Yesterday ended on the same note as today began. Yesterday it was a conversation with a friend...today it was a conversation with my brother. I am so grateful to another friend for the helping hand he offered me a couple years ago during a time when the Spirit had begun to overturn some mistaken notions in my life. And I am also thankful to him for having introduced me to another brother that has helped much in the untangling of the complicated web that I began to see myself caught up in. My entire life had become politicized. The two big problems go something like this: I was caught up in the political illusion and influenced by a religious world view that had been shaped by the same illusion. None of it could withstand the season of critical thinking that the Spirit had led me into. And that season of critical thinking would have never happened had it not been for the growing trust in our gracious loving Father that was a direct result of His love displacing the fear that the Powers were always busy at work to exploit in me.
The politicization of freedom, justice, peace, security, prosperity, and fulfillment has made the realization of all these things an impossibility. And yet these things are real and living in them remains possible, but as I have found out, the abandonment of the illusion must happen for them to ever become the tangible reality that they are.
Below is an excerpt from the Introduction to Jacques Ellul's book The Political Illusion. It at least for me takes on such startling significance in light of the chaos the world is caught up in today...and always has been.
"As a result of this politicization of all aspects of life and of the orientation of all thought and energy toward politics, men increasingly turn to the state for a solution of their problems, though the state could not solve them if it tried. And everywhere in the world this increasing inclination to turn to the state leads to three evils: boundless inflation of the state's size and power; increasing dependence on it by the individual; and decreasing control over it by the "people" who think they control it, whereas in reality they merely surrender all their powers to it."
10 comments:
solid post brother
Yerk. It's creepy, isn't it?
Funny, people talk about nanny states when criticising the left. But the right subscribe to the very same thing, just in a different format. Weird.
Free now of this Kentster, in your mind. Hallelujah :) Free one day for good, the earth. No wonder the creation groans in expectation
It is so creepy Sue. Politics are all about power so it shouldn't ever be a surprise that both right and left are equally about control. It's just sad that through the Christian religion the liberating message got politicised and hence subverted. Check this quote out from Ellul's The Subversion of Christianity.
"It (the church) should never seek to justifiy any political force...
Christians may choose that which suits them best for purely human reasons. Democracy seems to me to be preferable to dictatorship. I like socialism better than capitalism. But strictly speaking, God has nothing to do with such things. . .
The scandal is that the church tries to use political power to ensure its own authority and to secure advantages. What was pure grace is thus radically subverted into a politics of give and take."
That creates something really creepy.
Yes. Absolutely and utterly. I like socialism better than capitalism too, but goodness me, state that in Christian circles and you get flamed, dontcha ;)
(Okay, so I have shown my political leanings. I do, however, lean on Mr Ellul's view for support so I don't topple too far in any direction ... hopefully ;)
Yep, you would get flamed...or maybe just marginalized as a moron.
For the one who is being/has been set free...none of them really are of consequence.
Now that's not going to preach well either is it?
Great quote!
I've found that the political and religious illusion were just symptoms of a deeper illusion...the rabbit-hole is pretty deep, isn't it?
hey Sue I'm with you on that one. I'd rather have socialized health care, and education than a big old war machine anyday. But that's what we get for living in nanny states eh?
And that definitely gets you torched in church, circles.
Jon
LOL Kent. Methinks maybe the best sort of religion (that word in the good sense) is one that can't readily be preached in sermons?
But then, the longer I go on the more eastern I am becoming in my thinking ... which seems to reflect the way Jesus thought closer than the dead-end blind dualisms of the West.
Yes, Jon, you would get torched for sure, having heretical views such as those ;) Hooray for heresy! Three cheers! :)
Oh... dang, again, Kent!
Deep stuff here. I'm only recently finding my political views under the microscope... and that's pretty scary. It's all just falling down around me... this grid I've lived under.
Bring it on, Papa! Open these eyes to see YOU thru it all!!
Just keep moving from one moment to the next and watch it unfold.
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