In Which I Write A Christian Essay

Carl's freaking out. His paper is due tomorrow, and he has no clue how to begin, or even what he thinks about the topic. He enlists my aid, and since the guy has driven me home many many times over the past few months and he never lets me put gas in his car or buy him a beer (Carl, if you're reading this, I know you prefer white zin -- you sissy), I figured I'd help him out with his paper.

Even though tomorrow is Secretary's Day and we have a 25-top booked at eleven AM and I'm working a double. If there is a God, please make it rain like a sonofabitch tomorrow...I mean later today.

The topic of his paper involves The Wittenburg Door, a publication heretofore unknown to me. Carl attends Southeastern Bible College. I'm appalled by the motto on their website: "Making A Difference, Impacting The World". Impacting? Like a tooth? Or a turd? Eeeeew!

I get over it, and on to business: the paper is about whether this school should subscribe to this publication. Pro or con, pick a position and defend it. I, of course, pick "pro", and I go on to elaborate the ways in which subscription to a magazine of gentle satire can help expand callow Christian minds before they are exposed to the harsh give-and-take of the secular world, thus making them more firm in their faith. Huh huh huh. I said "firm".

I rant and write for a good hour before Carl tells me his view is "con". Jesus fucking Christ dude, it's 1:30 in the morning and your paper is due at 8 and I've got to be at work at 10 you could have said SOMETHING! Carl politely ignores my blasphemy (is it blasphemy if you don't believe in the first place? I don't think so, but for the record, Zoroaster was a goat-fucking inbred moron) and tells me that my arguments are persuasive, he's into the big tent picture now. OK, cool.

But now I'm out of ideas and looking at my watch ('cause I have to blog this, you know, before I go to bed, you heartless bastards). I suggest we examine the idea of "satire" and how it applies to Christian thought.

I recommend sourcing Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal" and contrasting it with Jonathan Edwards' "Sinners In The Hands Of An Angry God".

Carl says, "Huh?"

I say, look, if you can't make fun of your own faith, it isn't worth believing. Carl tells me I'm an atheist, so what does that say about me? I suggest it's getting very late and I'm ready to go to bed and what little help he's getting from me is one "delete" away from evaporating.

I'm an asshole, and that didn't really happen, but it makes for good copy.

I end up writing less of his essay than he'd like, but more than I wanted to, and he leaves.

And I ponder what an excellent Christian apologist I'd be, and what that says about me and my commitment to atheism.