Ad Fontes

One of our regular respondents at Mere Comments wrote to me recently,

I just discovered Touchstone's archives yesterday. I went through a fast scan of all the back issues on-line.

Goodness Sakes!  I just went through an unproductive rehash over the last couple of weeks over things that have already been debated and discussed over 10 years ago by the editors.  Your old ground was new ground to me and I treated it like untrampled soil.  Now I learn that my older, wiser betters at Touchstone have already "Been there, done that."

We thank him for his kind words. I have often been tempted to point people toward the archives, but have held back, for several reasons. First, it would get repetitious quickly, second, I often can’t remember who wrote which about what, third, I don’t have the time to go looking for it myself, and fourth—I admit that I often fall under the impression that certain respondents are looking less for the collective wisdom of Touchstone than the opportunity to display, and I’ll be deuced if I’m going hunting on their behalf for something one of us said eight years ago.

But most of it is there, diminished in apparent value, to be sure, because we are making it available free of charge, but, to the wise, I think, the depositum of a curious phenomenon upon which people will be writing dissertations in twenty or thirty years—after we’re all dead and Touchstone has become, as so many Christian institutions do, something that should have died with us.

Not that the ministry of Touchstone will disappear or diminish.  If we aren't doing it here, it will be done elsewhere, by others, as it has been done from the Church's beginnings as necessary for the life of the Body.  With appropriate disclaimers implied here on behalf of my Orthodox and Catholic brethren, I am a Protestant and have no faith in the enduring faithfulness of any visible institution, in any founded home here on this earth.  But the organs of the soma pneumatikos, the Ground and Pillar of Truth, always operating in, with, and through what can be seen and touched--and so in people and institutions to greater and lesser degrees of purity and intensity--are something else entirely.  The Church is real, and will always be served by the likes of us.

Comments

[Ethan Cordray]

You said it! There is some incredible stuff back in those cyber stacks. I particularly recommend the issues on Tolkien and John Paul II. But there's so much there, there's got to be something for everybody.

[Truth Unites... and Divides]

There's a lot of extremely high quality articles available in the archives. For those who like to discuss the doctrine of origins, there's quite a few articles having to do with intelligent design....

And there's lots of stuff about "Christian Unity and the Divisions that Must Remain" sprinkled through the years.

Enjoy the kindness and fruits from our gracious editors at Touchstone!