Isaiah and America: Does the ancient prophet Isaiah have anything relevant to say to modern America? YES, especially in 2014, as these United States are riven and torn by socioeconomic inequality/injustice/oppression. Persons and groups as different as the, at times, semi-anarchic first leaders of the Occupy Wall Street movement to the religious leader pastor, prophet, Pope Francis, to the political leader, President Obama, to op-ed pundits, have exposed and condemned the massive and widening income/wealth gap between the filthy rich and the exploited poor, between the filthy rich and the shrinking middle class, between high profits and low wages.
Isaiah condemns a pious spirituality that is divorced from doing social justice, Jubilee justice, kingdom of God justice. Such a spirituality ends up as meaningless, worthless worship because it leaves the daily playing field of life wide open for oppressors to run wild. According to Eugene Peterson, translator of the paraphrase, The Message, Isaiah boldly proclaims to Israel "Quit your worship charades." Instead, do justice.
From chapter one, The Message:
My people have walked out on me, their God. . . . I am sick of your religion, religion, religion. . . . No matter how long or loud or often you pray, I'll not be listening. Why? Because you've been tearing people to pieces. . . .
From chapter two:
a world rolling in wealth. . . .
From chapter three:
Your houses are stuffed with what you have stolen from the poor. What is this anyway? Stomping on my people, grinding the faces of the poor into the dirt.
From chapter five:
Doom [Woe] to you who buy up all the houses and grab all the land for yourselves. . . . leaving everyone homeless and landless. . . . Those mighty houses will end up empty.
Doom to you who use lies to sell evil. . . . Doom to you who call evil good and good evil. . . . Doom to you who think you're so smart.
From chapter ten:
Doom to you who legislate evil, who make laws that make victims. Laws that make misery for the poor. . . ,on Judgment Day . . .what good will your money do you? . . . . I've eliminated kingdoms . . . far more impressive than Jerusalem [and the U.S.].
From chapter one:
Work for justice. Help the down-and-out. . . . [Jerusalem] was once all justice; everyone living as good neighbors. . . . He looked for a crop of justice.
From chapter nine:
He'll [Messiah] rule over that promised kingdom with fair dealing and right living [justice and righteousness].
From chapter 11:
He'll judge the needy by what is right, render decisions on earth's poor with justice.
From chapter 16:
A Ruler passionate for justice. . . .
From chapter 28:
I will make justice the measuring stick. . . .
From chapter 42:
I've bathed him with my Spirit; He'll set everything right among the nations.
From chapter 61:
I, the Lord, love justice.
Isaiah warned Israel to repent and do justice---repent of idolatry, oppression and immorality, to released the oppressed poor by doing Jubilee justice. If Isaiah were prophesying in the U.S. in 2914, I think he would issue the same warning, the same call for justice.
There are millions of bible-believing Christians in America; some political pundits say the evangelicals elected a president in 2004. If these same evangelicals were acting as salt and light in American society; if they were in mass, doing justice, potentially they could transform American society. But, overall, there seems to be little understanding of nor practice of biblical justice. Instead, white American evangelicals have conformed to ethnocentrism and oppression throughout American history more than they have transformed American society. So it is in 2014, where American evangelicals seem unconcerned about current unjust mass incarceration and unjust economic inequality/oppression.
Why this huge failure? This question has tormented the professional bible translator, Steven Voth (See chapter 14 of The Challenge of Bible Translation). After assisting with two Spanish translations of the Bible and comparing Spanish and English translations of the concepts of justice, Voth noted a glaring flaw in English translations of the term justice. Even the modern NIV English translation has only 134 reference to justice whereas the Spanish RVR has 370 references and the Spanish NVI, 426. The Spanish RVR NT, 101 references to justice; the English NIV, 16.
Then Voth becomes an historical detective to find out when and how and why justice was downplayed in English translations. Some details are lost in the fog of history, but this is what Voth thinks happened. A combination of theology and political ideology pushed personal righteousness to the forefront and social justice into a distant second. Both in Hebrew and Greek, the weaker translation of righteousness were chosen over justice. So, still in 2014, English readers of the Bible are not exposed to the full justice message of the Bible. This allows injustice to reign in American society with little opposition.
January 29, 2014
How Providential! The powerful President and the powerful Pope are pushing the same points: perverse profits, weasel wages, corrupt capitalism, unjust inequality, obscene oppression, pervasive poverty, complicit church. But the Pope is more prophetic and he calls the church to enter into the suffering of the streets.
The answers: lavish love, Jubilee justice, economic equity, church commitment.
The end results: jumping for joy, loving liberation, sharing shalom.
From The Message by Eugene Peterson:
On the prophets (p. 1198), Peterson declares:
The prophets are not "reasonable," accommodating themselves to what makes sense to us. They are not diplomatic, tactfully negotiating an agreement that allows us a "say" in the outcome. . . . Their words and visions penetrate the illusions with which we cocoon ourselves from reality. We humans have an enormous capacity for denial and self-deceit. . . . One of the bad habits that we pick up early in our lives is separating things and people into secular and sacred. We assume that the secular is what we are more or less in charge of: our jobs, our time, our entertainment, our government, our social relations. The sacred is what God has charge of: worship and the Bible, heaven and hell, church and prayers. We than set aside a sacred place for God, designed, we say, to honor God but really intended to keep God in his place, leaving us free to have the final say about everything else that goes on. Prophets will have none of this.
An example from chapter 5; the prophet Isaiah (The Message):
He looked for a crop of justice. . . . and heard only the moans of victims. Doom [Woe] to you who buy up all the houses and grab all the land for yourselves. . . . Taking over the county, leaving everyone homeless and landless. . . . Those mighty houses will end up empty.
The prophet Amos, 5:24, declares: "I want justice---oceans of it."
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