The Boy Scholastic asks for reading lists in advance, but politely so.

He understands when professors aren't quite ready but is excited when they are. At this moment, he is very pleased, indeed.

So, my professor told me to pick up a copy of "The Ancient Economy" by Sir M.I. Finley to get ready for this class, and I have to say, the first chapter is one fine read. He basically proposes to dismantle the modern notion of cyclical economic development (i.e. that the ancient economy was just like capitalism on a smaller scale) by demonstrating that the ancient peoples had no concept of economy at all. It makes sense, and he attributes it to the structure of the ancient society, which is what really gets me. I'm only on page 30 or so, but it's already shaping up to be ridiculously interesting, especially from a theological standpoint, because so often we have to recognize (and thereby counteract) our subconscious efforts to interpret things as if they were written yesterday and not 2000+ years ago.

It's why I find myself moving much more towards a centrist position than the conservative position I began with. For me, there is no especial draw to liberalism (or rather, the draw to liberalism is counter-balanced by my understanding of a persistent yet improper desire to alter my interpretation so as to save Christianity from persecution from social progressives and, in the same fashion, to earn acceptance), but instead a desire to fully understand the mindset of the faith that is documented in the text, and in that way, understand the message of the text.

This is important to me for two reasons. First and foremost is my own faith, which must be my first priority, for how can the faithless and those who persist in error hope to lead others towards faith and truth? But that is also the second, that I might properly teach and instruct. For I have found so much apparent conflict (or, rather, duality) in theology, juxtaposing justice and mercy, faith and works, free will and divine fore-knowledge, man and God, that my desire is to unify all of it, and to put to rest questions of disjointed theology.

It's not so much for the Christian, although many theologians preoccupy themselves with these questions (though they normally pick a side) and many lay Christians accept these things through faith (as they should), but rather for those for whom these concepts stand as obstacles is seeing the special dignity of Christ. It was a conversation on the Megabus that I overheard which really set my heart a flame with this desire (not that the groundwork was not already present). Two men sitting in front of me where chatting idly about things, and stumbled onto the subject of religion. Partially out of a desire to be unoffensive (although it was, to me, extraordinarily offensive) and partially out a desire to sound educated (though it was the most uneducated statement imaginable), one man said that there will always be religious extremists and separatists, but that every religion is just The Golden Rule when you looked at it intelligently. I wanted to say something, then I wanted to cry, then I became overwhelmingly upset. "If you only understood!" I wanted to say. "If you could only truly understand the special dignity of Christ and what separated him from work-based "faiths", you'd never say such a thing! If you only truly understood what it meant to be both in grace and yet a sinner, to be powerless over your own sanctification and redemption, to be truly indebted to God, and to really understand, and thereby experience, the full width, depth, and length of love in its purest form!" You see how I get, sometimes? It broke my heart.

And then, at the same time, there was a conversation going on behind me between two college students at Loyola (a Jesuit college, in case you were unaware), about how one had become an Atheist and could simply "no longer believe in God." When asked to give reasons, she explained all of her problems with the Catholic church -- how a priest refused to baptize the child of a woman, who having left her husband because of spousal abuse, had remarried outside the church (the church refused to remarry her on the basis of a divorce not brought on by adultery), and how the child died soon after of illness. For a Catholic, the infant baptism covers original sin (excuse me if this is something you already know), and for that mother to have her child die having been denied a baptism would be the most devastating thing imaginable. The one comfort that mother had, the salvation of her dead child, the church "stripped" from her, and the minds of this college student, God had done it. She cited multiple examples of the failings of the catholic priesthood, though none quite so heartbreaking as the mother and child.

With this girl, my heart was in so many pieces that I had to say something, though I'm not much of a public speaker. I quietly introduced myself as a student studying religion and divinity at the University of Chicago, and politely suggested that her problems were less with God and more with the Catholic church, and asked whether or not she had ever considered Protestantism. She said that she was just unable to believe, and though there was so much to say, I couldn't muster any of it. My lips said that I understood and told her to e-mail me if she ever doubted her doubt as my hand gave her my e-mail address, but my heart cried out as I turned back to my own thoughts. I wanted to ask what it meant for her to believe in God, and who was God to her that she found Him so unbelievable? Why didn't I ask? I worry that it was out of a lack of courage or trust in God, but it was because I knew the answer without asking -- the church had tainted her ability to truly see God. This is my problem with the church, most of all the Roman Catholic church, that for so many it puts men in the place of God so that, when those men fail, people see it as God's failing, that the imperfections of the priest are the imperfections of God. I wanted so much to tell this girl that the failure that she felt separated her from the church were not the failings of God but the failing of the faith of men. But how could she have heard?

If ever I were to become a priest, it would be to correct these errors. But how could I succeed? My faith too will falter, it has in many occasions. I run out of fingers when attempting to count my failures in the last week, in the last day, since breakfast this morning. We need the church, but we lack the understanding of its relationship to God. We require justice but we long for mercy. We are men, yet are apart from our God who completes us. God is not understanding, but he provides it. His grace should impart the peace of unity and clarification. I by no means intend to study that I might be the dispenser of grace, but rather that I could elucidate the grace that comes from God. To lift high the cross. To be the mirror reflecting the light.