these faux-theologians are fairly popular on socials and their opinions carry weight—and shouldn’t Their theology is trash, their theological methodology is sloppy at best, reckless at worst. But they make beautiful sounding statements and arguments and its easy to be fooled by them.
I also got mixed up with someone who’s “Extreme Unction” (Anointing of the sick) theology was really flawed, and dangerous.
After another volley or two, the exchange with him ended him telling me to “get lost” after I showed him, directly from the Council of Trent, why he’s wrong.
I mean this is objective stuff—it’s black-and-white. You’d think he would have admitted his mistake, but that never happened.
Then there was this gem, with someone who blocked me.
This is just the tip of the iceberg, people. This was only in the past couple of days! I deal with this a lot, but it’s rarely a concentration three con-men compressed into a single day or two.
The Internet has enabled a lot of theological sleight of hand con jobs everywhere. Some are better con men than others, commanding way more authority and respect than they actually merit, given their deceptions. Others are small time hacks who nevertheless have a lot of influence. Which brings me to the point.
You have to be really careful where you get “Catholicism” from. It’s easy to research and learn about the faith, Catholic philosophy, Church history, etc. But it’s just as easy to get mislead or misdirected by independent players, or independent Catholic media agencies who have no business doing what they’re doing in the name of the Church or God’s people.
If you take something out of the fridge and it smells funny, it’s spoiled and you shouldn’t eat it. Online “theology” is no different. If it smells like BS, it likely is, and you shouldn’t let anybody convince you that it’s chocolate ice cream.
Listen, shameless plug here, but, I really want you guys to check out The Forge, and subscribe if you haven’t already. It’s free, and the rhetoric and theology are never BS masked as ice cream. I shoot straight, I don’t sugar coat, I don’t deceive.
God bless you guys and thanks for being part of my inner circle here at Catholic Firebrand.