We must acknowledge that we are in a classic “historical drift,” but what is the state of mind that has made the drift possible?
- A. Hayek, in his classic work Road to Serfdom, suggests that the prevalent belief that creates the mindset which allows drift and compromise is the “belief that irreconcilable ideas can live together, such as individualism and socialism or democratic socialism.”
Let us consider two other such irreconcilable ideas: worldliness and holiness. Some, it appears, wish to merge these concepts together. I suppose they hope to construct what they see as a utopian church free from its holiness identity and Apostolic tradition; and thus, they imagine, create a church that is less offensive to this present world. Such efforts are certain to fail. The ideas are indeed irreconcilable. Sadly, however, this merging of diametrically opposed viewpoints appears to be the goal. And this state of mind leads to irrelevance and weakness.
Further, along these lines, Hayek asks a probing question: Are we prepared to accept the consequences of attempting unachievable utopias? These consequences will not be believed until “the connection has been laid bare in all its aspects.” To what connection is he referring? The connection that the destruction of nations and the ultimate demise of America, God forbid, might well be related to the bad idea that we can merge irreconcilable concepts.
Herein lies a frightful consideration: the people of God, pressing evermore into a reckless flirtation with the world, compromising with long disproven false doctrines without even any debate as to the consequences of their actions. And worse, not even believing that there are dangers at all. In this scenario, darkness wins the day, truth is lost, and our youth, by default, are separated from the witness of the Holy Spirit. Are we prepared to pay the consequences of going back to Egypt? Such was the question Moses imposed on the former slaves. Go back to what? Onions and garlic?
If your sweet child, a daughter, let’s say, values a good and happy life, wants a righteous husband, desires to be a mother, then of course as a parent you want those things for her as well. Should you not then help her to recognize the things that would destroy these dreams? Would you not warn her against fornication, picking undisciplined friends, drinking, and so forth? Of course you would. In the same way, we must warn the church against the deceptions of this world and the disaster that will overwhelm the church if we forsake the Apostles’ doctrine.
I personally think Hayek is right. At the core of America’s problems are bad ideas, the chief of which is that we can force the impossible, that we can reconcile that which is irreconcilable. Light hath no fellowship with darkness. Is that not a fixed point of reference? Can two walk together except they agree? How prepared are we to compromise the Apostles’ doctrine as to the essentiality of the baptism of the Holy Spirit evidenced by the speaking in tongues “as the spirit gives the utterance?” Even the thought of such compromise suggests that somewhere, somehow, in some minds there dwells a philosophy that suggests we can live with such irreconcilable ideas; a subtle seed of destruction planted in the heart that would say, “Ah, here comes a good man, he’s both the friend of the world and a friend of God; how cool is that?” (James 4:4 “Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.”)