. . . difficult and left untried

The great ideals of the past failed not by being outlived (which must mean over-lived), but by not being lived enough. … The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried. — G.K. Chesterton, Part One: The Homelessness Of Man, Ch. 5 : The Unfinished Temple

On Sunday I heard a good sermon that used that quote, and a good quote it is. The quote makes significantly more sense if I include another chunk from the same chapter, which leads up to the quote (you must excuse a bit of the anti-German sentiment in the quote):

Of course, I mean that Catholicism was not tried; plenty of Catholics were tried, and found guilty. My point is that the world did not tire of the church’s ideal, but of its reality. Monasteries were impugned not for the chastity of monks, but for the unchastity of monks. Christianity was unpopular not because of the humility, but of the arrogance of Christians. Certainly, if the church failed it was largely through the churchmen. But at the same time hostile elements had certainly begun to end it long before it could have done its work. In the nature of things it needed a common scheme of life and thought in Europe. Yet the mediaeval system began to be broken to pieces intellectually, long before it showed the slightest hint of falling to pieces morally. The huge early heresies, like the Albigenses, had not the faintest excuse in moral superiority. And it is actually true that the Reformation began to tear Europe apart before the Catholic Church had had time to pull it together. The Prussians, for instance, were not converted to Christianity at all until quite close to the Reformation. The poor creatures hardly had time to become Catholics before they were told to become Protestants. This explains a great deal of their subsequent conduct.

Certainly Mr. Chesterton has made quite a good point. In fact, if you were to read further into the next paragraph, you will find that he applies the same analysis to a republican (meaning democratic) system of government. But, that is not for this post. I am not quite as convinced that the Roman Catholic Church would have continued on into changing Europe in a positive way had it been left to go on its merry way. There were significantly too many churchmen, particularly the clergy, who most certainly were arrogant, unchaste, and loved money. Lucretia Borgia, the daughter of one of the Popes, died two years AFTER Fr. Martin Luther posted his theses on the church door at Wittenberg.

The memory of the Borgia papacies was not a distant memory for the Reformers. Fr. Martin Luther was 9 years old when the second Borgia Pope, Pope Alexander VI, was elected and would have been about 20 years old when Pope Alexander VI died. That pope had a son named Cesare Borgia, who was used as the model for the Ideal Statesman in the book, The Prince, by Niccolo di Bernardo dei Machiavelli. In other words, the personal experience of the Reformers was that the Roman Catholic Church was corrupt at its core.

Nevertheless, G.K. Chesterton’s argument stands and is both true and valid. “Certainly, if the church failed it was largely through the churchmen.” If you read Fr. Martin Luther, the reason he is considered a Reformer rather than a revolutionary is because his intention was to restore the Church to her former glory. That is, in spite of his written observations (the 95 theses) of the many problems of the Roman Catholic Church, he was convinced that the Church was indeed the Holy Mother Church. It was the churchmen who needed reformed, not the Church itself. That is a point that many people miss about Fr. Martin Luther. It was not until after the churchmen refused to listen and tried to have Fr. Luther killed that he finally makes the break and begins to consider the Roman Catholic Church as the whore of Babylon (a position with which I do not agree).

But do not miss what G.K. Chesterton is saying about the difficulty of living the Christian life. Part of the reason for the system of indulgences in the Roman Catholic Church was not simply to raise money, as skeptics would have people believe. Indulgences became corrupted into a money-changing enterprise. But, the purpose of indulgences was to ease the difficulty of living the Christian life. Indulgences were based on rather horrid theology (from an Orthodox viewpoint), but they were an acknowledgement that being changed into the likeness of God, into an icon of Christ, is both difficult and painful.

The Protestant solution was to ameliorate the difficult and painful by simply putting the process off until the Lord comes back and–in various theological ways–declaring an assurance of salvation that had the unfortunate side effect of allowing people to quit the process of change. In its most decayed form–a form never uttered by any of the Reformers–“once saved always saved” allows for Christians to keep a multitude of “acceptable” sins without really trying to change them. (A friend of mine comments that there is really only one condemnable sin in the American congregation. That is not true; he is mistaken. There is more than one sin. But, there is an understanding of what are the “unacceptable” sins which allow one to feel comfortable because one condemns them and does not do them while not truly trying to change their “acceptable” sins.)

In fact, a Roman Catholic priest or a Protestant pastor who now preaches what is called a “hellfire and brimstone” sermon is likely to see his congregation diminish as they all rush over to the priest or pastor who preaches the gospel of self-acceptance rather than self-denial. Ten step sermons on how to find the will of God, find peace in your life, or find a better “Christian” sex life are now significantly more common than sermons on repentance, denying yourself, fasting, loving your enemy, or giving to the poor, all of which are topics frequently found in the Early Church Fathers. If any priest or pastor wants to really anger the congregation, let him preach directly on the gossip and backbiting which are oh so common in so many congregations. What Saint James said on the tongue would not be really acceptable preaching in many congregations today.

For the last 30 years, Christians in this country have been bewailing their loss of influence. I have heard 2 Chronicles 7:14 quoted until I almost have it memorized. “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” But there are three parts to that Scripture: (1) pray, (2) seek my face, (3) turn from their wicked ways. Frankly, at best I have only seen part 1 and some of part 2 taking place. I have failed to see Christians turning from their wicked ways into an active walk towards growing into the likeness of God. Where is that pattern of weekly fasting and prayer, which was one of the hallmarks of the Early Church? Where is that pattern of the very regular attendance at the various worships of our Lord God, which was another of the hallmarks of the Early Church? Where is that pattern of taking care of their own and giving to the poor that was such a hallmark of the Early Church that even pagans commented on it in their writings?

The Early Church grew because their example was so potent that there is more than one record of the soldiers who were about to kill Christians changing, becoming Christians, and being killed themselves. You see, the American Christians do not really need “persecution” in order to be a failing Christianity. We only need to continue walking in the path in which we have been walking. ?Satan does not need to whip up  anti-Christian sentiment in this country. He only needs to encourage the mass of Christians to keep living the life we are living, and we ourselves will whip up the anti-Christian sentiment. “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.”