There are times to stay silent. This is not one of them. Views from the Edge’s long silence does not imply consent. It was born of despair. Philosophy is born in a cry, wrote Willem Zuurdeeg in Man Before Chaos.1

Finding words to describe the origins of my protest failed me until the line “the walls of gold entomb us” came to mind and wouldn’t let go until I found it. Identifying its source felt like finding a breadcrumb pointing me home to my heritage and my deepest self. “O God of Earth and Altar” by G. K. Chesterton says what I believe, think, and feel in this “Golden Age.”

“Our earthly leaders falter, Our people drift and die”

O God of earth and altar, Bow down and hear our cry;

Our earthly rulers falter, Our people drift and die;
The walls of gold entomb us, The swords of scorn divide;
Take not Thy thunder from us, But take away our pride.

From sleep and from damnation, Deliver us good Lord!
From all that terror teaches, From lies of tongue and pen;
From all the easy speeches That comfort cruel men;
From sale and profanation Of honor and the sword;
From sleep and from damnation, Deliver us, good Lord!

Tie in a living tether The prince and priest and thrall;
Bind all our lives together, Smite and save us all;
In ire and exultation Aflame with faith, and free,
Lift up a living nation, a single sword to Thee.1

Faith and Politics

Poetry is timeless. The lyrics Chesterton wrote in 1906 bubbled up from a hidden sea deep within me, the greater ‘Yes’ that includes the ‘No’ –– the protest of a primal cry against this new ‘Golden Age’ which moth and rust will inevitably consume.

“O God of Earth and Altar” strikes me now as a kind of catechism––a set of cliff notes on what it means –– and does not mean –– to follow Christ. Christian faith and ethics stand at the intersection of the divine and secular, prayer and politics, profession and profanation, truth and lies, salvation and damnation.

Three years after Chesterton said ‘No’ to life entombed within the ‘the walls of gold’, American poet priest Walter Russell Bowie spoke of walls when lust and greed no longer “Wring gold from human pain. “O Holy City, Seen of John” expresses the inseparability of faith and the ethic of compassion.

O Holy City, seen of John, Where Christ, the Lamb doth reign,
Within whose four-square walls shall come No night, nor need, nor pain,
And where the tears are wiped from our eyes That shall not weep again!

O shame on us who rest content While lust and greed for gain
In street, and shop and tenement Wring gold from human pain,
And bitter lips in blind despair Cry, “Christ hath died in vain”!2

Gordon C. Stewart, author of Be Still! Departure from Collective Madness (2017 Wipf and Stock), January 6, 2026.

1 Willem Zuurdeeg, “Man Before Chaos,” Abington Press, 1968.

2 Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936), “O God of Earth and Altar,” in The Commonwealth, 1906.

3 Walter Russell Bowie (1882-1969), “O Holy City Seen of John,” 1909.