Who is My Neighbor? An Anthology in Natural Relations . By Thomas Achord & Darrell Dow. Self-published. 584 pages. $24.99. We live in an age where traditional and Christian morality are being eroded. Basic Christian teaching that permeates much of the history of Western Civilization is under attack. It is important when we see this…
Book Review: “Who is My Neighbor? An Anthology in Natural Relations” — The North American Anglican
I discussed this issue re the 1928 Book of Common Prayer in my recent post And Who Are Our Betters? A Sticking Point From the 1928 Book of Common Prayer. I showed then that the priorities of the 1928 BCP and Our Lord regarding who is our neighbor are not the same (and guess which one takes priority?) And I detect a drift towards the 1928 in this book review, that our first neighbors are those above us and those infamous “betters.”
The thing that American conservatives of all types have missed in the whole business of “betters” is that the events of the 1960’s and beyond were only a rejection of authority in appearance but not reality. The ultimate goal was to replace one set of authorities with another or, as Mao Tse-Tung would say, “one class overthrows another.” Unfortunately our revolution is not from the bottom but from the top; it involves the replacement of one elite with another, and not an improvement either.
Anglicanism, which is authoritarian by nature having a “chain of command” from the King or Queen downward, is at sea when the authorities are not univocal, which is a large part of the mess the Anglican/Episcopal world finds itself in.
One alternative from the Scots-Irish world is a clan family structure, as opposed to the authoritarian WASP model. It’s not an improvement for the advancement of society but, in times of uncertainty, it’s more durable. That was shown in the 1970’s. To move forward will take a different approach both from what we did in those days and what some of us are doing now in attempting to replicate the past.
Positive Infinity 