CULPEPPER: Of empires and faith

By REV. POLK CULPEPPER
Local Guest Columnist

July 03, 2009 11:03 am

— History affirms that empires, like the poor upon whose backs they finance themselves, are with us always. Empires are cut from the same cloth based on the same pattern. They but re-emerge in new circumstances.
The nation of Israel, on the other hand, was created in opposition to empire.
The God whom the Hebrews would come to call Yahweh heard the cries of an enslaved, poor group of forced laborers. In response, Yahweh called one of the empire's own to demand that Egypt's leader set them free. Assisted by Yahweh, Moses convinced Pharaoh that it was in Pharaoh's best interest to let the Hebrews go. Losing a son can do that to you.
Before one could say “give me that ole time fleshpot”, the people who would become the nation of Israel demanded that Yahweh give them a king of their own, so they could be like the other nations. Samuel warned them of the old axiom about being careful what you pray for. They prayed anyway and got a king who learned how to dominate them just like ole Pharaoh.
Once again, God heard the cries of the oppressed. This time he called prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos, and Micah to remind the political, economic, social and religious elite of Israel of their history. If you will remember, my good people, when you were slaves in the Egyptian empire I set you free. For I always side with the least in conflicts with the most. As Walter Brueggermann writes, prophets are those who “tell the truth, even in the face of empire, the truth that exploitation will not work, that brutality offends the Holy One, that imperial power is limited and called to account”.
Later, Israel succumbed to the Roman Empire. During that time, some Jews responded with violence. Rome retaliated, putting down every insurgency. In the course of one such revolt, one of their governors in Judea crucified a certain Jesus of Nazareth as an insurgent leader, “the king of the Judeans”, though he never lifted a finger in violence and mandated his followers to sheath their swords. The followers of Jesus as well as the Romans understood that he had spoken and acted in opposition to Roman rule. Otherwise, Rome would have had no reason to crucify him.
100 years after his death, one of Jesus' followers wrote a letter to some churches founded in Jesus' name. Of all the books in the New Testament, Revelation (no s) is the most explicitly counter-imperial. It pronounces God's condemnation of Rome and its empire and looks for the future establishment of a new society descending from heaven.
Contrary to much popular thought and bestselling fiction, John of Patmos was speaking to his own time and place, not writing a guide to events in the distant future. John's main concern was to convince members of the churches to whom he wrote to remain faithful to Jesus instead of transferring their ultimate allegiance to the emperor and his empire. In direct opposition to the officially sponsored loyalty to Caesar, Revelation demands loyalty to Jesus Christ.
America, like Israel, was born as an anti-imperial resistance movement. The empire against which American colonists resisted was, of course, Great Britain. It's pharaoh was George III.
The Puritans had embarked on a new exodus to escape the Pharaoh-like tyranny of English monarchs. It was not unexpected then that they would refer to themselves as “the New Israel.”
The Revolutionary War was again a new exodus, an escape from the rule of George III. The Constitution was discussed as a new covenant. Along side and sometimes coupled to this biblical liberation strand was another, one not as benign — an imperial thrust. America as the New Rome as well as the New Israel. The drive for freedom from tyranny became fused with the desire for imperial power and domination.
Prominent Christian leaders of the 19th century articulated this fusion with great enthusiasm. For example, Senator Albert J. Beveridge of Indiana insisted that Americans were a “conquering race” that must occupy new markets and lands. America, he asserted, must follow “the instinct of empire” for their nation could be “nothing but a blessing to any people”.
But of course this is what Roman leaders believed about their nation. Romans were convinced that they had had a mission, willed by the gods, to bring civilization to the rest of the world. Whether the rest of the world welcomed them or not. Recently neoconservatives in the United States insisted that America was an empire and since it was an imperial power, it should use that power to dominate the world.
Israel began as an anti-imperialist resistance movement. After arrival in the Promised Land, it set up an alternative society to that under which it had suffered in Egypt. When its kings tried, Pharaoh-like, to establish imperial domination, the prophets protested and reminded them of whence they had come. Much of what Jesus said and did was in opposition to the evil of the Roman Empire and its collaborators in the Jerusalem Temple.
Synagogues and churches in America are heirs of that heritage. Is it time for those raised in anti-imperial religious traditions to take up the anti-imperial banner of their forefathers and mothers and apply it to the present context? If America is but the most recent manifestation of empire, do American Jews and Christians have a prophetic word for their nation? Are there times when trying to be both a faithful Jew or Christian and a patriotic American citizen is difficult, if not impossible? When should followers of the Hebrew prophets and a non-violent Christ steeped in the anti-imperial tradition of the Holy Bible resist the efforts of empire, even if (especially when?) resistance is aimed at their own nation?
The Rev. Polk Culpepper is rector of St. Paul’s in New Albany.