“Issues, Etc.” Is Crunchy

Now Rod Dreher, author of Crunchy Cons: The New Conseervative Counterculture and Its Return to Roots, takes up the cause of Issues, Etc.

It’s rather surprising to many of us how this seemingly internecine controversy within the LCMS has attracted such attention from outside our circles. But the “Issues” that come up with this case do indeed have wide currency. And that “Issues” is not only conservative, but “crunchily conservative” in Dreher’s sense is surely significant, and not just for Lutherans.

It isn’t just us old people who are defending “Issues,” but, judging from The Wittenberg Trail social networking site, it is young people who are some its biggest fans and who are lighting up the internet. Those who are savvy on the internet, unlike the officials who cancelled the show seemingly oblivious to internet downloads. Those who consider the interview show, which is at the same time both culturally plugged in and theologically in-your-face, to be not just edifying but also cool.

And you don’t have to make your own granola to see Dreher’s point, that a conservatism exists that is young and counter-cultural, with a great concern–given the current cultural inanities–of returning to “roots.” That would include the roots of the church, which is what “Issues” championed.

UPDATE: Michael Horton on White Horse Inn also weighs in. He interviews the author of that piece in the Wall Street Journal, M. Z. Hemingway. Go to Bring Back Issues to hear what she has to say.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Todd Wilken speaks.