T.S. Eliot and Expiating the Sins of our Fathers

On history, repentance, and inheritance

Photo by Unseen Histories on Unsplash

Last week I introduced you to the first stanza of the first section of “Choruses from The Rock” which dealt with the malaise of modernity. It was the worst read and least opened newsletter I’ve published in a long time. And yet here I am, doing it again. Why? Because frankly, I think it’s good for you to read beautiful poetry and explore its meaning. And I believe we shouldn’t be captives of the moment. Yes, there are many Hot Topics happening right now in The Discourse, some of which would draw a lot more readers, but I don’t think that would be good for my soul or yours. Instead, I’d like us to take a step back from the current whatever and consider some wisdom in poetic form. I’ll be your guide again, going mostly line by line, performing what is known as a “close reading.”

Today we’ll move on from the opening section of the poem go to a stanza in the second section which has the topic of building. Sort of the central question is “What are we building” in our civilization and is it on a firm foundation (Christ)? Considering this question, Eliot writes these lines:

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 ,
For pride, for lechery, treachery, for every act of sin.

And of all that was done that was good, you have the inheritance.
For good and ill deeds belong to a man alone, when he stands alone on the other side of death,
But here upon earth you have the reward of the good and ill that was done by those who have gone before you.
And all that is ill you may repair if you walk together in humble repentance, expiating the sins of your fathers;
And all that was good you must fight to keep with hearts as devoted as those of your fathers who fought to gain it.

Eliot begins with a general claim about the nature of history. We inevitably inherit (“eat the fruit”) of the good and bad (“rotten or ripe”) that was “done in the past.” This is true about yesterday, ten years ago, a hundred years ago, two thousand years ago, right to the beginning with Adam’s Fall (notice the fruit imagery). So far, this is not very controversial. But hold on and let’s see where he goes.

Next he beautifully articulates a truth about Christ’s Church: that it “must be forever building, and always decaying, and always being restored.” Now, we must give Eliot some poetic license here. When he says “forever” he means in this life. He does not mean to imply that when Christ returns His church will be decaying still. But in this life, this is an encouraging reminder. I was certainly encouraged by it this week as intra-evangelical fights rose to a feverish pitch with much denunciation and name calling and vitriol. This is the history of the Church. Read Church history and you will read about a people who have constantly been tearing at the Body of Christ, while others were building up the Body of Christ and others restoring the Body of Christ. We are a mess. But we are Christ’s mess. And He is our husband and He will bring us to the Wedding Feast of the Lamb without blemish.

At this point Eliot returns to this topic of the consequences of history: “For every ill deed in the past we suffer the consequence.” And then he goes on to list some of these ill deeds, all of them sins. Every time I read these lines as an American I think of the consequences of the ill deed of slavery, of which I took absolutely no part. And yet, I suffer the consequences. Certainly not like Black Americans did in the Jim Crow South or even today, but insofar as racial division in our country leads to disorder and suffering and harm to the common good, I suffer (in some small way) the consequences of slavery. The consequences of sin never only harms individuals. It always affects the community. And so the consequences of a past I had no part in affects me today. And the same is true with the greed of my ancestors. Or the wars my nation chose to get involved in without my consent in the past. I bear those consequences. We bear them. The important point here is that it doesn’t matter if you asked to bear them or not. It is simply a fact of history that they affect you. The only question is, what will you do about it?

But Eliot quickly gives us the flipside of this reality: “of all that was done that was good, you have the inheritance.” All the great inventions, all the great works of theology and literature, all the brilliant works of philosophy and mathematics, all the great political documents like our Constitution, the freedoms I have in this nation, I have as an inheritance which I did nothing to earn. Just as I did nothing to earn the consequences of evil done in the past by others, I did nothing to earn the gifts of civilization done by great men and women in the past.

But what does this mean about sin and good works? If I experience the consequences of my forefathers and the good works of my foremothers, am I judged or righteous because of them?

Eliot wants to make this very clear: “For good and ill deeds belong to a man alone, when he stands alone on the other side of death.” In other words, your deeds are judged before the Holy Throne of God based on your own actions (and, of course, Christ’s imputed righteousness for some!). God’s not going to judge you based on the sins of your ancestors, Eliot is saying.

However, “here upon earth you have the reward of the good and ill that was done by those who have gone before you.” As a practical matter, in this life you have the consequences of dealing with the good and evil done before you. You may not like this, but it’s reality. And by running from it and denying it and saying it’s someone else’s problem, you only allow those evil consequences to grow and those good consequences to decay.

So what’s Eliot’s recommendation?

“All that is ill you may repair if you walk together in humble repentance, expiating the sins of your fathers;” This line is quite controversial coming from the very conservative Eliot, but I think there is immense wisdom here. “All that is ill” refers to all the evil consequences caused by the sins of those who came before us, which could include greed, lust, genocide, slavery, neglect of the Word, and so on. And he encourages us that “you may repair [these ills] if you walk together in humble repentance, expiating the sins of your fathers.”

Eliot doesn’t clearly describe what he thinks expiating the sins of our fathers might look like, but it at least involves a community walking humbly in repentance and doing some kind of work of repair. And isn’t that what great nations strive to do, however badly they fail at it? They make mistakes, but then they recognize them, repent, strive to make recompense, and learn from those mistakes. Nations that deny or downplay the sins of their fathers are doomed to reap the harvest of the consequences. But if we understand the history, work together humbly, there are practical things we can do. Can we undo history? No. But we can seek to repair. And that is the heroic task Eliot puts before us. In America, I believe we are still seeking to repair the ill deeds of slavery and Jim Crow which have rippled throughout history. The alternative to seeking to repair ill deeds is unthinkable: accepting the consequences and allowing them to fester.

And on the positive side: “all that was good you must fight to keep with hearts as devoted as those of your fathers who fought to gain it.” There are many today who are eager to “fight” for what they conceive of as Western Civilization (often that definition gets fuzzy). But I think Eliot gives us a positive model for all people across civilizations for conserving the good, the true, and the beautiful. Just as you are responsible for dealing with the mess left by those who came before you, you are responsible for preserving the good things left by those who came before you, whether that be your grandfather or Shakespeare. Read great literature. Learn history. Defend good government. Memorize Scripture.

If I had to sum this section up, it would be: don’t let the present and the future seduce you into thinking that the past is not your responsibility; it is. Whether you want it to be or not is beside the point. You’re here. You’ve been given these burdens. You must deal with them one way or another. If you choose not to expiate the sins of your fathers, those ill consequences will continue to spread and harm more and more of the common good. If you choose to ignore the good passed down to you, it will die and we will be left without the wisdom and beauty of those who came before us.