The National Catholic Register has a short blog entry about Dan Merchant's new documentary, Lord, Save Us From Your Followers. According to NCR, the documentary purports to take "a look at the often divisive and angry rhetoric that’s come to characterize religious media coverage."

My own thoughts on this--in brief--are that there is a tendency of thinking that if an idea can be expressed on a bumper sticker then the entire dialogue concerning that idea should be reduced to bumper-sticker slogans. There are, of course, at least two problems with this.

The first is that a number of ideas cannot actually be reduced to a slogan which will fit onto a bumper sticker, even in an adumbrated form. This is, by the way, a temptation not only of bumper-stickers on cars but of what I like to call "bumper-sticker blogging." This is, incidentally, why it is official blog policy that all links be accompanied with something substantial--a paragraph of commentary or whatnot. In any case, I have seen a great many bumper stickers--often religious, sometimes political--which have tried to convey in three words what cannot be rightly explained in three pages (and often even three books).

The second temptation is to think that because a concept really is simple that the policy or course of action entailed ought to be equally simple. "Abortion is murder," for example, is a true statement, and the concept really is quite simple. Unfortunately, too often the policy proposed is to ban it, and then move on. While I agree that abortion should be banned, merely making it illegal will not entirely solve the problem--it is a major front in the culture war, and to win it, we must first win hearts and minds. Making abortion illegal is a step in the right direction, but it is only one step. Another is to provide alternatives to women facing "crisis pregnancies," yet another is to inculcate an actual culture of life.

And don't get me started on the "simple" phrase "He died for us," which made a wonderful homily when preached by St John Vianney. It is a true statement, and a very important statement, but that statement alone does not necessarily win converts unless we live our lives in accordance to that belief. Nor do I believe that the entire history of salvation--including such mysteries as the Incarnation--can be done justice if we restrict ourselves to short phrases only. For the title "Son" has lead to many a heresy through its misinterpretation.