Peace Hacks

Whoever penned Torah’s creation account – aka the Old Testament’s “Genesis” – had something specific to say about what God values most.

And none of it happens without Eve.

Actually, her name is “Ishah,” and she wasn’t created to be Adam’s girlfriend, or to fulfill his sexual desires, or cook, clean, keep the house and raise kids, much as we the men have so interpreted.

Instead, it turns out that her purpose was/is just as high as Adam’s, but because we’ve been so historically hard up to declare Eve a housekeeper, we miss the author’s fundamental point.

To bettter understand, we have to start at the beginning, when God creates heaven, earth, etc., then steps back – every time – and comments on the quality of the thing he’s just created, much like an artist on that rare occasion when he’s happy with his work.

The account goes like this:

• • • God creates water, sky, and dry land, and says, “That’s good.”
    • Then, plants, seeds, vegetation, etc., declaring again, “That’s good.”
    • Then stars, sun, moon… “That’s good.”
    • Then fish, birds, and animals, uttering his last “That’s good.”

Finally, God creates Adam, and steps back to critique what is arguably his most complex, amazing creation, the one thing that most resembles Him.

At this point we’re expecting another “That’s good,” but we get the opposite, a blatantly out-of-place “Not good.”

???

I’ll stop here and point out the purpose of repetition in Old Testament narrative. It’s a common style of writing that some scholars call the “hallmark of Hebrew rhetoric;” something we’re supposed to stop and take notice of.

The narratives of the Old Testament are brilliant, literary works with mind-blowing depth. You just have to learn the literary style of these writers. One of the easiest styles to start with is the repetition of keywords and themes… Once you start to spot these, you know you’re on the trail of the biblical author’s main point.

In simple terms, when an Old Testament author repeats something over and over again, that repetition is core to whatever point he/she is trying to make, and fundamental to how the story is supposed to impact our lives.

So, how is “That’s good…. That’s good…. That’s good… That’s NOT good” fundamental to the story?

What’s “not good” about Adam is that he’s by himself. Historically, we’ve deduced that, because God sends him a naked woman with complimentary plumbing, and because our theology is so often overthrown by sex and procreation, Eve’s function must surely revolove around those two things. The passage does say, after all, “it is not good for Adam to be alone,” and “I will send him a qualified helper.”

Today – even today – there are some who use this passage as a license to subserviate women under the rule of their husbands, seeing them as secondary to men. That’s a “not good” interpretation of Genesis, one that has contributed to centuries of abuse.

It’s better to translate this passage as, “It is not good for Adam to be the only human in the cosmos,” i.e., “I don’t want only one human, I want the planet crawling with humans,” complicated as that’s turned out to be.

But instead of speaking more humans into existence, as God did with every other element of his creation, he takes a part of Adam and transforms it into Eve, who is something like Adam, but wholly different.

Moving forward, Adam and Eve will partner with God in the miracle of populating the earth. Eve’s purpose here is no more people-making than Adam’s, although she’ll play a more engaged, miraculous, powerful, creative role.

This is one element of the Genesis arrangement that I can’t emphasize enough. Until the creation of Eve, God creates by himself, speaking everything into existence, including Adam – Eve is the first thing that requires a part/piece of the previously created thing. After this, there is nothing that God creates by himself. From this point onward, anything that comes into existence comes via partnership between God and humanity.

At Eve, God would no longer work alone.

God certainly could’ve done things differently, and maybe there are still planets and galaxies that are coming into existence, but when it comes to things on our home planet, He works with us, we work with him.

Nations, cultures, political systems, buildings, etc. Nothing happens without this partnership. When the pre-Isrealites were called to build their new nation, they had as much a hand in the process as God did. He could’ve simply spoke it into existence, but that’s not the arrangement. When Israel was razed to the ground, other nations were called to do the dirty work, and to house God’s people in exile until it would be time to try again.

The very salvation of God came through a similar partnership, as did it’s proposed declaration to the world. God could’ve wiped out the sins of humanity any way he wanted, then told everyone about it through miraculous means. Instead, he conscripted a virgin, prophets, disciples, heralds, thieves, traitors, prostitutes, et-al.

And none of it happens without Eve.

Eve was not created to compliment Adam, she was and is a fundamental element in the creation story, the only answer to Adam’s “not good” problem, and the next fundamental step in God partnering with humanity to bring the currency of heaven down to earth.

Theologically speaking, she carries all the power/miracle/mystery of universe, cosmos, eternity, Adam, and anything else that God has brought into existence.

But the author’s purpose is not to celebrate Eve, or Adam, or even God. The point is that people are the pinnacle of God’s creation. That’s why he employs the “good/not good” pattern, why he goes out of his way to mark people as the only created thing that bears the image of God, and why he orders his content to emphasize the idea that people are so important that they are deemed worthy to partner with God.

As such, any Bible-based religion that has at its core, instead, right thinking, or behavior, or allegiance to whatever cultural expression misses something much bigger.

Evangelicalism’s longstanding preoccupation with sex over just about everything else is unfortunate on many levels, but fascinating. We were champions of chastity during America’s Sexual Revolution and today are exhaustingly outspoken opponents of all things LBGTQ, as if it’s the most evil agenda the world has ever seen.

According to some, there are a few passages in scripture that condemn same sex relationships, but few will argue that there are far more – exponentially so – that condemn greed. How is this not the number one sin on our list? The New Testament book of Timothy claims that greed is the “root of all evil,” while St. Paul equated it with idolatry. If there’s a really bad sin in the Bible, one that we should all be condemning, greed is it.

“Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.” ~ Jesus in Luke 12:15

For Americans, Christian or not, that might be a problem; some economists believe that our financial systems are driven by the idea that it’s OK to be greedy, i.e., to take as much as we can get our hands on, regardless of who it might hurt. If everyone operates on that principle, the models tell us, our economy moves along just fine.

To economists like Walter Williams  and many others, there’s nothing wrong with that.

For me the noblest of human motivations is greed. I don’t mean theft, fraud, tricks, or misrepresentation. By greed I mean being only or mostly concerned with getting the most one can for oneself and not necessarily concerned about the welfare of others. Social consternation might cause one to cringe at the suggestion that greed might possibly be seen as a noble motivation. “Enlightened self-interest” might be a preferable term. I prefer greed since it is far more descriptive and less likely to be confused with other human motives.

But is it fair to say that greed lies at the core of American economics?

it’s interesting to note that many experts claim that self-interest – a close cousin to greed – is the prime motivator, subordinating all other factors, altruism included.

Economic theory‘s assumption of self-interest maximization is so dominant and pervasive that the field of economics often overlooks other human motivations: homo economicus cares primarily about self-gain and little (if at all) for others‘ welfare. Thus, others‘ outcomes and the social utility that may be created become, at best, secondary concerns.

Add that nobody knows where self-interest ends and greed begins. The two are closely related, to be sure, and humanity has a long history of pursuing things it doesn’t need, so often at the expense of others. I don’t have to go far into my personal history to mark a moment where I expended great energy in the pursuit of something that I didn’t need, convinced that it was fundamental to my existence.

We buy huge houses, for example, not because we need a huge house, but because our neighbor’s house is bigger than ours. If it wasn’t, the idea that our house is inadequate wouldn’t have entered our minds.

Currently, I live in the biggest house I’ve ever owned, and you won’t hear me complaining.  It’s nice to feel like the five of us aren’t on top of each other all the time. The kids each have their own room, and we have a nice basement for TV, exercise, and some space for friends and family to stay should they visit.

But because everyone wants a bigger, better house, prices in our neighborhood are going up, increasing the cost of living. The single mom that lives down the street will have to move somewhere else because she can no longer afford to live in my neighborhood. Sure, her house is worth more, but she’s being uprooted because myself and others “need” a bigger place to live.

When it comes time to sell, I won’t consider what my house is worth – i.e. construction costs + inflation + a little extra profit – I’ll set the price solely on what I can get for it, what “the market will bear.” Currently, that would be double what we paid for it, driving prices up even higher, along with the cost of living.

Ultimately, more people will need to find another place to live.

If we define greed as “the pursuit of self-interest at someone else’s expense,” the way we do houses has greed at its core. The same holds true for why/how the cost-of-living changes so dramatically in an “up and coming” neighborhood.

Inflation itself is said to be driven by the same phenomenon. Bernie Sanders once claimed that inflation is driven by corporate greed, but that’s not true, greedy as corporations can be. Inflation is the relatively simple result of people who get their hands on some money and start buying things. The more we buy, the more prices go up because there’s nothing wrong with folks charging what they can get away with. If I can get $5.00 for something that cost $0.50 to produce, why wouldn’t I charge $5.00?

According to The Economist, that was the cause of our most recent bout with inflation. “Red-hot demand, linked in part to massive stimulus programmes in 2020-21, is the true source of price pressure.” We want things, especially after a nasty pandemic, and have the money to get them, inviting our favorite vendors to charge as much as they possibly can, encouraging others to do the same.

In this, low-income households struggle to get by while the rest of us complain that our beach vacation cost more than it should have.

There are other, much more complicated issues that drive inflation, and I’m no economist, nor do I have time to pursue an expert-level understanding of how things work. I simply have a hard time believing that a system that so worships self-interest, with little or nothing to keep it in check, has kept it in check.

We’re not unlike a group of kids surrounding a piñata, waiting for the candy to fall. There’s a limited amount, and all the kids will get some, but the bigger kids and/or those nearest the piñata will get the most. The more they grab, the less everyone else gets. Every once in a while, a big kid will share her candy, or a parent might butt in and make things more equitable, but the rule of the day is “grab as much as you can.”

That’s a weak analogy far as personal achievement goes. I have friends who have busted their asses to get where they are, with parents who faced insurmountable odds to give them the opportunity. They might have a bigger-than-average paycheck, but they earned it.

At the same time, money is a zero-sum proposition – there is no unlimited amount. If someone gains, someone else loses. For everyone with a large paycheck, there are many more who’ll work just as hard but can never hope to make half as much.

Currently, because most of the world has bought into Piñatanomics, a very small number of people command the vast majority of financial power. According to an article by Harvard staff writer Christina Pazzanese, this gap between rich and poor is widening.

“Smart poor kids are less likely to graduate from college now than dumb rich kids. That’s not because of the schools, that’s because of all the advantages that are available to rich kids.” ~ Robert Putnam

“[The United States has] some of the lowest rates of upward mobility of any developed country in the world” ~ Nathaniel Hendren

Add humanity’s propensity to take too much for itself, along with its long history of being swept up into blatantly immoral. godless cultural currents, and it’s no stretch to suggest that greed is, at the least, a fundamental pillar of American economics.

“…vast forces of greed and aggressiveness… are the mainsprings of economic activity in a private enterprise economy; not the best but the strongest motives of humanity… ~ Kenneth J Arrow

If that’s true, every one of us, Christian or not, is guilty of one of the biggest sins in the book, one that is condemned with much more frequency and clarity than the Bible’s alleged anti-Gay passages.

But I’m not writing this to make you feel bad, or to condemn you, or because I think we should all come together and fight to overhaul our system, good as that would be.

I’m just as guilty as anyone else.

I’m writing solely to my anti-LGBTQ/Trans Christian friends, to invite a change of posture. None of us are so righteous that we can segregate from alleged sinners, then condemn them as destroyers of America, enemies of God, abusers of children, etc.

Let’s admit that the anti-Gay agenda is not driven by any concern for the Bible and/or “What God Wants.” If it was, we would be exponentially more appalled at the economic system that we all live under. At the least, bible-believing Christians should be pushing for some level of reform, but every time someone suggests that our system is unfair, or inequitable, it’s the Christians who get angry more than anyone else.

Why? Is greed so baked into our system that we can’t even see it? And are we so blind to our own sin that the only sin we can see is someone else’s?

In his letter to the Christian church in Rome, St. Paul listed a bunch of sins that would appall any first-Century Jewish person, then condemned his listeners for condemning the people on the list.

Same sex relationships were on the list, and despite Paul’s very clear warning against judging that particular behavior, we do it with much fervor, while uncritically placing so much hope in this Western system of economics.

In short, the Christian anti-LGBTQ agenda is yet another exhausting moment in our history where folks who have a skewed sense of their own righteousness seek to point out some alleged unrighteousness in others. And despite the Bible’s exhausting attempts to steer us from this, it will always be a big, sad part of our story.

I can’t access my Facebook account.

Some hacker got in and changed my username, email and password. Facebook has since disabled the account so I can’t do a password reset or use any other recovery remedy. I submitted it for review, but the bots decided that I was dubious operator and refuse to look into it any further.

I’m sad.

Half of my blog traffic, and the accompanying engagements that came via Facebook are gone.  I’m also losing the community I shared with other Jeep builders who’ve provided a level of support that you wouldn’t believe. Every time I’ve had a problem with the most amazing vehicle ever, there was someone standing by with a world of knowledge, happy to share.

On a positive note, I’ll no longer be arguing ad-nauseum about politics with friends who don’t want to fact check anything. To them, Liberals and pro-LGBTQ folk are destroying America.

Facebook has become their platform – a place to spread political hate speech – and I feel a responsibility to engage. Fact-check-a-phobia is ripping our country apart, according to this blogger – and these folks don’t have anybody to challenge their one-sided perspective.

That makes me a hero, right?

Hardly. Facebook wasn’t a healthy place for me.

I’ve spent hours ruminating over all of the different arguments I could make – how I’m right and the people who don’t think like I do are wrong – scouring the internet for data, research, and opinion in support of my perspective.

Just before my account was shut down, I engaged a friend who claimed that the LGBTQ agenda posed a significant threat to children. I pointed out that guns kill more children than Gay people do, and asked why he wasn’t equally incensed about that.

“Why are there no anti-gun posts on your social media feed?” I asked.

Now that I’m in a permanent time out, I can’t think of a more smart-ass way to engage someone. If I’m trying to help folks consider the world in a different way, or bring some level of peace, like the namesake of this blog suggests, why accuse my friend of such high-level hypocrisy?

What am I after? And why spend so much time perseverating over arguments that, with one exception, never go anywhere?

About a year ago, I tried a different tack.

I contacted a friend who is decidedly anti-liberal and invited him into a discussion where I would tell him what I think he believes and why, and he would correct me and fill in whatever I missed. The goal was for me to be able to articulate and defend his perspective. He would then do the same for me.

There would be no debate about who was right and who was wrong.

It was a great idea.

It was also really hard work, and we both early on threw in the towel. It turned out that neither of us wanted to engage a social media conversation where there was no winner.

Why?

My guess at this point is that we were/are patrons of a cultural phenomenon that’s been brewing for awhile, one that has ramped up significantly in the last 10 years or so, now sitting squarely in the command center of our country’s political division.

We need to be right, and will do just about anything to convince ourselves that the people who don’t think like we do are wrong.

“I see it far more in the USA than any other country that I’ve been to so far. The need to always be right, the need to feel superior over others, the need to be better than others.” ~ Jay Stephan

Along with this comes a refusal to listen to any perspective that doesn’t jive with ours.

A righteous person would listen, take time to understand, move forward with compassion, and probably have more face-to-face conversations – at least a zoom meeting – but that’s not what we’re after.

Today, us Americans are less interested in truth, and by proxy more susceptible to bullshit, than we’ve ever been.

We shouldn’t blame this on social media. Facebook doesn’t divide countries, people divide countries. These new-fangled gadgets might have hastened our departure, but we’re the idiots behind the wheel.

Moving forward, I’ll no longer be ruffling feathers on social media. I’m now on Instagram, posting videos of my chickens and enjoying the relative peace that’s come from a little extra head space.

I still feel a responsibility to engage political conversations, especially with those who have taken to hate speech. But I’ll need some time to remind myself of the ways of Jesus, and the cultural forces that get in the way. I’ll also need some time to think about why being right is so important to me and so many others, and how I might do my small part in bringing something more righteous into these conversations.