7 Takes on Wars and Words

Besançon, Julius Ceasar and Vercingetorix, Ms. Harris and Mr. Trump, Richard and Christopher Hays, A short screed about Free Speech, and the Actual Mercy of God

Here I am at the tip top of Besançon, an old old town that gets its first mention by Ceasar in BC 58, so obviously around a bit before that. From the sounds of cars and machinery, it is enduring extremely well in these post-modern times, possessing many technological conveniences like hot water and various kitchen appliances, plus large trucks that lumber loudly down the narrow streets in the dead of night and packs of drunken, singing students staggering home from their fun evenings out.

My parents came here to learn French 48 years ago, and I would have been born here had they not been sent to England for the summer to help with the SIL course. From thence they went to Africa where I spent most of my childhood. Today we are going to search out some of their favorite places. But also, it is Friday. Let’s see if we can rustle up some Takes.

One

On the way here, we stopped at a large, newish museum memorializing the battle between Julius Ceasar and Vercingetorix in Alesia. The museum is an odd shape—round—and markedly different in appearance from literally everything around it. It’s hard to tell what they were thinking, except that maybe they were trying to riff off the siege works that Ceasar built in such a short amount of time.

Idea 403549: Alésia Museum and Archaeological Park by Bernard Tschumi Architects in Alise-Sainte-Reine, France (architizer.com)

Those are trees growing at the top. You are meant to go up there and walk around looking at the various hills while, over a loudspeaker, the sounds of warriors engaged in heavy breathing put you in the mood, I guess, for mayhem and destruction.

Ceasar’s Gallic Wars, from such a long distance, sometimes seem cute, or, in the spirit of Asterix and Obelix, funny. Certainly, the museum, in an effort to grasp at the ephemeral attention of young children, provided many fun activities, like making a crown like Ceasar’s or jumping up and down trying to punch a Roman or a Gaul by waving your hands in the air and observing your success or failure on the screen. Every so often a bust of someone important would speak, its lips actually moving, in a most creepy fashion. Who knew Vercingetorix could speak such perfect French?

In point of fact, Ceasar was a cut-throat, brutally shrewd warrior and an ambitious politician. He outmaneuvered Vercingetorix and starved the village of Alesia. All the women and children, explained the enormous video display, wandered to the edge of the siegeworks, and there slowly starved to death before the flint-like Roman army. Vercingetorix, when his relief army failed to save them, gave himself up and was taken to Rome where he was imprisoned for five or six years and finally garotted. Thus all of Gaul came under Ceasar’s rule and he went back to claim victory until that unfortunate moment when he was stabbed by all his friends. Live by the sword, as they say, die by the hidden dagger.

Two

Of course, we have gotten to the time in human history where that sort of thing just isn’t done anymore. We have Democracy, which means war is useless to us as a civilization. That’s just a little joke, though perhaps one too easy to chuckle over driving around the bucolic French countryside past ancient stone houses with roses growing up the sides, past sleepy church spires and peaceful fields of wheat slopping away over the horizon. Standing at the top of the museum looking out over the hills where Roman and Gallic armies arrayed themselves so long ago, it’s hard to even imagine the shimmering heat of the blood and sounds of war.

For those, you can go over to the internet and watch clips of explosions and urban drone fighting in Ukraine or the Middle East. And various occasions of violence closer to home.

Three

I saw on Twitter this morning that the political news in the United States, or according to the GPS guy who can’t pronounce anything, Ehtahts Eunie, is continuing apace. Ms. Harris and Mr. Walz sat down for an interview in which Ms. Harris said that she believes “the American people deserve a new way forward and turn the page on the last decade..." Boy wouldn’t that be nice.

And, of course, Mr. Trump explained that, if elected, he will get “the government” or “insurance companies” to cover the cost of IVF and that he, personally, will be voting against Florida’s six-week abortion ban. As Allie Beth Stucky pointed out, this is politically expedient, of course, and perhaps even savvy, but ethically “terrible.”

Four

And then I found several reviews of Richard Hays’ new book about how God doesn’t really care about sexual immorality anymore. From the Gospel Coalition:

Readers might expect to find that Hays has changed his mind about the meaning of the verses that apparently prohibit same-sex sex. But he hasn’t. Instead, he and his son, Christopher (an Old Testament professor at Fuller Theological Seminary), suggest God has changed his mind. If we read the Bible carefully, they argue, we’ll find that “God repeatedly changes his mind in ways that expand the sphere of his love” (2). In light of this, the Hayses “conclude that many religious conservatives, however well-intentioned, are wrong about the most essential point of theology: the character of God” (2).

And there’s a long review in Einkon:

Hays and Hays, of course, know the texts that speak to same-sex relationships, and Richard himself once argued, as noted earlier, that all homosexual behavior is wrong. But now the father and son claim that the trajectory of the Bible moves us beyond the biblical proscription of homosexuality. God’s ever widening mercy, they aver, takes us outside what the scriptural word actually says. The idea that we can appropriate a trajectory that goes beyond the Bible was advanced among evangelicals by William Webb. Webb argued that the trajectory doesn’t include approval of same-sex relationships, but I predicted in my review that subsequent authors would knock down the fence Webb constructed and include same-sex relations within the trajectory. The father and son pair aren’t the first to make such an argument, but they are probably the most famous.

Five

I find it darkly funny that people today—any of the people—get accused of engaging in “the culture war” and being “keyboard warriors” as if that is a bad thing. For verily verily, the promise of the last two hundred years, at least, has been that if we talk enough, we won’t have to literally fight—an idea shown to be a shimmering lie given how many World Wars and other kinds of conflicts Europe has endured. It is the robust exchange of ideas in the public square, you guys, that is necessary for a peaceful and orderly society.

Oh how I would love this to be true. I like words so very much more than I would like to be hacked at with a broadsword or taken out by a well-maneuvered drone. If we want to continue in civilized peace, working and living according to the values and beliefs we like best for ourselves, we have to be allowed to war with words. It must be ok to say what you think about any political candidate, to write whole books about what you think is true. And this exercise in much controversial speech should be welcomed as an exercise in sanity. But, of course, we know that is not so, and thus, I fear greatly for us all.

Six

As ever I am excessively comforted that Jesus is called the Word made Flesh, and that he took the full brunt of literal human violence—not the metaphorical social media kind—into himself and provided the only real mercy available in the world. That is to pay the debt that someone owes in full so that it is completely and finally forgiven. It is hard for me to imagine that the grace and blood of Christ could cover someone like Ceasar, and yet, it could—and for so many foul and wretched sinners, it did. For the wide mercy of God is for the very vilest, cruelest, and hard-hearted of all people. And we can see its effects even now if we look hard. Though, of course, they will be ours forever however brutally we die.

I say “ours” but of course, I don’t know who will be in Paradise with the Lord forever. I expect to be surprised and amazed. I expect to be grateful. But I also know that I will have no more questions, for the glory of God will be so plain and sure.

Seven

And now I must sally forth for my morning coffee and croissant. Have a nice day!