The Tanakh and Warfare

In contrast to many recent so called churches and synagogues who declare that G-d is a deity of love only, and so love anyone irregardless of their sin and their open advocacy of such sin, I must ask:

Have you read the Tanakh (the Old Testament for Christians) AT ALL?

I mean, clearly you haven't.

For many "modern" Christians, this pesky little problem (the fact that the Old Testament or Tanakh absolutely and clearly repudiates their moral laxity) is resolved by asserting not only the supremacy of the New Testament but a rather selective reading of the same. This is the fundamental problem of the New Testament and further evidence that it is not scripture, but it is certainly not all the New Testament's fault. Jesus and the New Testament writers were renegades against the Tanakh in their time, in the context of Judaism, but the apostles never contemplated the sort of things that are routinely contemplated in modern Christianity. Gay churches. Abortion churches. Divorce churches. How the bibles in gay churches do not burn into their lecterns I don't know, but it is a fundamental intellectual dishonesty for a gay preacher in a gay church to hold up a Bible as something they are supposed to be following.

They. Are. Not. Following. It.

That this kind of habitual lying is accepted as normal is a phenomenon of the modern world. It would be like me holding up a Quran, reading from it, praising it, and then cursing Mohammed and encouraging people to eat pork. Now, human religion gaining supremacy over divine religion is nothing new. The Jews did it in Jesus' time. Jesus and his followers upheld his human religion over divine religion. It has happened continually since the beginning of the world. It just has reached a new low where people absolutely pay no mind to the book they are pretending to follow.

"All hail the leather-bound wood pulp! We praise the leather bound wood pulp, you need not know what is written on it. What it means is what we tell you! What you want to believe!"

Gaaa.

Which gets us to my main point today. Warfare. Contra Jesus (love your enemies, turn the other cheek,) the Tanakh is full of warfare and courage and faith in the context of warfare. From beginning to end, it is saturated with war. Contra Jesus, if you are following G-d and your enemies are enemies of G-d, it is immoral and weak to turn the other cheek, not virtuous. It is condemned.

There are circumstances, such as in the book of Jeremiah, where surrender is advocated. This has absolutely nothing to do with love of enemies. The Kingdom of Judah had been run by evil and idolatrous kings basically since Solomon, with occasional exceptions. It's destruction was decreed by G-d. It would have been futile to resist. Jeremiah did not advocate LOVING the Babylonians, he advocating SURRENDERING to them because Judah's decline was commanded by G-d. In the case where the Israelites in Sinai were frightened by the reports of the scouts who were scouting Canaan, when they gathered their courage again and decided to fight, Moses said no. They did not have G-d's blessing and would not win. And that is what happened.

Far more common is something like the following: we are vastly outnumbered. G-d tells us to fight and we will win. Despite the evidence of our senses, we fight and win.

The man of G-d as warrior is something alien to modern sensibilities, but definitely not alien to the Tanakh. The Native American warrior Tecumseh typified the attitude of a holy warrior. His words were something to this effect:


"We are determined to defend our lands. If it is His (the Great Spirit's) will, we will be victorious, and if it is His will, we will plant our bones on this land defending it."


Either one was okay by him. What mattered is acting from principle. Freedom vs. slavery. You die free rather than live a slave.

In other words, a holy warrior is not concerned with outcomes. Outcomes are in the hands of G-d. Changing your behavior because of your evaluation of its likely outcome is a godless conception. The godless play at predicting the future: a man of G-d knows better. A holy warrior is concerned with principle. Death or life do not matter nearly as much as acting from right principle. There are worse things than death.

This conception is alien to our weak effeminized culture. It is however crucial to understanding the warrior mindset in the Tanakh. If G-d tells you it is GO time, you go, even if it is one against a thousand. Because the thousand will not have what you have: you are traveling in the will of G-d. You may indeed die, but you will die in G-d's hands doing His will.

How distant this is from any modern faith! How distant from modernity period! Yet this is the truth of the Tanakh. This is the test of many a warrior in the Tanakh: will you trust G-d and fight, or will you shrink from a battle that TO YOUR MIND looks unwinnable? The test of a true godly warrior is whether he is willing to act from principle, in this case divine principle, despite fear. Some warriors, as late as 150 years ago, understood this. Stonewall Jackson was the archetypal holy warrior, whatever you think of his cause.


"Captain, my religious belief teaches me to feel as safe in battle as in bed. God has fixed the time for my death. I do not concern myself about that, but to be always ready, no matter when it may overtake me. Captain, that is the way all men should live, and then all would be equally brave."

~General Stonewall Jackson

True, easier said than acted upon. Most things that are good and right are hard. They are meant to be. This is a test.