It’s Iimi! I Wanna ROCOR Roll All Night…!

When Krysta sees the transfer student, Tasha Marov, acting like she’s pursuing Daryl, she desperately wants to wreak vengeance, only stopping because she knows she’ll be seen as a bully for doing so. When Iimi suspects that Tasha might be a member of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR) and might be trying to convert Daryl away from Catholicism, Krysta asks her to save Daryl, despite Paula’s concerns over Iimi’s Aspergers. Will Iimi flee? Or will she say… 

 

I Wanna ROCOR Roll All Night…!

 

And, no, I’m not apologizing for such a stupid pun…

 

Preliminary Notes: 

 

As always, the behavior of the antagonists is never intended to be a stereotype of “All of X act this way.” But I have personally encountered people who do act the way Tasha does.

 

ROCOR stands for “Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia.” They’re a semi-autocephalous group, and members I encountered online were intolerant, spreading anti-Catholic literature and falsehoods and are generally opposed to the ecumenical outreach between Catholicism and the Orthodox churches. I’ve personally experienced members calling on God to curse me when I opposed misrepresentation of Catholic teaching and history. For a brief history, you can see this Wikipedia article.

 

ROCOR members I have personally encountered online do act with the level of aggressiveness portrayed here. though I toned it down from the abusiveness I’ve experienced. Much like my encounters with online athiests and fundamentalists, they do tend to run from argument to argument without acknowledging refutations.

 

But remember the fallacy of hasty generalization. The ROCOR trolls online do not necessarily represent all members of the group—let alone the all of the Eastern Orthodox churches in general.

 

Post Comic Notes

 

Those unfamiliar with anime and who want to learn more about the ojousama anime trope Tasha represents can see HEREand HERE.

 

For those surprised about Saul, this is an attitude I’ve encountered: Certain fundamentalists want to learn about Christian history after the accounts in the Bible but, rejecting the Catholic Church as a source, look to Eastern Orthodoxy. Will Saul reject it as “too Papist?” Will he become attracted to Orthodoxy? Too early to say yet. But both have happened in real life.

 

Fifteen Years of Blogging!

Fifteen Years of blogging. When I started on Xanga, I never expected to be where I am now. Thank you all for following me. Now we’ll see what the future holds.

Journey’s End. Journey’s Beginning.

Kismetta finally had come clean to her parents about wanting to become a Christian. Will she be able to resist the pressure against her? What consequences are there? And, since she is a minor, what will her parents (who have authority over her) decide?

Post Comic notes: While the story is about Kismetta’s conversion, telling it through the perspective of her parents’ anguish was important to give the reader a sense of what she had to overcome. Yes, as Catholics, we know Kismetta made the correct choice. But converting to the Catholic faith is always painful when the family of the convert thinks that the choice is wrong. That pressure is why some fail to move forward with what they believe is right, and that is why we need to support them and pray for them.

It’s Iimi! Go to Jibril!

After finally accepting that Jesus is God, angering her mother, Kismetta tries to take the next steps, hoping it will be smooth sailing. But there are other things in play than she realizes. Meanwhile, her parents hope to find a way to divert what they see as blasphemy. What will happen when Kismetta follows the command to… Go to Jibril!

Post Comic notes:

 

Jibril is the Arabic version of Gabriel… the Archangel. In Islam, he is claimed to be the one who gave Muhammad the Quran. So, it’s natural that Kismetta would think this is who was referred to in Issue 131. But if you look down at the bottom of the sign on the cover of this issue, you’ll see that perhaps, the meaning was a bit more down to earth.

It’s Iimi! Hobgoblins!

Ralph Waldo Emerson made a quote that gets paraphrased as “Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” (The actual quote is “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.”) Whenever someone points out that behavior is inconsistent, this gets dragged out as a strawman fallacy trying to claim that the person objecting is being small-minded. You may have seen a bumper sticker variant of this, saying “If you won’t change your mind, do you even have one?” 

 

But the real hobgoblins of “foolish consistency” is partisanship that assumes that whatever benefits me or harms my foes is good, and whatever disadvantages me or helps my foes is bad. That’s dangerous if left unchecked, and must always be opposed.