The American Spectator

Reader Mail

OVERCULTURED
Re: Mark Tooley's Here Come the Churches:

In many ways it is so sad and maddening what has happened to the nation's mainline churches -- that is, their seemingly complete lack of focus on the Gospels and great traditions of the Protestant movement.
When I came to Michigan from Tennessee as a child, I felt alienated from this new culture in many ways, and one of them was the differences among the people who attended Methodist, Presbyterian, and the other mainline churches. They seemed so formal and attractive in their well-dressed congregations with their formal (at least to me, more used to the louder and more emotional fundamental churches of my parents) services. How I wished we were part of that establishment culture.

Well, like many other things, be careful what you wish for. When my dear wife and I married we chose the United Methodist church as a compromise since she was a Roman Catholic. For the first few years we both enjoyed the traditional services and music that dated back to John Wesley who originated Methodism as a way of educating the poorer classes in England. Wesley actually remained an Anglican priest throughout his life. We bought a cottage in the historic Chautauqua village in Bay View Michigan and enjoyed 40 years of the religious and educational activities of the Bay View Association. Unfortunately we also witnessed the the church's abandonment of its true mission to save men's souls in favor of the latest hot button social and political fad -- homosexuality, global warming (I can't remember if the churches also joined Newsweek in the global ice age hysteria in the 70's), etc. These liberal churches have become essentially part and parcel of the federal government just as the government has become an active partner with our great corporations and it is not hard to figure out who the true master will be in any such relationship. This too will pass away and Christianity and the ancient people of the Old Testament will prevail.
-- Jack Wheatley
Royal Oak, Michigan

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Protestantism's being fundamentally shaped by the culture is without question a foundational trait; its churches' proclivity for voting on a position regarding same-sex marriage is about as reasonable as would be their voting on the laws of physics. Hence, the only question to be asked upon reading Mr. Tooley's commentary is whether said commentary is more on the order of grasping at straws, or whistling past the graveyard.
-- Francis M. Hannon, Jr.
Melrose, Massachusetts

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CONFLICTING LIBERAL URGES
Re: George Neumayr's The Purple Prose of Cairo:

The cultural imperialism of white Westerners is on display again.

George Neumayr points out the latest example when he writes: "His (President Obama's) proclamation speaks of LGBT "youth" and the "harassment" they face, as if America is teeming with 16-year-olds who have gotten sex-change operations in brave defiance of their peers, as if it is the president's duty to encourage teens in bisexual explorations."

No doubt this mindset is currently at work on language that will provide for sex change operations in a universal health care bill. (One wonders if the 16 year-olds will need parental consent.)

But if a dark-hued shaman, medicine-man, or witch-doctor were to perform a clitorectomy on a young member of his tribe, the very same Western elitists would express shock and outrage, decrying the procedure as sexual mutilation!

Cultural elitists like President Obama need to develop a more nuanced view of the world. Their ethnocentric biases lead them repeatedly to the promotion of simplistic solutions to complex international problems. President Obama has the ear of kings and potentates, but the imams see right through him. After all, if President Obama had any respect for Islam, his daughters would be raised in the faith and he would cover his wife's arms.
-- Dan Martin
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

President Abraham Lincoln prudently stated, "A house divided against itself cannot stand." This wisdom proves even more profoundly true of a man.
-- I.M. Kessel

THE MOST SCANDALOUS STORY NEVER TOLD
Re: Daniel J. Flynn's Three Times a Felon:

Daniel Flynn tells a tale that has gone amazingly untold. As a recent Massachusetts citizen raised in Chicago, the stench of Massachusetts politics is familiar. But Daniel, have you forgotten the august William Bulger? True, not indicted or convicted, but complicit, shameless and venal enough for mention. (Complicit for aiding and abetting his murdering gangster brother, Whitey, long featured in the FBI’s 10 most wanted...not kidding, true).