Discomfort them, O Lord, that trust in their own multitude and strength, and forget not that thou art even he, our God, which destroyest wars from the beginning; for the Lord is thy name. Lift up thine arm, and in thy power bring their power to nought; cause thy might to fall in thy wrath. There was never proud person that pleased thee, but in the prayer of the meek hath thy pleasure been evermore.
These words were constructed around a Thomas Tallis motet in 1588, when England was at war with Spain. The words also appear in the Septuagint in Judith 9:9-11 and, in general, this idea is a repeated theme in God's holy Word.
This brings us to our present course in America's War on Terror. Following the aircraft attacks on September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush sought to punish the people who orchestrated them. As a head of state, and obliged by our national covenant, the Constitution, to secure our national self-defense, this seemed reasonable. In the succeeding five years, things seem to have gone astray, with America using our multitude and strength to pursue causes which are not in our national self-defense, but seek to impose a postmodern, amoral worldview on other God-fearing peoples.
America, especially our men and women in high positions of power, seem to have forgotten about God, and His righteousness, justice, love and mercy. When our forefathers founded this nation, the Pilgrims and Puritans, and their successors, they bound themselves and their posterity into a covenant with God and one another, faithful to the purity and simplicity of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Where America has gone today would be anathema to our forefathers, and they would not hesitate to condemn us themselves. Our birthright is not one of blood and soil alone; we become faithful sons of our fathers by doing the things our fathers did. Similar to God's faithful servant Moses in his farewell to the Israelites, John Winthrop, aboard the Arbella in 1630, exhorted his fellow countrymen that if we broke this covenant, we shall surely bring God's wrath upon us:
Now if the Lord shall please to hear us, and bring us in peace to the place we desire, then hath He ratified this covenant and sealed our commission, and will expect a strict performance of the articles contained in it; but if we shall neglect the observation of these articles which are the ends we have propounded, and, dissembling with our God, shall fall to embrace this present world and prosecute our carnal intentions, seeking great things for ourselves and our posterity, the Lord will surely break out in wrath against us, and be revenged of such a people, and make us know the price of the breach of such a covenant.
In our present cause in this war what has America wrought for herself and the world? Unhappiness here at home, strife in Iraq, the Holy Land, and the entire Middle East, and increased discord between Islamic civilization and Christendom. It is true that America is not solely blameworthy, and that violence and terrorism are always outside of God's law, but as America is a great nation, it is called to use its immense power to foster peace and concord, not to respond with an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.
Our mission into Iraq was intended to bring the ideas of liberty and self-government to the Middle East. However, we have drifted from this goal, and instead, in our own arrogance, insisted on imposing our way of life on another people. Self-government means what it means, that the people decide on their own form of government. The people of Iraq have a right, as a nation and in their local communities, to combine themselves into any form of government they wish. As they have seen where the West has gone, who are we to wag the finger when faithful followers of the Prophet Muhammed want to ensure that morality is preserved in their nation.
Evil does not exist in certain people or in certain places, but as what is born of the flesh is flesh, evil exists in all men, because by nature we are separated from the righteousness of a perfect God. However, as right and wrong, and good and evil, are known and recognized by all people, it is up to us to overcome this defect of human nature. "Now the only way to avoid this shipwreck, and to provide for our posterity," as John Winthrop told us, "is to follow the counsel of Micah, to do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with our God."
5 comments:
I share forbearance's concern about whether the United States is acting justly in Iraq, but I wonder whether forbearance might consider the possibility that the "followers of Mohammed" are not monolithic as to their view of the best government, the best society and the best individual life. Whether one supports the military initiatives of the United States in Afghanistan and Iraq, it seems to me that the essence of these initiatives was self-defense, not punishment. After the seizure of our embassy personnel in Iran in 1979, the attack on our Marines in Lebanon in the early 1980s, the first attack on the World Trade Center, the attack on our embassies and the attack on the USS Cole in the 1990s, and the second World Trade Center attack in 2001 (in addition to the 2001 attack on the Pentagon and the planned attack on another federal governmental building that was foiled over the air in Pennsylvania), the current administration decided that a more vigorous defending of the interests of the United States against jihadistan was in order than was carried out in the Carter, Reagan, George H. W. Bush and Clinton administrations (even those who claim that the Iraq war is "all about oil" are in effect recognizing the defensive nature of our attack, namely, protecting access to fossil fuels [although I recognize that many or most of these individuals would decry military initiatives to protect such access]). I would argue that if many "followers of Mohammed" were not in support of some form of democratic government in Iraq, there would be far more unified attacks against United States forces. Whether one classifies the strife in Iraq as sectarian violence or civil war, one must acknowledge that the struggle in Iraq is largely a struggle among the followers of Mohammed (with outside interference from other followers in Iran and Syria). To the extent that the United States is trying to impose anything in the Middle East, I would suggest that it is trying to impose an order that will minimize the ability of jihadists to carry out further attacks against the United States and others. That is an order the imposition of which will benefit substantially all of us, whether followers of Mohammed, Jesus, Buddha or Bertrand Russell!
Forbearance writes:
"In the succeeding five years, things seem to have gone astray, with America using our multitude and strength to pursue causes which are not in our national self-defense, but seek to impose a postmodern, amoral worldview on other God-fearing peoples."
I would suggest to forbearance that the people of the United States have less of a "postmodern" worldview than just about any other peoples that make up what we often refer to as "the West."
I wonder if forbearance has tracked down the Greek and Hebrew word or phrase that is often translated as "meek" in Biblical texts (such as in Chapter 9 of the Book of Judith, referred to in forbearance's "Discomfort them, O Lord" quote). "Meek" to the modern reader seems to connote a form of weakness and submission to others. However, what if one went back and found that the Greek and Hebrew were more in line with the concept of bearing things without resentment? I could be bearing a burden without resentment even if I were struggling mightily against the burden. If an individual threatened my loved ones in some manner, and I were a fine being, I might bear the threat without internal resentment while at the same time doing everything (including the use of physical violence in defense of loved ones. Having disarmed the attacker, I might even pray for him and attempt to help him set his life straight. But what I would be doing would in no sense what we modern would think of as engaging a meek behavior.
I don't claim to be an ancient language expert; I just thought that those interested in the ancient languages might consider this a useful issue to pursue.
On the word "meek;" this is a theme repeated often in the New Testament: "The first will be last and the last will be first," and "The humbled will be exalted and the exalted will be humbled."
Many people view the Cross as the symbol of Christianity, and it is, but it has more significance than that. It represents the fact that when God himself took on the flesh, He too was subject to this justice. This is why many say that Christ couldn't be the Messiah, but this is because they do not view God rightly.
When God came into the world, he did not come as a great king, but as one of the despised and rejected. We don't understand this because we don't understand the exact opposite nature of God's justice to man's traditional view of justice.
If you think on this, this is completely compatible with the reason, and in particular with the philosophy of the Greeks, including Plato. In The Republic, Plato makes the point that the perfectly just man will not be honored by his contemporaries, but depised and rejected.
The Prophet Isaiah also makes the point in Isaiah 53:3,9, "He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. ... He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth."
(Mark 10:42-45) Jesus called them together and said, "You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."
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