America is Not the New Israel

I'm reading a book for my book club this month that I wouldn't have chosen myself.  It's called The Harbinger by Jonathan Cahn, and it uses a Dan Brown-style fiction approach to communicate the author's idea that certain events in American history are foretold in ancient Bible prophecy.  I'm not going to give an in-depth critique of the book at this time (partly because I haven't finished it!), but I do want to talk about its main premise, because it's a viewpoint that I've heard many times and which I think is doing more harm than good to Christianity in America.

Here it is in a nutshell, quoted directly from the book:

Israel was unique among the nations in that it was conceived and dedicated at its foundation for the purposes of God. . . But there was one other-- a civilization also conceived and dedicated to the will of God from its conception. . . America. . . Long before the Founding Fathers[,] those who laid America's foundations saw it as a new Israel, an Israel of the New World.  And as with ancient Israel, they saw it as in covenant with God. . .  

Not that [America] was ever without fault or sin, but it would aspire to fulfill its calling. . . To be a vessel of redemption, an instrument of God's purposes, a light to the world. . . No nation in the modern world has ever been given so much. None has been so blessed. . .  

[But] America began ruling God out of its life, turning, step by step, against His ways. . . In the middle of the twentieth century America began officially removing God from its national life.  It abolished prayer and Scripture in the public schools. . . removing the Ten Commandments from public view, banning it from its public squares, and taking it down, by government decree, from its walls. . . God was progressively driven out of the nation's public life. . . The standards and values it had long upheld were now abandoned. . . [what we call "tolerance" is] a tolerance that mocked, marginalized and condemned those who remained faithful to the values now being discarded.

The idea that America is the new Israel, the new chosen, covenant nation for God, does indeed go back to the Puritans and Separatists who came to the New World in the 1600s.  It has been part of our national mentality since its inception, and it is one of the main forces behind Christian engagement in the "culture wars" that seek to uphold America's symbolic civil religion as if this outward and cultural religious consciousness were the same as the actual faith that Jesus taught.  The loss of the hegemony of America's civil religion is thus held to be tantamount to the nation's "turning away from God."

But as far as I can see, the whole of the New Testament is against any idea of a new nation taking on the position or status of Israel; indeed, the New Covenant precludes any such notion.  America cannot be the new Israel, nor can it enter into a covenant with God as a nation in the way Israel did, because the New Covenant is about the kingdom of God, not about any nation on earth.

As 1 Peter 2:9-10 says:

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. (Emphasis added)

To come to God through faith in Christ is to become part of a new, holy nation. The New Covenant is the covenant in Christ's blood (Mark 14:24) which makes us part of this spiritual nation; it simply does not envision covenants with earthly nations.  Ephesians 2:11-21 speaks of how all who are in Christ are part of one "new humanity" and "fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household."  The covenant God has made through Christ is sufficient; additional covenants with earthly nations are not envisioned.  Everything taught in the New Testament about God's covenant in Christ denies the concept of God making a new, Israel-type covenant with any earthly nation, America included. 

And of course, there's also the problem that despite what the Pilgrims hoped for their colony, the idea of America as dedicated to God from its inception is simply not true.  The first American settlement, Jamestown, was a secular colony established for profit and for the expansion of England's power.  The Dutch settlements in what would become northern New England tended towards religious pluralism and tolerance, and since the Dutch were eventually assimilated into the English colonial framework, their ideas became interwoven with the emerging nation's self-understanding:

By their actions, the Founding Fathers made clear that their primary concern was religious freedom, not the advancement of a state religion. Individuals, not the government, would define religious faith and practice in the United States. Thus the Founders ensured that in no official sense would America be a Christian Republic. Ten years after the Constitutional Convention ended its work, the country assured the world that the United States was a secular state, and that its negotiations would adhere to the rule of law, not the dictates of the Christian faith. The assurances were contained in the Treaty of Tripoli of 1797 and were intended to allay the fears of the Muslim state by insisting that religion would not govern how the treaty was interpreted and enforced.John Adams and the Senate made clear that the pact was between two sovereign states, not between two religious powers. (Frank Lambert, The Founding Fathers and the Place of Religion, summarized by Princeton University Press.  Emphasis added.)

The idea that America was founded as a Christian nation and is viewed by God as the new Israel leads to a number of practical problems.

1.  It distracts us from seeking first the kingdom of God.

Jesus said, "Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness (Matt. 6:33)."  When we focus on how America is supposedly falling away from its great destiny as God's chosen nation-- when we spend our energy on trying to restore the hegemony of American civil religion-- we can't pay much attention to building oneness as Christians, centered around love and service and the kingdom of God. And yet Jesus never prayed, "That they may all maintain Your Ten Commandments in public places and uphold traditional values throughout the land."  He prayed, "That they all may be one, so that the world may believe that You have sent Me (John 17:21)."

2.  It leads to spiritual pride.

Romans 12:3 says, "Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you."  To think of America as a chosen, covenant nation leads to thinking of ourselves as American Christians (intentionally or not) as somehow more chosen and in a better covenant relationship with God than other Christians.  And when the American civil religion begins to lose its former powerful monopolization of the public square, we begin to think of ourselves as virtuous victims of evil religious persecution-- whether that image is truly accurate or not.

3.  It focuses our attention on minor issues and passes over our nation's greatest sins.

This is the crux of the matter, I think.  When we get distracted by whether Christian "traditional values" have supremacy in the land, and when we decide that making room in the public square for other faiths means America has "abandoned God," we are actually majoring on the minors.  To Israel God once said that far more important than their sacrificial system was "To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God (Micah 6:8)."  But throughout its history, these things are exactly what America has failed to do, over and over again.  From the treaty-breaking appropriation of Native American lands and the genocide of Native peoples, to the enslaving of African captives and the disenfranchisement of their descendants, to the internment of Japanese Americans, to the strong-arming of American interests over weaker countries of the world, America has continually shown that it is not truly following Christ and His law of "do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

In fact, the "chosen nation" mentality can act as a justification for this very behavior. As Betty Wood said in The Origins of American Slavery,

In New England, Puritan settlers used slavery to reinforce their image of themselves as religious refugees. Those that could not enter into the covenant and be saved were subject to servitude as approved by Scripture.

And according to this Excerpt from "Joshua and the Promised Land" by Roy H. May, Jr. (on the Joshua Website of the United Methodist Church, Global Ministries):

The sense of divine election and the identification of the Americas with ancient Canaan were used to justify expelling America's Indigenous Peoples from their land. The colonists saw themselves as confronting "satanic forces" in the Native Americans. They were Canaanites to be destroyed or thrown out. . .

Land rights of Native Americans were never taken seriously. Rather, they were seen as obstacles to the colonists' need for land. The Puritans did not respect the farms of Native Americans. They sought "legal" ways to get their land. If a Native American broke one of the rigid Puritan religious laws, the fine was paid by giving up land. In this manner, some Puritans were able to amass large landholdings through the Massachusetts courts. John Winthrop, for example [the same man who preached that the colony was to be God's "city on hill"!], obtained some 1,260 acres along the Concord River.

If we truly face ourselves, we have to admit that these are America's besetting sins from the time of its inception, and that we ourselves often still participate in systems that harm whole groups of people while even blaming them for what happens to them.  Whether or not children are praying a government-sponsored prayer in school, or whether a copy of the Ten Commandments hangs in our public buildings-- these are really beside the point, aren't they?

To act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with God.  To trust, believe in and follow Jesus, to love as He loved, to serve as He served.  This is what we are meant to be doing.

Not to be struggling and striving to keep America from "falling away" from something it never was in the first place.

America is not the new Israel.  No nation is, or should be.  This would be a good time to let go of the myth.

The Bible and Human Authority, Part 1: Old Testament

I'd like to look a little further into this idea, so common among Christians, that "someone has to be in charge" in every area of life. Sometimes they speak in terms of "spheres of authority," saying that God has established different spheres, or realms, in which different authority structures hold sway, including the church, the family and society. But always there's this idea that hierarchical systems of authority extend top-down from God into each aspect of life, and that to operate without one or more of these authority systems is to invite chaos. It is even said that there is hierarchy in the Trinity: that because God the Son submitted to God the Father on earth, the Son functions in an eternal relationship of submission to the Father, even though they are equals. The idea of hierarchy in the Trinity is set forth as a justification for hierarchy in marriage, because if the Son's submission to the Father does not diminish the Son in terms of equality, the subordination of a wife to her husband would not diminish the wife's equality either.

It cannot be denied that human societies need some form of law, to protect people from being harmed by one another, among other things-- and that laws need someone with the power to enforce them, or they are useless. But is this idea that "someone has to be in charge," that there is a chain of command in every area of human life, actually taught in the Bible?

First of all, let’s define our terms. What is “authority”? How is the concept of authority treated in the Bible? Here is a definition from an online dictionary:

“The power to enforce laws, exact obedience, command, determine, or judge.”

For purposes of this study, I'd like to draw a distinction between "authority," or the power or right to command, and "leadership," which is the actual act of leading or commanding, or the state of being the one leading or commanding.

The first mention of authority or rule in the Bible is found in Genesis 1:26-28. “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth. . . So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them. . . “[H]ave dominion over . . . every living thing that moveth on the earth.”

Notice first of all that the word “man” here includes “male and female.” The meaning is “human beings,” not “male humans.” Notice also that there is no hint here of an authority relationship between the male and the female; both are to have authority over the creatures, but nothing is said about either being in authority over the other. Neither is there any indication of an authority structure within the ranks of other creatures. God does not say, “the animals that are bigger shall rule over the smaller animals, all the way down to the insects,” or anything like that (this may seem like an unimportant point, but I'll get into why it’s important later in this series). In fact, other than the humans ruling together over the animals, there are no earthly authority structures in view in the first chapter of Genesis.

When do we see the first mention of humans ruling over one another? In Genesis 3:16, right after the Fall of Adam and Eve. God tells Eve then that the man will begin to rule over her, as part of the consequences of the wrong that has come into the world. Note that this was not part of God's divine plan from the beginning; nor does God tell the man to rule the woman. God simply informs the woman that this is going to happen, as part of the consequences of the Fall.

Some Christians teach that because Eve was not yet created when God gave the command not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, that Adam had to convey God’s words to Eve, and that automatically put him in charge of her and made him an intermediary between her and God. But those are assumptions that are read into the text. The Bible never actually says anything like that. Instead, it says that God made Eve out of Adam’s own flesh, so that there was no way he could say, “this is a different/lesser sort of being than I am.” It says Eve was his “face-to-face strong aid,” which is a literal translation of “help meet for him” (Gen 2:20).* The Bible is actually silent on whether God spoke directly to Eve about the forbidden tree (though it does show Him speaking directly to both man and woman in Genesis 1:27), or whether Adam told Eve about the tree. It does not tell us one way or the other. Eve knows about the tree in Gen. 3:2, but how she came to know is simply not told. It’s important, if we make assumptions about what a biblical text is telling us, that we know the difference between what we are assuming, and what the text actually does or doesn’t say.

What else does the Old Testament say about human authority structures? The next few chapters of Genesis after the Fall of humanity say nothing whatsoever about anyone being a ruler or leader over anyone else, by God’s plan or otherwise. Babel is set out as a story of human organization and structure, but no specific leaders are mentioned, and God deliberately scatters the people there. Abraham, of course, becomes a tribal leader with servants under his authority, but God seems curiously uninterested in that aspect of the matter, being more concerned with the covenant under which Isaac will be born.

God is shown as choosing individuals to further His purpose of preparing a people through which to bring the Messiah; but an interesting dynamic runs though this entire process: God almost always chooses a younger son over the older ones. Primogeniture, the idea that the oldest son is to rule, was a basic assumption of Ancient Near East societies, but God turns primogeniture on its head over and over again. He chooses Jacob over Esau, Joseph over 10 older brothers, David the youngest of eight, and so on.

We do see a couple of systems of governmental hierarchy set up in Genesis 41 and Exodus 18. In Genesis 41:31-35, Joseph suggests that the Pharoah set up an agent, with officers under him, to gather surplus food in preparation for a coming famine. In Exodus 18:13-27, after Moses had led the Hebrews out of Egypt, the people began coming to him to judge disputes between them. Moses was getting worn out, being the sole judge, so his father-in-law Jethro advised him to set up rulers over groups of 10, 50, 100 and 1000, to judge disputes between the people. In both these cases, there is no mention of God having directly instructed the setting up of these hierarchies. It is Joseph who requests the system of officers in Genesis 41:33. In Exodus 18:23 Jethro advises Moses to be sure God agrees, but the idea is shown to be Jethro’s.

In fact, God appears to make no direct law establishing any hierarchical authority structure in the Old Testament except for the priest/Levite orders, in which neither priests nor Levites are given any governmental authority. They are to run the tabernacle/temple and administer the sacrifices and holidays, and that is all. It would have been so easy to make the priestly class into the ruling class—but the Law simply does not go there.

Israel’s actual governmental systems reveal other interesting dynamics. First, although Deuteronomy 17:14 anticipates that Israel will decide to set a king over itself, God does not seem to actually desire them to do so. God does not give them a king, but rather raises up judges (often from the most unlikely sources!) until the people of Israel actually voice a desire for a king. And in 1 Samuel 8:7 God says that in desiring a king, Israel is actually rejecting God as their ruler. God tells Samuel to tell the people that the king will use his power to oppress them— and though the people say they want a king anyway, it seems to be a concession on God’s part to give them what they want. God also limits the power of the king by making him subject to the law and forbidding him priestly powers. 1 Samuel 13:10-14.

There is a consistent theme in the Old Testament of the sovereignty of God over human authority. Daniel 4:32 says, “The Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whosoever he will.” However, the context here is God restraining a king’s self-glorification. God is depicted in many texts as having power over what authorities exist and who gets to be in authority. But often—and certainly here in Daniel 4 as in 1 Samuel 13— God seems more interested in restraining human authority than He is in creating it.

In fact, God's plan seems to be more about raising up individual leaders than setting up structures of authority (please keep in mind the definitions set forth earlier). The leaders God does raise up act in accordance with God’s authority, rather than being given some inherent right or power of their own to command— with the exception of the kings, which God apparently would rather not have given Israel at all.

It is interesting, if the Bible teaches that God is so concerned with making sure there are authority structures in every area of life— if having someone “in charge” in every sphere of human relations is such a vital part of His divine plan— that God in the Old Testament seems so reluctant to establish authority structures in Israel, so careful to limit the ones He does establish, and so ready to overturn human assumptions about who should be in authority.

I will look into how the concept of authority is treated in the New Testament, as well as how Jesus teaches that the kingdom of God differs from natural, earthly human societies in the area of authority, in Part 2.

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*I have written elsewhere a piece called "The Bible and the Nature of Woman." More information about "help meet" and my views regarding other aspects of woman's relationship to man can be found there.

Book Recommendation: Blood Brothers by Elias Chacour

Proverbs 18:17 says, "The first to present his case seems right, until another comes forward and questions him." Or to put it in the vernacular, "There are two sides to every story."

Elias Chacour is currently the Archbishop of Galilee in the Melkite Catholic Church, which is an ancient Middle Eastern expression of Christianity loosely allied with the Roman Catholic Church. I had never heard of it before I read the book Blood Brothers. In fact, though I knew there were Christians in the Middle East, I didn't know that many of the Palestinians displaced by the establishment of the nation of Israel in 1948, were in fact Christians. Others are Muslims or Druze (a religion that combines elements of Islam, Christianity and Judaism). Most of them are simple, ordinary people just wanting a way to earn a living and raise their children.

Elias Chacour is a Palestinian Christian who was driven from his home, along with the rest of his village, when he was a child. Every building in his village was then destroyed by Israeli soldiers. The Palestinian village next to his had every man, woman and child killed and buried in shallow graves-- so Elias and his family and neighbors moved into the deserted homes of the dead.

Sound far-fetched? It is true. And none of this is anything I ever heard about as an evangelical Christian growing up in America, where Israelis were the heroes and the Palestinians were the terrorists, and that was all there was to it.

The amazing thing is the path Father Chacour chose in response. Two options seemed all he had: either passive submission, or violent revenge. Chacour chose neither. He chose active peacemaking and a life dedicated to reconciling his people and the people of Israel. When Jesus gave His Sermon on the Mount, He said, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God." Elias Chacour, walking over the hills of Galilee in prayer to Christ, heard the call to become a peacemaker. There is no judgment in his heart for those who harmed his people and took everything they had-- and then blamed the victims. It is true that many of his people have since turned to violence, but the blame does not lie all on one side.

However, Chacour feels deeply for the Israelis. He understands the fear and suspicion in which the Nazi Holocaust left the surving Jews. When he was still a young child, he heard his father say, "For centuries our Jewish brothers have been exiles in foreign lands. They were hunted and tormented-- even by Christians. They have lived in poverty and sadness. They have been made to fear. . . [but] the Jews and Palestinians are brothers-- blood brothers. We share the same father, Abraham, and the same God."

In the face of hatred, Elias Chacour offers compassion, understanding, and reconciliation.

In Matt 5:39-41, Jesus said that when someone slapped you on the right cheek, you were to turn the other. He was referring to the back-handed slap that a person in power would give to an underling with the back of their right hand. To turn the other cheek was to offer the left cheek, so that the slapper would be forced to use his left hand. In that honor-shame culture, this simple, peaceful action would have shamed the one doing the slapping, and forced him to think about his actions.

When Jesus said that if someone wanted to sue you and take your shirt, you should let him have your coat-- only a rich man could afford to file a lawsuit in the courts, and to give him more than he was suing for would shame him in the eyes of the community. So would it shame a Roman soldier if he forced you to march a mile for him (only a Roman soldier had the power to do this), and you went two miles instead. All of these are the actions of the peacemaker-- the one who chooses neither passive submission nor revenge in the face of oppression, but instead makes an opportunity for the oppressed to peacefully confront the oppressor, in a way that empowers both and offers both a chance to see one another as fellow humans.*

Father Chacour has planted olive trees in the soil where land was taken from his people. He has built and opened schools and a university to educate Palestinian youth, so that they have a way out of poverty and the hopelessness that can lead to violence. When violence does erupt, he and his students give blood to help the victims-- Palestinian and Jew, Muslim and Christian alike. Nor are his schools exclusively for Palestinians; though his schools are the only ones where Palestinians may be educated, he does not turn away others, regardless of race or religion. He has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize three times-- and yet here in America, I had never heard his name or his side of the story.

Some of my relatives are Jewish, and I have a Holocaust "orphan" in my own family-- my uncle fled Nazi Germany as a boy and was raised in an orphanage, not to know where his parents were, or if they had survived, until he was grown. I have always been glad that Israel was re-established as a homeland for Jews, and I have not changed in that. But I have been misinformed and I have misjudged the situation, on the basis of having only one side of the story. No group of humans are unqualified "heroes," and listening to and hearing the stories of the disenfranchised is so important.

Brother Chacour says to the Palestinians, "Do we need to produce more victims, more martyrs and more humiliation?" He says to his Jewish brothers and sisters, "Do you need to produce more millions of victims from among your own people to convince the world that others have hated you? Are you listening as the voices of all the dead cry out, 'Cain, Cain, what have you done with your brother?"

And he has this to say to those of us in the West:

Was it a bad thing that Europe organized to liberate itself from a savage occupation before and during World War II? Were the Boston Tea Party and the American Revolution "acts of terrorism"? Who is the terrorist? Who is the fighter for liberty? How do you find it your right to judge?

I'm so glad I found the book Blood Brothers. In the spirit of Proverbs 18:17, I encourage everyone to read it.

*For more information see Walter Wink, The Third Way .