A pithy letter from a courageous soul in California has surfaced, just before Christmas.
It merits quoting, in full.
I’m a secular/agnostic Californian and longtime reader of
your blog. I’ve enjoyed your books beginning with Crunchy Cons, and
have valued your insights over the years.
Though you don’t know me, I feel like I know you and your family. And
I want to share with you, from the liberal bastion of Northern
California, that I am officially tired of the type of people who have
surrounded me my entire life. In the wake of Trump’s election, I am
experiencing “tribe fatigue.” I’m not tired of The Other, Detestable
Tribe. I’m tired of my own.
A bit about me: I am a [deleted] with two young children. My parents
were non-religious Democrats, and my ex-Catholic mom loathes organized
religion to this day.
So I was raised a secular liberal. My college professors were secular
liberals. During my journalism phase, my newspaper colleagues were
secular liberals. My law school professors and peers were – in the vast
majority – secular liberals. Almost everyone at my corporate law firm
was a secular liberal. My California neighbors and friends are secular
liberals, as are my colleagues. My mother, siblings, and their spouses
are all secular liberals.
By all rights, I should be a member in good standing of their tribe,
“liking” their Facebook posts and joining their candlelight vigils
against the evil Trump Administration. But November 8 and its aftermath
revealed to me that I am just so tired of these people. I can’t be like
them, and I don’t want my kids turning into them.
I am tired of their undisguised contempt for tens of millions of
Americans, with no effort to temper their response to the election with
humility or empathy.
I am tired of their unexamined snobbery and condescension.
I am tired of their name-calling and virtue-signaling as signs of supposedly high intelligence.
And this, dear reader, is where the truly pithy parts begin....
I am tired of their trendiness, jumping on every left-liberal
bandwagon that comes along (transgender activism, anyone?) and then
acting like anyone not on board is an idiot/hater.
I am tired of their shallowness. It’s hard to have a deep
conversation with people who are obsessed with moving their kids’ pawns
across the board (grades, sports, college, grad school, career) and, in
their spare time, entertaining themselves and taking great vacations.
I am tired of their acceptance of vulgarity and sarcastic irreverence
as the cultural ocean in which their kids swim. I like pop culture as
much as the next person, but people who would never raise their kids on
junk food seem to think nothing of letting then wallow in cultural junk,
exposed to nothing ennobling, aspirational, or even earnest.
I am tired of watching them raise clueless kids (see above) who go
off to college and within months are convinced they live in a rapey,
racist patriarchy; “Make America Great Again” is hate speech; and Black
Lives Matter agitators are their brothers-in-arms against White
Privilege. If my kids are like that at nineteen, I’ll feel I’ve
seriously failed them as a parent. Yet the general sentiment seems to be
these are good, liberal kids who may have gotten a bit carried away.
I am tired of their lack of interest in any form of serious morality
or self-betterment. These are decent, responsible people, many
compassionate by temperament. Yet they seem two-dimensional, as if they
believe that being a nice, well-socialized person who holds the correct
political views is all there is, and there is nothing else to talk
about. Isn’t there, though?
I am tired of being bored and exasperated by everybody. I feel like I
have read this book a thousand times, and there are no surprises in it.
Down with Trump! Trans Lives Matter! Climate deniers are destroying the
planet! No cake, we’re gluten-free!
These are good people in a lot of ways. But there has got to be a better tribe.
That leads me to . . . drum roll . . . the Christian Right. It is no
small feat, switching tribes. It feels stressful and weird to abandon
your tribe for the Detested Other Side.
Since November 8, my husband and I have been taking the kids to
church. (He is politically conservative with a religious bent, so no
argument there.) I have come this close to buying a giant poster of the
American flag for the living room. I may do it still.
Right now, I am struggling to accept the basic Christian doctrines
(virgin birth, resurrection, second coming) because I feel the Christian
tribe may be the right tribe for my family. We just finished watching a
BBC miniseries about the birth of Jesus, which was so beautiful and
moving compared to secular TV. My nine-year-old really enjoyed it. I
want to prepare my kids to live according to some unchanging truth, not
subject to every passing trend, and this felt like a start. But I worry
that an inability to believe in the supernatural aspects of the faith
will limit my ability to be a “real” Christian.
Last Sunday’s sermon mentioned 1 Peter:18-19, “For you know that it
was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were
redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your
ancestors.” This may be obvious to you, but secular liberalism does seem
empty in some way, despite all the things my educated, middle-class
tribe has to be grateful for. If that’s what’s been handed down to me, I
want more, especially for my precious kids. I’m trying.
The famous, now-neglected poem by Francis Thompson,
here read by Richard Burton, comes to mind. The opening lines ring loud and true in so many lives:
I FLED Him, down the nights and down the days ;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind ; and in the mist of tears
I hid from Him, and under running laughter.
Up vistaed hopes, I sped;
And shot, precipitated,
Adown Titanic glooms of chasmed fears.
From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.
But with unhurrying chase.
And unperturbed pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
They beat — and a Voice beat
More instant than the Feet —
''All 'things betray thee, who betrayest Me."
Somewhere along the way, at sometime, she heard some other voice, a phrase of music, a turn of phrase--something, somehow, somewhere. And this year, the Year of Our Lord 2016 (
not C.E. 2016!)
the bell rung for her that could not be un-rung.
For her, the adventure now begins, and it will not be an easy trip. One such 'traitor to tribe' is Rosaria Champagne Butterfield, who left a most cozy life inside the academic-left 'bubble' to follow the call of conscience and Christ. Her book
The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert found
here on Amazon, is not an easy read, because hers has not been an easy journey. OS knows people who are members of the local branch of the tribe she left behind, and he has not yet summoned the courage to bring up her name to them.
So, OS sends greetings to the dear lady in California, who will undoubtedly experience some real losses as she embraces her new 'tribe', and will be horrified to find how many members of that 'new tribe' are just as awful as the people she left behind. Christ himself, however is calling, who never fails.
As one old preacher once put it to his congregation: I've only got three things to share with you.
God's in charge.
He always finishes what he begins.
He never leaves Himself without a witness.
Merry Christmas, dear lady. Keep writing, and sending news of the journey.
