IF THIS BE TREASON

(Post by: Madie Hobbs)

“Equality” is a word many of us have heard thrown around a lot over the past few years. Everyone is telling us we need racial equality, social equality, political equality, etc. Except, ironically, many of those concepts seem to be pretty one sided. Which can help all of us deduce that equality is not really the goal of this trend.

Recently, I have started to wonder if equality will ever actually be possible. When you look around at the way things seem to get all muddled when the playing field is “levelled”, it displays merely the fractured state of Man and his inability to function in his original design. Sin is obviously what causes this, and considering sin is abounding in every area of our world, it is no wonder we can’t seem to agree on anything, since we can’t even agree on the fundamental fact that we truly are created equal.

However, less than 48 hours ago, my perception of equality seems to have changed.

While watching a lecture for the history class I’m currently taking, my professor was covering the Jacksonian period of American history. This period lasted from the early 1800’s to the mid 1800’s, and greatly centers around Andrew Jackson’s rise to power in the United States. He was not the only important figure during this time, however.

Alexis de Tocqueville, a young Frenchman, came to America in search of some answers to a few questions he had concerning our great governmental experiment. He traveled all across the states, interviewing various people and asking them things like what it was like to live in the freest nation on earth, how did western expansion change the dynamic of the country, what people thought of their politicians, etc. An observation he came away with was that Americans knew how to build community unlike any other nation that ever existed. If one person was in need, at least ten of his neighbors would be at his doorstep begging to help within the hour. The American people rallied together in a way unseen at any previous point in history. This trait we boldly displayed has been coined “American exceptionalism,” and is one I believe is entirely salvageable today.

One of his most burning questions, though, was this: What role does equality and democracy play in a republic in general? You see, something we often get wrong about the founding of America is the idea that it began as a democracy and has continued to be one until this very point in history. This couldn’t be further from the truth. A democracy is built on the feelings and whims of man, and due to our fallen state, these governments are not destined to last very long. No, instead, America was born a republic. It centered around a government whose main goal was to promote and uphold virtue and the sacredness of private property (both of person and possession).

But what role does equality play in this magnificent experiment?

Tocqueville concluded that equality will be the norm in any republic, we have no choice whatsoever in this matter. The only thing we get to choose is whether that will be an equality of greatness, or an equality of mediocrity.

I don’t know about you, but the second I heard that, all the pieces began clicking, almost audibly, into place. The entire world seemed suddenly to widen around me in such a way that everything made sense.

Mediocrity may feel comfortable at first, but it never promoted any kind of genuinely good feeling or comradery with those which we have lowered ourselves with. It promotes only unrest, dissatisfaction, and hatred.

Greatness, on the other hand, pulls us up and lets us truly believe that nothing is beyond our achievement. Nothing is outside our reach. Greatness continues to grow, for as surely as we have found a new purpose in it, we desire the same for others.

I shall let you decide which course we have taken.

The entirety of Tocqueville’s observations saddened me greatly, for I realized that if mere Americans can create such community, and at one time, an equality of greatness, the American Church certainly is neglecting its most valuable calling. We should have not only good patriotic feeling which binds us together, but a shared experience with the Divine that has pulled every one of us out of the pit of sin we once groveled in.

“…until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes” (Ephesians 4:13-14 ESV).

Yet, if anyone can be accused of promoting an equality of mediocrity, it is surely us.

We may have before us a great moment, born from great opportunity. We have before us a world crying out for greatness. The kind of greatness only Christ can grant. Yet we withhold it sneeringly, believing their crises of identity and purpose are beneath us to deal with.

We have before us a time of treason against humanity. A type of treason which makes even people like me, who know we are inherently equal, believe that true equality, an equality of greatness, can no longer be found in the dark corners of our world.

But what if this is our great opportunity?

“If this be treason, make the most of it!”

~ Patrick Henry

SO, WHAT IS YOUR RESPONSE?

= What are you going to do differently?