WASHINGTON, Okla. — Here is the only light amid the Sunday-night darkness of the plains, its yellow glow visible for a mile around. People travel here down two-lane roads, past flags that snap in the wind and a sign that reads “Only God Can Save America.” They park in front of the steeple at the corner of Center and Main. Pastor Fred Greening greets them at the door.
Theirs is a church of 400 in a town of 600, where four generations stand together to bow their heads in prayer. Cowboys wear boots and roughnecks wear flannel. A 9-year-old sets down his toy truck and clasps his hands. Together they recite pledges of allegiance to the United States, to the Bible and to the Christian flag.
“May God guide us and watch over us,” an assistant pastor says. “May He work to preserve our community and the values we hold dear.”
Oklahoma will hold its Republican primary on Super Tuesday, bringing the cultural debate over the heart of conservatism to the conservative heartland. The presidential campaign has turned into an argument about values and faith — a battle long underway on the prairie of central Oklahoma. Here, they fight to protect their town from what Pastor Greening calls the “slow and steady decay of moral America”: the erosion of traditional marriage; the methamphetamine addicts content to rely on public assistance; the political correctness creeping ever south from the college in nearby Norman, which they fear will force God out of their government offices and schools.
Now more than ever, they want a politician in that Washington who will safeguard the culture of this one.
Read the rest
here.
People sometimes challenge my libertarian leanings by asking if they are consistent with Orthodox Christianity. My answer is in the form of another question. How many Orthodox Christians or traditionally minded Roman Catholics would be comfortable living in Washington Oklahoma? I wouldn't. It sounds like they are their own little country and the state religion is the Southern Baptist Convention. I enormously respect many aspects of their lives. But it is very clear that anyone who doesn't conform to their their low church Protestant Evangelical worldview would likely not be very welcome.
We need to remember that we (Orthodox Christians) constitute a fraction of 1% of the population of this country. If we are going to start setting up a quasi-theocracy, I promise you it will not end with onion domes and three barred crosses over the state houses. On the surface places like Washington OK sound like what Norman Rockwell might look like had he been reincarnated as a town. But under the surface is the town depicted in "
Inherit the Wind."
