If One Wishes a Sect or a Republic to Live Lomg, It Is Necessary to Draw it Back Often to Its Beginning

 I have been reading back through Niccolo Machiavelli's Discourses on Titus Livy. I read it a couple times as a young man, but I am having the extraordinary experience of reading it again with older eyes. Time again I find myself stopping and laughing as he puts his finger on something exactly--so directly that it seems like it should be obvious. There have been many such moments as I've gone through, but I want to talk about the one that stopped me in my tracks just minutes ago.

I had to stop and wonder at the headline that I have used as my title. It is how Machiavelli opens book three of the discourses:

If One Wishes a Sect or a Republic to Live Log, It Is Necessary to Draw it Back Often to Its Beginning.

I wondered that I had read this before, more than once, but that it had gone over my head. You see, in the last two years or so, so probably 3-4 years after my last reading of this work, I have become convinced of, and have made many people listen to, the idea that perpetual reformation is essential: of the man, of the institution, of the church, of the polity.

Because in the process of time that goodness is corrupted, unless something intervenes to lead it back to the mark

The answer that insists upon itself for the Lutheran is the Reformation. Machiavelli has earlier in this book taken time to lament the corruption of the church, and how the corruption of the church is debasing the people of Italy. He loved Savonarola, and I am sorry that he did not get to see the Reformation, as I think he would have made a good Lutheran.

But the Reformation is the return to the first principle of the centricity of scripture, the necessity that doctrine must find a clear seat in scripture, and the rejection of a Roman church that had invented doctrines and enriched the second sons of nobles at the expense of the Church catholic: Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.

The problem is that the incumbent does not believe he has anything to gain from reformation, and indeed, one could consider Tallyrand--the pretty openly atheist bishop of the Roman church in France in the run-up to the revolution. He showed in his youth that his passion was for women and cards, but he had the pedigree and a powerful family, so Rome found him a spot to supervise the souls of hundreds of pastors and tens of thousands of people.

Here is where Machiavelli is so wise, and maybe the devil as well, because there is a wealth of difference between a reformation and a revolution.

A reformation is a drawing back to the first things. Looking back to your north star and asking how it is that we drifted so far.

The Roman church has never seen true reformation, but it has seen a couple revolutions. And here, I define revolution as radical turning about. A change in the way things are done, where things are grounded. A revolution does not look back to roots, but to new things.

I'd love to here if you can name others, but I think there have been 3 major Roman revolutions in the history the Church.

The first is when the Council of Chalcedon--a council of the church, supposedly the supreme Authority under canon law--determined in canon 28 that Constantinople and Rome had equal privilege, where Nicea had previously recognized that Antioch and Alexandria were co-equal in status and apostolic authority. But what makes Chalcedon revolutionary is the declaration of the bishop of Rome that the ratified canon (28) of an ecumenical was null and void...because he said so. This reserved extraordinary new powers to the bishop of Rome, and marked the transition from a church republic, to a church tyranny. I will remind you, the apostles were twelve, not one.

The second was the Papal revolution of Gregory the VII in the 11th century. The requirement for celibate priests--and thus that priests would no longer be fathers to one wife as in 1 Timothy, the true birth of canon law and canon lawyers, and the emphasis on church being a thing done by experts and not these filthy peasants.

The third was Vatican II. Somehow Rome is so corrupt that she could not restore worship in the vernacular without starting 'interreligious dialogue' recognizing the shared spiritual heritage of Rome with Muslims, Jews, that dog over there, and all Christians except Lutherans. But in seriousness, this was the terrible days of the rule of the "Greatest Generation" and postwar plenty, and progressivism and triumphalist humanism was in the ascendency.

So Rome has excepted multiple revolutions, but resisted each reformation. She is too far gone to except return, and than is why Jan had to die.

The Reformation was not a failure. It produced a church that returned to first things, despite the fact that it was rejected by the bishop of Rome and many of his followers. The Lord raised his hand to defend that church, and so it persisted. And yet she is constantly in need of reformation. It was not something that happened once and you are good for all time. Which actually leads me to something Pr. Dave the Father in Law mentioned in his sermon. 66% of catechumens will apostatize in adulthood. It turns out, confirmation once at 14 is not enough to get you through life. Life requires a constant rebirth in word and spirit through confession, word, and sacrament. 

If I turn my eyes to politics...well, I wish I did not have to.

I sit in the camp that saw the Tea Party as an attempted reformation. There was a look back to first things and an attempt to reinstitute accountability, constitutional government, and an active polity. And it all went nowhere.

The people the Tea Party elected got taken in, they learned about the way that Washington needs to do ;usiness to get anything accomplished. They probably cared deeply about the good opinions and approbation of slick career politicians, who have money, power, gravitas, and say all the right things. I feel bad for the Tea Party Patriots who were elected to try and deal with those people, because those people have held power forever for a reason.

It failed. It failed in a way the reformation did not, because it led the disappointed patriots on the right to look to a revolution to change their stars. To a person and slogan that seemed to look back, but which actually had surprisingly little to do with first principles.

Look back to first things. Do you hold a political opinion? Great, write it down. As an exercise, make yourself draw the line on the political opinion about some modern issue back to first things. Do you have first principles that support it, and can you support it with eloquence. Do you have any positions you struggle to support? Do your first principles look like the first principles of the American Founders, the Lutheran Confessors, or the Holy Apostles? If not, then reexamine them.

Reform yourself. Reform your church. Reform your community. Draw things back to their beginnings, and scream defiance in the face of this evil and nihilistic world.