In Memoriam: Fidus Achates[1]
Be near me when I fade away,
To point the term of human strife
And on the low dark verge of life
The twilight of eternal day.[2]
I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth
I realize in proffering this memorial more than a month after his passing, I can be accused in Popean fashion: “His praise is lost who stays till all commend,” but one takes the time and opportunity when it presents itself.[3] I hope, nevertheless, that this praise is not lost, and I certainly hope there will be others after me. I met Glenn McCall in 2011. I had been at Winthrop since 1999, working as dean of the library, in what became something of a maelstrom. Frankly, when I retired in 2020, it had become nothing short of a tsunami, but more on that later. Glenn came to the board as the education superintendent designee. Not long thereafter, he was appointed to an at-large seat in 2014 and then was re-elected for a six-year term that would have ended in 2027, had not the Lord called him home.
And in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.
You have to understand that as a lowly dean—the dean of the library at that– there was not an obvious reason for Glenn to befriend me beyond casual conversation at board meetings, typically held four times a year. Glenn was a former senior vice president of Bank of America and ten years in active-duty Air Force and 14 years in the Texas National Guard, so I was nowhere near the stature of the man who towered over me literally and figuratively. But that is just who Glenn was. He was a man in whom there was no guile, and he was ever ready to make you feel, not just at home, but just as important as anyone else in the room.
He descended into Hell; The third day he rose from the dead; he ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence he shall come to judge the living and the dead.
It did help, I suppose that in addition to being the dean of the library who was required or rather expected to attend these meetings with the other deans, I was also the faculty advisor to the College Republicans. Now, being a Republican on a university campus is one thing, but being an outspoken conservative one who embraced the role of faculty advisor during the conservative shift of the GOP is quite another. There were silent Republicans on campus then, and I assume that there are some now. University politics are a lot like Henry Ford’s declaration about car colors: You could have any color so long as it was black. On university campuses throughout the country, including here in River City, you can embrace any politics you wish, so long as they are progressively liberal. The other alternative is never to let anyone know that you really are a Republican and certainly not that you are a conservative one. When I retired, I tried to find another faculty advisor for the CRs and asked half a dozen. They were too afraid of being blackballed and they declined. Glenn knew this, and was always willing to step in when it became necessary. In one case in particular, the College Republicans were told that they could not hold any event that did not include the opposing viewpoint, whatever that viewpoint was. So, for example, if a pro-life speaker was hosted, there had to be a pro-choice one, too. This made no sense to me, and I noted that the College Democrats did not have this same requirement, nor did the Socialist group, but I repeat myself. As it turned out, after some intervention, this rule proved bogus, and College Republicans were allowed to hold meetings that fully aligned with their views.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church,
To say Glen was affable was to speak the obvious. Glenn made everyone feel at home, feel welcomed. His work was never brazen or obstreperous, but behind the scenes and quiet. One year the College Republicans wanted to make a memorial to aborted children on Pro-life Sunday in January. We applied for the free speech sward, a large plot of ground on-campus, and were granted access. We put out some 3,000+ blue and pink flags to honor them. A new president had just arrived, and our act sent this new president into a fury. Harridan-like, heads—mainly mine— had to roll. Whether it was Glenn or those acting under his advisement, she was told that we had applied properly and were granted access. Of course, not everyone liked the 3,000+ flags blowing about on that frigid January day. It astonished me how many students objected even though their mothers had not opted to exclude them. Fortunately for me, that president, like a bright exhalation in the sky, burned furiously for a year and was gone.
The Communion of Saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.
Glenn was nothing if not a deeply devout man who loved God and followed his faith unswervingly. I recall his evangelical prayers before each board meeting, not prayers to the might OM, but real flesh and blood prayers that preached as much as they prayed. I recall the claptrap among the creedless that repeated the cant about the separation of church and state, and the coughing and wiggling of those who felt the hand of God—or the hound of hell—after them. Glenn did not pray to injure or impose, but out of the fullness of his heart, his joy in the Lord.
As much as all of this, Glenn was a true, trusty friend, a Fidus Achates. Achates was Aeneas’s grand friend who did not leave him no matter what the circumstances. Such a friend does not desert you, stands by you, and does not question your pain or anguish. He offered practical help, a behind-the-scenes warrior, proving his constancy in the face of fiery trials. I saw this firsthand when, six months before my retirement in 2020, the then provost cancelled me for an op-ed piece I wrote about the Wuhan Virus, now Covid. At the time when I wrote the piece, nearly every media outlet had referred to it as the Wuhan virus, but my piece sparked a firestorm . I was maligned by the provost as xenophobic, dragged before the faculty and staff in an excoriating email, and shunned, more or less but mostly more, the last few months of my twenty-two years. But several good friends, including a congressman and a state senator, came to my defense. Glenn allowed us our day in court, and when I demanded an apology, it came—with some teeth-pulling–but it came from the provost who now resides in California (naturally). Glenn allowed us to come before the board, and justice prevailed. Time and years have proved that piece more prophetic than I could imagine.
In any event, that is really who Glenn McCall was. Not a high-powered executive, but he was; not a powerhouse republican, but he was; not trustee who made a difference, but he did. Rather he was , and always will remain to me, a trusted friend, a fidus Archates.
Since Glenn was a serviceman, it seems to me there may not be a better way than to close this memoriam than with these words from Stephen Spender, who wrote a poem in 1933 about those who were sacrificing themselves in service. The poem, Truly Great, contained the following lines:
[He] wore [his] heart at the fire’s center
Born of the sun, [he] traveled awhile towards the sun.
And left the vivid air signed with [his] honor.[4]
Amen.
[1] From Virgil’s magisterial and legendary poem, Aeneid, More on this later.
[2] Alfred Lord Tennyson. In Memoriam A.H.H. The long poem is a tribute to Tennyson’s close friend, Arthur Henry Hallam, who was engaged to Tennyson’s sister. He was two years younger than Tennyson and died from a stroke.
[3] From yet another grandiose poem, Pope’s (Alexander) Essay on Criticism, 1711. The meaning is obvious, I trust.
[4] The poem begins, “I think continually of those who were truly great.” That seems especially apposite here.
A Nation with the Soul of a Church
by Mark Herring
Under the four lugubrious years of the Biden administration—it felt like forty—we were no longer a nation with the soul of a church but a nation without a soul. The phrase comes from the great British essayist, G. K. Chesterton, in his What I Saw in America.
Another visitor, Alexis de Tocqueville, said something very similar. After his visit to America, Tocqueville wrote, “Upon my arrival in the United States the religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my attention…In France I had almost always seen the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom marching in opposite directions. But in America I found they were intimately united.”
He continued, “The Americans combine the notions of Christianity and of liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive the one without the other…They brought with them into the New World a form of Christianity which I cannot better describe than by styling it a democratic and republican religion.”
It is ironic to read that France was already on a downward slide, but that should not surprise. The French Revolution—that bloody one—was hardly irenic toward Christianity or any other religion. Today, France is reeling from the influx of too many Muslims wanting Sharia Law. That should become for us in these United States a morality play for what is going to happen here, or is already happening. The Tea Cozy tribe in Congress is too many, and we should not be blind about what they want for this country. Imagine some Conservative being elected in a Muslim country and trying to establish a Christian worldview. Sadly, those who may wish to try will not be long for this world. Our indiscriminate tolerance may be our undoing yet. Tolerance does not mean one must accept views and principles antipodal to what has made this country great for the last two hundred-plus years.
In York County, not far from where I live, there is an African American Muslim compound, Islamville, established in 1983 by Sheikh Mubarak Ali Gilani, as part of the Muslim in America (MOA) organization. While the compound has been a peaceful one so far, the MOA does have ties to the less-than-peaceful Jamaat ul-Fuqra. The group has a right to establish itself under American law, so long as it abides by American law. Given the current Middle East tensions, we will do well to remain circumspect.
Before Chesterton and Tocqueville, however, there was Adams and his familiar, “Our Constitution was made for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” How many of our representatives have forgotten this, or even fail to know it? James Madison, often called the Father of our Constitution, argued that if “men were angels, we would not need government.” I am certainly not arguing for a theistic government. Nor do I think that we must elect only preachers, priests, religious colporteurs, or cathbracks, not that any of these should be prohibited from running for office. We should, however, elect men and women who understand that this country is based on Judeo-Christian values, and those who do not share these values need not apply. This philosophical bent would have eliminated the antisemitism rampant in our country today. Religion is the esemplastic that vouchsafes our freedoms.
Again, Tocqueville: “Religion is no less the companion of liberty in all its battles and triumphs; the cradle of its infancy and the divine source of its claims. The safeguard of morality is religion, and morality is the best security of law, and the surest pledge of freedom.” What we are missing from the political calculus today is what we had when I was growing up in the fifties: men and women who believed in Christian morality implicitly, or acted as if it was overriding, unassailable, guiding principle.
From Adams, to Jefferson (himself a deist), to Lincoln, to John F. Kennedy, and to too many others to name, the idea of this nation with the soul of a church has been the guiding principle of our freedoms.
We cannot let those who think otherwise guide this great country to its undoing.
With Friends Like These?
By Mark Herring
“Man is, by nature,” Aristotle wrote, “a political animal.” He meant by this that we are by and large social creatures and want to be involved in communities, and thus, involved in politics. Ah, there’s the rub. Only the most antisocial among us will avoid politics at any cost. But it is that almost inherent and inescapable part of our nature that gets us into potential difficulties even among friends.
Addison, the great English essayist, may have captured this problem, especially, when he wrote about the London theatre and complained that even then opposing sides could not get along. He wrote, “…our politest assemblies are like boisterous Clubs [sic], that meet over a Glass of Wine, and before they have done, throw Bottles at one another’s Heads.”
While I would be last to argue that politics is anything other than a blood sport, as wags have called it. When Roosevelt and Willkie went at it, Wilkie was pelted with everything from rotten eggs, fruits, vegetables, rocks—even lightbulbs, an office chair and a wastebasket, the latter two thrown from an office window. But must we be this contentious inside our own party?
Addison went on to comment, sagely I think, when he wrote, “Instead of multiplying those desirable Opportunities where we might agree in Points that are indifferent, we let the Spirit of Contention into those very Methods that are not only foreign to it, but should in their Nature dispose us to be friends.”
Among Republicans across the Palmetto state, we are in agreement at least 85% of the time. Yes, that 15% can be maddeningly evident, but shouldn’t our vituperation and billingsgate be reserved for those with whom we rarely, if ever, agree? At times, we Republicans are so contentious with one another that it feels like we are giving aid and comfort to the enemy. With friends like these….
I am not arguing that we should not disagree among ourselves. That is inevitable . On the contrary, for example, Republicans who voted to keep our primaries open, or who voted, at least initially, not to save women’s sports, need to taken to the proverbial woodshed, to name two maddening examples. But this can be done privately. And we can, of course, seek candidates to replace them. But shouting them down, declaring them RINOS, excoriating them publicly, all of which is great fun, of course, is neither helpful nor effective.
As a Reagan Republican (but I’ve been voting Republican since 1972), I ascribe to Reagan’s Eleventh commandment. As you’ll recall, Reagan coined the familiar phrase in his 1966 campaign for governor of California: “Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican.” We have forgotten this admonishment—and I admit, I have not always followed it—but I think we need to get back to it. The truth about an issue is far more damaging (and effective) than disparaging a fellow Republican. We have been quick to hail someone as a RINO, or worse, when we should bedevil them with the truth of the matter. If everyone with whom we disagree is a RINO, no one is.
I want our party to be a cohesive unit. If anything can be learned from Democrats—and not much can—their willingness to vote unanimously on issues is one reason our goals fail. We circle the wagons only to shoot at each other. We antagonize one another to the extent that quite possibly some votes against Republican common sense may well be made in spite of the unnecessary disparagement against office-holding Republicans. If we disagree, can we vex those GOPers with the truth, instead of disparaging them with name-calling and mudslinging?
Of all the places to find Conservative sentiment brilliantly defended, I am in mind of recalling the words of Gustave Mahler. That’s right, the composer of some of the most beautiful classical music ever written. Mahler wrote, “Tradition [i.e. conservatism] is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire.” Isn’t that what we Republicans are all about? Rather than burning bridges on which fellow Republicans may be standing, let’s preserve that fire for the salvation of our culture and the harrowing of our liberal opponents.
