Matt Walsh Leads the Church of Cowards
Estimated read time: 7 minutes
Imagine you're on a quest to discover a literary masterpiece written by the next up and coming political or social commentator. You journey to your local library to start your search the old fashioned way...through books, not digital media anyone can throw up on social networks. Surely, the library with its limited shelf space will only stock the best of the best.
You wander down the empty aisles of political science. A shiny new book catches your eye. You wipe the dust off the jacket and begin perusing it and a couple of randomly selected pages inside. Disappointment scrawls itself across your face as you skim the pages of partisan cheering, scapegoat explanations, and vitriolic rhetoric. As you continue your hunt down the aisle, the lines of disappointment only grow deeper and deeper as book after book offers the same junior high level of reading.
For my loyal fans, all one of them, I wrote two powerful paragraphs telling it like it is.
The astute reader has already latched onto two key points and has a finger poised over the mouse to exit unless I rescue this mess.
For everyone else, please don't click away, yet.
First, readers want to know who Matt Walsh is and who are the cowards he leads. The astute reader expects a critical review of Walsh's book. They don't want a sophomoric approach setting the stage for a fictional tale of an adventure in an empty library. You can feel the arrogance in those first two paragraphs. They scream, "Look at me! I'm so creative making my compelling points."
Second, readers see through the drama queen flair and see the real stage being set. The first two paragraphs build a straw man that, presumably, the rest of the article will tear down one straw blade at a time. Readers with strong critical reading skills see the straw man. My one loyal fan probably doesn't.
Matt Walsh starts his book, Church of Cowards: A Wake-Up Call to Complacent Christian, with the same junior high, drama queen flair I began this article. In his description of the book on Amazon, he asks potential readers what they would surrender for God, then explains:
Christians in the Middle East, in much of Asia, and in Africa are still being martyred for the faith, but how many American Christians are willing to lay down their smartphones, let alone their lives, for the faith?
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| Church Walsh pretends to lead |
They preach God loves you no matter what you do...just feel good and positive about yourself and God will love you, too. As they preach with fervor and pass around the collection plate teeming with twenties, fifties, and hundreds, they dab sweat from their foreheads with the silk handkerchief they pull from the pocket of their tailor made suit. Their sermons rival the best rock concerts in entertainment value, and generate more money for the mega-pastor than any rock star earns on a concert.
For those who have followed Walsh for any length of time, his book is a junior high rehashing of what he's been saying and writing about for the last ten years. Whether you listened to him over three years starting at WZBH (MD), then WGMD (MD), then WLAP (KY) or followed his writing/podcasting career over the next seven starting with his own blog, The Matt Walsh Blog, then the The Blaze, then The Daily Wire, you learn quickly he has six "boogeymen" main topics he rotates through - homosexuality/transgenderism, abortion, fake Christians, liberals/Democrats/"the left", feminism, and pop culture, especially if the pop culture topic ties in with any of the previous five categories. (No, I did not link the blogs as I refuse to validate bigoted and racist reporting passed off as news.)
If you've been paying attention, count how many jobs he's had in ten years. He's averaged a new job about every year and a half. Church of Cowards: A Wake-Up Call to Complacent Christian is testament as to why he has a hard time sticking to one job site. Junior high writing and speaking of the same six topics today as ten years ago gets old after awhile. Incredulous? Here's an oldie but goodie treat for you from July 18, 2011 on the now defunct Matt and Crank Show on WZBH in Delaware.
One might expect some maturity after nine years, but you won't find maturity in his radio show nine years ago nor in his newest book. In fact, I'm rather surprised that after two self published books, he didn't make the gay Black woman in a wheelchair a star. Perhaps she'll appear in his third book when he saves enough money to publish it.
Walsh is stuck - or should I say trapped? - in a virtual world of empty rhetoric where the name of the game is preach the most outlandish thing you can to gain likes and followers. Get enough of likes and followers, then you earn ad dollars. Be popular enough, you earn a gig on the speaking circuit where the name of the game is preach even more outlandish things to get booted from the podium. Use the boot to ridicule the bleeding hearts and artists for booting you to earn more likes and followers that gets you more ad dollars and bigger speaking fees at your next gig.
And there you have the sum educational and life experiences of Walsh over the last ten years. Build the outlandish strawman; tear it down for the amusement of a mindless audience; resurrect the strawman; tear it down for the amusement of the next mindless audience.
And there you have the summation of Church of Cowards: A Wake-Up Call to Complacent Christian. Build the strawman; tear it down for the mindless reader; resurrect the strawman in the next chapter; tear it down again...if the mindless reader is still reading. Either I saved you a few bucks or you can waste a few to see how many strawmen Walsh can build and tear down because, you know, he gots God on his side.
On the bright side, the book is classic, text book irony. Most likely Walsh stumbled on the irony by accident. He is a self admitted high school graduate by barely making the passing grade. He regularly rails against higher education, as evidenced by his books, writings, and podcasts. No surprise there.
This time, he rails against false prophets and pretend Christians. Church of Cowards: A Wake-Up Call to Complacent Christian reads more like a story about himself than the false prophets and "pretend" Christians following them that he writes about. He doesn't make as much or more money than a rock star, but maybe if he ditched the bourbon drinking, cigar smoking, tattooed persona hiding behind a beard, he'd do better financially. Instead of being a mediocre false prophet of modest income, he could become the rich megastar he strives to be, yet criticizes in his book.
Nah. He'd need to go to college, first. Education is the work of the devil, Walsh preaches, so getting one himself is out of the question. In the end, he is really nothing more than the coward he's ridiculing. He won't lay his keyboard down and defend his persecuted brethren in the Middle East, much of Asia, and in Africa. He'll sip his finest bourbon distilled in New Jersey, puff his dime store cigar, stroke his Just For Men beard, then burn up the keyboard as the fire from his fingertips tells everyone else what losers they are.
If junior high, cliched strawmen writing is the sort of entertainment you enjoy, get Walsh's book. It's guaranteed to numb your brain. But be forewarned since he neglected to put the warning on his book, as the law should require. Reading and/or listening to more than five minutes of Walsh per day could lead to a drop in IQ points. The drop could become a permanent blank "duh" look on your face. In extreme cases, a zombie-like existence could bring your life to a standstill, forever condemning you to read more of Walsh's work for an eternity.
TL;DR folks:
If you're looking for enlightenment, stumble down to the basement and pull the string on the overhead light. Then ponder why you never put a light switch at the top of the stairs.
Posted by A Drunk Redneck
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