When I read the quotes out to Robyn this morning she said that this reminded her of her old church. There is a certain sense that the leader is the Man of God and all others are to fall into line, and if they do not their dirty laundry will be shown in public. This leads to vanity, and vanity to virtue signals.

And worship in that church leads me nauseous. There is the form of religion, but the Spirit of God is not there. This is not what ought to be, for the church is of the same tradition as Lewis, who wrote wisely and well. This is from 1943.

I AM a democrat because I believe in the Fall of Man. I think most people are democrats for the opposite reason. A great deal of democratic enthusiasm descends from the ideas of people like Rousseau, who believed in democracy because they thought mankind so wise and good that everyone deserved a share in the government. The danger of defending democracy on those grounds is that they’re not true. And whenever their weakness is exposed, the people who prefer tyranny make capital out of the exposure.

T find that they’re not true without looking further than myself. 1 don’t deserve a share in governing a hen-roost, much less a nation. Nor do most people —all the people who believe advertisements, and think in catchwords and spread rumours. The real reason for democracy is just the reverse. Mankind is so fallen that no man can be trusted with unchecked power over his fellows. Aristotle said that some people were only fit to be slaves. I do not contradict him. But I reject slavery because I see no men fit to be masters.

This introduces a view of equality rather different from that in which we have been trained. I do not think that equality is one of those things (like wisdom or happiness) which are good simply in themselves and for their own sakes. I think it is in the same class as medicine, which is good because we are ill, or clothes which are good because we are no longer innocent. I don’t think the old authority in kings, priests, husbands, or fathers, and the old obedience in subjects, laymen, wives, and sons, was in itself a degrading or evil thing at all. I think it was intrinsically as good and beautiful as the nakedness of Adam and Eve. . It was rightly taken away because men became bad and abused it.

Note to those in the Anglosphere: none of you live in a democracy. You live in either royal dominions, which were set up as monarchial republics by the Act of Settlement (1653) or in a constitutional republic, set up by the American Revolution. Or in a black tyranny, falling fast, to my horror, as South Africa follows the path of Zimbabwe.

But consider Paul He could not preach where he wanted to. He was only able to work where God allowed. He was restricted: he failed. Until Phillipi, where the Jews were not allowed to worship within the gates of that Roman colony set upon Greek soil.

Acts 16:6-15

⁶They went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. ⁷When they had come opposite Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them; ⁸so, passing by Mysia, they went down to Troas. ⁹During the night Paul had a vision: there stood a man of Macedonia pleading with him and saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” ¹⁰When he had seen the vision, we immediately tried to cross over to Macedonia, being convinced that God had called us to proclaim the good news to them.

¹¹We set sail from Troas and took a straight course to Samothrace, the following day to Neapolis, ¹²and from there to Philippi, which is a leading city of the district of Macedonia and a Roman colony. We remained in this city for some days. ¹³On the sabbath day we went outside the gate by the river, where we supposed there was a place of prayer; and we sat down and spoke to the women who had gathered there. ¹⁴A certain woman named Lydia, a worshiper of God, was listening to us; she was from the city of Thyatira and a dealer in purple cloth. The Lord opened her heart to listen eagerly to what was said by Paul. ¹⁵When she and her household were baptized, she urged us, saying, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come and stay at my home.” And she prevailed upon us.

Many take the example of Lydia as a proof text, saying that this allows women to lead within the Church. Not so. Lydia was a woman of richness and power: running a household and a business. Many women like her exist now, and women like her have always existed. Her support to Paul was praiseworthy: note that her house was big enough and full enough that guests were no scandal.

But this is not equality. We are not equal but in our sin. None of us are worthy to lead: it is a burden forced upon a few, and those deserve our prayers, for they are held to a higher standard.

Moreover, this is not about our assurance of salvation. We are saved, true, but we are only able to witness to God by standing against this society. This requires continuous energy. There is ongoing resistance: be it a sleepless night, for this is done before other duties, or finding you cannot log into your web server.

It requires effort. One has to continually be in training. The message of this time is to give up, to accept the system, and rejoice in being weak, craven, corrupt and venal.

But in that path lies destruction.

Which gets us to the modern secular True Believer. If all is fore ordained and one’s place is secure (or non-existent, in the case of atheists), criticism (or destruction), the easier path, rather than creation, the harder, becomes the standard. Marching and emoting and punching Nazis is more fun than, say working the soup kitchen or helping building habitats for the poor or teaching the illiterate to read.* Making errors (much less making up for errors) scarcely enters into the equation.

How wonderful a faith is that? No real effort involved, and if there are inconsistencies or temptations to act like a jerk, well, not really a problem because, you see – One is one of the Elect. Too bad about the rest of you sinners. Perhaps you should move down south with the rest of your heathen kind. Or just die. And by the way, where’s my check?

Not surprisingly, for those few Elect who do create, the results are, shall we say, not sublime. And their jokes are terrible.

The roots for this mindset go deep and, no surprise, go deepest in states like Massachusetts. That it screws up the individual in small and society at large in any number of ways is obvious, but if one is a true believer, inconvenient facts are there to be ignored. They have to be. If acknowledged, they are shattering. I’ve seen it happen, as no doubt you have as well. Not pretty. So rather than face up to failure, one must blame failure onto others.

For our failures, there will be an accounting. The reason that God saves us is that we cannot save ourselves: if that was the case then Christ hanging damned on a tree would not have been necessary.

Besides, projecting blame elsewhere is childish. Living without responsibility ts bad for one: it leads to despair, and no sense of purpose. There is a reason these habits are ones that I confront clinically — among those who have chosen to lose the habits of health. The mad know better.

Do not be them. Do no be like them.