In the second verse of the meditation, you heard the names of a number of British generals—Burgoyne, Howe, Clinton—from the time of our War for Independence, over two hundred years ago. This sounds very odd to our modern ears, for we have come to believe that worship is an vapory and “spiritual” thing. But we only react this way because we have come to misunderstand what the word spiritual means. It means obedient, not ethereal.
“Who smote great nations, And slew mighty kings; Sihon king of the Amorites, and Og king of Bashan, and all the kingdoms of Canaan: And gave their land for an heritage, an heritage unto Israel his people” (Ps. 135:10-12).
Christian worship should include the names of dead generals and defeated kings. But in order to do this, you have to know the story of your people. You have to think.
More than this, in our effeminate and relativistic age, you have to take sides. You have to make decisions, and the decisions you make will bring you into conflict with others—who say that you are misrepresenting Jesus and the gospel, along with Joseph, Mary, and all the saints. How dare you?
The Incarnation meant that God came down. One of the ramifications of the Incarnation means that we must also come down, come down in another sense. We must come down on the issues. It is easier to just float, and not do anything that would bring you into conflict with your fellow Christians. Another trick we use is that we come down, but do so in our own name, on our own authority. You vote in a particular way, not as an act of discipleship and obedience, but rather as a way of marking your own opinion, which you invite the rest of the nation to take for what its worth. But that is not what we are called to.