Perhaps the best petition ever put on paper by the hand of man was made when Chesterton wrote “From sleep and from damnation, deliver us good Lord.” If you only ask your creator for one thing, make it that. The line is from Chesterton’s battle hymn. You can find it on the old section of Granny’s site.
Briefly, we can make the following definitions:
Sleep (verb): The act of doing nothing, or of doing nothing that matters, when action is called for.
Damnation (verb): The state of being that results from foolish actions where thought had been called for.
Each of us is in danger of both of these pitfalls. Our cosmology dictates which ones we may be more susceptible to. Even so, strange things happen in this world. Charismatics get lazy. Ascetics go on tirades. All sorts of oddness happens, and just when you think that you are out of danger from one thing, another will blindside you.
Chesterton specifically spoke to pacifism and warmongering in his poem. In faith, these two things take on many forms. Below, you will find a few of the most common.
First, let us examine three different forms of sleep.
Sound asleep: This form of sleep is really more of a form of vapidity than anything else. As such, it is a character flaw more than a cosmological trait. Still, it seems to be almost the exclusive blight of the Conservative Mainline. To qualify as being sound asleep, one must care neither for your own spiritual growth, nor any of the pragmatic concerns of faith.
These are the people that John the Revelator spoke about when he wrote to the Laodiceans:
“I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot; I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. Because thou sayest, I am rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing and knowest not that thou art wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked,” Revelation 3:15 – 17
Adam Clarke’s commentary on verse 17:
“Verse 17. I am rich] Thou supposest thyself to be in a safe state, perfectly sure of final salvation, because thou hast begun well, and laid the right foundation. It was this most deceitful conviction that cut the nerves of their spiritual diligence; they rested in what they had already received, and seemed to think that once in grace must be still in grace.
Thou art wretched] ταλαιπωρος Most wretched. “The word signifies,” according to Mintert, “being worn out and fatigued with grievous labours, as they who labour in a stone quarry, or are condemned to the mines.” So, instead of being children of God, as they supposed, and infallible heirs of the kingdom, they were, in the sight of God, in the condition of the most abject slaves.
And miserable] οελεεινος Most deplorable, to be pitied by all men.
And poor] Having no spiritual riches, no holiness of heart. Rich and poor are sometimes used by the rabbins to express the righteous and the wicked.
And blind] The eyes of thy understanding being darkened, so that thou dost not see thy state.
And naked] Without the image of God, not clothed with holiness and purity. A more deplorable state in spiritual things can scarcely be imagined than that of this Church. And it is the true picture of many Churches, and of innumerable individuals.”
I lump these folks in with Conservative Mainlines because they tend to have only one virtue. They love community. Because of this, they gravitate towards those same congregations anyway. Because their only virtue is a relatively minor component of a healthy Conservative Mainline, they tend to be relegated to the periphery. As they grow in numbers, they tend to be a burden to the church. They are a kind of blight that is particularly hard to get rid of. Healthy Conservative Mainlines are usually ill equipped to deal with these sorts of people. Perhaps that is another reason why they gravitate here as well.
Day Dreamer: The day dreamer state is found almost exclusively in the unhealthy ascetic. It is the point at which you are focused solely on your own spiritual growth, and nothing else. While brief periods of intense introversion can be very beneficial, sometimes, one never snaps out of the state. It is a spiritually dangerous situation.
One of my favorite colloquialisms is to say that they’ve “gone too far down the rabbit hole.” That is, they have focused on theology, or whatever else to the point where all practicality is long gone. They don’t interact with others. They don’t contribute. At a point, this stat leads to a point where they stop even focusing on the parts of their self that need actual work. It is a dangerous form of paralysis.
Any modern ascetic would do well to remember the model of St. Anthony. He was locked away, but traded his advice and wisdom for his physical needs. If you just disappear, never to be heard from again, you are likely, oh so very likely, to fall into heresy.
Sleep Walker: They look awake. They move. They talk. They seem vibrant. But something just isn’t right. If you aren’t a part of their dream, then nothing that they say or do will ever make sense.
This is another trait that is nearly exclusive to one group. Liberal Mainline churches can be rife with these people. It is a trait very similar to the day dreamer. Only, instead of focusing on the self, the focus is put on some problem that is almost entirely unsolvable by anyone the sleep walker will ever encounter.
World hunger, war, pollution, and any of the myriad of grandiose world issues that you can think of are the favorite targets of these people. Everything you say and do around them comes back to their topic of interest. As bad as they are to other people, they tend to be even worse to themselves. They’ll make ridiculous acts of contrition in order to try and fix their pet project.
In some ways, it’s admirable. The problem is, that they tend to be so obnoxious, and over zealous, that they turn off healthy people to the causes they champion. Honestly though, that’s just as well too, because these problems are never issues that can actually be solved by the people involved.
Even more horrifying are the people who champion a cause and have no idea what solving it really means. Think of all of the “Free Tibet” bumper stickers around town. Can you imagine that any of those people have actually thought about what that involves? That would require a very bloody war with China, that once we finally won would put a scorched and desolate Tibet back into the hands of a thoughtless ecclesiarchy. But hey… for some reason, it makes you feel good to run around with the bumper sticker designed to work everyone up into a fervor.
That does it for sleep. Now we can turn our attentions to a few forms of damnation.
Hawks: Some people just love a good fight. They love to fight, and they assume that most everyone shares their feelings on the subject. This aberration seems to be most predominant in Megachurchers. It is one of the likely pitfalls for a person who is intensely extroverted.
This person is who you should think of whenever you read the scripture about the mote and the log. They’re great at picking others apart, but their lack of introspection means that they rarely have the skills or desire to deal with their own flaws. To make matters worse, these folks are always on the prowl. They pick fights relentlessly, often causing great damage wherever they go.
One particularly dangerous subset of the Hawks are the homophobics. They criticize and comment about gay people at any opportunity, and to what effect? It isolates homosexuals, and if you haven’t learned anything from this series, or the last five thousand years of history, learn this: Isolation breeds heresy.
Most Hawks will not stop at a single cause to fight though. They will usually snap at anything. This means that they are often ill prepared to make many of their arguments. Here we have a situation that requires intense thought, and the Hawk just goes in haphazardly. Like all of the groups in our warmonger category, they simply do not feel the onus that is placed on them as a Christian. When arguing with a Hawk (don’t you’re contributing to their damnation), it can make your head hurt just trying to keep up with the names of the various logical fallacies that they’ve used over the course of the event. This alone casts them, and by proxy, all of Christendom in a very bad light.
Berserker: What do you get when you’ve got everything right except for the execution? You’ve got the right topic. You’ve got the right stance. Everything is on your side, except for your emotions. Dr. Laura, a non-Christian, comes to mind. That’s fitting too, because I would probably have accused a few Old Testament prophets of being berserkers.
They had the right message, but they delivered it in a way that no one would ever receive it. I honestly don’t know what the Creator will say to these folks when their time comes. I don’t know if this is really a path of damnation or not. But I do know that they have broken the greatest of all commandments, that is, to love thy neighbor as thyself.
If you truly do that, then you will take the time to make sure that your message is delivered as judiciously as possible.
Phalanx: Our final damnable action for this series is that of the phalanx. This is a trait exclusive to certain Charismatic groups. They circle up together defensively, with their large shields, and small spears facing outwards. Secretive groups always adopt this behavior at one point or another.
It is a defensive behavior that aims to protect their group secret from the prying hands of outsiders. I’ve personally watched as small groups of other cosmologies attacked members of Charismatic groups. Typically, a group of Berserkers will come along, fully intent on showing how silly magic underwear is to a group of Mormons, and everybody eventually walks away more set in their ways than ever.
We’ve already discussed what’s wrong with the berserker approach. What then, is wrong with the phalanx? Well… everything. There is nothing wrong with defending your faith, but if you have to do it through secrecy, then you’re doing it wrong. Secondly, the strategy of the phalanx is simply to get the attacker to go away. If you’ve got such a focused audience, you have a responsibility to be open and honest. Typically, Charismatics cannot tolerate that kind of inspection though, and deep down, they know it.
This wraps up our introductory series on Christian cosmology. Soon we will be getting into the meat of the subject by exploring the richness and necessity of each of these groups, and a few new ones as well.