Politics, the New Normal and the Heathen Masses of Our Great Cities

"Nor is the matter altered when we come nearer home and contemplate the heathen masses which crowd the narrow streets of our great cities. It is one of the signs of our times that the "slums," as we call them, have come forth to the observation of the world. And as they are brought more fully to public view the sight is not encouraging. Here the Christian worker comes to close quarters with vice and misery. Here his heart sinks within him at the manifest magnitude of the task that is set before him. Here he is gravely tempted to despair as he realizes more and more sharply the inadequacy of human methods and human powers to reach the root of the evil whose dreadful fruits daily smite him in the face. How easy it is to let the great hope die within us and seek to content ourselves with some lesser endeavor! This immense mass of corrupting humanity — we cannot lift it bodily to a higher plane. Shall we not be satisfied to attack the fringes of the evil, and be content with some less, indeed, but at least possible, accomplishment? There is, after all, we may say, only so much spiritual power in the world; why dissipate it in a Quixotic endeavor to reach the core of the evil, and not rather expend it wisely and warily in correcting at least some of its more menacing fruits? "There is, after all, only so much spiritual power in the world!" My brethren, it is an atheistic lie! The spiritual power in the world is the power of the omnipotent Jehovah. It does not waste with use; it does not recoil before the magnitude of any task. Rightly do you perceive such undertakings as these to be beyond the power of men : "with men they are impossible." But it is not so with God : "For all things are possible with God." Let us then face with fresh boldness this impossibility: there are no impossibilities with Him whose strength shall be in our right arm, mighty to tear down the strongholds of iniquity. -- Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield (one of the great Christian Theologians and teachers of the past 200 years) in "The Power of God into Salvation," first published in 1903.

During this year's Presidential election, politicians, pundits and pollsters have emphasized the stark contrasts between the voters of our great cities, our suburbs and our rural areas. Needless to say, Warfield did not focus on, or even mention, the Political in the passage above from his great treatise on salvation. Still, the connection between the Spiritual and the Political should be obvious and undeniable, and undeniably it is found in most stark existence within our urban areas. 

The Spiritual-Political connection exists in all that we do, including choosing those who govern us. Biden versus Trump has been the political equivalent of Spy vs. Spy, the classic Evil vs. Evil cartoon that adorned the pages of every issue of MAD magazine. Distinguishable only by the color of the characters, the MAD spies continually reminded us that most of our battles are not mostly not about Good vs. Evil, but Evil vs. Evil. But MAD would have us believe, as would today's pundits and pollsters, that the battle is, at its core, a political one. Warfield, representing classical, reformed Christianity, would awaken us to the fact that the genesis of the battle is spiritual, not political. All of our outward expressions, including the Political. are formed in the heart, the resting place of our souls. The Spiritual gives rise to the Political, not the other way around.

Warfield's passage on the corruption of the great cities is also reflected in the country's current battle against the coronavirus. It is in the teeming masses of the great cities that Covid-19 has had its greatest and grimmest impact. But overcrowding progressively multiplies the spread of spiritual and cultural disease as rapidly and effectively as it does physical disease. There is something about a great city that brings out the worst in society--politically,  spiritually and physically.

Warfield's cities, with their seemingly irreparable slums and their irretrievable citizens, reflect today's urban disturbances, rooted in race and poverty,  and creating a general cultural malaise that is an extension of a spiritual malaise. Programs and policies only make us feel better about our efforts; in and of temselves, they do nothing to bring about substantive, sustainable change.

The tendency in 2020's America is to focus on everything but the spiritual in an attempt to understand the political and cultural rottenness all around use. But, as Warfield points out, ours is a "Quixotic endeavor to reach the core of the evil." When we discover that we are tilting at windmills and despair of making radical changes for the better because of the enormity of the task, we convince ourselves that we can overcome some of the evils by making some changes--defunding the Police, expanding diversity initiatives and expressing our displeasure by rioting and looting, for instance, only to discover, as Warfield points out, that we are telling ourselves an Atheistic Lie. Core, sustainable changes are not possible with Men; but nothing is impossible for God.

Warfield's solution for the vice and misery of the Big Cities is also the only real solution for the vice and misery that is American politics and American Government today, and it is found in the passage above beginning with the words  "The spiritual power in the world is the power of the omnipotent Jehovah." Read the passage above again. And again, if you want to have any chance of returning the country back to the Normative Word of God, and away from the "New Normal." 

Copyright 2020, Larry W. Bradley