As Mr Unseth noted in his previous post, The Brown Spectator didn’t publish as many issues as was hoped in the previous year. Four was the eventual tally, with Josh leading the effort to get the final issue out for Commencement. This year, however, is already shaping up to be different. So stay tuned and don’t think that the rightists have been put out to pasture.
BrownIvy, as well, will become a much more active institution. Conservatives frequently receive the label of being Luddites of any given variety, and in a very real sense many true conservatives possess a disposition to trust past experiences over theoretical ideologies. There are certain self-identifying conservatives who think cheap gas, unfettered trade in every single situation, and a militant foreign policy of expansion, are the true marks of the right; but for most of us who prefer the classical to the modern, culture and social harmony in fact matter. Typically, that culture which especially matters to us is historical Christendom and the liberalism of Western civilisation as handed down over the centuries.
Yet ingeniously built into the conservative ethos is an ability to adapt, to reform, and to incorporate innovation. Hence, even the most traditional of conservatives adore a free market which can release man’s potential in astonishingly delightful ways. It is the contention of this conservative that the online web journal may be one such innovation that, if approached with the right attitude and moral outlook, can do a tremendous amount of good for a people and nation gravely malnourished in culture.
To that end, I’d like to use this venue to make a proposal to anyone in the Brown community — particularly the conservative Protestants — concerning the ultimate source of all culture; I mean religion. For the past two years, I’ve been a reasonably frequent parishioner at S. Stephen’s Episcopal Church on George St (sstephens.org), right across from the Ratty and Wriston Quadrangle. Baptised and confirmed a Presbyterian (PCUSA), it was a little strange at first to attend this very High Anglo-Catholic church, but I quickly learnt to love its atmosphere of reverence and humility before God. What I once condemned as rank Romanism, I now understand as simply respect for historical Christendom. If ever I am arrogant, it is usually the case that my defiant Presbyterian upbringing is shining through. We Presbyterians have always had issues with authority, no doubt reinforced by the doctrine of predestination and divine election.
Soon enough, I shall probably become an Anglican, but I am very much still in the discerning phase. To that end, and to the end of taking an affirmative step to maintain Anglo-Protestant culture, I am making a firm commitment this year to attend the Solemn High Mass on every Sunday (10am) that I am at Brown. I sincerely do hope that others will join me, if for no other reason than to keep me honest or to chastise my actions when they stray from the behaviours expected of a Christian man. (Perhaps to share fellowship, too?)
Further, I am making a firm commitment to attend the Low Mass every day at 5.30pm (again, when I am at Brown). The goal in doing so is to re-institute, in my own life at least, the chapel requirements of a more mannered age. (It may surprise most Brown undergraduates of 2009, but even 50 years ago chapel attendance was required to obtain the A.B.) Won’t you please accompany me?
Times have changed, as the weak and petulant trope goes. But the Permanent Things, defended so skilfully in the 20th century by the likes of T.S. Eliot and Russell Kirk, never truly leave. And it is our bounden duty, as heirs to the great Western tradition, not to neglect or diminish them. The Old Order need not die if we be determined.
Ideally, we shall eat dinner and then imbibe a pint or two after the daily chapel, before heading off to our dormitories or the libraries. Those Anglo-Saxons always did a few things correctly.
Project commences September 9th.
sbq
<!–[if supportFields]><! Session data–>
