A Wilderness of Mirrors Trusting Again in a Cynical World

An effort to strengthen the appeal of Christian realism and embolden the church towards a confident interventionist America that operates co-ordinate to merely war tradition must include an appeal to trust once more in ability brokers and institutions that accept failed Christians and the church. At the middle of the appeal volition have to be a way of addressing the problem of cleaved trust in order to correct feelings of ambiguity towards America and her institutions.

My friend and mentor Mark Meynell—who amongst other things is an unofficial chaplain to a number of ceremonious service departments in the UK's Whitehall—has written a book that addresses this very problem for a global audience. A Wilderness of Mirrors: Trusting Again in a Contemptuous World is by no means a defense of Christian realism, nor an entreatment for a assuming and strong America in the world, only it does offer a positive contribution to those ends by making a number of crucial observations about broken trust and its effects on society. He too points to a solution, simply it's a solution that calls for more simply trying to trust the U.s.a. government and American values once again as individuals who happen to also be Christians.

Meynell helpfully reminds whatsoever Christian that our focus is on Jesus Christ, in whom we tin trust. It is from this human relationship that we can larn once again to trust that there are values found in institutions in which many have lost trust. This can happen past participating in the community instituted for this purpose whose head is perfectly trustworthy and whose construction—possibly uniquely in our guild—allows for confession, repentance, and forgiveness when nosotros take broken others' trust.

Meynell'due south book describes instances of broken trust in leaders, regime, and other institutions, fifty-fifty the church building. In seeking to "sketch conspicuous trends, drawing threads together from" his own observations and the scholarship of others, he argues that we live in a time in which a common feature is "our expectation of betrayal."

The first two great modernistic wars led to "thinkers rejecting the very possibility of authoritative frameworks or 'metanarratives.' This condemned us to, or liberated us for (depending on your perspective), the limitless possibilities of personal option" (p.17). Our age is therefore steeped in a culture of suspicion. Subsequently all, how can I trust you if the only value we hold in common is our own personal selection? The question becomes: "Who am I to say that some values are meliorate than others?" But some values are better than others. Writ big, this affects the strength of society and its confidence in shared global values and in a Christian willingness to defend them.

In the start part, Meynell shows united states over 3 chapters in short, bite-sized sketches how the expose of ruling authorities (leaders, the nation country, and subsidiary institutions), mediated realities (political spin, advert, and the media) and caregivers (including the church) take created the climate of this cleaved trust that underlies our fear of institutions and leaders.

The second office of the book is perhaps more subjective than the first but is all the more compelling as it takes on a narrative mosaic course. Made upwards of two chapters, information technology'south a review of the effects that cleaved trust has on individuals and society. Here Meynell weaves in manageable strands of continental philosophy with stories, quoting anecdotes and authors such as Vaclav Havel and Graham Greene. This section shows how deep-seated alienation tin can come up from living without being able to trust.

The final office is the most hopeful, and written not just for a Christian audience but too as an introductory atoning for people who have been burned by the church, or who have never known her. Information technology'south this section which allows the title of the book to include the words "trusting once more."

Meynell illustrates the reality that all human beings are made in the epitome of God. Quoting 1000.K. Chesterton's character Father Dark-brown speaking to a Police officer, he says: "All men matter. You lot matter. I thing. It's the hardest affair in theology to believe." Expanding on that idea because the law officer does non understand, Chocolate-brown says: "We matter to God—God just knows why. But that'south the simply possible justification for policemen… If all men matter, all murders matter. That which he has so mysteriously created, we must not endure to be then mysteriously destroyed."

Meynell interviewed John LeCarre on the psychology and resilience against cynicism of his nearly famous mole hunting character George Smiley. LeCarre paradoxically says that Smiley "starts with a deep human being pessimism. He can't go much lower in his expectations or disappointments at other people'south expose" (p.122). So even while all people affair, nosotros know that all are capable of profound betrayal.

In some instances this betrayal is of evil towards the skilful. Merely what almost the inverse? "LeCarre describes the most exciting encounter of his life every bit coming together the remarkable Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov. He had been 'male monarch of the closed gild' (he was their nuclear weapons supremo), but he realized that what he was doing was wrong and so spoke upwardly, showing true heroism and integrity, at great personal cost" (p.123).

What a model of integrity, to admit that you are wrong. Indeed this is the starting point for the customs of trust that Meynell would dearest the church to be: a community of people that are willing to admit that they are failures and in doing so tin build trust betwixt each other because forgiveness is possible through Jesus. But that's a trouble for many of u.s.a., since: "In our pursuit of consumer convenience, we have sought to obliterate dependence on others, as if this is a bad thing" (p.158). Merely "nosotros are meant to be dependent on 1 another; it is how we are wired" (p.159). Which is the point of the church building, "the gathering of all believers in sky, at present!" In lodge that "through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities."

Meynell spends a fair segment of the book describing what a healthy church looks like, specially in how information technology is led, outlining failures and also offer a critique for the church building's cooption for any party's political ends. When he touches on the role of the church in relation to the country, Meynell reminds us of the importance of distinguishing between the church and other institutions because they do not always concord to the same values or culture.

It is at this juncture that Providence readers might showtime to go anxious, since Meynell warns that the role of the church is at its best when it tin speak truth to power. "The closer Christian leaders have been to the institution, the less prophetic their ministry has become. For it is not as if the lordship of Christ has no begetting on the political realm. If Jesus is truly the King of kings whatever other authority is unavoidably relegated and relativized." Indeed: "Under the British Empire the church often looked to the twin London authorities of Whitehall (the head of authorities) and the ironically biblical-sounding road, Threadneedle Street (the Bank of England)."

However, Providence readers demand not fear, Meynell acknowledges the good in these institutions and reaffirms they are worth trusting, peculiarly if they have checks and balances, but he urges his readers to trust first in Christ and learn to trust again through his church. I look frontwards to asking Meynell more specific questions about the book and trying to tease out a petty more than about his view of the church in relation to American intervention.

—

Lauri Moyle is currently discerning a call to the Priesthood in the Anglican Church of N America. He serves as transitional deacon in a pocket-sized church building in Chattanooga, where he is shaping a telephone call to become a Clergyman to Civil Society. He is trying to recapture the traditional role of the Priest every bit active participant in the Parish customs beyond the walls of the church. Lauri holds an MA in theology and politics from Kings College, London. Until recently Lauri lived and worked in London as a staffer to a Fellow member of Parliament and as a policy shaper focusing on child online safety and online trouble gambling. Having spent formative years in Central and Eastern Europe right later on the fall of the Atomic number 26 Curtain, he is keenly enlightened that he is a casher of a potent America in the globe.

Photo Credit: Interior of Trinity Church on Wall Street in New York City by Steven Kelley via Flickr.

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Source: https://providencemag.com/2016/02/trusting-again-in-a-cynical-world-review-wilderness-of-mirrors/

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