Home >  Lifestyle >  Columnists

Saturday, November 16, 2002

Before departing for the annual convention of the National Reform Association, the Rev. William Einwechter graciously explained that he is not a madman who favors killing disobedient youngsters by public stoning.

This was necessary.

In the realm of being taken out of context, Einwechter, 48, and the group he heads have been cast to the fringes and assigned the same ZIP code as your average militia or local chapter of Veterans of UFO Abduction.

Einwechter's bad weekend began when Barry Lynn of Americans United for Separation of Church and State announced that U.S. Rep. Joseph Pitts, R-Pa., was slated to address a group whose members favor the execution of homosexuals and abortion providers and stoning disobedient children. Lynn detailed some writings by members or guests of the National Reform Association.

Lynn's news release does not mention that the National Reform Association, founded in Pittsburgh in 1864, once resided on the progressive side of the political spectrum. Their original demand was the abolition of chattel slavery in the United States. One of its vice presidents was William Strong, associate justice of the Supreme Court from 1870 to 1880. The group also still favors a "confessing amendment" to the Constitution which would declare the United States an explicitly Christian nation. A return to slavery is as likely.

For his part, Lynn compared the Reform Association to the mullahs of Iran and mentioned Einwechter's essay, "Stoning Disobedient Children."

I hunted up Einwechter's essay, published not in the Reform Association's magazine "The Christian Statesman," but in another organization's periodical. It discourses on a chapter of Deuteronomy and includes such provocative lines as: "Therefore, the law of Deuteronomy 21:18-21 is not about stoning disobedient children. "The italics are Einwechter's.

The National Reform Association is, to be certain, an exotic bunch set next to the average Methodist minister or vegetarian aerobics instructor, but 100 years after it enjoyed a membership of 50,000, it now exists largely as a right-wing debating society. Many, though not all, of its members are Christian Reconstructionists, who favor the imposition of Old Testament law. Hence, one of its guests, Gary De Mar, wrote of executing abortionists as a "long-term" goal. Others, such as Einwechter, suggest that Biblical principles preclude women from holding elective office.

The consequence of these positions is that De Mar is viewed with skepticism by many of his own listeners and Einwechter's wife does not run for school board.

"The thought of imposing anything by force is anathema to us," Einwechter said.

The thought of imposing by rhetorical force did not restrain Lynn. Pitts canceled.

In words destined for Bartlett's, the congressman's spokesman, Gabe Neville, told reporters, "Congressman Pitts doesn't believe in stoning anybody."

Nor for that matter, does President Bush. But the leader of the free world did invite to his Texas ranch the head of state of Saudi Arabia, a nation that believes in executing abortionists, homosexuals and, in a fit of progress, does not stone disobedient children, reserving this treat for adulterers.

Neville all but conceded that his boss had been spooked out of the appearance.

"Congressman Pitts will meet with just about any constituent group that wants to meet with him," Neville said. "He talks in churches and synagogues. It doesn't make him Jewish. He talks to Republicans and Democrats. That doesn't make him a Democrat."

This interplay with the "other side" as it were, can be useful. For one thing, a guest can look at a suspicious text or transcript, look someone straight in the eye and ask, "What do you mean by that?" It is a question Barry Lynn could have asked and done less damage to the fabric of public discourse than his news release has managed.

When we make the discussion of impolitic ideas too scary for politicians to go near the subject, everybody loses except those who want the world to freeze in place.