That pretty much is the history of humanity. No golden era.
Just a few specific people here and there, now and then who bring some love into the world.
It would be wonderful if we were all a bit more like Fred Rogers. But living in this world, where dog eats dog, we guard ourselves often with cynicism. Because living truly vulnerably is
dangerous. Now I'd say it is precisely that kind of vulnerability that Jesus calls His disciples to have and live, the vulnerability He Himself lived and demonstrated; it's the vulnerability St. Paul talks about in Philippians chapter 2. It's the unrealized ideal of the Christian way; to reference GK Chesterton, the "Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting, it's been found hard and left untried".
That as Christians we fail to live up to our calling in Christ, while a tragedy itself, is not the deep concern I think we should have. The reality of sin, that we are ourselves sinners who are always in need of the healing mercy of God's grace is firmly grounded in Scripture and our historic and common Christian confession. Not that we excuse our failure and hypocrisies; but that we acknowledge them, repent of them, and show each other a measure of grace--we are only small, weak, and human after all.
What should be of deep concern is when we cease to regard the Christian ideal as the ideal, when we no longer are recognizing our own sin, weakness, and hypocrisy. When we are no longer saying, "Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner." And instead we puff our chest out and arrogantly declare our own holiness.
That we fail to take up our cross, and that we stumble time and again, that's not the real danger. The danger is when we, like the Laodiceans in the Apocalypse of St. John, are turning our gaze away from Christ, and saying "We are rich and prosperous, needing nothing".
What happens when we are not only like the world, but worse than the world? How arrogant would we have to be to imagine that just because we call ourselves "Christian" that we are immune to the cheap vanities of this present age? Or as though we can, somehow, take power and call it evil when it is used out there, but somehow if we wed ourselves to it, we can somehow baptize power and it ceases to evil simply because we wield it. A sword does not become holy because it is a Christian who wields it, the Christian is not holy and therefore makes holy whatever he or she touches. Christ says it is not what enters a man that makes him impure, but what comes out.
If I do that which is evil, it remains evil. And I myself am found evil for doing it. Evil does not become good when it is done by a Christian. There is no such thing as holy thievery or pious murder or godly abuse. Evil is evil, and those who think themselves pious when they commit evil are, at best, delusional and at worst children of the devil himself; as Christ says in the Gospel of John.
I am, and have been, deeply troubled by the trends of a spirituality that amounts to, "I thank you Lord that I am not like these sinners over there". The Law should often be a sharp knife, that cuts and causes us pain and discomfort in our own conscience: I have not loved as I should love, I have not turned the other cheek, I have not loved my enemy, I have not trusted in God--I have asserted myself, I have denied others love, I have retaliated evil with evil, I have despised others, I have put more faith in myself than in God. God, be merciful to me, a sinner.
-CryptoLutheran
thefederalist.com
