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From Virtue Signaling to Virtue

From Virtue Signaling to Virtue

Last updated on: June 20, 2023 at 10:00 am by Kathleen Mulhern

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From Virtue Signaling to Virtue 2023-06-10T14:00:05-06:00 Kathleen Mulhern

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Ludolph’s commentary* on the Sermon on the Mount moves into touchy ground when he begins to talk about Christ’s plan to fulfill the law, and his warning that his disciples, too, must demonstrate true righteousness. “Sound doctrine,” he writes, “without virtuous living is not sufficient for salvation.”

I know we all say that sound doctrine is not enough, but we certainly don’t act like it. Both the “right” and the “left” say they have right doctrine (right belief systems, right convictions, right knowledge, right science, right spirituality, right conduct) and therefore they’re righteous, no matter how nasty they act. In truth, we actually justify nastiness on the basis of our “right doctrine,” whatever that may be.

Take the Commandment “do not murder.” We don’t do that, right? But have we eliminated the murder from our hearts? “To be perfect we must go farther,” Ludolph insists. We must dig around in the muck of our souls and uncover those impulses of anger, indignation, insults, and contempt. “Virtuous living,” then, doesn’t simply mean poster-virtues on our front lawns; it means touching those sore places within where we disagree so profoundly with the others that we actually detest them. The Command does not require that we come to agreement; it does not require that we embrace the choices or decisions that the other makes; it does not require that we condone what we believe to be systemic or personal injustice. It does require, however, that we disagree, reject arguments, combat perceived evils without rage.

Christ, that wise farmer, and the Gospel laid the ax to the root by forbidding anger, so that the cause of sin could be taken out of our hearts; it is anger that leads eventually to murder. … Wrath is the gateway of all the vices. … Jerome defines anger as any evil emotion that leads us to harm another.

Really, though, come on. There are just some things in this world that make me very, very angry. And really, I feel very, very righteous about that anger. How can we care deeply about the victims of evil in this world while not getting ferociously angry at the perpetrators? What does virtuous living look like in the midst of this hot mess we live in? Well, first we have to go back to Jesus’ first principle: what we think/believe/”know” is not enough. It is not enough to “know” that those folk who are doing those things are doing evil. It is not enough to “be right.” Somehow “rightness” has to look like Jesus, not like Apollo or Ares fighting in Troy. If we are “right,” and we have bubbling murder in our hearts, we are wrong.

In Glittering Vices, Rebecca DeYoung explores this conundrum. She explores the biblical account of Jesus’ cleansing the temple, and his righteous anger. She uses Thomas Aquinas’ reflections to show the difference between that righteous anger and our own. First, his anger was well-ordered, with a clear purpose and message; it had a message and a mission, none of which got out of control. Second, it was not self-serving, and gave him no advantages. Jesus’ anger was not defensive or self-protecting; rather, it was entirely about the authority of God. Third, it was regulated by a spirit of mourning over the blindness and brokenness of those who were perpetrating the evil.

DeYoung writes,

When anger becomes wrath, the goods it defends are my agenda (thwarted by your foolishness, thoughtlessness, or alternative plans), my control (undermined by your interference, or God’s), my dignity (cut by your offensive comment, neglect, or contemptuous tone), my cherished reputation (besmirched by your derisive slander or truthful expose), or my high expectations (disappointed by your mistakes, my own failures, or inconvenient realities).

She also urges us, in our impassioned righteous anger, to cultivate compassion and patience. Anger that moves into violence (whether physical or verbal) is anger that has lost sight of God’s sovereignty, his presence, and his loving heart. “Our impatience reveals a failure to trust God to make all things new, albeit in his sometimes unsearchable, upside-down ways.”

If annoyances can lead to war, then most definitely Jesus’ counsel about peacemakers is related to this business of anger.

Note: For a brief introduction to Ludolph, read this.

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