Landmines in Paradise Garden
One wonders what Boykin might make of the late California Presbyterian teacher, RJ Rushdoony — a figure, I’m guessing, far to the General’s right?
As is widely known, the New Testament contains a “Great Commission” which Christ gave to his apostles after his Resurrection:
Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” — Matthew 28:18-20.
Rushdoony, in his master work The Institutes of Biblical Law, makes it clear that in his views, this constitutes a divine mandate to bring Biblical law into effect in all nations: “The fulfillment of that covenant is their great commission: to subdue all things and all nations to Christ and His law-word” (Institutes, p. 14) and this is to be achieved in terms of a single world order, “The goal is the developed Kingdom of God, the New Jerusalem, a world order under God’s law” (Institutes, p. 357).
Sadly, the church no longer recognizes the full implications of the Great Commission, and has fallen into a heresy that is political in nature: “The church today has fallen prey to the heresy of democracy” (Institutes, p. 747). In truth, the laws of a democratic society will need to be replaced by the laws of God as set forth in the Old Testament: “While all Scripture is God’s law word, the heart of that law is the law of Moses” (Institutes, p. 675).
Here’s where it gets trickier, though:
Slavery, too, will need to be reinstituted: “The (Biblical) Law here is humane and also unsentimental. It recognizes that some people are by nature slaves and will always be so. It both requires that they be dealt with in a godly manner and also that the slave recognizes his position and accepts it with grace” (Institutes, p. 251).
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This thing called “religion” is difficult to pin down. It has extremes that appear unconscionable even to many who claim devotion to the same scriptures as do the extremists. It features violence, peace, apocalypse as destruction and apocalypse as fresh creation.
Atran is an anthropologist – he surely knows this.
The study of religion involves walking through a minefield — in the gardens of Paradise…
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J. Scott Shipman:
August 8th, 2012 at 2:46 pm
Hi Charles,
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Rushdoony appears to be beyond anything I’ve read. I read reviews of his book on Amazon last night and couldn’t believe the number of 5-star ratings.
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As you suggest, the Church (and Rushdoony) missed the point of The Great Commission. Matthew 5:17: “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.” The compendium of the NT offers a satisfaction for the law Mr. Rushdoony felt compelled to shackle again on the world. In a word, “nuts.”
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This is a good post—kept me awake a couple hours last night!
larrydunbar:
August 9th, 2012 at 5:26 am
In the gardens of Paradise, do the mines blow you to hell or to heaven? Does a person seek them out, or avoid them? You’re already in Paradise, so why would you want to leave? On the other hand, if you don’t want to leave, and avoid the mines, in the context of religion, wouldn’t that be enough reason for the mines to blow you to hell? Can the mine fields be called truth and trust? Truth and trust are not opposing forces, but together they seem to push up an explosive vertical force.
Charles Cameron:
August 9th, 2012 at 6:34 am
I’m suggesting that religions can be gardens of peace with landmines (sanctions for violence) hidden in their scriptures. I think I came up with the metaphor of “landmines in the garden” while thinking about the story of Phineas in Numbers 25 — used as a rationale by the killers of both Yitzak Rabin and Medgar Evers.
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One of these days I hope to post a longish exploration of the Phineas story here — Richard Kelly Hoskins’ Vigilantes of Christendom proposes the idea of a “Phineas priesthood” of lone wolf activists based on it:
Hoskins is way further out than Rushdoony.
J. Scott Shipman:
August 9th, 2012 at 10:14 pm
Hi Charles,
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Then Hoskins is a mess…:))
Charles Cameron:
August 9th, 2012 at 11:37 pm
Yes indeed… : (
larrydunbar:
August 10th, 2012 at 6:24 pm
So you see landmines as cleansing. So then all you would have to do is to tie one to your back? The Shiite cleanses Islam with the help of Alie?
Charles Cameron:
August 10th, 2012 at 8:08 pm
Absolutely not cleansing in the least. I am saying they contain hidden perils.
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I’m saying the religions offer visions of paradise (the garden) in scriptures like Isaiah 11.6:
— but also contain verses (landmines) that can trigger explosive and hateful violence in suitably predisposed adherents — such as Numbers 25. 6-13, in which Phineas slays a “man of Israel” and a “Midianitish woman” for public copulation, “thrust both of them through, the man of Israel, and the woman through her belly” indeed, and is rewarded by God with a “covenant of peace”:
And unless you think that both Yitzak Rabin and
MetzgerMedgar Evers deserved the wrath of their assassins, you’ll have to admit that reading such verses can have dire consequences..
But as I said, I hope to publish a two-part exploration of Numbers 25 here one of these days, so I’ll leave it at that.
larrydunbar:
August 11th, 2012 at 11:55 pm
“And unless you think that both Yitzak Rabin and Metzger Evers deserved the wrath of their assassins, you’ll have to admit that reading such verses can have dire consequences.” I have found the enemy and he is I.
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It seems to me that their own people killed both of these people, much like the people of the U.S killed the Kennedys and MLK, so it is up to their own people to determine if each deserved the wrath or their assassins, not me.
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Perhaps the deaths at Kent State stopped a civil war, but God and religious fundamentalists are not afraid of revolution, which came to its conclusion at Kent State, just evolution.
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So you are correct, with little faith, the wolf dwelling with the lamb, the leopard lying down with the kid, and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together and a little child shall lead them is pretty evolutionary stuff, and scary with dire consequences, and not for someone of little faith.
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But what you sited in Numbers 25 seems to be in a cleansing setting. The environment was completely different before and after. The landmine “blew” and there was a cleansing of the environment, and God apparently said it was good.
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As your title suggests, I am not one that can contemplate religion, so I am not sure what to make of Number 25. I mean, can’t we love the “zealous for his God”, and at the same time want to move on to a higher level, and love thy enemy?
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Of course the consequences can be fatal, but then, so is life.
Charles Cameron:
August 12th, 2012 at 2:52 am
I don’t have much of an opinion about the original Phineas, Larry — the times were different, and who am I to judge? — but I do get the sense that if we are to “move on to a higher level, and love thy enemy” then we need to start recognizing that our scriptures contain both gardens and landmines.
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I was friends with Medgar Evers’ son Darrell at one point, and am still haunted by his describing to me how one day when we was nine, he saw his father in the driveway of the house with his skull shattered and his blood gathering in a pool… I was nine when my own father died.
BTW– did I really write Metzger Evers? — I did, and I’ve now corrected myself! My apologies.