Mending Walls: Faith, Part 2

Part 1 of “Mending Walls: Faith” dealt very briefly with a missing meme in today’s society: faith as a bilateral covenant of trusting obedience/providence and protection. It’s a meme that has been present in every stable and flourishing society the West (and even much of the early Middle East) has produced for millennia, and its lack has profound implications for us today.

But before we very, very briefly approach those implications, I’d like to select just a few, by no means exhaustive, examples of what the lack of that meme has produced in our society.

Once upon a long time ago (as these things seem today), men and women made marriage vows to each other. And meant them. They often included wives pledging obedience and husbands pledging providence and protection-usually in words very close to that. And pledging such things “until death do us part.”

But obedience is such a nasty word nowadays, and providing for someone else demeans the one provided for, somehow. Besides, marriage partners abused such vows. At least some of them did. So, now, IF those words are parroted, they are not meant, and if vows are exchanged, the pledges made are all made with fingers crossed, prenups in effect (de jure or de facto), and the subtext is, “until whim, fancy or boredom or any other such trivial thing do us part”.

Committment to relationship? Nope. Just examine the serial polygamy of easy divorce. Committment to faithful parentling? Nope. Consider the hordes of kids dropped off at socialist crèches, urm, “daycare” year in and year out for someone other than the parents to raise… until they can be shoved off on the wardens and “bulls” of the country’s “prisons for kids”.

“Family” is not so much under assault by homosexuals trying to define it down as it is by men and women who don’t care a damn for each other, for their solemn vows or for the children their non-unions produce.

Faithless.

So, one governing function of civilization (the nuclear family) biting the dust.

What about civil government? Congresscritters, Presidents and Judges/Justices all swear after some fashion to remain true to the aims, purposes and limits to their power devised by the Framers.

And the size, complexity and intrusion of the Federal government into all aspects of its citizens subjects lives all give lie to the political elite’s pledge to uphold and defend the Constitution. All the while virtually ignoring, for example, an invading horde from foreign lands (what could one call a people 12-20 million strong, when that’s at least three or four times as many as the Mongol horde that laid waste to Poland and Hungary in the 15th century?).

As but one example of faithlessness.

So, maybe government that is closer to home stays truer to its purpose and pledge to “protect and serve”?

How can LEOs*, for example, engender respect for the law when in their ranks are found the greatest number of scofflaws, by percentage of population? You doubt me? Follow a cop who’s speeding to his coffee break, then say cops aren’t scofflaws.

All branches of civil government seem to remind me more and more of the Damon Knight story, “To Serve Man” (If you don’t know the story, CLICK the link and buy the ebook–it’s really a short story).

Another foundation stone of civilization crumbling before our eyes due to the faithlessness of our political “servants” (and to our own, since we are tasked with choosing them and keeping them honorable).

What of churches, often seen as governing in spiritual realms, as authorities on “faith”? As The Random Yak recently reminded us, churches aren’t doing too awfully well in that regard, themselves. All over Western Civilization, churches–most obviously many of the “successful” ones–are denying their covenant with God and “redefining” their scriptural roots into oblivion. (Note: anyone with eyes and ears can supply hundreds of examples like TRY‘s. *sigh*)

And it shows in the lives of their people who cannot remain true enough to their covenant of trusting obedience to God to be honest in their business dealings, fair and merciful and trustworthy in their relationships with others–not even in their marriage vows. Yes, “good church folk” are just about as likely as the “heathen unbelievers” to be faithless in marriage. And why not? Their “faith” is more and more often no sort of commitment at all, unless it is a commitment to a social club with some nice moral teachings, good for a Sunday morning but scarcely real enough to make a difference at work or at home.

No, it’s not all bad news. Some vestiges of “traditional values”–those hollow shadows of real virtues lent by living faithful lives–still have sentimental value for many. And there is, as in even the worst of ages, still a remnant who make their word their bond, who believe being trustworthy is as great an achievement as riches, who would rather be honest than powerful.

There are husbands and wives who work to make even a troubled marriage whole, because they know that true love is, among other things, something you do, a commitment you keep and not just a feeling.

There are still politicians and other so-called public servants (OK, I used the plurals as a statement of hope) who really do see their paramount calling to be protection of the honest citizen from the invader, the hooligan, the thief, the outlaw. And know that anything more they do is treading on the dangerous ground of the rights (and RESPONSIBILITIES) properly retained by the People.

And there still are people among the “good church folk” who are willing to give God their trusting obedience, not just lip service on Sunday morning.

All is not lost. Yet.

I guess “Mending Walls: Faith” needs a part 3. If so, start writing it in comments.

X-Posted at Cathouse Chat, Woman Honor Thyself and Bloggin’ Outloud..

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*LEOs=Law Enforcement Officers

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BBSed at Conservative Cat