Replies

Yes, but that doesn’t mean that I said anything incorrect. If Protestants stand firm to what they believe, then the title isn’t really a bad thing — I am rejecting the notion of Protestants re-terming themselves with another title like “evangelicals” (which is interesting, because didn’t a group of evangelicals recently release some sort of mission statement as to what the term “evangelical” means?). If they hold firm to their beliefs, then the title is fine, even if it means what it means to someone like me. Hence the “liberals” example.

If some Protestants don’t like to feel like they are protesting, then perhaps they don’t feel firm enough in what they believe to truly be protesting. In which case, if they want to end the protest, then by all means, come back if you’d like, I’d welcome all with open arms.

I like to put it this way. My hometown hockey team held a promotion to name the team mascot. The contest was ambushed (and the web site crashed) by moronic fans of Stephen Colbert who fuel the celebrity’s jones for having stuff named after himself. My hometown hockey team thought it was good for business and they embraced it.

My point of contention was that it was a contest designed for children who are fans of the hockey team to name a mascot whose function at games is to entertain the children. Instead, the contest winner is some local adult Colbert fan, and the mascot which should be for the children is named after a celebrity whose TV show comes on at 11:30PM and is, by its rating, designed for mature audiences.

I was pretty upset at my hockey team for doing this, so I decided to protest the decision. I bought the jersey for another team in the league and I wore it to every game, and I cheered for them for that season.

In the end, the money the team made on the Colbert attention was quite a bit — they sold merchandise all over the world — but the attention and carnival atmosphere also had a negative effect on the team. They were favored to win the league at the start of the season (according to The Hockey News, who in all honesty never gets their predictions right, but my team was well-regarded in any respect), and they ended up losing in the first round to a weaker team.

This year, the team decided to forego their business relationship with Colbert. It was at that time that I decided to put the other team’s jersey back into the closet and pull out my hometown team’s jersey again. Protest over.

My point is that at some point, the protest should end, otherwise, you lose sight of what you were protesting in the first place. Roosevelt created government programs to fight the Great Depression. The Depression has been over for generations, yet many of these programs remain in place. They became self-perpetuating behemoths more interested in maintaining their existence than fufilling whatever they were originally designed to accomplish.

If, according to Protestants, the Catholic Church still has problems, then so be it. However, the goal should be to eventually end the protest. It is true that I didn’t read the article fully when I posted, but I do stand by everything I’ve said.