Russell Kirk in his short essay “The Politics of T.S. Eliot” in The Politics of Prudence says,
I knew Eliot Somewhat during his later years, and understand him better now that his ashes lie in the medieval church at East Coker (p.97).
He puts forth a wonderful vision of a man who clung to the faith of his fathers (figurative as I believe that Eliot’s father was a unitarian) to the traditions of our civilization in the face of rampant radicalism and whose earthly remains are buried in a medieval church.
Many Christian traditionalists in America will know not such comforts. Of course we have no medieval churches, but for so many faithful Anglicans even the comfort of knowing that their remains will rest in the church in which they were married, or in which they were baptized or where their parents and grandparents are buried is gone or uncertain.
Those sons of Eliot and Kirk find themselves in storefronts or YMCA gyms on Sunday mornings. It is the struggle between the hyper-modernity of the leadership of the institutionalized western church of which they are the immediate causalities. Many building have been lost along with many souls. And this hurts because for the traditionalist and especially for the southerner, place is so important. Our own square of dirt and the people who inhabit it are often all that is worth fighting for. Volumes have been written on this.
For the Anglican in this day and age another notion may need examining. The Venerable Bede quotes Gregory the Great as saying,
For things are not to be loved for the sake of places, but places for the sake of good things.
We are called these days to a sacrifice and in the light of what the martyrs have sacrificed for the sake of the faith it is a small offering indeed. The places and things that are tied to the liberal churches must be sacrificed and new things must be brought forth. Walking away now may provide our sons of future generations the opportunity that was afforded Eliot.
