The Dread Order
Posted: Tuesday, June 02, 2009
by Missing Link
"...And, if each system in gradation roll
Alike essential to th' amazing whole,
The least confusion but in one, not all
That system only, but the whole must fall.
Let earth unbalanc'd from her orbit fly,
Planets and suns run lawless thro' the sky;
Let ruling angels from their spheres be hurl'd,
Being on being wreck'd, and world on world;
Heav'n's whole foundations to their centre nod,
And nature tremble to the throne of God.
All this dread order break- for whom? for thee?
Vile worm!- oh madness! pride! impiety!"
Alexander Pope, Essay on Man, Epistle 1
Alike essential to th' amazing whole,
The least confusion but in one, not all
That system only, but the whole must fall.
Let earth unbalanc'd from her orbit fly,
Planets and suns run lawless thro' the sky;
Let ruling angels from their spheres be hurl'd,
Being on being wreck'd, and world on world;
Heav'n's whole foundations to their centre nod,
And nature tremble to the throne of God.
All this dread order break- for whom? for thee?
Vile worm!- oh madness! pride! impiety!"
Alexander Pope, Essay on Man, Epistle 1
Among my college reading, Alexander Pope's Essay on Man has stuck with me. This part of Epistle 1 and in particular the final four lines stuck in my mind as no poetry ever. (Not a love poem of course but then I am cranky by nature.)
It seems to me that man has lost the ability to see ourselves as a vile worm in the dread order of the Universe, answerable to God. It is a curious thing to me too, given that everything we learn in science appears to point to an intelligent design, mathematically conceived to a fine degree we are only beginning to understand because of the computer. "And nature tremble to the throne of God."
And yet we hear that faith is waning in the Christian Church. It was the topic of my Pastor's talk this morning. His theory is that Christian Churches are closing because they are focused on what he termed "form" instead of operating as the early Church did. He described the way that the Church operated using a Bible passage from Acts. "Selling their possessions and good, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people." (Acts 2:45-49)
It seems to be a simple recipe for success and yet he described how many Christian Churches lose their members over arguments about form. He described many examples from churches he had attended and many people in the audience raised their hand in accord when asked if they had experienced a similar situation.
The problems described in Churches kind of reminds me of an experience I had once years ago. I was asked to sit on the Little League Baseball board and although I was busy, one son was involved so I felt obligated to help out so I acceded to the request. I attended the first meeting on a late-winter evening with a dozen or so other parents who all sat around a square of tables in a small room. The meeting lasted about an hour and a half and the topic debated hotly for that 90 minutes was whether the youngest players five years old should wear blue jeans or have to buy white baseball pants to wear at their games. It was one of the most excruciating experiences of my life and to avoid a stroke I resigned at the end of the meeting. I explained to the President who I liked very much as a person that I could not spend another minute of my life on topics as utterly devoid of meaning as whether five year olds wore white pants or not to play t-ball.
How many Christians who are in real need of fellowship and love and forgiveness are disillusioned and lost to similar discussions about music or the robes of the preacher or the manner in which the Bible is taught?
The fact is that kids playing baseball just want to participate. They know that to play the game does not require a color of pants. God knows that worshiping him does not require a guitar and not an organ, or a white candle and not a blue one. God just wants us to participate and to recognize His supremacy in the dread order.
My Pastor talked about a book that made me reflect again on Pope's poem, it's called "The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement" (Campbell, W.K., Twenge, J.M., Free Press, 2009). I haven't read it but doesn't the title have the sting of truth? How many times in human history has a country feasted on life the way the US has in the past fifty years? We've become spoiled and we've lost sight of the fact that we aren't the biggest dogs on the block, we have forgotten who creates the dread order and it won't break for us even if we have been favored for a short time.
" oh madness! pride! impiety!"
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