Taming Which Strong Man?
Traditionally, when we are speaking about taming or binding the strong man, it would be relating to spiritual warfare and drawing, with fairly free interpretation, from Scriptures such as, Psalms 18, 11, 35, 91, 56, 124; Is. 49; Jn. 12 and more.
In my previous blog I hinted at discussing the use of the imprecatory Psalms as it relates to defeating our real enemy who is the Satan- the Hebrew includes the definite article the (ha-Satan). In English we tend just to say Satan as a proper noun, but I suggest that loses emphasis on who he is as our accuser or adversary. It can leave us with caricature like images of him as Hot Stuff the little Devil, or alternatively artistic depictions of him that are not always helpful. His modus operandi helps me to better understand when I am dealing with him.
Psalm 109 calls upon God to ‘appoint someone evil to oppose my enemy, let an accuser stand at his right hand (vs 6).’ In a spiritual warfare sense, “let him stand at his own right hand and accuse himself, since he is the accuser.”
In times of spiritual oppression, or attack, I think it is perfectly valid and effective to pray that God opposes evil with evil. I.e., that evil is inverted upon itself and upon those who would perpetuate it. That the Lord Jesus would rebuke the evil one on our behalf. That, in the words of the Lord’s prayer, the Lord protect us from the evil one. To pray the imprecatory Psalms as weapons in spiritual warfare. I would affirm that as a posture and practice even in geopolitical turmoil, where we are unable always to discern what exactly the “powers and principalities” behind a conflict might be.
Our general posture as it relates to spiritual warfare (see Eph. 6) is to clothe ourselves with the weapons of spiritual war, to put on the full armour of God and lean toward Jesus, trusting in Him to take care of the things and the powers and the forces that we cannot take care of. Our posture is not to battle against the darkness, nor to have to name every possible power and potential place of bondage, nor to spend endless hours in prayer against the dark forces. That, for me, would be to stray into the territory of superstition and to elevate the realm of the Satan to a status he just does not possess. It would also hint at minimising the power and authority that Jesus has, to act fully on our behalf. It would be indicative, not of great faith in Jesus, but of a lack of faith in Jesus to resolve that which I just do not and sometimes simply cannot know.
Midjourney Image - In the Style of Francisco Goya
I have never understood the Gnostic elevation of the evil one to God-like status that would aim to move us to fixation on darkness rather than move us, by the Spirit of God, toward the things of the Kingdom. Our posture in times of spiritual attack is to lean toward the light, rather than to launch a full-frontal attack on the darkness.
The latter posture would, ironically, by its desire to defeat darkness, place itself right along the path of bondage to dark forces, the very thing it wants to escape, by granting them a power they do not possess unless we, by our posture and actions, grant that power to them. ‘Greater is He who is in me than he who is in the world (1 Jn. 4:4).’ The Satan only has power over us if we somehow grant that power to him.
Where a Skewed Posture may Take Us
More than two decades ago my wife Anida and I were caring for a very depressed twenty-four-year-old friend. One weekend when she was under our care, she climbed into her car and drove away without telling us where she was going. She was missing for hours. We were deeply concerned and praying for her safe return, as well we should have been, since she later told us she went looking for a building to jump from, but the security guards of the building she entered would not let her into the building.
From this place of concern, we invited others to pray with us for her safe return. One person who we asked to pray with us said to Anida; “I cannot pray with you unless you give me far more information, I need to know what I am up against”. Anida shared the sentiment with me, and I said, “Please tell her that if she cannot just pray with us for Debbie’s safe return, that she really should not bother to pray.” Perhaps I could have been more gracious.
In general, when we speak about “taming the strong man,” I need more help from the Spirit of God to tame my own felt need to be the strong man, than I have concerns around dealing with the Satan when he is ‘prowling around looking for someone to devour (1 Pt. 5:5).’ We deal with evil, when it comes our way, in the authority that we have been given over it.
Geopolitics & Strong Men
We live in an era when political strong men are re-emerging across the planet. I could name them, but that would serve little purpose other than to further divide what is already divided. From Poland, through Russia, North Korea, China, the South Americas and the Netherlands, to the United Kingdom and to the USA & Canada, the re-emergence of fascist thinking and rhetoric (at the very least) is alive and well.
The - now normative - pejorative reference to “the other.” My political opponent who shares love of the same country and same people as me becomes my enemy rather than my opponent. We are very far removed from the statesmanlike debates and mutual respect and agreement to disagree with one another, from just a decade or two back. We have moved lock stock and two smoking barrels into the territory of slander, mudslinging and muck raking. It ought to be deeply disturbing to anyone who follows the Way of Jesus. Yet, some would seem to be mightily impressed by this, as a display of power. Powerful and muscular men who will resolve it all by (in the words of N.T. Wright) “bringing in the tanks.”
The use of this type of rhetoric by not a few in the Church is concerning. Those who would adopt a similar narrative and rhetoric to the political sphere, whereby the Muslim, or Jew, or Secularist, or Wokist, or Democrat or Republican, or whomever my own self-righteousness allows me to target as the “other,” becomes my enemy. Not someone I might have disagreement with, but my enemy.
Never mind the image of God that resides in all humans, never mind the Sermon on the Mount, forget the Parable of the Good Samaritan, and bypass the fruit of the Spirit. I have decided that the dude with the turban, or the rainbow flag, or waving his chosen national flag, is the one who needs to be blamed for all that is wrong. And, of course, I am right.
Much of this narrative in society, the political sphere and the Church, is accompanied by what I can only call bizarre machismo. The return of the big bad bully is fully with us. Sneering, smug, often patriarchal and dismissive of any perspective other than my own prejudicial, belittling and occasionally supremacist perspective. It leads to an inevitably violent society. And now, after me writing this blog, of course it has. Charlie Kirk is no longer with us, and no one wins. How deeply tragic.
Individual so-called Christian Nationalists have openly acknowledged that should their preferred gangsters accomplish what they hope for, women will lose the vote. A real and dangerous attempt to drag society backward to prior to the late nineteenth century. As a Church leader I need to hold the tension because there are differing perspectives on these things. It comes the time though, when one has to say that one perspective is in line with Gospel values and the other, clearly, is not. It comes the time to speak. Of all possible voices surely, the Church is the one that is most clearly called to speak truth to power. But what we speak cannot be trading insult for insult and hatred for hatred.
I grew up in apartheid South Africa and suggest that I understand “Christian Nationalism” better than most. I carried a rifle for the Christian Nationalist apartheid government. There was nothing that was Christian about it and less that was nationalist in any national identity building sense. Somehow nationalism never is nationalist, because it always favours one internal group over another. The apartheid version of it was aimed at separatism and division rather than its rather bizarrely ironic slogan, which was “Unity is Strength (Ex Unitate vires).” I understand threatening, finger waggling, totalitarian, and demagogic old men only too well. I spent thirty-one years of my life navigating their threats, their actions and their bluster before it fell apart as all skewed ideologies eventually do.
None of this is to suggest that controlled immigration is unimportant, nor that Nation State sovereignty is unimportant, nor that responsible border control and protection of citizens of a country is unimportant. Nor even that sovereignty over one’s own body is unimportant. None of this to say that burgeoning and bloated bureaucracy does not need streamlining to save huge and unnecessary expenditure. But hateful, racist, pejorative rhetoric and indeed, action cannot be sanctioned and advanced by the people of the Way. It simply cannot. If the political sphere can do no different than trade insult for insult, slander for slander, then, as the Church of Jesus Christ, it is ours to model the difference.
Taming my own “Strong Man”
For anyone reading this blog who does not know me well there might be the temptation to think I am a pastor-theologian in the mode of the caricature of Jesus as Swinburne’s “pale Galilean.” A sort of gutless, ethereal creature lacking any spine or inner strength, but with a significantly bleeding heart, for ‘the least of these, my brothers and sisters (Mt 25:40).’ Those who know me better might chuckle or shake their heads in dismay at the thought of such a thing. A heart for the least of these is true enough, but the rest, not so much.
The truth is far closer to me having to continuously battle my own inner strong man. I am a leader, a reluctant one, but a leader, nonetheless. And in my life, I have done all the things that these emerging strong men deem as so extremely important for “manly men” to do.
Sometimes fun, good enough and entertaining past times, but, in the greater scheme, unimportant things that I have had the privilege of doing; like playing golf off a single figure handicap for many years – although I do now in my early sixties tend to hack off a more middling handicap. Playing representative rugby in South Africa, in the front row of that game, would be another “manly” thing I have done. For those who do not know, the front row of rugby is the reserved domain of very strong men. That in a game played by strong men, in a country dominated by strong men, who currently dominate that game, which is still played by very strong men. I will cut it short at asking you how much you can bench press, since that would be rather pathetic. But unbelievable as it may seem, that is where we often find ourselves now.
Then too, I did things that were not fun at all, but in this narrative are also deemed as the “marks of a man.” Things like seeing armed conflict in unwilling but obligatory service of the Afrikaner Christian Nationalist government of the time. Although deemed as a mark or badge of honour, I am unconvinced that it necessarily is always so. Not all conflicts are just. I would have preferred not to have seen, nor to have done those things. There is no glorying in war, despite what some may say. My posture leans unapologetically toward pacifism, even though I begrudgingly accept the concept and need at times of just war in defence of nation and humanity. The redemptive direction of Scripture leans toward pacifism and it is here that I find myself, even though my wife in jest has said to me, “You might be the most violent pacifist that I know.”
My point is that I have done all those things and more, that would seem to be so very important in a particular narrative. A narrative created for “manly men.” These things are, in the Kingdom scheme of things, utterly devoid of importance and at worst a bad caricature of misguided and muscular Christianity.
Anytime this kind of rhetoric comes from Church leaders, we have syncretized our faith, and our message is no longer the message of Jesus’ Kingdom.
We are the people of the Sermon on the Mount. That is the Way and that is His Way and our Way.
Now is not the time to remain silent. The people of the Way must speak in the Way of the Way and about the Way. Our power is vested in our apparent powerlessness. The Kingdom of God is inverted. All who have ears to hear and eyes to see what is playing itself out in society and in the Church, speak at whatever level you have influence to speak. As you consider doing this, may the Lord grant you a soft heart and a firm backbone.
Midjourney Image - In the Style of Francisco Goya