The Staunch Presbyterian

“Boughton is a staunch Presbyterian—as if there were another kind.”

-From Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson

It's my family connection to this old Presbyterianism that has kept me from becoming Catholic. I imagine that if I'd grown up in a non-denominational church, or even in the PCA, I'd have made the jump by now. “Staunch”—it's a good word. It brings to my mind not loud partisanship, nor aggressive evangelism, but the internal commitment of the old everyday saint in the next pew.

The word originally meant “watertight,” then “of firm construction.” The virtue of a staunch believer is a consistency, an integrity rooted in grace, that lets her walk through the world, loving it without fearing it.