FALLEN FLESH: Prelaw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVfFY3MMxEI
I.
Paul separates the times of our fallen flesh into two eras: the time from the Fall to Moses and from Moses to Christ. Romans touches on those eras and I'll discuss both eras using that as a kind of guide. Let me emphasize this is not a thorough look at Romans, which deserves a very long blog of it's own, any more than it is a complete examination of Genesis and, if this inspires you to study either or both, all the better.
We'll spend some writing in the next few blogs on that first era between the Fall and Moses and see how humanity took the Fall and see what it did without that Law.
Romans 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek.
17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, "The just shall live by faith."
18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness,
19 because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them.
20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse,
21 because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.
22 Professing to be wise, they became fools,
23 and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man--and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things.
24 Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves,
25 who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.
26 For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature.
27 Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.
28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting;
29 being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers,
30 backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
31 undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful;
32 who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them.
(NKJV)
Paul discloses that the universe itself cries out. He emphasizes that even the fallen universe testifies to God.
But let's go to the "curse" again. You recall I told you that God didn't really curse Adam and Eve. He merely explained to them the physical results of their sin. The result of Death entering their picture. God's words were called a curse for a very long time. Human beings imposed their idea of what was being said by their idea of God on the events. Let me explain that a bit. This is very important and it provides a a transition of thought into this section.
Mark 16:17 "And these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues;
18 "they will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover."
19 So then, after the Lord had spoken to them, He was received up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God.
20 And they went out and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word through the accompanying signs. Amen.
(NKJV)
The above signs will happen for those who follow Him. Notice he doesn't say ALL these signs or gifts for ALL who follow Him. They will be signs from certain ones, Paul expands on the many gifts by saying they vary and thus we are a body, one gift used by one set of believers supporting the church in it's union with the other believers and their gifts. No one is ordered here to speak in tongues or to heal or to cast out demons. Now comes verse 18. A segment of the church believes this is an order to take up poisonous serpents. (Please notice that the word poisonous does not appear here.) And they believe also they are ordered to drink poison. And they do this ceremonially. Strychnine is the chosen drink. A representative of that church called this a command of Christ. It is rather a description of things which will occur for some of His believers. Paul shook off a deadly snake after a shipwreck (Acts 28:3-5). Paul didn't go running around looking for snakes to grab to prove he could survive a bite. Paul didn't go looking for hemlock to quench his thirst and hold it up before one of his churches and "prove" he was an apostle. No, his proof of apostleship was his love of his Messiah and his people, his preaching of the Gospel, his founding of churches. He even spends time in his first epistle to the Corinthians telling those who speak in tongues that their gift is the "least" of the gifts, and isn't meant to have any distinction other than as revealing a prophecy to help the whole church.
One of Satan's temptations to Christ in the wilderness was for him to use his power as an exhibition
Mt 4:5 Then the devil took Him up into the holy city, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple,
6 and said to Him, "If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down. For it is written: 'He shall give His angels charge over you,' and, 'In their hands they shall bear you up, Lest you dash your foot against a stone.'"
7 Jesus said to him, "It is written again, 'You shall not tempt the LORD your God.'"
(NKJV)
This temptation especially underlines the flaw in the drinking of poison or the taking up of snakes or the placing of ourselves purposely in harm's way to prove God's word. Because then that gift, that resistance to poison or the ability to pick up an anaconda becomes an idol. It takes the place of the love of God as a proof of God in our life.
Now we arrive at the true curse of the Fall: Genesis 3:5 "For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."
"You will be like God."
This is humanity's curse. Paul touched on it when he said we turned to idols. He and I may have a few subtle disagreements. Here Paul's focus seems to be on later people, but Adam and Eve turned to the idol of the fruit. It could make them like God. But God gave them over to the corruption of the body in death and a corrupted mind, one as warped as the body by death.
We need to examine the idea of idolatry. So we start with one example from Counterfeit Gods by Timothy Keller. This is a Christian work on the Big Three of American idols: money, sex and power. Since we're in an election year. political power seems an apt idol to discuss.
Keller begins his chapter five, "The Power and The Glory", mentioning the Nazis and their promotion of deep love of country and people. But "their patriotism became demonic and destructive." Then transitions to:
"In 1794, Maximilien Robespierre, the leader of the French Revolution, said to the National Convention, 'What is the goal toward which we are heading? The peaceful enjoyment of liberty and equality...The Terror is nothing other than prompt, severe, inflexible justice.' However, his 'Reign of Terror' was so horrendously unjust that Robespierre himself was made a scapegoat and guillotined without a trial. "Liberty and equality" are obviously great goods, but again, something went horribly wrong. A noble principle became "possessed", went insane, and ultimately accomplished the very opposite of the justice the revolutionaries sought.
"What happened? Idolatry. When love of one's people becomes an absolute, it turns into racism. When love of equality turns into a supreme thing, it can result in hatred and violence toward anyone who has led a privileged life. It is the settled tendency of human societies to turn political causes into counterfeit gods. As we mentioned, Ernest Becker wrote that in a society that has lost the reality of God (My emphasis here, W.), many people will look to romantic love to give them the fulfillment they once found in the religious experience, (Think of every love song from the Sixties and Seventies you can view on YouTube sung by men or women and you get the idea here, W.) Nietzsche, however, believed it would be money that would replace God. (You can ask a certain Presidential candidate about that. W.) But there is another candidate to fill this spiritual vacuum. We can also look to politics. We can look to politics. We can look upon our political leaders as "messiahs," our political policies as saving doctrines, and turn our political activism into a kind of religion."
This does explain the curious case of Bernie Sanders, seen as a messiah, even though he showed almost no grasp of the way capitalism operates, suggesting the banks, whose misuse of home loans as merchandise, selling debt as a product, and taking exorbitant bonuses due to lack of regulation, be allowed to name their own terms for regulation. Or that of "outsider" Donald Trump viewed as a messiah by those who think anyone swearing and denouncing others because of their race has finally left the "politically correct" when what he has left is the morally and ethically correct path.
But Keller points out that this idolatry of party or leader promotes polarization and asks "How does idolatry produce fear and demonization?"
He first goes to Al Wolters, a Dutch Canadian philosopher, who "taught that in the biblical view of things, the main problem in life is sin, and the only solution is God and his grace. The alternative in this view is to identify something besides sin as the main problem with the world and something besides God as the main remedy." That demonizes something that is not completely bad, and makes an idol out of something that cannot be completely good."
"Wolters writes:
'The great danger is to single out some aspect or phenomenon of God's good creation and identify it, rather than the alien intrusion of sin, as the villain in the drama of human life...This 'something' has been variously identified as...the body and its passions (Plato and much of Greek philosophy) culture in distinction from nature (Rousseau and Romanticism) (See also the new Tarzan movie. W.) , institutional authority, especially the state and the family (much of depth psychology), technology and management techniques (Heidegger and Ellul)...The Bible is unique in its uncompromising rejection of all attempts to...identify part of creation as either the villain or the savior.'
"This accounts for the constant political cycles of overblown hopes and disillusionment, for the increasingly poisonous political discourse, and for the disproportionate fear and despair when one's political party loses power."
This was written in 2009 by the way before Obama and the politics of Hope and then the Trump politics of despair and regression.
Keller then asks the continuation question:
"But why do we deify and demonize political causes and ideas? Reinhold Niebuhr https://www.britannica.com/biography/Reinhold-Niebuhr answered that, in political idolatry, we make a god out of having power."
Now comes the follow up to our previous blogs:
"(Niebuhr) believed all humans struggle with a sense of being dependent and powerless. The original temptation in the Garden of eden was to resent the limits God had put on is...and to seek to be "as God" by taking power over our own destiny. We gave in to that temptation and now it kis a part of our nature. Rather than accept our finitude (mortality) and dependence on God, we desperately sek ways to assurer ourselves that we still have power over our own lives. But this is an illusion. Niebuhr believed that this cosmic insecurity creates a "will to power" that dominates our social and political relationships."
Consider our own political climate, rife with neocon paranoia at the loss of power and neo-leftist fear at not regaining lost power. The resultant Trump and Sanders flurries. The"If only the country would go OUR way forever it would be terrific." No matter how many 911s on the right or Benghazi's on the left, we all forget GOD is in charge. We all fail to rest our fate in His hands.
That said, step back into Keller's presentation of Niebuhr's treatise on the lure of power:
Niebuhr observed two ways this "will to power" works itself out.
"First, pride in one's people is a good thing, but when the power and prosperity of the nation become unconditional absolutes that veto all other concerns, then violence and injustice can be perpetrated without question... (Now quoting Bob Goudzwaard.) 'Thus the nations goal of material prosperity becomes an idol when we use it to justify the destruction of the natural environment or allow the abuses of individuals or of classes of people. A national goal of military security becomes an idol when we use it to justify the removal of the rights of free speech and judicial process, or the abuse of an ethnic minority."
...
"Niebuhr recognizes another form of the will to power...the happens when politics become ideological.
"Ideology can be used to refer to any coherent set of ideas about as subject, but it can also have a negative connotation closer to it's cousin word, idolatry. An ideology, like an idol, is a limited, partial account of reality that is raised to the level of the final word on things. Ideologues believe that their school or party has the real or complete answers to society's problems. Above all, ideologues hide from their adherents their dependence on God."
Keller sites the failure of the Communist ideology as a prime example. One can also hear the creaking of the stilts under current neocon structures in this country. And the swing of the pendulum toward capitalism in the "liberated Russia" moved Keller to point out Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations" "seemed to deify the free market when it argues that the market is the "invisible hand" that, when given free rein, automatically drives human behavior toward that which is most beneficial for society, apart from any dependence on God or a moral code..."
We saw how that worked when people given the chance to cash in for their own desires or sail the market for fair waters for all, decided to be the captains who not only fled the ship first but also took as much plunder as they could and helped widen the iceberg hole in the ship while they left in the only lifeboats. Then demanded the sinking public pay them to repair the ship. Then took the money to repair it as bonuses for themselves.
But that is not demonizing. That is a statement of clear, public sinful behavior, to be expected from a fallen race with no connection to God. We do act like the Devil when seeking power because it was HIS temptation to us and HIS temptation which got him exiled to begin with.
In fact, expecting any ideology to provide an answer is a sign of our Fallen Flesh. Expecting any people to behave any way but sinful is a sign of our failure to see ourselves as fallen. Not just in needing God to keep us out of Hell, but in needing Him every second of our lives, here and in eternity.
We feel the corrosion of our bodies and we struggle. It is not until we age that we see the corrosion of our minds as clearly. As I age, I tend to lose focus. I was once able to listen to TV, read my books and do class assignments. I was certain I was clearly focused. I find today I can't seem to concentrate on this blog until I shut everything else off. And don't think that's an illusion or a fault. I think my youthful idea that I was able to focus was the illusion. I can still tell you the choruses to Sixties rock and pop sings. I can't remember any algebra and only a bit of geometry. I suspect I was concentrating on the distractions and that could explain my B averages.
So it is in our real life. We need to study, to be with God, but we want our way our power and so we listen to music or play games on our Iphones (And I don't think that is by any means a misnomer. They are our I-phones.) when we are supposed to be working. Satan wants us distracted from the real problem and the real cure.
Mick Jagger was right when he sang: "Confusin' you is just the nature of my game."
When I arrived in this city, I made out my tax forms for the city and submitted them. The local tax office noticed I had worked for the same firm in the major city next to my suburb, and requested my taxes for the year before. I supplied the data of my not living in their city the year before, supplied my evidence in my tax records from the year before and my evidence of moving from my previous city to theirs. I submitted that to the tax bureau and they replied in acceptance. Three months later, the city financial director's office sent me a notice that I needed to pay my taxes from the year before, Essentially a copy of the same form I had previously received from the auditors. This is a relatively small suburb. I live next door to the public offices. I have been inside the building and the City finance director's office is maybe fifty feet from the tax auditor's office. I photocopied my photocopies of everything I had sent to the auditor and mailed it to the director with a cover letter saying they would likely find the same information in the auditor's files and enclosed a copy of my daughter's business card, asking them to forward any further inquiries to her. She's a lawyer. I haven't heard from them since.
This does demonstrate my final point before we move on: power and protection.
Keller points out that political power can sometimes be misused on every level:
"Idols of power then are not only for the powerful. You can pursue power in small petty ways, by becoming the local bully or a low-level bureaucrat who bosses around the few people in his field of authority. (Note: I am not saying my experience was anything but a miscommunication but it offers a lead-in here, W.) Power idolatry is all around us. What is the cure?"
Keller retells the story of Nebuchadnezzar, how God sent him a dream that Daniel interpreted and later God sent madness and a cure, how it led to the King seeing himself in the face of the vastness of history and the power of God and he humbled himself before the Lord.
"What we learn (from this) is that theology matters, that most of our addiction to power and control is due to false conceptions of God. gods of our own making may allow us to be 'masters of our fate.' Sociologist Christian Smith gave the name 'moralistic, therapeutic deism' to the dominant understanding of God he discovered among younger Americans...God blesses and takes to heaven those who try to live good and decent lives (the moralistic belief). The central goal in life is not to sacrifice, or deny yourself, but to be happy and feel good about yourself (the therapeutic belief). Though God exists and created the world, He does not need to be particularly involved in our lives. except when there is a problem (that is deism).
"This view of God literally makes you the master of your fate and the captain of your soul. Salvation and happiness is up to you. Some have pointed out that "moralistic, therapeutic deism" can only develop in a comfortable, prosperous society among privileged people. People at the top are eager to attribute their position to their own intellect, savvy and work. The reality is much more complicated. Personal connections, family environment and what appears to be plain luck determine success. We are the product of three things-genetics, environment and our personal choices- but two of these three factors we have no power over. We are not nearly as responsible for our success as our popular views of God and reality lead us to think.
...
"Most of the forces that make us what we are lie in the hands of God. we "should not take pride in one man over against another." wrote the Apostle Paul. "For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you did not?" (1 Corinthians 4:6-7)
Our cure is not a remade modern view of God, but a return to the humility of our nakedness before God. Our realization the we need something to cover ourselves which gives us all manner of false religions, and the further realization only God can provide it.
The cure is always Christ, who humbled himself, became as a servant when he has every right to stay on the throne and say, "let them pay their price." God and the Holy Spirit didn't vote two to one to send him to the cross to save us. He went of his own accord. He was there at the very start. We were, are his pet project. To become like Him. Humbled. We once knew our place, caretakers, gardeners.
We saw a fruit that was pleasing to the eye and we went for it because we didn't imagine Death and Satan would get the rule over us. Our single law to not eat the fruit was also a lure to Satan to challenge us and we both proved too much that we yield to temptation and pride.
We have other gods. Money and sex highest on the list ,bu both tied in with the ideals of power. That love of a woman will empower us to happiness gets warped to sex of any kind being our only satisfaction. The love of money providing comfort lead to the ideas of more money meaning more comfort and whole societies get built on the leaders and the richest getting ALL the comfort to prove they are the best.
But our idols all orbit around our own god of ourselves. Meeting our "needs" leads to then lyric from the song "Thunderball":"His needs are more so he gives less."
But our covering, our protection is Christ. Having my daughter's card available let the city officials know they would deal with not just me but someone who understands how the law works, in fact someone who actually worked for three judges while she was in law school and knows intimately how local politics and structures work. Christ knows how eternity works and he has an "in" with the judge, In fact He IS the Judge.
Keep all this somewhere in mind, let it linger as the lesson behind our brief, highly annotated plunge into human history in it's two BC divisions: prelaw and Law.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVfFY3MMxEI
I.
Paul separates the times of our fallen flesh into two eras: the time from the Fall to Moses and from Moses to Christ. Romans touches on those eras and I'll discuss both eras using that as a kind of guide. Let me emphasize this is not a thorough look at Romans, which deserves a very long blog of it's own, any more than it is a complete examination of Genesis and, if this inspires you to study either or both, all the better.
We'll spend some writing in the next few blogs on that first era between the Fall and Moses and see how humanity took the Fall and see what it did without that Law.
Romans 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek.
17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, "The just shall live by faith."
18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness,
19 because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them.
20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse,
21 because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.
22 Professing to be wise, they became fools,
23 and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man--and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things.
24 Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves,
25 who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.
26 For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature.
27 Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.
28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting;
29 being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers,
30 backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
31 undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful;
32 who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them.
(NKJV)
Paul discloses that the universe itself cries out. He emphasizes that even the fallen universe testifies to God.
But let's go to the "curse" again. You recall I told you that God didn't really curse Adam and Eve. He merely explained to them the physical results of their sin. The result of Death entering their picture. God's words were called a curse for a very long time. Human beings imposed their idea of what was being said by their idea of God on the events. Let me explain that a bit. This is very important and it provides a a transition of thought into this section.
Mark 16:17 "And these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues;
18 "they will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover."
19 So then, after the Lord had spoken to them, He was received up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God.
20 And they went out and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word through the accompanying signs. Amen.
(NKJV)
The above signs will happen for those who follow Him. Notice he doesn't say ALL these signs or gifts for ALL who follow Him. They will be signs from certain ones, Paul expands on the many gifts by saying they vary and thus we are a body, one gift used by one set of believers supporting the church in it's union with the other believers and their gifts. No one is ordered here to speak in tongues or to heal or to cast out demons. Now comes verse 18. A segment of the church believes this is an order to take up poisonous serpents. (Please notice that the word poisonous does not appear here.) And they believe also they are ordered to drink poison. And they do this ceremonially. Strychnine is the chosen drink. A representative of that church called this a command of Christ. It is rather a description of things which will occur for some of His believers. Paul shook off a deadly snake after a shipwreck (Acts 28:3-5). Paul didn't go running around looking for snakes to grab to prove he could survive a bite. Paul didn't go looking for hemlock to quench his thirst and hold it up before one of his churches and "prove" he was an apostle. No, his proof of apostleship was his love of his Messiah and his people, his preaching of the Gospel, his founding of churches. He even spends time in his first epistle to the Corinthians telling those who speak in tongues that their gift is the "least" of the gifts, and isn't meant to have any distinction other than as revealing a prophecy to help the whole church.
One of Satan's temptations to Christ in the wilderness was for him to use his power as an exhibition
Mt 4:5 Then the devil took Him up into the holy city, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple,
6 and said to Him, "If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down. For it is written: 'He shall give His angels charge over you,' and, 'In their hands they shall bear you up, Lest you dash your foot against a stone.'"
7 Jesus said to him, "It is written again, 'You shall not tempt the LORD your God.'"
(NKJV)
This temptation especially underlines the flaw in the drinking of poison or the taking up of snakes or the placing of ourselves purposely in harm's way to prove God's word. Because then that gift, that resistance to poison or the ability to pick up an anaconda becomes an idol. It takes the place of the love of God as a proof of God in our life.
Now we arrive at the true curse of the Fall: Genesis 3:5 "For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."
"You will be like God."
This is humanity's curse. Paul touched on it when he said we turned to idols. He and I may have a few subtle disagreements. Here Paul's focus seems to be on later people, but Adam and Eve turned to the idol of the fruit. It could make them like God. But God gave them over to the corruption of the body in death and a corrupted mind, one as warped as the body by death.
We need to examine the idea of idolatry. So we start with one example from Counterfeit Gods by Timothy Keller. This is a Christian work on the Big Three of American idols: money, sex and power. Since we're in an election year. political power seems an apt idol to discuss.
Keller begins his chapter five, "The Power and The Glory", mentioning the Nazis and their promotion of deep love of country and people. But "their patriotism became demonic and destructive." Then transitions to:
"In 1794, Maximilien Robespierre, the leader of the French Revolution, said to the National Convention, 'What is the goal toward which we are heading? The peaceful enjoyment of liberty and equality...The Terror is nothing other than prompt, severe, inflexible justice.' However, his 'Reign of Terror' was so horrendously unjust that Robespierre himself was made a scapegoat and guillotined without a trial. "Liberty and equality" are obviously great goods, but again, something went horribly wrong. A noble principle became "possessed", went insane, and ultimately accomplished the very opposite of the justice the revolutionaries sought.
"What happened? Idolatry. When love of one's people becomes an absolute, it turns into racism. When love of equality turns into a supreme thing, it can result in hatred and violence toward anyone who has led a privileged life. It is the settled tendency of human societies to turn political causes into counterfeit gods. As we mentioned, Ernest Becker wrote that in a society that has lost the reality of God (My emphasis here, W.), many people will look to romantic love to give them the fulfillment they once found in the religious experience, (Think of every love song from the Sixties and Seventies you can view on YouTube sung by men or women and you get the idea here, W.) Nietzsche, however, believed it would be money that would replace God. (You can ask a certain Presidential candidate about that. W.) But there is another candidate to fill this spiritual vacuum. We can also look to politics. We can look to politics. We can look upon our political leaders as "messiahs," our political policies as saving doctrines, and turn our political activism into a kind of religion."
This does explain the curious case of Bernie Sanders, seen as a messiah, even though he showed almost no grasp of the way capitalism operates, suggesting the banks, whose misuse of home loans as merchandise, selling debt as a product, and taking exorbitant bonuses due to lack of regulation, be allowed to name their own terms for regulation. Or that of "outsider" Donald Trump viewed as a messiah by those who think anyone swearing and denouncing others because of their race has finally left the "politically correct" when what he has left is the morally and ethically correct path.
But Keller points out that this idolatry of party or leader promotes polarization and asks "How does idolatry produce fear and demonization?"
He first goes to Al Wolters, a Dutch Canadian philosopher, who "taught that in the biblical view of things, the main problem in life is sin, and the only solution is God and his grace. The alternative in this view is to identify something besides sin as the main problem with the world and something besides God as the main remedy." That demonizes something that is not completely bad, and makes an idol out of something that cannot be completely good."
"Wolters writes:
'The great danger is to single out some aspect or phenomenon of God's good creation and identify it, rather than the alien intrusion of sin, as the villain in the drama of human life...This 'something' has been variously identified as...the body and its passions (Plato and much of Greek philosophy) culture in distinction from nature (Rousseau and Romanticism) (See also the new Tarzan movie. W.) , institutional authority, especially the state and the family (much of depth psychology), technology and management techniques (Heidegger and Ellul)...The Bible is unique in its uncompromising rejection of all attempts to...identify part of creation as either the villain or the savior.'
"This accounts for the constant political cycles of overblown hopes and disillusionment, for the increasingly poisonous political discourse, and for the disproportionate fear and despair when one's political party loses power."
This was written in 2009 by the way before Obama and the politics of Hope and then the Trump politics of despair and regression.
Keller then asks the continuation question:
"But why do we deify and demonize political causes and ideas? Reinhold Niebuhr https://www.britannica.com/biography/Reinhold-Niebuhr answered that, in political idolatry, we make a god out of having power."
Now comes the follow up to our previous blogs:
"(Niebuhr) believed all humans struggle with a sense of being dependent and powerless. The original temptation in the Garden of eden was to resent the limits God had put on is...and to seek to be "as God" by taking power over our own destiny. We gave in to that temptation and now it kis a part of our nature. Rather than accept our finitude (mortality) and dependence on God, we desperately sek ways to assurer ourselves that we still have power over our own lives. But this is an illusion. Niebuhr believed that this cosmic insecurity creates a "will to power" that dominates our social and political relationships."
Consider our own political climate, rife with neocon paranoia at the loss of power and neo-leftist fear at not regaining lost power. The resultant Trump and Sanders flurries. The"If only the country would go OUR way forever it would be terrific." No matter how many 911s on the right or Benghazi's on the left, we all forget GOD is in charge. We all fail to rest our fate in His hands.
That said, step back into Keller's presentation of Niebuhr's treatise on the lure of power:
Niebuhr observed two ways this "will to power" works itself out.
"First, pride in one's people is a good thing, but when the power and prosperity of the nation become unconditional absolutes that veto all other concerns, then violence and injustice can be perpetrated without question... (Now quoting Bob Goudzwaard.) 'Thus the nations goal of material prosperity becomes an idol when we use it to justify the destruction of the natural environment or allow the abuses of individuals or of classes of people. A national goal of military security becomes an idol when we use it to justify the removal of the rights of free speech and judicial process, or the abuse of an ethnic minority."
...
"Niebuhr recognizes another form of the will to power...the happens when politics become ideological.
"Ideology can be used to refer to any coherent set of ideas about as subject, but it can also have a negative connotation closer to it's cousin word, idolatry. An ideology, like an idol, is a limited, partial account of reality that is raised to the level of the final word on things. Ideologues believe that their school or party has the real or complete answers to society's problems. Above all, ideologues hide from their adherents their dependence on God."
Keller sites the failure of the Communist ideology as a prime example. One can also hear the creaking of the stilts under current neocon structures in this country. And the swing of the pendulum toward capitalism in the "liberated Russia" moved Keller to point out Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations" "seemed to deify the free market when it argues that the market is the "invisible hand" that, when given free rein, automatically drives human behavior toward that which is most beneficial for society, apart from any dependence on God or a moral code..."
We saw how that worked when people given the chance to cash in for their own desires or sail the market for fair waters for all, decided to be the captains who not only fled the ship first but also took as much plunder as they could and helped widen the iceberg hole in the ship while they left in the only lifeboats. Then demanded the sinking public pay them to repair the ship. Then took the money to repair it as bonuses for themselves.
But that is not demonizing. That is a statement of clear, public sinful behavior, to be expected from a fallen race with no connection to God. We do act like the Devil when seeking power because it was HIS temptation to us and HIS temptation which got him exiled to begin with.
In fact, expecting any ideology to provide an answer is a sign of our Fallen Flesh. Expecting any people to behave any way but sinful is a sign of our failure to see ourselves as fallen. Not just in needing God to keep us out of Hell, but in needing Him every second of our lives, here and in eternity.
We feel the corrosion of our bodies and we struggle. It is not until we age that we see the corrosion of our minds as clearly. As I age, I tend to lose focus. I was once able to listen to TV, read my books and do class assignments. I was certain I was clearly focused. I find today I can't seem to concentrate on this blog until I shut everything else off. And don't think that's an illusion or a fault. I think my youthful idea that I was able to focus was the illusion. I can still tell you the choruses to Sixties rock and pop sings. I can't remember any algebra and only a bit of geometry. I suspect I was concentrating on the distractions and that could explain my B averages.
So it is in our real life. We need to study, to be with God, but we want our way our power and so we listen to music or play games on our Iphones (And I don't think that is by any means a misnomer. They are our I-phones.) when we are supposed to be working. Satan wants us distracted from the real problem and the real cure.
Mick Jagger was right when he sang: "Confusin' you is just the nature of my game."
When I arrived in this city, I made out my tax forms for the city and submitted them. The local tax office noticed I had worked for the same firm in the major city next to my suburb, and requested my taxes for the year before. I supplied the data of my not living in their city the year before, supplied my evidence in my tax records from the year before and my evidence of moving from my previous city to theirs. I submitted that to the tax bureau and they replied in acceptance. Three months later, the city financial director's office sent me a notice that I needed to pay my taxes from the year before, Essentially a copy of the same form I had previously received from the auditors. This is a relatively small suburb. I live next door to the public offices. I have been inside the building and the City finance director's office is maybe fifty feet from the tax auditor's office. I photocopied my photocopies of everything I had sent to the auditor and mailed it to the director with a cover letter saying they would likely find the same information in the auditor's files and enclosed a copy of my daughter's business card, asking them to forward any further inquiries to her. She's a lawyer. I haven't heard from them since.
This does demonstrate my final point before we move on: power and protection.
Keller points out that political power can sometimes be misused on every level:
"Idols of power then are not only for the powerful. You can pursue power in small petty ways, by becoming the local bully or a low-level bureaucrat who bosses around the few people in his field of authority. (Note: I am not saying my experience was anything but a miscommunication but it offers a lead-in here, W.) Power idolatry is all around us. What is the cure?"
Keller retells the story of Nebuchadnezzar, how God sent him a dream that Daniel interpreted and later God sent madness and a cure, how it led to the King seeing himself in the face of the vastness of history and the power of God and he humbled himself before the Lord.
"What we learn (from this) is that theology matters, that most of our addiction to power and control is due to false conceptions of God. gods of our own making may allow us to be 'masters of our fate.' Sociologist Christian Smith gave the name 'moralistic, therapeutic deism' to the dominant understanding of God he discovered among younger Americans...God blesses and takes to heaven those who try to live good and decent lives (the moralistic belief). The central goal in life is not to sacrifice, or deny yourself, but to be happy and feel good about yourself (the therapeutic belief). Though God exists and created the world, He does not need to be particularly involved in our lives. except when there is a problem (that is deism).
"This view of God literally makes you the master of your fate and the captain of your soul. Salvation and happiness is up to you. Some have pointed out that "moralistic, therapeutic deism" can only develop in a comfortable, prosperous society among privileged people. People at the top are eager to attribute their position to their own intellect, savvy and work. The reality is much more complicated. Personal connections, family environment and what appears to be plain luck determine success. We are the product of three things-genetics, environment and our personal choices- but two of these three factors we have no power over. We are not nearly as responsible for our success as our popular views of God and reality lead us to think.
...
"Most of the forces that make us what we are lie in the hands of God. we "should not take pride in one man over against another." wrote the Apostle Paul. "For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you did not?" (1 Corinthians 4:6-7)
Our cure is not a remade modern view of God, but a return to the humility of our nakedness before God. Our realization the we need something to cover ourselves which gives us all manner of false religions, and the further realization only God can provide it.
The cure is always Christ, who humbled himself, became as a servant when he has every right to stay on the throne and say, "let them pay their price." God and the Holy Spirit didn't vote two to one to send him to the cross to save us. He went of his own accord. He was there at the very start. We were, are his pet project. To become like Him. Humbled. We once knew our place, caretakers, gardeners.
We saw a fruit that was pleasing to the eye and we went for it because we didn't imagine Death and Satan would get the rule over us. Our single law to not eat the fruit was also a lure to Satan to challenge us and we both proved too much that we yield to temptation and pride.
We have other gods. Money and sex highest on the list ,bu both tied in with the ideals of power. That love of a woman will empower us to happiness gets warped to sex of any kind being our only satisfaction. The love of money providing comfort lead to the ideas of more money meaning more comfort and whole societies get built on the leaders and the richest getting ALL the comfort to prove they are the best.
But our idols all orbit around our own god of ourselves. Meeting our "needs" leads to then lyric from the song "Thunderball":"His needs are more so he gives less."
But our covering, our protection is Christ. Having my daughter's card available let the city officials know they would deal with not just me but someone who understands how the law works, in fact someone who actually worked for three judges while she was in law school and knows intimately how local politics and structures work. Christ knows how eternity works and he has an "in" with the judge, In fact He IS the Judge.
Keep all this somewhere in mind, let it linger as the lesson behind our brief, highly annotated plunge into human history in it's two BC divisions: prelaw and Law.
