Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture » 2005 http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org Your home for traditional conservatism. Thu, 24 May 2012 22:16:13 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 The Beauty of Holiness: Building for Eternity—December 2005 http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/2005/12/01/the-beauty-of-holiness-building-for-eternity%e2%80%94december-2005/ http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/2005/12/01/the-beauty-of-holiness-building-for-eternity%e2%80%94december-2005/#comments Thu, 01 Dec 2005 22:35:14 +0000 Chronicles http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/?p=2584 Kelo v. New London.]]> PERSPECTIVE

The Beauty of Holiness
by Thomas Fleming

Fixing our gaze.

VIEWS

The Romantic Reaction
by Joseph Pearce
Transcending the divide.

The Loving Look
by Hugh Barbour, O.Praem.
A cure for the epicure.

Conservatism as Medicine
by Claude Polin
Nature versus the state of nature.

Pugin and the Gothic Dream
by James Patrick
Theology in the architecture.

NEWS

Did the Supreme Court Destroy Property Rights in the Kelo Case?
by Stephen B. Presser

REVIEWS

Truth of Blood and Time
by Scott P. Richert

John Lukacs: Remembered Past: John Lukacs on History, Historians, and Historical Knowledge

plus

Thomas Fleming on Bryan Ward-Perkins' The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization

Jack Trotter on Christina Hoff Sommers' and Sally Satel's One Nation Under Therapy

James O. Tate on Edmund Morris's Beethoven: The Universal Composer

Derek Turner on Frank Ellis's Political Correctness and the Theoretical Struggle

CORRESPONDENCE

Letter From Poland: An Anniversary Remembered
by Mark Wegierski

Letter From Germany: Another Liberation Theology
by Josef Schüsslburner

VITAL SIGNS

IMMIGRATION: More for the Money
by Don Barnett

LITERATURE: An Enduring Feast
by Christopher Sandford

COLUMNS

SINS OF OMISSION
by Roger D. McGrath

THE AMERICAN INTEREST
by Srdja Trifkovic

IN THE DARK
A History of Violence
by George McCartney

THE HUNDREDTH MERIDIAN
by Chilton Williamson, Jr.

DEPARTMENTS

POLEMICS & EXCHANGES
AMERICAN PROSCENIUM
CULTURAL REVOLUTIONS

POETRY
Curriculum Vitae and
Ora Pro Nobis by Jeff Minick

ON THE COVER

Cover by Pietro da Cortona.

]]> http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/2005/12/01/the-beauty-of-holiness-building-for-eternity%e2%80%94december-2005/feed/ 0 Reviving the American Dream—November 2005 http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/2005/11/01/reviving-the-american-dream%e2%80%94november-2005/ http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/2005/11/01/reviving-the-american-dream%e2%80%94november-2005/#comments Tue, 01 Nov 2005 21:10:37 +0000 Chronicles http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/?p=2564 PERSPECTIVE

Agrarianism From Hesiod to Bradford
by Thomas Fleming

Life in community.

VIEWS

The Old South, the New South, and the Real South
by Tom Landess
Taking off the Yankee spectacles.

Reattacking Leviathan
by Mark Royden Winchell
Starving the beast.

The Case for American Secession
by Kirkpatrick Sale
Still a good idea.

The Writer as Farmer
by James Everett Kibler
Under Heaven.

NEWS

Solving U.S. Problems in Korea Through Unification
by Edward A. Olsen
A surprising solution.

REVIEWS

Misinterpreting Iran—and the World
by Leon Hadar

Kenneth M. Pollack: The Persian Puzzle: The Conflict Between Iran and America

Paul Gottfried on Daniel J. Mahoney's Bertrand de Jouvenel: The Conservative Liberal and the Illusions of Modernity

Derek Turner on David Conway's In Defence of the Realm

and

Thomas Fleming on Thomas Moore's The Hunt for Confederate Gold

CORRESPONDENCE

Letter From Alabama: Taking Down the Fiddle
by Michael Hill

Letter From Bogotá: FARC Meets the Junior League
by Brian Kirkpatrick

VITAL SIGNS

FOREIGN AFFAIRS: Is Mexico the Next Colombia?
by Ted Galen Carpenter

COMMONWEAL: A Different Past
by Troy Kickler

COLUMNS

BREAKING GLASS
by Philip Jenkins

THE ROCKFORD FILES
by Scott P. Richert

THE AMERICAN INTEREST
by Srdja Trifkovic

IN THE DARK
The Constant Gardener
by George McCartney

WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE WORLD
by Chilton Williamson, Jr.

DEPARTMENTS

POLEMICS & EXCHANGES
AMERICAN PROSCENIUM
CULTURAL REVOLUTIONS

POETRY
In Late November
by David Middleton

ON THE COVER

Cover and inside illustrations by Melanie Anderson.  Additional inside illustrations by Elizabeth Wolf.

]]> http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/2005/11/01/reviving-the-american-dream%e2%80%94november-2005/feed/ 0 Revitalizing Rockford http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/2005/11/01/revitalizing-rockford/ http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/2005/11/01/revitalizing-rockford/#comments Tue, 01 Nov 2005 16:20:55 +0000 Scott P. Richert http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/?p=183 In January, this column will celebrate its fifth anniversary. When Tom Fleming and I originally conceived of the idea back in 1998 (as an occasional “Letter From Rockford” to be written by various local activists), we were capitalizing on the fact that our city was considered by marketing agencies and national chains as an ideal testing ground, because, demographically—on questions of race, income, education, etc.—Rockford represented the national averages.

Seven years later, that is no longer true—minorities make up a greater percentage of the population than they do in the nation as a whole; average income is slightly lower (depending on which statistics you believe); educational levels have slipped. It is too early to tell whether these trends are harbingers of America’s future direction, but one thing is clear: Economically, Rockford is still forecasting America’s future.

For a city of 150,000 people, a solid economic base requires that income flow in from the outside. In this respect, the frenzy of commercial development on the east side of town over the past 20 years has actually decreased Rockford’s economic viability, not increased it. The lion’s share of every dollar spent at a national chain, such as Wal-Mart, leaves the local economy, never to return—unless, of course, it returns in the form of another local Wal-Mart Supercenter. Rockford will soon have five, positioned strategically around the city, pumping money out of the local economy and funneling it to Bentonville, Arkansas, and China—any place but here.

Contrary to the belief of government planners in both parties, sales-tax revenue, by itself, is not an accurate measure of economic health. Far more telling are such statistics as average household income (essentially flat over the last 30 years in inflation-adjusted dollars); average hours worked per household (up about 50 percent during the same period); bankruptcies (setting new records almost every month, both locally and nationally); savings rates (near the lowest point in the history of the United States); mortgage debt (at record levels, spurred on by low- and no-cost loans and reverse mortgages, which suck the equity out from under senior citizens and break the ties between generations by ensuring that the family house cannot be passed down to the children); and credit-card debt (rising every month, as even such venerable financial institutions as Chase Manhattan offer vast credit lines to people they would not have dreamed of servicing ten years ago).

That last fact is very important, because it shows the ultimate hollowness of the consumer economy. According to CardWeb.com Inc. (www.cardweb.com), average household credit-card debt in 2004 was $9,312, up 29 percent since 1998, when the most recent dramatic decline in manufacturing employment began. That’s almost $700 billion in outstanding credit-card debt. So while both the Clinton and Bush administrations have done little or nothing to arrest the decline of American manufacturing, we have been financing our consumption with one of the most expensive forms of debt, and that money that we never had in the first place has been leaving our communities—and some portion of it has gone to finance the expansion of “American” manufacturing in China, furthering the death spiral.

The service-economy model that was supposed to replace manufacturing has similar problems—it only increases the economic health of a community if it brings in money from outside. But service-industry execs, like their counterparts in multinational manufacturing concerns, are always looking for ways to decrease costs, and thus it was almost inevitable that such things as call centers—which did bring money into local economies—would be outsourced.

Tourism is a form of the service economy that, by definition, cannot be outsourced, and it can benefit local economies, but it only works for areas that are attractive as tourist destinations. Rockford may be a pleasant place to live, but it is Pollyannish to believe that it is more desirable as a tourist destination than similar cities of its size [...]]]> Scott P. RichertIn January, this column will celebrate its fifth anniversary. When Tom Fleming and I originally conceived of the idea back in 1998 (as an occasional “Letter From Rockford” to be written by various local activists), we were capitalizing on the fact that our city was considered by marketing agencies and national chains as an ideal testing ground, because, demographically—on questions of race, income, education, etc.—Rockford represented the national averages.

Seven years later, that is no longer true—minorities make up a greater percentage of the population than they do in the nation as a whole; average income is slightly lower (depending on which statistics you believe); educational levels have slipped. It is too early to tell whether these trends are harbingers of America’s future direction, but one thing is clear: Economically, Rockford is still forecasting America’s future.

For a city of 150,000 people, a solid economic base requires that income flow in from the outside. In this respect, the frenzy of commercial development on the east side of town over the past 20 years has actually decreased Rockford’s economic viability, not increased it. The lion’s share of every dollar spent at a national chain, such as Wal-Mart, leaves the local economy, never to return—unless, of course, it returns in the form of another local Wal-Mart Supercenter. Rockford will soon have five, positioned strategically around the city, pumping money out of the local economy and funneling it to Bentonville, Arkansas, and China—any place but here.

Contrary to the belief of government planners in both parties, sales-tax revenue, by itself, is not an accurate measure of economic health. Far more telling are such statistics as average household income (essentially flat over the last 30 years in inflation-adjusted dollars); average hours worked per household (up about 50 percent during the same period); bankruptcies (setting new records almost every month, both locally and nationally); savings rates (near the lowest point in the history of the United States); mortgage debt (at record levels, spurred on by low- and no-cost loans and reverse mortgages, which suck the equity out from under senior citizens and break the ties between generations by ensuring that the family house cannot be passed down to the children); and credit-card debt (rising every month, as even such venerable financial institutions as Chase Manhattan offer vast credit lines to people they would not have dreamed of servicing ten years ago).

That last fact is very important, because it shows the ultimate hollowness of the consumer economy. According to CardWeb.com Inc. (www.cardweb.com), average household credit-card debt in 2004 was $9,312, up 29 percent since 1998, when the most recent dramatic decline in manufacturing employment began. That’s almost $700 billion in outstanding credit-card debt. So while both the Clinton and Bush administrations have done little or nothing to arrest the decline of American manufacturing, we have been financing our consumption with one of the most expensive forms of debt, and that money that we never had in the first place has been leaving our communities—and some portion of it has gone to finance the expansion of “American” manufacturing in China, furthering the death spiral.

The service-economy model that was supposed to replace manufacturing has similar problems—it only increases the economic health of a community if it brings in money from outside. But service-industry execs, like their counterparts in multinational manufacturing concerns, are always looking for ways to decrease costs, and thus it was almost inevitable that such things as call centers—which did bring money into local economies—would be outsourced.

Tourism is a form of the service economy that, by definition, cannot be outsourced, and it can benefit local economies, but it only works for areas that are attractive as tourist destinations. Rockford may be a pleasant place to live, but it is Pollyannish to believe that it is more desirable as a tourist destination than similar cities of its size throughout the Midwest. Indeed, it is less desirable than, for instance, Midwestern cities on the shores of the Great Lakes. And the economic potential of tourism to Rockford is further undercut by the fact that most of the tourists who do come here stay out in the great Wasteland on the eastern edge of town, just off the tollway. While the chain hotels and restaurants out there generate sales-tax revenue, they do not generate much money that will stay in the local economy and, thus, cannot form a solid economic base for the city’s future.

And so, for better or worse, the economic health of Rockford has to be tied to businesses that bring money into the city by exporting products out. That does not necessarily mean manufactured goods—software, for instance, is an exportable product—but manufactured goods have been, and still remain, the lifeblood of this community. While it may be true that, strictly in terms of dollars, healthcare and public education today “contribute” more to Rockford’s economy than manufacturing does, those are sterile “industries.” G.K. Chesterton was right when he said that we cannot all make a living taking in each other’s laundry, and that is even more true of warehousing children in public schools or treating each other’s ailments, real or imagined.

And so we come back to production—good old-fashioned, as in many of the factories around town, or newfangled and high-tech, such as the techniques being developed at the EigerLab (a research and development center in Rockford funded with both public and private funds). Even today, as manufacturing in Rockford begins to rise back up out of the recent economic downturn, 23 percent of Rockfordians are employed in manufacturing. Another 23 percent hold jobs that are dependent upon local manufacturers. In other words, the economic fate of almost half of the population of Rockford is tied to manufacturing. That’s far more people than those whose livelihood is dependent on healthcare, education, or tourism. If Rockford is to survive, the decline in manufacturing needs to be arrested, and positive steps need to be taken to increase manufacturing employment in Rockford.

That, of course, is easier said than done. But there are signs of hope. Perhaps most significant among them is the Manufacturers Alliance of the Rock River Valley (MARRV). Small manufacturers, like most small businessmen, have traditionally been an independent bunch. They haven’t necessarily viewed themselves in competition with their fellow manufacturers in Rockford—though too often they have—but they are used to being solely responsible for the success or failure of their own business. And if the current manufacturing crisis has taught us anything, it’s that this mind-set needs to change.

MARRV is a big step in the right direction. So far, over 40 local small manufacturers have come together to form a flexible network. Large manufacturers from outside the area, who are outsourcing more and more of their component production, now have one point of contact in Rockford that can help them find the right small manufacturer—or several small manufacturers—to fill their needs. And manufacturers who are members of MARRV do not need to worry about being unable to fulfill a customer’s request and possibly losing that customer as a result—they can turn to their fellow members as backup.

If this sounds a bit like a Frank Capra movie, well, all the better. Talking to such local manufacturers as Bob Trojan and Teresa Beach-Shelow and Mike Molander and Char Vincer, all of whom have been indispensable in getting MARRV off the ground, it is possible to believe that Frank Capra is alive and well. In their mouths, “cooperation” and “collaboration” and “combining resources” and “helping each other out” become more than buzzwords: They represent an older morality—a better morality—that disappeared long ago from the boardrooms and corporate offices of all-too-many large manufacturers who are now American in name only.

But for small manufacturers—locally owned companies, often family-owned and operated—this remains a way of life. And there is an increasing realization—among manufacturers themselves, among politicians, among those who live in cities such as Rockford—that manufacturing is not a monolith. Publicly held, multinational corporations have a different set of priorities—a different morality—from the small manufacturers who make up the economic backbone of Rockford.

The problem in American manufacturing is not simply foreign competition. NAFTA, GATT, WTO, permanent normal trading relations with China—all of these came at the tail end of one of the most extensive periods of mergers, acquisitions, and centralization in the history of American industry. And those mergers were driven by an obsession among corporate leaders with quarterly profit-and-loss statements that overshadows any other concern, including questions of national security and the well-being of their fellow Americans (their workers, their workers’ families, and the small manufacturers further down the production line).

The prosperity of America in the 20th century was built not on General Motors and Ford and Chrysler and General Dynamics but on the small manufacturers, often with 100 employees or less, who provided the lion’s share of manufacturing employment in this country—like such local companies as Rockford Acromatic and AutoMeter and Rockford Linear Actuation and LJ Fabricators and Dial Machine and the 40-plus companies that make up MARRV.

At one time, the interests of large manufacturers largely coincided with those of small manufacturers, but with the increasing mobility of capital and labor, their interests have now diverged. Corporate tax law, trade agreements, and even environmental and healthcare regulations have been structured to benefit large manufacturers—especially those who have the ability to move offshore and who have the resources to fund congressional and presidential campaigns.

Organizations such as MARRV represent one way of leveling the playing field. But we have to pursue a multipronged approach. We need federal tax reform that removes barriers to American competitiveness, such as the border-adjusted value-added tax that Rockford Institute board chairman David Hartman has proposed. (See “America for Sale” and “Taxation for Economic Survival” in the November and December 2004 issues of Chronicles.) We need to reduce taxes and regulatory burdens here in Illinois, so that Rockford can compete effectively with other cities in the United States. We need better schools, so that children in Rockford will be equipped with the skills and critical thinking necessary for modern manufacturing. We need local political leaders who understand that the economic health of this community depends on its manufacturing base. And we need citizens who once again take pride in Rockford’s role as a manufacturing center and who stop steering their children away from manufacturing as a career—and stop encouraging the best and brightest of the next generation to move away from their hometown.

America’s prosperity was built on manufacturing, and Rockford’s was as well. Our downtown was built upon a manufacturing base—and it can be rebuilt upon a revitalized manufacturing sector. Our park system, of which we are justifiably proud, was a legacy of our industry. Our river played an important role in the growth of manufacturing in Rockford, and the converted factories along its banks should serve as a constant reminder of what Rockford once was—and can be again.

Most importantly of all, manufacturing once formed the basis of Rockford as a community—of people bound together in a common cause, caring about the welfare of their neighbors and proud of their hometown. We don’t need, in the words of an old, failed marketing slogan, “A different kind of greatness”—we can have the old greatness back. The small manufacturers of Rockford still have pride in their hometown. It’s time the rest of us—here in Rockford, and across America—discovered it as well.

Scott P. Richert is the executive editor of Chronicles.

This article first appeared in the November 2005 issue of Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture.

]]> http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/2005/11/01/revitalizing-rockford/feed/ 3 Importing Jihad—October 2005 http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/2005/10/01/importing-jihad%e2%80%94october-2005/ http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/2005/10/01/importing-jihad%e2%80%94october-2005/#comments Sat, 01 Oct 2005 21:30:27 +0000 Chronicles http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/?p=2537 PERSPECTIVE

Christians Against Terrorism
by Thomas Fleming

Counterterrorism is hell.

VIEWS

Promoting Militant Islam Abroad
by Ronald L. Hatchett
U.S. policy blunders.

Learning From Canada's Mistakes
by James Bissett
Terror along the border.

Welcoming Muhammad
by Scott P. Richert
Abandoning that which is our own.

NEWS

Rivers of Blood
by Richard Cummings
Immigration and terror in a time of chaos.

The Dishonest Pursuit of War
by Doug Bandow
Remembering Downing Street.

The Lone Ranger's Legacy
by William J. Watkins, Jr.
Chief Justice William Rehnquist, R.I.P.

REVIEWS

Progress in the Sands
by Daniel McCarthy

Robert W. Merry: Sands of Empire

plus

Paul Gottfried on Jürgen Elsässer's Wie der Daschihad nach Europa kam

Catharine Savage Brosman on Louis Auchincloss's Writers and Personality

Gregory J. Sullivan on John L. Allen's The Rise of Benedict XVI

Clyde Wilson on Walter Brian Cisco's Wade Hampton: Confederate Warrior, Conservative Statesman and Kent Masterson Brown's Retreat from Gettysburg

CORRESPONDENCE

Letter From Spain: Death in the Afternoon
by Christie Davies

Letter From Charleston: The Flamingo Kid
by Jack Trotter

VITAL SIGNS

TERRORISM: Grasping the Inexplicable
by James George Jatras

IMMIGRATION: Losing the "War on Terror" at the Border
by Wayne Allensworth

CHRISTIANITY: Episcopalians Go Interfaith
by Mark Tooley

COLUMNS

THE WESTERN FRONT
by Paul Gottfried

PUBLIC PLUNDER
by David A. Hartman

THE AMERICAN INTEREST
by Srdja Trifkovic

IN THE DARK
Hustle and Flow
by George McCartney

THE HUNDREDTH MERIDIAN
by Chilton Williamson, Jr.

THE BEST REVENGE
by Christopher Check

DEPARTMENTS

POLEMICS & EXCHANGES
AMERICAN PROSCENIUM
CULTURAL REVOLUTIONS

POETRY
You, William Dunbar
Angst by Constance Rowell Mastores     

]]> http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/2005/10/01/importing-jihad%e2%80%94october-2005/feed/ 0 Homeschooling for Life—September 2005 http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/2005/09/01/homeschooling-for-life%e2%80%94september-2005/ http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/2005/09/01/homeschooling-for-life%e2%80%94september-2005/#comments Thu, 01 Sep 2005 22:03:04 +0000 Chronicles http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/?p=2529 PERSPECTIVE

It Takes an Autodidact
by Thomas Fleming

Adventures in life-long learning.

VIEWS

The Communion of Saints
by Michael McMahon
Journeying together.

The Autodidact at Work and Play
by Chilton Williamson, Jr.
Reflections on the writerly life.

I'm Just a Travelin' Man
by Derek Turner
Education through wanderlust.

Confessions of an Autodidact
by David Gordon
A place to start.

American Historians and Their History
by Clyde Wilson
Scratching the fleas.

NEWS

Outsourcing Parenthood
by Beverly Eakman
Thou has conquered, O Boomer.

REVIEWS

The Imperial Trajectory
by Jerry Woodruff

Andrew J. Bacevich: The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War

plus

Derek Turner on Keith Sutherland's The Party's Over: Blueprint for a Very English Revolution

James O. Tate on Ronald and Allis Radosh's Red Star Over Hollywood: The Film Colony's Long Romance With the Left

Fr. Michael P. Orsi on Gordon S. Wood's The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin

CORRESPONDENCE

Letter From Queensland: Bland Rube Triumphant
by R.J. Stove

Letter From Alabama: Whose Security?
by J. Michael Hill

VITAL SIGNS

THE COURTS: Crying "Halt!"
by Stephen B. Presser

EDUCATION: You Can't Always Get What You Want
by Nicole Kooistra

COLUMNS

SINS OF OMISSION
by Roger D. McGrath

THE ROCKFORD FILES
by Scott P. Richert

THE AMERICAN INTEREST
by Srdja Trifkovic

IN THE DARK
War of the Worlds
by George McCartney

DEPARTMENTS

POLEMICS & EXCHANGES
AMERICAN PROSCENIUM
CULTURAL REVOLUTIONS

POETRY
On the High Road, Highway
and We Are Here
by B.R. Strahan

ON THE COVER

Cover and inside illustrations by Melanie Anderson. Additional inside illustrations by Elizabeth Wolf.            

]]> http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/2005/09/01/homeschooling-for-life%e2%80%94september-2005/feed/ 0 We the Subjects—August 2005 http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/2005/08/01/we-the-subjects%e2%80%94august-2005/ http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/2005/08/01/we-the-subjects%e2%80%94august-2005/#comments Mon, 01 Aug 2005 18:51:41 +0000 Chronicles http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/?p=2519 PERSPECTIVE

The Republic We Betrayed
by Thomas Fleming

Enslaving ourselves.

VIEWS

Republicanism, Monarchy, and the Human Scale of Politics
by Donald W. Livingston
Our kingless monarchy.

Powers, Principalities, Spiritual Forces
by Harold O.J. Brown
Charging toward the Dies Irae.

Please Tread on Me
by Clyde Wilson
Thus always to presidents.

NEWS

The Republican Party's Welfare Queens
by Doug Bandow
May a thousand Enrons bloom.

REVIEWS

Things That Go Bump in the Night
by Scott P. Richert

Russell Kirk: Ancestral Shadows

plus

Clark Stooksbury on Brian C. Anderson's South Park Conservatives: The Revolt Against Liberal Media Bias

James O. Tate on Mark Feeney's Nixon at the Movies: A Book About Belief

Paul Gottfried on Victor S. Navasky's A Matter of Opinion

CORRESPONDENCE

Letter From Paris: A Hydra With Two Heads
by Curtis Cate

Letter From Washington, D.C.: Faith-Based Immigration
by Don Barnett

VITAL SIGNS

THE CONSTITUTION: Raiching the Constitution Over the Coals
by William J. Watkins, Jr.

Killing Off Limited Government
by Doug Bandow

MORALITY: The Legacy of Sandra Dee
by B.K. Eakman

COLUMNS

BREAKING GLASS
by Paul Gottfried

THE AMERICAN INTEREST
by Srdja Trifkovic

IN THE DARK
Cinderella Man, Batman Begins
by George McCartney

THE HUNDREDTH MERIDIAN
by Chilton Williamson, Jr.

DEPARTMENTS

POLEMICS & EXCHANGES
AMERICAN PROSCENIUM
CULTURAL REVOLUTIONS

POETRY
Antipodean Reflections in Canterbury and
London to Edinburgh—a Train Journey
by Peter Hunt   

ON THE COVER

Cover and inside illustrations by Melanie Anderson. Additional inside illustrations by Elizabeth Wolf.

]]> http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/2005/08/01/we-the-subjects%e2%80%94august-2005/feed/ 0 Effeminate Gospel, Effeminate Christians http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/2005/07/10/effeminate-gospel-effeminate-christians/ http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/2005/07/10/effeminate-gospel-effeminate-christians/#comments Sun, 10 Jul 2005 14:38:52 +0000 Aaron D. Wolf http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/?p=4183 Every definition of masculinity into which our Lord Jesus Christ does not fit belongs in the rubbish heap. Indeed, there could be no greater example of a man than He. Contrary to modern portrayals, Jesus was neither a sensitive metrosexual nor a macho-macho man. The tenderness that He displayed toward those whom He loved (including His enemies) was paternal and sacrificial, focused not on self-gratification or expression but on the real needs of those He came to save. The Son of Man did not strut about flexing His muscles or cursing at His enemies, because He possessed the quiet confidence of One absolutely certain of His mission and did not need the approval of others in order to maintain that certainty. Nor did He need to “be His own boss” in order to be a man (Isaiah called Him “God’s slave”), insisting, instead, that He came not to do His own will but the “will of Him Who sent Me”—His Father. He resisted the temptation of Satan to perform a spectacular feat of strength by casting Himself down from the pinnacle of the Temple, choosing, rather, the way of the Cross. This Man wept—for Jerusalem, for the family of Lazarus—not out of hypersensitivity or fear but because of His great love for a people languishing under the weight of their own sin. Even in the hour of His torment in Gethsemane, He prayed for those entrusted to His care while battling the Old Serpent, whose head He crushed in the greatest battle ever fought by a man. And He emerged from the grave a King, still bearing the wounds of battle. There will be no democracy on Judgment Day when “the Man comes around,” because only one vote will count: that of the God Who humbled Himself in order to save the ones He loves.

This is not the language of the American Christian man, who strolls, rosy-cheeked and all aflutter, “in the garden alone,”

while the dew is still on the roses.
And the voice I hear falling on my ear—
the Son of God—discloses.
And He walks with me and He talks with me.
And He tells me I am His own.
And the joy we share as we tarry there—
none other has ever known.

These familiar strains from the popular hymn “In the Garden” represent the modern American imagination of the essence of Christianity: a romantic fantasy in which a chivalric Jesus rescues me from my own loneliness and despair and fills all of my emotional needs. This effeminate picture of the Christian life, from the dramatic conversion experience to the long walks in the garden alone with “Jesus,” has produced generations of effeminate Christian men who either allow themselves to be consumed by their imaginary “walks with Jesus” or else drift away from church altogether, knowing that their best efforts at spiritual courtship will fall well short of those of the women who now, more than ever, fill the pews of America’s churches.

When the West was Christian, Church and society encouraged men to follow the example of the Son of Man: Endowed with headship yet obedient to higher authorities, a man must use his physical abilities and natural strength and demeanor to provide for and protect his family, his people, laying down his life if necessary. This requires the cultivation of courage, discipline, and honor in boys, which used to be the goal of the education that our churches used to provide.

Today, American culture presents boys with icons of “masculinity,” such as Arnold Schwarzenegger, who glory in sodomizing women while pumping iron in a gym. Ideally, physical strength is to be put into the service of self-gratification, not of protecting and providing for “weaker vessels.” The macho American man is a “selfish hedonist,” who lives fast, plays hard, and beds women at will. Loving a wife, rearing children, and serving others are the least of his concerns.

The flip-side of this concept of manhood is the homosexual, another sodomizer, whose very label means self-gratification. Adam and Steve cannot properly assume the mantle of responsibility that God calls marriage, because homosexual sex, devoid of the divinely instituted roles of man and wife—chief among them, the possibility of and openness to procreation—is nothing more than mutual self-gratification. Saint Paul calls it “that which is unseemly,” “vile affections,” “dishonouring the body,” and “against nature.” The homosexual’s “orientation” is open rebellion against God and His created order. Furthermore, a society that celebrates this (or any other) sort of hedonistic masculinity is warring against the very essence of Christianity.

Jesus taught us to pray “Our Father” not because He lived in a male-dominated society but because His saving mission involved granting us a share in His Divine Sonship through the “adoption of sons.” Therefore, the very essence of Christianity is masculine, an expression of patriarchal authority and the place and inheritance enjoyed by the Firstborn Son. Such authority has long been maligned by the liberal mainline churches in America, which are happy to ordain women and, now, open homosexuals. Yet it is not merely the Scripture-denying mainlines who have been infected by this disease. The image of the effeminate clergyman is nearly universal in America—not just among liberals but among self-identified conservatives. The myriad queer priests on the Catholic side have as their counterpart the femmy Protestant pastor who must rely on silly stories and Dr. Phil psychobabble to carry his sermons. Vasectomized fathers of 1.5 children make their vestments look like dresses as they tug at the heart-strings of men and women. Evangelical megachurch pastors, with their khakis and polo shirts, take up the role of vicar of Jesus-the-Boyfriend, as their sermons or chats insist on fanning the flames of passion for Christ instead of proclaiming the Passion of Christ. One popular conservative pastor even champions something he calls “Christian hedonism,” in a book entitled, appropriately, Desiring God.

Gone are the liturgies that place the crucified Christ and His Body and Blood at the center, and gone are hymns that call God “a bulwark never failing.” In their place are the ubiquitous and repetitive choruses that distort the message of historic Christianity and replace it with a celebration of feminine emotions: “The simplest of all love songs / I want to bring to you / So I let my words be few / Jesus I am so in love with you.”

The modern “praise and worship” experience resembles a soft-rock concert (a genre made for women), where the “worship leader” and his swooning sidekicks, the praise band, take center stage. Each stands gazing into the middle distance (where the Spirit of God seems to be hovering above the congregation), his (or, more often, her) heels tapping while one hand grips the wireless microphone and the other is lifted toward the ceiling, as if serving as a conduit of sacramental grace.

This campy environment is supplemented by something called “small groups,” a method of spiritual cognitive dissonance perfected by Bill Hybels at suburban Chicago’s Willow Creek Community Church. Unlike the authoritarian “I-talk-and-you-listen” environment in which Christians traditionally learned the Scriptures and teachings of the Church, small groups are a “safe” environment in which believers can take turns interpreting the Bible and sharing all of their deepest traumas and experiences while a leader guides the conversation. The emphasis here is on vulnerability and openness, which, when coupled with group “accountability,” have always been the hallmarks of behavior-modification therapy.

What happens when the self-identified “conservative” churches encourage men to behave as women, swooning “in the garden” and “knowing” Jesus in an imaginary romance, or in “safe” small groups, or in effeminate “praise and worship” experiences? What happens to families when a church professes belief in the authority of the Bible and in the undeniable fact that marriage is between one man and one woman, then teaches husbands and fathers that the essence of the Faith is found within, in the desires of their own hearts?

The answer is all around us. Christian churches in America have long lost their authority to speak prophetically both to the culture and to their own children. Christian fathers no longer see themselves as heads of households. And, as concerned women rise up and try to fill the void that these men leave, they often end up forsaking their own natural roles as childbearers, childrearers, and “keepers at home,” as Saint Paul called them. In conservative churches, in which homosexuality is still called sin, Christian men forsake the natural use of their wives not for other men but for contracepted sex, which Martin Luther called “sodomy.” They, too, become “God haters.”

Today’s Christian man struggles to be a real father to his children. Once, as I stood out in front of a church before the service, talking with another father, one of the young members of the church youth group walked by, her skirt too small to measure. “Where in the world is her father!” I remarked, “and why does he let her own a skirt like that, let alone wear it to church?”

“Uh, I dunno,” the other man replied. “You know, Britney is 14 now. If Pastor told her she couldn’t wear that, she’d probably leave and never come back. Besides, what’s her dad supposed to do, lock her in a closet?”

Perplexed, I explained the Britney situation to the pastor: “Isn’t it about time that we had some kind of general policy about proper attire in the service? Nothing too specific, but just a gentle admonition to young ladies that they refrain from wearing shorts, miniskirts, and the like to church?”

Chuckling (after realizing I was serious), the pastor said, “I’m not sure of how well that would go over. Besides, I’m not certain that that would be the best thing for Britney or anyone else. They’ve got to want to be modest, because God looks at our hearts. He’s not caught up in externals.”

This all-too-common response to spiritual problems in churches reinforces a particularly insidious moral disorder: Since God looks on the heart, we need not have any rules. No sex distinctions, no modesty, no “Yes, Sir,” and “Yes, Ma’am,” no “You may not behave that way while you’re at our house”—in short, no protection against the “better angels of our nature” which, being sinful and lacking any moral formation, are really little demons. And neither the state nor society nor, in most cases, the Church will support a father who lays down the law, puts his foot down, acts like a man. The same goes for pastors, who so often must walk the line when it comes to the preaching of God’s law, lest they offend the sensibilities of a morally unformed congregation. Preach all you want about incivility, greed, and unkindness, but mention divorce, contraception, immodesty, or anything else that hits too close to home, and you might just find yourself transferred or your salary cut in half.

In her insightful work The Feminization of American Culture, Ann Douglas traces the problem of the effeminacy of the American Christian man to the disestablishment of churches. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the Congregationalist and Episcopalian churches that were established in the states along the East Coast were disestablished, and all of the civil benefits that those churches had enjoyed—the power to levy taxes to support the pastor and the church facilities, the social status for pastors that this system required and protected, the necessity of church membership for those who wished to enjoy certain social benefits—were stripped away. She is quick to point out that disestablishment had its own intellectual antecedents—in particular, the democratizing Yankee spirit known today as the American Way, the culture that ultimately produced television advertising and “Rock the Vote!” Outside of clerical circles, the leading lights of this age were averse to the idea of any sort of enforced religion. Thomas Jefferson, for example, supported the disestablishment of the Episcopal Church in Virginia.

Before disestablishment, masculine Christianity was already being gutted by the so-called Great Awakening of the 18th century. In his defense of these controversial “revivals” (for example, his treatise on the Religious Affections), Jonathan Edwards insisted that “Gracious affections . . . arise from the mind’s being enlightened, richly and spiritually to understand or apprehend divine things.” Edwards, a speculative thinker, also redefined sin as “selfishness” and holiness as “disinterested benevolence.” When God causes a sinner to be born again (apart from Baptism), He realigns the mind, will, and affections: The mind is then free to exercise pure reason, ascertaining the truth of Scripture; the will is free to pursue God and not the self; and the heart is filled with love for divine light. The “religious affections,” then, become evidence that God is at work. “If we be not in good earnest in religion, and our wills and inclinations be not strongly exercised, we are nothing.”

This Edwardsean perspective came to be the guiding force of New England’s “New Divinity School,” which influenced large segments of churches in America, particularly in the North. Samuel Hopkins, Edwards’ intellectual successor, placed increasing emphasis on “heart religion” and even went as far as to say that ours is the “best of all possible worlds,” because God is required to work for the greater good for the majority of His creatures. For Hopkins, the Cross of Christ was not an objective, vicarious substitution but a public declaration of divine justice designed to stimulate sinners to choose to follow God (a teaching Edwards would have abhorred). This was a reworking of the Gospel in the spirit of the Enlightenment, a new, baptized form of individualism centered on the emotions, which fit nicely with the democratizing effort to disestablish the churches. Since the masculine idea of “forced religion” became anathema, Yankee pastors increasingly turned into salesmen, and women, not heads of households, began to play dominant roles in churches, trading authority for “influence.”

By the early 19th century, another Edwardean thinker, Nathaniel Taylor, a close friend of Lyman Beecher (father of Harriet Beecher Stowe), was denying the historic Christian understanding of Original Sin (he defined sin as the acquired habit of selfishness) and proclaiming the effeminate “moral influence” theory of the Atonement: that Christ’s Passion was a placard of just how much God cares—an invitation for a heartfelt response of faith. This led to the Second Great Awakening (1830’s), in which Charles Finney applied Taylor’s teachings by creating a travelling-circus atmosphere designed to garner conversions. After all, if man is capable of being wooed to “accept Christ,” why not pull out all of the stops in order to accomplish that? This thinking led to the institutionalization of Finney’s “anxious bench,” now known as the “altar call.” Audience members whose emotions have been stirred could come down to the “altar” and place themselves on it, making a decision to follow Jesus. This feminized version of “church” was accompanied by soul-stirring songs, whose theme was not the objective work of Christ but the feelings that Christ engenders within. The North and, after Reconstruction, the South became increasingly dominated by this “decision theology,” in which men were taught that an effeminate “Christ” wants them to act just like him: wooing, begging, pleading, offering—not ruling, protecting, giving, saving.

While failing to recognize that an effeminate Gospel produces effeminate Christians, and that a democratized church polity means that those whom God has entrusted with responsibility and authority can be easily outvoted, Christian leaders have not failed to notice the problem of wussy Christian men. A century ago, evangelist (and former baseball star) Billy Sunday screamed and hollered about the sin of being a sissy man, yet he carried the feminists’ torch of Prohibitionism. The late fundamentalist preacher Jack Hyles was fond of thundering, “Listen here, faggot. You’d better think twice if you think you’re going to be admitted into my Bible college!” Yet he claimed that his entire ministry was founded on the night that he spent lying on his father’s grave, blubbering and demanding that Jesus fill him with power. The Promise Keepers, perhaps the most popular “men’s” movement, decry illegitimacy, pornography, and divorce while promoting the same sort of you-need-a-hug mentality that has helped men to find ample excuses for eschewing responsibility. Such movements are doomed to failure from the beginning because they proclaim a masculinity apart from the natural order and traditional Christian dogma. None of them challenges contraception. None of them questions the emphasis on heart religion. None of them demands that pastors preach a masculine Christ.

Traditionalist Christian denominations that do not hold “altar calls” and mass men’s meetings are not immune to this form of effete Christianity. The marketplace mentality so permeates every facet of American culture that resistance is nearly futile. The traditionalists often walk a few paces behind, insisting that the methods of the feminized churches—which garner great attendance on Sunday morning—can be used as long as the message is orthodox. Don’t we still have Sacraments at the guitar Mass? Can’t we replace the old Lutheran Hymnal with “Jesus I Am So In Love With You,” as long as we say the Nicene Creed—provided, of course, that we change “men” to “humans”? Shouldn’t we be willing to do whatever it takes to woo people to come to church? If these questions are even asked, emasculation has already occurred. Men who are lured to church through such methods will only return if they feel that their needs are being met.

Men—pastors, fathers—do not need permission to take up their mantles of authority, any more than Our Lord did. God is still the Father of the baptized, no matter what their feelings or felt-needs are. And those earthly and spiritual fathers will answer to the ultimate Man for what they have done for those under their authority, no matter what the culture said. Boys still need fathers who are willing to teach them by example how to have courage, respect, and honor, and how to treat a lady; girls still need daddies who will keep them from dressing like harlots and stop any boy in his tracks who would harm their reputations; and wives—and congregations—still need men who will stand before them and say, with Joshua, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

This article first appeared in the July 2005 issue of Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture.

]]> http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/2005/07/10/effeminate-gospel-effeminate-christians/feed/ 0 Men of the West—July 2005 http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/2005/07/01/men-of-the-west%e2%80%94july-2005/ http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/2005/07/01/men-of-the-west%e2%80%94july-2005/#comments Fri, 01 Jul 2005 14:50:58 +0000 Chronicles http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/?p=2502 PERSPECTIVE

Heroes in the Age of the Antihero
by Thomas Fleming

Unbreaking glass.

VIEWS

Guys of the Golden West
by Chilton Williamson, Jr.
A glorious sunset.

A Place to Stand
by Wayne Allensworth
Texas and the making of men and heroes.

Cowboy Heroes
by Roger D. McGrath
Learning the Code of the West.

Effeminate Gospel, Effeminate Christians
by Aaron D. Wolf
From authority to influence.

NEWS

Essentials for a Lasting Peace in the Middle East
by David A. Hartman
What must be on the table.

REVIEWS

Play It Again, Plum!
by Chilton Williamson, Jr.

Robert McCrum: Wodehouse: A Life

plus

Thomas Fleming on Sima M. Cirkovic's The Serbs

Catharine Savage Brosman on Cynthia Shearer's The Celestial Jukebox

Paul Gottfried on Adam L. Tate's Conservatism and Southern Intellectuals, 1789-1861: Liberty and the Good Society

H.A. Scott Trask on Richard Buel, Jr.'s America on the Brink: How the Political Struggle Over the War of 1812 Almost Destroyed the Young Republic

CORRESPONDENCE

Letter From Turkey: Democracy and Adultery
by Peter Huys

VITAL SIGNS

THE OLD REPUBLIC: Why Taft Matters
by Mark Royden Winchell

CHARITY: Pimping for Charity
by Anthony Ellison

COLUMNS

THE WESTERN FRONT
by Paul Gottfried

THE ROCKFORD FILES
by Scott P. Richert

THE AMERICAN INTEREST
by Srdja Trifkovic

IN THE DARK
Kingdom of Heaven, Crash
by George McCartney

DEPARTMENTS

POLEMICS & EXCHANGES
AMERICAN PROSCENIUM
CULTURAL REVOLUTIONS

POETRY
Of Local History by David Middleton
and The Last Silesian by Leo Yankevich   

ON THE COVER

Cover and inside illustrations by Melanie Anderson.

]]> http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/2005/07/01/men-of-the-west%e2%80%94july-2005/feed/ 0 Fool’s Mate: America’s Strategic Failures—June 2005 http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/2005/06/01/fools-mate-americas-strategic-failures%e2%80%94june-2005/ http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/2005/06/01/fools-mate-americas-strategic-failures%e2%80%94june-2005/#comments Wed, 01 Jun 2005 19:59:21 +0000 Chronicles http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/?p=2495 PERSPECTIVE

The Suicide Strategy of the West
by Thomas Fleming

Turkish bizarre.

VIEWS

The Emerging American Empire
by Douglas Wilson
Mammon versus Allah.

The Rise of China
by William R. Hawkins
Seeing is believing.

Transforming the Middle East
by Ted Galen Carpenter
Washington's high-stakes gamble.

Getting Europe Straight
by Srdja Trifkovic
Slouching toward Eurabia.

NEWS

Why Russia Does Not Fear an Iranian Bomb
by Wayne Allensworth
(But Israel does.)

REVIEWS

The Dictator of the World
by Chilton Williamson, Jr.

John Lukacs: A New Republic: A History of the United States in the Twentieth Century and Democracy and Populism: Fear & Hatred

plus

H.A. Scott Trask on Thomas De Zengotita's Mediated: How the Media Shapes Your World and the Way You Live in It

Clyde Wilson on William Faulkner's Essays, Speeches & Public Letters, James B. Meriwether, ed.

Catharine Savage Brosman on Richard Wilbur's Collected Poems: 1943-2004

Paul Gottfried on Paul Franco's Michael Oakeshott: An Introduction

CORRESPONDENCE

Letter From the Neuroimaging Lab: The Machine in the Sacred Wood
by Brian Kirkpatrick

Letter From Lebanon: The Lure of Lebanese Quicksand
by Doug Bandow

VITAL SIGNS

TECHNOLOGY: Digitize Me: For Your Disinformation
by Marian Kester Coombs

THE JUDICIARY: An Appointment to the Supreme Court
by William F. Harvey

POLITICS: Defining Natural Law Down
by Gladden J. Pappin

COLUMNS

SINS OF OMISSION
by Roger D. McGrath

THE ROCKFORD FILES
by Scott P. Richert

IN THE DARK
Sin City
by George McCartney

WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE WORLD
by Chilton Williamson, Jr.

DICTATIONS
by Humpty Dumpty

DEPARTMENTS

POLEMICS & EXCHANGES
AMERICAN PROSCENIUM
CULTURAL REVOLUTIONS

POETRY
At Concord by David Middleton

ON THE COVER

Cover and inside illustrations by Melanie Anderson.
Additional inside illustrations by Elizabeth Wolf. 




]]> http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/2005/06/01/fools-mate-americas-strategic-failures%e2%80%94june-2005/feed/ 0 Anarcho-Tyranny: The Perpetual Revolution—April 2005 http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/2005/05/01/anarcho-tyranny-the-perpetual-revolution%e2%80%94april-2005/ http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/2005/05/01/anarcho-tyranny-the-perpetual-revolution%e2%80%94april-2005/#comments Sun, 01 May 2005 16:44:49 +0000 Chronicles http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/?p=2478 Chronicles celebrates the life and work of Sam Francis with some of his original work as well as the memories of Clyde Wilson and Thomas Fleming on their long-time colleague and friend. Also, Roger McGrath on the Mexican invasion, Srdja Trifkovic on the neoconservative agenda of remaking the world, and B.K. Eakman on what our children are really learning in schools. ]]> PERSPECTIVE

Synthesizing Tyranny
by Samuel Francis

The last word.

VIEWS


The Real Fight Is Here at Home
by Roger D. McGrath
Fallujah, California.

Global Anarcho-Tyranny
by Srdja Trifkovic
A game of chess.

Samuel T. Francis, R.I.P.
Clyde Wilson and Thomas Fleming remember
their fellow Tarheel conspirator.

NEWS

Final Solution
by B.K. Eakman
The hostile takeover of America's schools.

REVIEWS

My Favorite Justice
by Stephen B. Presser

Kevin A. Ring, ed.: Scalia Dissents: Writings of the Supreme Court's Wittiest, Most Outspoken Justice

plus

Bill Kauffman on Granville Hicks' Small Town

Paul Gottfried on Critics of the Enlightenment: Readings in the French Counter-Revolutionary Tradition, edited by Christopher Olaf Blum

Catharine Savage Brosman on Charles Edward Eaton's The Work of the Sun: New and Selected Poems, 1991-2002

V. Groginsky on Amb. Jeffrey Davidow's The U.S. and Mexico: The Bear and the Porcupine

CORRESPONDENCE

Letter From Poland: Polish-German Reconciliation in an Historic Town
by Mark Wegierski

Letter From the Upper Midwest: Life on the Iron Range
by Sean Scallon

VITAL SIGNS

TECHNOLOGY: Digitize Me: Fake ID
by Marian Kester Coombs

AMERICAN EMPIRE: Woodrow Wilson and America's World Empire
by Joseph E. Fallon

TYRANNY: Anarcho-Tyranny, Rockford Style
by Thomas Fleming

COLUMNS

THE WESTERN FRONT
by Paul Gottfried

THE ROCKFORD FILES
by Scott P. Richert

IN THE DARK
Hotel Rwanda
by George McCartney

WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE WORLD
by Chilton Williamson, Jr.

THE BEST REVENGE
by Thomas Fleming

DEPARTMENTS

POLEMICS & EXCHANGES
AMERICAN PROSCENIUM
CULTURAL REVOLUTIONS

POETRY
The Ladder by Charles Edward Eaton
and Last Flight Out by Sally Cook

ON THE COVER

Cover by George McCartney, Jr.  Inside illustrations by Melanie Anderson and Elizabeth Wolf.

]]> http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/2005/05/01/anarcho-tyranny-the-perpetual-revolution%e2%80%94april-2005/feed/ 0