I had to dig up an old photo from a previous trip here. We don’t really celebrate all the festivals of North American in the Antipodes: we have a few of our own such as Guy Fawkes (which I like. It is a fossil from the religious wars — we celebrate that England did not become part of the Holy, Roman, and Haspburg empire. Given the current issues with England being ruled from Brussels, there is a certain sense of violating the political rules of tolerance with this festival.
But to the text. I don’t think anyone is going to worship the skeleton band, or the Guy. We are more likely to worship our possessions, or our ideology. And worshiping anyone but God has consequences. I have heard many preach the first half of this passage as a promise of prosperity if one obeys, but we are not taught this in the new covenant. But the older covenant still stands, and describes what would naturally happen if God turns from us as a nation.
Which is why we need to pray for our leaders. That they let us alone.
1You shall make for yourselves no idols and erect no carved images or pillars, and you shall not place figured stones in your land, to worship at them; for I am the LORD your God. 2You shall keep my sabbaths and reverence my sanctuary: I am the LORD.
3If you follow my statutes and keep my commandments and observe them faithfully, 4I will give you your rains in their season, and the land shall yield its produce, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. 5Your threshing shall overtake the vintage, and the vintage shall overtake the sowing; you shall eat your bread to the full, and live securely in your land. 6And I will grant peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and no one shall make you afraid; I will remove dangerous animals from the land, and no sword shall go through your land. 7You shall give chase to your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword. 8Five of you shall give chase to a hundred, and a hundred of you shall give chase to ten thousand; your enemies shall fall before you by the sword. 9I will look with favor upon you and make you fruitful and multiply you; and I will maintain my covenant with you. 10You shall eat old grain long stored, and you shall have to clear out the old to make way for the new. 11I will place my dwelling in your midst, and I shall not abhor you. 12And I will walk among you, and will be your God, and you shall be my people. 13I am the LORD your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, to be their slaves no more; I have broken the bars of your yoke and made you walk erect.
14But if you will not obey me, and do not observe all these commandments, 15if you spurn my statutes, and abhor my ordinances, so that you will not observe all my commandments, and you break my covenant, 16I in turn will do this to you: I will bring terror on you; consumption and fever that waste the eyes and cause life to pine away. You shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it. 17I will set my face against you, and you shall be struck down by your enemies; your foes shall rule over you, and you shall flee though no one pursues you. 18And if in spite of this you will not obey me, I will continue to punish you sevenfold for your sins. 19I will break your proud glory, and I will make your sky like iron and your earth like copper.20Your strength shall be spent to no purpose: your land shall not yield its produce, and the trees of the land shall not yield their fruit.
1First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone, 2for kings and all who are in high positions, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity. 3This is right and is acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, 4who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.5For there is one God; there is also one mediator between God and humankind, Christ Jesus, himself human, 6who gave himself a ransom for all – this was attested at the right time.
So we should pray for our leaders, so that we lead a quiet life, and can do good, and are not persecuted. We need to do good in the place we are at, regardless of what the conditions are. We also need to preach the gospel regardless of the conditions.
And in praying for our leaders and ourselves, we need to pray for mercy. For our society has tolerated too much. I’m not talking as much about the various parades of perversions (from Mardi Gras to Folson St). I’m more worried about the death rate from abortions. The death rate from not having adequate mental health care, particularly for young men. (it is much nicer to do therapy with girls who cut themselves than with men who get scary. Particularly if, like three quarters to nine tenths of therapists, you are female and feminist).
I had a good going Jeremiad drafting in my head, given that the most recent college murder is being politicized, but one needs to take a step back. These events are shocking. These events are also very rare. Which is why even the world leaders in this area are reduced to speculation.
Topics discussed include media bias when the criminal is a young male, the influence of the copycat phenomenon, whether these acts tend to be impulsive or deliberate and well-planned, triggers for these actions and whether revenge is involved, the impact of the current culture in schools in the U.S., and access to firearms. The psychologist from Finland says that the American school system in America promotes social class, racial, and other differences among students more than the European school system – which is going to startle those who are non-elites in Europe and discover they have no way to start a business or get ahead in life if they were born to the wrong family and therefore did not go to the right school.
Forensic psychologist Reid Meloy cuts through the popular spin and reminds the panel that mass murder cases in the United States haven’t changed since 1976. They are also not out of line with the rest of the developed world. They just get more attention because of the effort to ban guns in the US and the desire for Europeans to want to feel like their culture is superior. There are now approximately 20 of these cases per year among a population in excess of 300 million people who own a lot of guns. That means mass shootings are shockingly rare. Meloy does note that what should be examined is why mass murders have not gone down since 1976 – gun ownership is up in the US and still individual homicides are down. Even in California, an anti-gun culture, the curves in increased gun ownership and decreased gun murder are telling. What has changed since 1976 is the use of drugs for milder psychological conditions.
Yuki Nishimura of Japan notes that guns are illegal there, so people strangle each other and that does not really lend itself to mass killing.
Citation: Mary Ellen O’Toole, Jorge Folino, James Garbarino, Steven M. Gorelick, Helinä Häkkänen-Nyholm, J. Reid Meloy, Stanton E. Samenow, Yuki S. Nishimura, ‘Why Do Young Males Attack Schools? Seven Discipline Leaders Share Their Perspectives’, Violence and Gender doi:10.1089/vio.2013.1505.
Now what should we do in the church? Well the new hashtag for this is facile. We need to pray for the grieving. Like Helen Smith, I’d argue that we need proactive community care for those who are broken by mental illness, and we also need shelter for those who are most damaged — preferably in communities no bigger than 50. The York Asylum is a good model: the large mental hospitals of last century is a bad one.
And we need to pray that the elite will leave us alone, and if they do not, that we will endure.
@voxday The reason there are no people in our village is because we have not burned enough witches. Burn the witches! End witch privilege!
— The Shadowed Knight (@AShadowedKnight) May 26, 2014
In our horror, we need to think and not point. There are those who want to purify society of those they do not like: this time the right is being accused along with the men’s right’s movement (the two are not synonymous) despite this man being anti such. But the more the flames of offense are encouraged, the more people cannot think but in approved ways, the more likely that the backlash will be violent. The USA is an empire, and like all empires it has structural instability. And one only needs to look at Ukraine to see the endgame of the destruction of a society.
It is not like the end of “V”
Instead it is more like this.
I'm pretty sure you won't see this photo from Ukraine on tonight news. pic.twitter.com/f3LPG72Ikj
— Russian Market (@russian_market) May 26, 2014
We worry about seven dead in California, and we ought. But we should grieve by the body count in Eastern Europe and in Sub Saharan Africa. We need to pray that all leaders leave us alone, so that we can be allowed to preserve society (salt) and reform society (light),. The alternative is destruction, but for the mercy of God.
So above all, pray for mercy, beginning with ourselves.