This is the first post of the year, which means I get an extra measure of grace in writing more. That is to say, I have much to say. And if you reach the end of this post, I salute you in good Kuyperian fashion.
I expect to stray into a few autobiographical curves on the road. Transparency is my crime, and song is my time. Our histories are too brief to remain quiet. God may be quiet in our inquietude, but he is not silent. He is never silent. The noise in our heads does not confuse the mind of God which is altogether harmonious from eternity past to all eternity, world without end, amen!
I want to offer a digest of this year and phrase the whole narrative as a big comedy piece. This entire endeavor from government mandates to ecclesial shutdowns was crystallized for me in a very lengthy essay by Josie Appleton who made some very salient observations about the pandemic. The title of his piece was “Toxic Sociality.” Now, as I stood staring at the screen reading that title, I was reminded of the audacity of the world 20 years ago when it kept moving after I completed the final words of “Mere Christianity.” It was an outrageous act of history to take steps forward while my mind was paralyzed by Lewis’ meticulous arguments. I felt the same way when I read and re-read those words, “Toxic Sociality.” According to Appleton, this refers to the overall impact of the pandemic which was to pose a threat to “human social relation in general.” It trivializes the holy by punishing spontaneous laughter and coffee tables. To say I despise the grammar surrounding COVID is an understatement, as my readers have noted in the last 200-300 posts. And it goes far beyond the political insanity surrounding masks, vaccines, boosters, lockdowns, etc. If, in fact, there are humans out there that still wish to pretend this entire tour de force is all about our health, I pity the fool. It’s ultimately about typology, amigos! It’s about establishing patterns of existence that alter the way we do life together and that inevitably intoxicate the holy with echoes of fallen Eden.
Social creatures made with distinct rituals are now called to cease from them, not for a couple of weeks, but for over 700 days and the result is a series of comic moments, so humorous that even those who embraced it as Mosaic law from the beginning are now pausing to wonder whether the joke was on them. But if their Venmo account keeps drawing every month, they won’t poke the dragon. If the media, or whoever and whatever can seize the moment, they want to reshape human relationality. If they can make humans less Christo-humans, then they can make humans anew. They can create an entirely new social space where gender, identity, and victims play the role of supporting actors and actresses in the grand drama of de-christianization.
Christians must (apologies to Ray Ortlund for my boldness) enter 2022 fighting for the return of the common! We enter wholeheartedly, taking no prisoner, sword-in-one-hand-shovel-in-the-other expecting to take every thought captive because empty philosophies have won the day. Foucault became the captivating persona of 2021. We were sucked into thinking that social order was something the state did when John’s description in Revelation draws its order around the church’s life and liturgy. The Church establishes the rhythms of culture. As the fourth verse of “The Son of God Goes Forth to War” goes, so goes the culture.
While pastors were willingly closing things down for the foreseeable future, various organizations were happily meeting in overtime to strategize how to keep the bounty and multiply it in the market. While we took an extended siesta, the department of toxic sociality hired another 1,000 bureaucrats and formed 350 black markets. Then, when the big kids in church finally woke up and said, “Wait a minute, this game of hide-and-seek has gone for way too long,” they returned to their places of origin and discovered that Jonny and Jenny were no longer interested in Jesus. If Jesus only shows up in times of peace, then Mick Jagger could suit me just as well and Jonny Walker, for that matter.
But enough with the social formalities.
I realize that today I begin my 14th year as a vocational pastor in the good land of Northwest Florida. God has been good to me and my community in so many ways that I am embarrassed to detail how little of a percentage I have returned in gratitude. Beginning a new year always provides for easy meditation, doesn’t it? We all become extra alert to our emotions; even the stoic neanderthals shed a tear to health and blessing.
In previous years, I have sat down and listed some things to consider adding or subtracting; principles to embrace, and books to read. This year, perhaps, because ever since my earliest days people have referred to me as an old soul, my advice for 2022 is more profound than ever: brush your teeth every day and kill your first deer. Let me translate that: do the mundane consistently and explore something outside your terrain of comfort. We are usually prone to loving one at the expense of the other. I am offering both as a thermometer to test our willingness to make sociality great again. The only way these bastards of history will understand we mean business is if we take life with the fervor of Solomon, the zeal of Zechariah, and the song-writing thirst of David. If we reside only where we get the cheap applause, we leave too much room for these guys to take over the theater and they will outlast us in the short term.
The secularized culture offers us alternative words that gladly frame our faith into a terrorist manifesto. But that’s what they have to do: they must create social categories that oppose the social categories God has given us. If they succeed in making social life toxic, they succeed in their immediate agenda. But if 2021 has taught us anything is that we won’t be fooled again, again, and again. Right?
Happy New Year! Thanks for your kind readership all of 2021 and for the multitude of private messages of thanks and encouragement. It means a lot to me!
Uriesou Brito, KC Founder
