Today with Chesterton

I mentioned G.K. Chesterton's book Heretics in my sermon yesterday; here is the closing paragraph of the introduction of that book:

"Suppose that a great commotion arises in the street about something, let us say a lamp-post, which many influential persons desire to pull down. A grey-clad monk, who is the spirit of the Middle Ages, is approached upon the matter, and begins to say, in the arid manner of the Schoolmen, 'Let us first of all consider, my brethren, the value of Light. If Light be in itself good -' At this point he is somewhat excusably knocked down. All the people make a rush for the lamp-post, the lamp-post is put down in ten minutes, and they go about congratulating each other on their unmediaeval practicality. But as things go on they do not work out so easily. Some people have pulled down the lamp-post down because they wanted the electric light; some because they wanted old iron; some because they wanted darkness, because their deeds were evil. Some thought it not enough of a lamp-post, some too much; some acted because they wanted to smash municipal machinery; some because they wanted to smash something. And there is war in the night, no man knowing whom he strikes. So, gradually and inevitably, to-day, to-morrow, or the next day, there comes back the conviction that the monk was right after all, and that all depends on what is the philosophy of Light. Only what we might have discussed under the gas-lamp, we now must discuss in the dark."

Isn't this an exact picture of what has happened in Western culture? The Bible...and the Christian worldview which flows from it...has been forcibly shunted to the side, away from view. As Romans says, People just don't like to "retain God in their knowledge." And they are so proud of their fresh atheistic wisdom, but it is of course nothing but foolishness. We are the monks who still believe, but we are increasingly out of step with this culture...to the point that we appear to them as strange as the Amish. So be it! We are busy trying to get the lamp post back up and persuading those who will believe that it is preferable to the darkness...