One of the things that we need not be is scared of people who think differently from us. There are those who respond aestheically and emotionally to worship: they love the music, they want the statues, and the liturgy.

The there is me. I don’t care: although my theology is reformed I have been a member of an Anglo-Catholic congregation [a quick note to my Catholic friends, if your Bishop insists on lowest common denominator services, find a high Anglican Church for the worship, and go there after mass. For the BCP will soothe your soul. Even though they would tolerate pagans such as Paglia.

Italian Catholicism remains my deepest identity—in the same way that many secular Jews feel a strong cultural bond with Judaism. Over time I realized—and this became a main premise of my first book, Sexual Personae (based on my doctoral dissertation at Yale)—that what had always fascinated me in Italian Catholicism was its pagan residue. I loved the cult of saints, the bejeweled ceremonialism, the eerie litanies of Mary—all the things, in other words, that Martin Luther and the other Protestant reformers rightly condemned as medieval Romanist intrusions into primitive Christianity. It’s no coincidence that my Halloween costume in first grade was a Roman soldier, modeled on the legionnaires’ uniforms I admired in the Stations of the Cross on the church walls. Christ’s story had very little interest for me—except for the Magi, whose opulent Babylonian costumes I adored! My baptismal church, St. Anthony of Padua in Endicott, New York, was a dazzling yellow-brick, Italian-style building with gorgeous stained-glass windows and life-size polychrome statues, which were the first works of art I ever saw.

However, the methods of worship are ephemeral. It matters not if we use plainchant or the hymns of Luther and Wesley: it matters not if we are accompanied by a string quartet, an organ, or the modern rock band. What matters is that we build not on the aesthetics of this age, but on Christ.

And that what we build lasts when tested.

For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw—each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.

Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.

Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, “He catches the wise in their craftiness,” and again, “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.” So let no one boast in men. For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.

(1 Corinthians 3:11-23 ESV)

Now, there is nothing wrong with wisdom, and the reading of many books is no sin. One needs more discernment than I have — I reject much not because of the subject matter (my most recent really good book read was about wizardy within the church, and the one before that about vampire bankers: Vox Day and Charles Stross respectively).

But what matters is that the lives around us move towards Christ. At times this requires that we correct each other. And we pray for those who write: that their works will pass that very test.

Louis L’Amour saved my life. He taught me to love reading. I didn’t care that he was whiter than I was, or that we were from different cultures, religions, and backgrounds. Nobody engrossed in a story gives a shit about that. I was expanding my mind, not artificially limiting it.

From there I went on to read whatever I could get my hands on, and I’m sure most of those books were written by old white guys, because at the time most writers were white guys. As demographics change and there were more writers who weren’t old white guys, I read more books by people who weren’t old white guys, and again, didn’t give a shit.

The super evil mass market consumer doesn’t finish a book and say to themselves “This was an excellent read. I’d go tell my friends, but I suspect this author has slightly more/less melanin than I do, or might possibly come from a different socio-economic strata so I’d better throw it away.” That’s the kind of nonsense SJWs fret about.

Do you want to know the best way to get more people from diverse groups to be writers? Get them to be readers. Readers become writers. Populations with more readers will produce more writers. Some of us are compulsive story tellers, and get them immersed in the medium, and they’ll want to tell stories of their own in that medium.

How do you get people to become readers? Introduce them to books you think they will enjoy. The sexual/racial identity of the author is irrelevant to enjoyment (unless you’re a flaming bigot, because it will make you RAGEQUIT). People tend to keep doing stuff they enjoy.

How do you know what books people will enjoy? That’s the trick. Everybody is different. Everyone has differing tastes. That’s why you introduce them to a wide variety of books. I’m talking real diversity, not the skin-deep superficial diversity SJWs glom onto, but real diversity of thoughts, ideas, and imagination.

SJWs love diversity as long as everybody is diverse in an approved manner. My side welcomes everybody and thrives on competition, whether it is art or ideas, the more the better. I want more people from every possible group writing books. Because the more books that are created, the better the odds that there will be something truly brilliant.

This age is not wise. Paglia has a suggestion about that: the American academy has read too much Foucault and therefore they cannot see truth or beauty or honour. But they can. Because it causes them to ragequit.

(Unlike Larry C, who I have quoted, I do not play Multiperson games unless they are made out of cardboard. So I do not use all caps, leaving that for the gameboys).

In Christ we cannot ragequit. We have a more important thing to do. To build each other up.