I appreciate the wide range of guests that Mark Labberton hosts on his podcast "Conversing." Especially apropos right now is this conversation with a Texas Republican Christian who has especial insight into national leadership: https://comment.org/podcasts/keeping-the-country-safe/
I recommend it to you.
~ emrys
It is a strange thing to fast. We give up things with some regularity: I may stop eating meat products in order to lower my cholesterol; I may stop scrolling Instagram in order to get some work done; I may stop buying books so that I can afford to go on vacation. Ceasing to do something I want to do constitutes part of normal life. But fasting is not normal.
In the Christian discipline of fasting, I cannot draw a straight line from not eating (something, or anything) to a particular goal. By abstaining I do not get something else done. And God does not promise a particular outcome from a fast. So what am I doing?
Paul of Tarsus wrote, “for if you live according to the flesh, you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live” (Romans 8:13, NRSV). As a condition of life, Paul writes, I “put to death” the deeds that my body drives me to do. The old-school term for this is “mortification.”
A full understanding of what's happening in mortification takes a lifetime. But I start by recognizing that somehow sin works in my body and therefore I train against sin by showing my body who’s boss. And I do that by telling a core craving, like hunger or the need to stay connected, to go to the principal's office while I get on with class. That's fasting.
What do I learn when I send hunger to sit in the corner? Only the Spirit knows exactly, but what might begin to dawn on me is that my belly is not in control of my life. If I am fasting from social media, I might learn that The Fear Of Missing Out is full of hot air and learn what it feels like to wake up, more alive and peaceful after a day and night of Missing That Meme.
I might. I also might discover that fasting is hard, and I am weak. Hallelujah: I have been given another grace from the originator and finalizer of our trust. I have discovered a place where God hopes to do more work in my heart. With either outcome, or any outcome, I have been given more life in Christ by putting to death the parasite of sin sucking on my soul.
Life, as Jesus teaches, does its own thing. The kingdom of heaven naturally expands from mustard seed to spreading tree, from a sprinkle of yeast to a lump of dough overflowing on the counter. By fasting we weed the garden, we clean out the proofing bowl, we scrub our hard drives of viruses. And then we see what the Spirit will grow in those open places.
~ emrys
I am curious about fasting. We are about to enter a season in which the more liturgical Christian traditions encourage fasting: Lent, the six weeks leading up to Resurrection Sunday. I would like to engage the discipline of fasting this year; perhaps you will join me in this. But how to choose what to fast from?
Fasting is a discipline of abstinence, by definition. What shall I remove from my life for six weeks in order to . . . more on that later. First: What to choose?
In my experience, folks fast in Lent from something that is optional, but which also may be unhealthy in large or frequent doses. Like sugar, chocolate, social media, and so on. Generally there is an intention to return to the practice or consumption of the thing after Resurrection, though sometimes the Lenten fast is an attempt to begin a long-term reduction in usage. I do not have hard data, but reflecting on the phenomenon of New Year's resolutions I feel confident guessing that this attempt does not produce long-term results.
This is a strange confluence to me: that I should fast from something temporarily, something that my life might be better without, with a plan to return to it.
If I have a bonus motivation in Lent–motivation from liturgy, from tradition, from a community practice–why would I not use this opportunity to fast from something that I know I should be ushering out the door? In these six weeks, soon upon us, I will have an unusual number of accountability partners ready, unashamed, to ask me if I have been keeping my fast, for a full six weeks. Why not use this time for something more than a good feeling that will fade? Why not follow the Spirit into some more brightened life?
So my question is changing. I am beginning to wonder less, What good thing will I give up for Lent? and more, What thing will Lent help me give up for good?
~ emrys
I recently listened to an episode of "Honestly with Bari Weiss" about a Princeton professor who teaches his students to read and think critically. One of the (only) 5 books Professor Brooks assigns in his class is Niccolo Machiavelli's The Prince. I was inspired to read it. I might say that I was inspired to read it "again," except I'm not sure I actually read the whole thing in high school; we may only have read excerpts. (This time around I read Harvey Mansfield's translation, quoted below.)
Spoiler alert: nowhere in The Prince does the sentence "the ends justify the means" occur.
Machiavelli is writing only for princes: that is, men in 16th century Italy who are solely in charge of sovereign states (of which there were many on the Mediterranean boot). He is not writing for fathers, mothers, pastors, handymen, software developers, or members of Congress. However, the clarity of his writing borne from the narrowness of his audience produces thoughts valuable to everyone--which I suppose is why we're still reading his work.
I recommend the whole book to you, but as a sampling of Machiavelli's words that make me think more critically about my own understanding of leadership, here are a couple of quotations.
"And truly it is a very natural and ordinary thing to desire to acquire, and always, when men do it who can, they will be praised or not blamed; but when they cannot, and wish to do it anyway, here lie the error and blame" (ChIII, pg14). Machiavelli's assumption is that people want to acquire--stuff and power. He does not consider the case in which someone does not want to acquire. It's baked into the system. I think that our current American society makes the same assumption: A desire to acquire makes the market work, and democracy diffuses, by constant effort, dangerous acquisition of political power. While certain cultural threads, like simplicity movements in Christianity, attempt to reduce the desire to acquire, by and large it's keeping the wheels turning. Machiavelli has not patience for "wishful thinking." If we have the same view of human nature, then Machiavelli has strong grounds for his conclusions about how leaders should act.
"[Cruelties] can be called well used (if it is permissible to speak well of evil) that are done at a stroke, out of the necessity to secure oneself, and then are not persisted in but are turned to as much utility for the subjects as one can" (ChVIII, pg37-38). Here we approach the common summa shorthand of "the ends justify the means." Machiavelli allows for evildoing by leaders, as long as it is limited and stops at what is necessary for the leader to secure power. Machiavelli goes on to say that long-term power is best secured by doing things that are good for people (like letting them acquire stuff); but actions in the short term that may be shocking or cruel are allowable. I see a parallel in personal ethics when we articulate a right to self-defence: I may do things to secure the safety of my person which, if I did them spontaneously to a stranger on the street, would normally be considered criminal. Perhaps there is a parallel for leaders in a democracy assuming a position and then "cleaning house" of those who don't hold the new leader's political positions. Tenure is cast aside in order to secure the political goals of the new leader. Is this an acceptable carve-out for normally unacceptable behavior?
"For a man who wants to make a profession of good in all regards must come to ruin among so many who are not good. Hence it is necessary to a prince, if he wants to maintain himself, to learn to be able not to be good, and to use this and not use it according to necessity" (ChXV, pg 61). Trying to be 100% good in an evil world is doomed to failure. So all leaders must learn intentionally to be evil when it is necessary to keep power. I hear here echoes of a future Nietzschean "will to power" which is "beyond good and evil." In my personal search for leaders who have integrity, Machiavelli seems to suggest that in order for someone to stay in power they will need to sacrifice integrity. Is this an accurate description of our political life? In order to win elections, must I engage in smear campaigns against my opponents, because they will do that to me? Must I make collection of money the primary work of my career because others will amass more and oust me otherwise?
As one who complains inwardly about how hard it is to find "an honest politician," I find in Machiavelli a rather incisive critique of my hopes. I am led to think about the minority of Christians--a minority but not a small number over time and space--who absent themselves from all secular politics, because Jesus' kingdom work is incompatible with the worldly work. Maybe they have a valid point. I also think about the other side: "moral majority" Christians and those who want political leaders to give strict Christian ethics the power of the sword, in an effort to place our nation "under God." How does that work if Machiavelli is right and to maintain power in an evil world one must sacrifice one's goodness?
If you're interested in these core questions about ethics and leadership, The Prince is a great place to begin your exploration. And if we're near each other, I'd love to sit down for a cuppa with you and join in that exploratory work. May the Spirit grant us ever wider wisdom as we search.
~ emrys