"The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected." - G. K. Chesterton
Chesterton made this statement 100 years ago. It is still true today. When was the last time you heard of a law being repealed or a program ending?
There is no concept of CleanUp in our Politics, our Society nor our Churches.
As a result, we become filthier and filthier with each passing year.
CleanUp is a necessary part of Repentance.
If you don't acknowledge that mistakes were made you are likly not going to correct them.
If you don't throw out the trash, it keeps piling up.
We all have heard stories of people who lived along, barely interacting with Society who upon their passing are found to be living in squalor - trash, filfth and stench everywhere.
How did this happen to the person? They never considered the Consequences of the first morsel of food being left on the floor, the first piece of trash that was not thrown out. So, little by little they became filthy without ever having made a conscious decision to be so.
So it is with our Nation. Bad ideas, bad legislation, failed programs and flawed policies are not acknowledged as such and so the filth accumulates.
I have seen houses that were lived in by filthy people who never cleaned, maintained or repaired. Eventually such houses were bull-dozed, the refuse burned, the property graded and a completely new house constructed.
I have also seen brand new constructions occupied by filthy people who in short order made the new construction as filthy as the one that had been bull-dozed and burned.
So, the old saying that 'Cleanliness is next to Godliness' has a lot of evidentiary support for its truthfulness.
In a similar vein I have seen people who begin taking a subscription in their forties, a different one in their fifties, yet a new one in their sixties followed by a new one in their seventies all the while never dropping the prescriptions that may have ceased to be needed or causing negative interactions with newer prescriptions. Their bodies become a clutter of chemicals.
Filthiness is a state of mind. It represents a disdain for Cleanliness. It is a Foolish disregard for Consequences.
It is one thing for an individual to be Filthy. It is quite another for a Society or a Nation to be Filthy.
Will there be a CleanUp party to challenge the positions of Progressives and Conservatives?
That depends on how many people value Cleanliness.
Will there be a Revival in the Church? That depends on how many Christians value Cleanliness and are willing to CleanUp.