Dumb Things I Used to Believe

Last updated on: June 9, 2016 at 8:07 pm by Elias Crim

Dumb Things I Used to Believe 2016-06-09T20:07:47-05:00 Elias Crim

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

People walking on the Berlin wall in front of the Brandenburg gate after opening one day before, Nov. 10, 1989. (AP Photo)

Having come into the Church as a convert on Easter Sunday, 1986, I am what’s called a JP II Catholic. I remain one, although I would have to explain that adjective differently today, thirty years later.

Before Saint John Paul the Great came to prominence, I had already made a summer visit to see up close his country’s great cultural adversary, the U.S.S.R. Given my political views in those days, my travels made it clear to me: we were winning the Cold War, Reaganism was the right way to fight it, and Reaganomics was surely the operating manual of all future societies.

A sign of the times in the 1980s was the tendency to hold up Reagan, Thatcher and John Paul II as making a common front, culturally speaking, in the great Western effort. This trio now looks more like a mixed bag, especially given the late pope’s statements in his last decade criticizing neoliberalism and its legacy, both in his homeland of Poland and elsewhere, not to mention his refusals to endorse America’s ill-fated projects in the Middle East. (For an entertaining and insightful bit of revisionist history here, Artur Rosman’s “Catholiclandia” series can’t be beat.)

The trouble with becoming a Catholic is that you may quickly discover that things you tried to keep in separate compartments of your life turn out to be closely attached. Your libertarian delight in dismissing moral questions, you realize with shock, will have to be supplanted by notions of solidarity and human dignity. (Expect puzzled looks from your old frat house friends.)

Merely referring to the common good will earn you ipso facto the label of naïve left-winger. In fact, five bucks says you can’t google up a single “conservative” website on which the phrase common good appears. (OK never mind: I found one.)

And your imperial American pride will need to suffer correction by a new sense of global subsidiarity. (Now you’ve got a really big problem: friends will notice your growing “unAmericanism.”)

These changes of heart and mind are often accompanied by a rending sound and the breaking of glass, psychologically speaking. What if you come to conclude that the pro-life/pro-family movement’s captivity by various political players has so deformed its moral sense that its actions now effectively raise money—however inadvertently—for groups like NARAL and the same-sex marriage proponents. Not a happy realization.

Part of becoming educated, I would argue, is developing the ability to jettison stupid ideas you once held. Even if you learned them from wonderful teachers whom you still admire. Shake the dust from your feet and move on.

Alternative economics, worker and family empowerment, the spirituality of work, the economy of sharing

Elias Crim

Poverty, economic inequality, consumerism, unemployment, underemployment, living wage

Previous Post

May 30, 2016

A Saint for a New Socioeconomic Order

Next Post

July 2, 2016 What Wretches Feel: Neoliberalism is dying, we must replace it with something better

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Alternative economics, worker and family empowerment, the spirituality of work, the economy of sharing Art Care for Our Common Home Catholic imagination Catholic Social Teaching Christian Friendship Christian Persecution Community building, models or forms of community, radical hospitality Corporal & Spiritual Works of Mercy Daniel Schwindt Dorothy Day, Peter Maurin, CW aims and means, spirituality Elias Crim Grace Potts Greg Guest Josh Brumfield Mark Gordon Matthew Cooper Mercy Michael Stafford Paul Grenier Peace, nonviolent resistance, conscience and conscientious objection Pope Francis Poverty, economic inequality, consumerism, unemployment, underemployment, living wage Racial Reconciliation Radical Christianity Stan Goff Uncategorized

Select a Month October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 October 2017 August 2017 July 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

How many books are in the New Testament?

Select your answer to see how you score.

39 21 24 27