Warning: This comment is very long. No one should feel obligated to read until the end.
Wow, this brings up a lot of thoughts:
1. It seems rather un-self-aware of that one chief to speak of all Native Americans as “inclined to peace.” To be fair, his tribe might in fact have been, but he did say “Indian,” not the name of a specific tribe. As history shows, there were all sorts of tribes, some peaceful, yes, but others so warlike their customs would make any European go pale. This strikes me as an instance of a newly converted person from a newly evangelized people trying to hang on to pride. I am a missionary in Japan, and this kind of thing occasionally happens now, but especially happened in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when Japan was first re-opened to missionaries after a long period of isolation. There were all sorts of wacko theories, like “Shintoistic Christianity,” and “Japanese people are descended from the lost tribes of Israel” that sprung up at that time, and to me it’s apparent that these came from wounded pride. Japanese people have a lot of national pride, which is sometimes hurt by finding out they were nowhere near the first people to have knowledge of the true God. The appropriate way to deal with this, of course, is to emphasize that it’s all God’s grace anyway, that it wasn’t because Jews or Europeans or any other of the Middle Eastern/North African peoples that heard of Christ first were good in any way, but because of God’s sovereign plan in putting them geographically close to where Jesus ministered. But this one chief seems to be doing something similar, and perhaps Ohiyesa is too, in a way: trying to exaggerate the similarities between Native folk religion and Christianity in order to keep pride.
2. “Why do we need church buildings? The whole earth is God’s cathedral!” is a huge red flag to me, too. In the narrow sense of the question, it’s true that there is no theological reason that a building is necessary when God’s people gather for worship. (For example, an outdoor church service in a park is still valid worship.) However, it is necessary - essential, in fact - that God’s people gather for worship. Because at some point a building does become logistically necessary when you have a large number of people gathering, these questions inevitably connect. I have relatives that experienced church hurt, and stopped attending altogether using the excuse that “We can find God out in nature.” Of course you can to the extent that general revelation can be found in nature, but you can find him in a greater and fuller way in the gathered Body of Christ, where the Holy Spirit is at work through the preaching of the Word and the administration of the Lord’s Supper. Denying the necessity of church buildings or other church customs, in practice often leads to denying the necessity of the church altogether, and that is a theological no-go.
3. My final thought is more of a question. For Kingsnorth, what counts as civilization and therefore bad, and what escapes that characterization? Does working for someone else count as civilization? Does money? I have a feeling he’d say “yes” to money, so let’s take it one step back. Does the barter system count as civilization? Does division of labor? Does building permanent houses? My issue with his thought is similar to my issue with how Marxism categorizes everything not communism as “capitalism.” All the things I just mentioned are so basic to human life that I don’t think it’s fair to categorize them as capitalism, which is more specific. In the same way, they must be categorized as civilization, because human life together is civilization. These things differentiate humans living together in a group from wildmen out alone in a forest someplace. We call farms “civilization.” We call the Amish “a civilization.” We even call Indian tribes “civilizations,” because they have common cultures and customs, and features of life together. And besides, so many of the things I mentioned are not cut-and-dry. I think this is one of those “heap” problems where it’s hard to define at what point grains of sand become a heap. But that means that Kingsnorth’s thinking about “the Machine” is subject to the critique that you can’t create this idea of a quasi-supernatural evil entity that encompasses everything out of things that maybe only become evil at some unclear point, if that makes sense.
Good thoughts. Yes, if I had time I would have said some more about how an awful lot of not-so-peaceful history is just being...well, glossed over here. I thought of this clip from Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.
The faculty at the classical Christian school where I teach is reading Scruton's Culture Counts this year, and when I saw your piece on Fr. Jerzy I noticed similarities with some of what Scruton argues. I did a Google search and found that he did quote Fr. Jerzy in a different context, so the influence might be real. In Culture Counts, Scruton argues for the value of Western culture against its detractors, but he seems to want the Western cannon to provide moral vitality to a culture that has rejected the Christian roots that formed it. As a faculty some of us are not sure if such a thing is possible, and so we haven't yet decided what to make of Scruton's argument. To be fair, we have a few more discussions to go before finishing. The reason I bring this up is that I'm wondering if there is a way I can share Fr. Jerzy's sermon with a few of my colleagues. I think it would be helpful as we discuss Scruton.
Like you said, I appreciated Brother Kingsnorth’s willingness to engage in polite dialogue and disagreements, such as on the question of just war theory or what is the proper response when a burglar threatens to attack your children at home.
Hopefully, as we add into these “culture war” conversations the essential ingredients of prayer and humility and openness to obey the dynamic instruction of the Holy Spirit, we will emerge as a People who represent Jesus well in word and deed. May that be our supreme goal and glory.
And if he’s not already acquainted with the music, I bet Kingsnorth would appreciate Rich Mullins quite a bit. :)
After the profound disaster of chattel slavery, the second most archetypical failure of our American Christianity remains the church's historic full throated support of the statist paternalism which we inflicted upon the American Indian. The BIA and other Indian governmental experiments were literally our beta test of socialism and welfare. Not content with inflicting that failure upon them, we turned and inflicted it upon the rest of America. Indians are as tough a spiritual nut to crack as white people, but I find it difficult to begrudge them a bit of cynicism. God have mercy on us all.
If European Christians had lived out Kingsnorth's paradigm... that the faith is terrifying and it’s designed to kill you... they'd have evangelized the incoming Muslim immigrants, rather than cower in fear of them.
Thanks, Bethel, for this thoughtful post. You are helpfully provocative, whatever our points of view. And so is Rich Mullins, especially for those who know his life story. As you quote:
"On this road to righteousness
sometimes the climb can be so steep
I may falter in my steps
But never beyond Your reach." (never ! )
- As you know, Mullins wrote the "Testimony" in Brennan Manning's "Ragamuffin Gospel." He embodied the humor and truth Manning shared, *wherever* we stand in today's merciless divisions: “The ragamuffin who sees his life as a voyage of discovery and runs the risk of failure has a better feel for faithfulness than the timid man who hides behind the law and never finds out who he is at all.” - Again, Bethel, thanks.
It's impossible to worship nature for so long, as Kingsnorth did, without it wearing some prominent grooves into your soul. It may take a while for the scriptures to sand those down. God's program of human flourishing is inherently material, which goes against the pagan eco-warrior grain... and increasingly against the postliberal, natcon grain, which is probably one reason First Things likes Kingsnorth. It will be interesting to see him grow.
What do you mean by “God’s program of human flourishing is inherently material”? I can see several ways this could be taken and I’m not sure which you mean.
"be fruitful and multiply", the proto-commandment, is quantifiable in material stuff. when pursued it eventually enables the combatting of poverty for instance.
Warning: This comment is very long. No one should feel obligated to read until the end.
Wow, this brings up a lot of thoughts:
1. It seems rather un-self-aware of that one chief to speak of all Native Americans as “inclined to peace.” To be fair, his tribe might in fact have been, but he did say “Indian,” not the name of a specific tribe. As history shows, there were all sorts of tribes, some peaceful, yes, but others so warlike their customs would make any European go pale. This strikes me as an instance of a newly converted person from a newly evangelized people trying to hang on to pride. I am a missionary in Japan, and this kind of thing occasionally happens now, but especially happened in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when Japan was first re-opened to missionaries after a long period of isolation. There were all sorts of wacko theories, like “Shintoistic Christianity,” and “Japanese people are descended from the lost tribes of Israel” that sprung up at that time, and to me it’s apparent that these came from wounded pride. Japanese people have a lot of national pride, which is sometimes hurt by finding out they were nowhere near the first people to have knowledge of the true God. The appropriate way to deal with this, of course, is to emphasize that it’s all God’s grace anyway, that it wasn’t because Jews or Europeans or any other of the Middle Eastern/North African peoples that heard of Christ first were good in any way, but because of God’s sovereign plan in putting them geographically close to where Jesus ministered. But this one chief seems to be doing something similar, and perhaps Ohiyesa is too, in a way: trying to exaggerate the similarities between Native folk religion and Christianity in order to keep pride.
2. “Why do we need church buildings? The whole earth is God’s cathedral!” is a huge red flag to me, too. In the narrow sense of the question, it’s true that there is no theological reason that a building is necessary when God’s people gather for worship. (For example, an outdoor church service in a park is still valid worship.) However, it is necessary - essential, in fact - that God’s people gather for worship. Because at some point a building does become logistically necessary when you have a large number of people gathering, these questions inevitably connect. I have relatives that experienced church hurt, and stopped attending altogether using the excuse that “We can find God out in nature.” Of course you can to the extent that general revelation can be found in nature, but you can find him in a greater and fuller way in the gathered Body of Christ, where the Holy Spirit is at work through the preaching of the Word and the administration of the Lord’s Supper. Denying the necessity of church buildings or other church customs, in practice often leads to denying the necessity of the church altogether, and that is a theological no-go.
3. My final thought is more of a question. For Kingsnorth, what counts as civilization and therefore bad, and what escapes that characterization? Does working for someone else count as civilization? Does money? I have a feeling he’d say “yes” to money, so let’s take it one step back. Does the barter system count as civilization? Does division of labor? Does building permanent houses? My issue with his thought is similar to my issue with how Marxism categorizes everything not communism as “capitalism.” All the things I just mentioned are so basic to human life that I don’t think it’s fair to categorize them as capitalism, which is more specific. In the same way, they must be categorized as civilization, because human life together is civilization. These things differentiate humans living together in a group from wildmen out alone in a forest someplace. We call farms “civilization.” We call the Amish “a civilization.” We even call Indian tribes “civilizations,” because they have common cultures and customs, and features of life together. And besides, so many of the things I mentioned are not cut-and-dry. I think this is one of those “heap” problems where it’s hard to define at what point grains of sand become a heap. But that means that Kingsnorth’s thinking about “the Machine” is subject to the critique that you can’t create this idea of a quasi-supernatural evil entity that encompasses everything out of things that maybe only become evil at some unclear point, if that makes sense.
Good thoughts. Yes, if I had time I would have said some more about how an awful lot of not-so-peaceful history is just being...well, glossed over here. I thought of this clip from Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.
https://youtu.be/iVqQosyOpg4?si=AvJttjveq9yMhMam
The faculty at the classical Christian school where I teach is reading Scruton's Culture Counts this year, and when I saw your piece on Fr. Jerzy I noticed similarities with some of what Scruton argues. I did a Google search and found that he did quote Fr. Jerzy in a different context, so the influence might be real. In Culture Counts, Scruton argues for the value of Western culture against its detractors, but he seems to want the Western cannon to provide moral vitality to a culture that has rejected the Christian roots that formed it. As a faculty some of us are not sure if such a thing is possible, and so we haven't yet decided what to make of Scruton's argument. To be fair, we have a few more discussions to go before finishing. The reason I bring this up is that I'm wondering if there is a way I can share Fr. Jerzy's sermon with a few of my colleagues. I think it would be helpful as we discuss Scruton.
Yes, in the post I linked, I transcribed the whole thing from someone reading it on YouTube!
Great! Is there a link, or should I just search YouTube?
I found it!
Yeah, my post "A Martyr's Lament" has the transcript.
Like you said, I appreciated Brother Kingsnorth’s willingness to engage in polite dialogue and disagreements, such as on the question of just war theory or what is the proper response when a burglar threatens to attack your children at home.
Hopefully, as we add into these “culture war” conversations the essential ingredients of prayer and humility and openness to obey the dynamic instruction of the Holy Spirit, we will emerge as a People who represent Jesus well in word and deed. May that be our supreme goal and glory.
And if he’s not already acquainted with the music, I bet Kingsnorth would appreciate Rich Mullins quite a bit. :)
Probably my favorite Rich Mullins song.
Thanks Bethel for more clarity on what Paul Kingsnorth seeks to explain.
After the profound disaster of chattel slavery, the second most archetypical failure of our American Christianity remains the church's historic full throated support of the statist paternalism which we inflicted upon the American Indian. The BIA and other Indian governmental experiments were literally our beta test of socialism and welfare. Not content with inflicting that failure upon them, we turned and inflicted it upon the rest of America. Indians are as tough a spiritual nut to crack as white people, but I find it difficult to begrudge them a bit of cynicism. God have mercy on us all.
If European Christians had lived out Kingsnorth's paradigm... that the faith is terrifying and it’s designed to kill you... they'd have evangelized the incoming Muslim immigrants, rather than cower in fear of them.
Thanks, Bethel, for this thoughtful post. You are helpfully provocative, whatever our points of view. And so is Rich Mullins, especially for those who know his life story. As you quote:
"On this road to righteousness
sometimes the climb can be so steep
I may falter in my steps
But never beyond Your reach." (never ! )
- As you know, Mullins wrote the "Testimony" in Brennan Manning's "Ragamuffin Gospel." He embodied the humor and truth Manning shared, *wherever* we stand in today's merciless divisions: “The ragamuffin who sees his life as a voyage of discovery and runs the risk of failure has a better feel for faithfulness than the timid man who hides behind the law and never finds out who he is at all.” - Again, Bethel, thanks.
It's impossible to worship nature for so long, as Kingsnorth did, without it wearing some prominent grooves into your soul. It may take a while for the scriptures to sand those down. God's program of human flourishing is inherently material, which goes against the pagan eco-warrior grain... and increasingly against the postliberal, natcon grain, which is probably one reason First Things likes Kingsnorth. It will be interesting to see him grow.
What do you mean by “God’s program of human flourishing is inherently material”? I can see several ways this could be taken and I’m not sure which you mean.
"be fruitful and multiply", the proto-commandment, is quantifiable in material stuff. when pursued it eventually enables the combatting of poverty for instance.