I recently heard of a study that showed that Blue Collar workers today tend to be more conservative than White Collar workers. I say “today” because it hasn’t always been this way. (I have a theory about why this is, which I’ll share later) It has been suggested that the reason this is so is that Blue Collar workers mostly work with their hands and must comply with the way things actually are for the success of their trades. Metal, wood, and concrete have certain attributes that couldn’t care less what your politics are, and those who work with them must align themselves with these realities or buildings fall and people die. White Collar workers, on the other hand, work with words and concepts, and they can string along dozens of paragraphs that have no connection whatsoever to reality. Papers can be written, speeches made, and books published and sold with little concern for whether their contents bear any resemblance to the way things really are. It’s easy to understand why this would have a pragmatic influence on us; when something physical “works”, it makes sense. But why should one’s occupation be any indication of one’s worldview on topics such as abortion or transgenderism? Consider the following…
If you were educated in government schools, it has been pounded into your head from the beginning that the world in which we live has no connection to any deity outside of it. We were taught that in the beginning was a singularity that exploded and after billions of years and countless mutations, “Voila! Here we are!” The irony is that if such an origin story were true, the statement itself would be meaningless. “The cosmos is all that is, or ever was, or ever will be.” So began each episode of Carl Sagan’s Cosmos series back in the 70s and 80s. The statement is refuted the moment it’s made. Why? Because nothing in the material universe can account for the immaterial reason necessary to understand these words. Where is the logic found in matter that gives these utterances meaning? If there is nothing more than stuff and the physical laws inherent in it, then such statements are simply chemical reactions within the brain, that then fire muscular movement in the lungs and vocal cords, emitting a series of noises that bounce off another’s eardrums and so begins another chain of chemical reactions. The same eloquence could be observed by pouring vinegar on baking soda. “Sound and fury, signifying nothing,” as Shakespeare put it. But that men like Dr. Sagan create such content and speak such words with an obvious intent that they be understood, proves such men don’t believe their own jargon. There really is immaterial reality and materialists count on it to make their points!
But there’s an equally troubling tendency on our side today, as well. I call it a “Gnostizing Tendency.” Gnosticism is that pernicious heresy which has plagued the Christian church from the beginning. Its fundamental tenet is “Spiritual = good, and Physical = bad.” It looks at the physical world as something “dirty” and beneath the loftier ideals of the immaterial world, little more than the belch of some grotesque demi urge. We find the same sentiment in Eastern Religions. So the focus of such spirituality is always on “secret knowledge in the heart” with the goal of escaping the physical as soon as possible. This is not what you find in the pages of Scripture, though. From the very beginning, we have the mingling of matter and metaphysics, in the words “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” (Gen. 1:1) Here we find the immaterial God creating the physical universe all around us, and all of it “very good.” (Gen. 1:31) And it is just this “goodness” that the Blue Collar worker lays his hands on every day. And though sin entered that pristine world all too soon with the resultant curse from God on every fiber of it, Paul tells us, “Nevertheless He did not leave Himself without witness, in that He did good, gave us rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness” (Acts 14:17). Notice it says that He fills our hearts, not just with gladness, but with food as well. There’s a goodness in food and every other physical blessing of the created world, that actually fills our hearts, and it shapes our worldview the more we’re around it. In other words, for instance, the solid good found in the exclusive and innate ability of one man and one woman being able to bring a new life into the world is easily contrasted against the innate barrenness of both transgenderism and abortion. Such things, I say, are more readily recognized by workers with greasy hands and dirt under their fingernails than the elite who are writing about things that have no basis in reality.
I mentioned earlier that it has not always been the case that Blue Collar workers were associated with conservative values. The reason for this, I’m convinced, is that the “liberal” of previous decades lived within a worldview that was far more consonant with a biblical framework. Liberals and Conservatives may have differed on how to get things done, but there was still basic agreement on what needed to get done, at least on the surface. This is not the case today. And because we live in God’s world – the true and living Triune God of Scripture – the further we drift from His design the more we feel the incoherence with that and all that is good and lovely, and those whose occupations keep them more closely connected to the actual world that He made will find that incoherence far more palpable.
Of course, the greatest proof that our God doesn’t detest the world of lowly matter is that He Himself took on flesh and blood to redeem not just sinners, but the creation He had given over to futility. (Rom. 8:20) The “land promises” so prevalent in the Old Testament have not been abandoned. No, that was just a foretaste of the bigger picture! This is clear from things like our Savior’s declaration that the meek shall inherit not just a strip of land in the Middle East, but the earth itself (Matt. 5:5). And just as Jesus rose not as an immaterial ghost, but with the same body He had received from the womb of Mary only now glorified and radiant, so this earth will also “be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.” (Rom. 8:21) Heaven will ultimately come down to this transformed earth and our God will once again dwell with men here. (Rev. 21:3)
