Chesterton on the Importance of Walls
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"We might fancy some children playing on the flat grassy top of some tall island in the sea. So long as there was a wall round the cliff's edge they could fling themselves into every frantic game and make the place the noisiest of nurseries. But the walls were knocked down, leaving the naked peril of the precipice. They did not fall over; but when their friends returned to them they were all huddled in terror in the centre of the island; and their song had ceased."
G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, p. 53.
G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, p. 53.
posted by JT at Wednesday, January 09, 2008
6 Comments:
Very helpful quote, Justin. I have been reflecting on the various groups within the emerging missional church conversation and am beginning to believe that a primary differentiator has to do with walls.
Interesting. James Dobson once gave a similar example illustrating the importance of parental limits. (http://www.uexpress.com/focusonthefamily/index.html?uc_full_date=20051016) But obviously Chesterton's quote came first!
You're not saying Dobson passed on an apocryphal tale as factual evidence, did you?
Yes, Justin, interesting quote. I especially find Chesterton's choice of the word "terror" to be quite interesting, especially in our post-9/11 context.
From what I am seeing (and have personally experienced), this propensity for theological wall-building is primarily (though not entirely) motivated by fear ("terror") -- fear of loss of control, fear of hell, fear of "the other" (anyone who believes differently), etc. But "there is no fear in love" (1 John 4:18), so I sincerely have to ask my Reformed/fundamentalist brothers who are so committed to this wall-building project, where's the love?
Because you "love" me, you are going to build a wall that separates me from yourself? That's what I am hearing when I read stuff from John Piper on "friendship," etc. I guess I don't see how that is "love" or "friendship" at all. What I have experienced in the emerging missional church movement has been much closer to true Christ-like love and friendship than that.
Or maybe I'm reading way too much into the mere posting of a G.K. Chesteron quote? ;-)
Shalom,
Steve K.
Steve K.,
I'd be interested to know what you make of Paul's "fear" for the Corinthians, expressed in 2 Cor. 11:3ff. "I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent's cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ."
What is especially striking to me is that, for Paul, making the (cognitive) mistake of embracing 'another Jesus' or a 'different s/Spirit' or a 'different gospel' is not, ultimately, only or most importantly a theological error, it is also something very relational: it amounts to a betrayal of their "sincere and pure devotion to Christ."
Surely that's something to be afraid of.
-- Doug
What? No diatribes against the "heresies" of Rome that Chesterton so ardently and passionately embraced?
This is wonderful! I am so glad that people can appreciate the genius of Chesterton without tearing his Catholicism apart.
Incidentally, the context of this quotation reveals that the doctrines of the Catholic Church are the boundaries that the children played in so freely, and that the tearing down of those boundaries was the end of their liberty.
Food for thought.
God bless,
Philip
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