In a previous post, we talked about the concept of Individual Secession. From 2005 through 2008 I had a web site named The Christian Enclave. The idea behind it was essentially the same as Individual Secession – separating yourself from the corrosive effects of the world today. An applicable quote from scripture is found in II Corinthians 6:17 – Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you.
Following is from the home page of The Christian Enclave:
Lester Roloff, in his radio broadcasts, would use a variation of The Lord’s Prayer by saying “…Thy will be done on this piece of Earth, as it is in Heaven.” While we cannot change the world, we can change that small part of the world where we live and work and worship and witness.
Think in terms of living in an enclave of Bible-Believing Christians surrounded by the rotting corpse of the world. The scriptural inspiration for the name, and the concept behind it, is found in Judges 14:8. “…and he turned aside to see the carcase of the lion: and, behold, there was a swarm of bees and honey in the carcase of the lion.” This picture of the church as existing within the rotting corpse of a lion is, in effect, a Christian Enclave.
The same principles found in what I described as “Enclaving” also apply to those of us trying to preserve and strengthen our Southern culture. We work to influence that over which we have influence and separate ourselves from that over which we have none. Our families, our homes, our land, our churches, our friends – these are areas where we have the ability and the duty to mold and shape life to conform to what we know is good and right.
There are those who might advocate physically relocating, either to another country or concentrating in a specified part of America. This was the goal of the Free State Project. Their goal is to convince conservatives and libertarians to New Hampshire in order to concentrate political power to meet their goals. New Hampshire is hardly a viable solution for Southerners. Abandoning our homeland is nothing short of total surrender and could never be viewed as a solution.
Another approach is that of the League of The South. The LoS idea is basically to rebuild a new confederacy as a separate nation. There is more to it than that, of course, and I don’t mean to intentionally over-simplify it. While I believe that the LoS is lead by sincere men who truly believe that it is a viable plan, my own experience tells me otherwise. We won’t get into the details in this post, but my argument against this is that politics does not happen in a vacuum. Just as we will see the Tea Party movement being infiltrated and corrupted and shifted from its noble goals, just as we saw the “Moral Majority” diluted and coerced into meaninglessness, so too would a new Southern nation be overtaken by other powerful and unscrupulous forces. If it succeeded, it would bear little resemblance to what its founders (the LoS) had intended.
So what is the answer? It varies by individual, of course, but what we are advocating here at the Confederate Colonel project is some degree of separation from the rest of the world. The world has its “culture” and we have “Southern Culture”. The world celebrates the Hedonistic lifestyle and we advocate following the example and teaching of Jesus Christ. The world twists the definitions of “Marriage” and “Family” to the point of meaninglessness, and we adhere to the way that The Bible and Western civilization define those words. The world sees the symbols of the Confederacy as standing for evil, while we know that they stand for all that is right and good and just. The world sees our Confederate ancestors as “rebels” who fought against their country while we understand that they fought for their country – the Confederate States – and for what America might have been had the vision of the Founding Fathers not been corrupted by the Northern lust for power.
We live in the world, but we are not of the world.
An interesting concept, although I’m partial to individual enclaving, which is something I think many of us already do.
In relating this back to Southern heritage, it’s almost axiomatic that the winners always write the histories, and the inroduction to “I’ll Take My Stand” points out that even in 1930, young Southerners were learning the victor’s side of history. It’s no different today, and at this point, we need to ensure that we pass down heritage as well as faith. As mobile as our culture is today, it is essential that our young are taught these things, which they will not learn in a government school, or in their community, if the family are expatriate Southerners in another region of the country.
Here’s an interesting article from The Chronicle of Higher Education on scholars of seccession:
http://chronicle.com/article/Secretive-Scholars-of-the-Old/49337/
Thank you for pointing out The Abbeville Institute and all it involves. I have added a link to it and plan to write about it in the future. You also mentioned “I’ll Take My Stand”. I learned a while back that one of the “Twelve Southerners” – Stark Young was an ancestor of mine (a cousin).
Your correct Col. We are to be salt and light and the world we see today is much like the world Paul found in Cornith. May our God give us the knowledge and strength to continue the good fight for the Faith once delivered to the Saints.