THE PARTY IMAGE AND THE DIVINE IMAGE

“Thou shalt love the party” is not a divine imperative, but it may better describe the mind of the party-man than does the injunction to love one’s neighbor as oneself. Where one’s treasure is, there his heart is also. He believes in the party; he trusts in the party. He has helped to build it; it is partly his creation. He has so identified himself with it that a reproach against the party is taken as a personal attack against himself. The love he has for it is a kind of self-love, inspired by self-interest.

Moreover, the party-man looks to his party for approbation-and perhaps for cash. He becomes dependent upon it, if not for sustenance, certainly for moral support and a feeling of security. He comes to love it for reasons not too different from why a child loves a parent. The parent provides protection, security, sustenance, well-being, a sense of belonging-all that might be called home and love. The child in turn shows loyalty to the parent and home, even to the point sometimes of being indifferent to truth and justice.

This reference to the child and parent as a possible analogy to a man and his party reminds me of a problem that came up in one of my ethics classes. Suppose two men are trapped in a burning building, one of whom is an important nuclear physicist who is engaged in momentous atoms-for-peace projects and the other is an old man who has lived out most of his rather mediocre years. The old man, however, is your father. Which would you save?

My girls at Texas Woman’s University have difficulty with that one, being the sensitive creatures that they are. I explain to them that there is an important difference between “Which would you save?” and “Which should you save?” We usually agree that most of us would save our parent, though we should save the man who can be more productive for the good of the world. Blood is thicker than ethics!

The party-man is in this kind of moral predicament. If it is his party that is in the burning building, he must save it, regardless of the significance of the alternative, be it honor, principle, truth, integrity, or benevolence. We cannot help but be sympathetic with the person that drags his old dad from the burning inferno, leaving the scientist behind, and saying, “Never mind about scientific progress, this man is my father!” Morally speaking, he would be wrong, perhaps very wrong, but we would feel for him in his predicament. So it is with the party-man. Really he has no choice but to be loyal to the party, regardless of the circumstance, provided he is to remain a party-man. Even as he pulls his party to safety from the wreckage, leaving perhaps his own personal integrity behind, we ought to be able to understand, and even to show compassion. He has saved what he loves most. Could he be expected to do otherwise?

The party-man may not realize it, but an important attraction to the party is the anonymity it provides him. He does not have to be “an individual,” if I may use a term that was so meaningful to Soren Kierkegaard, who referred to “the crowd” somewhat like I am using the term party. The Danish philosopher described those who were unwilling to achieve “the authentic self” as seeking the plaudits of the crowd and as hiding themselves in the anonymity that the crowd always provides. Kierkegaard, hailed as the founder of Existentialism (a philosophy worth studying), conceded that the crowd offers honor, position, security, and approbation, but it always denies one of being “an individual.” Because of this he often said, even to the point of being tedious, “The crowd is untruth . . . The crowd is untruth . . . The crowd is untruth.”

We too would insist that the party-man can never have truth, used in the highest sense of self-authenticity before God. Oh, the party-man may be right about a lot of things. In terms of dogma and orthodoxy he may be as right as rain. The crowd often is. But when one surrenders his own uniqueness, gives up the right to grow and to think according to his own capacity, and makes himself listen to the crowd before he acts, he is no longer a free man. This is the greatest untruth of all. When one loses his individuality in what Kierkegaard calls “the noise of the crowd” he is to be pitied. Emerson put it this way: “God offers to every mind its choice between truth and repose. Take which you please, for you can never have both.”

The party makes possible this anonymity in which self-deception can hide. The party is identified with “the truth,” and the party-man in turn is identified with the parry. It is not a matter of one experiencing the truth in his own personal confrontation with God, but rather that he is identified with the right group. The party has its own special vocabulary that a logician might dub as equivocation, but to the initiated it is full of meaning as well as full of comfort. In the party of my own background the vocabulary was (and still is) highly important, so much so that if you disturb the vocabulary you disturb the security. “Faithful” did not mean a heart full of trust in the Lord; it meant fidelity to the doctrines of the party. “The Lord’s people” did not refer to all those who are saints of God; quite frankly it meant us — just us! “Sound” and “loyal” and “the church” and “obeying the gospel” and “the truth” were all slanted so as to have certain restricted meanings.

One man in particular comes to mind as I cite these instances of vocabulary, for the party withdrew fellowship (?) from him, and in making public announcement of this used such language as I have referred to. Though this man has more faith in Jesus than most Christians I know, he is now labeled as “unfaithful” by the party. He has “forsaken the church” only because his spiritual starvation led him from the church of his youth to a search for the reality of Christ. He has now rejected “the truth” even though he is diligently seeking it, for the party makes truth (what a precious word!) mean whatever the party believes and practices.

In a recent conversation with this brother, who is a business man that almost lets his zeal for the Lord interfere with his work, I asked him what his status with his congregation would have been had he become so busy in this world’s affairs that he would barely have time to hurry to church on Sundays and Wednesday nights. Though so busy chasing the dollar that he could hardly be thought of as a devoted disciple, still he would be “loyal” to the party’s external marks of orthodoxy. What then would have been his fate? He readily agreed that he was fully accepted as “faithful” and “loyal to the truth” so long as he went along with the crowd, even though his life was not truly dedicated to the Christ. Now that the Christ is precious to him, he went on to explain, and he has begun a search for deeper understanding of Christianity regardless of party religion, he has been kicked out of the church!

In the bull of excommunication, which appeared in Firm Foundation, one of the reasons given for the withdrawal was “the serious doctrinal heresy” of denying “the undenominational character and unity of the Church of Christ.” This means that the man and his wife were rejected (the report refers to them as “former brethren”) because they did not believe that one party within Christendom, which calls itself “the Church of Christ,” is the one and only true church. You have to believe that it is “undenominational” and that it is “united” because the crowd says so. Never mind about your intelligence or your individuality or your sense of honor and decency, for you must believe it the way the party does.

Yet it is just this kind of exclusiveness that gives strength to party religion and makes anonymity a reality. Suppose you can believe that you are right while all the others are wrong, and that your group only has the truth. Infallibility, which is what this is, is a most comforting doctrine to a certain type mind. He is right because he is properly identified. He doesn’t have to worry about thinking things through and figuring things out. He has already arrived. This provides a deep sense of security and makes unnecessary a personal striving for reality. Blessed anonymity! I am reminded of what a dean at Southern Methodist University once said about the church referred to above: “You’ll have to hand it to those folks. They know they’ve got the truth.” What interested me the most was that the dean said it as if he envied them!

This is the party image. The dean got it right when he said that they know they have the truth. Together they know they are right. If anyone doubts, he lacks that much being a true party-man. If one really belongs to the party, there is no doubt. He is not quite like the tough-minded Texan who said, “I am a Democrat, but I don’t belong to the Democrat party.” When one belongs to the party, then the party is right and cannot be wrong. He accepts the doctrine of infallibility whether he admits it or not.

One serious problem in the congregation at Corinth (1 Cor. 1) was that many of them belonged to parties. “Each of you is saying, ‘I belong to Paul’, ‘I belong to Apollos’, ‘I belong to Cephas’, ‘I belong to Christ’. Has Christ been partitioned up?”

William Barclay thinks that perhaps the “I belong to Christ” group was as much a party as the others. His comment is interesting: “If this does describe a party, they must have been a small and rigid and self-righteous sect who claimed that they were the only true Christians in Corinth. Their real fault was not in saying that they belonged to Christ, but in acting as if Christ belonged to them. It may well describe a little intolerant, self-righteous group.”

If one does truly belong he has access to the party machinery, its institutions and its organs, and he can count on their protecting him so long as he is a loyal son. There can, of course, be some superficial criticism of the party, of the ‘What we need to do is . . . “ variety, but there can be absolutely no questioning of the basic assumptions of the party, such as its “undenominational character.” There is even the occasional minister who “pours it on” as he speaks against some of the practices of the party, and there are those who admire him for it, but still he must remain basically loyal to the party if he is to be tolerated.

A religious party is like a political party in that the one who expects to succeed must play the game according to the rules. He must learn what to say and how to say it, whom to know and how to treat them. Though they may not be clearly defined, there are rules one is to follow if he wants a place on college lectureships or if he wants to be invited as a guest speaker at the larger, more influential churches. One rather obvious rule is to support the big wheels, who in turn will move you along, commensurate of course with your ability. The big wheels recognize ability only in those who support their own projects. They know how to say the right word to the churches. It is a subtle thing. Wisdom has a part to play.

Perhaps this is more evident when one views it negatively,’ by watching what happens to him who is not a good party-man. Regardless of his ability or education, or even his piety, he may be ignored. The editors are not interested in what he writes; he isn’t invited to the colleges; he serves on no boards or committees. The word is passed along that he is “liberal” or some such tag-all of course in the interest of protecting “the church” against “heresy.”

This is the way the party treats the quiet heretic. If he is the louder type, the kind that writes critical letters or starts journals, the treatment is different. The party will discover that he was, after all, always that way, even when he was in college. Only when he becomes a non-party man do his classmates in college recall how radical or heretical he was even then. His integrity will be questioned and his motives suspected. He will be accused of having an ax to grind, of having to have some hobby to ride. There can be no dedicated, sincere reformers within the circle of partydom, for a party can never see itself as in need of reformation — not really that is.

When a big wheel or almost a big wheel jumps the traces and bolts the party, the party is terribly embarrassed, if not infuriated, and it hardly knows how to react since it happens so seldom. In one case that I recall the whole thing was blamed on the man’s wife!

It is the young man that the party is adept at handling. If he fails to cultivate the party image, he simply will not advance. The men at the top in any party, religious, or political, are not necessarily the ablest, and certainly are not the most dedicated. They are the best party-men. They know how to pull the strings and get the votes. Nothing can be so vicious as a party-man whose party standing is threatened. He will “kill” — not literally of course since that isn’t necessary — to protect his party and his position in the party. A young man who dares to be “an individual” will simply be destroyed. “There will not be a church in the brotherhood that will have him,” and I’ve heard the party say it precisely that way many times.

The man who sincerely desires to be “an individual” in the party is to be both admired and pitied. He must learn the fine art of walking on egg shells. He never really does well in the party because even when he tries to say what he is supposed to say it doesn’t sound quite right. He knows better, so he can’t be enthusiastic. He is too honest to be a good party man, and he is not good enough at rationalization to make himself feel right. One makes a better party-man if he is a bit unscrupulous. His most serious problem is that he wants to do good and to serve productively in the kingdom of God. He wants to preach and to be used; he wants to be accepted and to be respected. And what happens to him if he doesn’t go along with the party? Where will he preach? What can he do? He is out! He can see what happens to others who talk too much and ask too many questions, and he doesn’t want it to happen to him. His position is most understandable — as is the position of the fellow who pulled his father from the burning building, leaving the scientist behind.

At this point we are at the taproot of the evil of partyism. The welfare of the party has precedence over the dignity of the individual. Like Pharisaism, it assumes that man is made for the Sabbath, instead of the Sabbath for man. The party must sacrifice the authenticity of man for the glory of its own institutions. The evil of partyism is that it has a herd mind, which makes it impossible for it to encourage free thought and discussion. If the free voice of an individual is heard above the din of the crowd, it must be silenced.

Such is the party image.

The divine image is as different as light is from darkness. It is only the divine nature that can free one from the party image: “By which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, that through these you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of passion, and become partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pet. 1:4).

The party image enslaves, the divine image frees. “If the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8: 36). The party image must conform to the party, while the divine image conforms to the likeness of Christ: “He who says he abides in Him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked” (1 John 2:6). Such a man imitates God rather than the party image: “Be imitators of God, as beloved children” (Eph. 5: 1). “That I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death” (Philip. 3: 10).

The party image always finds its pattern in its own dogmas and traditions, but the divine linage finds its pattern in the Christ: “I have given you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you” (John 13: 15). “To this end you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps” (1 Pet. 2 : 21). The party is formed in its own image, the man in Christ after His image: “Put on the new nature, which is being renewed in knowledge after the linage of its creator” (Col. 3: 10) . The party image is necessarily party-minded, while the individual in Christ is Christ-minded: “Have this mind among yourselves, which you have in Christ Jesus” (Philip. 2: 5). “My little children, with whom I am again in travail until Christ be formed in you!” (Gal. 4:19)

He who wants to be a free man in Christ, but finds himself enmeshed in partyism, has to make a decision. He cannot have the advantages that come from following the crowd and at the same time enjoy the bounties of being a free man. As to how hard such a decision is depends upon how dear the party is to him. If freedom is so precious to him that he seeks it at any price, then the decision is not difficult.

Once a man declares his independence the party linage is no longer a frame of reference. Once he achieves self-authenticity in Christ the future is wholly in the hands of God, to whom he looks for sustenance and guidance. — the Editor