On Wendell Berry and the Logic of This World

I've been reading Wendell Berry's essay collection: Sex, Economy, Freedom, and Community. While this is my first time reading Berry, many of the essays were actually published in the early 90s.

Over PBJ toast this morning, I started "Peaceableness Towards Enemies," Berry's thoughts on the Iraq War to free Kuwait. What struck me was Berry's assertion that while the powers-that-be claimed the war was to retain America's supremacy, America was by the time of the war already in decline:

Our wealth is great, but our economy has been seriously damaged by the greed, selfishness, and shortsightedness that have become its ruling principles. Our power is great, but in spite of its vaunted precision, it is applied more and more ruthlessly and clumsily. We are increasingly making this a nation of peace, security, and freedom for the rich. We have almost done away with the private ownership of usable property and with small, private economic enterprises of all kinds. Our professions have become greedy, unscrupulous, and unaffordable. Our factory products are shoddy and overpriced.

He continues:

If we are the most wealthy and powerful country in  the world, we are also the most wasteful, both of nature and of humanity. This society is making life extremely difficult for the unwealthy and the unpowerful: children, old people, women (especially wives and the mothers), country people, the poor, the unemployed, the homeless. 

And one more thought:

And none of these problems can be corrected merely by wealth, power, and technology. The world's most powerful military force cannot help at all. 

What strikes me about this observation of Berry's is that he made it in the early 90s, nearly twenty years before the 2008 recession forced everyone to recognize income inequality as a problem. When Berry was writing about income inequality in America, America was still dreaming of endless, growing wealth. America celebrated its stability at the same time as Berry, like an Old Testament prophet, mourned its destruction.

This leads me to several conclusions.

One, wealth which is rooted in the logic of this world is, ultimately, a sham. It appears substantial enough, but the system by which it is built and sustained is flawed, and so it is only a matter of time before those flaws become apparent. This is why Berry was able to recognize the poverty of the American Dream, because he recognized the flawed logic of American consumerism: the belief that immediate gratification and endless profit could be indulged without cost to the individuals or the self. No action is without its cost (divine logic teaches us this), and so Berry foresaw the steep cost to American consumerism, long before Americans woke from dreaming of their riches to the ugly reality of a community whose citizens and countryside were alike impoverished.

Two, by extension, any attempt to live by the logic of this world rather than by divine logic will ultimately fail. When we think of worldly lusts, we often think of specific behaviours, anything from extramarital sex to overeating. Yet the world's grip on our lives runs deeper than specific behaviours, touching even the heart and mind. This present world has its own logic, a system of interlocking assumptions and values by which the world is to be run, and it is possible (indeed, it is very easy!) to accept this logic without behaving in a worldly way. One may remain a virgin sexually and yet accept the assumptions this world makes about marriage, that it represents the pinnacle of human experience and is primarily about self-fulfillment for both partners.

Three, and finally, given that we are prone to organize our lives according to the logic of this world and that and any such ordering will end in failure, we must take care to order our lives according to divine logic. I use the word logic here purposefully, since it implies that our values must be interdependent; what we value in one area of life will affect what we value and how we act in other areas of live. To give an example which has been in the news a great deal lately: If we value the life of the unborn, as a child created by God, then we must also value that life when it is born, and we must act on that value by taking steps not only to prevent abortion but to support single mothers. It's worth noting here that most crisis pregnancy centers I know of do just this.

To live according to divine logic is to order our lives, individual and corporate, according to the structures by which the Lord has established this world. These structures are found in Scripture, but we must not confuse them with the commands of Scripture. This is not to say that Scripture is insufficient, only that some of the structures which God has established are not directly stated, but inferred from Scripture. For instance, we know that the Lord created humankind for mutual dependance, each individual relying on the support of others and of the environment, and in her turn, providing that support. In no one verse does God explicitly spell this out, but in countless verses and principles, from the story of Adam and Even to Paul's insistence that the church live in unity with one another, the Lord indicates that the world is meant to be run through mutual dependance. By this logic, and by other logics known through reliance on God and on his Word, are our lives to be ordered.

If we are to accomplish this, we must ask ourselves hard questions. In the passage above, Berry targets "greed, selfishness, and short-sightedness": problems which (among many others) have crept into the church. We must ask ourselves how we have absorbed the logic of the world around us, and we must commit to reordering our lives so that we may live not by the lusts of this world by by love for our Lord and His Creation.

One final example: Last year, a few friends and I read Jen Hatmaker's 7, an indictment (albeit humorous) of the consumerism which has crept into the American church. Who among us has not justified purchasing new food, Hatmaker asks, simply because we do not like the food which is already in our fridge? We waste food in this way despite the fact that food waste contributes directly to the problem of hunger around the world. Who among us, Hatmaker asks, has not spent accumulated unnecessary clothing, while the poor in our city go cold in the winter? By spelling out our wasteful materialism in the areas of food and clothing, Hatmaker clearly indicates that though we (seem to) obey God's commandments, we nonetheless have absorbed the logic of the world around us. It is time, Hatmaker suggests, to put this logic aside and return to the Lord.

In Matthew 7, Jesus instructs his followers to search for the narrow way:

Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it. 

We usually assume that Jesus is speaking of salvation here. Indeed he is. But he is not only speaking of salvation; set in the context of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus's point is broadly applicable to the whole life of discipleship.

Living like everyone else, Jesus says, is easy. The way of this world is wide. At first glance, the logic of this world seems easy, natural, sensible. It even, at times, appears virtuous. Yet in this end, those who take the easy way will be destroyed. All the wealth and pleasures which have been built up will fall like a house of cards. We are witnessing this now, in the ongoing economic struggles of the United States, after decades of financial indulgence and profiteering.

Living according to divine logic is not easy. It does not make sense. It even seems wrong. But this is because we were born and raised in this world; the radical surrender of worldly logic to which Jesus calls us will (almost always) rub us wrong. But in the end, only there we will find abundance and joy.