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The Prophetic Ideal & Bush’s Iraq Policy

The Prophetic Ideal & Bush’s Iraq Policy

Last updated on: May 9, 2013 at 6:23 am by Faithful Democrats

The Prophetic Ideal & Bush’s Iraq Policy 2013-05-09T06:23:04-06:00 Faithful Democrats

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

I am a minister living in the deep South. The sermon below is my attempt to show that Democrats can apply religion just as effectively to political issues as faithful Republicans. I have tried various outlets for publishing this sermon but have had no success. It seems people don't like to question Bush's policies on Iraq in this part of the country.

If anyone can make use of this, please do so. All I ask is that you give

my name as the author.

THE PROPHETIC IDEAL AND BUSH’S IRAQ POLICY

“Do no harm to the widow, the orphan, the stranger among you.” (Zechariah 7:10)

As the war in Iraq drags on, it is becoming apparent to more and more people that it is failing. The Bush administration’s paradoxical quest to impose democracy by military force simply is not working. While many current commentators are pointing out this failure, there is one group of elder statesmen who said as much some 2,500 years ago—the prophets of the Hebrew Bible.

The prophetic ideal of “Do no harm to the widow, the orphan and the stranger” may sound naïve in our twenty first century world of real politics. Yet careful consideration will show there is much wisdom to be found in this ideal.

One of the major concerns of the Hebrew prophets was idolatry- making someone or something more important than God. This is often believed to mean the worship of other gods, but idolatry can mean much more. For example, the prophet Isaiah condemned the king of Babylon, one of the superpowers of his day. Isaiah specifically targeted the Babylonian king’s political narcissism, the belief that no one and nothing could stand in the way of Babylon’s armies and power. In the prophets’ understanding, this made the Babylonian’s political agenda the most important value, above and beyond God. In their day, the Babylonian empire was unstoppable. They destroyed anyone who resisted, including Jerusalem and the kingdom of Judah, home of the Hebrew people.

What was it that Isaiah objected to so much? It was the hardness of heart that political idolatry produced. Anyone who opposed Babylon was disposable by definition; they were either killed or taken into slavery. The conquered peoples were less than human in the eyes of the Babylonian king. Political idolatry such as this lead to the needless suffering and death of countless numbers of people. This is the context of the prophetic ideal- “Do no harm to the widow, the orphan, the stranger among you.” If the king of Babylon, or any other political leader, troubled themselves about the weakest members of their society, something truly profound was happening. The hardness of heart produced by political idolatry was being softened, perhaps even negated. People outside the political agenda of such a considerate leader were being treated as human. Hopefully this meant that many people who might have suffered and died would not meet such a fate.

What happened to the Babylonian king and his political idolatry? Despite his grandiosity, his empire faded from history. Babylon was conquered by the Persians, who in turn were destroyed by the Greeks, who in turn were conquered by the Romans…

What is Isaiah’s message to us today? That President Bush is committing political idolatry like so many before him. President Bush has somehow convinced himself that his cause to force democracy on Iraq through military intervention is righteous and invincible, but it is not. “Do no harm to the widow, the orphan, the stranger among you.” Or perhaps it can be rephrased to say “Do no harm that needlessly creates more widows, orphans and strangers among you” out of political idolatry. Who is it that suffers the most in the Iraq war? Certainly U.S. forces have suffered, with almost three thousand dead and many times that maimed for life. Likewise, the insurgents have suffered great losses as well. But those who suffer most are neither insurgents nor U.S. forces, but Iraqi civilians. In Baghdad alone, the Iraqi government estimates that almost 6,000 civilians died in May and June combined, and over 3,000 in July and August combined. Many of those casualties were women and children.

Where is the concern for the Iraqi civilians on the part of the Bush administration? Are they not of at least equal importance as stem cells? Or is it that Iraqi civilians cannot vote Republican, but the supposed protectors of stem cells can? Such hard heartedness towards Iraqi civilians is but the same foolishness shown by the Babylonian king so long ago. Only the names have changed, but not the idolatry or its destructive consequences.

What will be the result for the U.S. if President Bush “stays the course” in Iraq? Already the U.S. has lost much, if not all, of its supposed moral authority. Torture and abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, denying prisoners basic legal rights at Guantanomo, extraordinary rendition of prisoners to face torture in other countries, domesticate spying on U.S. citizens in defiance of federal law, all of these abuses of U.S. and international law flow from the political idolatry of the Bush administration. As with the Babylonian king before, so now anyone who is an obstacle to the Bush administration’s Iraq policy is treated as less than human. President Bush is destroying the very values he supposedly seeks to defend.

Must history repeat itself once again? Will the U.S. end up on the trash heap of history as one more overblown attempt at empire that failed? It does not have to be that way. The Republican dominated House and Senate could show more backbone than they have. Simply rolling over and rubber-stamping Bush’s blatant violations of U.S. and international law helps no one. President Bush’s drive toward an all-powerful presidency can only be stopped with both Republicans and Democrats publicly challenging his political idolatry. This is no longer about winning the next election or even winning the war. It is about the survival of the U.S. as a viable democracy.

And where are “we the people” in all of this? Why aren’t more of us dismayed and alarmed by President Bush’s political idolatry? Do we feel that we are powerless? Perhaps many of us feel we should leave such matters to the experts. If the Hebrew prophets have taught us anything, it is to not leave history to the self-appointed powerful and their experts. The truth is it takes you and me to stop history from repeating the past. Instead of passively becoming one more widow or widower, orphan or stranger in our own land, maybe “we the people” need to start making more noise about the Bush administration’s political idolatry. Our supposed values of democracy, freedom and all the rest should be our legacy. If we sit by and do nothing, we will not even have that much left for future generations.

Rev. Craig Kubias, Ph.D.

Spartanburg SC

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