[Vision2020] Trinity Festival protest

Fri Aug 3 15:24:09 PDT 2007

P-
Thanks for your reasoned comments.  
My response will focus on a statement of yours that seems to be the core of your perspective.  
You wrote (below): "Why target them with this protest?  Let them have their fun."

My response:
The Trinity Fest is designed as more than "fun" -- it is a political gathering and a recruitment event.  This Christ Church/NSA group is reaching out to potential church members and prospective students.  They are trying to get bigger and more powerful.
There's nothing inherently "wrong" with that.  The University of Idaho and every other college in the US does the same thing.
But the point is that this outreach event is a political action.  The goal is to grow and take over more of downtown Moscow. (remember that by their ownership of more and more of Moscow, the tax burden shifts to other businesses and residents)
Those who object to the Christ Church/NSA goals have the political right to protest and more important, the obligation to demonstrate against what they think is wrong.
The protest will remind all those attending the Trinity Fest that many people in Moscow object to Christ Church and NSA

BL

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Paul Rumelhart 
  To: Saundra Lund 
  Cc: 'Bill London' ; 'v2020' 
  Sent: Friday, August 03, 2007 9:22 AM
  Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Trinity Festival protest

  Saundra,

  I admit that I don't like that they can apparently do as they wish downtown.  I don't know if they have the right people as part of their church, or if they have some kind of influence they shouldn't have.  Maybe the rules aren't as clear-cut as we'd like to think and they are simply using existing loopholes.  I don't know.  

  I also disagree with not only their theology but their idea that they are above the law.  That's one of the dangers of organized religion of any type.  When you have God on your side, or so you think, you tend to think you are special.  I would be condemned to death if their biblical society ever came to be because of my past studying of the occult and because I'm not a professing Christian.  Yet, they aren't pushing for laws to do that.  So it's just talk.

  It's a case of "hate the sin, love the sinner".  The individual Christ Church members, especially those that aren't elders, should be treated with the respect due anyone else.  What I'm objecting to here, I've come to realize, is barging in on their festival.  You have lots of kind people (at least the ones I've met), simply having fun.  They have their families there, their children are playing together, etc.  Why target them with this protest?  Let them have their fun.  

  Now, as has been pointed out to me, if people have protested the officials in Moscow that appeared to allow the rules to be bent or broken and nothing has come of it - then what do you do?  I say, whatever you do, leave the individual Christ Church members alone unless you are talking about the guys that make the decisions there.  Take up your fight, again, with the powers that be in Moscow.  Talk to the press (again).

  Just make sure that it's their undue influence that you are protesting and not their theological beliefs.  They have the right to believe as they wish, it's their actions that have to be looked at.  If they ever start trying to pass laws that state that heathens or gays or adulterers should be executed, then I'll be right beside you to fight it.

  Paul

  Saundra Lund wrote: 
    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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