Opposing the Spirit of Babylon

First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. --  1 Timothy 2:1-2

You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet.  You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. – Matthew 5:13-14

This world is a fallen place, corruptible and corrupting, sometimes glorious, sometimes vile.  It’s not my home, but it is where I am, as much as that often annoys me.  Jeremiah had some words for the exiles that I can understand: 

“Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon:  Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce.  Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease.  But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare” (Jeremiah 29:4-7).

No, this isn’t the New Jerusalem.  We are still in exile; we can’t go home yet.  We’re not really going to change the world, not the way the utopians and reformers think of changing it.  The Church – and by that I mean the mystical Body of Christ – is, though, an agent of God’s grace, an emissary offering light and life and hope to those dwelling in fear and darkness. 

I find it difficult to pray for any of the idiots in Washington or in Austin, OKC, Little Rock, Topeka, Jefferson City, Des Moines, Springfield, etc.  But they need prayer – they need it desperately, because they are idiots, for the most part.  They are people who seek or are drunk on power.  Their position is a way for them to validate their otherwise useless lives.  This is particularly evident in the case of the current resident of the White House and his posse, but they are not the first or the worst.  OK, maybe the worst I’ve seen – at least, the worst since Clinton.    

None of that releases me or any other Christian from the obligation to pray for them.  We don’t know all that goes on, and we don’t have to pray for them by name, but we do need to intercede on their behalf to the end that the citizens of this country and people around the world might live quiet lives of contentment and peace with dignity and godliness.  Our prayers are not likely to turn fools into wise men and wise women (Latina or otherwise); nor are we necessarily going to pray “our side” into office. 

Most of the people on our side have better things to do and are not drawn to getting involved in the travesty that is called “public service”.  There are, of course, those whom God calls to fill crucial positions at critical points in time.  We can usually recognize them, and we should certainly support and encourage them.  Regardless, however, of whether or not those in authority are our kind of people, we owe them, ourselves, our neighbors, and future generations the grace of our prayers on their behalf.    

We cannot take our responsibility lightly, for there is that which opposes us.  There is, as the Revelation depicts, a spirit of Babylon which would rule in suffering, chaos and blood.  We are opposed by “the rulers, … the authorities, … the cosmic powers over this present darkness, … the spiritual forces of evil”.  We cannot defeat this spirit with ballots or bullets.  That may be what it comes to at times, but the battle is already won or lost in the heavenlies. 

I’m not a prophet, and I do not know what is about to happen or where all that we are seeing is headed.  I know only what I am supposed to do:  put it all, all the officials, all the situations, all my fears into the hands of our Father through prayer.

Stairway To Heaven

Whoever corrects a scoffer gets himself abuse, and he who reproves a wicked man incurs injury. -- Proverbs 9:7

If we find ourselves wondering occasionally why our country is in such a sad state, the above verse highlights at least one of our problems.  The next verse in Proverbs says that reproof results in hatred in the heart of the scoffer but love in the heart of one who is wise.  It is hardly surprising then that those who seek to follow delusions are angered when reality intrudes.  All of us make mistakes, either through willfulness, arrogance, or ignorance.  Even the wise may succumb to hubris.  The difference is that when a wise person is checked by reality and suffers the consequences of his error, he does not attempt to reject the truth or alter it; rather he alters himself and adapts to it.  He learns and grows and matures. 

The fool and the scoffer are those who believe that truth is nothing more or less than what they believe to be true.  If reality does not conform to the scoffer’s state of mind he disdains and despises it.  A fool’s delusions may be mild or severe, trivial or dangerous to those around him.  Christians tend to think of atheism as a foolish view, yet there are atheists who are wise with regard to some things -- Penn Jillette comes to mind, and many people who consider themselves religious that are quite unwise in areas of their lives. 

It is no mere accident of geography that people in urban areas tend to be more left-leaning and government-oriented than those who live in more rural areas.  The City testifies of the power of the imagination, of man’s unique ability to mold and control his environment.  Every city is a child of Babel, a new Babylon.  Every once in a while the natural world shakes itself and the illusion is shattered for a time by flood or fire, earthquake, hurricane, or tornado.  Still the mirage remains convincing.  We rebuild with dressed stones amid the bricks broken to ruin.  Human technology enables us to do that which my great-grandfather could not have dreamed.  Surely all things can be conquered.

The tricky part of it is that so long as our work is guided by truth what we build has a life to it.  That which deviates too much, which builds not upon reality but against it, dies.  Fools promise foolish things, tickle the ears, and build to destruction.  They kill and devastate that which possessed veracity and authenticity because it is a rebuke to their misconceptions.  After they have choked the life out of it, they point to the remains and deny that it ever lived.  How then, they ask, could we have killed it?

Consensus does not make it so.  Everybody who worked on the Tower of Babel said the same thing, but as it got higher and higher, they agreed less and less.  If the founders are scoffers and fools, why are they surprised to find the slothful and malcontents numbered among them?  Conflict, confusion, and chaos wait patiently at the top of Escher’s steps.  There is no getting past them, and it is a very long, rough tumble back to the bottom.  Utopia’s first name is Babel.

 

Exit Strategy

Then I heard another voice from heaven: Come out of her, My people, so that you do not share in her sins or receive any of her plagues. --Revelation 18:4

Earlier today, the Quiet Pot posted an excerpt that shows somebody is paying attention, and it got me thinking along these lines.

The verse quoted above is speaking in reference to the great whore of Babylon and the fall of Babylon. This Babylon is a universal archetype, which may, along with the Beast of Revelation and the Antichrist, point to some ultimate antitype and complete fulfillment. I think that is the case, because, though history is cyclical, it does not repeat infinitely. Rather, it spirals toward Teilhard de Chardin’s Omega point. I do not know if the Babylon of our time is that ultimate one – it likely will be for me.

Babylon seems to be related to Babel. Whether the tower named the place or the place named the tower matters little for they are associated in the Hebrew mind. It is a place of deviltry, of pandemonium where sense is lost and we no longer understand one another. Man rebelled at the Tower of Babel. Instead of seeking God, he sought to overrun heaven and overthrow God. And who would he place on the throne? Babylon then is a city, not of libertine morals but of a false religion, following false gods. When John speaks of adultery and fornication in the Apocalypse, he is referring primarily to turning away from a relationship with the true God and a worship or exultation of a false god.

Part of the Tower of Babel’s purpose was to unify all people. Like the tower and the assault on heaven, commerce can unify. Trade and the chance to enrich or increase wealth bring us together. We unite in worship of that god which Jesus called Mammon. In our day we have reaped what appeared to be significant material blessings from our affiliation with this system. I have given myself over to -- perhaps you could even say I have devoted myself to the accumulation of money and goods, to the status symbols and the counters of the Babylonian game. While I have been successful in only a very modest sense, it is obvious what my priorities have been.

Daniel saw the world system and the historic empires as an image with a head of gold, chest and arms of silver, belly and thighs of bronze, legs of iron, and feet of iron mixed with clay. Though this, according to Daniel’s interpretation, was a depiction of kingdoms arising on the historical time line, in the end, the Babylon system can always be said to have “feet of clay”. It is vulnerable, and it will fall.

Even if the current system is not the antitype, it will fall. Its weaknesses have been exposed. For one thing the image is upside-down. Gold, the heaviest, densest, most stable material is on top. Gold is identified with divinity – it should be the foundation. What Daniel shows us looks more like devolution or degeneration from the divine to the animalistic human (clay). This will be crushed by the kingdom of God and overthrow the entire inverted structure.

So, the voice from heaven calls God’s people to leave Babylon behind. Flee, not to Galt’s Gulch, but to the Rock.

“But those who trust in the LORD will renew their strength; they shall soar on wings like eagles; they shall run and not grow weary; they shall walk and not faint.” – Isaiah 40:31

Someone turned the King James Version of that into a chorus, and it remains one of my favorites. I wish I could let you hear it as I do in my head right now with a sweet and righteous woman singing in a rich, warm alto, just like she believed every word.

They that wait upon the Lord
shall renew their strength.
They shall mount up
with wings as eagles.
They shall run,
and not be weary.
They shall walk,
and not faint.

Teach me, Lord,
Teach me, Lord,
To wait.