Or perhaps you are of the more liberal or socialistic political persuasion and place great faith in the power and instrumentalities of the state and its capacity to protect and advance human well-being. Certainly there is merit in recognizing this positive potential of the state and the utilization of its agencies for the betterment of humanity. But liberals and social democrats are also well advised to take a hard look at what that statist position looks like and leads to when pushed to its extreme. It is the expansion and deification of the state, carried to its extreme, that has led to some of the most dictatorial, brutal, and oppressive governments the world has ever known, such as the Communist regimes of Stalin, Mao Tse Tung, Pol Pot, and Kim Jong-un. Is not that extreme statist position something to resist, back away from, and avoid associating with? And shouldn’t you warn others to do likewise?
Or perhaps we are of a conservative political persuasion. We place great faith in the power and potential of markets and freedom of enterprise to advance the well-being of human beings. Or perhaps we are conservative revolutionaries who resist various aspects of modernity and advocate changes designed to restore preferred aspects of a golden past.94 These are legitimate and worthwhile positions when held and practised in moderation but dangerous when pushed to the extreme—capable of legitimizing greed, exploitation, unconstrained consumerism, environmental degradation, and even fascism—extremes that the responsible conservative will want to resist, back away from, and avoid associating with, while warning others to do likewise.
3. Balancing conservation and change
As previously mentioned, in dealing with Sabbath observance as he did, Jesus practised and illustrated yet another important principle of managing orderly and constructive change—the principle of conserving the original rationale and purpose of a practice or institution by simultaneously changing it in certain ways to accommodate new developments and circumstances.
So suppose we want to change a practice or an institution that in our judgment needs to be reformed. Using Jesus’ approach to the simultaneous preservation and reform of Sabbath observance as a model, we should identify the original purpose or rationale and whether it is still valid; identify what is still good and needs to be conserved; and also identify the changes that are required to reform or replace the original practice and institution. And then, most difficult of all, seek to implement the new while preserving the best of the old.
In the Canadian political world in which I participated, this was the approach that some of us took, however imperfectly and crudely, in the 1980s and 1990s when we attempted to “reform” Canadian conservatism at the national level.95 On a deeper and more philosophical level it is also the position taken by the great British parliamentarian and thinker Edmund Burke in his commentary on how to achieve necessary and effective political change in Britain while avoiding the extremes exemplified by the French Revolution.
According to Burke,
A state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation. Without such means it might even risk the loss of that part of the constitution that it wished the most religiously to preserve. The two principles of conservation and correction operated strongly [in concert] at the two critical periods of the Restoration and Revolution, when England found itself without a king.96
Burke concludes with this observation: “When the legislature altered the direction, but kept the principle, they showed that they held it [the principle] inviolable.”
Just as Jesus taught that the principles of conservation and change needed to be pursued simultaneously in order to preserve the original rationale of the Sabbath, so Burke maintained that the principles of conservation and correction (reform) needed to be applied simultaneously in order to preserve “inviolate” the original design and rationale of the British Constitution and monarchy.
In seeking to conserve the essence of a useful and valuable practice or institution by changing its application or expression, there will always be those who will maintain that any alteration at all to that practice or institution is an abandonment or betrayal of it and to be fiercely resisted. Thus, Jesus was repeatedly accused by the status quo defenders of the Sabbath of wanting to destroy the very institution he sought to preserve in a more appropriate and sustainable form.
In my own experience I sometimes combatted this accusation with the following illustration drawn from my community development days in north central Alberta. It is an illustration that may be useful to conservative reformers of today, whether in the religious or public arenas.
Along an old back road, east of Lesser Slave Lake, there once stood a huge post set in rocks with a signboard affixed to it by heavy bolts. The sign displayed one word, the name of the town of “Sawridge,” and an arrow pointing west. That sign did not change or move in over 50 years, no matter how hard the winds blew or how much snow fell. It always said the same thing, and it always pointed in the same direction.
A reliable guide, some might say. And yet, if you followed the directions on that sign you would never get to the town of Sawridge. Why? Because although the message and the direction of that signpost never changed, everything else around it had changed.
The town of Sawridge changed its name. It changed its location, moving to higher ground after a flood in the 1930s. In addition, the roads leading to it had been rerouted half a dozen times since the signpost had been planted. It was the very fact that the signpost had not changed while everything else around it had that made it an unreliable guide to anyone travelling that old road.
And so there is much to learn from Jesus of Nazareth with respect to the management of change. The importance of being open to unlearning and learning under his tutelage; the value of visiting, at least in our mind’s eye, the dark side of the moon, no matter what our religious or political philosophy of life may be; and perhaps the most important of all, learning to strike that balance between conservation and change that facilitates constructive rather than destructive change.
To paraphrase A. B. Bruce, how long will it be until young people and old, broad Christians and narrow, liberals and conservatives, the keepers of the old wine and the champions of the new, learn to bear with one another and to recognize, each in the other, the necessary complements to their own one-sidedness?
82 Bruce, The Training of the Twelve, 14.
83 “There are two major characteristics of the Pharisees, their meticulous observance of obligations under the Law for purity, tithing, and Sabbath observances; and their emphasis on oral law as equally binding to the Law. The New Testament witnesses to their great concern over tithing and purity … and the many disputes Jesus had with the Jews over the Sabbath day reflect their concern for that law as well … The other major characteristic of the Pharisees is the value they placed on oral traditions. ‘Oral law’ refers to traditional rules and observances that were designed to adapt the written Law to the changes of time … In the process of multiplying rulings it was easy for the Pharisees to become hypocritical because in attempting to be faithful to the letter of the Law they lost the spirit of the Law” (Allen Ross, “2. The Pharisees,” The Religious World of Jesus [Bible.org, 2016]).
84 Bruce, The Training of the Twelve, 80–81.
85 “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall