[Vision2020] Response to Vera

[Douglas]

Visionaries,

I sent this response to Vera's weekend piece to the Daily News this 
morning. FYI.

Cordially,

Douglas Wilson



Response to Vera
Douglas Wilson

Vera White laments the fact that Moscowans are becoming less civil to one 
another (July 19/20, 2003), and in the course of her discussion she locates 
the source of the contagion--Christ Church. As the minister of Christ 
Church, I do not ask Vera to get the facts right--believing as I do that 
the age of miracles is past--but I would like the opportunity to respond if 
I may.
         Progressives love to celebrate diversity, until they actually 
start getting some. And when they do start hearing opinions not in line 
with their idea of what ought to be the consensus, they start getting 
Concerned. And one of the first responses is that the purveyors of 
heterodoxy (i.e. stuff progressives never heard on NPR) get themselves 
misrepresented. Like in Vera's column, for instance.
         First she identified Christ Church as part of the Religious Right, 
and that we identify ourselves as the one true religion. These claims are, 
reading from left to right, false and false. For many years, in sermons, 
magazines and books, our church has been sharply critical of the Religious 
Right. This could have been verified by means of an arcane technique called 
"reporting." And we do not believe that our church has a monopoly on truth. 
We are Christians, and this means that we believe the Christian faith to be 
true, good and lovely, but we happily share this view with many other 
Christian churches--Evangelical Free, Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, 
Anglican, and more. We repudiate the religious individualism that restricts 
the faithful to "thee and me, and I have my doubts about thee."
         Then Vera mentioned the current debate over the state of the 
government school system--as though the debate created guilt in parents who 
keep their kids enrolled, and presumably created the exodus of parents 
leaving those schools. But this is the reverse of what happened. The debate 
did not create any exodus; the exodus created the debate. The population of 
school-aged children in our area was rising, the population of students in 
the government school system was falling, and local solons were publicly 
scratching their noggins. Where could the kids be? The answer was that they 
were heading into the private education sector, which is thriving. This was 
pointed out, and a debate started. But the heart of this issue was not 
civil discourse or the lack of it, but rather the comparative performance 
of the schools.
         Third, Vera says that the welcome mat for gays and lesbians "isn't 
out" at several downtown church-run businesses. Church-run businesses? Name 
one. It is true that members of Christ Church have businesses and jobs, but 
I believe this is also true of other churches. And with regard to lack of 
welcome, this was not reported on the basis of any policies, any signs in 
any windows, or anything else of the kind. Rather, this particular breaking 
story is mentioned on the basis of how several members of the gay and 
lesbian axis said they felt. What is this? Given my "orientation," if I 
were to enter a tattoo emporium, I would hardly expect applause to break 
out. And it wouldn't hurt my feelings if it didn't. This is an area were 
some folks need to grow up just a little bit.
         And fourth, she notes (through more cracker-jack shoe leather 
reporting) that in this new climate woe shall betide the hapless idiot who 
fails to support President Bush. But that would include me. Now what? I 
don't support Bush. Didn't vote for him. Neither did a whole bunch of my 
friends at Christ Church.
         In short, Vera undertook to discuss incivility, on a mission to 
locate where all this bad karma was coming from. In the course of her 
representation of Christ Church, she got every salient fact wrong. Perhaps 
this is why some are tempted to be uncivil. When the people who buy ink by 
the barrel do not care enough about the facts to check with those they so 
glibly misrepresent, the reactions can be bad. I do not say this in defense 
of any incivility, which is wrong regardless. But the people who have 
expressed concern about all this incivility need to learn how to blame 
their own astounding provincialism. Diversity in propaganda puff pieces is 
quite different from true diversity on the street.