Bible Truth Evangelicals Have MissedIf you've read the political articles on this site you know I hold out little sympathy for the religious right movement in this country. I find it a fascinating spectacle in self-righteousness and arrogance that Americans have gone to war against a violent ideology in which religion should BE government while at the same time trying to impose their values on everyone through the power of our government. Most Christians will tell you that contrary to what George Bush says, Islam is not a religion of peace. It's founder endorsed evangelization through conquest; and by conquest it spread from Mecca to the Middle East, northern Africa, and even parts of southern Europe. Some have even found a mention of Islam in the seven trumpets of Revelation. But in the current climate, Christianity has no advanced claim to being a religion of peace. Modern evangelicals believe their push for moral values gave George Bush the edge he needed to win in 2004. In order to get him "reelected" they have supported his personal vendetta against Saddam Hussein. Many of them will tell you this lunatic distraction from the president's "War on Terror" is a spiritual battle. What do they mean by that? They know, like the rest of us, that militant Islam is the primary client of terrorism in the modern world. They have generalized that mindset to all Muslims. The people in Iraq are Muslims, Muslims are terrorists, so the War in Iraq is the war on terror. Evanglicals have a strange sense that by killing a tenth of a million Iraqi civilians we will win them over to Christianity. Put that way, of course, the idea makes no sense at all, but the battle against Islam is a battle between religions. And what will they gain? Christians could worship openly in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Since the president insists on having elections in Iraq, you can be sure that won't be true in the new country. I have two answers to the idea of the Iraq debacle being a "spiritual" war. First, if this is spiritual, why are dead physical bodies returning to the United States? Sounds like a physical battle to me. Furthermore, from where do they get their authorization to advance Christianity by war? I know where, and in this paper I plan to blow away their mistaken interpretations that allow Christians to break the sixth commandment while at the same time seeking to outlaw a behavior that only by extention of the seventh commandment can be considered a violation of one of the ten. Let's start at the beginning of the Christian church. That, of course, would be the teaching of Jesus Christ, the man evangelicals claim was God in the flesh. (I don't disagree with that assertion. See my article in this section on the Trinity.) What did he tell his followers about their relation to the world around them? "If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. (John 15:18, 19) Evangelicals will tell you that they have engaged the United States in a battle for its culture. But the United States is a secular government, clearly a part of this world. They should not expect to fit in to its culture. And attempting to force cultural change will probably lead to a violent backlash. With the evangelical's thirst for violence, as demonstrated in their support for the occupation of Iraq, that violence will almost certainly be two-sided. Were the evangelicals true Christians they would not love the world, and they would lose no sleep over its increasing godlessness. That's not to say they wouldn't care about the people. But when you care about people you reach out to them individually, not in mass through goverment sanction. Listen to the "Bible financial principles" espoused in evangelical Christianity and you'll see that the movement has a very strong love for such worldly things. Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever. (I John 2:15-17) Why have evangelicals taken on the task of changing the culture? Because they want to be part of it. They want to turn the United States into a haven where Christians can live as part of the world without the hatred Jesus said the world would have for them. But when they cut themselves off from the rest of the world in that way they abdicate the responsibility for evangelism their chosen name places on them. You can only evangelize when you are in the world; a world that hates you. And they should take their "suffering" as a privilege because it allows them to emulate their leader, Jesus Christ. What did Jesus say about war? He did mention that there would be "wars and rumors of wars" (KJV) from the time he left to the time he came again. But does that prediction indicate command? I don't think so. And when Jesus had been betrayed by an insider, when the very continuation of his ministry hung in the balance, when Jesus had to choose between death and defense, what approach did he take? With that one of Jesus' companions reached for his sword, drew it out and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear. A few comments on that passage before we review another. John reveals that Peter swung his sword. He had promised Jesus, "Even if I have to die with you I will not deny you." And here he's acting out the resolve he made. If he has to die in battle, he'll gladly do so, hoping to take out as many of the enemy as he has the strength to kill before he dies himself. The nature of the injury he inflicted should indicate his intent. He had probably aimed for the neck, hoping to cut this man's head off. He apparently wasn't as experienced a swordsman as he had imagined. When he discovered that he would have to live with Jesus in his humiliation, he fled and later denied Jesus three times. Now Christian war supporters will quite legitimately point out that Jesus had to die for us. Jesus himself indicated this in the section I quoted above. But is that the ONLY reason he ordered Peter to stop? The disciples had two swords among them. They could not have prevailed in an all out fight. The presence of such a large and disreputable crowd indicates the Jews expected this and arrived to arrest Jesus with the manpower to deal with that contingency. Jesus did not have to stop the disciples in order to die on a Roman cross. Here's another account: When Jesus' followers saw what was going to happen, they said, "Lord, should we strike with our swords?" And one of them struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his right ear. In looking at this one event it is possible to surmise that these commands arose from Christ's knowledge that his time had come. But let's move on. The Jews arrested Jesus, brought him to three "trials," and hauled him off to Pilate to secure the penalty of crucifixion. John reports on the private confrontation between Jesus and Pilate. Pilate then went back inside the palace, summoned Jesus and asked him, "Are you the king of the Jews?" Jesus did not come to establish an earthly kingdom. He came to establish a spiritual kingdom, and the only warfare it would engage in would be truly spiritual—no dead bodies left by Christians. Jesus' kingdom would not operate on worldly principles including violent defense. Why do you think the Jews hated him so much? If you're not sure let me show you from the Bible what the Jews thought. Jesus had just raised Lazarus from death. Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin. It's likely that by "place" these Jews meant the temple. Where did they get the idea that this man who could miraculously provision an army, who could heal the wounded and raise the dead, would not fight the Romans? From Jesus life and teaching! The Jews expected a Messiah who would serve as a military king and defeat the Romans, restoring Israel to its former sovereignty. This makes it even more clear what Jesus meant when he said, "My kingdom is not of this world." He told Pilate that while he had the right to claim kingship, he posed no threat to Roman rule. Jesus did not come as a warrior king, and no text exists in which he ordered his followers to use physical violence to advance his kingdom. Christianity should be, though it often isn't, the true religion of peace. But there's more Bible interpretation to undertake to remove what evangelicals take as authorization for "holy" war. That has to do with Israel. I won't take time for Israel here because there's another article in this section that explains my interpretation of Daniel 9 and what it means for Israel. I would like to answer a criticism, however. Katherine Hill, a local evangelical who appears on KAAY with a pro-Israel program called "The Christian View," says my viewpoint (she doesn't know I hold it so it wasn't personal) is the kind of anti-semitism that lead to the horrors of the holocaust. I respectfully but ardently disagree. First, if you read my article you'll see that God did NOT reject the Jews for killing Jesus. Instead, they had three and a half more years to accept the message of his followers. It is when they rejected that soundly that God rejected Israel. Second, God rejected Israel AS A NATION. He did not reject Jews individually. The New Testament makes it clear that Jews still have an advantage when it comes to salvation. To the Jew first and also to the gentile. God's rejection of the nation did not give Christians license to kill Jews. Hitler and his devotees will pay in the fires of the final destruction of sin for all the misery and suffering they inflicted on the Jews. My position does NOT lead to anti-semitism. It also does not, however, lead to the pro-semitism that plagues this nation and is in part the real cause of terrorism. If a person drops this pro-semitic bias, the Jews and their advocates will likely cry "anti-semitism." This unwarranted favoritism is just as racist as the old Jim Crow laws. The book of Revelation, the only book of predictive prophecy in the New Testament, speaks of a great anti-God power that rules the earth for a time but is eventually destroyed before the coming of Christ. In the days of the protestant reformation many protestant scholars saw in these passages a prediction of the church as a civil power, and they began to teach this. Church leaders did not sit idly by and let this teaching pass. Instead they called on some Jesuit scholars to provide some interpretations of those passages in Revelation that would point the finger of blame somewhere else. These Jesuits did something very crafty. They developed not one, but two interpretations; interpretations that did not agree with each other. The first interpretation has been called the preterist interpretation because it applied the symbols of Revelation to the Roman empire of John's day. A number of Catholics still teach this version. The other interpretation they developed took exactly the opposite point of view. The symbols of Revelation pointed to a power that would rise at the end of time to oppose God. This has become known as the futurist view. And it is this futurist view that has taken evangelical Christianity by storm. The concept of a pre-tribulation rapture, of an antichrist to arise during the tribulation, and of the Jewish conversion to become evangelists all centers around the futurist interpretation. This is why the Christian fundamentalists are unquestioning supporters of Israel. The people who were removed from their homeland have no right to redress of greivances, and when they resort to violence because of their complete powerlessness otherwise, we frame them as evil demons not worthy of life. Some protestants, however, retained the historicist interpretation, which suggests that the symbols of Revelation reveal events taking place all through the history of the world after Christ. For them the book's symbols spoke of the Holy Roman Empire, when church and government were one. And this "beast's" deadly wound would be healed and all the world would wonder after it. In other words, the church would one day seek to again take over the government. Let's look at two passages which speak of this resurrection. In chapter 13 John uses the symbol of a beast with seven heads, ten horns, and ten crowns on the horns. The beast was given a mouth to utter proud words and blasphemies and to exercise his authority for forty-two months.... Then I saw another beast coming out of the earth. He had two horns like a lamb, but he spoke like a dragon. He exercised all the authority of the first beast on his behalf, and made the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose fatal wound had been healed. And he performed great and miraculous signs, even causing fire to come down from heaven in full view of men. Because of the signs he was given power to do on behalf of the first beast, he deceived the inhabitants of the earth. He ordered them to set up an image in honor of the beast who was wounded by the sword and yet lived. He was given power to give breath to the image of the first beast, so that it could speak and cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed. He also caused everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name." (Revelation 13:5, 11-17) There's much to be said about the identity of the first beast, which is clearly established by the signs given in this chapter. I don't have time in this article to cover it all, but the forty-two months mentioned in verse five relates to a time-period repeated often in Bible prophecy. There is the time, times, and the dividing of time (three and a half years), the fourty-two months, and the 1260 days. All of these work out to 1260 days, or using the prophetic day for a year, 1260 years. The period ends around the close of the 18th century, and most historicists believe the wound inflicted at the end of the period healed in the early twentieth century. Then the second beast and the image to the first beast all take place thereafter. One of the features of the historicist interpretation is that a horn represents a sovereign nation. When a beast has multiple horns, it represents the collusion of sovereign powers. So historicists see in the ten horns a representation of the "ten" kingdoms of Europe. But what to make of this two-horned beast? Some have suggested the United States, based on the twin principles of representative government and religious freedom. But I'm uncomfortable with the switch away from horns representing sovereign nations. I'm not prepared to tell you what nation will side completely with the United States, but you might have some ideas of your own. Why do I put the United States in here? Look back and see what it can do. The one miraculous sign described is that this beast makes fire come down from heaven in full view of men. Who has come closer to making fire actually fall from the sky than the United States, as the only nation to have used a nuclear weapon in war? The beast is also described as resembling a lamb with its two horns, but John says it eventaully speaks like a dragon. One of the important liberties included in the bill of rights, which had to be adopted before the states would ratify the Constitution, was the right to freedom of religion. This lamblike approach, which is what allowed the Roman empire to retain its hold on the world for so long (notice that Rome fell shortly after it declared Christianity the official religion of the empire) would fall away when this beast began to speak like a dragon. I believe this prophecy is being fulfilled before our eyes. I believe the United States government will allow the fundamentalist Christians to turn it into a Christian republic, forming an image of the first church-state beast. Hearing the preachers gloat about their role in the 2004 election affirms my belief. The next passage I select starts with Revelation 17 and includes the next chapter. In chapter 12 John introduces a pure woman clothed with the sun and with the moon at her feet. It's not hard to detect that this represents the church. The pure woman is a pure church. But chapter 17 describes a harlot. The description suggests a woman in luxurious and suggestive attire. This immoral woman represents an immoral church. If you read Ezekiel 16 you will see that God compares Israel (the "church" of the Old Testament) to a young girl who was abandoned at birth. God caused the child to live, and when she became nubile he took her as his wife. And the book of Revelation does speak of the bride of Christ. The woman in chapter 17 is called Babylon. It would be an interesting study to examine why Babylon is used here, but there isn't room. But chapter 18 tells about the demise of this woman by recalling the fall of Babylon.
"Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great!
She has become a home for demons
and a haunt for every evil spirit,
a haunt for every unclean and detestable bird.
For all nations have drunk
the maddening wine of her adulteries.
The kings of the earth committed adultery with her,
and the merchants of the earth grew rich from
her excessive luxuries." (Verses 2, 3)
This powerful metaphor contains much useful information. This short prophetic poem gives us the information we can use to ferret out the defiled church's role in world affairs. We'll start with the adultery part. This is why she's described as a prostitute in chapter 17. With whom did the woman commit adultery? With the kings of the earth. The symbolism here is very plain. Here the woman (a church) has illicit relations with kings (civil government). God has no use for such a church. Why would the church form this illicit relationship? And what do the kings of the earth gain from it? Here's the dirty little deal. The civil government agrees to impose civil sanctions on violators of church dogma. In return the impure church instructs its members to be good compliant subjects of the king (government). Why is this relationship illicit? Because Christ should be the church's husband. The result of a sexual relationship is children. In the case of the church that would be disciples. The evidence that the church has won disciples is in the lives of the members. When Christ does his work in the life of a disciple, there are changes, positive changes. But what if the church has lost its relationship with Christ? How does it impact the lives of its members? One convenient way to do this is to have government assistance or, better yet, to become the government. Then you have the power of social sanction to force the correct behavior. This is a fundamental human tendency. Why have the real thing when you can act like you have it and fool everyone (except God, of course)? From my own professional field I can cite Madeline Hunter (but that's a separate article). It is the tendency that leads to cheating and diploma mills. The next result of the prostitute's activity is economic. The merchants of the earth grow rich. How could that be? The accumulation of wealth requires that a large number of people work while not receiving the full benefit of their labor. But humans are made in God's image, and they will not forever tolerate such oppression. So the merchants invented civil government to keep the working masses under control. And when the church came along it could promise the masses "pie in the sky by and by" for those who faithfully provide their services for the continued enrichment of the privileged few. Karl Marx saw this misuse of religion and decided that a just society would have to free itself of religion. He called religion "the opiate of the masses." That is, religion was being used to ease the pain of the exploited so the exploiters could continue to benefit. Communism posed a real threat to the abiltiy of the few to accumulate wealth by relying on someone else's productivity. Theoretically it said that every worker should receive what he needed, while providing what he was able to provide. It's a social model closely related to the pattern of the early Christian church, when they held all things "in common." But when Lenin began to implement Marx's ideas in Russia, he let his own bent to violence warp the ideals he tried to follow. He became an enemy of religion, regardless of its role in the workers' lives. This provided the capitalist privileged everything they needed to keep the people of Western Europe and the United States from deciding they wanted a similar society. And the church came in to provide its services in this endeavor. Pointing to the communists' rejection of religion and the persecution of Christians in Russia, the churches decreed the Soviet system a godless and morally bankrupt experiment. It took nearly seventy years, but the capitalists eventually succeeded in wiping out the communist government of Russia and replacing it with a more investor-friendly system. Of course crime moved in with the capitalism, and the country has not yet recovered. The government of China also posed a threat, but it has betrayed its communist philosophy and is now allowing captialist structures to invade. There is little desire to defeat China and "set its people free." The word "communist" has lost some of its derogatory power. Unable to use China as the focus of our foreign policy, our government had to search about for a new enemy to help convince the people they needed a powerful government. You guessed it. The church has used abortion and sexual immorality as wedge issues to insinuate itself into the government. And they now urge the government on in its foreign misadventures because the enemy is not Christian. The specter of terror led people to lay down their God-given liberties in order to secure protection from an enemy that would probably return the gesture if we agreed to leave them alone. Now let's be clear about homosexuality and abortion. Both are wrong. The first because it deprives its practitioners of the greatest gift God gave to sinless man at creation, the second because it takes what only God can give, life. But it's no more wrong than execution of criminals, no matter how heinous their crimes. Only God can give life; only God should take it. While I'm on this tack let's go back to Revelation 13. In the section quoted above the image to the beast causes all who refuse to worship the beast or its image to be killed. Ever noticed how evangelicals seem to feel the death penalty is mandatory? How else will they fulfill the role of the image to the beast? If they were consistent about the value of life this wouldn't happen. So it seems clear to me that they are acting out the prophecies of Revelation. The very people who say the antichrist won't rise until after the rapture will become the antichrist described in Revelation! So let's agree that moral, Christlike behavior includes behaving in such a way that we don't have to murder our children. It includes enjoying the blessing of heterosexual relations as God's gift to us. Does that mean we now have the right to force everyone else to behave in the same way? Let's be very clear about this. If God had thought it acceptable to force people not to sin we wouldn't be in this mess. Jesus needn't have died because God would have just stopped Adam and Eve from sinning. If God won't force people to live right, what possible business do we have attempting the same? And read this powerful passage from Jesus' sermon on the mount. "You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you; Love your enemies and pray for those who despitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.... Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect...." (Matthew 5:43-45, 48) The current row about homosexual marriage is about one thing and one thing only. Homophobia. The "values" crowd don't want homosexual couples getting the legal benefits afforded by marriage. What control freaks! God continues to give them life, who are we to deny them the full protection of the law? "But they cheapen the concept of marriage!" someone counters. I won't disagree. But can they do anything worse to marriage than the nearly fifty percent of heterosexual couples who divorce? The divorce rate drops little among even evangelical Christians. I would expect that homosexuals would have about the same track record on lifetime monogamy. If we only wanted to prevent homosexuals from engaging in "sacred" marriage, then the churches should issue their own marriage certificates. Then the churches have control over who gets a "sacred" marriage. Such an extra-legal system won't deny homosexuals the full protection of the law, but it will allow the churches to retain a sense that true marriage is a sacred rite only for one man and one woman (although it's hard to find a text in the Bible mandating monogamy for anyone besides elders [bishops] and deacons). To conclude, then. The intrusion of religion into civil politics is a dangerous trend that is condemned in the Bible. Christ's kingdom is NOT of this world. He never forced anyone to stop sinning, and he never suggested we should. Let me put it another way; just as individuals are not saved by works, so nations are not saved by their works. The United States enjoys blessings beyond almost every other nation in the world. These are probably a result of our greed and arrogance rather than God's blessing. To suggest that we could get more out of God if we only stuck it to sinners (selected sinners, of course since we are all sinners) smacks of the worst of paganism. Preachers. Get your act with God together. Learn how to make disciples. Then do it. You can change this country if you're willing to do it one person at a time. Leave the government out of your planning. When most of the people of the country act morally you won't need a law to force it. In short, when it comes to civil government, "let go and let God." |