TOUCHSTONE
Amidst today's confusion, some of the most important divisions among Christians do not fall along denominational lines. Instead, many denominations contain within themselves radically opposed parties that can often be roughly categorized as "traditional" or "progressive." Touchstone: A Journal of Mere Christianity is a magazine for those who consider themselves traditional. Touchstone is "conservative in doctrine and eclectic in content, with editors and readers from each of the three great divisions of Christendom-Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox," says the magazine's masthead. "The mission of the journal and of its publisher, the Fellowship of St. James, is to provide a place where Christians of various backgrounds can speak with one another on the basis of shared belief in the fundamental doctrines of the faith as revealed in Holy Scripture and summarized in the ancient creeds of the Church."
In an interview, Executive Editor James M. Kushiner identified the Bible and the Nicene Creed as the most important unifying doctrinal elements for Touchstone's editors. "What C.S. Lewis called 'mere Christianity,'" he said. "We have much more in common than we do with the members of our denominations."
He cautioned that Touchstone's editors do not fall into the false ecumenism that attempts to ignore or obscure the fundamental disagreements among different branches of Christianity. "The senior editors do not believe in that kind of ecumenism and criticize all the time the 'lowest common denominator' kind of ecumenism," he said. In fact, he said, Touchstone held a conference on "Christian Unity and the Divisions We Must Sustain."
The April 2003 issue of Touchstone's features a series of articles on the differences between America's two major political parties. "Anti-Christian policies are far more entrenched in the Democratic Party than Christian policies are in the Republican," wrote Leon J. Podles, author of The Church Impotent: The Feminization of Christianity, for the editors. "Republicans sometimes want to ignore abortion; Democrats want to promote it, and make it a litmus test. . . . The Democrats have reinstituted the constitutionally banned religious test for federal positions. If a judge is a faithful Catholic or Evangelical, the Democrats will likely try to block his appointment as a federal judge, for fear that it would reduce the accessibility of abortion."
In the cover piece, Rod Dreher writes that his fellow journalists sometimes hate religion but not always. "In the main-and I've had this confirmed to me by Christian friends who labor elsewhere in that secular media-the men and women who bring America its news don't necessarily hate religion; in most cases, they just believe that it's unimportant at best, menacing at worst."
Of course, journalists in the secular media are overwhelmingly Democratic, but it was only in recent history that the donkey party became the party of spiritual and moral degeneration. "Both major parties were of similar mind on issues of personal morality," says Dreher. "Then came the 1972 Democratic Convention, at which secularists-defined as agnostics, atheists, and those who seldom or never attend religious services-seized control of the party and nominated George McGovern."
"I woke up in the '70s and like a lot of people, I saw that the culture had completely changed," said Kushiner. Asked how America could change so much during the short period of the '60s revolution, he said, "Sometimes certain forces reach a certain fruition, a decadent fruition, a malign fruit. And then things move quickly."
Begun in 1987 as a newsletter, Touchstone's is now a monthly with 8,000 subscribers "We try to foster the catholic imagination, not Roman Catholic per se but the great tradition of Christianity," said Kushiner. "We have a lot of evidence of what the early Christians believed. We try to expose people to the Church Fathers."
Touchstone's editors adhere to Christian belief even in some very politically incorrect cases. "We're not egalitarian," said Kushiner. "We do uphold the principle of male headship in the home and the church. . . . It goes back to Trinitarian theology. God the Father is the principal Person. Christianity is by definition patriarchal." A letter in the April issue points out the numerous places in the New Testament in which wives are ordered to obey their husbands-a heretical doctrine, according to the religion established by America's cultural elites.
"Liberalism has thus become a rival faith to traditional religion, because contemporary liberalism cannot tolerate any view of life more ultimate than its own. . .," writes James Hitchcock in the April issue. "Liberalism adheres to a kind of secularized version of salvation by faith alone, according to which human goodness or evil are judged primarily according to 'correct' beliefs about public issues."
Touchstone may be reached care of the Fellowship of St. James, P.O. Box 410788, Chicago, Ill. 60641 (773-481-1090; fax: 773-481-1095; e-mail: [email protected]; website: www.touchstonemag.com)
