Shepherds, Bears, and Russia

Vlad Impales the Orphans

One of the images used in Scripture for the state is that of a shepherd.  Far from being a shepherd, the modern secular state is like a wolf that preys upon the sheep.  It has determined that some sheep need fleecing and shearing.  Others will be favoured and will receive the proceeds of the fleecing and the shearing.  The modern secular state divides the flock and sets sheep against sheep. 

When the Bible uses the image of a shepherd for the state it has particular reference to the enemies of the flock who would prey upon it.  The good shepherd defends the flock and protects it from those who would tear it to pieces.  Thus David, when contemplating the threat of Goliath to Israel, reflected upon his skill and faithfulness as a shepherd: he killed the lion and the bear that came up to devour the sheep. 

The more a government turns upon its own people, the more odious and disgusting it becomes.  We have recently witnessed one of the more egregious acts against innocent sheep.
  Vlad-the-Impaler-Putin and his cohorts have acted in a way which has harmed the interests of the most vulnerable and defenceless in Russia. 

Vlad is trying to make a name for himself in the annals of history.  He is wanting to reassert the greatness of Mother Russia.  In principle, there is nothing wrong with such an ambition.  It all depends on how one defines "greatness".  But it rapidly descends to wickedness when you would use the most vulnerable as a tool to prosecute your ambitions. 

The breakdown of family life in Russia is notorious--a legacy of fifty years of secular state atheism.  Unwanted children are dumped in orphanages, where most live out their lives in utter misery.  Many have been adopted--particularly to families in the United States.  But Vlad has decided this must stop.  The interests and welfare of the most oppressed and vulnerable must be trampled upon.  America is the great rival; it is such a bad look having Russian orphans adopted by American families.  Therefore, he has terminated the programme.  Vlad the Impaler is driving his sharpened sticks into the wasted bodies of innocent Russian children, sacrificing them to some megalomaniac Russian nationalism. 

Many ordinary Muscovite Russians know what is going on.  They took to the streets in Moscow to protest Vlad's latest attack upon his own people.  This from the Huffington Post:

MOSCOW -- Thousands of people marched through Moscow on Sunday to protest Russia's new law banning Americans from adopting Russian children, a far bigger number than expected in a sign that outrage over the ban has breathed some life into the dispirited anti-Kremlin opposition movement.  Shouting "shame on the scum," protesters carried posters of President Vladimir Putin and members of Russia's parliament who overwhelmingly voted for the law last month. Up to 20,000 took part in the demonstration on a frigid, gray afternoon. . . .

Opponents of the adoption ban argue it victimizes children to make a political point. Eager to take advantage of this anger, the anti-Kremlin opposition has played the ban as further evidence that Putin and his parliament have lost the moral right to rule Russia.

Victimising the most vulnerable children to make a political point is a wretched business.  The shepherd has become the bear: he has turned upon his own people to feast upon them, feeding his ambitions.   

Putin's critics have likened him to King Herod, who ruled at the time of Jesus Christ's birth and who the Bible says ordered the massacre of Jewish children to avoid being supplanted by the newborn king of the Jews.  Russia's adoption ban was retaliation for a new U.S. law targeting Russians accused of human rights abuses.  It also addresses long-brewing resentment in Russia over the 60,000 Russian children who have been adopted by Americans in the past two decades, 19 of whom have died.

 This is how propaganda in the hands of a venal, self-serving, narcissistic government can lead people up the garden path.  The comparison with Herod is apt.  

Cases of Russian children dying or suffering abuse at the hands of their American adoptive parents have been widely publicized in Russia, and the law banning adoptions was called the Dima Yakovlev bill after a toddler who died in 2008 when he was left in a car for hours in broiling heat.  "Yes, there are cases when they are abused and killed, but they are rare," said Sergei Udaltsov, who heads a leftist opposition group. "Concrete measures should be taken (to punish those responsible), but our government decided to act differently and sacrifice children's fates for its political ambitions."

 There are over 700,000 children in Russian orphanages.  Vlad-the-Impaler is willing to use them as pawns in his little game.  The shepherd has morphed into the bear and he has turned upon his own people.  Lenin redivivus.