The maestro, Mr. Drennan (as we were required to call him in school), weary of being pelted about the noggin by my persistent queries and protestations, which have nonetheless failed to so much as ruffle even a feather in his cap, alas, and him being a prescient gentleman wanting to avoid for me an eventual charge of elder abuse, has sent me here to trouble you instead, dear reader.
And on what topic? Political frustrations and aggravation? Misguided social customs and injustices? Intolerable corruption in the economic sphere? Oh no, too tame. How about something to really angry up the blood? Something like, oh, Calvinism!?
Mr. D. is in the practice of stating his position upfront, and that seems well and good. So, re: Calvinism let me say, I'm agin' it.
Hillbilly diction aside, this may actually be going too far for someone who has not yet been able to figure out exactly what Calvinism might be. I argue that when someone begins by asserting "the total depravity of man," as Calvin has done, I must say "Hold it right there, buckaroo." If that is the case, then I don't even want to hear what else you have to say, because your motives and perception are inevitably tainted, you being a man after all.
Apparently, then, it's actually not a good topic for discussion, because I refuse to entertain it. I find myself intuitively in sympathy with Thomas Jefferson, who wrote, "The blasphemy of the five points of Calvin, and the impossibility of defending them, render their advocates impatient of reasoning, irritable, and prone to denunciation."
But the maestro, Mr. Drennan, an admitted Calvinist, has taken my bushels of disdain on the topic with exceptional good grace, which requires me to admit that, underneath, I secretly suspect him of something better.
~Tim Klay
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