[Vision2020] Trinity Festival protest

[Saundra Lund]

Hi Paul & Visionaries:

 

<sigh>  It's a good question, but I sometimes feel like people haven't been
paying attention over the last few years.

 

I'm a Christian, and I absolutely do *not* agree with the Kirk's . . .
theology.  I don't believe in forced salvation (if they can't win us over by
conversion, then they want the teeth of the law to force the rest of us to
act/behave as they think we ought to behave), and it really disturbs me the
way God's word has been perverted by Kirk hierarchy. 

 

However, IMHO, of larger concern is the Kirk hierarchy's refusal to follow
the "secular" rules and laws the rest of us are expected to follow.  The
rules are for others, not for them.  Lying under oath -- no problem.  Lying
to government officials -- again, no problem.  Thumbing their noses at
planning and zoning regulations -- absolutely no problem.  Failing to live
up to the very limited requirements of tax exemption - they excel at that.
Parking where they have no right -- no problem.  Withholding information
vital to the safety of our community's children - absolutely no problem.
And on and on and on the list goes.  In essence, while there are wonderful
individual Kirk members, Christ Church itself has proven time and again that
it is the quintessential Bad Neighbor.

 

My dear friend Rose Huskey blogged on this very topic recently -- you might
want to read what she had to say:

http://cleaning-house.org/?p=591

 

I'm sure she won't mind if I repost here:

"Nests of Pests

 

Temperatures in Moscow hover in the 90's during the dog days of August but
that's not why many community members are boiling. For the past three years
we have endured the civic embarrassment generated by the pseudo-Ceilidh,
pseudo-Calvinistic jamboree known as the Trinity Fest. Members of the
Confederation of Reformed Evangelicals aka CREC, view Moscow as their Rome,
Jerusalem, Mecca, and Ganges River. They gather in August to sit at the knee
of Massa Doug Wilson, (the brains behind the beards) greedily ingesting the
racist, sexist, homophobic preaching disgorged from his pie hole. It has
been my habit to refrain from going to town during the week that Doug
attempts to claim Moscow as his papal seat. However, this year I will join
with friends to acquaint (or reacquaint as the case may be) CREC visitors
and Kirk members with long-standing community values. Flyers have been
posted throughout downtown Moscow and in the windows of supportive
businesses asking folks to:

 

[T]ake a stand for traditional American values of tolerance and diversity as
we gather to voice our collective community opposition to the racist,
sexist, homophobic agenda of Christ Church, New St. Andrews College, The
Confederation of Reformed Evangelical Churches and the Association of
Classical and Christian Schools.

 

Uninformed readers might (mistakenly) believe that it is, at best, ironic to
take a stand for tolerance and diversity while simultaneously opposing a
"religious" celebration. The following analogy might help to clarify my
position. Suppose you wake up one fine morning and notice - in a dark corner
of your closet - a sweet little nest of spiders. On the whole you like
spiders (Charlotte's Web was your favorite childhood book), so you adopt a
live and let live attitude toward the little critters. Five or six days
later you have an opportunity to take a closer look at mama spider. She is a
glossy black color, and son of a gun, has a red hour glass on her belly.
This is not what you had in mind when you believed your closet was big
enough for you and the spiders, was it? An apathetic reaction is not in your
best interest. Silently acquiescing to bigotry is as risky and stupid as
deliberately sharing your closet with black widow spiders. And while the
Brotherhood of the Kirk always exacts a price from their critics the cost of
going along to get along is much too high for me.

 

Rose"

 

 

HTH,

Saundra Lund
Moscow, ID

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do
nothing.
- Edmund Burke

***** Original material contained herein is Copyright 2007 through life plus
70 years, Saundra Lund.  Do not copy, forward, excerpt, or reproduce outside
the Vision 2020 forum without the express written permission of the
author.*****

 

-----Original Message-----
From: vision2020-bounces at moscow.com [mailto:vision2020-bounces at moscow.com]
On Behalf Of Paul Rumelhart
Sent: Thursday, August 02, 2007 7:19 PM
To: Bill London
Cc: v2020
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Trinity Festival protest

 

Doesn't freedom of religion trump simple dislike for the church or some of
it's members?  If there are irregularities with how they were granted
permits or something, then that should be looked into.  But why disturb
their festival?  What is their political and economic agendas that these
activists are protesting?  

 

Granted, people have a right to protest as long as they keep it civil and
follow the law.  It's just that I have never understood why people are so
opposed to them.  Most of the objections I've heard have to do with zoning
laws and permits for the NSA school.  That sounds like a problem with the
authorities and not Christ Church.  There are lots of comments about their
theology (Southern slavery, odd ideas about how they think a "biblical"
society would work, etc), but so what?  They have every right to believe as
they wish, whether or not I think the lot of them have been standing too
long in the hot sun with no hat.

 

I don't agree theologically with them at all.  But who am I to try to tell
them they can't expand themselves?

 

I have great respect for you all as community leaders, I just think you
going too far sometimes.

 

Paul

 

Bill London wrote: 

 

             

 

            Protest Planned for Christ Church Trinity Festival

 

            

            

 

            A group of local activists invite the community to join their
demonstration of opposition to the political and economic agenda of Moscow's
Christ Church and the church's Trinity Festival, announced spokesperson
Selena Rosewater. 

 

            

            

 

            The group will meet in Friendship Square in downtown Moscow at
7:30pm on Friday, August 3, and then march to the Trinity Festival event at
the Kenworthy Performing Arts Center.

 

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