Prudence and temperance

A sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many

Then Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, "This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed-- and a sword will pierce your own soul too." (from the propers of Presentation of Jesus in the Temple

“So what’s the alternative to giving into tribal political thoughts and conspiracy theories? Two virtues: prudence and temperance. Cultivating these two virtues doesn’t inoculate us from falsehood, because we are still fallen and will make mistakes. But doing so does incline us away from habits of self-deception, bias, and the propaganda promoted around us.” - O. Alan Noble in today’s Dispatch Faith)

There are four Cardinal Virtues in the tradition

The four are interdependent; if you don’t adequately possess one of them, the others are distorted in some fashion. [1]
• Prudence. In the most down-to-earth meaning we are speaking of having good sense; the capacity for practical judgment. The virtue of it is in being grounded in reality and directed toward what is good. It assumes openness to reality. This is not the same thing as excess caution and a withholding spirit.
• Justice. The virtue is rooted in the assumption that we live with one another. That then presents us with several issues to address, including -- what we as individuals owe society; what we own other individuals; what society owns individuals.
• Fortitude. This is about removing barriers to justice. A central element is perseverance. Justice is only possible when we stay with the work before us. It is not the same as stubbornness.
• Temperance. Self-awareness and self-control are needed if we are to enjoy life and at the same time be good people. The work that has been done in recent decades on emotional and social intelligence is a resource.

Everything is part of an agenda

In Noble’s Dispatch article he presents the issue to be addressed this way.

Consider the typical play-by-play: A shooting happens, we come to a conclusion about the cultural and political meaning of the shooting before the facts are in, and we begin sharing any bit of information we see that confirms our prior conclusion as soon as we see them, whether or not they are true truth, as Schaeffer would say. (And now AI-generated images can appear to confirm our views or at least make the “truth” open to interpretation.) Then as facts do come out, we either deny them if they don’t agree with our preconceived conclusion, ignore them and distract ourselves, or we find some conspiratorial explanation of our correctness. But rarely will any of us admit that we were wrong to jump to a conclusion.

The reason anyone does this is that we have bought into a preconceived cultural or political vision of the world and are choosing to interpret everything through that lens. Everything is part of an agenda: Our Agenda or Their Agenda. And to admit you are wrong is more than just to humble yourself, it’s a blow to the Agenda. And we can’t allow the Agenda to be harmed because the Agenda is a way of explaining the world, a way of making moral order of our society, of judging right and wrong, of deciding who the bad guys are, of giving us hope for the future, of understanding why everything is a mess right now and how we can fix it. It’s important to have a cultural/political vision of the common good, but when that vision becomes an all-encompassing agenda that runs over human values and divine laws and even truth, it is no longer for the common good.

Prudence and temperance

Noble suggests the two virtues as the appropriate Christian engagement.

He sees prudence as “practical wisdom, the art of knowing what to do, of making a decision, in a given situation.” And temperance as concerning “an inner order of the self. On the issue of truth and speech, temperance helps us know when to speak and when to hold our tongues.” He closes with this —

All of us are called to know the truth and love it. And loving the truth means seeking it with our whole hearts. The virtues of prudence and temperance can form us and shape our affections toward what is real and true, what many of us evangelicals were raised to believe are defining qualities of our faith. We will still occasionally fall prey to error and propaganda. It’s everywhere and we are vulnerable creatures. But there’s grace for that.

The purposes of the parish church

The parish church has three purposes: 1. The worship of God, 2. The formation of the People of God for the sake of the world. and 3. Being a sanctifying presence in the broader community (From An Energy Not its Own: Three Cycles of Parish Life and the Purposes of the Parish Church) Parish’s seem to have an especially difficult time in addressing the second purpose in matters of social ethics. I believe that's related to the difficulty clergy often have if they delve into matters of social ethics. The problem of course is two-fold. Clergy have their own bias. Some of us being aware of that shy away from anything that will touch on political issues. And that is related to our tendency to avoid addressing social ethics because of the trouble that frequently occurs when we do. It's useful to remember that. Most of every parish is not made up of apostolic Christians but includes the tentative and immature along with those who may not think much about the relationship between faith and Christian action. Many of these people are more committed to a political ideology narrative as giving order to their life than they are to the faith. Given all that, it is part of the pastor’s task to help parishioners become reflective about these matters. (See Reflection)

Almighty and everliving God, we humbly pray that, as your only-begotten Son was this day presented in the temple, so we may be presented to you with pure and clean hearts by Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. Presentation of Jesus in the Temple

This abides,

Brother Robert, OA

[1] This is my take on the virtues, largely informed by Richard Holloway (one-time Presiding Bishop of Scotland) in (Seven to Flee, Seven to Follow, 1986). I like his definition of sin as “a wrongly directed effort; a good drive that fails to find the right object; a good thing in itself that is done to excess.” That aligns with John Newman’s understanding that, “Evil has no substance of its own, but is only the defect, excess, perversion, or corruption of that which has substance.”