Who Said That?


A denial of our creatureliness leads to a denial of the various ways we are indebted and gives rise to the autonomous individual. Autonomous individuals are marked by ingratitude, for their faces are turned unstintingly toward the blinding light of progress, and they cannot recognize either limits or debts. Such people live on borrowed capital just as a nation, blinded by consumption, lives on money borrowed from future generations. The ungrateful person (and the ungrateful society) is characterized by hubris, which seeks to dominate reality by a sheer act of will. But such a will to power necessarily entails expansion as the uncertainties of reality press in from every side. The ungrateful person or society cannot get the question of scale right because the human question is so badly answered.

In contrast, the grateful person (and society) recognizes dependencies on every level. Such a person is characterized by humility, which gives birth not to the urge to dominate but to the desire to preserve that which has been passed down, that which has been tended and cultivated, that which has and will produce fruit. In short, grateful people are stewards. They understand that they are part of a chain, a succession of responsibility. They grasp that their stewardship is not solitary but bound to a long line of stewards, stretching back in time. Indeed, grateful people understand themselves as members of a community of stewards, and among this membership are the living, the dead, and the yet to be born. Such people can rest in the mystery of existence, the goodness of community, and propriety of a scale suited to human beings.


This is from Mark T. Mitchell’s “Politics of Gratitude.” I find Mitchell’s writing intriguing, both in this book and over at The Front Porch republic. He writes in a simple and modest manner, a form to match the content of much of his writing. As I said, the only quibble I have is his consistent suggestion that the modern ills of individualism and personal autonomy owe to the Protestant Reformation, suggesting further that something like the Roman Catholic Church is an institution good for cultivating the virtues of community, authority, place, modesty, and restraint.

But how anybody can read the confessional statements of Reformed Protestantism and conclude that the Reformation helped give modern society individualism and the atomization of society?







And being called in this manner to contribute to the advancement of a society that is pleasing to God, the civil rulers have the task, subject to God’s law, of removing every obstacle to the preaching of the gospel and to every aspect of divine worship.







I’m not sure of Mitchell’s own religious affiliation, but the impulse to ascribe what is bad in modern society to the Reformation just seems like the mirror error of the neo-Calvinists ascribing whatever is good in modern society to the same (perhaps even all the way back to the advent of Christ). Conservative Calvinism seems to take a very different view and interpretation of history that isn’t quite as religiously loaded as either a pro-Catholic or neo-Calvinist take.

On a lighter note, a hopeless GenXer, every time I pick up this book to read or pass it by as it lays on the bed stand or coffee table or wherever I last set it, I can’t help but have this song play in my head for at least the next fifteen or so minutes:



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13 Responses to Who Said That?

  1. matt says:

    I have no idea who said that.

  2. What a coincidence, someone just posted that on facebook- with the authors name.

    Can a person be somewhere between the two positions?

  3. Zrim says:

    Chris, providence is funny that way, isn’t it? But can a person (or society) be both ungrateful and grateful? I would think so. That’s part of the complexity of being human. You know, like simul justus et peccator.

  4. RubeRad says:

    I was thinking Horton at first, but I can’t see him talking about urban planning (“the question of scale”). Modern, obviously, and American rather than English. Wendell Berry?

  5. Zrim says:

    You’re getting warmer with Berry. But with the way this fellow casts Protestantism in bad light and Catholicism favorably (my only quibble so far), pretty cold with Horton.

  6. RubeRad says:

    Pro-cat’lick eh? Doesn’t seem witty enough to be Chesterton…

  7. Les says:

    Edmund Burke, or something who clearly would like his writings.

  8. Les says:

    Meant to say ‘someone’… Google has now reliably informed me it is the latter.

  9. Russell Kirk? I forget if he ticks the RC box or not.

  10. Zrim says:

    A couple of you were close with those original sources. The post is now updated with the answer.

  11. Mark Mitchell says:

    Hi, Zrim. This is Mark Mitchell. I’m concerned that you see me blaming modern individualism on the Protestant Reformation. I do say that a *secularized version* of Protestantism is a real problem. I don’t unpack all that entails, but I think that is clearly different from Protestantism per se. At the same time, Protestantism was born in the same milieu as modern individualism, so we shouldn’t be surprised that a bastardized version of one takes on many of the (worst) features of the other. Furthermore, as you well know, not all Protestants are created equal. The magisterial reformers are a far cry from independent evangelical churches who in some ways seem more American than Christian.

    Thanks, though, for your kind words, and keep up the good work. And for the record, I’m Protestant.

  12. Zrim says:

    Thanks for the clarification, Mark, though I have yet to see it in the book. And I’ll see your point about unequal Protestants and raise the stakes by saying that there is more to being Protestant than not being Catholic. As Calvin said to Cardinal Sadolet, we are assailed by two sects–the Reformation was a battle on two fronts (Rome and Muenster), and evangelicals are more the descendants of the Radical Reformation and less the Protestant Reformation. A far cry to say the least.

    Even so, it’s been a pleasure reading your work.

  13. Truth Unites... and Divides says:

    Off-topic request for “Sean”.

    Sean, there is a fellow by the name of “Pete Hoffer” who wanted to engage you further on a comment you left at OldLife from when you were 12 years old.

    If you’re so inclined, you can interact and address Pete Hoffer’s comments on this blog thread here:

    And Now Some Slightly Blasphemous Prayers.

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