theological depression.

Some people simply have depressing theology. If you only knew! This guy, a Lutheran theologian, a real live theologian, was complaining about the ending of CS Lewis' The Last Battle. He was disappointed by the scene where a devoted servant of Tash was, in the end, admitted to paradise by Aslan. His objection was that it taught a Christian exclusivism! His objection to Christian exclusivism is that it leads to violence! If you can't accept that all who are saved are saved through Christ [gosh, you can even say that all will be saved for the moment and I won't object], which is explicitly what he said he is rebelling against, what right does he have to claim to be a Christian theologian? Why are you even a Christian if you explicitly reject the claim that "all other gods are false gods and the Triune God alone is Lord"? His very words!

At the other end is a boy who's constantly dwelling on schismatic Traditionalist groups. He's a Catholic, but looking into Orthodoxy because of Catholicism's "Ecumenism" and "Liberalism", though he can't do anything yet because he's too young to do so without his mother's permission. I think he deserves a firm whack on the head, since "Ecumenism" and "Modernism" are not reasons to either leave Catholicism or enter Orthodoxy in themselves. But he always has questions about stupid Traditionalist arguments, about how they "have no problems" and are standing up to "ecumenism" and are like St. Maximos the Confessor. I don't have problems with Traditionalists or their arguments and beliefs, but, seriously, WTF? Why is this boy so distressed? He doesn't even have any experience with Orthodoxy, how can he know whether what the Traditionalists are saying about World Orthodoxy is true? How can he believe we're betraying the Faith if he doesn't even know what it is yet? Why be so worried? There aren't even any Traditionalist parishes near him [of any stripe]! Would he become so pious that he never goes to church?

It's depressing. So provincial! All of them! I mean, I'm pretty provincial, I have a horribly small outlook and an even more limited experience of this world, but this is just absurd.