More thoughts from Jean Lasserre

This seemed profound to me. I thought I should share it with the group:

"In the New Testament, in fact, there is no duality between the good which concerns civil society and the good which concerns the Christian's so-called 'private' life: one's difficulty in finding adequate terms is in itself significant. No, there is only a single Christian morality, only a single good in the eyes of the God of Jesus Christ; and the ultimate norm of that good is that it glorifies God in Jesus Christ. There is no good which denies Jesus Christ, contradicts Him, or even leaves Him out of account.

Christians cannot have a split personality. It would be superfluous to say this, if so very many of them did not implicitly accept such 'schizophrenia', finding it quite normal to kill and lie when the State requires it, or seems to require it, while protesting virtuously that the would never perform such acts in their 'private life'. This schizophrenia is surely, in the last resort, the most serious consequence of the Constantinian heresy. The true Christian life implies a tension between different aspects of man's personality, not its disintegration.

The idea of a dual morality would mean that Christians were constantly on the wrack between contradictory duties: that God asks me as French citizen to kill the soldiers who invade my country, and at the same time as member of the Church to welcome them by proclaiming the Gospel to them. This is plainly impossible, I can only choose, according to my lights and my courage, to be either death-giver or life-giver; I must give up being either a soldier or witness of Jesus Christ."

- Jean Lasserre, War and the Gospel