26 June 2010

I Remember... (A quick reflection and a note regarding the Sacralist reading of Tolkien)

updated July 2012 

I remember:

-Defending Calvin's role in the execution of Servetus
When in reality it was Sacralist murder

-Defending Augustine when he called upon the Roman government to 'compel' the Donatists
When in reality he was abandoning his own theology in the City of God

-Laughing when the Reformers ironically 'drowned' the Anabaptist dissenters
When in reality they were acting in the role of Antichrist at those moments

-Trying to defend America as a nation founded on Christianity
When in reality it was the first country in the western tradition to specifically not be founded on Christianity.......and now, I would say that it was a good thing, something to be thankful for.

-Walking around Budapest, seeing Unitarian Churches and thinking...if they had only had a strong Protestant Prince, they could have eliminated this heresy.
When in reality, a Protestant prince erecting a Sacralist state is more dangerous to the True Gospel and the faithful church than a handful of Unitarians running around.

-Arguing for the 'In God We Trust' motto on the coinage and for the inclusion of 'under God' in the pledge of allegiance.
When in reality, we as Christians should demand the state remove God's name from the coins, and no Christian has any business pledging allegiance to piece of cloth....

-Treating the flag as sacred
When in reality most Americans, and especially Christians have turned it into an idol.

-Defending Capitalism as if it were one of the planks of Biblical Orthodoxy
When in reality, much of Capitalism is at odds with Biblical Christianity. No economic system will really work in a fallen world. Our Christian economic is to love our neighbours as ourselves...and as far as a national economic policy, it doesn't really matter if we live in a Capitalistic, Socialistic, Anarchist or Communist system.

I remember when I was a Sacralist and traded the Kingdom of God, for the enticing power offered by the world.

A little aside.......For those familiar with Tolkien, he has a lot of Sacralist elements in the Lord of the Rings. Who can't recognize romanticized Merry OldeEngland in his depiction of the Shire? Who can't recognize something of a Charlemagne-Holy Roman Empire imagery in Aragorn and the renewed kingdom of Gondor? Or Byzantium in peril in Gondor during the Third Age?

Certainly you have medieval notions of Chivalry, relics, holy swords...a little Marian imagery with Arwen and Galadriel. All those things are there, and are things in history I do not appreciate.

But where Tolkien is spot on is with his understanding of power. The Ring wasn't symbolic of The Bomb or anything like that. It's the corruption of Power. Gollum is a powerful character in exhibiting fallen man's lust for it.

The character I often think of when I listen to Theonomists wax eloquent about the Triumphant Millennium and the Full Integrated Sacralism they envision...is Boromir. The Council kept trying to tell him....you can't use it! Good will be turned to evil. That's the equation....fallen man + power = an evil kingdom.

If there's anything 'biblical' in Tolkien, it is certainly that. We don't want a kingdom...ours is in heaven. Our power is in Christ...our hope is in him.

Like I've said somewhere else.......when I discovered the doctrines of Grace it was like getting a new Bible....when I discovered the dialectic in Scripture and was rescued from hyper-calvinism, it was like getting a new Bible again...and then when I finally was delivered from Sacralist thinking concerning history, state, and culture....I feel like I've come home.

But it is lonely outside the camp.

In many ways it feels like we're in the Middle Ages again.