Last night at the Gem County Lincoln Day Dinner I talked with someone who expressed frustration that so many of the good things conservatives want to see in government do not come to fruition. We volunteer for good candidates, vote in primary and general elections, and urge our lawmakers to support good bills and reject bad ones, but in the end we are often frustrated as our movement takes two steps forward and one, two, or even three steps back.
How can we avoid giving in to despair, washing our hands of the whole thing and finding something better to do with our time?
I am often reminded of the process of constructing the great cathedrals of Christian Europe. In many cases, the generation who began construction did not live to see its conclusion, and some generations even came and went in between. But the men who worked on these great projects had a vision that extended longer than their own natural lives.
In 1163, King Louis VII of France and Pope Alexander III attended the laying of the cornerstone for Notre Dame de Paris, which was envisioned by Bishop Maurice de Sully. King Louis died in 1180, Pope Alexander in 1181, and Bishop Maurice in 1196. By that point, only the choir had been completed. The church as we recognize it today would not be finished until the mid-13th century, with the iconic spire being finished by 1230. In the centuries tht follows, Notre Dame would be renovated several times, with the current restoration work following the 2019 fire expected to be completed by the end of this year.
Our attention span has been waning over the past century. Boomers grew up with half-hour sitcoms and Zoomers grew up with 15 second TikTok videos. The idea of something taking a few hours seems too long to us today, much less undertaking a project that can outlast our lifetimes. Yet it is that very long term mindset we must adopt as conservative activists and as Christians.
We need to recognize that the political work in which we engage might not come to fruition in our lifetimes. In 1958, Idaho voters rejected an initiative to prohibit compulsory union membership as a right of employment only 50.6% to 49.4%. Proponents of so-called “right to work” kept working, finally persuading the Legislature to pass such a law in 1985. Pro-union activists put a referendum on the ballot, and right to work was upheld 54% to 46%.
Some of the activists who worked for the original initiative in 1958 were surely gone by 1985, and many who worked on the latter likely came of age well after the fight had already begun. Yet thanks to all of their efforts, the closed shop is history in Idaho.
We have to let go of our egos that want to believe that we will solve every problem right here, right now. The process of reform is slow, but it requires many hands doing much work. In his first epistle to the church in Corinth, St. Paul explains that it does not matter who God uses to achieve His ends, only that they each play their part:
For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not being merely human?
What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.
1 Corinthians 3:4-7 ESV
Be patient. Do not give in to despair when things don’t go the way we hope. Defeat is never final. No good idea can be permanently killed, and no bad idea can be permanently enshrined. Fight the good fight, but do so in such a way that the next generation is ready to pick up the baton and keep moving forward. Do your best, and trust God to handle the rest.
