A Penitent Blogger
Progressive and conservative
It’s a tough month for liberals
First, George W. Bush was reelected President of the United States. Now, there is today’s first reading, which is read with the following translation in many places:
Anyone who is so "progressive"
as not to remain in the teaching of the Christ
does not have God…
2 John 9a
Seriously, to borrow and modify Ecclesiastes: there is a time and/or a way to be progressive and a time and/or a way to be conservative. The truth of the Gospel cannot be confined within a single label of earthly politics.
Indeed, much of that which political progressives put forward as their agenda coincides quite nicely with many Scriptural priorities, most especially justice and care for the poor.
On the other hand, there is also a strong conservatism throughout Scripture: a moral conservatism as well as a doctrinal conservatism (of which the above passage is an example).
As St. Paul reminds us elsewhere, the teaching of Christ is no human invention. It is not something human beings made up (and can continue to make up as we go along).
The teaching of Christ is divine intervention: it comes directly from God’s personal action and revelation within human history. To be sure, God continues to be present to his people and by the guidance of the Holy Spirit we can grow in our understanding of that revelation, but we can never detach ourselves from (or move far from) the substance of what God revealed when Christ walked on this earth, for no revelation of God can be more perfect or more complete than the Word made flesh.
Some people may think this confining, especially those who identify self-worth with limitless autonomy – intellectual and otherwise. Yet the greatest happiness and the greatest freedom is not that which we finite beings might theoretically construct, but that which the infinite, eternal God can provide for us by his grace if we align our free choice with his salvific will.
We need to be progressive, moving forward as individuals and as communities in doing the work of God – being especially mindful of the poor. We also must be conservative, holding to the truth of Christ, the truth that makes us really free.
First, George W. Bush was reelected President of the United States. Now, there is today’s first reading, which is read with the following translation in many places:
Anyone who is so "progressive"
as not to remain in the teaching of the Christ
does not have God…
2 John 9a
Seriously, to borrow and modify Ecclesiastes: there is a time and/or a way to be progressive and a time and/or a way to be conservative. The truth of the Gospel cannot be confined within a single label of earthly politics.
Indeed, much of that which political progressives put forward as their agenda coincides quite nicely with many Scriptural priorities, most especially justice and care for the poor.
On the other hand, there is also a strong conservatism throughout Scripture: a moral conservatism as well as a doctrinal conservatism (of which the above passage is an example).
As St. Paul reminds us elsewhere, the teaching of Christ is no human invention. It is not something human beings made up (and can continue to make up as we go along).
The teaching of Christ is divine intervention: it comes directly from God’s personal action and revelation within human history. To be sure, God continues to be present to his people and by the guidance of the Holy Spirit we can grow in our understanding of that revelation, but we can never detach ourselves from (or move far from) the substance of what God revealed when Christ walked on this earth, for no revelation of God can be more perfect or more complete than the Word made flesh.
Some people may think this confining, especially those who identify self-worth with limitless autonomy – intellectual and otherwise. Yet the greatest happiness and the greatest freedom is not that which we finite beings might theoretically construct, but that which the infinite, eternal God can provide for us by his grace if we align our free choice with his salvific will.
We need to be progressive, moving forward as individuals and as communities in doing the work of God – being especially mindful of the poor. We also must be conservative, holding to the truth of Christ, the truth that makes us really free.
posted by Penitens | 2:08 PM
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