NOTES ON TWO TOWERS: FROM BABYLON I TO BABYLON II IN 4,000 YEARS: FOULED ANCIENT ROOTS BEARING FOULED MODERN FRUIT IN THE AGE OF ANTICHRIST – (WITH VIDEO)

1. THE THEOLOGY

SCRIPTURE. “They said, ‘Come, let us build a city for ourselves, and a tower whose top will reach into the heavens, and let us make a [famous] name for ourselves, so that we will not be scattered [into separate groups] and be dispersed over the surface of the entire earth [as the Lord instructed].’” – GENESIS 11:4, AMP

KEY TERM: “TOWER.” ‘Migdal’ or ‘Migdalah’ [וּמִגְדָּל֙]: “From a primitive root [גָּדַל] meaning, ‘To twist, become large or excellent toward honour or pride;’ to magnify, to promote; a raised bed, rostrum, or pyramid; a citadel, a fortress; a building, either round or square, raised to a considerable elevation and consisting of several stories. When towers are erected with other buildings, as they usually are, they rise above the main edifice.”

QUOTATION. “‘A strong place and wonderful was Isengard,’ and long it had been beautiful; and there, great lords had dwelt, the wardens of Gondor upon the West, and wise men that watched the stars. ‘But Saruman had slowly shaped it to his shifting purposes,’ and made it better, as he thought, being deceived–for all those arts and subtle devises for which he forsook his former wisdom, and which fondly he imagined were his own, came but from Mordor; so that what he made was naught, only a little copy, a child’s model or a slave’s flattery, of that vast fortress, armoury, prison, furnace of great power, ‘Barad-dûr, the Dark Tower, which suffered no rival, and laughed at flattery, biding its time, secure in its pride and its immeasurable strength.’” – J.R.R. TOLKIEN, The Two Towers, “The Road to Isengard,” 1954; edited

COMMENTARY. “‘How soon men forget the most tremendous Judgments and go back to their former crimes!’ Though the desolations of the Deluge were before their eyes, though they sprang from the stock of righteous Noah, yet even during his life-time wickedness increases exceedingly. Nothing but the sanctifying grace of the Holy Spirit can remove the sinful lusts of the human will, and the depravity of the human heart. God’s Purpose was, that Mankind should form many nations, and people all lands. In contempt of the Divine Will, and against the counsel of Noah, the bulk of Mankind united to build a City and a Tower to prevent their separating. ‘Idolatry was begun, and Babel became one of its chief seats.’ They made one another more daring and resolute. Let us learn to provoke one another to love and to good works, as sinners stir up and encourage one another to wicked works.” – MATTHEW HENRY, Exposition of the Old and New Testaments, 6 vols., 1708-1710; edited

II. THE TEACHING

Was awakened early on the morning of July 11 (indeed!) and clearly instructed to go to this now powerfully prophetic Scripture for a deep structure exploration of its importance to the America of 2024. So here we go.

THESIS. America retains the characteristics of both “Israel” and “Babylon” in her Spiritual DNA. Depending on what Era of History we are considering, one or the other emerges as predominant. Today, I will argue, that we are vastly more a ‘New Babylon’ than a ‘New Israel.’

To get us started, I shall cull from a superbly thoughtful essay by a Bible scholar and blogger who writes under the name, “TRIGGER.” He holds master’s degrees in theology and New Testament studies from both Duke University and Fuller Theological Seminary. His article is titled, “Is America a ‘New Israel’ or a ‘New Babylon?’ Knowing the Difference Makes All of the Difference” (Trigger 101, Jan. 16, 2017; edited).

My standard BULLET POINT SUMMARY follows.

• PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS. “As a practicing Christian, there are few seasons in America more dangerous for the life and witness of the Church than a Presidential Election Cycle.  ‘Every four years latent disagreements turn into a Religious Civil War with Christian sisters and brothers turning against one another.’  Many line up in Camp Republican, while others march to Camp Democrat. Religious Conservatives speak and act as though God is on their side.  And, though Liberals may not be crass enough to say the same thing back, what they say and do suggests they are thinking it.  In all of this, both sides make missteps in the way they engage with each other and the broader society in governmental politics.”

• THE TEMPLATE. “While I could offer myriad critiques of the ways Christians politick in America, perhaps one of the most significant mistakes made is the most subtle: Using the wrong Scriptural Metaphor to understand the relationship between the Church and the United States. ‘Bluntly speaking, too many Christians either tacitly or explicitly assume that the U.S. is like a “New Israel,” a Christian Nation, when in reality the better metaphor is America as “Babylon.’” Operating in the wrong Metaphor frustrates Christian expectations and hopes for the land they live in and also leads to us at times harming our neighbors who have different beliefs, values, and perspectives from our own.  Of course, seeing this land as a place for a Christian country is as old as the early European settlers.”

• BAD SEEDS. “The view of America having a Special Destiny before God can be seen in the earliest days of the English Puritan Colonies on the East Coast.  In 1630, the first Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, JOHN WINTHROP, famously described their new endeavor in a sermon he wrote on the ship Arbella while heading to the New World. He referenced a phrase from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, saying, ‘For we must consider that we shall be as a Citty upon a Hill. The eyes of all people are upon us.’  Winthrop immediately went on to describe the wager before the New Colony explicitly in the covenantal terms applied to Israel in the Old Testament in Deuteronomy 30: ‘If you as a people are faithful to God’s commands in Scripture, as a people you will prosper; if you are disobedient as a people,I (God) declare to you today that you shall perish; you shall not live long in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess.’ Historian MARK NOLL notes, ‘Most of the Puritans who came to New England … held that the Bible teaches a Congregational organization, albeit an organization in league with the State (i.e. that churches are organized individually but cooperate with godly magistrates to promote the total Reformation of Society’ (A History of Christianity in the United States and Canada, p. 33).’”

• ORIGINALISM REVISITED. “There is just one Problem with the Model of the United States as a New Israel or as a Christian Nation: America’s Founding Documents make such a model unintelligible. ‘Plainly stated, nowhere in the Declaration of Independence or the U.S. Constitution does it state the purpose and call of the United States of America as being to recognize and worship Jesus Christ as Lord of the Universe and as the second person of the Trinity.’  Nor do these Documents reference that the Cause of this new government is to proclaim and embody the good news of Jesus Christ and His Kingdom on this Earth.  Given that THOMAS JEFFERSON was a Deist who famously made his own version of the New Testament that cut out all of the miracles and supernatural elements within it, his references to a ‘Creator’ and ‘Providence,’ point more to a Generic God than one that resembles the god of Christian faith!”  

• AMERICAN BABYLON. “‘The better and more accurate Metaphor for Christians living in America would be to see their situation as akin to living in Babylon [as exiles].’ For those unfamiliar with the Biblical Narrative, Babylon was a superpower in the ancient Near East that forcibly made the Kingdom of Judah a client state in the late 7th century BC, and eventually between 597-582 BC deported masses of Judahites out of Judah and into Babylon (and significant to Jewish history, Solomon’s temple was destroyed); historians refer to this as the Babylonian Captivity. Until the Persians conquered the Babylonians and let the Jews return to home in 536 BC, they lived as ‘strangers in a foreign land.’Certainly, Christians as Christians did not have their Homeland destroyed and get dragged off into captivity in North America; that is not where the comparison lies, and I would not want to disrespect the experience that was Israel’s. ‘Instead, the Idea is that Christians already have a political and peopled identity and it is called the Church.’  The Church is a people that is spread all across the world in many nations whose allegiance is to the God of Israel.  This ‘Politic’ [or ‘Polity’]is more Ultimate than any national identity or destiny.  And the Church’s call is to proclaim a King and a Kingdom more determinative than a liberal democracy.  ‘With such a citizenship and allegiance, Christians cannot help but be like strangers in America and any other land in which they live.’ Trying to usher in a Christian Kingdom via the means, mechanism, and force of a secular State becomes unintelligible, particularly when one worships a crucified God who willingly eschewed and absorbed the violence and domination of the state rather than adopting them as legitimate.”

• TRUE CITIZENSHIP. “‘Because Christians already have a King and are a part of a political body (The Church) that determines and instantiates how they should live in the world with one another as well as others, they cannot claim the United States of America with its Enlightenment values as something of ultimate importance or that it is of Jesus.’ In a society like America where there are large numbers of Christians living with and among people of all kinds of creeds, beliefs, and philosophies, this should ideally help mitigate some of the difficulties of not agreeing in important ways of constitutes ‘the Good Life.’”

DOCTRINAL CLARITY. As I read this lucid and frankly somewhat in-your-face Rebuke of the entire Christian Right, TWO PRINCIPLES came quickly to mind that provide Theological Anchors to the theologian’s argument.

• CAESAR’S DOMAIN. “And Jesus said to them, ‘Whose likeness and inscription is this [coin]?’ They said, ‘[The Emperor Tiberius] Caesar’s.’ Then He said to them, ‘Then pay to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; and to God the things that are God’s.’” – MATTHEW 22:20-22, AMP

• CHRIST’ DOMAIN. “‘For what business is it of mine to judge outsiders (non-believers)?’ Do you not judge those who are within the church [to protect the church as the situation requires]. God alone sits in judgment on those who are outside [the faith]. ‘Remove the wicked one from among you [expel him from your church].’” – 1 CORINTHIANS 5:20-21, AMP

Therefore, it is Scriptural Truth that we American Christians have TWO CITIZENSHIPS: Heavenly and Earthly. The Former is our Spiritual Polity, while the Latter is our Practical Polity, subservient to our Heavenly Covenant. Today, we have Conflated the two into an increasingly vicious effort to Christianize a Secular Order.

‘A Mission never sanctioned by Jesus Christ!’

This is the very Core of today’s Mass Delusion that inhabits and fuels the Strange Fire of the Christian Right. And beloved, it is profoundly, fundamentally, ‘Antichrist!’

III.  LAST THOUGHTS

The greatest tragedy in American History is unfolding before our very eyes, related to the Presidential Election of November 5, 2024. Since the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump’s life on July 13, there has been a ‘Spiritual and Political Sea Change in the American Soul.’

Specifically, both here at home and abroad there is a gathering opinion, a grotesquely false one, that Mr. Trump’s nearly fatal “head wound” (cf. Revelation 13:3) was Divinely prevented. The Grand Delusion here is that Donald Trump really is God’s messenger and savior who alone can unite Americans around his promise to bring peace to the earth.

“He [Antichrist] will speak words against the Most High [God] and wear down the saints of the Most High, and he will intend to change the times and the law; and they will be given into his hand for a time, [two] times, and half a time [three and one-half years].” – DANIEL 7:25, AMP

REMNANT IN EXILE. This fully Christian concept so foreign to the New Christian Right now led and manipulated by Donald Trump’s cooption of the White Evangelical Church must be restored! I frankly don’t think it will, but its acceptance by individual Christians can quite literally save Eternal lives.

In nearly perfect harmony with the review above by Trigger, the renown and greatly respected Lutheran-Catholic theologian and self-described, “Theoconservative,” RICHARD JOHN NEUHAUS puts this issue to full rest so far as I am concerned. His essay is titled:

“Babylon, Then and Now” (First Things, July 18, 2008; edited).

• CONTEXT. “‘Babylon is both ancient history and the stuff of tomorrow’s news.’ The ruins of the once famous (and infamous) City are in the suburbs of Baghdad in today’s Iraq. Well over two millennia before the American Invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Greek writer Herodotus, who is often called ‘the father of history,’ brought the wonders of Babylon to the attention of the West. The name ‘Babylon’ is a Greek form of the original Akkadian name ‘Bab-Ilu,’ which means ‘the Gate of God.’ Both literally and figuratively, Babylon has been the Gate through which many gods have entered history. Today it is Allah, whose more aggressive adherents are forcing the West to ask painful questions about who we are questions about our God and our gods.”

• HISTORY. “‘Now the whole earth had one language and few words.’ As men migrated from the East, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. And they said to one another, ‘Come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly.’ And they had brick for stone and bitumen for mortar. Then they said, ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.’ And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the sons of men had built. And the Lord said, ‘Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; and nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.’ So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.” – GENESIS 11:1-9

• WAR. “‘Ever since then human history has been marked by confusion and conflict, with conflict, as often as not, resulting from a confusion of language.’ Language is more than words and rules of grammar. Language is the architecture and building material of the Narrative Worlds we inhabit. Without language there is no community, and human beings were created for community.”

• BABYLON. “For the writers of the early Christian centuries, such as Augustine and Jerome, Babylon represented the power, arrogance, idolatry, and wickedness of Rome. Also, for Jews of the period, Rome was the New Babylon, for, like the first Babylon centuries earlier, the Roman Empire destroyed the temple in Jerusalem in 70 ad. For both Jews and Christians of the first centuries after Christ, Rome was the persecutor of God’s chosen people and was destined to fall. Babylon represents more than the Empire, the City, and the Culture of the city of Rome. As one authority puts it: ‘Babylon is the sphere of idolatry and worldliness under the temporary control of Satan, a worldliness in opposition to the people and the work of God, a worldliness epitomized first by Babylon and then by Rome. Babylon … is the Antithesis of the Church as the Bride of Christ, the New Jerusalem, and the Kingdom of God.’”

• WARNING. “In the shadow of this tumultuous history, it may seem to be no compliment to speak of ‘American Babylon,’ and it isn’t. But neither is it a matter of taking anti-American cheap shots at the preeminent world power of our time. ‘Rather, it is a matter of recognizing that, for Christians of all times and all places, we are in Babylonian Exile until what St. Paul calls the principalities and powers of the present time give way to the New Jerusalem.’”

CODA. To bring us up to full speed in this Pivotal Year of 2024 in American history, I conclude this about “AN AMERICAN BABYLON,” and our immediate need to slash all ties to the Biblical Seditions of Donald Trump’s Christian Nationalist Movement. ‘All, beloved, all!’

I close with a restatement of DR. STEVEN ANDERSON’S careful identification of just who America is effectively becoming as the nearly inevitable ‘Coronation of King Donald I’ is about to take place.

“Babylon the Great is a World Hegemon, a country which dominates world politics, economics, and culture in the end times. Further, the text of Revelation indicates that it is a unique entity in the world [ἡ πόλις ἡ μεγάλη], ‘The Great Polis.’ It uniquely makes all the nations of the world wealthy, reigns over the nations of the world, imposes its culture on all the nations, and leads them in a massive downward spiral of materialistic depravity ‘that culminates in worldwide worship of Satan and the Antichrist during the second half of the Tribulation Period’ …

IN SUMMARY. “The Book of Revelation describes Babylon the Great as the dominant superpower in the world of the End Times—so dominant, that it actually shapes the culture and economy of the world as it exists at the start of the Tribulation Period. The nature and scope of Babylon the Great’s Dominance is such that ‘only one such entity could ever exist in the history of the world, and there is no doubt that the United States of America is this entity.’ While some aspects of the Prophecy remain to be fulfilled—most notably the Prophecies of Babylon the Great’s attempts to put Christians to death worldwide (Rev 17:6; 18:20, 24; 19:2)—enough aspects already match so as to leave no doubt as to the fulfillment of the rest.” – “The case for Identifying Babylon the Great with the United States of America,” Truth Only Bible, Jan. 29, 2021; edited 

In case you were not listening somehow: ‘Donald Trump is the American Antichrist, and Babylon the Great is his nearly ascendant Kingdom, none other than the United States of America.’ To state it plain: We are building the Second Tower of Babel right here in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. 

Therefore, if you value your relationship to King Jesus, and your witness for Him, and indeed, the well-being of your loved ones, then: Sever all ties to the Lawless One, and his violent political engines of American Tyranny!

And do it today, beloved! ‘As in Today!  Selah.

YOUTUBE: https://youtu.be/s-w6VDJK17E