The Trouble With Knowing Everything

I feel like opening this blog with a quote I heard recently that truly spoke to where my heart's been lately. It's taken from an online recording of a sermon so I had to take unscripted spoken word and try to translate it to written word in a way that makes sense (it's harder than you might imagine). I hope it is clear enough.

"I believe it's very easy, particularly for the intellectual types (he is speaking about people within the Church here), people that are animated by social issues, by philosophical and intellectual concerns to become distracted by issues such as the reform of Christian morality or the correction of society. I am a holistic person in my understanding of the gospel and I believe the gospel speaks to economics, to law, to art...and that there is a Christian worldview which shapes and informs those things...but what I'm saying is that when many people become "cause-centered" they lose Christ. They're so wrapped up in "causes", on spiritual and social reform, that they lose sight of the centrality and purpose of the true reformation that begins with the changed heart" -- Stuart McAllister


So, having just begun this new blog I find myself facing a roadblock.

I have been known by an elite few to, on more than one occasion, throw my hands up in the air and exclaim "That's it! I'm done with politics forever!" I said it in front of my mother this morning and the response was excrutiatingly predictable; "Yeah, I've heard that before. It usually lasts for about thirty minutes."

This mindset of complete resignation to just let the world be as it is and get over it has come to me in cycles for a long time now. The issues pile up on top of each other, the nightly news gets louder, the misinformation gets more and more beligerent and with it my heart hardens, the tendrils of bitterness begin to grip my soul, I harbor more and more contempt for the uninformed and my attitude towards the powers that be begins to border on absolute hatred until I can't take it anymore.

This is the moment when I look at myself most honestly and wonder, "Is it really worth all the anguish? Is my mind expanding or becoming dogmatic? Is this righteous anger or is it soul-crushing bitterness? And where is God in all this anyway?" And I'm realizing that wherever God is, I've lost him somewhere along the winding path of my own mind.

What may have begun as a very clear, moral conviction about a social or political issue seems to inevitably devolve into something else which is guided merely by my own flesh. To dredge up the issue of America's foreign policy once more; the issue seems to inevitably move from the original position of moral disgust and dismay at the waste of human life to merely a bitterness toward the faulty logic that led to it and the dumbed downed masses, surely incapable of any semblance of abstract reasoning, that have bought into the whole charade. This begins to drive a very deep wedge between me and the others around me and at its worse I begin to feel that everyone in my presence is a fool.

As a Christian, this is a very bad place to be.

And as much as I may speak of the importance of reason, this bitterness that overtakes me is based in anything but reason. Yes, I perpetually check my premises and make sure my conclusions make sense when it comes to specifics. When I was a teenager I was convinced I was a socialist but that was only until I started thinking rigorously and came to the one conclusion that drives my whole politcal worldview; that the only "equality" one man can ever morally guarantee another man is equality of freedom or opportunity because equality of circumstance can only occur in a society in which the efforts of nearly all men are shackled by the subjective, and often faulty, understanding of a few men as regards the "common good." That is a conclusion I have come to based on my own rigorous, internal examination of human nature. What is not reasonable, and out of proportion, is the emotional response this belief provokes in me.

I look out on a sea of people and sometimes my heart is full of utter contempt. I see people that love their shackles. I see people placing blind trust in institutions made up of madmen that wouldn't hesitate to throw them in concentration camps should they feel their own self-interest was served by it. I see people blinded by the establishment version of history, economic analysis and world events, all of it guided by empty sloganeering and half-baked ideas informed by an intellectual curiosity that has the depth of a Transformers film.

I can't state strongly enough how deeply my issues with authority run. Nothing invokes more indignation within me than the thought that anyone, anywhere would have the audacity to have an opinion about anything I choose to do at any time or place. Precisely from where this comes, I do not know. I must, however, concede that many of my espoused views branch out of an intrinsic hatred of authority and a deep desire to simply be left alone. Many of my resulting views may actually be quite accurate. In fact it is reasonable for me to suppose that if man is fallen, or if man has historically shown that he cannot be trusted with much power, that it is reasonable to be relatively skeptical about the truthfulness of any man bestowed with real power when he speaks of a genuine interest in what is good for the whole of society. However, the point from which I began to draw conclusions, my own contempt for authority, is based on subjective emotion and is not entirely reliable.

So, if a sizeable chunk of my political views are based in my own spiritual and psychological wounds and hang-ups related to authority it would be safe to assume that I might be in error in more than just a few areas.

It would also be safe to say that to continue on a path in which I allow my own bitter resentment of unreason and authority steal from me the ability to honestly assess reality in any given situation would be to commit spiritual suicide for, in not recognizing the bitterness for what it is, I embrace it in the mistaken belief that it is leading me toward truth when the fact is that, should I arrive at truth, it was merely luck and not reason. And in embracing that bitterness, my heart hardens. And with that hard heart God can do very little.

So, this is why I wish people would take me more seriously when I speak of giving up on politics. Perhaps it shouldn't be that I completely throw the topic out the window but I want people to understand that when I speak of giving up on politics, though my tone may seem light, it's not an issue I approach light-heartedly.

If my heart is fashioned in such a way that politics always inevitably drives a wedge between me and God may my politics be cast into into a fire and blown away as ash in the wind.

So, where do we go from here? Just keep reading....