I didn't want anything vague, or any trace of relativism, as I pursued what I was basing my worldview on

I did something this morning that pretty much surprised me. I came out on Facebook as a full-fledged Christian.

Here's my post:

I know a lot of people come to Christ after some personal crisis. That hasn't been the case for me. I just got to the point where, after exploring / considering / making a serious attempt to live out other "ultimate answers" ranging from Buddhism to Christian-esque belief systems to a focus on the secular aspects of conservatism, it became apparent to me that nothing but actual Christian doctrine tied every last strand of all my questioning together. (I'm sometimes told I overthink everything, and there's surely some truth to that.) And my inquiry was exhaustive. I went for decades thinking that doctrine was the most cornball, outlandish and even unfair gobbledygook I'd ever come across. 
But I'm now convinced that nothing else will provide the healing our postmodern hearts are screaming and crying for.

I really see no way out of the basic human predicament other than the cross.

Once you say to the Most High, "I know what I have done that has violated your design for this universe, and I am sorry from the bottom of my heart. I accept your offer of restoring our relationship," an odd thing happens: You simultaneously become more of an absolutist, but you also start looking for ways to inject more gentleness and humility into your engagement with the world.

I started this blog five years ago in response to the very real darkness that was descending over Western civilization, and felt that a combative tone was appropriate for establishing the level of my concern, and my determination to resist it. And I don't regret the assertions that I began making early on: that the Democrat party, as constituted for the last several years, is based on a fundamental and visceral hatred for basic human freedom and dignity, that the coarseness that had come to be the defining characteristic of our culture was going to make our society more barbaric, and that appeasement of the West's enemies would exponentially increase our vulnerability to their intentions.

And I was constantly thinking about the other side of the ledger. If I stood against this array of things - a push for tyranny, cultural degradation, and willful denial of the fact of enemies - I needed to examine and articulate what it was that I stood for.

My personal way of expressing the three basic pillars of conservatism,

1.) Free-market economics, which begins with the premise that a good or service is worth what buyer and seller agree that it is worth - period. No other party has any business being involved in that agreement - certainly not government.

2.) An understanding that Western civilization has been a unique blessing to humankind. (Judeo-Christian morality, Greco-Roman model of representative democracy, the great scientific and artistic achievements.)

3.) A foreign policy based on what history tells us about human nature. This plays itself out as our allies knowing we have their backs, our adversaries respecting us, and our enemies fearing us.

 took me far, and are still the basis from which I argue pretty much anything.

But once I had taken the spiritual leap and come to see grace as the centerpiece of my entire worldview, I began to look at the question of demeanor. And it wasn't just because I wanted to learn how to more effectively win arguments, although I still relish winning arguments. It was a question of whether I was being an authentic agent of that grace.

It's not as if I have shed my lifelong personality. I have no interest in "compromise" on anything involving immutable principles, and I don't think that an attempt to understand the root causes of someone's wrongness ought to result in giving that wrongness a pass.

But there's a certain kind of calmness, and I guess you'd even say restraint that begins to enter one's thought process at this point. It becomes ever more important to not add to the sum total of buzz-saw rancor that permeates public discourse in 2017 post-America.

It just plain does no one any good.

It's why, as I mentioned in yesterday's roundup post, it was so dismaying to see the Family Research Council book two of today's most vituperative public figures, Steve Bannon and Sebastian Gorka, as speakers at this year's Values Voters Summit. As Susan Wright puts it at The Resurgent, it's the quintessential application of the Lord's teaching about salt losing its saltiness.

That decision raises the broad question of how to deal with Trump supporters' basic assertion - "Yes, he's bombastic, inconsistent, and not particularly religious (given his stance that he needs no forgiveness for his years of hedonistic behavior), but look at how far he's moved the needle on policy matters that concern us with his executive orders and judicial appointments. For crying out loud, what do you want? Absolutely perfect conservatism?"

To that crowd, I have to reply, "Sorry, but his utter lack of humility and depth looks me like it can do nothing to reduce our societal brittleness."

When push comes to shove, you can tell the difference between someone motivated by pragmatically settling for a three-quarters victory on the policy level and someone who insists on a more noble and dignified culture, a culture that values basic safety, warmth and connectedness.

Maybe what I'm saying is that I've found the real reason I'm a three-pillared conservative. What we are after is what is good, right and true, and there's only one place to go to find it and have all one's doubts removed.

It was time to declare publicly that I know Jesus to be the Truth. No countervailing force can prevail against that.