On the contrary it is written: “For the word of the cross is to them that perish foolishness, but to us that are saved it is God’s power…But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.” ( 1 Corinthians 1:18, 2:14)
The Christian life is fittingly represented by the cross, as it is the final fulfilment of our lives. We are baptised with Christ, thus are identifying ourselves with Him. From then on we progress on our pilgrim way towards Jerusalem, carrying our cross, to meet our end by his side, and thus participate in His resurrection. The Christian life is a life of paradoxes as you must have seen, for what should bring death, brings life, what should cause sadness, causes joy. This is but a reflection of the paradox of Golgotha, as through the greatest evil of deicide, the greatest good, the reconciling of humanity with God. The cross is the radical antithesis of the teachings of the world. For in crowds we are lonely, but in solitude we are amongst angels, in vice we are content, but in self-denial there is abounding joy.
It was ever thus – Stalin’s “paradox” of the liberation of the masses through the totalitarian despotism… Hitler’s cruel slogan over the front gate at Dachau: *“Arbeit Macht Frei”. *The language of enslavement is
necessarily paradoxical because it must overcome the libertine urge of man. It must pursue and validate the basic cognitive dissonance, that I must wear chains if I want to be free, that I must die if I want to live, that I must suffer if I want to experience joy. How else can one present the rhetoric for chains, death and suffering, but by deploying Orwellian assaults on these concepts?
I speak for my self, and for those that follow Christ when I say that the Law of the Lord is our delight. We rejoice in following Christ striving for virtue and goodness, to truly deny oneself for the sake of others.
I don’t deny the joy of sacrifice and denying oneself for the sake of others. As a husband, father of six and member of a large extended family and a surrounding community and society, I embrace it, I embody it. But I do so on the merits, because it is beneficial and healthy and generative in its own right, on its own terms. Doing it “because God said so” takes whatever virtue inheres in that
out. Then its just submission to power. A woman who delights in wearing a
burqa for her own reasons I can respect as truly vrituous and modest (even if I don’t understand it). But how virtuous is the woman who delights in that not for its own reasons but just because she is a slave of Allah, or worse, knows she will be brutally beaten if she does not. “Virtue by force of law” is not true virtue. The “law of hijab” takes away the integrity of the woman’s virtue, as she is coerced, and even if she embraces it because it’s a good law, it’s
because it’s a law.
If you value sacrifice and selflessness and self-discipline for its own sake, you need no God or law to virtuous in that way. God simply taints whatever virtue you may have, and I suppose it’s quite a lot in your case.
How can one say that the endeavour of self-denial is not the only path to virtue? For the very spawn of iniquity is the desire of self over what is naturally greater. You speak of “tyranny” clothed in love, as if the Law of the Lord was some industrious work schedule, where we must routinely pay our dues, on the mountain of servitude that is called “Sinai”. You fail to see that the Law itself became flesh and was nailed to a tree – you fail to see that the law of the Lord truly sets us free, as it unchains our hearts and allows us to flourish in virtue and in love.
You said yourself that the Christian faith is “cross” all believers must take up and bear, following Christ. That’s not martinis on the veranda at sunset. It’s a call to sacrifice, suffering, self-denial, etc. for
another, but not for its own sake, but rather because you are commanded so, as bondservants to Christ.
I’m not talking about levitical law here, or the superficial legalism of OT culture. I’m rather suggesting that the very idea that Jesus’ death can do
anything to absolve you vicariously for your sins is a deeply tyrannical one, a profound offense human dignity. I do understand the “paradox thing”, that we are “free” by keeping “every thought captive” to Christ, as Paul commends, etc.
I believe you are overlooking the idiosyncrasies between the Word of God, and the opinions of the world, as the contemplation of these truths truly strip the iniquitous and erroneous flesh of society and bears forth the framework and the handiwork of God’s original world, unperverted by the wickedness of man.
Perhaps. From my perspective, the salvation calculus
is a perversion, an expression of the wickedness of man. Arbeit macht frei, nein?
I should say, just so we’re clear that the perverse logic behind that does not and cannot diminish the innate goodness of sacrifices and charities done in service to that idea. One of the “fruits of servility” is here is kindness toward others, and kindness is kindness, no matter what prompts it. The perversion happens at a higher level, tainting the integrity of those good things, denying the goodness of sacrifice and self-denial as goods in their own right, goods toward good ends on their own, and “sovietizing” it as necessities in service to the “law of God”. And I don’t mean that in the “Numbers/Leviticus” sense, but in the “take up your cross and follow me” sense.
-TS
