Critique of the Church

I admit that I think every single one of these Sonnets is grappling with Christian themes. Any time I read "son" or "inheritance" or anything about time, I take it to be in conversation with theologians. In this case, I think we could read this poem as satire of the Church establishment.

It begins by yanking us towards a vision of the Holy Land. The reference to the "new-appearing sight," is a pretty clear reference to John 9, the parable of Jesus healing the blind man. Significantly, the parable ends with Jesus telling the Pharisee, "If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains." Now the reference to the "('fore duteous) now converted" eyes starts to look like an attack. The man on the mountain had a responsibility to keep the eyes engaged, preserving the gift of newly-given site. Looking at beauty is something of a duty ("Serving with looks his sacred majesty"). So to claim that previously duteous people are now going astray (looking another way) is to indict those in charge of the mediation of revelation (the church).

I think Booth is right to say there is something melancholy about the portrayal of the cyclical day here (I have no idea what sacrilegiously complimentary analogy means by the way). The Messianic does not break in like the sunrise, at a set time each day, but as a radically original event without precedent. I think Shakespeare is subtly accusing the Church of letting revelation stagnate when it must be constantly refreshed. They think, well we've got Jesus and we're his Church so now we must be sanctified. In the words of Karl Barth, "Nein!" In order for the Church to be the Church, the Church must (re)produce the Son. In the tumultuous religious climate, with violent struggle for who gets to be the "established" church, something is missing: the figure of Jesus himself. If He is "unlooked" on, the Church diest.