(This fair-use non-commercial low-resolution screen-capture is from The Atlantic Magazine e-edition on an article regarding evangelical dissolution by Mr. Tim Alberta).
Goodness, what a morning! Faithful correspondent Arrias weighed with with some considerations on the balance of nuclear terror on this vast but finite spinning world. It would be tempting to casually reach back into our literary heritage and trot out Orwell’s warning: Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia.”
Old George has had quite a run, of late, and what we have this ambiguous morning in Virginia’s Piedmont may be a reflection of it. He saw the once sprawling Empire of the Queen (same one!) quickly dissipate as the scourge of Fascism ravaged his homeland and overseas possessions. Blink! It is gone…
Well, not quite. The British experiment in North America still had a century to run when that absolutism collapsed. We called it, in our moment of illumination, the American Century. The brilliance of that remarkable hundred years has faded a bit, but the dimming is demonstrated by the controversy over President Biden’s declaration in Japan in the hours of darkness here that seemed to imply general war with China over the matter of Taiwan’s autonomy.
“Independence” and “Taiwan” have been treated as a matter of ambiguity since the time of Richard Nixon. Taken with the perspective of the clouds above and the surprising chill in the morning Piedmont breeze, it feels as though there is a change in more than the air.
That would have led to a discussion of our President’s assorted remarks in Asia. The favorite before this morning was the curious greeting to the North Korean leader he uttered yesterday in Seoul, inadvertently mistaking the name of the current and recently past Presidents of the ROK. It was one of strength. Or had at least been intended to mimic other declarations of certainty and resolve used to equal effect down through the years. The question had been about what message he intended to send to Pyongyang. The answer from the podium was a firm: “Hello,” with some fumbling of sound and concluding with “Period.”
Our watch-Attorney Amanda was back at her usual position at the 10:00 position in the circle. She looked refreshed from her international travel during her ‘sequestration’ from the dread disease. We were not certain which disease had caused it, since there are variants of an old one and poxy portents of another this week. She displayed no ambiguity. “Now, you people know the rules.”
Her statement was a short and definitive statement containing no ambiguity whatsoever. Our ambiguous legal equivalent of the Grown Up left us with the new Top Gun movie to speak about. Early showings to military audiences had stirred excitement, the last such response to a film we have noted in years. That led to a short but animated chat about the last movie we could remember actually traveling to a theater to view.
There was much more to talk about when DeMille waved his tablet device with the glowing image of the headline to a story also featured in the residual print edition of a once reliable magazine. There was some conversation our Attorney deemed appropriate about the transformation of a publication to which some of us had subscribed for most of our productive lives.
“This one has some food for thought.” The screen had some images of churches and church parking lots sliding across the top followed by a title in bold print: “HOW POLITICS POISONED THE EVANGELICAL CHURCH.”
DeMille glanced at our attorney, who was alert but made no motion to clamp the discussion. Apparently evangelical Christians can safely be dissected without challenging provisions of the Unified Code of Military Justice. Considering himself on a safe ground, he continued. “This was written by a fellow named Tim Alberta, and some of the Salts passed it around yesterday. It is a splendid little piece of Woke thought applied to one of the American religious sects. Alberta claims good creds for understanding the culture. His Dad was a Pastor, and he writes persuasively about Church-league sports and social activities that help define successful congregations across much of the country. The focal point is the Detroit area in which some of us were raised.”
“Are you saying Refuge Farm is a congregation? Most of us sleep in on Sunday mornings and the Chairman has not indicated any formal affiliation with any of the Abrahamaic denominations. Those include Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Much less the great spiritual traditions of the East where some of us spent time on the journey here.”
“I think we found spirituality to be a personal issue when confronted with organized and sometimes compelled versions of religion.”
“Prayer has been of great service in times of need,” said Rocket, possibly referring to an old life-moment in which a missile alert signal flashed on his Heads-Up-Display in his Hornet. “In that I believe.”
“That is not Mr. Alberta’s view. He thinks the evangelicals have been at war with the secular world for nearly forty years, but are now at war with one another.”
“Wait. Is he blaming a change in religious practice on political zealotry?”
“Not exactly. He seems to view an expansion of political fervor as an aggression against good religious order.”
“Wait a minute. The secular society in which we live has been at vigorous war against everything we used to think was normal for the same amount of time. In the old days you could just practice whatever spirituality you felt like.”
“Tim Alberta seems to think there is something wrong with Preachers who make “diatribes” rather than “sermons.” DeMille put his device down but waved a hand across it to welcome others to read. “It seems to be a part of a practice called “othering.” If you see something you don’t like, you depict it as something alien and odd.”
“Didn’t we use to just not attend if we didn’t like services? Our family went through Presbyterians and wound up in a Unitarian church where the donuts were better and we could talk about social stuff.”
“That was back when more ambiguity was encouraged about emotional issues. We were told it was OK to be different, but that the difference wasn’t the point. It was the mutual respect for dogmatic difference that unified us, not tore us apart.”
“Sunday was yesterday,” growled Splash. “Let’s check the status of our retirement papers and see if they will call us back for service in the coming war with China.”
“China? I thought we were sending Special Ops forces to Kyiv?”
“That was yesterday. Today, they are just reminding us we have always been at war with Eastasia.”
There was some generalized nodding around the Fire Ring, and our Attorney seemed prepared to take notes if anyone said anything about it.
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