Athens, the Hater of Men and Wrecker of the World
In Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings, Aragorn declares that in the caverns of Isengard, Saruman was breeding an army that had one purpose--to destroy the world of men. Athens is Isengard. It begins as a city with an appearance of wisdom and light; it ends seeking to wipe men off the earth.
We have seen that Athens is racked with internal conflicts in its view of man. Unable to be certain as to what constitutes the dignity and distinctiveness of man, Athens always tends to play a reductionist game. It seizes upon one or a small cluster of human attributes as representing the genius of what it means to be a human being. Then it turns around and persecutes to the shedding of blood those who either have those attributes in attenuated form or who do not have them at all.
Therefore, within the heart of the Unbelieving Mind lies the root of all racism (“we are superior, you are the barbarously inferior—that is, sub-human”); all nationalism (“our nation is the most important reality, our god incarnate—before it, all others must give way”); and all other “isms” which divide the human race into the truly human and the less-than-human. Thus, there is a perpetual tendency within the thinking and actions of Athens to divide and conquer the human race.
But there is another recurring theme within the mind of Athens. Since Athens refuses to recognize the Creator God, and therefore the order of creation, there is a second perpetual tendency within Athens and that is to subject all mankind, to enslave all mankind, to the rest of the creation by reversing the creation order thereby seeking to abrogate the commands of God. Since Athens will have none of the Creator, it will have none of His commands.
The Living God commands man to be fruitful and multiply abundantly, fill the earth and subdue it. Athens promulgates an opposing command: stop multiplying, withdraw from the earth, and make yourselves subject to the world and its creatures—let them and their concerns rule over you, such that your lives are to be ordered, structured, and ruled over by nature. (And a sinister corollary is inevitably added—if you don't do this willingly, we, the elite, the government of all governments, the king of all kings, will make you do it.) Should you have children? Nature says not—therefore, you will obey its rule. Should you discover the earth's natural resources, exploit them, enhance them, and manufacture from them food and endless technologies not only to sustain man, but to enhance his standard of living as the vast potential of the creation is actualised? Nature says not—therefore, you will obey its rule, and live in hunger, poverty, squalor and disease. If man does not work assiduously to subdue nature, Nature will subdue man.
Why does Athens always end up hating humanity, loathing its existence, seeking to destroy it? There are two reasons. Firstly, Athens is truly diabolical in spirit: the city under the control of the Devil and his hosts. The Devil hates mankind with an unending inveterate malice. Since man bears God's image and is in His likeness, the Devil's complete being is consumed with rage and hatred for man, seeking to destroy him utterly from the earth—thereby effacing the image of God in man once-and-for-all. The Devil is the animus of Isengard. A large part of the eternal torment and gnashing of teeth in Hell comes and will come from men being subject to the unremitting eternal personal malice of the Devil—without end, without hope, and without escape. In the present, the more the spirit of Satan infuses into Athens, the more schemes and mechanisms will arise to humilitate, dehumanise, and oppress mankind—but always the schemes begin with the cloak of sweet reason and a professed love of and regard for man.
The second reason why Athens is misanthropist arises from its rejection of both God, and of man being in God's image. Whereas Jerusalem presupposes the absolute authority of God to create and specify, and of man's glory flowing from his special ability to serve as God's servant in the world, Athens must search for the ground of man's dignity within the very creation itself. This inevitably results in some aspect of creation being turned into an idol, being deified, such that it is regarded as the locus of all truth, authority, and meaning. Everything else is to be subjugated—including all human aspiration, goals, dreams, hopes—all culture, all the rest of human endeavour. To the extent that it is not subject, it is cast as blasphemy against the (current) idol; it is loathed; it is to be destroyed. Moreover, as Athens perverts the created order, the creation becomes disorderly, destructured and chaotic. Men suffer terribly as a consequence.
Several decades ago China determined that it was overpopulated and that its biggest threat was a burgeoning population for which the government, the state, could not provide. Since the State had assumed the role of providential provider, of god, and since it was manifestly failing in its pretentious ambitions, it passed a law which overtly sought to abrogate God's law-command to be fruitful and multiply. So the “one-child” policy was promulgated and implemented. That policy, still in force, is now causing untold disruption, disintegration, and degradation within China. This will only increase. Firstly, subsequent pregnancies once you had had your one-child had to be terminated. This has led to a sky-rocketing of abortion in China—the first misanthropic fruit. Secondly, as a result of the policy there is a growing imbalance between men and women. One-child-families—and they only have one shot at this, remember—have tended to abort female unborn children. Here is the second evil, misanthropic fruit. Females are sub-standard, sub-human when compared to men. Why the preference for male children? They have a better chance of providing for the parents as they age and for increasing the standard of living of the one-child-family. Third, the numerical imbalance between men and women has meant that a growing proportion of Chinese men will never marry. This is the third misanthropic fruit. Consigned to be culturally sterile, unable to bear and raise children legally, they consign themselves to perpetual adolescence, joining male gangs, becoming involved in the criminal underworld, drugs, prostitution, and other socio-pathic behaviour. Youth crime—male youth crime—is rising dramatically in the Middle Kingdom. Finally, the hatred of women is rising dramatically. The rich can still marry—they can “purchase” brides—and being purchased, women become degraded, entering the pathology of slavery. And for those who are unable to purchase, the poorer males, they end up tending to express their misanthropy as misogyny, since they end up resenting and hating what they cannot have—in this case, women.
When Athens—as it inevitably does—attempts to subvert the creation order; when it denies the Cultural Mandate, the end result is the degradation of man.
Jerusalem, however, knows that the Cultural Mandate has never been rescinded. Jerusalem understands that it has a duty to be fruitful and multiply, to fill the earth abundantly, and subdue it. It also knows that in the culture wars between Athens and Jerusalem, the bearing of children within Christian homes, raising them for the service and glory of God, will eventually lead to the triumph of the City of God in the earth. Children are therefore greatly valued and honoured amongst us.
Sometimes younger citizens of Jerusalem ponder how they might best serve God in the days given to them on the earth. They naturally turn their thoughts to the Great Commission: “Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature.” They think of becoming directly involved in, or indirectly supporting, the proclamation and inculcation of God's Word throughout the earth. This is very good. But Christians need to reckon with the reality that the Cultural Mandate is the first Great Commission, and it has never been rescinded. Therefore, the second Great Commission cannot be allowed to replace the first. Rather, the two must be viewed together as two sides of the one coin.
Thus, to bring the Word of God to the end of the earth and inculcate it into the nations such that they are taught to obey every commandment of Christ is to be done in, through and while we are being fruitful, multiplying, filling the earth abundantly, and subduing the creation under God. Or, to put it another way, we cannot hope to succeed in teaching all men to obey Christ's commands, if we, ourselves, ignore the first commandment God gave to man. It is only as we take up the responsibilities of the Cultural Mandate that we give witness to Athens of the true being, nature, honour, and dignity of man. It is only as we take up these duties that Jerusalem experiences and lives out the truth that saving grace restores and rebuilds the original perfection of nature. Anything less is to make a false compromise with pagan idolatry.
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