DISCUSSION/liberals and conservatives

[Douglas <dougwils@moscow.com>]

Dear visionaries,

I wanted to commend Ted McDonough for writing a fair article for this
last weekend's Daily News on the growing rift in Moscow between liberals
and conservatives. However, something which I mentioned to him during the
interview (and which he did include) needs to be emphasized yet
again.

A generation or two ago, the jibe was that the Episcopal church was the
Republican party at prayer. In recent years, anyone who believes in a
higher being and is opposed to abortion has qualified, as the media
hyper-ventilates about it, as a member of the growing specter of the
"religious right." But these categories of left and right are,
at bottom, both secular categories. We are trying to grow (organically) a
genuine alternative to all of this, as self-consciously trinitarian
Christians who do not trust in the idol of politics.

As such, here is our agenda, published right out in the open so that the
Moscow Civic Association can figure out their counter-measures.

1. Worship the triune God on a weekly basis, giving as much glory to Him
in the worship service as we can, by hearing the Word preached, partaking
of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, saying the Lord's Prayer, singing
psalms and hymns, and presenting our thanks to Him.

2. Take primary responsibility for our own families -- husbands
sacrificing themselves for their wives, wives sacrificing themselves for
their husbands, and both of them together sacrificing themselves in order
to provide a first-rate Christian education for their children

3. Learn how the Christian faith applies to every aspect of our lives --
e.g. setting the table for family dinner every evening, brewing great
beer, writing and publishing fiction and non-fiction, appreciating good
poetry, mowing the lawn right, smoking cigars to the glory of God,
teaching lacrosse to our boys, teaching needlepoint to our girls,
teaching lacrosse to our girls (gotcha), and blessing the name of the
Lord in all of it.

4. Take stock, some years down the road, of what kind of impact this kind
of cultural engagement has had on the cultural life of our town. Some of
that impact is bound to have been political, but it has to be emphasized
here that politics does not have nearly the same importance for us
as it does for the liberals. The liberals have a strong secularist
streak, and politics therefore serves for them as a surrogate religion.
This is why, for example, questions about government education are
treated as blasphemous, as though some disgruntled parishioner had heaved
a dead cat at the bishop. But to paraphrase one Christian writer on this
subject, our motto here is Moscow is, "Politics
sixth!"

Cordially,


Douglas Wilson