"It is institutions that help us to preserve decency. They need our help as well. Do not speak of 'Our Institutions' unless you make them yours by acting on their behalf. Institutions do not protect themselves. They fall one after another unless each is defended from the beginning. So chose an institution you care about--a court, a newspaper, a law, a labor union--and take its side."
So many, for me, a newspaper; I often post from and encourage the reading of The Dispatch because they are moderate conservatives and they don't deal in click bait or conspiracy theories, or sensationalize unimportant news. I am so grateful for them. And they also do some great religious pieces. Of course, I also read the New York Times-the opinion pieces, of David Brooks, Russ Douthat and David French. All Christians by the way.
But there is another institution that Snyder did not mention, the Church. And this is the great thing - the Church will not fall, maybe here in America suffer a little, suffer greatly in other places- but as God's word says-"the gates of hell will not prevail against her." In the end, and there will be an end, there will be a forever Kingdom. And there is a forever King- just not, for now a forever earthly king.
6 comments:
I think Timothy Snyder may have left the Church off the list because as a Democratic institution, the Church has already fallen.
The churches that are thriving today no longer follow the Reformed Post-Westphalian model for Government. And that happened within our lifetimes, yours and mine. Whether they can be re-formed again is anybodies guess. But it cost some devastating wars to bring them about in the first place; and even so, they did not take root everywhere.
Jodie Gallo
Los Angeles, CA
Jodie I have to say, I have no idea what you are talking about!
I am talking about the Treaty of Westphalia, it's relationship to the development of the Presbyterian and similar forms of Church Government, the US Constitution, and the spread of Democracy around the globe as an alternative to Tyranny. They took what Jesus taught about leadership to heart, and built a system of government around it. When we stopped doing it in Church, we stopped fanning the flame.
Give me one thriving institution in America today that models servant leadership.
I don't even know if it's taught in High School History in America, but I do know because I saw it first hand, that they do teach it in Europe. Maybe on purpose as a prophylactic against what happened there in the 20th Century? Maybe just as history for history's sake? I don't know.
The last POTUS we had that actually practiced and believed in servant leadership was probably Jimmy Carter. And guess where he got it?
Jodie Gallo
Jodie I don't think Snyder left out churches in that quote because he held any negative views of them. In fact, later on in another chapter where he writes about good books to read, he will mention Christians and give them biblical passages to read. I think your subject isn't addressing my concerns wish the comments to go back to the subject of what can be helpful to avoid and resist tyranny.
Yes, and to be explicit about what I am saying is that it >starts< in Church. Ironically, in the Presbyterian Church. Everything is connected. It's the one institution at the bedrock cornerstone of America's experiment with anti-tyranny; and potentially it is still the one with the most leverage.
But it needs help re-discovering itself.
Snyder leaves it off not because of a negative view but because, I think, a) the cornerstone is buried out of mind and out of sight, and b) right now it seems irrelevant and ineffective.
But it's also safe.
Sorry, I forgot to sign that: Jodie Gallo in Los Angeles.
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