FIC Blog

Alas, it has come to this. Courant columnist Susan Campbell is now watching us more closely than we are watching her.

We didn’t respond to a Mar. 7th Campbell column dissing FIC until a month later–and Campbell responded to our response the very next day. And then we didn’t see her response until a week later–the Enfield fight consuming our attention at the time–and we couldn’t respond until now and…oh, where will it end? And Campbell thinks she needs a day off?

So what of her post? Mostly, it’s typical Susan–responding to our claim of being so predictable that we could write her columns for her by…writing something we could have written for her. (Why don’t you silly boys expand your reading list with my enlightened authors? “Bless your heart,” etc.) 

But then, suddenly, there is this:

I am of the opinion that our answers won’t come from either myself or Family Institute of Connecticut, balanced as we are on opposite ends of the seesaw. The answers just may come from thoughtful people like McKinniss who exist somewhere more toward the middle. Don’t tell him I said anything nice about him, though. That would upset our friendship.

Objectivity and humility. From Susan Campbell. Wow.

I asked Rick McKinniss about Susan’s comment. Here’s his response:

I have a lot of respect for Susan’s passion for justice and for those in our society who don’t have a power base. I feel like we grew up in the same place and at a significant fork in the road we took different turns. It provokes a yearning in my heart for our paths to come together somewhere down the road.

I did not grow up in the same place–spiritually or geographically–that Rick and Susan did (though I did grow up in the town where she now resides and went to the same schools her son did). But I have no doubt that the thoughtful, middle-of-the-road Pastor Rick is on to something. Indeed, I thought so four years ago:

Despite all her vitriol, Campbell comes across as–in Flannery O’Connor’s wonderful phrase–”Christ haunted,” and there is reason to hope that her theological journey will bring her to a destination that she did not expect.