The Grizzly Details

Mark Uptain | GoFundMe page

The funeral of Mark Thomas Uptain was held last Wednesday at First Baptist Church in Jackson, Wyoming. He was a devoted husband and father of five children. He was an elder of the church, an outdoorsman, and a part-time hunting guide. He was killed by a grizzly bear on September 14, 2018.

Grizzly fatalities in Wyoming are not as common as one might suppose. Since statehood in 1890, there have been a total of twelve. The first was Phillip H. Vetter, killed in his cabin near Greybull in 1892.

Most have been killed within the boundaries of Yellowstone National Park. These include Frank Welch (1916), Martha Hansen (1942), Harry Walker (1972), Brigitta Fredenhagen (1984), William Tesinsky (1986), Brian Matayoshi and John Wallace (killed 7 weeks apart in 2011 by the same bear), Adam T. Stewart (2014), and Lance Crosby (2015).

Only three bear fatalities occurred outside the park boundaries. After Vetter in 1892 we did not have another one until June 17, 2010. Erwin F. Evert, a hiker and field biologist was in the Kitty Creek drainage of Shoshone National Forest. A bear research team was also operating in the area. Evert happened upon a bear that had been trapped, tranquilized and released earlier in the day. It killed him without provocation.

The third grizzly fatality to happen outside the park took place last Friday when Mark Uptain was slain. The hunting guide from Jackson Hole was retrieving an elk with his client, Corey Chubon, when a sow charged him and killed him after a prolonged struggle.

Details remain unclear. It would seem, however, that without either bear spray or his side arm, Uptain fended off the initial attack. He then walked about 50 yards uphill toward his horses when the bear returned with her cub killed him with an instantly fatal bite. In this second struggle he managed to douse the sow with bear spray.

Uptain’s body was found on the following afternoon. An empty can of bear spray was recovered nearby. Based on his injuries, wardens and biologists concluded that both the sow and her cub together attacked the guide. At that point, traps were set for the bears.

Dan Thompson | Photo by Mark Gocke

On Sunday, September 16, searchers returned to find that the cub had been caught in a trap. Suspecting that the sow was nearby, they approached cautiously. Suddenly, the sow appeared and charged the group of five. Dan Thompson, Game and Fish’s large carnivore chief, gave the order to fire. Two of them did, killing her instantly.

The she-bear smelled of bear spray, further confirmation that they had killed the culprit. After sedating the cub, Thompson decided that it should be destroyed as well.

“She was teaching an offspring that killing humans is a potential way to get food,” Thompson explained. “We’ve had 10 other human injuries [from grizzlies] in the past couple years, and we haven’t attempted captures in those situations because of our investigations and the behavior of the bear. This was completely different, dangerous behavior. It’s not something we want out there on the landscape.”

The investigators and wildlife biologists remain puzzled by the behavior of these bears. To be sure, grizzly bears are aggressive and inherently dangerous. However, it is highly unusual for them to attack human beings unprovoked. Almost every grizzly fatality can be traced either to a sow protecting her threatened cub, or either sex fighting for a carcass that it had claimed.

In this case, neither scenario was true. The downed elk that Uptain was dressing had been undisturbed and there was no sign that a bear had been nearby. As for her cub, the two men had been working in the area and making noise for an extended period of time before the bear attacked. There is no way they could have surprised an unsuspecting bear.

Rather, every sign indicates that the sow and her cub stalked the two men. Bears in the wild typically avoid human beings. With too much bear-human interaction they may become indifferent to human presence. But that a bear would hunt down human beings, and teach its cub this behavior, is a frightening development.

Sy Gilliland

Sy Gilliland, owner of SNS Outfitter and Guide, has 41 years of experience as a guide in Wyoming and Montana. He is currently a member of the governor’s Animal Damage Management Board. Commenting on Uptain’s death, he said, “I can only imagine how horrific this was. You’ve got a bear population that’s basically un-hunted, is an apex predator, and has no fear of humans.”

He speaks for many in the Yellowstone area who have been trying for more than a decade to return management of the grizzlies to local control. In 1975 the U.S. Game and Fish listed the Yellowstone grizzlies as a "threatened species." The National Park Service website says that, at the time, there were only 136 grizzlies in the entire Yellowstone ecosystem and that by March of 2018 the number was 690.

These numbers are quite different from a 2014 report of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team. That report estimated the population at 757 bears while admitting that “we are underestimating probably by about 40 percent.” Most believe the population to be closer to 1,200.

At any rate, a grizzly recovery plan was implemented in 1993 with three specific goals that needed to be met before the bears could be delisted. Those goals were met for six consecutive years by 2003. Nevertheless, it took four more years of legal wrangling to delist the bears in 2007.

Immediately, radical environmentalists filed lawsuits and, by 2009, a federal judge had ordered the relisting of grizzlies. After eight more years of study and a steadily growing population, U.S. Fish and Wildlife again delisted the bears in 2017.



Judge Dana Christensen

Wyoming planned a hunt to cull 23 bears from the Designated Management Area outside the Yellowstone. However, two days before it was to begin a federal judge in Missoula, MT (an Obama appointee) blocked the hunt, siding with the plaintiff who argued that the bears are still in danger of extinction. 

In the 43 years since first listing the bears, not only has the population grown far past the original recovery goal, but the range of the Yellowstone bears has extended far beyond the Designated Management Area where they are being counted.

Recently grizzlies with their cubs were sighted in the towns of Cody and Dubois. These bears and many others are not counted in any studies.

Something must be done.

Every year the number of grizzly-human encounters grows. It has become so common for hunters to be injured by bears that they are hardly reported any more. Gilliland said, “We’re at a point where the bears need to be under state management. If we don’t do it with sportsmen and hunters, we have to do it with control action. And that control action means government wildlife personnel killing rogue bears as they did last Sunday morning.”

Every year government wildlife managers kill 15-20 bears that have become dangerous. About the same number are killed by hunters in self-defense or by ranchers protecting their livestock.

Yellowstone National Park has long been famous for the dangerous possibility of grizzly encounters. It is one of the charms of America’s most famous playground. Since their 1975 listing as a protected species, the park has become increasingly dangerous.

But now that the delisting battle has been raging for fifteen years, people are increasingly threatened outside the park. Mark Uptain is only the latest casualty. After more than a century with no grizzly fatalities outside the park, we have had two in the last eight years. There will be more.

The 1993 grizzly recovery plan was designed to balance a healthy grizzly population with common-sense safety for Wyoming’s citizens. It’s time that we value human life enough to follow it.

WTE: Religious Persecution in China concerns us all

Antiochus IV (Epiphanes) is infamous for his persecution of the Jews about 170 years before Christ. He ran a gruesome campaign to stamp out the Jewish religion and replace it with pagan Greek religion. He decreed that “they might forget the law, and change all the ordinances” (1 Maccabees 1:49).

Jewish mothers were forbidden to circumcise their children. Those that did were gruesomely killed along with their children. Rabbis that didn’t hand over Bibles for burning were murdered. Everyone was forced both to eat unclean foods and to perform sacrilegious ceremonies every month.

If this seems long ago and far away, it is not. Such things are happening in China right now. In April, 2016 President Xi Jinping ushered in religious persecution with a decree that religious groups “must adhere to the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).”

Buddhists are forbidden to follow the Dalai Lama. To force compliance, the CCP has set up “management committees” to control each monastery along with surveillance cameras and regular police inspections.

Monks and nuns must display portraits of CCP leaders, and are subjected to “patriotic re-education,” arrest, torture and expulsion from the monastery if insufficiently loyal.

Muslim Uyghurs are being interned in re-indoctrination camps--as many as one million according to a recent report from Human Rights Watch. Meanwhile, their children are either held in orphanages or given to non-Muslim families. They are promised release on the condition that they denounce their Muslim faith.

Chinese Communist Party officials are also billeting in Uyghur homes to keep a close watch on whether they observe the traditions of their faith. During Ramadan Muslims are expected to eat pork and perform other sacrileges to demonstrate loyalty to the CCP.

Christian persecution focuses mainly on unregistered churches. Long ago, the state-authorized churches have been coopted for government propaganda; and parents are forbidden to bring their own children to worship God.

For these reasons authentic Christians have gone underground. They to hear preachers loyal to God, not the CCP. These are the churches now in the crosshairs of Xi Jinping.

On Sunday September 9, Beijing’s largest house church was raided by 60 CCP officials who sealed the building and confiscated pastor Jin’s personal assets and all church items that they deemed to be “propaganda.” The Sunday before, churches in Henan province were raided. Worshippers were assaulted, and both Bibles and crosses were burned.

In response, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) released a statement: “These collective actions ... signal an alarming escalation in persecution of citizens in China under Xi Jinping. USCIRF condemns the Chinese government's ongoing brutal and systematic targeting of religious communities for their beliefs.”

These all echo the tactics of Antiochus Epiphanes. For the CCP, like the Soviet Communists, the Nazis, and every totalitarian state in history, it is not enough to control territory. Godless Materialism is threatened by any faith in an Authority transcending the state. For this reason, Materialists must control not only the body, but also the mind.

Bibles are burned. Piety is prevented. Communication is shut down. Vile acts and blasphemies are coerced. The goal is not to kill the people, but to kill their faith. It didn’t work for Antiochus. It won’t work for Xi. But in the mean-time untold numbers of people must suffer under these inhumane attempts to throttle conscience.

As terrible as this is for nearly half of the Chinese population that holds some transcendent faith, it is not only a Chinese problem. The Christian West, once the world’s exemplar of freedom, is beginning to see these barbaric ideas gain traction.

Just last week a group at Goldsmiths, University of London, calling itself “LGBTQ+ Goldsmiths” asserted that people who oppose their ideas should be sent to Soviet-style gulag camps for rehabilitation. These camps used starvation, cold, disease and execution to “rehabilitate” tens of millions of Soviet citizens. As many as 50 million died.

“LGBTQ+ Goldsmiths” wants forced indoctrination revived. When challenged, they doubled down, claiming that the gulags were a kind way “to correct and change the ways of ‘criminals.’” They assured us that nobody was locked away for life. The “longest sentence was 10 years” because if the indoctrination “couldn’t be done in ten years, it couldn’t be done at all.”

If you assume that they were reacting to Christian fundamentalists, you would be wrong. Rather, “LGBTQ+ Goldsmiths wanted “Radical Feminists” to be thrown into gulags. This is a sobering reminder that attacks on religious freedom exempt no one.

The USCIRF is standing with persecution-watch organizations to advocate for Muslim Uyghurs, Tibetan Buddhists and Chinese house churches. Their advocacy benefits not only the religious, but the secular as well.

Why Religious Persecution in China concerns us all

The headlines these days read like something out of the books of the Maccabees. These books were written about 130 B.C. They recount the persecution of the Jews under Antiochus IV Epiphanes.

Antiochus IV was a Greek king in the eighth generation after Alexander the Great. He lived from 215-164 B.C., and is infamous for his attempts to Hellenize the Jews. This was a gruesome campaign to indoctrinate them with pagan Greek religion, culture and customs.

Antiochus IV Epiphanes

Mind you, the Jews already had been under Greek rule for a century-and-a-half. They were dominated physically and politically. But that wasn’t enough for Antiochus. He wanted to control not just their bodies, but their minds. So, he made a decree that “they might forget the law, and change all the ordinances” (1 Macc. 1:49).

The enforcement of this decree involved social pressure, economic pressure and, where those failed, torture and death. These awesome powers of the Greek state were used both to forbid Jews from practicing their faith and to coerce them into doing abominable things.

Jewish mothers were forbidden to circumcise their children. Rabbis were told to hand over Bibles to be burned, and if any were later caught with one they would be executed. All Jews were forced both to eat unclean foods and to perform sacrilegious ceremonies like sacrificing pigs to the Greek gods.

Antiochus also decreed that once a month the people of each city should be gathered to violate their consciences all over again. On that day they were made to re-perform their sacrilegious ceremonies. Then, any children that had been circumcised in the previous month were gruesomely killed along with their mothers and the rabbis who performed the ceremony (Macc. 1:60-61).

All of this seems long ago and far away. But it is not. Headlines from China today indicate that eerily similar things are happening right now. President Xi Jinping is consolidating power by ramping up pressure against religious liberty across the board. In April, 2016 he declared that religious groups “must adhere to the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party.”

Christians are seeing a crackdown on the house-church movement. Muslim Uyghurs are being sent to internment camps for re-indoctrination. Tibetan Buddhists have seen their monasteries placed under state surveillance.

For Buddhists, this means that loyalty to the Dalai Lama is forbidden. To force compliance, the CCP has focused especially on the monasteries. They have set up “management committees” to control each monastery and have required them to fly the Chinese flag and display portraits of CCP leaders.

Sera Monastery (2013), monks watched by a special military
police officer (foreground). Photo by: Woeser

Surveillance cameras have also been installed inside the monasteries and regular police inspections look for any signs of loyalty to the Dalai Lama. If any are uncovered, the monks and nuns are subjected to “patriotic re-education,” arrest, torture and expulsion from the monastery.

The Muslim Uyghurs are a different matter. A recent report from Human Rights Watch suggests that as many as one million adult Uyghurs are being held in crowded detainment camps for re-indoctrination. They are detained indefinitely and promised release only on the condition that they denounce their Muslim faith. Meanwhile, their children are held in orphanages, and some are even being put up for adoption by non-Muslims.

Chinese Communist Party officials are also moving into the very homes of Uyghur Muslim families in order to keep a close watch on whether they observe the traditions of their faith. In particular, during the season of Ramadan they are expected to eat pork and violate other aspects of their Muslim faith in order to demonstrate their loyalty to the CCP.

Christian persecution focuses mainly on the house churches. Long ago, the churches registered by the CCP have been coopted into being arms of state propaganda. Since the CCP knows that “the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world,” Christians have been forbidden to bring anyone to church under the age of 18.

For reasons such as these, authentic Christians have gone underground. They gather in homes and listen to preachers who have not sworn loyalty to the CCP. These house churches are now in the crosshairs of Xi Jinping.

Last Sunday afternoon (September 9), Zion, Beijing’s largest house church, was raided by 60 CCP officials who sealed the building and confiscated pastor Jin’s personal assets and all church items that they deemed to be “propaganda.” Apparently, Bibles top of the list of propaganda materials. Only a week earlier in Henan province, numerous churches were raided, and worshippers were assaulted. At least one of these also reported that its Bibles and crosses were burned.

The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has confirmed that these are not just hyperbolic stories. On Tuesday, September 11, it released a statement saying, “These collective actions ... signal an alarming escalation in persecution of citizens in China under Xi Jinping. USCIRF condemns the Chinese government's ongoing brutal and systematic targeting of religious communities for their beliefs.”

The tactics of Antiochus Epiphanes are still alive and well. For the Chinese Communists, like the Soviet Communists, the Nazis, the North Koreans and others, it is not enough to control territory and bodies. Godless Materialism is threatened by anyone who believes that there is something or Someone who transcends the power of the state. For this reason, Materialists must control not only the body, but also the mind.

They still use the same barbaric methods of Antiochus. Bibles are burned. Piety is prevented. Communication is shut down. Vile acts and blasphemies are forced by fines, imprisonment, assault and death. It didn’t work for Antiochus. It won’t work for Xi. But in the meantime untold numbers of people must suffer under these inhumane attempts at mind control.

As terrible as this is for nearly half of the Chinese population that holds some transcendent faith, it is not isolated there. The Christian West, which was once the world’s last bastion of freedom, is beginning to see these barbaric ideas encroach on its humanity.

Just last week at Goldsmiths, University of London, a group calling itself “LGBTQ+ Goldsmiths” asserted that people who oppose their ideas should be sent to Soviet-style gulag camps for rehabilitation. These camps used starvation, cold, disease and execution to kill tens of millions of Soviet citizens over the course of decades.

“LGBTQ+ Goldsmiths” wanted not only to change minds, but to do so with punishing force. When called out, they doubled down, claiming that the gulags were a rehabilitory way “to correct and change the ways of ‘criminals.’” They assured us that nobody was locked away for life. The “longest sentence was 10 years” because if the reindoctrination “couldn’t be done in ten years, it couldn’t be done at all.”

One might assume that this broadside was directed at Muslims or Christians. It was not. Rather, it was directed at “Radical Feminists” who objected only to a few of their ideas. This incident is a clear reminder that once the attacks on religious freedom ensue, no one is exempt.

The USCIRF is standing with persecution-watch organizations to advocate for Muslim Uyghurs, Tibetan Buddhists and Chinese house churches. Their advocacy benefits not only the religious, but the secular as well.

We all share in responsibility to protect from sexual abuse

Pennsylvania Attorney General Press Conference

It has been a terrible summer for my many friends in the Roman Catholic Church.

It should have been dominated by the 50th Anniversary of Humanae Vitae (July 25, 2018). This was a signal moment for all who stand for the nobility of the human body and the holiness of marriage. Even this Lutheran took a moment to tip his hat at the moral courage and foresight of Pope Paul VI.

Sadly, only days later, a lightning bolt touched off an unrelenting firestorm of contrary revelations.

Undeniable allegations of homosexual misconduct with countless seminarians forced the resignation of Cardinal Theodore McCarrick. Two weeks later, the Pennsylvania Grand Jury released a report revealing the sickening details of sexual abuse involving 300 priests and well over a thousand victims over the course of three decades. Then a scant two weeks after that the former papal nuncio to America released a memo alleging that the cover-up of McCarrick involved the very highest levels of the hierarchy, even the pope himself.

Through all these terrible revelations and accusations, I watched in silence. As the only columnist in Wyoming to write about Humanae Vitae, who regularly covers matters of sexuality, I felt obligated to address the issues. But for weeks, I could not bring myself to do so.

 

Empty Reasons for Silence

I justified my silence, in part, by recognizing that “None is righteous, no, not one” (Romans 3:10). There have been pastors and bishops in every church body who  were disgraced by sexual scandal. My own is no exception. Likewise, there have been plenty of cases of cover-up for sexual sins. “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone” (John 8:7).

Beyond this, it felt like bad form for a non-Catholic to speak on some very Catholic issues. Out of respect for my friends, I remained mostly silent, grimacing with each new revelation and hoping that their church’s hierarchy would move mountains to expunge the “velvet mafia” that perpetuated these evils. Many sincere and pious believers feel the guilt by association with the indefensible actions of others.

But the guilt by association is not confined to a single denomination. The conflagration in Rome affects all Christians. Even though Lutherans and Catholics remain divided by the most serious doctrinal differences, I am not so naïve as to think that those judging Christendom from outside will care to observe those distinctions.

 

But all of these concerns are empty. They are not worth the time of day because they are about institutions and reputations. They are not about people. It is when we place institutions and reputations above the care of souls that scandals like this arise in the first place. Self-defense and institutional cover-up have no place in a moment like this.
 

One Relevant Fact

Pope Francis and Cardinal McCarrick

 

The only relevant fact is this: the sins of sexual predators destroy the lives of real people. Let’s keep the proper perspective. It is not a tragedy that Cardinal McCarrick’s career came to a screeching halt. It is not a tragedy that attorney generals from New York, New Jersey and other states are using subpoenas to examine church records to follow up on abuse allegations.

The real tragedy is that even a single altar boy or seminarian has been scarred for life. The real tragedy is that even one girl or woman was propositioned by her priest.

When thinking about scars on the human soul, we cannot pretend that these were isolated moments. These hurting people grew up and carried their pain with them. Some found healing, but others didn’t.
 

Untold Stories of Lasting Pain

 

Who knows how many people were plunged into a life-long struggle with substance abuse, depression, unwanted same-sex attraction and various forms of PTSD? Who knows how many of these victims ended their struggles with suicide?

Who knows how many parents were confused and helpless to understand the sudden and drastic changes happening to their adolescent children. Many unwittingly sought help from the very priest who was the source of the problem. How could they know?

Who knows how these evils have prevented people from marrying and raising a family, or contributed to the breakup of families once formed? The tragedy of sexual abuse is not an isolated moment. Its effects are long-lasting—affecting entire families and generations in a thousand ways that we will never know.

These are the real tragedies—not the revelation of these evils and their cover-up years after the fact.

No institution, no human organization, no ideology, no personal privilege is worth protecting at the price of these precious people. So today I am writing, neither as an attacker of Rome, nor as a defender of Christendom, but as a Christian standing in defense of men, women, children together with their eventual spouses, children and extended families.
 

A Call to Action

 

I have a simple call to action for people from every church and from all walks of life. It is this: Do your job without partiality. Do not be swayed by the reputation of individuals or the power of institutions. Rather let your heart be moved by the victims alone—past and future.

If you are a law enforcement official—from the attorney general to a city cop—investigate sexual abuse with the full power of your office. It’s not just about shaming the perpetrator, it is about recognizing the human dignity of the victim.

If you are a church official call on law enforcement to help you investigate allegations. That’s why God gave us government. In doing so, you will not be destroying your institution, but cleansing it. Christ teaches that we must die in order to live. That applies here.

If you are a victim of abuse, speak up. We recognize how deeply you have been hurt. You need to recognize that too, and seek out healing. You also have an opportunity to prevent the one who hurt you from hurting still others.

If you know of the abuse of someone else, do not remain silent. Silence only abets  the perpetrator. It does not help the victim.

If you advocate for an anything-goes sexual ethic, it is time to look at where that leads. See the long-lasting damage experienced by many a man and woman who gave in and “consented.” Did that take away the damage to their psyche, or did it only add to the pain?

Jerry Sandusky and Joe Paterno

One of the first columns that I ever wrote for the Uinta County Herald was a response to the dismantling of the Penn State football program (“The NCAA’s Silent Sermon” July 24, 2012). Jerry Sandusky used his power to corrupt uncounted young men, while those in positions of authority knew but did nothing.
 

I wrote then:

“All of us should also be looking to ourselves. This lesson is not only for programs and institutions. It is a lesson for each and every one of us. You are your brother’s keeper. When your brother needs protection, no social program, no political loyalty, no peer pressure is a legitimate reason to fail him. Whatever the cost, whatever the inconvenience, whatever the sacrifice to success, reputation, friendship or social standing, every human being, no matter how small, is your brother; and you are your brother's keeper.”

Those words were never more true than true today.

 

The Federalist: Everyone Has A Responsibility To Help Clean Up The Catholic Abuse Scandal

 

I have a simple call to action for people from every church and from all walks of life. It is this: Do your job without partiality. Do not be swayed by the reputation of individuals or the power of institutions. 

It has been a terrible summer for my many friends in the Roman Catholic Church. It should have been dominated by the 50th Anniversary of the papal encyclical on procreation, “Humanae Vitae,” on July 25. This was a signal moment for all who stand for the nobility of the human body and the holiness of marriage. Even this Lutheran took a moment to tip his hat at Pope Paul VI’s moral courage and foresight.

Continue reading on the Federalist.

WTE: Wildfires affect us all; let’s join to fight them

The Britannia Mountain fire near Wheatland has consumed more than 32,000 acres, 19 structures, and cost over $2.6 million. It is only one of 47,463 wildfires this year that have burned 6,838,826 acres.

And don’t forget the smoke. It makes eyes water and throats burn far away from the fire itself. It obscures the beautiful vistas of Wyoming and is the visible residue of a massive injection of CO2 into the atmosphere.

Everybody has a stake in reducing wildfires. They make an atmosphere that no one wants to breathe but that we all must. No matter how distant from us personally, they affect us all. They waste public resources, threaten wildlife, ruin beautiful vistas and destroy the homes of our neighbors and our public infrastructure while costing billions of tax-dollars.

Western wildfires have striking parallels to cultural wildfires. These are played out in city council meetings and in school board meetings. They rage in court cases and legislative committee hearings, in letters to the editor, in obscure academic journals, and in op-eds.

Our kids encounter the flames from kindergarten classrooms to high school assemblies and university lecture halls. Unless we take the time to ask our children what they are learning we will never notice.

Cultural wildfires threaten to burn down institutions of our shared culture. Marriage, family, church and government are all threatened by the flames. Most have already been scorched.

Some are deliberately set by cultural arsonists. Others are the result of cultural carelessness. Like fires in the wilderness, we oftentimes don’t notice them until they have been burning for a while. There are so many of them that we can hardly keep track of them all.

No one is their master—not even those who started them. Cultural ideas, like fires, have a life of their own. Once let loose, they burn whatever is in their path. All you can do with either to fight or fan the flames.

Public elections ask officials to fight the cultural fires for us. That’s a good start. But there are three things we must never forget.

First, not everyone is wanting to extinguish the flames. Cultural arsonists run for public office just as surely as cultural firefighters do. We must discern the difference.

Second, not everyone who wants to extinguish the flames knows how. Just as some cultural fires are started accidentally, so also elected officials who do not understand the nature of fire may accidentally make matters worse. We should value those who study and train to be effective firefighters.

Third, once we send people in to fight the fires, they still need our support. It would be unconscionable to drop smoke jumpers into a wilderness area and pay no attention to them afterwards. Conditions on the ground are always changing and we must constantly monitor and resupply them.

In the same way, we should be in constant contact with anybody we elect to fight the cultural fires. Without our constant support and resupply, they cannot do the job. Just because you are not on the front lines does not mean you don’t have a stake in fighting the fires.

Cultural fires scorch the land and destroy the beauty of the land. They turn once- wholesome places into toxic wastelands. Just think about how the torching of public obscenity laws has led to an internet that places every son or daughter within a single click of soul-corrupting images. We have isolated parents from any neighborly support in protecting their kids from the noxious fumes of our culture.

We also see families burned by the raging fires. Look at the children from broken homes and you will usually find that our cultural degeneration contributed to the tragedy. The cultural fires make it more difficult for well-meaning parents to protect the integrity of their own homes.

We can and should do something about this. Governments, churches and educational institutions have a direct stake in making every decision in a way that supports the home and family. At the heart of our cultural wars is a false notion that individual freedom trumps the integrity of the family.

The opposite is true. The family is the basic building block of society. Every time there is a choice between strengthening the bonds of the family and absolute individual autonomy, the family must come first.

Finally, don’t forget about the smoke. Even if your own family is preserved from the flames, even if you can keep yourself and your children away from the noxious wastelands created by our cultural fires, never forget that we all still breathe the same air.

It seeps into your home unbidden. It fills your lungs and those of your children. In time, it desensitizes you even to notice that you are breathing noxious fumes. The only way to clean the air that we all breathe, and build a healthy environment for your family, is to join hands in putting out the fires.

The Federalist: What Wildfires Can Teach Us About How To Fight Cultural Contagions

 

As we consider the cost of wildfires on our public lands, we should notice the parallels to the wildfires in our culture.

So far this year 47,463 wildfires have burned 6,838,826 acres, according to a report released from the National Interagency Coordination Center on August 31. Although that’s 8 percent fewer fires than average, it’s about 20 percent more acres burned.

Interesting statistics though they be, they don’t tell the human cost. We get a better sense of that when we bring it closer to home. The Britania Mountain fire near Wheatland, Wyoming, is just one of these 47,000 fires, and a rather modest one at that. Still, it has consumed more than 26,000 acres, 18 structures, and cost $2.6 million. As I write, it still threatens further homes, sage grouse habitats, and energy infrastructure.

Don’t forget the smoke...

Continue reading on the Federalist.

 

Wildfires affect us all; let’s all lend a hand

So far this year 47,463 wildfires have burned 6,838,826 acres, according to a report released from the National Interagency Coordination Center on August 31. Although that’s eight percent fewer fires than average, it’s about twenty percent more acres burned.

Interesting statistics though they be, they don’t tell the human cost. We get a better sense of that when we bring it closer to home.

The Britania Mountain fire near Wheatland, Wyoming, is just one of these 47-thousand fires, and a rather modest one at that. Still, it has consumed more than 26,000 acres, 18 structures, and cost $2.6 million. As I write, it is still threatening further homes, sage grouse habitat and energy infrastructure.

And don’t forget the smoke. While the loss of property can be localized, the smoke blows where it will. It makes eyes water and throats burn far away from the fire itself. It obscures the beautiful vistas of Wyoming and is the visible residue of a massive injection of CO2 into the atmosphere. A 2007 study from the National Center for Atmospheric Research estimated that one wildfire season alone produces four-to-six percent of America’s entire carbon footprint.

Everybody has a stake

Everybody has a stake in reducing wildfires--from the CEO of an oil conglomerate to the soccer mom at the pump, hunters and bird-watchers, the elderly and parents of small children, those concerned with global warming and those not. No matter how distant the fires are from us personally, they affect us all.

They waste public resources, threaten wildlife, ruin beautiful vistas and destroy the homes of people we care about and the infrastructure that we have all paid for with hard-earned money. They create an atmosphere that no one wants to breathe but that we all must.

 

Cultural Wildfires

As we consider the cost of wildfires on our public lands, we should notice the parallels to the wildfires in our culture. These, too, may be raging in places that seem far distant from your own home and family.

They are played out in city council meetings and in school board meetings that most people never bother to attend. They are played out in court cases and legislative committee hearings. They are played out in letters to the editor, in obscure academic journals, and in op-eds across the country.

They are played out in kindergarten classrooms, high school assemblies and university lecture halls—speeches that we will never hear unless we take the time to ask our children what they are learning. 

Burning Reichstag

In all of these places, and a thousand more, there are constant fires lit that threaten to burn down institutions of our shared culture. Institutions like marriage, family, church and a free press are all threatened by the flames. Some have already been scorched to some degree.

Fighting the Flames or Fanning Them

There are fires raging in our educational institutions, in every governmental institution from our cities on up to the federal government. Some of these were set by cultural arsonists. Others are the accidental result of cultural carelessness. After they have been burning for a while, it doesn’t really matter who started the fire, it only matters whether you are fighting or fanning the flames.

Like fires in the wilderness, we oftentimes don’t notice them until they have been burning for a while. Like wildfires there are so many of them that we can hardly keep track of them all. Like wildfires, no one is their master—not even those who originally lit them. Fires and cultural ideas have a life of their own. Once let loose, they burn whatever is in their path.

Sometimes they burn the homes of those who just happen to be nearby. Other times they turn and burn the people who set the fire. Most often they burn the people who rush in and try to fight the flames.

As with firefighters, we like to send specially trained people in to fight the fires. Some of these are paid legislators. Others are elected to volunteer positions. After electing them, we send them into the places where the cultural fires are burning and ask them to extinguish the flames for us.

Don't Fire and Forget

That’s a good start. But there are three things we must never forget.

First, not everyone is wanting to extinguish the flames. Cultural arsonists run for public office just as surely as cultural firefighters do. We must know how to tell the difference.

Second, not everyone who wants to extinguish the flames knows how to do so. Just as some cultural fires are started accidentally, so also elected officials who do not understand the nature of fire may accidentally make matters worse. Well-meaning people also need to study and train to be effective firefighters.

Third, once we send people in to fight the fires, they still need our support. It would be unconscionable to drop smoke jumpers into a wilderness area and pay no attention to them afterwards. Conditions on the ground are always changing and we must communicate with them to find out what they need from us to do their job.

In the same way, we should be in constant contact with anybody we elect to fight the cultural fires. Without our constant support and resupply, they cannot do the job. Just because you are not on the front lines does not mean you don’t have a stake in fighting the fires.

Toxic Wastelands

Cultural fires scorch the land and destroy the beauty of the land. They turn once- wholesome places into toxic wastelands. Just think about how the torching of public obscenity laws has led to an internet that places every son or daughter within a single click of soul-corrupting images. This has isolated parents from any neighborly support in protecting their kids from the noxious fumes of our culture.

We also see households burned by the raging fires. Look at the children from broken homes and you will usually find that our cultural degeneration contributed to the tragedy. The cultural fires make it more difficult for well-meaning parents to hold their own families together.

We can and should do something about this. Governments, churches and educational institutions have a direct stake in making every decision in a way that supports the home and family. At the heart of our cultural wars is a false notion that individual freedom trumps the integrity of the family.

The opposite is true. The family is the basic building block of society. Every time there is a choice between strengthening the bonds of the family and absolute individual autonomy, the family should come first.

Don't forget about the smoke

 
 
Finally, don’t forget about the smoke. Even if your own family is not burning down. Even if you are able to keep yourself and your children away from the noxious wastelands that have been created by our cultural fires. Never forget that you are still breathing the same air.

It seeps into your home unbidden. It gets into your lungs and the lungs of your children. Worse, you soon get used to it and stop noticing that you are breathing noxious fumes. The only way to clean the air that we all breath, and build a healthy environment for your family, is to lend a hand in putting out the fires.