Reactionary was once a term reserved for the radical, for the progressive, and for the liberal who were determined to challenge the status quo and reform what was antiquated into something more modern. No longer. Now we live in a time in which the most “reactionary” among the churches are those who dare to adhere to the text, to contend for unchanging truth of God's Word, to identify with the yesterday, today, and forever shape of our doctrinal and moral heritage. We all know this.
In politics, the path has been set toward the progressive and liberal agenda. The mechanisms of government can be slowed but whether you call it an organized deep state or simple inertia, the movement toward modernism seems to move forward under Trumps and Bidens and everyone else. It is the pace that changes. We have seen that in culture. What took race and feminism centuries to accomplish, took same sex issues decades and the trans movement even less. It is dizzying for the population and even when there are set backs, such as the overturn of Roe v Wade, the march continues. A right is removed from constitutional guarantee and some states end the unrestricted access to abortion and yet the numbers are higher than before these legal doors were shut. The Trumps of this world are uneven in their application of the Christian virtues and the Republican party has proven to be a less than reliable avenue for political protection of what was once normative in our land. But this is not about politics.
Whether in Rome or Wittenberg or even Constantinople, there is a powerful force to be unbound from text and practice that came before and to turn confession and liturgy and ethics into an exploration rather than a position. Our calling may not be to a path for victory as much as it is the test of survival for that which everyone seem to accept generations ago but is now considered suspect and reactionary. If you want to live on the edge, try to affirm the genders as God created them (male and female) or bend the sexual desire of the sinful heart to the order of God in creating man for woman and woman for man or temper the growing disdain for the sacredness of life or advocate for the beauty and gift of children. These are not traditional anymore but radical in a world increasingly at odds with its own definition of order and virtue.
Maybe Rod Dreher is correct. We need to set our sights at maintaining the communities where God's people gather around the voice of His Word and His baptismal water and His holy Eucharist, preserving the faith once delivered and passing it on without editing or omitting what is neither convenient nor culturally acceptable in the moment. Whether among those who look to Rome or those who look to another center of religious identity, the goal is preservation even before evangelization -- or there is no reason to evangelize at all. We cannot bring people to Jesus and leave them in the desert and wilderness of our world where everything is question or a preference. We must have viable and faithful places to connect them to Christ who lives among us not in our memory or our imagination but in the concrete of water and the Spirit, bread and wine, and a living voice. If we are to have such communities, we must also be willing to risk unpopularity and even offense for when the Gospel is no longer a stumbling block it is no longer faithful.
I have had the recent privilege to live among faithful LCMS folk in California and found them not simply welcoming and engaging but contending for the faith in a place so remarkably diverse and with a diluted Christian legacy. It was exciting to talk to them and to enjoy our fellowship gathered around the topic of God's Word, will, and prayer. They have different challenges than the folks I was with in Michigan and different circumstances in which to proclaim Christ crucified and risen than where I live in Tennessee and yet what we share in common is far greater than what distinguishes. It is possible to maintain the faith among declining numbers in the pews and increasing secularization and the muddying of what is truth. God bless these friends and coworkers in the Kingdom on either side of the rail and across the broad expanse of the country. But let us not be fooled. They are they new reactionaries battling for survival and so are we in the heartlands of America. God bless them and God bless those who remain faithful to the faith of creed, confession, liturgy, piety, and life -- even against great enemies. We will probably never "win" but we will endure. He who endures to the end shall be saved. I think I read that somewhere.
1 comment:
Although a believer is often surrounded by perils to faith within and without, Jesus tells us to never lose heart, to continue forward, engaging, admonishing, declaring the Gospel to whomever will listen. There are no guarantees that everyone will listen, or welcome the message of the Gospel, and in fact, many will consider zeal for the faith a form of foolishness and ignorance. Let the perishing world reap what it sows. The hearts and minds of men often reject truth, and it comes from a spirit of self sufficiency and pride. True, the politics of the Left and Right cannot cure the ailments of the sin sick soul. Although I personally align with the conservative values of the Republican Party, and reject the woke and reprehensible agenda of the anti-Christian Left, I cannot view this as my first allegiance. There are political repercussions and flawed policies which taint the most noble in the realm of governance. Our first and primary cause is Christ, recognizing we are pilgrims and strangers here, outcasts, reactionaries, and we can never be comfortable or satisfied on this spiritual journey of faith. We are not depressed by it, but the truth frees us instead. 1John2:16 - “For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is if the world. And the world passes away, and the lust of it thereof, but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever.” Soli Deo Gloria
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