NOVAE MILITIAE

1)  I'm big on Touchstone.  Yes, I am.  It obviously shows in the fact that it is one of the only two periodicals I've linked, as well as in the number of articles I've linked therefrom.  I believe that the Fellowship of St. James is doing some of the best thinking and writing and hence some of the most important cultural work on the planet.  I wish to disseminate its work as far and as widely as possible.  If you do not subscribe to this magazine, go do it now.

2)  A related point, my "ecumenical bonhomie."   With the Fellowship of St. James, I am a proponent of "ecumenical orthodoxy,"  sometimes called the "new ecumenism" to distinguish it from the ecumenism represented by the World Council of Churches and its national and local spawn.  (The latter is a vacuous, and I would even say evil, endeavor.  I lament my church's participation in it, but I really do believe that one day she will leave it behind.) 

Though my ecclesiology demands that, on the one hand, I locate THE one, holy, catholic and apostolic church in the Orthodox Church, ecclesiology, on the other, is a difficult matter indeed.   That realization along with certain "empirical" considerations means that I recognize a real "ecclesiality" in my faithful  Catholic and Evangelical brethren.  I see the work of the Holy Spirit among them, and though my church does not commemorate post-schism Catholic saints, that fact in and of itself does not mean they are not such.  (How else am I to explain the standalone BVM statue outside and the St. Francis statue in the house?)

The project of the Fellowship of St. James, writes Touchstone editor David Mills,

is ecumenical in the sense that we try to draw together the best soldiers from all the allied armies to fight a common enemy and advance a common cause, without denying the radical differences between the armies.  Exactly what that cause is may be hard to define in final detail, but it is something the various soldiers recognize and can articulate to varying degrees.  The enemy is much easier to identify, in part because he lumps us all together as dangerous "fundamentalists."  We assume that what unity the soldiers find will be found in the common task and that this unity will be deeper than any created trying to create it.

We are akin to Gimli and Legolas, writes Mills, who "express deep differences of character, temperament and values" and who "meet as allies only because they have to."  However,

they begin to be friends when one, Gimli, comes to see the beauty of something (Galadriel) the other already saw and loved. And their friendship grows as they sacrifice themselves to defend the weak and vulnerable (the four hobbits) and face the enemies (Sauron and Saruman and their minions) of all they both love, and as they follow a king who does not yet have a kingdom.

So I view all those as my own who love and serve the King of a kingdom that is "already, but not yet,"  irrespective of the fact that I find them (as they find us Orthodox) "the people in the yard," to quote Mills one last time. 

3)  A certain "Western" outlook.  'Tis true.  I may be Orthodox, and Orthodoxy is generally identified with Eastern Christianity, but I am Western to the core.  I even think that the Christian East does not have a corner on Orthodox truth, and that "Western Orthodoxy" and its associated rites are fully patristic and catholic.  What's more,  Roman Catholic and traditionalist Anglican writers turn my crank like no other, so I am not afraid to call them my "fathers" as concerns some of my intellectual and spiritual formation. 

4)  My paleoconservatism.  No apologies whatsoever.  I simply don't "get" things like "Christian socialism" or Christians who vote for liberal politicians.   And I am no friend of that usurping, Likudist, statist  ideology called "neconservativsm".  I believe that if you are a traditional catholic Christian, consistency demands that you adhere to true conservative social principles, which, according to Russell Kirk, are these:

http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articles2/Kirk10Principles.shtml

I think these principles merely flow logically from a biblical and orthodox point of view, and I've never heard a compelling argument from anyone as to why they don't.  (And believe me, I have heard even Orthodox Christians argue vociferously that they don't.)   What's more, I don't mind being considered a reactionary.  Nor do I care whether or not my orienation toward Southern paleoconservatism makes me "neo-Confederate" in many people's eyes.

So, like Touchstone magazine, readers will find this board  "conservative in doctrine and eclectic in content."   I hope they will see in this eclecticism the same coherence that I see.