I’m a fan of Michael Jones’ ministry, Inspiring Philosophy. I want to say that out front. On my second day of blogging, I linked to one of his videos. That being said, I found myself disagreeing with one of his takes on twitter.
My thoughts on the matter are twofold; perhaps, it would be better to say, two-layered. On the surface level, I gave my quick response:
And perhaps more can be said here. Tweets are meant to be brief, and, as such, much can be left out of a person’s whole opinion. I think, and this is supposition, that Mr. Jones is making a fair warning: We should not treat the gospels as a political treatise. If what Mr. Jones means is something along the lines of, “The gospel is not primarily political,” I would wholeheartedly agree. But the gospel is political. “Turn the other cheek” is a radical, political message. It’s not wholly a political message, it’s not primarily a political message, but, if followed, it applies as much to how I treat my neighbor across the street (the focus of the message) as to how I will treat my neighbors living in the same country (an obvious corollary).
I think I said my peace regarding the law. Law, good or bad, heavenly or demonic, affects the hearts and minds of those living under it. The gospel informs our morals, our morals inform our laws, and our laws facilitate mankind’s development either toward righteousness or perdition.
But the real reason I felt a hint of something wrong with Mr. Jones’ tweet was not the content. I’m sure if the two of us settled down to a nice little chat, we’d be arguing about something before long. No, it’s not that I disagree with him or worry he’s left something out; I can’t help but hear (perhaps I’m inserting it) a tone when I read this, something familiar to me, heard often in a certain professor whom I admire very much, an intellectual snobbery.
I fear I’m reading far too much into it. I can’t judge any man’s heart, especially not off of a tweet, but when I read this, I seemed to hear, along with everything else, a sort of disdain, or talking down to. No, the gospel’s not for you hoi-polloi to better your country with; be satisfied with the inner changes of the heart.
It’s not a competition, or at least shouldn’t be. Christ’s physical feeding of thousands complemented his message about the spiritual feeding of all Christians. The one is greater than the other, and though many took the lesser and walked away, that doesn’t give our intellectual leaders the right to starve their flock.
Bad politics, unmoored from Christian ethics, will starve people. It will enslave people. It will twist people. In the end, we will either live in the Kingdom of Christ or outside it, and in Christ’s kingdom, one of the strange rules governing it is that the greater serves the lesser.
Tale Told 