The Folly of Civilization

 

I love skylines. Skyscrapers have always intrigued me. Yet, big cities almost always seem ubiquitous for poverty, homelessness, pollution, crime, blight, heat, congestion, and negative attitudes. There is something both productive and dehumanizing about cities. Cities are where progress and innovation meet moral and civil decline. Cities offer a unique beauty in showcasing human ingenuity, but also present the dark underbelly of human self-interest and immorality. Cities are living contradictions. And then, with the modern nation-states, cities dominate the politics and ebb & flow of even rural communities. It's hard to escape the gravitational pull of large conglomerations of people. 

A part of me actually despises cities for as much as I am mesmerized by them (I guess that's why I now live in Wyoming). Think about this, most large cities tend to attract progressives and political liberals. I suspect this is largely because these are the very places that their policies seem apt to address. Regardless, it's harder to find a conservative big city than it is a conservative fly-over town. Why the political or ideological disparity? Again, I think the altruistic part of liberalism and socialism sees the declination within cities as a mission, though perhaps unconsciously. This mission, centered on advancing human cooperation, is simultaneously a pull of the city on some people and the line of demarcation against others. And as a student of history and theology, I see its cyclical nature. 

In Genesis 4, Cain killed his brother Abel. His punishment was exile -- to wander the earth the rest of his days. There is a redemptive aspect of solitude and the nomadic lifestyle. Wealth building and greed are simply impractical, and reliance is on the land completely -- perhaps on God completely. In biblical terms, exile was quite close to death. Cain's body may have lived, but in exile he was allowed to die to himself for the crime he committed against his brother. Exile was Cain's path to repentance, which is why Paul, in the New Testament, suggests excommunication for severe and unrepentant sinners in 1 Corinthians 5:12. Exile protects the church and gives the sinner a chance to address his or her sin. In fact, the fact that humans physically die is something not afforded to the angels, including the fallen angels, which suggests that they have no exile enough to change their ways. Death has been given to humans less as a punishment and more as an avenue of repentance. Yet death is still our enemy, because without repentance, death seals our decisions against God if we so choose. Christ died and fulfilled the repentant path we have in living for him, and by his death, death died. 

Unfortunately for Cain, we see in Genesis 4:17 that he does not use his exile to repent and instead stops wandering to build a city, built upon his own hubris. He names the city Enoch after his son. Dr. Paul Tarazi suggests that this naming was not so much about honoring his son, but rather that Cain saw his city as his offspring. In this sense, Cain was elevating himself because God had removed himself from Cain in his wandering. 

Genesis 6 tells of human increase and the attractiveness of this for fallen angels, who manage to spiritually procreate with women, creating a race of tyrants called the Nephilim. The Nephilim or giants were not necessarily large in size, but were large in character. These were the original cult of personality personalities (aka "heroes," meaning larger than life, in many biblical translations). These were the Hitlers, Pol Pots, and even Trumps of old (no, I don't think Trump is Hitler, but he does have a rabid cult following). These were the centerpieces of power and control. These were the ones who steered the societal ship into sin and evil. 

In the Second Temple Judaism period (500 BC-70 AD), the literature at the time captured the theological interpretation of era thought, which Christianity is a part. One book that was widely read and offers us insight to theological understanding of early Christianity and Judaism was 1 Enoch (300-100 BC). This book is not usually part of the Christian canon (except in Ethiopia), but was quoted in part in Jude 1:14-15. Nonetheless, it speaks volumes to the context of theology and belief that formed the Christian interpretive lens.

In this book, in chapters 6 onward, the unfolding of what occurred between fallen angels and humans in Genesis 6 is paralleled. In chapters 7 and 8, were are told that human ingenuity was sparked by the fallen angels, setting humanity on is divisive path of simultaneously advancing and corrupting. What Cain did with founding a city was step one and we have repeated this time and time again, including Babel. 

1 Enoch 8 says this...

     And Azâzêl taught men to make swords, and knives, and shields, and breastplates, and made known to them the metals of the earth and the art of working them, and bracelets, and ornaments, and the use of antimony, and the beautifying of the eyelids, and all kinds of costly stones, and all colouring tinctures. 2. And there arose much godlessness, and they committed fornication, and they were led astray, and became corrupt in all their ways. Semjâzâ taught enchantments, and root-cuttings, Armârôs the resolving of enchantments, Barâqîjâl, (taught) astrology, Kôkabêl the constellations, Ezêqêêl the knowledge of the clouds, Araqiêl the signs of the earth, Shamsiêl the signs of the sun, and Sariêl the course of the moon. And as men perished, they cried, and their cry went up to heaven . . .

Note that Azazel taught mankind the ways of war, greed, and lust. Interestingly, Azazel was the name of the so called scapegoat of Leviticus 16:10, which the high priest sends off to the wilderness with the sins of  the people on the Day of Atonement. In other words, the sins that Azazel (and the demons) influenced were figuratively being returned to sender. It's an act of repentance, saying, "Hey Azazel dude, we are so done with this... I want a refund." 

Many of these things that the demons taught do seem innocuous. It isn't wrong to learn about metallurgy or the movements of heavenly bodies. What was wrong was that humans were too new and immature a species to handle these things righteously. The whole forbidden tree in Genesis 2:17 was not a prohibition of permanence, but was rather knowledge that humanity was too infantile to handle. The demons basically gave these things to humans too soon, to their detriment, as desired by the demons. C.S. Lewis's Peralandra offers a great allegory that suggests our Fall being related to our spiritual immaturity in science fiction terms. Read it... It's my fav.

Have we learned anything? 

Look at the environment, economic disparity, and violence endemic in society -- especially cities and large states. We continue to misuse the resources we have been given to govern God's earth, and we often use what we have against one another or to the detriment of others because of our own aggrandizement. We are still not ready for what we have and have attained. Demons still run the show in many ways I suppose. O' Christ come quickly!