If you are a "conservative" or a "right-winger," you will probably be able to relate to much of my life. Here are the highlights:
A Christian Home
My Parents taught me "traditional family values." I memorized The Ten Commandments and other passages of Scripture.
My parents, born and raised in the Ozarks, were a bit uncomfortable with their intellectually-unrespected fundamentalist background, and upon coming to California had joined a respectable, liberal, "mainstream" Presbyterian Church. But when my sister and I were taught in Sunday School that "the parting of the Red Sea" was really just a naturally-occuring east wind which dried up the swampy "Reed Sea," my parents told us not to believe these modernist myths, that we really could believe the miracles in the Bible. I learned to question the "experts" of the "liberal establishment."
Eventually, I began attending Charles Swindoll's church in Fullerton.
Conversion to Creationism
Although my parents believed that the Bible was not inconsistent with modern science, and were "theistic evolutionists," in high school I met a fundamentalist who was a six-day creationist. I asked him, "How can you believe the Bible literally when scientists [genuflect] can prove that the rocks we are standing on are millions of years old?" He gave me a little tract on radiometric dating by Duane Gish (Ph.D., UC Berkeley). "Tract" and "radiometric dating" were oxymoronically joined, in my opinion. But my complete inability to refute the tract compelled a voracious reading of the literature.
It didn't take much reading to discern the real issues. Evolution was invented by those who hated the values my parents taught me. Evolutionists wanted to commit adultery; they wanted to kill their enemies; they were materialists. They were not forced to believe the theory of evolution by "the facts."
My cynicism toward the "experts" of the "liberal establishment" became more pronounced.
I was predestined to read some of the books mentioned by Chuck Swindoll in his sermons, including people like Hodge and Warfield, and soon became a Calvinist. I'm currently putting together my own pages on Calvinism, but for now, click here for someone else's page.
4. L'Abri
Another author recommended by Swindoll was Francis Schaeffer. With his wife Edith, the Schaeffers opened their home to those who were searching for answers to life's questions. They called their chalet in the Swiss Alps "L'abri," French for "shelter." I knew someday I would want to make my home a shelter.
4. Reconstructionism
One day as I was purchasing the complete works of B.B. Warfield at Christian Discount Book Center in Whittier, CA, I met Mike Rench. He invited me to his home where a Bible Study was conducted, which featured such speakers as R.J. Rushdoony, Gary North, and David Chilton. I soon found myself ascending to the podium in this illustrious meeting -- which evolved into a Church ("Reformation Bible Church," now defunct) where David Chilton and I shared the pulpit -- receiving personal tutoring from Rushdoony, writing a regular column in the Chalcedon Report, and the Biblical Educator (published by Gary North), and speaking on occasion for Rush at his weekly meeting across from UCLA. I was a full-fledged "Christian Reconstructionist."
5. South
A very influential book for me was Ill Take My Stand by "Twelve Southerners." These men were writers and poets who were disturbed by the moral trends brought about by Industrialism. Among the most famous of the 12 was Andrew Nelson Lytle.
The idea of Agrarianism led me to such writers as Henry Nash Smith and Wendell Berry, who encouraged me to question American secular postmillennialism.
It was sometime in 1979-80 that I read the Twelve Southerners, and that book prompted me to formulate the "Vine & Fig Tree" leitmotif/trademark/catch-all.
John Birch Society
My now-ex future grannie-in-law gave me her collection of John Birch Society publications, including Review of the News, American Opinion, and JBS Bulletins. I have just about everything the JBS has ever published. I am a convinced "conspiracy theorist." The first two publications have since been combined as The New American, which can be accessed at the JBS Web site. It's the only magazine I subscribe to. (Just about.)
Too Liberal for Me
But I am not a member of the John Birch Society. They won't let me join because I'm too far to the right. In my opinion, what happened is that I continued along the path of the Right until I entered the Left. In my other opinion, the Right has taken on too many collectivist ideas of the Left. In my sythesis opinion, Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn may be right, but the labels "left" and "right" just aren't very helpful any more. For reasons too numerous to mention, the "Right" does not consider me "conservative" or even Christian. For a sketch of these reasons, click here.
I appreciate questions and comments. Please write me at Kevin4VFT@aol.com.
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