Nothing Gold Can Stay

W.H. Chellis

I appreciate where the W2K guys are coming from but I am sure that the two table division of the Decalogue really holds water, at least as they have frame it. I certainly understand what you are wanting to do. Certainly the first table must work differently within the context of a society than it does within an individual context. Still, I am afraid more thought will be necessary to develop exactly how.

Consider, the oath is at the heart of our legal system but part of the Decalogue (a summary of the moral law) that deals with swearing is in the first table. Likewise the regulation of the Sabbath which until recently was a central part of Western jurisprudence, in fact the Sabbath laws were one of the first things that Constantine did when the Empire took official notice of the Christian religion (in a positive way). Blaspheme was a crime punished by the common law- again the first table. I am presently reading through the four volumes of Blackstone’s Commentaries and am reminded that the common law is a “cradle Christian” in every way.

On the other hand, I recently reread your biography of Machen and I understand your point. Mixing the redemptive realities of Christianity with cultural realities tends to allow the world to distort the and undermine the gospel. Modernity demands that we take sides- the modern world or the gospel. Who wouldn’t choose the gospel?

To read the history of Christendom is to face Augustinian tragedy. It is a tragic situation for friends of the West who are committed to a robust, insular, “militant” Calvinism. We cannot keep pure all that we love. The two cities are locked in eternal combat each trying to destroy the other. We live in both. We deeply love both. Andrew is trying defend Western Christendom but loves the gospel. Darryl is trying to preserve the gospel but loves the West. I wonder if both are trying to avoid the tension.

Or, maybe I am just trying to have my cake and eat it as well. Even so, I will preserve what cake I am able all the while lamenting the tragedy of it all.

Nothing Gold Can Stay
Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

The elves are fading. We ride forth to battle but not victory? Who can say. God’s hand in history is inscrutable.