Monday, August 01, 2005
Orthodoxy and Optimism
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I am thoroughly enjoying Chesterton's Orthodoxy. Utterly delightful, deeply insightful, I place it on par with Lewis' Mere Christianity, though qualify the statement by acknowledging that it is perhaps less accessible to the average reader and that I have not read the latter in a decade. I will first share a few snipets, and then if I have time, comment on how God has been His usual faithful self, tying these words intimately and encouragingly into my own current events and spiritual needs.
The evil of the pessimist is, then, not that he chastises gods and men, but that he does not love what he chastises . . . What s the evil of the man called optimist? Obviously, it is felt that the optimist, wishing to defend the honor of this world, will defend the indefensible. He is the jingo of the universe; he will say, "My cosmos, right or wrong." He will be less inclined to the reform of things; more inclined to a front bench answer to all attacks, soothing every one with assurances. He will not wash the world, but whitewash the world. . . . The extraordinary thing is that the bad optimism (the whitewashing, weak defense of everything) comes in with the reasonable optimism. The man who is most likely to ruin the place he loves is exactly the man who loves it with a reason, The man who will improve the place is the man who loves it without reason.
Perhaps the most everyday instance of this point is in the case of women; and their strange and strong loyalty. Some stupid people started the idea that because women obviously back up their own people through everything, therefore women are blind and do not see anything. They can hardly have known any women. (!) The same women who are ready to defend their men through thick and thin are almost morbidly lucid about the thinness of his excuses or the thickness of his head. A man's friend likes him but leaves him as he is: his wife loves him and is always trying to turn him into somebody else. . . . Love is not blind; that is the last thing that love is. Love is bound; and the more it is bound the less it is blind. The moment we have a fixed heart, we have a free hand.
Can [man] hate [the world] enough to change it, yet love it enough to think it worth changing? Can he look up at its colossal good without once feeling acquiescence? Can he look up at its colossal evil without once feeling despair? Can he, in short, be at once not only a pessimist and an optimist, but a fanatical pessimist and a fanatical optimist? . . . Christianity is accused, at one and the same time, of being too optimistic about the universe and of being too pessimistic about the world.
The blogsphere has been somewhat a-buzz with critiques of Joel Osteen, "pastorpaneur" in Houston, Texas. He essentially teaches a "positive thinking" gospel, that God wants to bless those who help themselves, you can have your best life now if you just put a pithy smile on your face and be optimistic about life. I find it extremely irritating to listen to, because as Chesterton describes, I have found the world at once to be both a place full of horror, insane suffering and great travail as well as a place of great wonder, hope and beauty. To preach "be positive" is to me a wretched whitewashing of reality, truth and the gospel that could only fill a church with 30,000 people in fat, rich and blind consumerist America. Not to be overly critical . . .
Kierkegaard wrote that "It is impossible to know God and to be happy in life." Quite true when referring to an Osteen-like, pithy, smiley face, everything is okey-dokey kind of happiness. That is why the Bible refers not to happy, comfy, cozy, life is rosey happiness but to joy, to irrational, faith-fueled joy that comes from the encounter with a saving God in the daily midst of sin and travail.
I read all this the week one of our pastors preached on the "groaning" of Romans 8. He asked, how is the Kingdom on God expanded? By marketing and slick smiles? By politicking? No, he says, by partaking in the sufferings of Christ, "filling up what was lacking". This is not the groaning of despair. We do not grieve as those without hope, but it is the groaning of "travail", as of a woman in labor. She has pain, yet it is not without hope and purpose in every moment. Positive thinking glosses over the darkness and ignores it as does Chesterton's optimist. Positive thinking is supremely naive and self-centered, only allowing into its feelings based world that which the individual can himself positively think away. All other's suffering is largely shut out. Yet Paul teaches in Romans that for this part of life's journey, all creation, all humanity, even God Himself, groans with labor pains, awaiting the glory of the redemption of the men to be revealed.
The pastor spoke on ministering to those who suffer. We cannot just try to medicate and alleviate the pain (as our culture is obsessed with doing), we must press through it with travail towards light and healing. We weep with those who weep, take their travail upon ourselves so that we might encourage them to persevere, to remain steadfast in faith, waiting with quite patience for the Lord's deliverance to come. Anyone who has had natural labor will easily understand this. You must wait quietly with perseverance, the less you "do" in labor, the easier it is to endure the "travail". The more you fight and fidget, the worse it is. And the best support partner is the one who sits quietly beside you, sharing your pain, so that they are sensitive to anticipate a practical need. And the greatest ministry of all is to groan and travail with those who suffer through the labor of prayer.
All this comes a day or two before I travel home to see my family and perhaps my sister who is so completely lost I can barely endure to think upon reality. She is wandering the streets of a big city, half the time high on crystal meth, stealing money to survive, saying that she isn't choosing this. I haven't seen her in 1 1/2 years. When I do see her, she will weigh 20 pounds less (100) and be covered with the scars of her abuse, looking homeless as she is, I am sure. And this does not mention the pain and scars which I know to boil beneath her skin. To go visit and see her feels like a trip to see Christ on the cross. I never could watch "The Passion". Yet if I expect, pray and beg for her to stop running and press through her darkness toward the light of redemption, how can I not press through my own dark fear and go to see her, taking upon my own weak heart the pain which I know I will see? Don't even dare to tell me to put a smile on my face and be positive, such offense is horridly callous and blind to the reality and depths of sin around us. Yes I need hope, but the hope of Him who sweat blood in the garden and endured through eyes wide open to blackness around Him. And I tell you, He didn't get "His best life Now" by putting a smile on His face through it. Tell a woman in the throes of labor to be positive and smiley and I bet she will deck you.
I have more quotes, but they will have to wait. My children need momma.
The evil of the pessimist is, then, not that he chastises gods and men, but that he does not love what he chastises . . . What s the evil of the man called optimist? Obviously, it is felt that the optimist, wishing to defend the honor of this world, will defend the indefensible. He is the jingo of the universe; he will say, "My cosmos, right or wrong." He will be less inclined to the reform of things; more inclined to a front bench answer to all attacks, soothing every one with assurances. He will not wash the world, but whitewash the world. . . . The extraordinary thing is that the bad optimism (the whitewashing, weak defense of everything) comes in with the reasonable optimism. The man who is most likely to ruin the place he loves is exactly the man who loves it with a reason, The man who will improve the place is the man who loves it without reason.
Perhaps the most everyday instance of this point is in the case of women; and their strange and strong loyalty. Some stupid people started the idea that because women obviously back up their own people through everything, therefore women are blind and do not see anything. They can hardly have known any women. (!) The same women who are ready to defend their men through thick and thin are almost morbidly lucid about the thinness of his excuses or the thickness of his head. A man's friend likes him but leaves him as he is: his wife loves him and is always trying to turn him into somebody else. . . . Love is not blind; that is the last thing that love is. Love is bound; and the more it is bound the less it is blind. The moment we have a fixed heart, we have a free hand.
Can [man] hate [the world] enough to change it, yet love it enough to think it worth changing? Can he look up at its colossal good without once feeling acquiescence? Can he look up at its colossal evil without once feeling despair? Can he, in short, be at once not only a pessimist and an optimist, but a fanatical pessimist and a fanatical optimist? . . . Christianity is accused, at one and the same time, of being too optimistic about the universe and of being too pessimistic about the world.
The blogsphere has been somewhat a-buzz with critiques of Joel Osteen, "pastorpaneur" in Houston, Texas. He essentially teaches a "positive thinking" gospel, that God wants to bless those who help themselves, you can have your best life now if you just put a pithy smile on your face and be optimistic about life. I find it extremely irritating to listen to, because as Chesterton describes, I have found the world at once to be both a place full of horror, insane suffering and great travail as well as a place of great wonder, hope and beauty. To preach "be positive" is to me a wretched whitewashing of reality, truth and the gospel that could only fill a church with 30,000 people in fat, rich and blind consumerist America. Not to be overly critical . . .
Kierkegaard wrote that "It is impossible to know God and to be happy in life." Quite true when referring to an Osteen-like, pithy, smiley face, everything is okey-dokey kind of happiness. That is why the Bible refers not to happy, comfy, cozy, life is rosey happiness but to joy, to irrational, faith-fueled joy that comes from the encounter with a saving God in the daily midst of sin and travail.
I read all this the week one of our pastors preached on the "groaning" of Romans 8. He asked, how is the Kingdom on God expanded? By marketing and slick smiles? By politicking? No, he says, by partaking in the sufferings of Christ, "filling up what was lacking". This is not the groaning of despair. We do not grieve as those without hope, but it is the groaning of "travail", as of a woman in labor. She has pain, yet it is not without hope and purpose in every moment. Positive thinking glosses over the darkness and ignores it as does Chesterton's optimist. Positive thinking is supremely naive and self-centered, only allowing into its feelings based world that which the individual can himself positively think away. All other's suffering is largely shut out. Yet Paul teaches in Romans that for this part of life's journey, all creation, all humanity, even God Himself, groans with labor pains, awaiting the glory of the redemption of the men to be revealed.
The pastor spoke on ministering to those who suffer. We cannot just try to medicate and alleviate the pain (as our culture is obsessed with doing), we must press through it with travail towards light and healing. We weep with those who weep, take their travail upon ourselves so that we might encourage them to persevere, to remain steadfast in faith, waiting with quite patience for the Lord's deliverance to come. Anyone who has had natural labor will easily understand this. You must wait quietly with perseverance, the less you "do" in labor, the easier it is to endure the "travail". The more you fight and fidget, the worse it is. And the best support partner is the one who sits quietly beside you, sharing your pain, so that they are sensitive to anticipate a practical need. And the greatest ministry of all is to groan and travail with those who suffer through the labor of prayer.
All this comes a day or two before I travel home to see my family and perhaps my sister who is so completely lost I can barely endure to think upon reality. She is wandering the streets of a big city, half the time high on crystal meth, stealing money to survive, saying that she isn't choosing this. I haven't seen her in 1 1/2 years. When I do see her, she will weigh 20 pounds less (100) and be covered with the scars of her abuse, looking homeless as she is, I am sure. And this does not mention the pain and scars which I know to boil beneath her skin. To go visit and see her feels like a trip to see Christ on the cross. I never could watch "The Passion". Yet if I expect, pray and beg for her to stop running and press through her darkness toward the light of redemption, how can I not press through my own dark fear and go to see her, taking upon my own weak heart the pain which I know I will see? Don't even dare to tell me to put a smile on my face and be positive, such offense is horridly callous and blind to the reality and depths of sin around us. Yes I need hope, but the hope of Him who sweat blood in the garden and endured through eyes wide open to blackness around Him. And I tell you, He didn't get "His best life Now" by putting a smile on His face through it. Tell a woman in the throes of labor to be positive and smiley and I bet she will deck you.
I have more quotes, but they will have to wait. My children need momma.
1 Comments:
At 8/02/2005 7:59 AM,
Anita said…
Annie, this is an excellent post. This comment really stands out to me. It's something that I have been struggling with for a long time.
Can [man] hate [the world] enough to change it, yet love it enough to think it worth changing?
It is only through Christ that we can have eyes such as these. If I look at the world through my own eyes I can only see either despair or blissful ignorance. But when I look at the world through the eyes of Christ, then I can begin to both hate the world and love it at the same time.
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