Badass Christianity, by David Warren

By David Warren, The Catholic Thing, October 4, 2024

David Warren is a former editor of the Idler magazine and columnist in Canadian newspapers. He has extensive experience in the Near and Far East. His blog, Essays in Idleness, is now to be found at: davidwarrenonline.com.

At the present time, and under current conditions, in most public places, I would say that reciting the Athanasian Creed would be an example of “badass Christianity.”

There are other examples.

By extension, the statement of any of the multiple elements of the Christian creeds, and their application to “real world” questions (such as baby-killing or abortion), is an example of the “badass” approach, which will draw criticism from many of our contemporaries, including most bourgeois Christians, and the Catholic ones.

Mostly, it is the opposite of silence. To keep one’s mouth shut, in polite company, rather than saying something that could cause offense, might be considered the quintessence of the bourgeois creed. And verily, “silence is golden,” in almost every situation, except when the truth is in dispute. …