“For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope” (Rom. 15:4).

The Reformed Fellowship is a company of people who are concerned about the reformation and revival of the Church. Our periodical has expressed and served that concern for three decades. The Biblical history of the return from their Babylonian exile as we read about it in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah as well as in the prophecies of Haggai and Zechariah conveys a good deal of inspired instruction to us for that kind of enterprise.

T.S. Eliot on Nehemiah and the Church

It is instructive, not to say at times entertaining, to notice the way in which the famous modern poet,

T.S. Eliot, alluded to that Biblical history. The poet was converted to the Christian faith in the latter part of his career and he sought to live and serve the faith in the demoralized Church of England. James Wesley Ingles remarked in an article in the October 13, 1961 Christianity Today (p. 6) that Eliot’s “Most explicit statement of Christian themes is to be found in the choruses from The Rock, a pageant performed in 1934, which he helped to write on behalf of a fund for the repair of old churches in the London diocese.”

Thomas Stearns Eliot saw the church as unwanted in the increasingly godless and decaying society. In London he “was told: we have too many churches, and too few chophouses.” The country too now is only fit for picnics.

And the Church does not seem to be wanted

In country or in suburbs; and in the town

Only for important weddings.

Eliot recalls

II

Thus your fathers were made

Fellow citizens of the saints, of the household of GOD, being built upon the foundation

Of apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself the chief cornerstone.

You, have you built well, have you forgotten the cornerstone?

Talking of right relations of men, but not of relations of men to GOD.

Of all that was done in the past, you eat the fruit, either rotten or ripe.

And the Church must be forever building, and always decaying, and always being restored.

For every ill deed in the past we suffer the consequence:

For sloth, for avarice, gluttony, neglect of the Word of GOD. . . .

The Church must be forever building, for it is forever decaying within and attacked from without:

For this is the law of life; and you must remember that while there is time of prosperity

The people will neglect the Temple, and in time of adversity they will decry it.

CHORUS: We build in vain unless the LORD build with us. Can you keep the City that the LORD keeps not with you?

IV

There are those who would build the Temple, And those who prefer that the Temples should not be built.

In the days of Nehemiah the Prophet

There was no exception to the general rule.

In Shushan the palace, in the month Nisan,

He served the wine to the King Artaxerxes,

And he grieved for the broken city, Jerusalem;

And the King gave him leave to depart

That he might rebuild the city.

So he went, with a few, to Jerusalem,

Jerusalem lay waste, consumed with fire;

No place for a beast to pass.

There were enemies without to destroy him,

And spies and self–seekers within,

When he and his men laid their hands to rebuilding the wall. So they built as men must build

With the sword in one hand and the trowel in the other.

V

O Lord, deliver me from the man of excellent intention and impure heart; for the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.

Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite and Geshem the Arabian; were doubtless men of public spirit and zeal.

Preserve me from the enemy who has something to gain: and from the friend who has something to lose.

Remembering the words of Nehemiah the Prophet: “The trowel in hand, and the gun rather loose in the holster.”

Those who sit in a house of which the use is forgotten: are like snakes that lie on mouldering stairs, content in the sunlight.

And the others run about like dogs, full of enterprise, sniffing and barking: they say, “This house is a nest of serpents, let us destroy it,

And have done with these abominations, the turpitudes of the Christians.” And these are not justified, nor the other.

But we are encompassed with snakes and dogs: therefore some must labor, and others must hold the spears.1

   

Recurring Problems of Reformation

Especially intriguing in Eliot’s poem are his observations about the way in which the experiences of Nehemiah and the returned exiles in the enterprise of rebuilding Jerusalem are and will be repeated in the experience of people who in other times are involved in restoration of the Lord‘s church.

Recently our attention and support have been invited by a movement to establish a new independent Reformed theological seminary for training of pastors.2 That movement has gotten a good deal of attention and has received wide–spread and enthusiastic support. It is also arousing opposition, some of it rather reminiscent of that which Jerusalem‘s rebuilders encountered. We recall the efforts to compromise that ancient rebuilding project at its very beginning. When that was refused, there were misrepresentations and slander. And there was ridicule. Sanballat said, “What do these feeble Jews?” His associate, Tobiah the Ammonite, chimed in, “If a fox go up, he shall even break down their stone wall” (Neh. 4:1–4 cf. also 2:19). The builders encountered plenty of politicking, and then threats. And there was an effort to divert Nehemiah from his purpose by engaging him in dialog (Neh. 6).

The Biblical account is especially instructive in showing us how those concerned with church reform and restoration must face such obstacles. Especially prominent throughout Nehemiah’s book are his prayers—prayers when he heard the news about Jerusalem, prayers when he considered what to do and spoke with the king, and prayers when he faced ridicule and threats: “Hear, O our God; for we are despised . . . Now therefore, 0 God, strengthen my hands.” And Nehemiah and his builders refused to be deterred from or delayed in their enterprise. A point in the story which especially needs to be stressed in our time is one noted in Eliot’s poem. The Jerusalem builders were not afraid to be militant when they faced their opponents. A perceptive observer remarked some time ago that one of the reasons why conservatives lose their churches is that they are trying too hard to be “nice.” We must remember to speak “the truth in love,” as the Apostle enjoins (Eph. 4:15), but that involves us in a spiritual war (Eph. 6:10–19). The time has come for plain and sometimes sharp speaking against the subversion of Biblical doctrine and life that has been going on in our Reformed circles. As we welcome the beginning of a new theological school to promote that Biblical faith and life we must not hesitate to defend the project against the charges that no such effort is needed. Let this and similar efforts proceed with the conviction of Nehemiah, “The God of heaven, he will prosper us; therefore we his servants will arise and build” (Neh. 2:20).

(T.S. Eliot: The Complete Poems and Plays 1909–1950, Harcourt, Brace and Co. New York, pp. 96–105. It is interesting that the organizational meeting in Chicago was opened by the chairman. Rev. Edward Knott, with a reading from the post-exilic prophecy of Zechariah 4. See the article on “A New Reformed Seminary” in the June, 1981 OUTLOOK.