What a nice tea we're having ...
Sunday morning, a spring day, cool breeze, blue sky, and tea for two. A meeting of equals; dignity, elegance and honor above all.
For we are gentleman and ladies of consideration who show courtesy and respect for each other, even if we are supposed enemies. The Rules of Engagement are defined, and rigorously adhered to. Never ever shall it be said that we broke the rules.
The plebian masses may not understand our elevated view, and so what if they may suffer a bit while we choose to engage. But we fight for the higher purpose of our station that we define.
For we will respect each others principles above all else. And when we are ready we shall make a play of it; we’ll give the command from our high vantage, and the divisions will clash in the glory of battle, and we’ll exhort them from pulpit and podium with a grand “Tally-ho old boy”
Tolerance, old man, that’s what it’s about. Never let it be said I judged your principles, never let it be said I did not tolerate. We can be friends while enemies of elegance, if only we simply learn to tolerate all (except intolerance).
So speak the secular intellectuals of the world, endorsing the ultimate importance of spirituality, while the elevated liberal theologians of the church embrace the culture of tolerance. And the people listen in blind fascination and are caught in the blind rhetoric, and starve, and suffer, and die as they try to emulate the supposed lofty ideals.
You have heard it said “Be in the world, not of the world”? God says this over and over again, “don’t compromise!” Look at Mat 5:13, or 1Pe 2:9, or 2Cor 5:18 which calls for reconciliation to the absolute, not a compromise of opposites. And Jesus gives us a dire warning in Rev 2:20.
So then, live holiness and be the distinction to secular culture.
(Picture is a coloured version of the Heath Robinson drawing available under the Wikimedia Commons license)