Harry Blamires was one of C.S. Lewis’ star pupils. In 1963 he published one of the more defining books for my life and faith, “The Christian Mind” (Seabury Press). In addition to its helpful examination of the six “marks” of the Christian mind – (1) Its Supernatural Orientation; (2) Its Awareness of Evil; (3) Its Conception of Truth; (4) Its Acceptance of Authority; (5) Its Concern for the Person; and (6) Its Sacramental Cast, “The Christian Mind” was a lament for the near total abandonment of the spiritual discipline of “thinking Christianly” by Christians in his day (and ours), and an appeal for its recovery.
To illustrate the state of things, Harry Blamires recommended an exercise.
Take some topic of current political importance. Try to establish in your own mind what is the right policy to recommend in relation to it; and do so in total detachment from any political alignment or prejudice; form your conclusions by thinking Christianly. Then discuss the matter with fellow-members of your congregation. The full loneliness of the thinking Christian will descend upon you. It is not that people disagree with you. Some do and some don’t. In a sense that does not matter. But they will think pragmatically, politically, but not Christianly. In almost all cases you will find that views are wholly determined by political allegiance. Though he does not face it, the loyalty of the average Churchman to the Conservative party or to the Labour party (Blamires was British) is in practical political matters prior to his loyalty to the Church. It is important that this point about the loneliness of the thinking Christian should not be misunderstood. It is not lonely to disagree with other people. It is not lonely to meet in the same field of discourse with men and women who reach conclusions that contradict your own. But it is desperately lonely to occupy a field of discourse which no one else will enter, even if you are surrounded by people who have reached exactly the same conclusions as you yourself. (13-14)
We are on the outermost perimeter of the next Presidential election cycle, and already the Facebook postings of so many of my Christian friends and acquaintances have exposed and exacerbated “the full loneliness of thinking Christianly” for me. Unless you are prepared to equate Biblical Christianity with the planks of a particular political party and to conflate your confession of the Lordship of Jesus Christ with the support of a particular Presidential candidate (which if you do, I would urge a careful reading of Tim Keller’s September 29, 2018, opinion piece in the New York Times – “How Do Christians Fit into the Two-Party System? They Don’t” ), then I want to invite you to make a commitment to “think (and talk) Christianly” in the coming months and not just politically.
A good place to start living into this commitment would be to knock-off the selective moral outrage, and to just choose a clear and consistent moral vision instead.
We are guilty of selective moral outrage when, rather than condemning dishonesty as something that is entirely inconsistent with our moral vision as Christians, we condemn it only in those whose political conclusions are at variance with our own political conclusions, or we relativize it by saying that the dishonesty of our political opponents is more egregious than the dishonesty of our political choices.
We are guilty of selective moral outrage when, rather than abhorring religious violence whenever, wherever, and to whomever it occurs, we counter the reports of attacks on Muslims in the free exercise of their religious convictions (an inalienable right with which they are endowed by our Creator) with an – “Oh yeah, well what about attacks on Christians!” – as if it’s more serious and significant when it happens to “us” than when it happens to “them.”
We are guilty of selective moral outrage when, rather than taking a stand against killing as the sixth commandment requires, we highlight instead the tragic deaths of those by the actions of undocumented residents of our country and demand immediate and decisive action because it “fits” with our political conclusions about the immigration crisis and how it should be solved, but we can’t, or won’t, be as urgent or decisive about how to address the crisis of mass shootings in our schools because it doesn’t “fit” with our political conclusions about what the Second Amendment guarantees us as citizens.
We are guilty of selective moral outrage when we are disgusted by the disrespect shown to the elected leaders for whom we have voted, and are deeply troubled by the uncivil way that they are treated and regarded, while ourselves being disrespectful of the elected leaders for whom we did not vote, and treating and regarding them without any civility at all. We can’t be offended when we are called stupid and evil for our political choices while at the very same time calling people who have made different political choices stupid and evil.
If people know that you are a Republican or a Democrat more than they know that you are a Christian; if they know how you feel about President Trump and who you plan on voting for in the next election more than they know that Jesus Christ is the Lord and Savior of your life; if you are more passionate about letting people know where you stand politically on the big questions of the day than you are on knowing and making known the mind of Christ on those issues, then you are not “thinking Christianly.” And while it may win elections, it doesn’t serve the coming Kingdom for which we as Christians constantly pray. DBS+
*SOUNDINGS 