Welcome to Douglas Wilson's Blog and May Blog, presented by Canon Press.

The Mandatorians, December 6, 2021.

Introduction.

I have a faithful reader who has urged me to say something about some of the doings over

a relevant magazine.

This is no longer November, but I believe he was wishing that the spirit of November might

still be lingering a bit.

Maybe it is just a bit, still there, but wafting away.

Perhaps it is not yet entirely dissipated.

One of relevant defensive articles is here, and so I have thoughts.

So let us begin with an observation about the name of the magazine, relevant.

For as long as I can remember, those Christians who were most urgent about maintaining the relevance

of the faith were the ones most likely to introduce irrelevant cringe into their apologetic,

kind of like a 35-year-old camp counselor, quite a nice lady, at a united Methodist youth

camp.

Quoting hip-hop artists to the kids of today, on their way to a session in the main cabin,

when they were all going to be weaving plastic wrist bracelets out of brightly colored

plastic twine, that kind of relevant.

I remember decades ago looking at a Christian book and an actual Christian bookstore, and

the author was encouraging and equipping parents by giving them hot tips on how to relate

to the actual teens growing up in their homes, and one of his suggestions was to refer casually

to Simon and G.

...