Echoes in Eternity

Pastor Douglas Wilson is to thoughtful Christianity what Dr. Theodore Dalrymple is to cultural and socio-political discernment. One is the most brilliant and witty Christian writer alive today, while the other is the most profound and droll writer on this planet. I have learned so much from Dalrymple's essays and books; particularly how to discern the worldviews and consequences behind words and ideas and what it looks like when the ideals of the liberal intelligentsia (even learned that word from him) are enacted into social policy. Likewise, in the last year or so, I've come to appreciate what a similar gift Pastor Wilson has in opening one's eyes to the truth in new and inventive ways; in this case, how the Christian faith and life intersect. If you were to ONLY read two authors this year, I would be hard-pressed to find anyone better than these two.

With that said, Wilson has a great post this week in which he focuses on the idea of distant moral guilt where one is or at least feels guilty for the actions of some far-removed corporation which happens to supply said person with goods (e.g. Walmart and the controversy over "sweat shop" labor), though his thoughts apply to many other areas of Christianity as well.

In God in the Dock, Lewis addresses in his typical trenchant way the dangers of national repentance. And, of course, one of the first things to note is that there is absolutely nothing wrong with national repentance, the real kind. But sinners have a consistent way of foisting the guilt of their moral failings off onto the backs of the nearest available abstraction -- the age, the nation, the corporations, or the trends.

But the fundamental moral duties in Scripture are individual.
...
Now the reason it is wrong to invert everything like this is that obsessing about distant sin far, far away is almost always for the purpose of making room for sin near at hand (the personal kinds of sins that people commit against other people), or to atone for that same kind of personal guilt. It is either trying to get rid of guilt or make room for it, or both.

The bizarre moral duty to assume responsibilty for corporations on the other side of the world that might be doing something wrong is a moral duty that has been brought center stage and foisted upon us by a drunken, stoned, fornicating, sodomizing, porn-watching, unborn child murdering generation. And so what happens when blind men lead?