Ancient Simplicity

"The stream of political, military, and social necessity is so overpowering that superhuman strength is required to struggle against it. No ascetisism or excercise of human power can overcome it— only the holiness that comes from God. And although the power is given to overcome it, there is no way of escaping it."
~Jacques Ellul. The Meaning of The City.

We cannot call Ellul fatalist. He has made a statement and on the basis of this statement we cannot call him fatalist. There is a way to overcome, that is, "holiness that comes from God." The problem is in our reading of his statement. If it seems impossible, it must be. Ellul's "solution" is an impossible one, therefore he must be fatalist. We doubt the available practicality of God's power. What does God have to do with flat tires, bank machines, elevator music, broken calculators, electric wires, high chairs, low latency, wide area networks and deep analysis? We simply don't believe it.

Believing is doubly difficult for us to do. We first must hold onto God, but we must simultaneously let go of the very thing we are struggling against, our innate desire to take things into our own hands, our numbers, statistics, plans, techniques, methods, our way of doing things, our technological self reliance. Alphabets, watches, spread sheets, statistics, streets, roads, cars, buildings, our self constructed image, time, economic imperatives, our self proclaimed comfort, entitlement, security. We don't want to let go of all those good things that seem so compelling. Surely God uses those good things? Surely, he does. But to be used, they must be used at the behest of God's direction, not at the behest of our spirit of taking things into our own hands.

To use these good things properly we must have some idea of God's direction. To have some idea of His direction we must be close to Him. But, how do we draw close to Him? We draw close to Him through ancient Christian disciplines: Prayer, study, meditation, solitude, fasting, feasting, celebrating, worshiping. We cannot look to our tools and techniques to figure out what God is up to. If we could , we wouldn't need Him, and one thing is sure, we desperately need Him.