When Them is Us (Sojouners magazine)

My life among conservative Christians.
by Danny Duncan Collum


By now we all know that American politics and American Christianity are divided into warring camps. The labels may shift. Sometimes it’s progressive vs. orthodox, or Christian vs. secular; sometimes it’s red vs. blue, but always the discussion comes down to Us vs. Them.

I’ve thought about this a lot lately, because I’m one of Us who spends many of his non-working hours embedded with the forces of Them. I am against the war and free trade. I’m all for government environmental and labor regulations, and more of them. I don’t think gender roles are mandated by God for all time, and I am not bothered by the fact that life on earth has evolved over millions of years. But for the past seven years, I’ve found myself actively involved in voluntary associations often dominated by people who don’t share any of these views. And I’ve found that I have more in common with some of Them than I do with many of Us.

My life among conservative Christians began when my wife and I decided to homeschool our children. Anyone who homeschools must have a support group, and the children must have peers. And, especially in the South, most homeschoolers are evangelical-to-fundamentalist Protestants, although we eventually joined up with a conservative Catholic group. These associations led us to a Boy Scout troop in which about half the members are current or former homeschoolers and to a Suzuki violin teacher who leads a children’s fiddle group in which at least 80 percent of the members are from homeschool families. That all adds up to lot of hours in which our poor vehicle, with its bumper stickers reading "Another Pro-Life Democrat" and "Support the Troops: Bring Them Home Now," sits in a lot surrounded by "Bush-Cheney" and that omnipresent "W."

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