non-metaphysical stephen

Today’s scripture readings from the ESV Daily Reading Bible are an interesting juxtaposition. The Hebrew text describes Babylon’s conquest of Judah under Nebuchadnezzar, while the Christian text describes the promised fall of Babylon the Whore.

It’s interesting to see these two texts side-by-side since God used the Babylonians to punish the faithless people of Israel, only to punish them later for their own sins and then to allow the name of Babylon to be forever linked with the worst excesses of human depravity. (While researching my dissertation, I learned that the Babylonian exile was not the worst experience the Hebrews faced–they may have had even harsher lives under later rulers–yet Babylon remains the symbol of unrighteousness.) God may not be the God of the Babylonians, but they are certainly under God’s power. Yet how strange it is that God would choose a people like this–a people destined for their own judgment–to act as agents of spiritual justice. How easy it is to forget that the God of the universe has authority to raise up and utilize all nations–and not only the just ones!

The passage from Revelation is also interesting for its stress on economics as a temptation to sin. It’s not just the kings who mourn the fall of Babylon–it’s also the merchants and the seafarers who have made their riches off of selling luxury items. Consider the list of goods mentioned in the text:

…no one buys their cargo anymore, cargo of gold, silver, jewels, pearls, fine linen, purple cloth, silk, scarlet cloth, all kinds of scented wood, all kinds of articles of ivory, all kinds of articles of costly wood, bronze, iron and marble, cinnamon, spice, incense, myrrh, frankincense, wine, oil, fine flour, wheat, cattle and sheep, horses and chariots, and slaves, that is, human souls.

We get the picture of men and women who used material goods not for sustenance and/or for generosity and charity, but to make themselves wealthy–probably marketing to the extremely wealthy who can waste money on the most expensive, impressive, unnecessary goods.

I wonder how much John’s depiction of the economics of Babylon matches up with our modern culture. What sins do we accrue against ourselves through our economic values and policies. Are we as tied in to luxurious living as the Babylonians and the merchants and seafarers who lived off of them? Is our emphasis upon economic power an obstacle to our spiritual health? Are we bringing judgment upon ourselves by our posh lifestyles?

The Center for American Progress has published an article by Lester Feder–”Is the Religious Right Losing Its Grip?”–that resonates with me regarding the reasons I left the conservative Republican/Christian movement. And it suggests that the leaders of the evangelical right (Feder mentions Dobson, Perkins and Bauer by name) simply are not paying attention to what’s going on around them.

I should explain that one of the reasons I grew disenchanted with the Republican-Christian movement is that, through reading the Hebrew prophets, I realized that many of the values and goals of the Religious Right were the very things that the prophets warned AGAINST. That is, the Religious Right was being unbiblical. As I learned more about the scriptures (that is, reading something other than Paul and Deuteronomy), I realized that the Bible is very clear about the need to protect the poor, the weak, the oppressed, and the foreigner, and that the Bible strongly condemns nationalist arrogance, reliance on military, economic and/or military might, and the luxuries that come from greed, gluttony, power and wealth. And by and large, the latter have been more important to conservatives than the former.

So as I read Feder’s article, I saw that many of the reasons I had left the movement are still in place, in spite of many defections to a growing, more progressive evangelicalism that embraces the call of the prophets on such issues as social justice, poverty, environmentalism, imperialism, etc. (more…)

Today’s Hebrew reading in my daily devotional includes 2 Kings 3, which tells the account of the Moabite rebellion against King Jehoram of Israel. Like all the kings in the history of ancient history, Jehoram is displeasing to God, although he is not as bad as his father, Ahab–the scripture says that Jehoram pulled down the pillar his father had erected to Baal.

So it is not surprising that when the Moabites rebel (and we’re not told if this is a military attack or simply a refusal to continue paying the tribute of sheep and wool), Jehoram rushes off to battle without consulting God. And it is no surprise either that when things get rough, Jehoram quickly assumes that God is against them.

Which, in a way, God is. (more…)

Queer Brit over at Queermergent has a nice piece on a topic I’ve been wondering about a lot the past few years: the idolization of the family by the church. We hear it from several corners: marriage and the family are the foundation of Western civilization and without them, our culture will crumble. This sounds nice, but in effect, it makes the family into a kind of god — an idol.

Queer Brit writes:

From the beginning Christianity was radically about a new form of extended community, as a visible expression of the invisible kingdom of God. This is the reason why the early church was persecuted, because in so doing, these little Ecclesia’s challenged the power of the Empire which sought to disempower minority groups, which the church, counter-culturally, sort to include. If you look at the book of the Acts, where people shared a common purse and lived together in extended friendship groups – it is all completely different from the ideal of conservatives with their 2.2 children, man at work and woman at home….

I’ve been reading the same thing in Kierkegaard: the family is not a Christian value, and there is no Biblical way to claim that it is.

I see this idea from the perspective of the Gospels and Paul, but it is hard to reconcile it with the Hebrew scriptures, which value family fairly highly — think of how many of the miracles have to do with having children. So, how do we find a biblical understanding of family that values them properly without making them the idol on which civilization is built?

Geocities is closing, so I’ve moved my stvp68 webpages, including this blog, to non-meta-stephen.com .

I’m moving my 360 blog over to this site, to be closer to my articles. This is the first post written on this site; everything prior to this post was imported from 360.