The world is very evil,
The times are waxing late:
Be sober and keep vigil,
The Judge is at the gate:
The Judge that comes in mercy,
The Judge that comes with might,
To terminate the evil,
To diadem the right.
It is a solemn warning and a sober call not to be deceived as the world comes to its end. That hymn was written into English by Neale in the 1800s from a text by Bernard of Morlas writing in the twelfth century. For the modern mind, the hymn is hopelessly wrong since that times are not waxing late but the days continue to trudge on toward their appointed end and we have weathered many calls through the ages that Jesus is coming soon.
In his book, Orthodoxy, (written even later in 1908), GK Chesterton wrote about the world. He suggests that at least to the modern eye and ear and heart, the world is not evil at all. It is good -- not decent but filled with good things that few of us want to abandon -- not now or even in the face of the end.
“The modern world is not evil; in some ways the modern world is far too good. It is full of wild and wasted virtues. When a religious scheme is shattered (as Christianity was shattered at the Reformation), it is not merely the vices that are let loose. The vices are, indeed, let loose, and they wander and do damage. But the virtues are let loose also; and the virtues wander more wildly, and the virtues do more terrible damage. The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone. Thus some scientists care for truth; and their truth is pitiless. Thus some humanitarians only care for pity; and their pity (I am sorry to say) is often untruthful.”
I will let slip his parenthesis about the shattering of Christianity at the Reformation. Indeed, he is correct. The modern world is far too good, filled with good things that are also too good. It is like a sweet treat that is too sweet and later unleashes its fury upon us in rolls of fat. The good things are borderline good and can easily become evil. That is the problem with progress. It often betrays a problem we did not see as learn to live with it. The virtues are turned but so are the vices. Let loose from restraint, the vices corrupt us not simply by our consent to them but by no longer clearly being vices in and of themselves. Once we are no longer sure what is vice and virtue, it is enough to corrupt us for our judgment is compromised even as our hearts and desires.
What afflicts us is desire unleashed from restraint but even more uncertain about virtue or vice at all. We presume we are in Eden again discovering all things new. The sexual oddities of the present are surely part of this discovery but there is nothing new in them. The first sign of sin's destruction was the corruption of sexual desire. But the problems are not simply sexual. We cannot define woman or man in a culture where this is merely the property of desire. We cannot define marriage when it is ripped from the fabric of the fruitful love that begets. We cannot define life when death is merely another choice and we cannot define death when life is so easily surrendered to desire. When children become an unwanted distraction from our self-fulfillment or a drag on our pursuit of happiness, we have nothing invested in the future and are fully free to wreck destruction upon everything from nature to humanity. It is a cruel joke that freedom has become the license to pursue stupidity. Indeed, sin has made us stupid -- so stupid that we mistake virtue for vice and vice for virtue and pursue them with equal vigor.
Chesterton is surely correct in judging the times and humanity solely on the basis of pity. The charity of the present is not really mercy at all. To sit by and allow a person to cut off his organs for the imagined gender of his feelings is no charity. To allow the child to be ripped from the womb with a chemical death sentence is hardly charity. To live on the screen while insulated from both the joys as well as costs of commitment is no charity at all. And these are but a few of the false charities that modernity lauds without paying any attention to the price of such imagined largess. Christ is not come to impose artificial boundaries upon us in the hopes that we will figure out the means to holiness but to raise those dead in trespasses and sins, blind to the difference between goodness and evil, hopelessly lost in the forest of desire with self-control, and cleanse those who do not even know they are dirty with the washing of regeneration and the clothing of righteousness. Christ is not some sort of brakes to apply when things get out of control but the control that is freedom. Not in the least of His gifts is the Spirit who restores our sight and teaches us what is evil and what is good and then works in our hearts to choose goodness and abandon sin. It will surely not be perfect this side of glory but it is headed in the right direction. With it comes the absolution that rescues us from the fall and restores us to battle again the evil within amid the evil without.
3 comments:
All around great points and insights. I look at the world and sometimes reflect on everything that is wrong, fuzzy thinking, the collapse of common sense, struggles within and without. Then I go to the scriptures and realize it is already written down as examples for us to see, that only the dates changed, that the fallen nature thrives in chaos. It is part of the rebel nature and original sin revealed it to be pervasive and deadly. But thank God for His patience and mercy. Lamentations 3: “It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because His compassions are renewed daily.” Soli Deo Gloria
Since you quoted the late great G.K. Chesterton, I should like to add one fascinating topic related to human nature, which he addressed in his writings. In college, I read a short piece by GKC entitled, “The Decay of Friendship.” He explored the idea that people can start out as friends, yet over a period of time relatively minor and petty annoyances, not major disagreements, can fracture and destroy the friendship irreparably. GKC says these are issues often considered “too slight for complaint, yet too numerous for removal.” From a set of numerous petty disturbances between friends, a friendship will often die, and former friends go their own way. I think GKC could have included ideas as a substitute for friends. We are often satisfied with certain values and opinions, but over time we question them in our minds, minor points become uncomfortable, and eventually we walk away from what used to be a solid premise in our thoughts. I think this tendency accounts for some of our intellectual confusion and the development of changing attitudes. Perhaps, it is necessary to go through this process to find wisdom, but one wonders how much is lost along the way. Yet, the word of God is truth, and we can be confident that it is neither subject to whim or fancy, but calls for obedience. The Holy Spirit guides us to understand what the world is unable to comprehend. Soli Deo Gloria
Reference is made to my last post. It was C.S.Lewis, not G.K.Chesterton who was attributed to the quote regarding the causes of the decay of friendship. He wrote those words, not GKC. I was mistaken. I would like to set the record straight to avoid being the bearer of fake news.
Post a Comment