Biblical Patterns

As I have written in previous postings, when a society is religious for a long period of time but then goes through a period of secularization, the patterns of the religion will still remain. Let's have a look at how important the Bible must have once been to western civilization by observing the many ways in which biblical patterns are still with us.

Have you ever noticed how closely such documents as the U.S. Constitution and the French "The Rights Of Man And Of The Citizen" resemble the Torah (the first five books) of the Bible? What about how the Magna Carta rebukes the power of the English king in the same was as the all-powerful Pharaoh, oppressor of the Israelites, is chastised in the Book of Exodus? There is a very strong biblical influence here.

I believe that the tendency of western countries, particularly America, to be highly legalistic can be traced not only to the Torah, but also to the intricately theological New Testament Letter to the Romans. However, the tendency to bend rules springs from Jesus pointing out that David and his men had once eaten what was supposed to be sacred bread, that the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath.

The founder of modern salesmanship was certainly Jesus, sending out the apostles to "sell" the New Covenant of Christianity to the whole world. This is also reflected in the missionary approach that America, and other countries have to spreading democracy around the world. While long-winded talk shows and speeches can be traced back to the Old Testament Book of Job. The justification of a harsh capitalist system likely came from Jesus' Parable of the Talents, even thought that was certainly not the intention of it.

The clearing of North America by settlers, and driving out the native Indians, closely resembles the settling of the promised land in the Book of Joshua, by driving out the Canaanites. The same can be said of South America, South Africa and, Australia. Many of the settlers, colonists and, conquistadors considered themselves as on a similar mission.

One reason that King David chose Jerusalem as his capital was that it was centrally located among the territories of the twelve tribes. Notice how Washington, Ottawa and, Canberra were chosen as capital cities for similar reasons.

The traditional pattern of immigration to North America, from the Old World to the New World, parallels the moving from the Old Covenant, the law, to the superior New Covenant, the Blood of Jesus.

It doesn't take much to see that rock music is basically a secularization of the psalms, with romance the usual focus instead of God.

The idealized "new man" of Communism is of exactly the same pattern as putting aside the old life and becoming new people in Christ. In the same way, Marx functioned as a prophet and Lenin as the messiah. It was like a secular mirror image of Christianity.

Jesus was the Messiah, who was to later establish the Millennial Kingdom and directly rule the world. Hitler was also very much a messianic figure, who proclaimed a glorious "Thousand-Year-Reich". His campaign against racial impurity closely paralleled the earlier campaign of Martin Luther against religious impurity.

When people cease believing in God, they tend to find something else to believe in. The new thing to believe in for the past century or so has often been ideology and nationalism. The country, or the ideology, or both, become the replacement for God. I pointed out, in my religion blog, http://www.markmeekreligion.blogspot.com/ , that people of times past would consider the global ideological struggles of the past century as mostly nonsensical since they did not involve God, but only how society and economics are ordered.

Just as an example, what is the Quebec separatist movement in Canada? Quebec used to be a very religious place. Today, few people go to church any more and I get the impression that separatism and nationalism is the new "religion".

Faith in human reason has taken over some of the role that was formerly occupied by religion. In the Sixties, there was a faith in the future based on science and technology that seemed to be almost religious in nature. Modern media has made it possible to bring celebrities to a global audience, and adoration of some of these celebrities has much of the fervor of religion.

The apocalyptic prophecies in the Bible, which I described in the posting "The End Of The World As We Know It" on my religion blog, http://www.markmeekreligion.blogspot.com/ , can be seen as a logical fulfillment of the patterns of history. This is what amazed me when I first learned about this subject. I knew enough of history, and of current events, to know that this was perfectly in harmony with historical precedent.

Hitler is the most obvious forerunner of the Antichrist.

The devastating wars of the Last Days are simply a continuation of the world war series, which could also include the Napoleonic Wars.

The attack from the north on Israel has it's precedent in the ancient raids on the area from the Scythians in the north.

The final battle of Armageddon, in which the forces of the Antichrist moving into the Holy Land from the west, meet the great army from the east, very much resembles the Crusaders from the west meeting the Mongols from the east, even though this never actually took place.