Denton resists the tendency of most American cities to reduce itself to predictable identity.  This here is the reason for its greatness.  Take for instance the presence of Ruby’s Diner and Jupiter House on the square.  Their placement on opposite sides of the Courthouse is poetic.  You can order fried bacon while overhearing 123 year old ranchers discuss the weather and the increasing coyote population while dining at Ruby’s.  Jupiter House, on the other hand, provides its customers with a cup of every worldview present in America today as they make the long walk to the actual coffee counter.  Most cities fear the tension brought about by such a dichotomy – the progressive tend toward the urban centers, the traditionalists to the small towns and suburbs.  Denton may fear this as well, but it hasn’t been able to escape it.  And it is precisely this that accounts for its greatness.

Just about everything great to come out of Western Civilization, whether it be art, works of literature, or philosophy, has been birthed from an essential tension between faith and reason.  Denton not only fosters both, but its smallness forces the two to converse, to interact, to contend.  You are just as likely to find a 28 year old professor enjoying Ruby’s Sunday morning buffet while reading Nietzsche as you are to find a senior women’s bible study sipping latte’s next to a transgendered student in Jupiter House.  While the big cities and small towns around us continue to isolate themselves around their political, theological, and aesthetic preferences, thus contributing to the dangerous human tendency of reductionism, Denton provides its citizens a daily confrontation with “something else.”  This results in frustration, in arguments, in intellectual struggle, even the slippage of faith – but it is precisely in the midst of this contention that creativity, true art, and meaningful culture emerge.  This is Denton and I contend that it is this that makes so many of us love it.

-Why We Love Denton, by Kevin Roden from ThinkDenton