EDITORIAL
A DSM For Explorers and Homemakers

Michael A. King

What do we do in an era of inflamed passions when we want to do more than simply argue? Many of us feel in the midst of life-and-death struggles in relation to such considerations as preserving space for our core theologies, the future of denominational structures, or the literal life and death of the thousands who could be swept into war or terrorism. And we feel we must speak not just to win arguments but also to bear witness, before it is too late, to the light we have been given.

Then the complication: Everything in me cries out that the way I see things must be true, yet there you are, witnessing with equal fervor. All would be well—except that what you believe must be done to right the wrong is what I see as the wrong against which I must testify.

This is the agenda I wrestle with in this issue’s Kingsview column (pp. 41-44). But why mention it also here? Because these matters have a bearing on what this magazine looks like, and I would like DSM more fully to embody the vision I (with assistant editor Valerie Weaver-Zercher) have for it.

In my column, I suggest one way to relate across the different camps we fall into is to name some of us explorers and some homemakers. To oversimplify, explorers innovate, homemakers preserve. I dream that both can be dear friends, which is why I said this in the Summer 2001 inaugural issue of DSM: "I’ll . . . work to keep DSM from drifting only toward the leftwing radicalism some see as the inevitable result of seeking new dreams. Surely there is as much fresh speaking to be done by those . . . who dream their way across the unexplored terrains of the traditional."

DSM has in fact featured voices I’d see as speaking from the traditionalist, homemaking side. But the drift seems to favor explorers. As editors, Valerie and I no doubt contribute to that. I was shaped within a homemaker setting, rebelled against its constrictions, and spent years exploring before aiming to return home while still exploring. I do want both, but in DSM’s pages, exploring seems to win.

Thus my plea to our valued DSM readers and writers: If you have a homemaking side, or know of articulate homemakers—or any who think differently from those now writing—connect us! Let DSM be a place where explorers and homemakers, like the lion and the lamb, can lie down together in peace.

Let DSM be a forum where last time (Winter 2003, pp. 24-27) I could speak in anger and this time I and all of us can view matters from a different angle as J. Ron Byler (pp. 2-3) offers another perspective. Or this time the fierce words of a Wendell Berry can be heard, then another time equally impassioned words from a different voice.

—Michael A. King