Dietrich Bonhoeffer:

The only required reflection for disciples is to be completely oblivious, completely unreflective in obedience, in discipleship, in love. If you do good, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. You should not know your own goodness. Otherwise it will really be your goodness, and not the goodness of Christ. The goodness of Christ, the goodness of discipleship takes place without awareness. The genuine deed of love is always a deed hidden to myself. Pay heed that you do not know it. Only in this way is it the goodness of God. If I want to know my own goodness and my own love, then it is no longer love. Even the extraordinary love of enemies remains hidden to disciples. When they love their enemies, then they no longer view them as enemies. This blindness of the disciples, or rather this vision enlightened by Christ, is what makes them certain. The hiddenness of their lives from themselves is their promise.

the true meaning of Christmas

Currently reading: A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller 📚

Currently reading: This America: The Case for the Nation by Jill Lepore 📚

Finished reading: The Virtue of Nationalism by Yoram Hazony 📚

A very readable book. Hazony’s arguments are clear, his writing lucid. One of his main contentions is that the best political order is “an order of independent national states.” He sees this order as the ideal mean between violent anarchy and hegemonic empire. While in a previous work Hazony looked at the Hebrew Bible as a source for philosophical reflection, in The Virtues of Nationalism he considers how the Old Testament ought to inform political theory. He argues that there is a “biblical preference” for the national state, though he doesn’t base his position solely on scriptural grounds. He’s especially critical of all “imperialist” political projects, of which he sees the European Union as the greatest contemporary example. The current “liberal imperialist” impulse, according to Hazony, owes much to Kant’s “enlightened” vision of humanity’s progress from anarchy to national independence to world empire. He contrasts the imperialist vision—given to abstraction, intolerant of those who demur at their utopian dreams for humanity—with that of the nationalist—a particularist, loyal to his nation but also humble and self-critical enough to be skeptical of over-extending his limited perception of the good. Much to chew on here, that’s for sure.

George Marsden, describing the conflicting impulses within modern fundamentalism (i.e., the religious New Right), which is partly a result of it being one of the heirs to that collection of diverse traditions known as American evangelicalism:

Fundamentalism…is fraught with paradoxes. It is torn between uncivil controversialism and the accepting attitudes necessary for being influential and evangelizing effectively. Often it is otherworldly and privatistic; yet it retains intense patriotism and interest in the moral-political welfare of the nation. It is individualistic, yet produces strong communities. It is in some ways anti-intellectual, but stresses right thinking and true education. It accentuates the revivalists' appeal to the subjective, yet often it is rationalistic-inductivist in its epistemology. It is Christianity derived from an ancient book, yet shaped also by the technological age. It is anti modernist, but in some respects strikingly modern. Perhaps most ironically, it offers simple answers phrased as clear polarities; yet it is such a complex combination of traditions and beliefs that it is filled with more ambiguity and paradox than most of its proponents or its opponents realize.

“Advent” by Sarah Klassen
(source: Rowan Williams' A Century of Poetry)

We are waiting (again) for the One
who has already come
and gone, leaving us
bereaved.

One waiting in the wings
for the cue - political, apocalyptic
or dramatic - to step into view,
descend,

be finally revealed
to the bewildered crowd -
complicit or without guile.
And to a remnant, impatient

for the curtain to rise on some
anticipated vindication. As if
flamboyant entry to a final act
will finally untangle everything:

a flawless denouement. As if
(if you’re not left behind)
a book will open up,
page after blinding page.

A prophet’s alleged to have said:
we cannot believe in one for whom -
for reasons philosophical,
emotional or rational -

we do not
(cannot,
will not any longer)
wait.

George Marsden, describing the “American pattern of secularization” at work in American politics (ca. 1896 to 1968):

Secularization in America took place not by a developing hostility between religion and the dominant culture, but by a blending of their goals. So Republican-Protestant hegemony no longer had to be explicitly Protestant. It just represented a certain concept of civilization. Civilization was equivalent in most minds to Christian civilization. It could be advanced by reforming progressive moral principles that people from all traditions might share. Many Democrats of the era, represented by [William Jennings] Bryan and [Woodrow ]Wilson, adopted this slightly secularized Protestant vision as much as did Republicans. The immense American missionary enthusiasm of this era, sweeping through it [sic] colleges, reflected this same impulse to help the world by advancing Christian civilization. Wilson’s secularized postmillennial vision of the American mission—to make the world safe for democracy—reflected a similar outlook. Religion, in short, had begun to work toward consensus.