Also, unlike Dreher, I never thought that things would be so much better on the other side of the Tiber.

I wish him the best, really. But I fear that he expects altogether too much from religion. ~Jeremy Lott

As I have mentioned to a few people recently, I have held off from commenting on Rod’s conversion post because I am pretty sure I would have nothing “interesting” to say that would also necessarily be terribly constructive (I know, I know, since when have I been concerned with being constructive?).  I still think that’s true.  However, I am not limiting myself from commenting on at least some parts of others’ responses to that post.

Aren’t there Catholics on both sides of the Tiber?  These days, there might be Muslims, if we are speaking literally, but as far as conversion metaphors go this one is the least impressive I have come across.  Going to Constantinople, okay.  Crossing the Bosphoros (which I would not recommend trying to actually do in today’s Bosphoros if you value your health), perhaps.  Even tap-dancing across the cracking ice at Lake Ladoga would be better, not to mention both more entertaining and polemical at the same time.  But if you “cross the Tiber,” religiously speaking, you haven’t gone anywhere.  

What exactly does it mean to expect “too much” from religion?  If someone expected “religion” to make him breakfast every morning, he would be expecting the wrong kind of thing, certainly, but when you consider what it is that religion, in particularly Christianity, promises it is almost impossible to expect too much from it when what is on offer is deliverance and eternal salvation.  Maybe if you expected salvation and a brand new car, you could be said to expect too much, but in all honesty I don’t know what this means.  It is possible to expect too much from religious people, and many people have done this and become disillusioned afterwards when the people they lionised proved to be all too human or when they discovered that people they trusted committed grievous errors, but to expect meaning, solace and the hope of life eternal is to expect what all Christians are called to expect.  In fact, if we expect any less, we shouldn’t expect to receive very much at all.