Preston
Dear Preston,
There are no drunkards at our shows, only intellectuals! Well, if that were true our show tonight would
probably be pretty boring. There is room for all at a Bad Religion concert.
Thanks for the tip on reading the Gospels. I am usually put off by contradictory texts, and from what I
have read by non-Christian scholars, there is a fair degree of contradiction in the Gospels. But I
appreciate what you say about their importance and perhaps I will read them soon.
Did you know that my great-grandfather, E. M. Zerr, wrote a multi-volume Bible commentary in the
1930s that is still in use in rural areas of the Midwest in a sect called Church of Christ?
Could I just watch the BBC version instead of reading the Brideshead novel? I know my dad, an
English professor, would be ashamed of me for asking that, but if it's a good adaptation, I don't mind
watching the novel!
Catch you later.Sincerely,
Greg
Dear Greg:
My head is pounding with a flu passed on to me from the dear little one.
I think some of my students were pretty weirded out the other day when I played "Mediocre Minds" in
class. I handed out the lyrics beforehand. There are a couple BR fans in the class.
Each year my wife and I have a "Brideshead Weekend," when we watch the nine-hour series. It follows
the book nearly verbatim. It's the nearest thing to cinematic literature I've seen. I didn't really "get" the
book till I saw the BBC series, so I think your idea's a good one.
Where all are Christians, the situation is this: to call oneself a Christian is the means whereby one secures
oneself against all sorts of inconveniences and discomforts, and the means whereby one secures worldly
goods, comforts, profit, etc., etc. But we make as if nothing had happened, we declaim about believing, ...
about confessing Christ before the world, about following him, etc., etc.; and orthodoxy flourishes in the
land ... orthodoxy everywhere, the orthodoxy which consists in playing the game of Christianity.
Soren Kierkegaard, philosopher (1855)
There's a Church of Christ just around the corner from my house. I don't know much about that
denomination, though I've heard that members of some of its subgroups hold beliefs that aren't held by
Protestants generally. I looked up one of your great-grandfather's commentaries. He wrote in 1958 that
"public confession is necessary for salvation." So, in other words, people can't go to heaven unless they
publicly confess their faith in Christ. That must sound nuts to you since, in your view, the whole argument
is based on bogus premises. I know what he means, but one can think of a lot of exceptions that would