One of the reasons Holy Scripture is so relevant is that its core subjects have not changed even one single whit.
Prime Subject One: “For I the Lord do not change”( Malachi 3:6), and “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” (Hebrews 13:8)
Prime Subject Two: While it is true that today we have electricity, computers, automobiles, and rocket ships, all those who use these have not changed since we were run out of the Garden because of our deepest nature, which always leads to error and death. None of that has changed since the forbidden fruit incident.
I have no intention of competing with Will and Ariel Durant’s classic, The Story of Civilization, in the next dozen lines or so. So, let’s jump to the “right here” and the “right now” and speak together of why we wear the mantle of Knight or Dame Templar in the 21st century – which has much to do with Prime Subjects One and Two above.
C.S. Lewis spoke a lot about you and me who have knelt before God and man to receive the accolade of the Knight’s sword. Unknown to most, Lewis, the greatest champion of formal Christian apologetics of the past few centuries, spoke much about Knights and chivalry. In his August 1940 essay, “The Necessity of Chivalry,” Lewis stated:
“But the maintenance of the life of a Knight depends, in part, on knowing that the knightly character is art, not nature – something that needs to be achieved, not something that can be relied upon to happen. In previous centuries the vestiges of chivalry were kept alive by a specialized class, from whom they spread to other classes partly by imitation and partly by coercion. Today, it seems, people must either be chivalrous on their own resources, or else choose between the two remaining alternatives of brutality and softness. The ideal embodied in Lancelot is ‘escapism’ in a sense never dreamed of by those who use that word; Chivalry offers the only possible escape from a world divided between wolves who do not understand, and sheep who cannot defend, the things which make life desirable.”
Lewis understood so well that the Knights of old have a desperately needed place in the culture and time in which we live. We crave – and so desperately need – their chivalric worldview for immediate reasons that separate the brutality of a global culture that is caught either between the cold, pulse-less insanity of the social narrative or, worse still, in a perpetual panic of fear from endless conspiracies that rob humanity of its ability to reason. But is it even possible in any sense that a modern knighthood offers any answers?
C.S. Lewis responds with an unequivocal, “Yes!”
Just like everything else in the complicated morass of human culture, someone may embark on Knighthood for all the wrong reasons. It is possible as a Templar to actually wind up damaging our lives and the lives of others instead of achieving our chief tasks that the chivalry of antiquity teaches: selflessness and sacrifice for others. If individual motivation is self, then catastrophe will always lurk close behind. In just the briefest examination of our modern roots, this becomes clear enough.
Embedded in the stain of “progressive” culture, it is taught that no one can discover answers to our current social blight by looking behind – because (it is said) the past is represented by enslavement and deliberate social polarization. Yet, after only the briefest of examinations, the same can be stated of today’s culture “on steroids.” Truly, nothing has changed since Eden, as Prime Subject Two specifies. Humanity remains humanity, but our sin burden has increased exponentially because of the sheer number of us carrying about and expressing our own load of perpetual error.
If C.S. Lewis was convinced his 1940 culture with a world population of 2.3 billion people was courting calamitous social dysfunction, we stand today with an even more stark choice between possible futures. Since Lewis’ 1940, the world population has increased almost four times to 8.2 billion. That’s a lot of expressed social error – now substantially amplified by the World Wide Web.
Lewis clearly foresaw what the increase in population would surely bring upon humanity when he offered this stark contrast between brutality and the desirable characteristic of “meek in hall” – a term that conveys the idea that the chivalrous being is to be humble and modest in a social setting, particularly in a grand or formal environment. This meant that someone was behaving with a polite and restrained demeanor even when in a position of power. The phrase originates from the concept of the projection of a chivalrous personality on others, where a noble knight would be fierce in battle but gentle and respectful in a courtly setting. Lewis said of this contrast:
“If we cannot produce Lancelots, humanity falls into two sections—those who can deal in blood and iron but cannot be “meek in hall”, and those who are “meek in hall” but useless in battle. When this dissociation of the two halves of Lancelot occurs, history becomes a horribly simple affair. Modern machinery will not change this cycle; it will only enable the same thing to happen on a larger scale. Indeed, nothing much else can ever happen if the “stern” and the “meek” fall into two mutually exclusive classes. And never forget that this is their natural condition. The man who combines both characters—the knight—is a work not of nature but of art; of that art which has human beings, instead of canvas or marble, for its medium.”
Consider C.S. Lewis’ most famous and oft-repeated utterance on modern knighthood:
“Since it is so likely that children will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage.
Otherwise, you are making their destiny not brighter but darker.”
Employing a common scriptural teaching tool, Lewis contrasts the good with the bad, the perfect outcome with the catastrophe that, except for the grace of God, potentially follows each sin of our omission – especially the omission to reflect a perfect balance of power and meekness. The mission of our Order is to raise up Templars who display that perfect balance. We, as Templar Knights, must demonstrate in our lives the powerful, invincible calculus of Christian chivalry described with such brilliance and supernatural clarity in the Word of God.
Lewis’s most repeated phrase comes down to this, beloved: It is our responsibility and command as Christ followers to “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you…” while remembering always that Jesus has promised “and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:19-20)
In the end, that courageous obedience is the only way a Templar will ever make any difference in this life and throughout eternity. For as each one of our Templar forefathers modeled with such a historic impact –
Everything is always and only about the Kingdom of God.