The Ends Don't Justify the Means

The most destructive of ideas is that extraordinary times justify extraordinary measures. This is the ultimate relativism, and we are hearing it from all sides. The young, the poor, the minority races, the Constitution, the nation, traditional values, sexual morality, religious faith, Western civilization, the economy, the environment, the world are all now threatened with destruction—so the arguments run—therefore let us deal with our enemies by whatever means are handiest and most direct; in view of our high aims history will justify and forgive. Thus the violent have always rationalized their violence.

But as wiser men have always known, all times are extraordinary in precisely this sense. In the condition of mortality all things are always threatened with destruction. The invention of atomic holocaust and the other manmade dooms renews for us the immediacy of the worldly circumstances as the religions have always defined it: we know ‘neither the day nor the hour. . . .’

Wendell Berry published these paragraphs in 1972 in an essay called “Discipline and Hope”, but they could have been written yesterday. Maybe some of his examples would have changed, but the point is still valid.

Though Berry is still alive and the book is not quite old enough to count as an “old book” by Lewis’ definition, it is helpful to realize that about 50 years after these paragraphs were penned, the problem is still very much the same. It’s ok to be brutal to people on “the other side” because they are trying to destroy the SBC, the nation, the economy, the environment, Christianity, etc. The story is the same and so is the truth.

The truth is that it won’t matter much which side wins the culture war if the goodness of the culture is torn down to win it. Looking back, our children’s children will think we are fools and backward for a number of reasons that we can’t see and would never to think to recognize. They will look at some of the battles being fought and wonder why there was so much energy spent, when really the obvious problem was. . . .

But we can’t see what fills in that blank. And that is the nature of it. The very things that we do not question today because we can’t conceive of them being questioned will be the things that are assumed to be completely true or false (and obviously so) by a future generation.

As Christians we can see that there are many things wrong with this world and many people taking a wrong direction. But I can see the same thing in myself. The difference is that I can do something about myself and I have only limited influence on the rest of the world. My most significant influence on the world may be by living rightly in my own sphere of influence, showing people a positive way forward based on the truths of Scripture, and embodying those to the maximum extent possible. If the culture war is about goodness and truth, then so should our daily lives be.

The ends don’t justify the means. It is no good to win the culture war and lose our own souls, which is exactly we are risking. History may judge us all fools, and it may judge some on one side or the other of any issue as morally better than the others. But history isn’t the ultimate judge. God is. At the end of this life, our individual legacies will be laid before God. Our works will pass through the fire. Only those works wrought with faith, hope, and love will remain. The ends will be judged by the means.

We don’t know when the judgment is coming, but we Christians know the judge. We know his character. We have access to his standards through Scripture. We of all people should live like we know his judgment is coming, which should shape the way we fight our political battles today.