I was at first tempted to use a more forthright term to describe what's happening to American Christianity: instead of balkanization, I almost used breakdown.

Things surely aren't what they used to be, and whatever "good old days" you might be pining for a return, they disappeared not so  long ago, and it's safe to presume they won't be back again, for a long time, if ever.

There are a lot of reasons for the decline of the so-called "mainline" Protestant denominations.  An over-emphasis on social justice issues, the environment, nuclear disarmament, not to mention the influence of the women's a and homosexual rights movements.  The Episcopal Church (ECUSA) has been reeling from the long-running battles between liberals and conservatives over women's ordination and homosexual clergy. The consecration of Canon V. Gene Robinson as New Hampshire's bishop was in many respects, the final straw for conservative Episcopalians. Many conservatives, (calling themselves "reasserters") want to reassert the meaning of Scripture as it has been interpreted for the last 2,000 years. Liberal "revisionists" are said to favor revising Scripture to "be more relevant.

As of this writing, many conservatives, now calling themselves by the more ancient and catholic term of Anglicans, have chosen to leave the ECUSA and place their parishes under the supervision of the more conservative/orthodox bishops in Nigeria, Uganda and Rwanda. This is just for starters. Last December, 11 Virginia parishes, including the two biggest in the commonwealth/diocese located in Falls Church and Truro, decided to secede from the American branch of the world-wide Anglican Communion.  Secessionism, apparently, hastn't lost its appeal in Virginia.  This "secesh"  movement isn't just limited to the Old Confederacy. It's also happening in California.

While I'm not comfortable with the Robinson consecration, I'm even less comfortable with a manufactured schism and further balkanization of Christianity in America -- or anywhere.  What's worse is that this schismatic behavior of the Anglican reasserters has been engineered in large part by a conservative religious think tank, the Institute for Religion & Democracy.  (IRD) According to the ECUSAs Jim Naughton, in his two part article "Follow the Money," IRD has received a lot of money from Howard F. Ahmanson, Jr., a former follower of the late Roussas Rushdooney, who founded the bizarre Reconstructionist sect.  After Rushdooney died in 2001, Ahmanson started attending a conservative Episcopalian/Anglican parish in Southern California -- and donating lots of money to a drive of divide and conquer which the IRD hopes will kill off the more liberal mainline denominations once and for all. 

I don't mind the IRD pushing for greater rights for Christians throughout the globe, and in some isolated cases in our nation, but to be funding the schismatic actions of secessionist parishes that want to line themselves up with Nigerian Archbishop Peter Akinola -- we'll that's just pushing things way over the edge.

The very idea of a bishop in another branch of the Anglican Communion making his good offices available to accomodate secessionist parishes -- well it's not only unheard of, but completely antithetical to the idea of any global Chrisitian hierarchical Communion and tradition. Akinola and his fellow African primates and bishops are allied together under the auspices of the Global South movement.

Look, I think it's great for the African bishops to form an organization that's meant to spread the Gospel throughout Africa, but to jump into what's basically an American argument, it simply makes no sense. And, as a conservative, I believe it's better to honor the episcopal comity and use the existing structures so a settlement can be worked out.  Anglicans are said to be very good at this.  But it's not "conservative'" behavior to break up an ecclessial Communion. 

Now, why also would a socially conservative Christian take umbrage with the secessionist movement?  Could it have been the ill-treatment the secessionists have shown towards former Senator John Danforth (R-MO), who is also an Episcopal priest.  Fr. Danforth called for the church to find a common ground, rise above the  differences and lower the voices last year during the General Convention.  For this he's been trashed by the supposedly conservative wing of the Episcopal Church.  While it must've saddened him, I bet Danforth wasn't surprised at the vehemence directed at him.  Conservatives have never considered him one of theirs.  To them ideology trumps decency every time. Small wonder there's been so much acrimony in Washington, DC these past ten years or more.  Oh, yes, I haven't forgotten the treatment given to former Senator Mark Hatfield (R-OR).. 

It remains to be seen how this whole donnybrook will turn out, but it wouldn't hurt if we, as conservatives, could at least  tone down our criticisms of clergy we disagree with.  After all, Fr. Danforth is a member of the clergy. How can we, as conservative adults, expect our kids to behave better and show the proper respect our clerical and political leaders deserve if we don't show it ourselves?  How can we expect others to respect our philosophical leanings towards respecting the established order.  After all, didn't that also come from Scripture?

If the more radical religious conservatives ever hope to see a truly "Christian America," perhaps their aspirations ought to flow first from the better examples of what a truly more Christian society in America would look like.  We can't say we're "God's Country" if we can't even begin to restart behaving the way God wants us to.  Lincoln said it's less important to claim God on our side if we're not on His side to begin with.

We have enough balkanization of churches, disrespect for leaders and institutions without adding to the mix by using conservative political institutions to manufacture schisms in religious denominations. Thanks to the blood-sport of ideological politics these days, this disrespect is endemic throughout the political realm.

The secessionists claim the ECUSA has blown it on scriptural matters, and that homosexuality isn't the major cause. Maybe so, but even their break over the ECUSA's decision to drop the insistence that one can only be saved through Jesus Christ is faulty as well.  Even the Catholics aren't as rigid.  Yes, in the end, at the final judgment Christ will have the final say, but are American conservative Christians right to condemn billions of people who haven't heard of Jesus to hell?  

Even though I'm not a homosexual,  I have a hard time understanding how excluding them from the very thing that could bring them closer to Christ so that they may learn His truth(s), is going to help anybody.  Christianity ought not to be turned into a social club with black-balling.  Jesus established His Church to be a hospital for sinners, not a gentleman's and ladies country club for the so-called "elect."

When will conservatives start acting like conservatives when it really comes to respecting individuals? Perhaps some of our more ideological "leaders" have forgotten this.

We hear so much these days about the "culture of life," and even Townhall.com has a "Post Topic" dedicated to this, which of course I'm using this morning.  Naturally, since most of the blog postings concern politics, these postings related to "culture of life" pertain to topics like abortion, euthanasia, medical experiments, etc. This being my day off, (volunteer sexton at our local church), I deliberately set my "mind-o-meter" a notch lower so as to "mellow" or "chill out" a bit.  That means I'm not as quickly able to give a more comprehensive listing of the many other interesting subjects that fall into this catagory. 

Now, why would I digress so much on this?  Mostly to prove a point; that being that we don't have to be so wrapped up into all these vitally important issues in order to become or remain effective when we have to be when it comes to defending the sacredness of life and respect for all God has given us.

Let's ask ourselves if we really seek to build a cultured life for ourselves, our spouses, children and other loved ones, friends and so forth?  Not that I'm saying we have to make this some major project to please all of the above all the time.  Good Lord, no.

After all, I am using what singer Jimmy Buffett likes to call a "License to Chill," and that means to take it easy for now.

Building a more "cultured life" for yourself and those you treasure, could be as simple as listening to a classical radio station with the speakers turned on in the house so your kids could acquire a taste for better and more civilized music. Not that I don't like or appreciate other kinds of music, but it's really hard to put even Buffett up on the same pedestal level as Bach's. Sorry Jimmy. 

Okay, I've "gone snobby," but there are times when it's ... well ... necessary.

There are tons of "little things" that can be done in our free time that will eventually help to create a more cultured lifestyle.  Strange as it seems, even drinking a mug of coffee and looking out the window for no other reason than just the sheer act of letting your mind wander free for a few moments. (Sometimes that's when we're doing the most "creative thinking" for other activities we want to do in our free time.)

Write to somebody, even by hand. Yes, I'm using a computer now, but I still like to write my wife a letter every now and then. (But that's when she'd settle for the clarity of a word processor or even an ancient Olympia manual "finger-eating" typewriter instead of my notorious penmanship.)  Maybe I could practice some penmanship skills the sisters tried (in vain) to teach me a half-century ago. 

Read a book, but not one related to your work. I like to make nativity creches and decorative birdhouses.  Still, there are other things to read about and help to take my mind off and away from the workbench.  Well, if there's a real nice "coffee table" book or magazine related to my workmanship, I'll naturally pick it up out of curiosity and the sheer enjoyment of seeing something really nice. 

See, that's the point here.  Reading, doing, or listening to something nice that elevates our spirits and mental energies. This is what God intended for us, a life that's based upon what's nice about this world; not just drudgery and base.  Remember, it was man who blew it in the Garden of Eden, and it's man who has to work his way back to get a taste of what God really intended for us all the time.  And He still does.  That's why He keeps giving us examples of the better things in life to appreciate and tidbits of knowledge, inspiration and hints along history's highway.  He even gave us the first day off, which is more than I can say for a lot of retail and other employers nowadays.  (Even church hours on Sundays aren't respected anymore!)  I'm reminded of a pro-union bumpersticker saying that it was the labor movement which gave us weekends off.  Well, not quite. God started it off, but man in his greed took it away and the unions only managed to get it back for some of us. And who knows for how long anymore. (Take that fiscal conservatives!  Remember WHO the real boss is.)

Martha Stewart gets a lot of flak and bad press perhaps of her perceived snobbish tastes and lifestyle.  Let's step back a bit and recall that she didn't wasn't born in a family with money or class connections.  Not that she's an entirely a "self-made" woman, nobody is, no matter how badly their sin of pride might fog up their judgment. But Stewart did work hard to get where she is today, jail time notwithstanding.  Did she get greedy?  Well, judging from the results of her mistake of dumping a few hundred thousand dollars in sinking stock values based on "insider information," only to lose billions and a seat on the NY Stock Exchange, it can't be said she was totally greedy. I at first thought she was greedy and arrogant, but in retrospect, who and how was I to judge her for an act anyone of us, myself included, would undertake to save herself or himself from a large financial loss?  Despite all of the trappings of her present standing, she hasn't forgotten her working class background and how hard it was to make and keep money.

Her life's work, as most of us have come to know it, is dedicated to bringing what is "good," recognizably good, into the lives of most American households. Much of what she shares is a lot more affordable than most people might realize if they hadn't been following her shows or reading her publications, etc.

What's so bad about trying to make the quality of our lives better by exposing us to more of what is like I said above, recognizeably good, and represents good taste in judgment?

The late Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart (no relation) said of pornography once that he couldn't describe it, but "I know what it is when I see it."  Well, in this day of post-modern cultural and aesthetic relativism, the same quip could just as easily describe the difficulty many of us who have an appreciation for the good things in life have when it comes to describing such for the rest of us. Very snobby, mea culpa.  On the other hand, without the benefit of any formal definition of art or classical music, most of us can appreciate the difference between an Andy Warhol piece of can art from a Rembrandt, the watered-down Catholic "new order" liturgy from the Book of Common Prayer, or "Kumbaya" sung in Mass from a hymn written by Bach, or Mozart.

When it comes to a very classical (and classy) definition of what constitutes the right ingredients for creating a good life, all we need to do is open our Bibles (preferably the Douai or an old KJV) to St. Paul's letter to the Phillippians, Ch. 4.

I won't spoil it for you. Better that you look it up for yourselves. That way I can grab another coffee before I head down to my workshop (and listen to some Gregorian Chant while crafting a nativity creche.)

A wise man said "The past is a foreign country."  Perhaps I need a passport to take me back twenty-plus years when I was starting out to become a bigtime columnist.  So I thought.  Do I have any regrets for dreaming of a lofty goal?  No way.  Do I have any regrets for not achieving those youthful goals and dreams?  No way, again.

What happened?  Marriage and children.  Not that I blame my wife, my marriage or my kids for not making the big leagues of reporting: becoming a syndicated columnist.

There are more important things than writing, politics and the excitement of big issues to cover and interesting places to see.  After all, when you've been told by prospective employers that taking a job with them might imperil your marriage, you really have to take a deep breath.  Very deep.

Oh, I was still grousing and grumbling about my situation as a frustrated library employee at a women's college and writing part-time for a local diocesan bi-weekly. "Man," I'd say to myself, "you have experience in Washington, right on Capitol Hill, no less while interning at the National Journalism Center. . . Why am I still here?"  Twenty years ago I had my eyesights on Washington and my hopes on getting my family out of the so-called "Pioneer Valley" of western Massachusetts.

Let's face it, this place is a virtual "Death Valley" for conservative writers.  I live in Hadley, smack dab in between Amherst and Northampton after selling a home that'd been in her family for four generations -- all thanks to Amherst's revolving credit-card liberal government and the continually rising taxes that went with it.  Sometime I'll explain how it really works up here, but here I am in Hadley, inspite of how many times I used to express myself in colorful language how badly I feared becoming a "lokel yokel."

And believe me, you'll have to look long and hard to find anyone more parochial and provincially-minded than a foot-in-manure "Pioneer Valley" die-hard denizen.

And, what I said above about this area being a "Death Valley" for us folks of the conservative persuasion -- take it as gospel truth. The media is run by libs for libs who only want to read and hear about libs and lib ideas.  

While some liberals I know as friends are blessed to have a genuine sense of humor and don't mind a good-natured ribbing, most of the liberal pundits and pundit/expert wannabes have as much humor as Mike Dukakis on a bad day or Ned Lamont on a good one. (Yes, I've interviewed the Duke, and he does know how to crack a smile after all.)

But, it can be (a-hem) challenging to be a conservative, or even moderately conservative like I happen to be. Still, to many of my liberal "fans" here, I'm perhaps a knuckledragger no matter how much I nuance my views.  So be it.

I like this "post topic" already picked out by Townhall because it pretty much sums up what's really important in life, no matter who you are, how important you've become or think you've become and so forth.  

During my straining years two decades ago, I made the mistake of stressing the dire importance of building a career to my dad. Well, it was a profitable mistake indeed.
All it took was a quick verbal jab to KO my ambitious ego: "Listen buddy, you don't have a career, you have a vocation!"

How true indeed. I also had my wife and our first born son to think first and foremost about -- even ahead of my big plans.  Fortunately, I allowed myself to be persuaded by sounder logic and a higher moral calling than becoming a big-shot pundit.  And, to punctuate his point, my dad pulled out one of his most effective weapons, a verse from the Bible, "What would gain a man to gain the world at the price of his soul?"  Not the Vulgate or KJV, but the point was well taken.

My parents are in Heaven, but the impact remains with myself, my two brothers and all of our wives and children. No divorces; but those two words say a lot. Especially nowadays.

Not that I'm bragging. I'll gladly give due credit to God, his Son, the Holy Spirit, Mary and all the saints above.  Reformed Protestant readers might think I'm a little overboard here, mentioning Mary.  Yet, I think they'll give me the benefit of the doubt here. If you want to wind up in the non-smoking section when you have to depart, it never helps to have lots of  friends in high places.

As I mentioned above, we live in a very liberal geological rut, and many of the churches go out of their way to out-liberal other liberal churches.  You see this a lot between Episcopalians and Congregationalists, and of course, those so-called "American catholics" who've seemed to forget that they belong to a universal body, not just some nationalized version of the real thing.  (By nationalized, I mean culturally and theologically here in the US. -- but that's grist for another blog.)

Still, it's possible for socially conservative Christians of either Protestant or Catholic leanings to find a home.

What I have trouble figuring out is, why are the ranks of the socially conservative, albeit fiscally moderate or liberal, so thin and the ranks of the fiscally tight, albeit socially liberal conservatives so thick?  (No, I don't mean that kind of thick, not now in my "maiden posting.") 

Having listed Faith and Family as my two highest priorities in life, I suppose it's time for me to give up this fancy typewriter for someone else.

But, maybe, I could just squeeze in a hand of solitaire.

Before I leave, I have to share a question for any National Journalism Center grads? Whatever happened to that small little finger-eating, patience-devouring Olympia manual? If you could type on that, you can master anything. Even a PC.