Light On Dark Water

A Convert

One never has time to read everything on the web that looks interesting. Well, that's almost a pointless thing to say, like observing that you can't drink all the water in a river. Anyway, one thing that I've thought looked pretty interesting but haven't ever read very much is a blog called Unequally Yoked, which Eve Tushnet sometimes discusses, and which appears to have begun as a forum in which a couple, one atheist and one Christian (the gal and the guy, respectively), attempted to understand each other's views in a dialog. I guess one reason I didn't follow it was that it's somewhat over my head intellectually–seems to be a good bit of philosophy-major-type stuff. (For instance:

I could hypothesize how a Forms-material world link would work in the case of mathematics (a little long and off topic for this post, but pretty much the canonical idea of recognizing Two-ness as the quality that’s shared by two chairs and two houses, etc.  Once you get the natural numbers, the rest of mathematics is in your grasp). )

Well, the atheist has converted: here's Eve's post about it, from which you can get to the atheist's announcement of her change. It's that same old story, the one we always love to hear:

I believed that the Moral Law wasn’t just a Platonic truth, abstract and distant.  It turns out I actually believed it was some kind of Person, as well as Truth.  And there was one religion that seemed like the most promising way to reach back to that living Truth. 

I wasn't at all surprised. On the few times when I did read the blog, it seemed to me that she understood Christianity far too well not to come over. Say a prayer for her; I always worry a bit about converts, that their enthusiasm will wear off, or that the questing energy which brought them in will take them out again. I don't know why I don't just look at myself for reassurance on that score; one of the very few good things I can say about myself is that it would take torture to get me out of the Church. (By the way, I think she and the Christian parted company a while back.)

Speaking of converts, Dawn Eden has a new book out. Here's some discussion at Patheo.com. I plan to read it, though the subject is not one that I have any particular connection with, just because she wrote it.

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6 responses to “A Convert”

  1. Janet

    Someone posted a link to her blog on Facebook yesterday and I read the last post on the atheist side. It made me really want to read what she had to say once she moved, but I just can’t start reading anything else. Really. I can’t. Really, really, really.
    I haven’t even had time to read Craig on Chesterton and I have to do that.
    AMDG

    Reply
  2. Mac

    I know, you just have to give up at some point. I did read Craig’s Chesterton things and you’ll enjoy them. He also has a very interesting post about Oblomov, which I’ve never read, which I wanted to comment on but couldn’t get my thoughts together.

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  3. Sally Thomas

    I’ve read a couple of Leah’s posts (including the conversion one), and I’m glad I’m not the only one who doesn’t track all the philosophy-major stuff. I was feeling like a really, really, really dumb Catholic who converted because . . . uh . . .
    Still, pretty cool. And that’s interesting re the Catholic boyfriend — I had thought that either they’d have to break up OR she’d convert, but the possibility of both hadn’t occurred to me.

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  4. Mac

    I gave up the idea that I would ever be more than passingly conversant with hard-core philosophy a long time ago. Though I like to think I still love wisdom.:-)
    I’m almost certain the breakup was mentioned in one of her posts. I don’t know whether this opens the possibility of a renewal. That would be awfully sweet.

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  5. Craig

    I’d never heard of the Unequally Yoked blog before hearing of this rather public conversion. I like the panache of it — moving the blog from the “atheist portal” to the “Catholic portal” of her host site — but the publicity is a little concerning. I have been praying for her through the day.
    I took a little time to look through some of her old posts leading up to her conversion — the tag is “Parsing Catholicism”. There are some interesting things in there, probably worth looking at when I have more time. (In a few years, in other words!)

    Reply
  6. Mac

    I even saw it mentioned on CNN’s website. That surprised me. I didn’t read the story, just saw the headline. “In a few years”–yeah, I been saying that since the 1970s. I’ve finally pretty much stopped saying it, not because the time finally arrived but because it’s rather late for me to be thinking that way.

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