Dufflepudian Eschatology
Political Dualism - Mere Christendom
Written by Douglas Wilson
Friday, October 01, 2010
One of the great difficulties we have with perspective, especially on cultural, historical, and political issues, is the difficulty we have with the scale of events. One of my favorite quotes comes from Christopher Dawson, when he said that the Christian church lives in the light of eternity and can afford to be patient. But "waiting patiently" still needs to be interpreted on a scale. Are you talking about waiting patiently for your wife who is a few minutes late for a coffee date, or are you talking about waiting patiently for the glacier to get to the sea?
When I say that if Christians get engaged in the political process and "make a difference," the effect of what I am urging is going to be determined by what scale I am on. Am I on the five-year scale or the five-hundred-year scale? And some might exclaim, "Who ever heard of activism on a five-hundred year scale?" Exactly, and that's a good chunk of our problem. Martin Luther was once asked what he would do if he knew the Lord was coming back tomorrow, and his answer reveals a mentality that is foreign to too many of us. He said that he would plant a tree.
We want results and we want them now. We are short-term thinkers. We want convenience store reformations. Now by arguing this, I am not saying that no differences whatever will be noticeable during the course of our lives. We can see the seedlings grow. Some. But God is the one who gives the increase, and He gives it on the scale that He is operating with. Whether the Lord returns in the year 2110 or in the year 9753 radically affects whether we think we are making good time. We are like little kids in the back of the van who, at the start of their vacation to the other side of the country, when their father gets to the end of the driveway, ask if "we are there yet?"
There are some cultural problems that have gone clean out of our lives, and we don't notice because that is what they did two hundred years ago. There are other stampeding follies that are so natural to us that they seem like the air we breathe, and yet schoolchildren of the future will scarcely credit the tales that will be told of us. An example? Oh, there are plenty, but I just don't want to wreck my moral authority by pointing one out.
Our progress is agonizingly slow, like the exasperating and yet endearing Dufflepuds. Coriakin is patient with them, and he will get them there, but it's going to take a bit. But he is a retired star and can afford to be patient.
The worst thing about the zeal to reform is the presumption of omniscience when there is largely ignorance. And once the realization of our ignorance sets in upon us, the temptation is to give up entirely. But we set ourselves to reformations and institution-building if we simply obey God's laws (for He is omniscient), and leave the results to Him. The fact that we don't know how to give the increase should not keep us from plowing and planting. This is what distinguishes the true reformer from the disastrous social engineer.
The social engineer is the Dufflepud who thinks there must be something wrong with Coriakin's laptop, and hoses it down in order to fix it.
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