It’s definitely appropriate to reflect on “freedom” on Memorial Day. But let’s recognize at the outset that freedom, far from being something we yawn about in a musty old history book, is by nature more than a tad … SUBVERSIVE. America’s Founders were, as we know, students of the Bible … but not just as traditional religionists, who politely bowed their heads as they listened to Sunday sermons. They were rebels with a cause – freedom from British tyranny – and they looked for political lessons in every page of holy writ. The fact that quite a number of them were in full rebellion against religious authority (many being Deists, Unitarians, and members of disparate sects – Quakers, Separatists and the like) enabled them to look at Scripture with a critical eye, not just swallow what their clergymen told them. That “rebellious” attitude is what got them over here to begin with, and it further informed their entire philosophy of government (hence the First Amendment). It also helped birth a revolution.
As I stood in front of a full auditorium to teach a class on ancient Israel, I thought: What do we have in the Bible but a “Revolutionary War” in ancient Egypt’s New Kingdom, at which time a mass movement of oppressed Hebrews break free from a Pharaoh as tyrannical and more so than England’s King George? But as America’s Founders learned, it’s one thing to win a revolution; it’s quite another to figure out how to govern those liberated.
In the Jewish world we’re now celebrating the feast of Shavuot (that Christians call “Pentecost”), commemorating the giving of the Torah on Mt. Sinai. But let’s look at Israel’s experience in the wilderness politically. What resulted after forty years of wandering through the Sinai was a loose confederation of tribes, twelve in all, where power was diffuse and localized. Centralized power lay in the priests and of course in Moses – an ancient Washington – but after his passing, and after the dazzling career of his successor Joshua, Israel entered a chaotic time known as the period of the Judges. Central authority was almost entirely lacking, except when a charismatic leader was able to raise a militia. Does it sound perhaps like the first years after the Revolutionary War, when our loose confederation of sovereign states, thirteen in all, was governed by the Articles of Confederation?
As with the early American experience, there was broad agreement in ancient Israel that government needed to be stronger. But what kind of central authority should there be? The young American republic settled on a “chief executive,” a “president person,” to be indirectly elected by representatives from each of the thirteen states. In biblical days, the “chief executive” would be a king, reluctantly selected by a prophet named Samuel and “confirmed” by an assembly of leaders from all twelve tribes. But Samuel’s acquiescence to the demand for a king came with some strong caveats, the prophet warning that the end result would be oppression and heavy taxation.
“If you insist on a monarch,” said he to the people at large, “he will make soldiers of your sons, while others will plough his fields. He will take a tenth of your harvests and of your flocks, and you will all become his slaves.”
Samuel it seems was an ancient “anti-Federalist.” But never you mind; a strong central government would be the new reality, both for the Kingdom of Israel, and early America would follow suit. However, a constitution for the United States was no more able to assuage the clamoring for “states’ rights” than Israel’s first kings (Saul, David and Solomon) were able to put a lid on the demand for “tribes’ rights.” The demand for local as opposed to central government would continue to bubble underneath the surface of both societies. In Philadelphia, at the Constitutional Convention of 1787, the Founders attempted to solve the dilemma through adopting a brilliant idea of “checks and balances,” that would ensure that no one branch of government was invested with too much power. The executive, legislative and judicial branches would “check” each other, the end result being a “balanced center” between tyranny on the one hand and anarchy on the other. Modern politics, believe it or not, is biblical!
No comments:
Post a Comment