In this testing year of 2020, it has been one the the major sadnesses to observe how many Christians who I once respected have failed to discern the truth, and who have in consequence joined the side of Satan. But equally, it has been a great encouragement that others have shown themselves to be wise.
One of these is the remarkable literary scholar and social commentator Joseph Pearce - about whom I have written several times. I mention him again firstly because it has become difficult to find anybody worth reading in these days; secondly because he is an orthodox and faithful Roman Catholic convert - but one which may not be known to my RC readers, and thirdly because he is an expert on JRR Tolkien and the Inklings.
Pearce is vastly productive, and it may be difficult to know where to start. Probably the best place is his essays for The Imaginative Conservative.
Here is a taste from a recent essay by Pearce asking the question: Are we becoming a nation of gollums? This is a reminder of what has-happened and is-happening to so many of the Leftist-favoured "minorities" who have taken the Global Establishment-offered bait of identifying themselves as 'privileged' members of the victim class.
Here’s the paradox. Although we are halflings, we cannot remain halflings. We must either grow towards the wholeness of holiness or we must shrivel into the wreckage that Pride will make of our lives.
Doing nothing is the sin of omission which leads to decay. We can either be Ring-bearers or Ring-wearers. We can either take up our cross or we can crucify ourselves.
As we watch our culture succumb to the power of Pride, we are witnessing the gollumizing of our brothers and sisters. Demanding the right to self-destructive addiction, they are shriveling into pathetic wrecks of the people they are meant to be, while simultaneously making a wreckage of the society in which they are living the wreckage of their lives.
Paradoxically, their only hope is to be found in the enemies whom they refuse to love. It is those who are striving to become more than halflings who are the only hope for those who have become less than halflings. As the gollumized souls are killing themselves with Pride, humble souls must lay down their own lives for their gollumized friends.
As Bilbo, Frodo, and Sam learned to love and pity Gollum, and as Christ laid down His life for his friends who were determined to be His enemies, so must we do likewise. The only antidote to the poison of Pride is the healing power of humility. The only escape from the hell of hatred is heavenly love.
