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Weaponizing the Bible Against Religious Conservatives
Haters of religious conservatives flip between two attacks on us:
- Of course, you’re a hateful bigot. You follow the Bible and the Old Testament God is the evilest villain in all of fiction. You’re evil because your sky god is evil.
- Your hateful bigotry is both evil and a betrayal of the Biblical values you pretend to hold dear. Stop blaming God, who is good, for the evil that is you.
Attack number two is back in vogue.
The timing is impeccable because this week, Jews read of Korach, the archetype of the hater of religious conservatives. Korach leads an elite delegation to weaponize Biblical and egalitarian ideas to attack Moses, Aaron, and God. “You have taken too much,” he says to Moses and Aaron, “for the entire congregation is holy and why do you raise yourself above God’s congregation?”
God opens the earth and it swallows Korach and his followers.
It would be fun to weaponize this lesson against egalitarians but let’s not. The story has a twist.
There’s a round two, many generations later.
Aaron’s descendants abuse their power. God chooses Korach’s descendant, Samuel, to rebuke him. Samuel is not happy with this task, which is a first glimpse at the difference between Samuel and his ancestor.
Jewish tradition credits Samuel with authoring the books of Ruth, Judges, and most of Samuel 1. The heroes of these stories are usually outsiders, the weak, and downtrodden. They say things like, “why did you choose me, my family is the poorest, and I am the smallest in my father’s house?” These writings include the David and Goliath story.
Korach does not lose to Aaron because his ideas are wrong, but rather because his approach is. Samuel, in contrast, humbly realizes that he must help constructively reconcile partial truths and those who hold them. He supports systems of law and those upholding and benefiting from them, while also tweaking the systems and helping those poorly served by them.
Ethics of Our Fathers focuses on Korach’s approach to conflict and contrasts him with Hillel.
“Any dispute that is for the sake of Heaven is destined to endure; one that is not for the sake of Heaven is not destined to endure. Which is a dispute that is for the sake of Heaven? The disputes between Hillel and Shamai. Which is a dispute that is not for the sake of Heaven? The dispute of Korach and all his company.”
The Talmud explains Hillel’s approach to conflict:
The House of Hillel and the House of Shammai argued. …A heavenly voice spoke: “These and those are the words of the living God, and the law is according to the House of Hillel.” …why was the law established to follow the opinion of Hillel? It is because the students of Hillel were kind and gracious. They taught their own ideas as well as the ideas from the students of Shammai. Furthermore, they even taught Shammai’s opinions first.”
Jewish law bends towards the opinion of those who engage in respectful discourse.
Many on all sides today engage in a frightening level of trolling and name-calling.
I can’t speak to the Christian tradition, though I do know the Reverend King moved worlds by speaking of love towards political adversaries.
Those who wish to follow the Jewish tradition should start by not comparing their opponents to Pharaoh or to Nazis. They should not mock their opponents or assert that the Bible offers clear conclusions on all of these questions. In the Korach story, there is one character who issues a clever, biting rebuke. It wasn’t one of the good guys.
I’ve become a conflict junkie. I’m viscerally obsessed with what those evil people are saying about the people, organizations, and ideas that I love and value. It’s killing me. I doubt I’m alone in this.
If we’re truly committed to Biblical values, we should respect and love each other. We should recognize that we and our opponents each focus on partial truths and that we’re all motivated by both the higher and lower angels of our nature. The only way through this is stopping the hatred of ourselves and our opponents.
Published in Religion & Philosophy
Thanks. My understanding was that even on moral laws Christians found the Pharisees too legalistic. That the Pharisees focused on the letter of the law and betrayed its spirit. You’re probably right that I erroneously combined this with the Christians breaking from ritual law to conflate it to a general movement towards love trumps law.
Fair. I accept your point. I viewed Christianity as post-nationalistic because at least some Christians see the Church as replacing the Nation of Israel. However I accept your point that Christianity did not reject the idea of the nation state. Indeed Jews are prone to do that.
As I wrote in my comment “Christians will go to the ends of the earth to help people, but from a healthier emotional perspective of God has things under control, and He wants me, His humble servant, to personally engage in this do-able task.” So yes I acknowledge that “conservative Christians are much more hands-on, spending time and money caring for others” than almost anybody. And no, I don’t think that most progressives of any religion realize that. I think most progressives completely shut their eyes to the good conservative Christians do.
Good definition.
Not your error. Antinomianism is a heresy going back to the Reformation.
Which seems weird, given that the Jewish nation was one of God’s covenant promises.
This is a fantastic insight. Catholics believe in “redemptive suffering.” That suffering is how God sanctifies us, and through our suffering, He blesses others as well. It gives great meaning to the inevitable suffering you talk about, which, as one of my favorite Jews, Victor Frankl, understood the importance of so well.
Thanks
I’ve heard a lot of people talk about that, but I’ve never heard of it being part of Catholic doctrine. Is it based on an ancient tradition, or the Church fathers, or something like that? Because I can’t find any such teaching in Scripture. I know Catholics have other bases for doctrine, though.
Nor do I see any dichotomy in the Word between a moral vs a ritual law. How do we know whether Sabbath observance (as an example) is moral or ritual? The only reliable guide I can see for determining what is or is not moral, (since the conscience is not reliable) is the Bible. Also, the Bible says that the law is unitary. Break one commandment, and you break them all. Therefore, I take the view that Christians are to observe the moral laws of the New Testament, and regard Moses’ Law as valid only for the pre-Christian Jewish nation. That being said, the Old Testament contains moral teachings, such as the Noachide laws, that apply to humans generally.
And as a follower of the Bible’s non-Mosaic laws, I’m not antinomian.
Gil, I think you have a point. It could certainly be argued that Judaism is nationalistic, and Christianity is not. I know outsiders can (and do) convert to Judaism, but Judaism is mostly centered, I think, on those already in the fold. Christianity was spreading outside the Jewish community even before the Crucifixion, and then almost immediately spread to the Gentiles. Then there was the cosmopolitanism of the medieval church, and eventually the global, missionary outreach of the modern era.
I’ve seen progressives argue that Christians’ individual works of charity don’t count because, since they’re doing it in order to be rewarded in heaven, Christian’s motives are ultimately selfish, not compassionate. Anything to prop up their own sense of moral superiority, I guess.
Yes. And even more insidious Christian support of Israel is often dismissed as evil end-of-days lunacy.
I sense some defensiveness. I should have been more careful in my language (“it is impossible to speak in a way which cannot be misunderstood” — Karl Popper). I should have said, the antinomian heresy dates back to the time of the Reformation. I didn’t mean to suggest it started with Protestantism. Thomas Aquinas said heresy is, “a species of infidelity in men who, having professed the faith of Christ, corrupt its dogmas.” If you’re not speaking for the dogmas of the Catholic Church, you can’t be a heretic. You can hold heretical views (in the opinion of the Church), but you’re not, strictly speaking, a heretic.
And I’m pretty sure you follow the moral laws of the OT — the Ten Commandments. Observe the Sabbath is a commandment and a moral law. By observing the Sabbath we give to God the right praise He is owed. How we do that may differ, but it is a moral act.
By ritual laws, I’m referring to things like the dietary laws, which is explicitly addressed in the passage about Peter’s vision regarding the “unclean” foods being permitted, and in the First Council in Jerusalem where the necessity of circumcision for the Gentiles was debated and resolved.
It’s certainly more complicated than I’m making it out to be, but that’s the general thrust of the Church’s teaching.
Actually, I thought you were defining antinomianism as not following the Mosaic Code, so that’s why I pointed out that I still follow Biblical laws – just not those.
Aside from the Seventh-Day Adventists, I’m hard pressed to think of any Christians who observe the Sabbath. I say that because I can’t find any justification for the idea that the Sabbath changed from a Saturday to a Sunday observance. Even then, you’re hardly safe in guessing that I, as an American Christian, even observe Sunday as a Sabbath day. Until about 15 years ago, I was like most American Christians, who have no problem going out to a restaurant after Sunday morning church. These days, I don’t ask people to work for me on Sundays.
What I do find in the scripture is the teaching that Moses’ law was fulfilled and completed by Christ. I also find that the Jerusalem Council didn’t rule in a way that seems consistent with the moral vs ritual dichotomy that so many Christians go by today. Nor did they say, “Just follow the Big Ten, and forget the rest.”
I agree. It is all very complicated. It’s of some interest to me, as many of the Christians I currently fellowship with have strong ideas about the Ten Commandments and the Sabbath, and I find myself in disagreement. So it’s something I like to talk about.
It has been the Christian tradition from the first Easter to observe the “Lord’s Day” as the day Christians keep holy. How that looks varies, but in Catholicism, the bare minimum is attending Mass.
Jesus fulfilled the OT Covenant and instituted the New Covenant. We observe the Lord’s Day, and we are not bound by the form of observation the Jews practice.