Elull on the nature of the Christian's work in the world:
But when we say that the situation of the Christian is revolutionary--and that it is here that the change in our civilization must begin--this statement sounds paradoxical and ironical. To say that the Christian is a revolutionary, does not always seem obvious in history...For today Christians certainly seem to be the most conservative, and indeed the mildest, of men...But the fact that Christians, as human beings, at certain periods in history lose sight of the revolutionary character of their religion, does not mean that the Holy Spirit has ceased to work, and that the position of the Christian...has ceased to be revolutionary.
For the intervention of the Holy Spirit is not dependent on man and his choice, any more than the revolutionary character of the Christian situation depends on man. It is not because people choose Christ that they become Christian, it is because Christ has chosen them. It is not because Christians choose to go out into the world that they work there, it is because Christ sends them there. They are not revolutionary because they feel the urgent need for revolution...The situation of the Christian is revolutionary for other than intellectual or self-chosen reasons...This situation is part of the work of the church in the world, and it is true to say (as simple fact) that during the greater part of its history the church has, indeed, been in a revolutionary situation.
We must, however, define what we mean more precisely: we are here concerned with a situation, but not necessarily with an action. This situation may be defined as a "state of permanent revolution," which may be translated into concerted action, but which may also remain in a state of ferment, and lead to a work which is slow and deep...Our concern is for a revolution affecting the world, and not only the State, or the government. It is possible to have a conformist attitude to the government, and yet to be revolutionary toward the world. Here the idea of revolution is much deeper. Here the concern is not essentially to change the form of the State, or of an economy, but the very framework of a civilization, which ought to be continually examined and tested...Thus we have a deeper vision...of what this revolutionary character of the Christian faith might be in the world at the present day.
Jaques Ellul, The Presence of the Kingdom, pp. 32-33.
Ellul on what he perceives to be our situation in the world as believers (and I tend to think he's right, which freaks me out):
At present we are confronted by a choice: either a mass civilization, technological, "conformist"--the "Brave New World" of Huxley, hell organized upon earth for the bodily comfort of everybody--or a different civilization, which we cannot yet describe because we do not know what it will be; it still has to be created consciously, by men...if we let ourselves drift along the stream of history, without knowing it, we shall have chosen the power of suicide, which is at the heart of the world.
[...]
Now the situation of the Christian in the world is a revolutionary situation. His or her share in the preservation of the world is to be an inexhaustible revolutionary force in the midst of the world. Here we are concerned with the preservation of the world, for in our own day, as I have tried to show already, "conformity to history" leads to catastrophe: to the death of millions of people...to the technical establishment of suicide. In order to preserve the world, it is actually necessary that a genuine revolution should take place.
-Jaques Ellul, The Presence of the Kingdom, p. 31.
Wendell Berry, speaking in 2012 at the Jefferson Lectures for the National Endowment for the Humanities:
[My teacher, Wallace Stegner] thought rightly that we Americans, by inclination at least, have been divided into two kinds: “boomers” and “stickers.” Boomers, he said, are “those who pillage and run,” who want “to make a killing and end up on Easy Street,” whereas stickers are “those who settle, and love the life they have made and the place they have made it in.” “Boomer” names a kind of person and a kind of ambition that is the major theme, so far, of the history of the European races in our country. “Sticker” names a kind of person and also a desire that is, so far, a minor theme of that history, but a theme persistent enough to remain significant and to offer, still, a significant hope.
[...]
That we live now in an economy that is not sustainable is not the fault only of a few mongers of power and heavy equipment. We all are implicated. We all, in the course of our daily economic life, consent to it, whether or not we approve of it. This is because of the increasing abstraction and unconsciousness of our connection to our economic sources in the land, the land-communities, and the land-use economies. In my region and within my memory, for example, human life has become less creaturely and more engineered, less familiar and more remote from local places, pleasures, and associations. Our knowledge, in short, has become increasingly statistical.
Statistical knowledge once was rare. It was a property of the minds of great rulers, conquerors, and generals, people who succeeded or failed by the manipulation of large quantities that remained, to them, unimagined because unimaginable: merely accountable quantities of land, treasure, people, soldiers, and workers. This is the sort of knowledge we now call “data” or “facts” or “information.” Or we call it “objective knowledge,” supposedly untainted by personal attachment, but nonetheless available for industrial and commercial exploitation. By means of such knowledge a category assumes dominion over its parts or members. With the coming of industrialism, the great industrialists, like kings and conquerors, become exploiters of statistical knowledge. And finally virtually all of us, in order to participate and survive in their system, have had to agree to their substitution of statistical knowledge for personal knowledge. Virtually all of us now share with the most powerful industrialists their remoteness from actual experience of the actual world. Like them, we participate in an absentee economy, which makes us effectively absent even from our own dwelling places. Though most of us have little wealth and perhaps no power, we consumer–citizens are more like James B. Duke than we are like my grandfather. By economic proxies thoughtlessly given, by thoughtless consumption of goods ignorantly purchased, now we all are boomers.
In other words, "None is righteous, no, not one".
Jaques Ellul, writing in 1945 on "collective sin" and the Christian's place in a lost world:
It is now impossible to be isolated, to be separate. The illusion of a Christian life attached to a convent or hermitage has vanished. Whether it be due to the simple material fact of communications, or to the interdependence of economic institutions, or to the growth of democracy, in every way these influences combine to force man into this solidarity with others. Thus the Christian cannot consider himself pure, as compared with others. He cannot declare that he is free from the sin of the world. A major fact of our present civilization is that more and more sin becomes collective, and the individual is forced to participate in collective sin.
[...]
This situation is, however, disagreeable for a Christian...Some will try to dissociate the spiritual situation from the material one, despising the material situation, denying that it has any meaning, declaring that it is neutral, and does not concern eternal life, and that we can turn our attention solely to "spiritual problems." Such people argue that nothing matters but "the interior life": that is, that to be the "salt" or the "light" is a purely spiritual affirmation, which has no practical consequences. This is exactly what Jesus Christ calls hypocrisy. It means giving up any attempts to live out one's religion in the world. It turns the living person of Jesus Christ into an abstraction. God became incarnate--it is not for us to undo his work. This dissociation of our life into two spheres--the one "spiritual," where we can be "perfect," and the other material and unimportant, where we behave like other people--is one of the reasons why churches have so little influence on the world. This avoidance of responsibility for our faith is evidently a convenient solution for the intolerable dilemma in which we are placed by the society of our day. All we can say is: this is the exact opposite of what Jesus Christ wills for us, and of that which he came to do.
-Jaques Ellul, The Presence of the Kingdom, pp. 6-7.
Though I would say 1) the hope of remaining pure by separation has always been an illusion, and 2) this separation of spiritual and material has been an issue for much of the history of the church, Ellul's point nonetheless stands (and is, in fact, made more relevant).
It's finals week, so this will be short...but its too good not to share. Here's a gem from class discussion the other day:
[As image-bearers], we've been called to a life of putting the world back together.
-Mike Williams
Only possible by the power of God, of course.
A parable from Soren Kierkegaard, born 200 years ago Sunday:
It happened that a fire broke out backstage at a theater. The clown came out to inform the public. They thought it was just a jest and applauded. He repeated his warning, they shouted even louder. So I think the world will come to an end amid general applause from all the wits, who believe that it is a joke.
-Soren Kierkegaard, Either/Or, Vol. I, p. 30.
