This study ought provide a lot of fuel for debates about parental, administrative, polical, and religious leadership styles.
“Whether it involves persuading people to use sunscreen or eat high fiber foods, good intentions can be elicited by a variety of appeals. However, getting people to actually follow through on these intentions and change their behavior requires appeals combining fear and an emotion high in self-accountability, such as regret, guilt or challenge.”
In the post “French Bishop Urges Vatican to Reopen Debate on Whether 1+1=2”, Funky mentions that:
“Pope Paul VI banned contraception in the 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae, arguing that sexual intercourse was meant for procreation and any artificial method to block a pregnancy went against the nature of the act.”
I was inclined by this to comment on that post, but its my hope that others might have input on my thoughts about Humanae Vitae and NFP.
Funky alerted me recently to an article by Annie Gottlieb, an accomplished and interesting author and friend of Ales Rarus, who advertises what purports to be a serious opposition to traditionalism in Towards a New Revelation (or, Why I Am Not a Traditionalist) over on AmbivaBlog. Since this site is frequented by a good many traditionalists, and owned by one (tho’ occasionally I’ve my doubts about that), he thought it might be edifying to here critically examine Ms. Gottlieb’s post. As you might expect, as a traditionalist I beg to differ with her.
![[bloggerpatron.jpg]](http://alesrarus.funkydung.com/images/bloggerpatron.jpg "St. Jerome, proposed patron of bloggers")
I’m worried that Christian bloggers have lost the plot.
My grandfather used to say that the habits or faults of other people that annoy us the most may be ones we are also guilty of. I guess that was his atheistic Quaker version of Luke 6:41. I am very often reminded of that lesson and it has been an important part of my maturation process and growth in faith. It’s a lesson I have to relearn over and over again. It’s painful; the saying is true – no pain, no gain.
There are times (too many to count) God puts me in a situation in which I find myself correcting someone for a fault I too am guilty of. Sometimes I get sort of a “spider sense†feeling as I reprove a friend, knowing all the while that I’ll learn Pop-pop’s lesson before I’m through. Other times, I’m too blinded by my own self-righteousness to see what’s coming. It’s a very humbling a experience either way.
What I’m trying to say is that the irony of this post is not lost on me. How can I reprove others for a sin I’m just as guilty of? This isn’t going to be a self-righteous lecture. If you insist on believing it is, then imagine me as the recipient rather than the deliverer.
If I had to summarize in one sentence the main reason I blog and how I choose what to blog about, I’d say that I’d like to help people stop begging questions, talking past one another, and calling each other silly and rude names, and start thinking critically, listening to one another, and treating each other with, at minimum, the same love they’d ask for themselves. That, of course, is easier said than done. Popular legend has it that G.K. Chesterton, among other eminent authors of his time, was asked by a newspaper to write an essay on the theme “What’s Wrong with the World?” His reply? “I am.” When it comes to the kind of acerbic and caustic blogging that I believe is poisoning the Body of Christ, and the rest of the world for that matter, I too am guilty.
God help the first spammer I meet in person because I just might castrate him with a dull spoon. *grumble*