Biblical Foreign Policy: Make War, Not Love: Part Two

When we think of religious fanatics, we think of those long ago times like the Crusades and the Inquisition and those who imposed the doctrines of Christianity by force on non-Christian societies like those in Africa and the Americas. Or, perhaps we think of some modern countries today that have one form or another of religious fundamentalism at the core of their domestic and foreign policies. But surely nations like the United States have not had, and do not have, any such associations, at least at leadership levels. Well, as the 2012 Presidential election campaign rolls on, one has to wonder if that could change.

When it comes to Biblical (God’s) foreign policy things aren’t personal issues anymore but national issues. And those national issues have implications above and beyond national borders. Those national issues do indeed have implications for life, the universe and everything. So, pray tell, what’s foreign policy when it comes to Biblical texts – those words of God – or God’s directives when it comes to foreign affairs? In short, it’s ‘shoot first and don’t bother asking questions later’. Here are further examples.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

If all that’s not enough to convince you, there’s always Ezekiel. I mean another instrument of foreign policy are threats – maybe blockades, maybe trade or other economic sanctions, or withdrawing diplomatic recognition. But in Biblical times, something usually stronger was implied, as the following ‘I will’ or ‘I shall’ threats (or promises) make abundantly clear.

*Ezekiel 12:20: And the cities that are inhabited shall be laid waste, and the land shall be desolate; and ye shall know that I am the LORD.

*Ezekiel 25:17: And I will execute great vengeance upon them with furious rebukes; and they shall know that I am the LORD, when I shall lay my vengeance upon them.

*Ezekiel 28:23: For I will send into her pestilence, and blood into her streets; and the wounded shall be judged in the midst of her by the sword upon her on every side; and they shall know that I am the LORD.

*Ezekiel 30:26: And I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations, and disperse them among the countries; and they shall know that I am the LORD.

*Ezekiel 32:15: When I shall make the land of Egypt desolate, and the country shall be destitute of that whereof it was full, when I shall smite all them that dwell therein, then shall they know that I am the LORD.

*Ezekiel 33:29: Then shall they know that I am the LORD, when I have laid the land most desolate because of all their abominations which they have committed.

*Ezekiel 35:4: I will lay thy cities waste, and thou shalt be desolate, and thou shalt know that I am the LORD.

*Ezekiel 35:9: I will make thee perpetual desolations, and thy cities shall not return: and ye shall know that I am the LORD.

We note the everlasting phrase “I am the LORD”. Just to make sure you don’t forget it, that phrase is repeated 162 times in the Bible (King James Version). I personally think that’s a bit on the side of overkill. Can you imagine an American president again and again reminding Americans by bellowing out repeatedly “I am the PRESIDENT”! Such constant reminders might be suggestive that the utterances come from one who is really a tad insecure in the position. 

Just to wrap up this little illustration on how God treats His subjects, foreign and domestic, consider these.

*Joshua 24:19: And Joshua said unto the people, Ye cannot serve the LORD: for he is an holy God; he is a jealous God; he will not forgive your transgressions nor your sins.

*Nahum 1:2: God is jealous, and the LORD revengeth; the LORD revengeth, and is furious; the LORD will take vengeance on his adversaries, and he reserveth wrath for his enemies.

This doesn’t relate much to the warm and fuzzy idea of a compassionate; merciful; love your enemies; forgiving God, does it?

Now let us fast forward to modern times.

By Biblical rationality and policy, the United States of America should probably smite both Canada and Mexico – the former for giving safe harbour to all those anti Vietnam War draft dodgers, not to mention Canadians having the audacity to believe that ice hockey is a better sport than baseball – blasphemy, heathens all; and the latter for all those illegal alien migrants who can’t even speak English, not to mention being a major drug supplier to the Land of the Free. And as for Cuba, they at least deserve the Sodom and Gomorrah treatment!

And if that Vietnamese War had happened in Old Testament times, North Vietnam really would have been bombed back to the Stone Age as several hawk generals advised at the time; and the Korean War would have ended in 1952 instead of the never-ending stalemate that drags on, and on and on. There just wouldn’t be a North Korea in existence today. The Cold War would have been at least a Warm War if not a Hot-As-Hell-War. If God had been president, Saddam Hussein and sons would have been toast at the end of the first Gulf War. 

Half a world away, Australia should kick Indonesia’s ass not only for the Bali massacre and allowing all those boat people access to their territory to they can row, row, row their boats into Australian territorial waters, but for the explicit torture of Australian livestock that’s exported live to that rather barbaric nation. To Australian Christian values, Indonesia’s non-Christian infidels should be struck down in good old fashion Old Testament style and the sooner the better. But then again that inspired 2004 Asian tsunami, an act of God and therefore God’s wrath, did deal death out to a few of those Indonesian bastards (still, a few is better than none). This was God’s will, obviously, and it hinted at what Australian foreign policy should be – the only good Indonesian is a dead Indonesian!  

While I’m sure every country and every county’s leader(s) have some rational to want to be able to act like God and smite enemies left, right and centre, fortunately most can’t. However, the USA can and that means their leader, the US president of the day can take on the role of God. The question is, do you want any American president to really act like God acts?

Of course God isn’t just reactive; He is also proactive, so I can imagine that if God had been sitting in the Oval Office all these years, not only would the Stars and Stripes (or some Biblical version of the American flag) be flying all over the world, but domestic Biblical policy, God’s policy, would be equally universal. No women’s rights, especially regarding reproductive rights; the death penalty would be standard and include a lot of transgressions not currently included – and no private lethal injections, rather public stoning or burning at the stake would be the norm. Of course slavery would be rife, and there would be no such thing as privacy behind closed doors for consenting adults. Animal sacrifices would be standard and animal welfare organisations would be banned.

If God were in the White House you’d be living not under the American Constitution and Bill of Rights but under the yoke of those hundreds of do’s and don’ts that make up God’s personal constitution. There would be no democracy, no Bill of Rights, no need or even right to vote. It would be an Orwellian society but instead of “Big Bother is watching you” it’s an all knowing “God is watching you” 24/7/52.

The modern relevance of this little exercise is that, in modern America, the 21^st Century, you have presidential candidates (unnamed, but you know who they are), who would be happy to end the separation of church and state and who would govern from the White House according to the texts of the Bible – God’s holy words. Governing according to the Bible would mean carrying out God’s version of not only domestic policy but foreign policy, which is, according to the Bible, something akin to a policy that tends to be shoot first, shoot often, shoot to kill and don’t worry about asking all those later questions as dead men tell no tales; the hell with all those later questions, full stop. The President and Commander-in-Chief would be playing the role of God and that would have to include being willing to carry out all God’s policies and the entire sort of God-performed and God-endorsed atrocities of the Old Testament. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. In fact I’m seeing increasing references to the Grand Old Party, the GOP, the American Republican Party, as “God’s Own Party”. My reading of this is America, be afraid, be very afraid.

P.S. The closest America came to having ‘God’ in the White House was Christian fundamentalist and thrice Presidential candidate (and triple loser) William Jennings Bryan. Bryan has totally against the theory of evolution and the teaching of that theory in American schools and universities. His main claim to fame is that he was the guest prosecutor in the 1925 Scopes Trial, or the so-called Monkey Trial”. Teacher John T. Scopes was accused of teaching Darwinian evolution to his students in violation of Tennessean state law.  When Bryan himself was placed on the stand by the defence attorney, the famed Clarence Darrow, as an expert in all things Biblical, well the verdict was that Darrow made a ‘monkey’ out of Bryan. Bryan died just five days after the trial ended. Though Scopes was found guilty, the verdict was later overturned on a technicality.

Biblical Foreign Policy: Make War, Not Love: Part One

When we think of religious fanatics, we think of those long ago times like the Crusades and the Inquisition and those who imposed the doctrines of Christianity by force on non-Christian societies like those in Africa and the Americas. Or, perhaps we think of some modern countries today that have one form or another of religious fundamentalism at the core of their domestic and foreign policies. But surely nations like the United States have not had, and do not have, any such associations, at least at leadership levels. Well, as the 2012 Presidential election campaign rolls on, one has to wonder if that could change.

When it comes to Biblical (God’s) domestic policy, well we all know the basics – the Ten Commandments and all the hundreds of lesser commandments that tell us that ‘thou shall’ or ‘thou shall not’ do this, that and the next thing. Things like what foods to eat and when; the banning of homosexuality; contraception; abortion; and all sorts of other rituals that should be observed like how many ‘Hail Mary’s’ to utter or when to bow and scrape and how low. But unless there literally is a “Big Brother is watching you” scenario, what you do, and with whom, behind closed doors, are of no concern when it comes to the fate of life, the universe and everything.

When it comes to Biblical (God’s) foreign policy, well one now crosses over into the red danger zone. Things aren’t personal issues anymore but national issues. And those national issues have implications above and beyond national borders. Those national issues do indeed have implications for life, the universe and everything. So, pray tell, what’s foreign policy when it comes to Biblical texts – those words of God – or God’s directives when it comes to foreign affairs? In short, it’s ‘shoot first and don’t bother asking questions later’.

Matthew 10:34 (King James Version) “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.”

Do you realise the word diplomacy or diplomatic or negotiation or treaty or compromise does NOT appear anywhere in the King James Version of the Bible? But you do get conflict (twice), warfare (5 times), war (220 times in fact), battle (163 times), destruction (92 times), smite (117 times), smote (220 times), wrath (197 times), destroy (243 occasions), Armageddon (once only), terror or terrors (44 times), murder and variations (37 times), just plain ‘kill’ (118 occasions) and so on. I think you get the general idea that the general theme of Biblical policy and especially foreign policy is when crunch comes to the crunch, it’s “make war, not love”. Thou shall not turn the other cheek but kick the SOB in the ass. If there really was a God, and if God were really around today, I’m sure His advice to any and all Christian leaders, would be, “when in doubt, nuke them”!

Since the start of the 20^th Century there have been many world leaders who have launched invasions of foreign lands without any real rhyme or reason other than power for its own sake, and there have been many world leaders who have initiated a policy of genocide within their own borders. But relatively few world leaders have done both. Saddam Hussein springs to mind, but he was small bickies compared to Adolph Hitler. But who out eclipses even Hitler (or anyone else you care to name over the past 2000+ years) – God, that’s who. The invasion – by His chosen people of the Land of Canaan under His guidance; genocide – well it can’t get much bigger than the flood as related in the Book of Genesis.  

What ‘person’ in authority was first to use biological warfare – germs as a weapon? Just you’re ever-loving God of the Bible, that’s who. There are some 46 references to pestilence in the Bible. Here are just two of them.

*1 Chronicles 21:14: So the LORD sent pestilence upon Israel: and there fell of Israel seventy thousand men.

*Jeremiah 21:6: And I will smite the inhabitants of this city, both man and beast: they shall die of a great pestilence.

Speaking of pestilence and by association plagues, one well-known example of God’s foreign policy was the Ten Plagues inflicted on ancient Egypt, most notably the final one, death to all the Egyptian firstborn, regardless of name, age, sex or rank. So mass murder is definitely one of God’s foreign policy instruments (and that’s God’s story and He’s sticking to it, though fortunately the ancient Egyptians don’t seem to be aware that they were culled).

Since 1945 there have been lots and lots of chin-wagging over and about ‘weapons of mass destruction’. Japan knows about them first hand; they were a major reason for the second Gulf War. But who was the first to actually make and employ weapons of mass destruction? God again, that’s who. Perhaps it will jog your memory if I mention Sodom and Gomorrah, and other nearby cities. In fact, God used a weapon of total destruction, since no trace of these settlements, have ever been found to this day. You can read all the gory details in Genesis chapters 18 & 19, but the Bible keeps on keeping on mentioning them, as if God were patting Himself on the back. Here are two examples.

*2 Peter 2:6: And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly;

*Jude 1:7: Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.

One question immediately arises, if God was so against homosexuality (‘strange flesh’), how come He didn’t smite ancient Greece, ruled by those – shock, horror – ‘other gods’? That’s strike one alone. Homosexuality was socially acceptable in ancient Greek society (strike two), not only between consulting adults but between adults and minors as well (strike three). 

Oh, by the way at least in the case of WWII Japan, the punishment probably fit the crime and ended up in the long run saving lives – that rational hardly applies to Sodom and Gomorrah.

Another household word today on the lips of the great unwashed is ‘terrorism’, least they be next to have to expect the unexpected. So imagine the terror of the great unwashed of long ago caught up unexpectedly in a long-term weather event of 960 straight hours of not just heavy, but torrential rain, and not an umbrella in sight. The great unwashed didn’t stay unwashed for long. It was sink-or-swim time, and nearly everyone sank. The terror of the Big Wet was bought to your local neighbourhood courtesy of God. If you don’t think that deluge would have been terrifying, imagine yourself slipping overboard in mid-ocean off a cruise ship. There you are floundering thousands of miles from dry land, all alone, just you (and maybe some sharks) and the waves. I’d wager you’d be as terrified as those trapped atop the World Trade Centre on 9/11.   

Then there is this little oft quoted gem.

*Matthew 5:44: But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;

Love thy enemy? I don’t bloody well think so!

For a prime example that totally contradicts such nonsense, consider Deuteronomy 20:10-17.

*Deuteronomy 20:10: When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it.

*Deuteronomy 20:11: And it shall be, if it make thee answer of peace, and open unto thee, then it shall be, that all the people that is found therein shall be tributaries unto thee, and they shall serve thee.

*Deuteronomy 20:12: And if it will make no peace with thee, but will make war against thee, then thou shalt besiege it:

*Deuteronomy 20:13: And when the LORD thy God hath delivered it into thine hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword:

*Deuteronomy 20:14: But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself; and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which the LORD thy God hath given thee.

*Deuteronomy 20:15: Thus shalt thou do unto all the cities which are very far off from thee, which are not of the cities of these nations.

*Deuteronomy 20:16: But of the cities of these people, which the LORD thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth:

*Deuteronomy 20:17: But thou shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee:

The upshot is if your enemy doesn’t want to fight, you have a right to enslave them. If they don’t care for that option and fight, then you invade their territory, put every male to death and have your wicked way with the women and children (and then kill them) and take all else as spoils of war. With that sort of attitude, you really want God on your side! On the other hand, not even Hitler was that barbaric. Love your enemy? That’s just pure bovine fertilizer.

To be continued…