Popular Orthodoxy needs a new lexicon. The terms of today's books trend towards defining just how not like the Catholics they are. Book after book cracks the same whip of unfounded papal claims, the errors of scholasticism, or the Fourth Crusade.
If I went on a job interview could I get the job by saying exactly who I wasn't?
Possible Employer: Mr. Flavius, could tell me a little about yourself?
Me: Well, I'm certainly not from the North with their bad manners and constant cursing.
P.E.: Umm... I see. So how would you describe your work ethic? Do you tend to pace yourself or go all guns blazing after a problem?
Me: Damned Yankees seem to work work work like little machines. No time for polite discourse. Nothing to them that MTV or ivy league universities didn't fill their silly little heads with.
P.E.: I... well... so before the interview we gave you a short test to judge your technical skills for the position. You seem to have just marked out a few of the obviously wrong answers, but failed to mark the correct response save the most basic of questions. Care to explain?
Me: Certainly, certainly. I thought it more important to give you a clear picture of what I know to be wrong than the simple correct answer. Doesn't stressing the most patently wrong answers tell you so much more about me than acting the trained monkey and grinding out simple facts?!
And it goes on. Orthodoxy is so much more than a collection of how not Catholic it is. How barren and dull to present the wealth of such tradition and beauty as the absence or opposition to another thing. Would you rather I spoke of the regal and fragrant bouquet of a rose or constantly compare it to crab grass?
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