The Church is Always Out of Step–and That’s a Good Thing

One of the fascinating things about human nature is how mercurial it is. And one of the things I appreciate about the Catholic tradition is how it seems to be constituted by God to… not be mercurial.

It’s a pattern I note that harks all the way back to the prophetic tradition in Israel. A lot of the most ferocious prophetic literature is written in times when the Dow was up, business was booming and things were great. Guys like Jeremiah were a huge buzzkill for the monarchy and moves to throw people like him in cisterns or lion’s dens were pretty popular. That’s why prophets tended to not die in their beds.

But it is precisely when the sky caves in and the Jewish people get carted off to captivity and their temple destroyed that the prophets suddenly become hopeful and start talking about the bright future.

Not unrelatedly, when things are rubbing along nicely, it is often fashionable to denounce the Church’s warnings about the possibility of Hell as nothing more or other than guilt manipulation and fear mongering. Why is the Church such a downer?

But in hours like this, when we are ruled by an erratic tyrant who could get us all killed, I suddenly encounter people on line (nearly all of them liberal Catholics who until a couple of seconds ago were pooh-poohing the Church’s warnings about Hell), now demanding nothing less than the eternal damnation for Trump and Miller and ICE and all their supporters, orcs, and accomplices.

Meanwhile, the Church–ever out of step with mercurial humanity–counsels us to always pray for the salvation of our enemies while reminding us that a) we don’t know the eternal destiny of our enemies and b) hoping for the damnation of any person is gravely sinful and perilous to the soul.

I appreciate the stability and many-sidedness of the Tradition. We are a species of perpetual drunkenness and our moods–especially our righteous moods–cannot be trusted.

So I suggest we all learn the Parable of the Boring Electrical Grid:

Mercurial humans, when they get worked up, start calling for stuff like “Days of Rage”.

Indiscriminate anger unchanneled into disciplined creative action is just a useless lightning bolt. It achieves nothing. We need to build networks of electrical power, not just be lightning bolts blasting things randomly and starting fires. Electrical grids are boring. They are also the most powerful and transformative force in the past two centuries. Useless lightning has blasted the surface of the earth for 4.5 billion years. Harnessing electricity is what makes it powerful. Regard anger as energy for transformation and do not give in to the stupid temptation to just blast something or someone.

The fight against this Tyrant and his orcs is a marathon, not a sprint. Resolve to be in it for the long haul and rejoice each day at small victories. Don’t burn yourself out because God does not grant you the instant miracle victory you demand. God is performing a years-long work of soul-surgery on the US and the American Church and it will take a long time for a cancer as deeply entwined and rooted as this to be killed.

Patience.