There are two spirits at war for your soul and mine: the heroic spirit and the elegiac spirit. Each gives rise to a different city. Heroism gives rise to New Jerusalem. Elegiacism gives rise to Babylon.
When left to my own devices I tend to indulge in Star Trekish type stories. But alas, I’m married to a Jane Austen enthusiast.
What at first appears to the casual observer as a divergent taste in storytelling arts and entertainment between Sheila and me is, in fact, more fundamentally the same than different.
What does the romantic fiction of Jane Austen have in common with the science fiction of Gene Roddenberry? Plenty. Both romantic fiction and science fiction shine a spotlight upon the key to experiencing the divine sacramentally, exploring Scripture meaningfully, and moving in the power of the Spirit transformationally.
Romantic fiction and science fiction give us the key that puts into proper perspective rulings like those of late by the U.S. Supreme Court redefining marriage.
The key? Heroism.
A Tale of Two Spiritualities
There are two spirits at war for your soul and mine: the heroic spirit and the elegiac (i.e., a pessimistic and sorrowful) spirit. Each gives rise to a different city. Heroism gives rise to New Jerusalem. Elegiacism gives rise to Babylon.
While there is a place for sanctified mourning and sorrow––there is, after all, an entire book in the Bible called Lamentations––the elegiac spirit I'm taking about here is one that engages in unsanctified mourning and sorrow over evil things lost. It thus sees no point in forming a “Fellowship of the Ring” to destroy evil. Like Saruman, the elegiac spirit surrenders to evil and joins with it, thinking evil is a normal and permanent fixture in the universe. In contrast, heroic consciousness forms alternative worlds through covenantal alliances, charting in Secret Counsel with others the noble, chivalric path of destroying evil and restoring all things ruined by evil.
Mr. Darcy’s covenantal union with Elizabeth and Spock’s teamwork and friendship with Kirk and McCoy are heroic alternatives to all things elegiac. Such heroes bravely succeed in creating a more noble world.
The elegiac spirit aims no higher than to manage the broken world of Babylon, settling for institutions that capitalize on treating sickness instead of championing wellness and economic systems that distribute wealth instead of creating it.
The elegiac spirit is the sad soul of both Babylon’s victims and her villains. At the Fall of Babylon the wicked kings and merchants of the earth elegiacally “weep and mourn for her” (Rev. 18:9-20). Babylonian villains aren’t sorry for the evil they have done, but because the evil they attempted has failed.
Heroism is born when elegiac prodigals come to their senses in the pig pen and determine to return to their father’s house. In the Father's House we do not mourn and weep like Babylon's villains do when the enemies of sin, Satan and death are destroyed, but we rejoice as heroes.
Then there are Babylon’s victims who mistakenly think that supreme courts rule the land, not Jane Austen.
Elegiac victims, like the children of Israel after their deliverance from Egypt, pine for leeks and onions by the Nile. This brand of elegiacism fondly remembers the days when Pharaoh pitched his slaves a little straw to help them make the bricks that built his empire. Wasn’t that nice of Pharaoh? The fear of leaving that broken world and crossing the wilderness to enter the Promised Land resulted in that entire generation dying in the desert. “Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did” (1 Cor. 10:6).
Of all who left Egypt, only heroic Joshua and Caleb crossed Jordan into the Promised Land.
A Manifesto of Heroic Enthusiasm
My central purpose in these Secret Counsel blogs is to crush the elegiac spirit with one blow after another of heroic spirituality. You may have noticed that I upload a piece of heroic music for your listening enjoyment with each blog. I write immersed in this music.
What's more, I crave the smell of the incense we burn during our Abbey worship services in my nostrils. I adore the grain of the Eucharistic bread and the silk of the Eucharistic wine on my tongue. These things enthuse me.
The elegiac spirit knows nothing of enthusiasm.
I love the word “enthusiasm.” It’s a composite of en (“in”) and theos (“God”). To be enthused is to be ingodded. Enthusiasm is the normal, natural state of creatures like us––creatures made in the image and likeness of God. An elegiac consciousness is foreign and unnatural to all that it means to be authentically human. As I’ve come to see it, discipleship is cultivating our awesome God-given capacity for heroic enthusiasm.
Just ask Joshua and Caleb, they will tell you that Jane Austen and Spock are of those who declare,
We believe collapsing civilizations are the problem for which colonies of heaven are the solution.
In the darkness we say, “Let there be light.”
We dare to imagine all things in our good yet broken world restored.
We assemble.
We cultivate wisdom in the secret places of the world where heroes gather, not to be noticed, but to map dangerous paths of obedience into the heart of darkness, knowing the cost.
We fear no evil, not even in the Valley of the Shadow of Death because in death we exhaust evil, putting death to death.
Resurrection power is not a concept to us, but a reality we have tasted. It tastes like chivalric love triumphant.
(Epic Living, 68)
Don’t be fooled. A Supreme Court captured by the elegiac spirit of the age doesn’t rule. Jane Austen rules! And as I’m quick to remind Sheila, so does Spock.
Live long and prosper.
Boyd+
The Sixth Week After Pentecost, 2015
Boyd writes a new Secret Counsel blog every couple weeks. Click here to see the whole collection.