Dear Editor:
I enjoyed your recent article on discovering the history of the phrase “conservative resurgence.” I appreciated reading about the frustrating walk you and your colleagues had in describing the events at the time. Pastors and journalists share the challenge of correctly naming issues without offending those with power and purse.
With the benefit of hindsight and the freedom of not having lived through, or now being tied down by, those concerns, I share this.
I’ve often been frustrated that we users of American English use words in ways that distort their meaning. It is no wonder we are in an era of “truthiness” (or perhaps post-truthiness, given we are now 20 years past that episode of The Colbert Report).
We ascribe the term “conservative” to people who have little wish to conserve anything, but are in reality, regressive. Here the word “resurgence” was used, but that would imply that these “conservatives” had previously “surged.” Even the term “fundamentalist” is questionable, as it implies they have sound “fundamentals,” a solid foundation with which to build upon.
What the SBC of the era suffered from was, perhaps more correctly stated, a “Regressive Insurgence.” Given that the breaking points were primarily, literalism/anti-intellectualism, women in ministry, and power, “Ignorant, Misogynistic Zealot Insurgency” also would have been accurate.
Chris Crowley, Richmond, Va.