Ranging from William Parry’s “Jerusalem” (popularized in the hit film Chariots of Fire) to the Social Gospel to Belinda Carlisle’s “Heaven Is a Place on Earth”, modern history has witnessed a struggle to define the proper expression of the kingdom of God “on earth as it is in heaven.” The thunderous return of American evangelicals to the public square in the last fifteen years has brought this matter to the forefront of public discourse. Across the country conservative Christians are rallying to candidates and causes to take up what they believe is their civic responsibility. In recent months an opposite reaction has surfaced with equal zeal to prevent the so-called “New Christian Right” from being successful. While much of this opposition is motivated by anti-Christian thinking, one can detect a genuine fear of what the New Right’s success could do to harm the workings of democracy. (1) It seems timely look to Scripture’s own formulation of this issue in order to know how Christians should regard and engage this perennial issue.
The Bible begins to address the matter very early on-earlier than many might realize. This ancient story is a tale of two cities and it begins with the first siblings. Abel pleased God with his offerings and Cain did not. The jealous Cain murdered his brother and was confronted by God with his crime. Although attention is usually focused on the nature of the mysterious “mark of Cain”, of greater interest should be the nature of Cain’s punishment and Cain’s reaction to hearing of it. “When you cultivate the ground, it shall no longer yield its strength to you; you shall be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth” (Gn 4:12). Cain reacted with fear and dismay (v. 13).
We can understand Cain’s reaction by looking to the respective vocations of the two brothers and to Cain’s subsequent actions. Abel was a herdsman. This is not the day of large feed lots and stockyards. The life of a herdsman was the life of a wanderer, moving from pasture to pasture living off the land. By way of contrast, Cain was a farmer. Today we associate farming with rural life, living in the country in dependence upon the land. In the Ancient Near East, farming was an urban occupation. Though it was not something done within the walls of a city, it required technology-the digging of canals for irrigation and the building of barns for storage. Further, farming made the city possible. With the planting and harvesting of crops life became more stable, facilitating the building of cities. Conversely, farming was dependent upon the city because its ready market and economic infrastructure sustained the farmer’s livelihood.
The conflict between Cain and Abel was not simply a case of sibling rivalry, but it was the conflict of ruralite and urbanite, of wanderer and city-dweller. Cain sought the security of the city, the technological security of man’s accomplishments. This explains his fear of God’s punishment. That this outlook belonged to Cain was further confirmed when he built a city and named it after his son Enoch (v. 17). Naming a city after oneself or one’s progeny was a source of pride and boasting (cf. “Raamses”, Ex 1:11). What is more, Cain is the father of a people with whom technology is associated (Gn 4:22).
The Cainites are set in contrast to the Sethites who include a different Enoch. But this Enoch, rather than having the glory of the city attached to his name, was the humble one who “walked with God” (Gn 5:22) The particular form of the Hebrew verb here connotes not only a manner of life, but going about, i.e., sojourning (e.g., Gn 13:17, 48:15). The early chapters of Genesis, therefore, present a contrast between two peoples-one which builds cities and one which sojourns with God. The contrast is not merely one of sociological interest, for these two lines are in opposition to one another, their corporate lives being organized around antithetical interests as foretold by God in his words of curse upon Satan: “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel” (Gn 3:15).
Michael J. Glodo | “A Tale of Two Kingdoms” | Modern Reformation, 3.5.
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A particularly appropriate application of that solution is the pairing of Parry’s wonderful tune with Psalm 110. This can be found in The Book of Psalms for Worship. Crown & Covenant Publications, 2009.
Nitpicking point: William Parry wrote the stirring music for “Jerusalem”; the bizarre British Israelism of the lyrics is the fault of the mentally unstable William Blake. After all, the only sane answer to “And did those feet in ancient time walk upon England’s mountains green?” is clearly “No!” This is likely not the only piece of lyrical nonsense that has been carried by a great tune over the centuries, but its continued presence even in some modern hymnals ought to be a complete embarrassment to those responsible.
Iain,
Amen.
I have a solution for bad hymnody! 😂