Deal-breakers.

So, I was thinking about what the point of all this was going to be. Since we established in my momentous inaugural post that my intentions in starting this blog were sort of oddly passive-aggressive, I think we can safely assume that no actual planning ever really took place. But what's done is done, right? Once you've broken your pool cue over the large tattooed guy's head, the decision to fight has most likely become irreversible whether you planned it out to the end or not. (I realize that, in order for this illustration to work, you, my dear cherished reader, would have to be the tattooed guy. If you are not, I may have lost you. If you are, I may have just gained a lifelong reader. At this early stage in the game, I am crossing my fingers for the second possibility.)

But I kid. The truth is, I think if we are being reasonable, we can agree that, as early in the game as possible, those who should be lost be lost and those who should be gained be gained. It would be illogical and sort of unfair for us to drag each other on, forcing each other to endure pretense upon pretense, pretext upon pretext, only to find out some time down the road that, all along, it just wasn't a match -- that the ideas and values we casually avoided proved completely incompatible when the "new" wore off and the honeymoon period ended. (Funny how every life situation somehow winds up resembling my love life.) You're time will have been wasted on me, and that is a burden I'm not sure I could endure. It's not you; it's me.

So I have decided to get a couple of important issues out of the way. If you are still reading this blog after what I am about to write, I think you and I have a puncher's chance of achieving world-domination together. If not, it will not hurt my feelings. I will have the dignity to erase your phone number and the fortitude not to cry when I see you hold hands with another blogger.

• Christianity -- Perhaps no subject is more controversial or has endured such vigorous historical disharmony over so many years as Christianity. It is such a controversial subject that its inner-fragmentation has become almost embarrassingly evident around the world. Debated quite possibly less in the general public than amongst its own professing members, Christianity has become at least loosely representative of a reported 38,000-plus denominations (a word that simply "a calling by name" in its original Latin). Staggering. Consider the following. Like millions of people around the globe, I like meatloaf. In this case, we millions of meatloaf-lovers have met a simple question ("Do you like meatloaf?") with an appropriately simple and decisive answer ("Why, yes I do." perhaps followed up with "Why? You cookin' some?"). Sure, some folks may prefer ketchup to barbecue sauce or onions to bell peppers, conspicuously absent from this debate are the other 37,996 denominations of meatloaf. This brings me to my point. I am less compelled by the issues which have divided Christianity than by those ideals which have proven it to be cohesive and enduring. I believe Christianity is a faith based upon and rooted in the heart of a man, the first Man, of course, having been Jesus Christ. It is my solemn belief that men in pursuit of details have made an idol of complexity, opting for a "religion" they can quantify and regulate rather than for a relationship to be cultivated in Christ's last great directive to those who would choose to follow Him: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Jesus made it painfully clear that John Lennon was actually right -- all you do need is love. Jesus said that if we love Him, we will obey His commandments. He said that whatever we do to the least among us, we also do it to Him. The New Testament is chock full of references to the central abiding role of the big "L"-word in following Christ. If God is Love (1John 4:16), and Jesus is the Truth (John 14:6); then Truth must be found only in Love and Love only in Truth. This is my Christianity. 

...Still with me? I'm impressed. But seriously, this is just tip-of-the-iceberg stuff. I realize that I picked this subject at the peril of losing a large chunk of my potential audience. But as I said before, it is important that we find our chemistry early and identify our incompatibilities as soon as possible.

On the other hand, you would be jumping the gun if you were to bail with the notion that this blog is going to be all about religion or Christianity. It certainly is not, although it was definitely not an accidental first topic (Take that for what it's worth.)

Well, I think that's all for this session. Next time we'll tackle another of what I used to call "potential deal-breaker issues" back when I was dating.