Zen and the Art ... Reconsidered

One of the books that had the greatest impact on me in high school was Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. He argued that Quality is what we like; Quality is the interaction of subject and object that produces them both; Quality is the undefinable root something from which all else that we know comes. This idea stuck with me more than I knew.

A few months ago I read Atlas Shrugged. While I appreciate some of its sense that quality work is worth celebrating, I thought its view of human life was way too simplistic. And the story was very silly. However, a few people told me that it was a very important book to them in high school. It made them feel vindicated as smart kids, and gave them a larger vision of the world and the ideas behind it.

This got me thinking that it would be fruitful to re-read the books that most influenced me in high school. I got talking to a study group friend, and we agreed to re-read one another's influential books together. Zen and the Art is my nominee.

I am pleased to say that the book holds up well. It is mostly a "Chautauqua" about metaphysics, framed by a father-son road trip story. The pursuit of metaphysics made the father insane. He is now trying to reconstruct the argument, without the insanity, in the form of both talks to the reader and conversations with his son. Both parts of the story are based on Robert Pirsig's real experiences, including the insanity.

I see now that my later interest in Alasdair McIntyre's argument about the incoherence of ethical philosophy, and his further discussions of the good of practices, grows right out of appreciating Pirsig. I see, too, an affinity in my sociology, which does start with "what we like" as an important bit of evidence of what is good and true, with Pirsig's approach to Quality.

On the other hand, I am now more puzzled than I was in high school at why Pirsig does not think God is even worth talking about in his consideration of what Quality is and where it comes from. That is the question I want to pursue with the study group, and beyond.

"Color Him Father"

In my recent search for non-country songs that covered the life-cycle of a marriage I was introduced to this fine song, the Winstons' "Color Him Father." Thanks to NSangoma on the Booker Rising blog.

Cohabitation Still Bad for Your Marriage Chances

A large new report on the effects of cohabitation, led by Pamela Smock, has just been released. Some see it as new evidence that "Cohabiting has little effect on marriage success"as the USA Today head line put it. Others say it shows "Cohabitation Linked to Exponential Increase in Relationship Failure Risk" as LifeSiteNews.com puts it.

Both are right. In fact, these findings are nothing new. For at least a decade it has been clear that people who cohabit before marriage do not improve their chances of marital success. Cohabitation is not a good way to "kick the tires," to test your compatibility. This new study confirms that conclusion. However, there is a big difference between people who are already engaged - with a ring and date - when they start cohabiting, as compared to those who live together with no definite plan for the future.

Engaged cohabiters act more like marrieds. "Just living together" couples do not.

Habeas Corpus is a State Right for All in America

I think habeas corpus is a core centrist issue. It should be the foundation of any discussion about the law, the basis on which the center can bring together left and right. Habeas corpus was suspended by the previous administration to deal with the post-9/11 emergency, and has been restored by the current administration.

Some people argue that habeas corpus is a right of citizens, but does not apply to anyone else we capture and call an enemy. Some even want to strip citizens of their legal rights if the government calls them an enemy.

Last night I got to ask the Chief Justice of the Kentucky Supreme Court something that has been bothering me: is habeas corpus a fundamental human right, or a right granted by the state that applies only to citizens? Justice Minton had no better answer than I did; fundamental human rights is not an issue that state courts rule on. But the discussion led in interesting directions afterwards.

On the one hand, I think that suspending habeas corpus is about the most dangerous habit any government could get in to. If the government can imprison anyone without even a chance to establish their right to a charge and a trial, the rule of law is destroyed. On the other hand, I am reluctant to declare that there is such a thing as a fundamental human right, absent an authoritative body to make it stick. Rights are rights against the state, and ultimately the state or a state-like body (like the International Criminal Court in the Hague) has to enforce rights to make them real.

Mrs. G., who is a lawyer, suggested a helpful middle position: habeas corpus has been a state-made right that applies to all English-descended states since Magna Carta, which applies to all people within that state. This means all the people under the hand of American law, whether citizens or not, have a right to habeas corpus. This seems to me a sensible position - not simply at the whim of the current government, but not unrealistically universal.

The Search for a Non-Country Song That Covers the Whole Life Cycle

I posted this query on Facebook recently:

Beau Weston is showing music videos about married life in class. There are many good country videos on the married life course. I am having trouble finding non-country songs about the married life course. Suggestions?

This has proven a rich and interesting discussion.

The main thing I have found is that country, and its cousins folk and bluegrass, are the popular music genres richest in songs in which people court, marry, raise their kids, help with their grandchildren, grow old, and die.

In the other popular genres - pop, rock, rap, hip-hop, rhythm and blues - it is hard find examples of songs that cover the full life cycle.

I think the main reason for the paucity of songs about marriage and the rest of your life in popular music is that popular music is mostly for young people. The audience for country music is a little older, and is more likely to be married with children, than is the population as a whole. Nonetheless, this small difference in the demographics of the audience is not enough, I think, to explain the wide disparity in content among the genres.

I note that when men write songs in which they imagine a future life together, they say something about how the family life they imagine will be paid for. This is less often the case in women's "imagining a family" songs.

The main point of this post: Country music is the place to look for songs about the full cycle of happy family life.

Below I reproduce the whole long dialogue with dialogue with friends, neighbors, students, and some professional colleagues, FYI. I would welcome additions and suggestions. I have interspersed comments and suggestions from others with my replies.

“Always” by Atlantic Starr

"Always" only gets as far as "let's make a family" - I don't think they are even married yet by the end of the song.

I can think of a bunch, but they're not universally positive about marriage. Of course, there are lots of country songs about d-i-v-o-r-c-e.

Oh, yeah - lots of good divorce songs. I have more songs for that week than I have days.

“Just the Two of Us” -Will Smith but that’s more about parenthood.

"Just the Two of Us" is a fine daddy song (a genre I particularly like). However, the kid doesn't get past early elementary school, and "it didn't work out for me and your mom."

Yea its a tough assignment. Most r&b love songs are about the chase or the wedding not the marriage.... I can think of songs about weddings but not marriages...go figure. I like "100 Years" but it's more about one man's journey through life than a couple's-- I suck at this...

I don't think it is you, I think it is a limitation of the target demographic for pop, rock, rap, and r&b.

Try April Barrows - " burning the toast for you" "my dream is you" & "an old stuffed sofa". Marc Cohn - "True Companion"

Thank you for April Barrows - I did not know her work. And you have me wondering whether there might be more life-cycle songs in jazz. However, she is just too obscure. YouTube only has a cover of "Burning the Toast for You" - a funny song, but it only gets as far as the honeymoon. The other two are not available. I found a version of "True Companion," but they aren't even married yet, and Cohn only refers to when the couple will be old. And none of them have kids.


Crosby Stills Nash, "Our House"

"Our House," while a gorgeous song, is a moment somewhere in the life of a couple. And two cats in the yard are just not enough of a stand-in for children to cover most marriage's life cycle. :-)

There are many Christian songs on that theme...don't know, but wouldn't be surprised if they had a C-VH1.

I think you are right, but I don't know the genre well enough to generate examples.

"Lady in Red"? (I know, it doesn't specify in the song that they're married. But I heard an interview with the songwriter, in which he specified it was about catching a glimpse of his wife at a party and seeing her with fresh eyes.) "Wonderful Tonight," maybe? Presumably they're married or she'd leave his drunk ass at the party. And of course there's "Secret Lovers," "Part Time Lover," and "Saving All My Love." For the 7 yr itch stage of marriage.

While "Wonderful Tonight" is a lovely song about a man appreciating his wife (?), it is a tiny moment - no kids, not long-shared life, no growing old. The others in that first set are really just love songs possibly set within marriage.

Oh, how about "Whatta Man" by Salt n Pepa?

"Whatta Man" is a courtship song. It has the abysmally low standards of good family life common in hip-hop songs. He is a good man because he spends quality time with his kids "when he can." The singer is going to have his baby. No mention of marriage. Sigh.

Paul McCartney's "When I'm 64", is, if you read the lyric, a proposal of marriage. Don't know if its available as a video, but it, and Paul and Linda's marriage, certainly speak well of the institution.

"When I'm 64" is more like it. I'd never noticed before that, while they imagine having grandchildren (Vera, Chuck, and Dave), they make no mention of their hypothetical children.

My student friend Katie made this excellent suggestion: July For Kings--"Normal Life."

"Mushaboom" by Feist is about planning a home and children and sticking it out. Doesn't mention marriage, so may not fit your parameters. But relatively current.

"Mushaboom" is sweet, and does have a real vision of a full life.

Try Bob Dylan's "Don't Think Twice. It's all right."

Oh, all the popular music genres are full of songs about marriages and romances that did not work out. That seems to be something that songwriters have lots of experience with.

Ok trying again-- "Superwoman" by Karyn White

"Superwoman" does have a married couple a few years past the wedding, but they may not make it through the whole life course. And no kids.

"Something in Red"-Lorrie Morgan (I know its country but it seems to fit your parameters)

"Something in Red" is a wonderful song, and I admire its concision in taking us through at least the first three years of a courtship and marriage. It is, though, as you note, a country song.

Bonnie Raitt and Jackson Browne's version of Pete Seeger's "Kisses Sweeter than Wine." I don't consider this country.

That is doubly helpful. The song is a good example of what I am after. And folk is a genre I had not looked at enough. But I think folk is at least a close cousin to country.

What about "Faithfully" by Journey?

"Faithfully" does seem to be a faithful marriage, but, as he says, the road is no place to raise a family - so (I infer) they don't.

"Grandpa Was a Carpenter" by John Prine.

"Grandpa Was a Carpenter" is a good one; it implies a full life of marriage and children, though we see nothing of the in-between generation. I would call Prine at least half-country (Wikipedia does, too).

Students suggested "Cat's in the Cradle" today, which I think qualifies.

Isn't "Cat's in the Cradle" a depressing view of the life cycle, though? By the way, I know it's country, but I like the song "Remember When?" more than a lot of others.

"Cat's in the Cradle" is wry, at best, and not nearly as celebratory of the life cycle as "Remember When."

Centrism and Alcohol

Today Danville, KY, is voting on whether go from "moist" to "wet."

UPDATE: Danville went wet, 57% to 43% in heavier-than-expected turnout (2,508 to 1,911).

For those outside the South this whole concept may be odd. When we moved to Danville twenty years ago it was dry, meaning that selling and serving alcohol was illegal. A few years ago we voted to go "moist." Restaurants that seat at least 100 and get at least 70% of their revenue from food were allowed to sell alcohol by the drink. What all this means is no bars, no liquor stores, no downtown cafes selling a glass of wine. This kind of minute regulation of alcohol distribution is fairly common in all the Baptist-majority counties of the South. I can tell you, though, it is a very difficult concept to explain to, for example, a traveling group of Irish actors or Russian musicians, as has happened at Centre.

Today we are voting on whether to go "wet." This would allow liquor stores, beer and wine sales in other stores, smaller restaurants and cafes, even bars. No town in Kentucky has gone from moist to wet before, and I really do not know how the election will turn out.

I have been torn about how to vote. I am a teetotaler, so I my own consumption is not the issue for me. But I do care about the health and well-being of my neighbors, and the economic health of the town. I also do not want to see bars in Danville. I think they are a danger anywhere, but are a menace in a small college town.

Nonetheless, in the end I voted yes.

What does this have to do with centrism? I believe that alcohol is an irreducible part of human society. I don't care for it myself, but I know that others enjoy it. I think alcohol in moderation is OK. Jesus made wine - it can't be all bad.

Instead, I believe that we should actively and persistently promote, teach, and model moderation in alcohol consumption. This is especially important for adults teaching young adults, such as the hundreds of college students in our charge. I have long favored drinking licenses for 18, 19, and 20 year olds. I think the adults of the community should teach the young how to drink moderately. Drinking is not the menace; drunkenness is.

Is Authoritarianism a Helpful Idea?

This is the last that I will be blogging on a very interesting new study, Marc Hetherington and Jonathan Weiler's Authoritarianism and Polarization in American Politics.

Some readers have objected that "authoritarianism" is simply liberal prejudice against conservatives dressed up in academic language. A reader offered that "it is wrong-headed and morally offensive to 'psychologize' political and ideological differences." It clearly takes several rounds of talking about what Hetherington and Weiler mean by the term to begin to see what they are arguing.

The core of H & W's definition of authoritarians are those who see the world in black-and-white terms, who fear that the social order is being disrupted, and who want a muscular response to restore order. I think that position may be fairly characterized as "authoritarian."

It also makes sense to me that people who are fearful will act the way we all do when afraid. That includes asserting your view of the world as a dangerous place so forcefully that you ignore, don't seek, and don't know inconvenient contrary facts. We don't do our best thinking when we are afraid. I don't think it is right to call fear-driven politics "authoritarian." It does, though, make sense to me that the fearful are more likely to see the world in black and white and want a muscular response.

So, IF people who think social order is in danger from evil forces and want to fight forcefully for good are "authoritarians," then we would expect that ALL people could be authoritarian sometime, but SOME people are authoritarian all the time.

Hetherington and Weiler report that when they surveyed Americans on whether there is a struggle between good and evil in the world, on a seven-point scale 30% took the extreme "yes" position, while only 12% took the extreme "no" position. When they separated the High Authoritarians from the Low Authoritarians, 40% of the former said yes to the max, while 25% of the latter said no to the extreme. Authoritarianism is not the only important factor in American politics, but I think Hetherington and Weiler have clearly demonstrated that it is an important factor.

The main point of their book is this:
“Political elites are polarized on the issues, but ordinary Americans are only better sorted, not polarized.”

Coffeehouse and Pub

This is the fourth and final installment in my Centre Seminar series on Coffeehouses and public life.

Authoritarianism: Some Clarifications

This week I will be blogging on a very interesting new study, Marc Hetherington and Jonathan Weiler's Authoritarianism and Polarization in American Politics.

My last few posts on authoritarianism have drawn interesting comments - some of which show that I have not done a good enough job of making clear what Hetherington and Weiler mean by authoritarian.

When an individual feels threatened, he or she tends to fear and dislike the source of the threat, favor a harsh and muscular response to the threat, search for information that confirms that the threat is real, and shut out disconfirming information. This is a normal, partly physiological reaction that can happen to anyone, and does happen to just about everyone at some times. When a group fears that the social order is threatened by another group, all these same responses come into play, but on a social, even macro scale. And when a group feels that the social order faces continuous threats, they can develop a whole worldview that shows these same responses. Authoritarianism is a worldview developed in response to a feeling that the social order is under continuous threat.

Authoritarianism is not the same as conservatism, libertarianism, or the ideology of the Republican Party. There are many people in each group who do not feel the social order is in danger, who do not advocate harsh and muscular responses, who are well informed and seek to be even better informed. Nor is authoritarianism confined to the right end of the political spectrum, though Hetherington and Weiler find that there are many more right authoritarians than left authoritarians.

I had left the numbers out of the previous posts in the interests of brevity. However, some commentators thought the claim that authoritarians are less politically well informed was simply bias, rather than empirical. To test their theory, Hetherington and Weiler constructed an authoritarianism scale, based on the above definition, which they then compare with responses to factual knowledge questions about politics in several different surveys.

The National Election Survey is the benchmark political survey used by scholars of American elections. In 2004 the NES asked respondents to identify the offices of four men then prominent in political life: Dick Cheney, Tony Blair, William Rehnquist, and Dennis Hastert. The order ranges from most correct to least - 86% of Americans knew that Cheney was Vice President, while only 11% knew Dennis Hastert was Speaker of the House. However, there were large gaps in knowledge between the least authoritarian and the most.
Cheney: 99% vs. 70%
Blair: 91 vs 45
Rehnquist: 55 vs 16
Hastert: nonauthoritarians 3 times more right than authoritarians (percent not given)

In 2006 Hetherington and Weiler conducted their own survey of American adults. They asked whether weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq, and whether Saddam Hussein was directly involved in the 9/11 attacks. Here they report not the responses of the people at the poles of this scale, as they did above, but the more generous standard of below or above the midpoint of the authoritarianism scale.
WMDs (% wrong): 15 vs. 37
Hussein 9/11 (% wrong): 19 vs. 55

This survey is especially helpful for today's post because they also report Republican responses, showing that GOP and authoritarian are not the same. They do not report Democratic responses. The lower half vs. upper half of the authoritarian scale (Republicans only):
WMDs (% wrong): 33 vs. 62
Hussein 9/11 (% wrong): 36 vs. 68

Authoritarianism and Nonauthoritarianism

This week I will be blogging on a very interesting new study, Marc Hetherington and Jonathan Weiler's Authoritarianism and Polarization in American Politics.

Everyone needs some sense of order in society. And everyone can feel that the social order is threatened sometimes. What makes authoritarians stand out is that they think the social order is threatened nearly all the time. They then respond the way most people do when threatened:

• Feel threatened by, and dislike, outgroups
• Desire muscular responses to conflict
• Be less politically well informed
• Be less likely to change their ways of thinking when new information might change their deeply held beliefs.

Hetherington and Weiler present quite a bit of evidence, their own and from others, to back up these claims. Scholars have been developing the picture of authoritarians since at least the Second World War.

Hetherington and Weiler also present a portrait of nonauthoritarians, a subject that has been less studied. Nonauthoritarians are likely to:

• See "fairness" as outgroup preference, especially for groups that have been historically discriminated against
• Have an "accuracy motivation" that makes them seek out accurate and unbiased information, especially about contested issues
• Have an aversion to ethnocentrism
• Value personal autonomy over group conformity

Hetherington and Weiler step away from discussions of whether there is an "authoritarian personality" or its opposite personality type. Instead, they are trying to present both authoritarianism and nonauthoritarianism as different worldviews with political consequences.

Authoritarianism and Parties

This week I will be blogging on a very interesting new study, Marc Hetherington and Jonathan Weiler's Authoritarianism and Polarization in American Politics.

Authoritarians tend to vote Republican these days. But this was not always so. Hetherington and Weiler show that the big partisan gap that we see now, as compared with, say, 40 years ago, is because the Republican strategists have been successful in getting authoritarians to become solid Republicans. They argue that the American electorate is not more authoritarian than it used to be. It is just better sorted into parties now that it was before.

The beginning of this big sort came in the wake of the civil rights legislation, which was led by Democrats but passed by bipartisan majorities. Republicans' suffered a crushing defeat in the Goldwater - Johnson election in 1964. At the same time the Democrats succeeded in shifting black voters to the Democratic Party. Republican leaders then adopted the "Southern strategy" to "go hunting where the ducks are" - that is, to get Southern whites who thought civil rights and integration would upend the social order, to switch to the Republican Party. This strategy worked so well that the GOP successfully recruited other groups who feared that the social order was in danger from the movement for equal rights for women, and today's movement for equal rights for homosexuals.

There are, of course, authoritarians and nonauthoritarians in both parties. But there has been a clear movement of most authoritarians into the Republican Party, which has been a key part of GOP success since 1980.

Authoritarianism: The Spectrum

This week I will be blogging on a very interesting new study, Marc Hetherington and Jonathan Weiler's Authoritarianism and Polarization in American Politics.

Hetherington and Weiler say that the underlying factor organizing American politics for the past generation has been a spectrum running from authoritarian to the somewhat colorless "nonauthoritarian." Authoritarians want order. They see the world in black-and-white terms, and want a muscular response to any threats to the social order.

Everyone sees the social order threatened some times. Pearl Harbor and 9/11 triggered a nearly universal sense in the United States that we were under attack and in real danger. People at the authoritarian pole see our social order as being under dangerous attack all the time. People at the nonauthoritarian pole, by contrast, see the world in more nuanced terms, and try to solve problems with negotiation instead of force whenever possible. They are more accepting of difference because they don't see it as threatening.

Partisan politics forces people toward the poles by forcing choices between one candidate, or party, and another. Political elites are more polarized that regular people are. The strategy of political elites is to push and pull the mass in the middle toward one pole or the other.

Social scientists have put much effort into studying authoritarians. An interesting innovation in Hetherington and Weiler's approach is that they focus on the nonauthoritarians. The authoritarians, they argue, are fearful all the time, no matter what happens in reality. What makes for change in politics comes when the middle mass of the spectrum is made more fearful, or more hopeful.

This analysis strikes me as very useful to centrist analysis. I will unfold their argument hereafter.

Beyond Rebuilding: Conclusion

For the last five Sundays I have been responding to the individual essays in Beyond Rebuilding: Shaping a Life Together. Today I want to say a brief overall assessment of this debate.

The core issue is whether the church should seek to build up the authority of its national leaders to lead the whole denomination, or whether it should break down any power accumulating in its national leaders to tell anyone what to do.

I say you can't have authority without power. When Jesus was praised as one who taught with authority, that was not just a personal compliment. His authority was the reason that he should be listened to and followed. When Jesus gave the keys to Peter, he was confirming that Peter had the authority to use the power that is necessary to run the church. The church serves the powerless, but it does not serve them by being powerless.

Every organization needs power to run. The more that power comes from the authority of its leaders, the better. Authority comes from other people recognizing and following. No recognition of authority, no following of leaders, no church.

The best organizations coordinate the authority of individual leaders into a group that works together, following a coherent vision, for the good of the whole organization. They seek to reproduce that coherent group of leaders for the good of the organization in the future. That is an Establishment.

I think it is clear that the church should seek an Establishment. Whether it will find one even then is still unknown. But I think it is clear that if we do not even seek an Establishment, if instead we undermine any possible Establishment, then we will have a weak church that continues to decline.

Coffeehouses and the Public Sphere

The third (and penultimate) of my Centre Seminar vlog posts on coffeehouses is up.

Preventing Divorce in the Two Kansas Cities: A Great Natural Experiment

Kansas City, MO has the high divorce rate we find in most of the country. Kansas City, KS, has cut its divorce rate by 70% in a decade.

Led by Rev. Jeff Meyers, a white pastor from suburban Christ Lutheran Church, and Rev. Leroy Sullivan, a black pastor of the inner-city Bread of Life Church, Kansas City, KS adopted a Community Marriage Policy in 1996. The ministers in town agreed not to perform any marriages until the couple had worked through a pre-marital inventory and worked with mentor couples.

I have long supported Community Marriage Policies. This is the best side-by-side comparison I know of showing how well it can work.

Average Income and Happiness

Yesterday I noted Daniel Kahneman's contention that Americans report their happiness rises with their income up to a point, but after that point, there is no correlation with happiness. The point he named was $60,000 in household income per year. I noted that this is about the midpoint of the income distribution in the U.S.A. now.

An anonymous respondent pointed out that more money has meant more contentment for her family, and where you live makes a big difference in whether $60,000 buys basic contentment or not. She offered that in her California neighborhood, $60,000 would not go very far. She reports that now that they make $200,000 they are more content than they were when they made half that.

This criticism is just. To apply Kahneman's insight about the nation as a whole to any particular place we would need to adjust the number to local conditions. The median household income in California as a whole is about $60,000. However, of the 100 communities with the highest median household income in the United States, 19 are in California (far higher than California's proportion of the national population). The top of the list: Atherton, CA, with a median household income just over $200,000.

To turn Kahneman's finding into a general proposition, I propose this hypothesis: happiness correlates with income up to the median household income of your community.

Happiness Flatlines Halfway Up the Income Ladder

Boing Boing reports this gem from the TED conference [TED used to mean Technology, Entertainment, Design; now it means Ideas Worth Spreading in many fields]:

Psychologist and Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman says millions of dollars won't buy you happiness, but a job that pays $60,000 a year might help. Happiness levels increase up to the $60K mark, but "above that it's a flat line," he said.

$60,000 is about the midpoint of the income scale for American families - 50% makes less than that, 50% make more. This is a reachable income standard for nearly all two-income couples, and for the great majority of college graduates by themselves (and much more with a second income in the family).

Once your basic survival needs are met, even in an expensive country, happiness mostly depends on who you spend time with and how well you interact.

Geek Barbie

Barbie is now a computer engineer. She has a binary code tee shirt. And heels.

I think this is progress.

A Fifth of Singles Have Tried Internet Dating

A new study from Duke sociologists Rebecca Tippett, S. Philip Morgan, and Jessica Sauter have found that 18% of single people with access to the internet have tried online dating. The people who use online dating are most likely to be educated white people in cities or their suburbs.

In my survey of Centre College alumni I find that 5.8% of the married alumni met their spouses online. I did not ask how many of the still-single had also tried online data, but I expect the Centre results match those in the Duke study.

Beyond Rebuilding 5

John L. Williams contributed the last essay in Beyond Rebuilding, a volume of essays in response to my Rebuilding the Presbyterian Establishment. He entitles his response "Thought Provoking, But Insufficient." He agrees with much of what I say, but differs on a couple of points. I feel the same way about Rev. Williams' analysis.

Rev. Williams notes that my critique and proposal is mostly about rebuilding the polity of the church, and does not deal sufficiently with the church's culture and theology. This is largely true. The one crucial area of culture that I deal with is our culture of undermining authority within the church. That is specifically what I am trying to change. Williams rightly notes that the whole world has changed when it comes to authority since the 1960s. This is true. But it is also true that the organizations that have grown and prospered since then have rebuilt their authoritative leadership on a more inclusive basis. The organizations that only dismantled the old structures of authority, without building a new culture of authority, are floundering.

On theology, I think my experience of how the church works is different from Rev. Williams'. I contend that the church's official confession is meant to be the authoritative working summary of the church's theology. As I look at how the church actually employs its many confessions these days, I don't see that. The confessions are quoted when convenient, and ignored otherwise. All the struggles in the church that have consequences are over the rules of order, not the confessions. I do not believe this attitude toward the confessions are simply "a few well-publicized cases" of defiance, but a widespread view that the confessions are for individual guidance, but have no institutional authority.

Rev. Williams, a former synod executive, rightly says that I "would have considered me [Williams] part of the PC (USA)'s Establishment." Not just would have, but do now. Rev. Williams is still part of the Presbyterian Establishment, and has both the experience and, I think, the duty, to lead. Thus, when he writes

What then will propel us forward? I believe it will require a yet-to-be-defined combination of theological restatement for our time, deep contextual analysis, clarity of purpose, shared vision, courageous leadership, and attention to congregational worship, nurture, and spiritual formation, remembering always that Jesus Christ is Lord of all and head of the church.

I say yes, DO IT. Leaders lead. Members of the Establishment earn their authority by making that restatement, doing that analysis, courageously leading - not by pushing it off on others.