Earthly Clay on our Heavenly Boots
Douglas Wilson January 17, 2010
Posted in Blog and Mablog
I want to begin by noting the importance of being loyal to a bunch of things -- in every area of life. I do not speak of idolatrous loyalty, but rather a fierce kind of Chestertonian loyalty to the piles of stuff and collections of people that God surrounds all of us with.
If we are loyal in idolatrous ways, we soon discover that such loyalties are binary, with other loyalties not tolerated. But if we are loyal in Trinitarian ways, we discover that our loyalties are textured, layered, tangled, and glorious. And the more of them I have, the more grateful I am, and the more grateful I am, the safer I am in this perilous world. This is the only protection against lying ideologues and ideologies.
The ideologue has read fat books, and has thought deep thoughts. He is bitingly cynical about those of us who crawl on the earth, as he observes us all from his balcony of abstractions. He can line up ideas, end to end, and has all kinds of reasons for his lack of natural affection. This phenomenon occurs whether we are talking about culture, politics, marriage, or theology. It is countered, not with more ideas for him to line up in a row, but with a host of molecular connections -- from those who have paid membership dues in Burke's little platoons.
The ideologue is afraid to clutter up his life, because it might distract him from the Cause, whatever the Cause might be. Like Lenin, who did not want to listen to music because it stirred up unwanted sentiments, the ideologue views everything that lays a claim on our loyalties with suspicion. Don't you know that money could have been given to the central committee? Don't you know that a few more sacrifices would advance the cause of world missions? Don't you know that this ointment could have been sold and the proceeds given to the poor? The ideologue is constantly jockeying for position, and is always ready to throw a sharp glance . . . or elbow. As Ambrose Bierce put it once, exhortation is to put the conscience of another upon the spit, and roast it to a nut brown discomfort.
The problem is, that in the world God made, everything lays claim to our loyalties, and everything does right to do so. If we love God, He shows us how to love our neighbor rightly. If we love God, He causes all our loves and loyalties to sort themselves out into wonderful patterns. He is not threatened by any of it. Just as the crystal patterns of the snowflake form in mystical ways, so also the glorious connections of a biblical life, crammed full of interesting things, form up in mystical ways.
Never trust a man who wants to arrange things he has no affection for. Never give authority to a man who wants to govern things in accordance with an Idea. And it doesn't matter if it is a good idea -- in fact, the better the idea, the worse everything will be if he gets his way. Nothing worse than clinical and pristine accuracy.
What sorts of loyalties need to be sorted out? God has fashioned the world in such a way that these things vary from person to person, family to family, and nation to nation. That's as it should be. There is a lot of fun overlap, there are things completely different, and there are fun vists to other people's homey customs -- like my introduction the other day to the tim tam slam. You can ask the Australians about that one.
But, speaking for myself, what kind of loyalty jumble are we talking about? Well, this would include, but not be limited to: the submarine service, Scotland, my wife's neck, the pie faces of my grandchildren, fourteen and counting, the Westminster Confession, the creeks and inlets of Maryland, the Lord's Supper, Southern Baptists, the evergreen forests of Idaho, mowing the lawn, bicameral legislatures, King Alfred, the book of Romans, the faithfulness of Augustine, the illustrations of Thomas Watson, oatmeal for breakfast, hot coffee at a truck stop in Wyoming in the early morning, a good book and a roaring fire, broadband, American cheerfulness, cussedness, and generosity, the Winchester rifle, preaching the Word, and pick up trucks. I may have inadvertantly left some things out. In that order? No, that was a random order. The order would change depending on what the circumstances were.
The lists that every one of us could (and should) generate makes some people think that we are just lining up thousands of actual or potential idols. Well, sure. This is a sinful world, and bad things happen in it. But my experience shows that idolators are far more likely to be focussed and narrow than expansive and generous. This is because there is only one God who can keep track of all the things that I have to be grateful for, and ought to loyal to. But in order to have that God, the triune God of Scripture, keep things in order, I must honor Him above all things. If I honor and worship Him rightly, He will keep the rabble of my many affections in order.
The ideologue detects the presence of such affections, and assumes some sort of idolatry. But it is actually the absence of loyalties, the deadening of natural affections, that is the tell tale mark.
The point? It is a variation of a point that I believe Richard John Neuhaus once made. It is this: when I stand before God, I will of course have nothing to commend myself apart from the righteousness of Jesus Christ. But I will nonetheless stand before Him as an American, a churchman, a husband, a father, a grandfather, a son, and a brother. If I try beforehand to divest myself of these connections, as though they were earthly clay on my heavenly boots, then I have radically misunderstood what God has called us to do.
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