If you please others you lose your soul, and there is a lot of it going around. Over the weekend we have seen a large number of feminists protest all around the world, because they fear (correctly that their lobby has lost power in Washington. We saw the antifa protest. We saw the deploraball. And in all of these there were people there because they wanted to signal that they were correct, virtuous, a member of the progressive side, a person of worth.
They were pleasing their peers and they were following the rules of their ideology. Blindly. Not knowing that the times are changing. As foolish as the elite. In Carlos Slim’s blog. Peggy Noonan has reviewed the inauguration speech and sees it as a declaration of war on the bupartisan elite, and that this will not happen gently. Her description reeks of the ancien regime. It is worth noting that the Ambassadors did their job. They have to keep bridges with the powers in the country they are placed for the sake of their own nation, regardless of what they feel or think about the people in power.
Ambassadors made friendly speeches about their countries’ long, deep and unchanging ties to America. They approached the big change with sangfroid, even jolliness. But Washington still doesn’t know what to make of this thing America did.
At the Kuwaiti Embassy I looked out at hundreds of Washingtonians of both parties—diplomats, lobbyists, military brass, journalists—all networking, meeting, greeting, all handsomely dressed. As I surveyed the scene I turned to a social figure of 40 years’ standing. “Do they have any sense they’re living through big history?” I asked. “Noooooo!” she said. The look on her face—if it had been the late 19th century she would have said, “Pshaw!” History is not what they’re about, she was suggesting; satisfying their personal and immediate hungers is what they’re about.
The Trump Wars of the past 18 months do not now go away. Now it becomes the Trump Civil War, every day, with Democrats trying to get rid of him and half the country pushing back. To reduce it to the essentials: As long as Mr. Trump’s party holds the House, it will be a standoff. If the Democrats take the House, they will move to oust him.
Because we are divided. We are two nations, maybe more.
We are not to chase the approval of our peers: this leads to virtue signalling and holiness spirals. We have another and higher duty. We are to be holy, we are are to be virtuous, for the sake of Christ. Day by Day. Knowing that we can fail. Knowing we will fail.
For it is in our effort and our reliance of Christ that his glory is shown.
1Paul an apostle — sent neither by human commission nor from human authorities, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead — 2and all the members of God’s family who are with me,
To the churches of Galatia:
3Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ,4who gave himself for our sins to set us free from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, 5to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.
6I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel — 7not that there is another gospel, but there are some who are confusing you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. 8But even if we or an angel from heaven should proclaim to you a gospel contrary to what we proclaimed to you, let that one be accursed! 9As we have said before, so now I repeat, if anyone proclaims to you a gospel contrary to what you received, let that one be accursed!
10Am I now seeking human approval, or God’s approval? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still pleasing people, I would not be a servant of Christ.
11For I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel that was proclaimed by me is not of human origin; 12for I did not receive it from a human source, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.
13You have heard, no doubt, of my earlier life in Judaism. I was violently persecuting the church of God and was trying to destroy it. 14I advanced in Judaism beyond many among my people of the same age, for I was far more zealous for the traditions of my ancestors. 15But when God, who had set me apart before I was born and called me through his grace, was pleased 16to reveal his Son to me, so that I might proclaim him among the Gentiles, I did not confer with any human being, 17nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were already apostles before me, but I went away at once into Arabia, and afterwards I returned to Damascus.
The political theatre in Washington, the demonstrations, is akin to Kabuki. It is virtue signalling. The signal the other way is that those destroying things are charged with felony rioting, which is a 10 year jail time in the USA before plea bargaining. The street matters not that much: the power of the state can be used to reward and punish behaviour, for good or for ill.
We have to do good regardless.
We have to preach Christ crucified regardless.
For this faith is not human. It is not a matter of looking good: if that is your goal in NZ, you don’t go the church, you join the Greens or Labour and spend Sunday morning sipping lattes and plotting the next degeneration. The number of converged elite wannabes in Wellington is legion: you shall know them by the buttons on their carefully curated jackets.
The people in the Church are not there to run the social welfare state or to further the progressive project, now bankrupt. They are not there to please the elite. They are there to preach the gospel.
And when we leave that, we find churches have been converted to bijou studios, and the people perishing for their hope is now lacking.
The gospel is more than we can imagine. It is worth more than anything any multi-billionaire has. And that is what we need to preach, wearing the assoiated loss of status with pride. For our God will come, and his justice will be terrible.