Conservatism is a Cancer of the Soul

 

"Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness." 

- Oscar Wilde 

Welcome back! Good to see you! Today we're talking about why conservativism is actually a problem in the Christian context.

There was a moment, sometime in the last ten years, where I realized that conservatism is a cancer upon tradition. They're not the same thing, and in fact conservativism is an evil that Christians must move away from.

See Oxford definitions:

For cancer:

1. a disease caused by an uncontrolled division of abnormal cells in a part of the body.

"he's got cancer"

a malignant growth or tumor resulting from the division of abnormal cells.

plural noun: cancers

"most skin cancers are curable"

Similar:

malignant growth, cancerous growth, malignant tumor, tumor, malignancy, met, carcinoma, sarcoma, melanoma, lymphoma, myeloma, neoplasm, metastasis, neurofibroma, teratoma, fibroadenoma, meningioma

2. a practice or phenomenon perceived to be evil or destructive and hard to contain or eradicate.

"gambling is a cancer sweeping across the nation"

Similar: evil, blight, scourge, poison, canker, sickness, disease, pestilence, plague, rot, corruption, 

I mean conservatism is both definitions.

Here's the definition for Conservatism from Oxford:

1.commitment to traditional values and ideas with opposition to change or innovation.

"proponents of theological conservatism"

2. the holding of political views that favor free enterprise, private ownership, and socially traditional ideas.

"a party that espoused conservatism"

the doctrines of the Conservative Party of Great Britain or a similar party elsewhere.

And here's a good summary of Conservatism, as espoused by Burke:

Organic Society: Burke viewed society as a living organism that evolves slowly, rather than a machine that can be dismantled and reassembled.

Tradition and Prescription: He believed that customs, institutions, and laws passed down over generations hold accumulated wisdom, making them safer guides than abstract theory.

Skepticism of Radical Change: Burke strongly opposed rapid, violent change, arguing that "a state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation". He favored reform, but only to preserve, not destroy.

Opposition to Abstract Rights: In Reflections on the Revolution in France, Burke argued against universal, abstract rights, preferring concrete, historical rights (e.g., the rights of Englishmen).

Human Imperfection: He believed in human sinfulness and the necessity of institutions like the church and aristocracy to provide order and moral guidance.

Property and Order: Preservation of established hierarchy and private property was seen as vital to the stability of civilization. 

Burke emphasized that society is a contract between "those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born," making tradition a sacred obligation.

 So, just in case somebody decides says I don't know what I mean by "conservatism" or "you're strawmanning"... no I am not. Here's my definitions. They're gotten from a simple Google search, and check out with what my conservative family and friends have espoused. They're fair definitions.

Here's the problem: conservatism is about output, not vision. It attempts to copy the outward signs of tradition, while rejecting the thought process that actually creates those end results. It means that if radical change is necess

But that's not what Christian Tradition is. 

"This moment is all there is"

Christian Tradition is about being in the present moment, feeling it all the way down in your body, soul and mind, and realize you're being talked to, and that each and every aspect of this moment is a conversation with God. Right, wrong, rational, irrational, all the things are part of that conversation with God. If you are fully in the present moment, all the way down to your toes, you will find that God talks to you.

The thing is that, if you take this lens in mind, the Old Testament makes sense: nobody in their is acting like how a conservative wants them to: Moses kills people and loses his temper, Samson willingly lets Delilah betray him, David can have his moment with Bathsheba and his other multiple misdeeds while ruling, prophets can marry harlots and have it just be a human moment God confirms is useful, etc. That's before we get to the new covenant saints, like St. Job, who slept with and murdered a prostitute, and just... Arthurian lore in general. Instead of righteousness being a thing that you DO, it is a thing that you NOTICE, and you either notice it or you don't. There's a reason why Orthodox bishops have the right of economoia: it is the gift to know that something very good is going on that the rules will actively squash. Oikonomia isn't license to sin; it's pastoral mercy that discerns the living movement of the Holy Spirit in messy, human situations. It recognizes that God frequently works through what looks like scandal, imperfection, or even outright failure to the conservative eye.

Take the story of St. Vitalis of Gaza. He was a monk who, late in life, went into Alexandria and spent his days laboring, then his nights in brothels. He paid each prostitute his full wage, begged her not to sin with anyone that night, stayed in her room praying psalms while she slept, and left at dawn. To every outsider—including outraged Christians—he looked like a hypocrite or worse. Yet his intercession led many of those women to repentance and new life. He was eventually beaten to death (perhaps by a jealous client or a scandalized bystander), and the Church honors him as a saint and patron of prostitutes and day-laborers. The "rules" would have condemned him; oikonomia (and the eyes of God) saw salvation unfolding.
This is the heartbeat of Christian Tradition: not preservation of a frozen form, but radical attentiveness to the God who speaks now, in this exact, unrepeatable moment. Conservatism copies the beautiful fruit of past encounters with God—the doctrines, the morals, the hierarchies—and tries to enforce them as ends in themselves. It becomes a malignant growth: multiplying cells that mimic life but choke out the real organism. It fears the scandal, the irregularity, the "radical change" that Burke distrusted, even when that change is the wind of the Spirit blowing where it wills. Righteousness isn't manufactured by adherence to output; it's noticed in the encounter. 
You either see God hijacking the mess—or you don't.
Conservatism, in its fear of losing control, often misses the hijacking. It polices the forms until the forms become idols, and the living God gets crowded out. That's the cancer: imitation masquerading as fidelity, mediocrity flattering greatness while slowly killing it.
God is talking—through the irrational, the inconvenient, the apparently unseemly thing right in front of you. The saints didn't become saints by being respectable; they became saints by paying attention when everyone else was busy preserving appearances.
Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery mediocrity can pay to greatness, but greatness doesn't need imitators. It needs witnesses. It needs people awake in this moment, ready to say yes to whatever wild, dangerous, life-giving thing God does next.
The cancer has to be cut out for the body to live.
Tradition—the real, breathing kind—will survive just fine.
Here we stop. If I do not see you next week, I do not blame you. It is not easy road.