Exit Strategy

This morning I ended up reading the 21st chapter of Ezekiel. For those of you seldom (or never) end up prowling around such distant chambers, the book of Ezekiel the prophet is one of the most visually and viscerally dramatic of apocalyptic writings. Ezekiel 21 is not an exception.

And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,

"Son of man, set thy face toward Jerusalem, and drop thy word toward the holy places, and prophesy against the land of Israel, and say to the land of Israel, thus saith the LORD; 'Behold, I am against thee, and will draw forth my sword out of his sheath, and will cut off from thee the righteous and the wicked. Seeing then that I will cut off from thee the righteous and the wicked, therefore shall my sword go forth out of his sheath against all flesh from the south to the north: that all flesh may know that I the LORD have drawn forth my sword out of his sheath: it shall not return any more.'

"Sigh therefore, thou son of man, with the breaking of thy loins; and with bitterness sigh before their eyes. And it shall be, when they say unto thee,' Wherefore sighest thou?' that thou shalt answer, 'For the tidings; because it cometh: and every heart shall melt, and all hands shall be feeble, and every spirit shall faint, and all knees shall be weak as water: behold, it cometh, and shall be brought to pass, saith the Lord GOD.'

Again the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,

"Son of man, prophesy, and say, Thus saith the LORD; 'Say, A sword, a sword is sharpened, and also furbished: it is sharpened to make a sore slaughter; it is furbished that it may glitter: should we then make mirth? it contemneth the rod of my son, as every tree. And he hath given it to be furbished, that it may be handled: this sword is sharpened, and it is furbished, to give it into the hand of the slayer.'

"'Cry and howl, son of man: for it shall be upon my people, it shall be upon all the princes of Israel: terrors by reason of the sword shall be upon my people: smite therefore upon thy thigh. Because it is a trial, and what if the sword contemn even the rod? it shall be no more,' saith the Lord GOD.

"Thou therefore, son of man, prophesy, and smite thine hands together. and let the sword be doubled the third time, the sword of the slain: it is the sword of the great men that are slain, which entereth into their privy chambers. I have set the point of the sword against all their gates, that their heart may faint, and their ruins be multiplied: ah! it is made bright, it is wrapped up for the slaughter. Go thee one way or other, either on the right hand, or on the left, whithersoever thy face is set. I will also smite mine hands together, and I will cause my fury to rest: I the LORD have said it."

It is all in the sheer dynamism of the phrasing, the graphic nature of the word-hoard, the eccentricity of punctuation. It is the voice of He who wields a terrible swift sword, who makes hearts melt and hands become enfeebled. The trial comes, and then the judgement, and who shall withstand the wrath?

One is tempted to take such literature out of context, irrationally and antitheologically. But one should be conscious and cautious about what exactly one intends to do. What if the tolling of the bell is not for the wicked who are obviously so, but for those who claim to be righteous and are not? What if this warning to ancient Israel has nothing to do with modern Israel, or to any modern Jerusalem that sets up the abomination of desolation within its gates? But there it is; when the eagles of Zeus are mounted in the gates of the once-consecrated city, it is the end.

Globalisation & Its Malcontents

Sometimes you hear the most appalling exaggerations about the role of globalisation in bringing corruption to places hitherto deemed uncorrupted. What I heard yesterday from some lay 'preacher' seemed to imply a state of Edenic bliss on this sceptered isle prior to the advent of evil globalisation with all its wealth and power.

Tsk tsk. This island has never not been affected by globalisation except in the mythical past. Obviously such people, straitened by the adversity of preaching about something about which they appear to know little, just seize a convenient target which already has a bad reputation for other, completely different, reasons.

There are obviously at least two exceptions one must raise against Christian speakers who say such things.

The first one is to point them back at their own core theology, reminding them of original sin and the fact that Jesus himself is recorded as saying, "Nothing that enters a man from outside can make him unclean." The passage as a whole is in direct contradiction to anyone who would equate the consumption of rich food (for example in Daniel's account of his dealings with the court of Nebuchadnezzar) with the peril of sin from globalisation.

The second is to point out that if the argument is one about recent history and the corruption which arises from mercantilism, then ancient history must surely take precedence, as seen in the stirring condemnation in Ezekiel about the perils of islands indulging in globalisation. This is nothing new. The potentially corruptive environment of capitalism, which tempts people into making their own bad internal decisions on morality and negotiation, has been with us a long time. But even here, it is clear that the one who chooses to sully his hands is at fault, and not the trading environment itself.

The common reply to what I've just pointed out is that I'm being arrogant by daring to point out a speaker's egregious mistakes. Well, it's far worse for a person to mislead others from the pulpit.