S7 E5 Saints, Martyrs, and Unsung Heroes
S7 Saints, Martyrs, and Unsung Heroes
E5 Authenticity and the Democracy of the Dead
Why is there a cry for authenticity? What is wrong with the timeless, enduring, or more to the point, inherent matters of truth? In the marketplace, we would not have such a vast range of products and services at our fingertips without authenticity. I’d rather have an iPhone than visit the post office to send a telegram, and I’d rather clean my car than clean up after a horse. But this type of authenticity does not concern truth. Even so, there is something worth noting about the marketplace that can be called a democracy of the dead.[1]
Corporations like Lego (1932), McDonalds (1955), Apple (1976), and Cadbury (1824), just to name a few, hold to certain truths as they see it since they began. So, in many ways, a democracy of the dead is seen in the continuing work of Ole Kirk (Lego), Richard and Maurice James (McDonalds), Steve Jobs (Apple), John and Benjamin Cadbury.
Even as a nation we are governed by an enduring Constitution beginning with the timeless words, “We hold these truths to be self-evident”. What followed was certainly authentic in 1776, especially to King George. Holding to those truths is far more traditional with very little authenticity. Some may argue that an authentic interpretation of these truths is necessary as generation succeeds generation, but this would fall into the same category as corporations adapting their products and services.
No matter how we comprise the marketplace, its enduring entities tend to have a strong anchoring in an unchanging vision from dead people who were the founders. So, I return to my question of authenticity and narrow it down to the many current voices heard from the church while emerging out of a pandemic. Why is there a cry for authenticity when the democracy of the dead leaps out of the Bible?
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us” (Hebrews 12:1).
The previous chapter in Hebrews sheds light on some of the multitude that comprise the “great cloud of witness”. Some would call them heroes of the faith, and why not? In November 2018 my mom joined that cloud. My grandparents joined before mom. In fact, of the 160,000 people that die every day in the world[2], imagine how many held to inherent truth found in the Bible, then add them to the great cloud of witness.
All of them became part of the democracy of the dead. Their timeless and enduring witness of Christ remarkably echoes the words of John when he wrote, “that you may know…that you may overcome” (1 John 2:13-14). Without this great cloud of witness, we would know very little about a living faith, trusting in God, overcoming, or knowledge of God.
So, what do we learn from the democracy of the dead called the great cloud of witness?
First, their vote still counts even though they have passed from this present life. G. K. Chesterton said, “Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking around.” We do tend to behave like the Christian faith completely depends on us – somewhat arrogant, right?
Christ himself said, “I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you” (John 14:18). He comes to us by the Holy Spirit. But do not think for a moment he comes to those who “happen to be walking around” void of the great cloud of witness. Just because Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Joseph, Moses, Rahab, Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel (Hebrews 11), and mom have died that they become disqualified as a faithful witness because of their death.
Second, their faithful witness must not be neglected. As Hebrews retells the stories of faith, we too must recall and retell the stories of loved ones. As John tells us, what did they know and how did they overcome? It is this, more than anything, that slaps the face of authenticity for the sake of being authentically fashionable. Did we miss it when the author of Ecclesiastes wrote, “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9).
Like the entities that comprise the marketplace, we must adapt the faithful witness of Christ to this present generation, as previous generations did. But I strongly suspect authenticity today is at the cost of rejecting the ever-present great cloud of witness.
When I read about the faithful witness from the Early Church Fathers all the way through church history, I find some commonalities that are seemingly rare today. They got down on their knees and prayed in order to overcome. They opened the pages of the Bible so they could understand who God is, what he has done, and why. They worshipped through song and in the Holy Spirit, not a performance or theatre, but often under forms of oppression. They struggled, wrestled, and contended for their faith in Christ. It cost them time and effort in order to hold onto inherent, unchanging, timeless, and enduring truth.
When tempted by sin, they did not call a therapist. They wrestled with the truth that their very body was a temple of the Holy Spirit purchased with a great price (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). Some fell flat on their face, but they knew that overcoming meant confessing sin to God (1 John 1:19). They did not call it a lapse of judgement, a mistake, a failure or any other terminology that authentically rebrands the stain of sin to something less offensive.
They seemed to know that, “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace” (Ephesians 1:7). And most of the time, they did not experience the riches of God’s grace while at the same time sipping coffee and scrolling through social media. They approached God with a sincere heart struggling between “what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do” (Romans 7:15).
I am not trying to paint the picture that everyone in the great cloud of witness was a saint, neither am I ignoring the inherent fallen nature of mankind that will always choose sin and self. What I am doing is calling out those who cry out for authenticity for the sake of being authentic as though the entire enterprise of God’s Kingdom depended upon them, “the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking around.”
So, does the democracy of the dead actually speak?
Yes, but not in the way that Charles Dickens wrote in his classic story of A Christmas Carol (1843). Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob do not speak to me. Neither does my mom. Christ said, “But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you” (John 14:26). The Holy Spirit speaks to us but not a college professor working with theory, hypothesis, concepts and so on. He works with truth revealed in Christ and lived out by faithful people like Abraham and mom.
I like what Chesterton said. “We have the dead at our councils. The ancient Greeks voted by stones; these [great cloud of witness] shall vote by tombstones. It is all quite regular and official, for most tombstones, like most ballot papers, are marked with a cross.”
Imagine for a moment, in the democracy of the dead we have faithful witnesses from the Early Church of Titus, Ignatius, Polycarp, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Origen, Cyprian, and all the believers who came under the Great Persecution at the end of the second century.
We also have the age of the Christian Empire, with Constantine, Eusebius, Basil, Athanasius, Augustine, Ambrose, Chrystostom, Jerome, and all the councils of the fourth and fifth centuries.
What about the Middle Ages where Islam challenged Christianity, and the struggle believers had in a time of illiteracy and controversy over the use of icons, indulgences, and crusades? Or even the Christianization of Russia, Francis of Assisi, the Magna Carta, Thomas Aquinas, Dante’s Divine Comedy that would change the way Christianity viewed hell, Wycliff, Thomas a Kempis, Joan or Arc, and Michael?
Have we forgotten the Reformation with Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin? What about Tyndale, The Book of Common Prayer, John Knox, The King James version of the Bible in 1611, the Mayflower Compact, Galileo, and the Westminster Confession.
The age of reason and revival came with Cromwell, Milton, Rembrandt, Newton, Watts, Bach Jonathan Edwards, George Whitfield, Charles and John Wesley, Handel’s Messiah, Cowper, and Kant.
Then came the age of progress with the French revolution, the Bill of Rights, William Carey, The Bible Society, Wilberforce, Campbell, Keble, Mueller, Finney, Livingstone, Kierkegaard, John Henry Newman, Spurgeon, Moody, the US Civil War, Booth, Kuyper, Billy Sunday, and the Azusa Street Revival.
WWI, Karl Barth, CS Lewis, WWII, Niebuhr, Dead Sea Scrolls, World Council of Churches, Billy Graham, Mother Teresa, Bonhoeffer, Medellin Conference, Pope John Paul II, and Gorbachev all punctuate the age of ideologies.
All these people are marked with a cross. Then there is now. We are tempted to be authentic to the degree that all these (and millions upon millions more) faithful witnesses said nothing, did nothing, established nothing, wrote nothing, and proclaimed nothing. If we behave this way, we are “the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking around.”
I dare to say that authenticity for the sake of being authentic will keep us further away from the cross. Our worship, prayer, reading of the Bible must be at the cross, or as Isaac Watts wrote in 1707:
At the cross, at the cross where I first saw the light,
And the burden of my heart rolled away,
It was there by faith I received my sight,
And now I am happy all the day!
By default, the cry of authenticity for the sake of being fashionably authentic will take us away from the inherent, enduring, timeless, and unchanging cross of Christ. We must be marked with it. One day, we shall join the democracy of the dead in the great cloud of witness. So, for now, “Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful” (Hebrews 10:23).
[1] G. K. Chesterton first used this term.
[2] World Health Authority 2020.