Civilizationally, this is what we have done. Constantine, the Crusaders, the Reconquista, the Conquistadors, and the British Empire all bore the Cross. Europe at its most resplendent, most confident, and most beautiful was Christian. The American Empire was Christian throughout its rise to power. Manifest Destiny doctrine was explicitly Christian.(8)
Christianity echoes not only throughout our history, but through our myths and legends as well. Though they are no longer strictly “oral,” our tales are steeped in Christianity. King Arthur sought the Holy Grail. Robin Hood robbed abusive clergy, but said his prayers and confessed to Friar Tuck. Cowboys and Californian adobe mission churches go hand-in-hand. Chivalry and noblesse oblige are fundamentally Christian doctrines.
SCRIPTURA FRACTA
“Wait,” you say, “empire and chivalry are well and good, but those come with lots of violence, don’t they? Doesn’t Jesus say not to fight?”
Well, yes and no. And I understand why that’s a hangup for a lot of fellas.
When I was in college, my younger brother and sister came to visit me. We had a fun night out and went back to my apartment. As we came in from the parking lot, some scholarly neighbors on a balcony took a shine to my sister. They were rebuffed, which seemed to offend them. They followed us to my apartment, where they proceeded to try kicking the door in until I’d retrieved a pistol. They decided whatever they’d come for wasn’t worth a bullet.
Was I wrong? Did I violate the command “do resist not an evil person (Matthew 5:39)?”
You can contest the context of the verse,(9) conduct endless exegesis, balance the verse against Luke 22:36 or Romans 13:4, dig through translations, and try to hammer it into something else all you want. Ultimately, I had clearly resisted evil people.
But I will never accept that was wrong. I cannot get my head around the idea that I should have let goons kick in my door to beat my brother and rape my sister without resistance. There is some base belief in the right to defend myself and my kin that I can’t even explain. It’s etched into my biological firmware; it is out of the reach of consciousness and precedes all religion and all philosophy. I will accept no dogma which asserts otherwise. I physically can’t do it.
So, how do I square this with being Christian? How do I square this with “resist not the evil person” and “turn the other cheek” and “he who lives by the sword shall die by the sword”? There are Scriptural arguments to be made,(10) but in this context, I want to focus on one in particular: Scriptural corruption.
(If you’re already Christian - Catholic or Protestant - buckle in, this is going to load-test some core beliefs)
Most major Christian sects hold that the Bible is the literal word of God. It was divinely inspired and is therefore perfect. It cannot or should not be edited. “Biblical” is the ultimate standard of truth. God would not allow for his Word to be corrupted by humans.
But, empirically, this has already happened.
To begin with, the Biblical canon has been compiled by the Church (or Churches, if you will). It was nearly 400 years after Christ that the first canon was settled at the Council of Rome. While it is possible that the Church discharged these duties more faithfully than their other duties, are you willing to stake your soul on it?
If you are, how do you explain the deep differences in translations? For one example relevant to our martial theme - why do translations of the 5th commandment differ between “murder” and “kill”? You can find an easy comparison across translations here. Those are NOT the same word and translations that choose differently do NOT mean the same thing in a very important way.(11)
Even within translational clades, there are differences that are difficult to explain if God had one version in mind. The most historically significant is the Apocrypha: the five books of the Bible cut by Martin Luther.
Why would Luther cut books that glorify violent rebellion to tyrants (Maccabees) and hold human knowledge to be a gift from God (Wisdom)? And then double down with sola scriptura doctrine?(12) “This is the only source of truth,” is literally cult programming.
More important even than Luther’s motivations are God’s. Why did God allow it? Depending on whether you’re Catholic or Protestant, God either allowed heretical books to be included in the Bible for a millennia before Luther or allowed Luther to selectively edit his message to creation. The canonical pedigree of additional denominations like Eastern Orthodox and LDS is even more complex. China is actively editing the Bible to conform to Communist pedagogy.(13)
This extends not only to what was cut, but to what may been added. If you were going to fight a group of people and you had the ability to edit their holy documents, what would you add? “Don’t fight this guy”? Or, rephrased, maybe,“resist not the evil person”?
Occam’s Razor here simply suggests that Biblical Scripture (even Scripture originally inspired by the divine ) is subject to human error and corruption (whether human, demonic, or otherwise).
So, how do you practice Christianity without the Bible?
RECONSTRUCTED CHRISTIANITY
Now, it is not my position that the Bible should be thrown away in its entirety, but for the sake of argument, let’s assume that we had to reconstitute worship of Yahweh and Jesus Christ without it. What would that look like?
At first pass, it feels like a monstrous task. Modern practitioners of Anglo-Saxon paganism struggle to recreate their rites despite surviving books and records. But books and records - including the Bible - are not the only source of truth. We still have tradition, history, ontology. We still have myth - stories about how God and the world work.(14)
If you’ve read this far, I expect you know some of this myth. Victorian England, Frontier America, Arthur’s Roundtable, or the Knights Templar are illustrative. All of these cultures had more in common with each other than with the soft rock church parodies that pollute our suburbs. Your reflexive understanding of their values systems is probably correct on key points. They exercised moderation in sexuality and violence. They helped those weaker than them.(15) They went to church and took their faith seriously.
They believed not in egalitarianism, but in hierarchy. They built feudal and bureaucratic systems overseen by powerful aristocrats.(16) These empowered leaders were expected to use their wealth and power to better their societies. Noblesse oblige was a moral mandate.
These were also violent men. They were capable of exercising dominion and willing to do so. They conquered and tamed. They tore down their enemies’ walls and built up their own. Behind the walls they built, protected by their swords, guns, and armor, was not just domination, but protection and gentleness. Chivalry was not just a set of jousting rules. They loved their neighbors and their families. They were proud of who they were.(17) They prayed for their enemies, perhaps, but without pretending they were not enemies.