That is indeed a great writing gig. I would have little problem with being the idea guy. Oh, I have ideas...especially when it comes to giant, alien robots. Although, I'm not sure I could give up the control in the end... It kind of reminds me of Mr. Brainwash from Exit through the Giftshop... He was crazy, but profitably so.

I'm glad to hear that it gets better. I read another twenty pages or so and mean to say something about them later. I think another reason it might not be working for us is that Kelly appears to be a professional motivational speaker (according to a blurb in the back of the book, at least). I'll talk more about this in my next post on the text, but I think part of his rhetoric draws from his other career rather than from a theological background. I can see why someone might take this approach -- for a secularized audience, a more secularized approach might be in order. To someone like you, however, who was at a FOCUS conference (they have a low-resolution advertisement in the back of the book as well), his theory probably seems oversimplified and puts you in the awkward position of feeling as though you have to correct a person you otherwise agree with. That is, we applaud what he is trying to do, and we might even agree with his conclusions, but we find the basis of his argument to be fraught with peril.

I was thinking more about my passage on making choices without a body. My suspicion is that it will provoke an e-mail from a theologian gently correcting my oversimplified metaphysics. Obviously, angels make choices without bodies...at least in the sense that we understand bodies. God acts without a body. So I probably have to rethink what it is I am talking about. Maybe to go back to the toy metaphor...since I seem to understand toy metaphors...our souls are kind of like immaterial wind-up toys. Love is like the key that we use to wind the toy up. Death is like letting the toy go. The more we love, the more the spring is wound up, the faster our soul shuffles its way to God after death. The less we love, the less wound up our soul is, the slower it's way to God. With insufficient winding, the toy might never actually make it all the way to God. Without any winding at all, the toy never goes anywhere.

Thanks for the proofread! I corrected the copy! If I recall from my superficial studies of Eastern religion, there are forms of Buddhism which teach that life is essentially a training ground for the self to recognize and see through illusion. It's something like the Matrix. When one dies, one will be shown illusionary afterlifes, and one is challenged to recognize them as falsehoods and see through them. I'm not suggesting that the afterlife for us will be life that, but I think it expresses a similar point to what you are saying. Once we are dead, I don't think we're going to have much of a choice per se...I'm not sure how you a human soul can have choice without action and action without a body. A soul can have will though. And it seems to me that life is sort of like a training ground for the will. Have we trained our souls so that they tend towards or away from God? Is judgment like a court of law where, or more like a chemical operation?

Thanks for the reply, Lindsay...I've noticed a sudden lack of comment activity on the blog and was worried I was going to have to post something really provocative to get a reaction. I think Albertus switched our comment format in an effort to block out the spambots that were taking over some of the older posts. I'll have to check with him on options (although he might be a little preoccupied with his neophyte at the moment).

I think it would only be the "Da Vinci Code" if there were an albino Jesuit impregnating women with the spawn of Satan...and the only reason that Opus Dei was pro-life was because they knew the Anti-Christ was at risk of being aborted. That's why they are so eager to have women have ultrasounds--not so the women will fall in love with the life of their child, but so they can see if the fetus has a tail and cloven hooves.

For the record, MedicineNet.com defines conception as follows: Conception: 1. The union of the sperm and the ovum. Synonymous with fertilization. 2. The onset of pregnancy, marked by implantation of the blastocyst into the endometrium. 3. A basic understanding of a situation or a principle. From the Latin conceptio, conceptionis meaning conception, becoming pregnant; drawing up of legal formulae; and from the Latin conceptus meaning conceiving, pregnancy; collecting, or a collection. So apparently, conception's first definition is the union of egg and sperm, and only secondarily means "implantation."