Do not call conspiracy
all that this people call conspiracy;
and do not fear what they fear
nor be in dread.
But the Lord of hosts,
him shall you regard as holy;
let him be your fear,
let him be your dread.
(Isaiah 8:12-13)
And when they say to you, "Consult the mediums
and wizards who chirp and mutter,"
should not a people consult their God?
Should they consult the dead on behalf of the living?
Surely for this word which they speak,
there is no dawn.
(Isaiah 8:19-20)
In the first part of this series, I traced the uncanny resemblance between eighth-century Judah and the contemporary United States. People then as now were filled with fear because of ominous threats from other nations, deteriorating economies, and unstable social and cultural institutions. The reaction of Ahaz, king of Judah, to these insecurities portended our reaction 2,600 years later - placing our ultimate trust in military power. In a tumultuous and terrifying political situation, Isaiah the prophet inveighed against the foolish policies of Ahaz and entreated him and his people to find true security in the promise of Immanuel - God is with us.
But nobody paid attention to the prophet. Isaiah, confident of Yahweh's power to save Judah, couldn't find anyone who cared about Immanuel. In the eighth chapter, Isaiah stands alone, his prophetic counsel ignored. He sees the impending violence and collapse of Judah; he feels the unrelieved suffering of the poor, and anticipates the wailing despair of people who too late will realize that militarism is a false idol that cannot guarantee their security.
How should he - and people of faith today - prepare himself for the difficult times ahead? How did Isaiah and how can we maintain a witness to justice, compassion, and peace in public affairs? Isaiah started with a clear understanding of the attacks on his faith and moral convictions. Isaiah knew he was locked in combat, not with flesh and blood, but with powers and principalities, to use St. Paul's language. And he correctly identified two specific assaults that could destroy his faith and probity: paranoia, and the mystification of morality.
We noted last month that Ahaz focused the nation's attention exclusively on external military threats and the conspiracy fomented against him by the kings of Syria and Israel. Ahaz fanned the flames of paranoia, diverting attention away from injustice, the disintegration of social institutions, and the deteriorating economy at home.
It is perilous to project fears onto external enemies; our domestic problems when left unresolved, fester and break into open, running sores on the body politic. Similarly, we know that individuals who seek to escape personal responsibility by projecting all their problems on other people pay a heavy price in emotional, physical, and spiritual suffering.
Paranoia also eliminates the possibility of peaceful reconciliation between adversaries. Each of us has felt deeply wronged by someone whom we believe acted deliberately to hurt us. As that hurt has festered, we frequently give into the impulse to blame an increasing proportion of our problems on that person. We convince ourselves that our nemesis has no redeeming qualities. In fact, if she or he performed some self-sacrificial act of mercy, we would be absolutely certain that it was done for cynical, Machiavellian reasons. Our paranoia becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, eliminating any possibility of a peaceful and just reconciliation between us and our adversary.
Paranoia is no less destructive in international relations than in personal relations. The history of this nation's relationship with the Soviet Union since 1945 provides clear evidence of paranoia in foreign policy. For the past 35 years, our dominant perception of the Soviets has read this way: limitless appetite for aggression; unrestrained use of military power and terrorism; lying and chicanery; cynical repression of human rights.
It is not surprising that this sinister view of the Soviets has led us to adopt a policy that has depended primarily on weapons and minimized the use of political, economic, and diplomatic strategies. As a 1950 National Security memorandum stated so succinctly, the Soviets despise compromise and "understand only force." The consequence of our nefarious view of the Soviets, which mirrors their sinister view of us, has been an arms race that has brought the entire planet to the brink of a nuclear Armageddon.
If we think about U.S. and Soviet relations from another perspective - one which realistically acknowledges Kremlin-generated violence and repression, but doesn't start with the assumption the Kremlin is the earthly headquarters of Satan - we can consider the Soviet predicament. On its western flank, the Polish economic and political revolt has surely weakened Soviet influence over other Eastern European satellites. Western European countries have agreed to provide bases for 108 Pershing II missiles and 464 cruise missiles which will be aimed at Soviet cities and military installations. On its southern flank, the fundamentalist Islamic revolution which has swept through Iran and other Moslem countries threatens to roll into the Soviet Union, igniting the religious passions of the 50 million Islamic people who live within the Soviet borders.
The ill-considered Soviet invasion of Afghanistan apparently was intended to deal with this Islamic agitation. Unexpectedly, it has turned into a Soviet re-enactment of Vietnam. The USSR cannot pull out without turning the country over to a hostile government. If it stays, it will continue an expensive and bloody war in which it cannot win a clear-cut military or political victory. To the East, the Soviet Union faces China and the prospect that tens of millions of Chinese soldiers could some day soon stand on its border armed with U.S. weapons.
After looking at these facts, we can draw some conclusions about the Soviets that are very different from those which inform our paranoid stereotype of them. First, the Soviets are not all-powerful; the Soviet bear cannot rampage at will throughout the world. Second, what some perceive as aggressive actions may, in large measure, be defensive actions designed to protect the Soviet Union from very real military and revolutionary threats located at its borders. Third, there may be elements of our national behavior that bring out the worst in the Soviets which, in turn, provoke us into further destructive actions.
Sometime ago I asked one of the Boeing Company's top national defense strategists this question: "In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus cautioned us to wipe off the blob of mud on our own face before we point an accusing finger at the dirt on the face of our enemy. Do you think there is any mud on our nation's face we should wipe away before we threaten the Soviet Union any further because of the dirt on its face?" His answer: "No. There's nothing we have done. The Soviets are so sinister and menacing, our only alternative is to develop the next generation of nuclear weapons to protect ourselves."
But Isaiah's counsel about paranoia was: "Do not call conspiracy all that this people call conspiracy." He knew that such an attitude would wreck any possibility of reconciliation between adversaries.
Isaiah warned us against another spiritual attack on our faith and moral convictions - the mystification of morality. Ahaz enlisted mediums and wizards as his top advisers. They were reputed to have the power of foretelling the future through consultation with the dead. These mediums and wizards used mysterious rituals and language to help them peer into the future. Isaiah sarcastically described them as chirping and muttering as they scurried around, mystifying Ahaz and the people with their unintelligible words and arcane rituals.
Although their techniques and jargon were obscure, the content of their predictions was very plain: "Ahaz, we have determined that your decision to buy national security by military power will lead to success and prosperity. You and your people have nothing to fear."
A frightened king and people, trusting in unintelligible techniques and language, took comfort in glowing predictions about the future. Isaiah remembered what Ahaz had forgotten about Israel's wizards. Yahweh had always sternly forbidden consultation with mediums and wizards. It was easy for the people to become mesmerized by the mystique of divining the future and to forfeit their moral and intellectual judgment, making them helpless to discern the moral issues of the hour.
It was easy to allow the chirpings and mutterings to obscure Israel's moral responsibility to act with justice and compassion in the present and to trust Yahweh for the future. In spite of their pretenses of predicting the future, the mediums and wizards usually came up with a scenario of the future that reinforced the policies of those who were in power - and often those policies were contrary to the will of Yahweh.
Isaiah was not mesmerized. He challenged the mediums and wizards. Imagine Isaiah confronting the chief wizard on the way to his weekly chirp and mutter session with Ahaz: "Chief wizard, what are you going to chirp and mutter about today? Are you going to report to the king the statistics on the number of peasants forced off their land by his rich friends? Or the number of widows and orphans who died of starvation because Ahaz invested in a new fleet of chariots instead of grain for the starving?"
The chief wizard is deeply offended by Isaiah's lack of respect. He clutches his robes around him, and with a supercilious sneer, starts in on Isaiah. "I have a Ph.D. in chirping and muttering. I have spent years in necromantic consulting in that interstitial space which is in a time frame beyond all time frames. Why, you are not remotely qualified to advise the king on his policy options."
By this time a big crowd has gathered. Isaiah is boiling over with righteous rage, and blazes at the chief wizard. "You power-hungry fraud. I don't understand what you've said, but Yahweh has given me a very simple and plain message for Ahaz and all of the people: Quit your corruption. Learn how to behave decently. Stop this vicious oppression. Take care of the orphans instead of your chariots. Stand up for the widows instead of your rich friends."
Every generation has its mediums and wizards who enhance their own power by manipulating peoples' fears. This manipulation has some common characteristics: mysterious technologies, and obtuse language that anesthetizes the moral and intellectual judgment of people. Our generation has not escaped the chirpers and mutterers. Some are called strategic defense planners. They and their patrons among politicians, corporations, labor unions, and even the church have for 35 years manipulated our fears.
They do it in several ways. They create the aura that they alone have the technical and professional competence to understand and explain information on what the Soviets and other foreign adversaries are up to. They control this information tightly, sometimes holding it back and other times releasing it - but always when it suits their purposes.
To wit, the Pentagon recently announced it would declassify certain military intelligence and give it to our Western European allies to prove the real nature of the Soviet threat. This was prompted by the growing opposition among Western Europeans to the further deployment of U.S. nuclear weapons in their countries. The strategic planners have left us with a conundrum. If this intelligence is so sensitive, why are they now willing to risk its publication? Or, if it really isn't that sensitive, what purpose was served by locking it up?
Our contemporary chirpers and mutterers also invent euphemistic labels which they paste on policies and weapons to mask their moral significance. For example, it is quite fashionable in national political and military circles to talk about "surgical nuclear strikes" or "survivability in a limited nuclear exchange." There will be nothing surgical about a nuclear attack that could kill the entire population of Seattle in a micro-second. There will be no survivability for the remainder of the Puget Sound population that would die afterwards from radiation and burns.
Isaiah was right - don't be intimidated by the chirping and muttering. Don't forfeit your moral and intellectual judgment to the mediums and wizards. Speak simply and plainly about Yahweh's commandments to do justice and show mercy.
"And when they say to you, consult the mediums and wizards who chirp and mutter, should not a people consult their God?"
Darel Grothaus was the regional director for the northwest of the National Consumer Cooperative Bank in Seattle, Washington when this article appeared. The first of his two-part biblical reflections appeared in the February 1983 issue of Sojourners.
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