Recently, I had the privilege of preaching through Psalm 149. Included in this psalm is a depiction of the works in which believers will be participating with Christ - in Whom they are - after their glorification and during the Millennium, during which they will be ruling and reigning with Christ Himself (c.f. II Tim. 2:12, I Peter 2:9). The relevant portion of the psalm is below,
“Let the high praises of God be in their mouth, and a twoedged sword in their hand; to execute vengeance upon the heathen, and punishments upon the people; to bind their kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of iron; to execute upon them the judgment written: this honour have all his saints. Praise ye the LORD.” (Psalm 149:6-9)
To the modern mind of those in soft, effeminate churchianity, this passage must seem horrifying if taken literally. God’s people - under the auspices of God the Son Himself - will execute vengeance upon the heathen? Bind people with iron? Execute judgment? Yet, there’s no exegetical or theological reason not to take it literally. And even as “extreme” as this work might seem to some, it is clearly depicted in this passage both as being service unto the Lord and as something that is an honour for His saints.
My point to mentioning this is that in the Traditional view, work that is done well is an intrinsic good, something that carries with it a sanctity of its own. Even something as counterintuitive to the modern mind as the laying on of judgment, when done for the Lord and under His aegis, is included in that. So how much more then things that are closer to home for us in this life here and now, things which involve the creative aspects of the human capabilities?
Work, as a Traditional good, is a sacred act when we are doing what we have been called to do and are acting within the bounds of God’s charactre and nature. As we bear the image of God about in us, it does honour to Him for us to seek to excel in whatever creative acts our hands have entered into. Understand that when I refer to “creative acts,” I am going beyond the definition of the term as referring specifically to the creation of artistic works, as you’ll find in the writings of Traditionalists such as William Lethaby or Eric Gill. Instead, any honourable labour is an intrinsic good and it is God’s intention for mankind to find our support and earn our bread in the performance of that labour. In this sense, even the “email stuff” that is so typical of the modern world’s economy can be honourably done (there have always been clerks and administrators after all, even in pre-industrial traditional societies).
However, we should also understand that the modern world’s emphasis on work as a means to gather resources which we then spend on consooooming things we don’t really need is not really what “work as a sacred act” is all about. That approach is an ugly, mercantile vaisya notion that robs labour of its humanity and its sacrality. The end of work, from a Traditional perspective, is not money or goods but is the joy that should come from doing what you do as excellently as possible. Work should not be equated with “a job” or “a career,” but rather with a vocation and calling (which go far beyond the narrow modern understanding of those terms). Work does not need to be done for a paycheck, but for the purpose of glorifying God and imitating Him in the creative act. “Work as a way to get things” demeans the intrinsic value of creative labour.
As I alluded to above, one aspect of God’s nature is that of His creativity, the paramount example of which is creation itself. We understand from Scripture that God did not create the universe for mere rote or base purposes. Rather, He made and fashioned it all for His own glory and His own pleasure,
“The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.” (Psalm 19:1)
“The LORD hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.” (Proverbs 16:4)
“For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen.” (Romans 11:36)
“Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.” (Revelation 4:11)
God’s work of creation was done for the purpose of fashioning a beautiful thing that pleased Him - and remember that God said when it was completed that His finished work was “very good.” The application of God’s logos, the Word through Whom He fashioned the worlds, was to the end of making that which was both useful and beautiful.
To do creative work is to imitate God. This is true whether it is producing a beautiful work of art, crafting a beautiful piece of furniture or other handiwork, wordsmithing a glorious poem, or producing an item that fulfills a need for the one who will possess it. To create is to follow that ultimate example set by God Himself of ratio in creatione. It is retracing the footsteps of God to take that which is “without form and void” and to mold and shape it into something beautiful and useful. Thus, it is right and proper to perform excellent work by applying labour to the creation of both useful and beautiful things.
This is why, unlike many of my fellow Baptists, I do not criticise other religious traditions for creating grand works of art and architecture. “But the money could have gone to foreign missions!” Okay, then why don’t you step up and give extra money to missions to make up the difference? I see nothing wrong with applying man’s arts and effort to building lasting testimonies to the glories of the creative God Whom we worship.
Indeed, I reject that anti-beauty “practicality” as modernist. It is fully within the spirit of the modern world to denigrate the beautiful and the well-proportioned, to seek to destroy it and replace it with the horrid and ugly. This has been the program of the spiritual and political Left for over two centuries.
Indeed, this is one of my major qualms with modern Evangelicalism. It has replaced the beautiful doctrines of Scripture with the ugly doctrines of worldly self-help. It has replaced the beauty of the Scriptures themselves as found in the King James Bible with a plethora of sterile versions. It has replaced the beautiful hymns of the faith with droll, repetitive “Jesus is my boyfriend” pabulum. It has replaced the glorious art and architecture of the past with boxy, squarish concrete monstrosities.
But allow me to get back to the main point. The application of man’s creative faculties to create the beautiful and the useful is itself an act of worship. The artist and the artisan - their work may both be consecrated to God. This is one reason why automation and industrialisation have been so destructive to the sacrality of creativity. These are bad not only for the practical economic reasons that they either put workers out of work on the one hand or else exploit workers on the others. They also commit the grave sin of removing the genuineness of the creative act from the work being done. A robot or a worker engaging in a mindless, repetitive task in a factory is not really involved in anything “creative” and they are rarely making anything “beautiful.” They’re just “making” and that’s it.
Ultimately, those of us who love Tradition and desire to see a return to more reasonable and intrinsically better ways need to include our attitude towards work and creativity in our program. We should be seeking the resacralisation of everything - including the artisan’s labours. This must be done in purposeful contradistinction to the modern world’s stance of either total materialisation of all or of the segregation of the sacred from the profane (which always involves the subsequent ghettoisation of the sacred). There should be no distinction, even the “profane” should be made “sacred.” All the work which we do before the Lord - which prepares us for the work we will do for Him in the ages to come - must bear the imprint of sacred dedication to Him above all else.
This is one of several posts of yours l have read since several days ago coming across "The Broken Clockwork of the Western Mind", my first exposure to your website. I just subscribed. I am a Catholic that appreciates the value of tradition. Looking forward to future posts and will inform others.