{"id":38007,"date":"2024-08-28T19:55:47","date_gmt":"2024-08-29T02:55:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=38007"},"modified":"2024-08-29T11:21:56","modified_gmt":"2024-08-29T18:21:56","slug":"slaying-the-dragon-that-is-religion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/slaying-the-dragon-that-is-religion\/","title":{"rendered":"Slaying the Dragon that is Religion"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cMythic violence is blood-violence over mere life for the sake of violence itself; divine violence is pure violence over all of life for the sake of the living.\u201d<\/em>[1]<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0– Walter Benjamin<\/span><\/p>\n

What I Knew Before October 7th, 2023<\/strong><\/p>\n

Golda<\/span><\/em>[2]<\/a><\/sup> is the 2023 biographical film dramatizing the leadership of Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. \u00a0The movie details Meir and the Israeli Defense Forces from the lead-up to the war\u2019s aftermath. \u00a0Faced with the potential of Israel\u2019s complete destruction, Golda Meir navigates overwhelming odds paralleled with her complex relationship with the U.S. Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger\u2013literally millions of lives are in her hands while the intense 19 day war ensues. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As a young girl, I read the book,\u00a0A Woman Called Golda<\/span><\/em>[<\/em>3]<\/a><\/sup> that sat on my grandmother\u2019s bookshelf, believing with all my heart how Gold Meier was a hero for helping birth the nation of Israel. \u00a0On Sunday dinners with my extended family during the 1987 Palestinian Intifada\u00a0<\/span>and the 1993-2001 Oslo uprising, I often heard intense debate surrounding the discussion of a two-state solution and Israel\u2019s right to exist as a nation. The complaining around the table was more steeped in who was responsible to help the thousands of Jewish refugees. For my cultural, non-orthodox Jewish relatives the responsibility of the Jewish nation often lied with the American President. During those same years, the Christian church services, conferences and meetings I attended were steeped in biblical teaching on following Jesus and how Israel fulfilled God\u2019s ultimate plan.<\/span><\/p>\n

Do you remember\u00a0The Thief in the Night<\/span>?<\/em> Or\u00a0The Late, Great Planet Earth<\/span><\/em>? If so, you, too, heard teachings and sermons predicting the end time prophecies from the books of Daniel, Revelation and Ezekial[4]<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0while receiving the overarching message:\u00a0Israel fulfilled God\u2019s ultimate plan.\u00a0<\/span>As people who follow Jesus and the Bible we believed this to be true.<\/span><\/p>\n

How an Ideology Forms our Way of Thinking about the Middle East<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Like many Evangelicals, most sermons we hear from Genesis 12 were presented as a single story narrative loaded with powerful promises:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cThe Lord had said to Abram, \u201cGo from your country, your people and your father\u2019s household to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and \u00a0you will be a blessing. I will bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on the earth will be blessed through you.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Abram was given a promise that was for that time and place. Might these verses have been taught out of context to support a Nation today that is completely secular and not the Israel of the Old Testament? Whatever the case, my family and I believed in Israel’s purpose–and so did the majority of people with whom I knew. Praying for Israel brought blessing. When my younger brother moved to the Middle East and took citizenship in Israel, similar to our other relatives, praying for Israel\u2019s blessing became even more natural. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What I know now that I could not comprehend was that I was deeply impacted by a way of teaching that was part of a religious and spiritual system. Like the hindsight criticism of Augustine\u2019s teaching in his own era, our times had our own clarion call communicators. Here\u2019s what I am learning:<\/span><\/p>\n