[Vision2020] An Open Letter

[Andreas Schou]

Phil --

I do not agree with the views of many Catholics or Baptists. Many
Catholics and Baptists do not agree, and in many cases, strenuously
object to views that I hold. Still, when it comes to national
discourse, I set them a place at the table, and they are kind enough
-- as all members of a democracy should be -- to reciprocate. I have
no fear of Catholic or Baptist control of my democracy (to a great
extent, it already is) because I and those that agree with me can
argue our way back into power.

Not so with Christ Church.

They argue strenuously not against the positions I would like to see
enacted by the government, but against my very right to exist. As Greg
Dickison puts it, in _Your Eye Shall Not Pity_, "Capital crimes, for
example, include premeditated killing (murder), kidnapping, sorcery,
bestiality, adultery, homosexuality, and cursing one's parents." Doug
Wison himself, in _Moving Beyond "Pro-Life"_, writes that "If any of
the godly are present within a culture possessed with such a death
wish, the presence of two separate cultural orders will become
increasingly obvious over time. At some point, two nations will
emerge. Our fellow Americans will become to us Amalekites."

This is couched in some rather oblique language. Why the Amalekites,
and not the Caananites in general, or some other enemy of Israel?
Because Amalekites are the only nation against which God demanded
genocide. In 1st Samuel, God instructs Saul to, "Go and smite Amalek.
Utterly destroy all they have and spare them not. Kill both man and
woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass."

Is Christ Church in any position to "destroy all the people with the
edge of the sword," as God ordered Saul to do? Not at all. Am I
obligated to take a threat to my life enacted by a church with an
openly political agenda? Absolutely. Nothing in the 1st Amendment
obligates me to consent to lunatic theocrats advocating my
murder-by-judiciary.

As you should be well aware, Phil, the 1st Amendment only constrains
state actors, and provides no more than a fig-leaf defense against
actual violations of the law.

-- ACS

P.S. There is also the slavery thing, which is drawing all sorts of
unsavory Southern-partisan lunatic to our town. While I would be happy
to take their money, the only concrete financial benefit they provide
to our town is funding businesses owned by our indigenous unsavory
Southern-partisan lunatics.