Book Club: The Roots of American OrderChapter 2

Cindy has invited us to share our “random thoughts” on this chapter {or any other for that matter–this is a very informal thing if you didn’t notice} and I’m glad because random is about all my brain is capable of today. Lest you think I am pining away for my sweet Abigail, I must confess that mostly I am worn out after not only nursing her both day and night, but also planning and hostessing a birthday party for Daughter A.

Not to mention babysitting the new goat, Wesley. For over an hour yesterday.

In the rain.

To say that it has been a long week or two is an understatement.

All of that is to say that random is all I’ve got today. He he.

I think I’ll post a few quotes and tell you what they made me think about, and any quotes that don’t get posted here will be posted in my Official Quote Post tomorrow, without commentary from me {you may be celebrating already}.

On the very first page of the chapter, Kirk writes:

To a wandering people of obscure origin, the Hebrews, or Children of Israel, occurred then a tremendous “leap in being”: that is, by an extraordinary perception, the Israelites came to understand the human condition as it has not been understood before.

What jumped out at me here was the idea of understanding the human condition. When I was in high school, I read most–or perhaps all, as I can no longer recall for certain–of The Federalist Papers. It was Number 51 {concerning checks and balances} that I still remember the best. Especially this part:

If men were angels, no government would be necessary.

It’s a short little sentence, but it refers to the human condition, no? What I always find interesting is exactly what Kirk mentions later in regard to France:

A principle difference between the American Revolution and the French Revolution was this: the American revolutionaries in general held a biblical view of man and his bent toward sin, while the French revolutionaries in general attempted to substitute for the biblical understanding an optimistic doctrine of human goodness advanced by the philosophes of the rationalistic Enlightenment.

I would add that the new governing documents also reflected this difference. Kirk actually says this later:

[T]he American Constitution is a fundamental law deliberately meant to place checks upon will and appetite. The French innovators would endure no such checks upon popular impulses; they ended under a far more arbitrary domination.

This naturally brings me to Random Thought Number 2, which is tied to that phrase “popular impulse.” It seems to me that whenever a situation is not grounded upon the Permanent Things, it naturally gives way to fads–to whatever is cool or popular at the time. This is probably why when churches abandoned liturgy, they slowly began to look more and more like the world. I don’t mean in their behavior {though obviously that has happened also} I meant in regard to how everything needs to be “relevant” and so we must worship like it’s a rock concert and minimize baptism and communion {or Eucharist, if you prefer} and use advertising to attract attendance.

When we are not tied to Permanent Things, everything becomes arbitrary. In regard to government, then, a pretty important Permanent Thing to keep in mind is that man is sinful.

This also helps in parenting.

: : cough : :

With this in mind, I loved Kirk’s explanation of the Decalogue:

So the Ten Commandments…are not a set of harsh prohibitions imposed by an arbitrary tribal deity. Instead, they are liberating rules that enable a people to diminish the tyranny of sin; that teach a people how to live with one another and in relation to God, how to restrain violence and fraud, how to know justice and to raise themselves above the level of predatory animals.

In other words, these laws are liberating. I find that interesting, especially in comparison to the many new laws passed in my state every year. Very few of them have the effect of liberating anyone {except criminals as we never can afford for them to serve all of their time}. Typically, they bind the citizenry.

Some day we will strangle to death.

But I digress.

The Law was not a punishment or an oppressive burden imposed upon the people: on the contrary, it was the precious gift of Jehovah, by which Israel might exist in justice.

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Read More:
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–More book club posts linked at Cindy’s blog