static religion in which the God and his temple have become part of the royal landscape, in which the sovereignty of God is fully subordinated to the purpose of the king

(3) The economics of affluence and the politics of oppression are the most characteristic marks of the Solomonic achievement. But these by themselves could not have prospered and endured as they did had they not received theological sanction. So the third foundational element I suggest is the establishment of a controlled, static religion in which the God and his temple have become part of the royal landscape, in which the sovereignty of God is fully subordinated to the purpose of the king. In Jerusalem in this period there is a radical reversion in the charcter of God. Now God is fully accessible to the king who is his patron and the freedom of God is completely overcome. It is almost inconceivable that the God domiciled (sic) in Jerusalem would ever say anything substantive and abrasive. Two observations need to be made here. First, I agree with those scholars who stress the tension between the Mosaic and royal traditions. I do not believe the one is derived from the other but rather that they have different roots and foster quite different visions of reality. Second, the reasons for the disastrous religious achievement of Solomon, I believe, are sociological and not historical. That is, Solomon had this kind of shrine not because he inherited it from the Canaanites or Jebusites but because he adopted and developed it because it served his social ideology. If it had not been inhereited from the older Canaanite shrine as he might have done, he would have easily imported it as he obviously did so many things he needed for his purposes.

In responsible biblical faith the freedom of God is always in considerable tension with the accessibility of God. This tension was sharp for Moses, who tended to stress the freedom of God at the expense of his accessibility. With Solomon that tension has been completely dissolved in the interest of accessibility. Now there is no notion that God is free and that he may act apart from and even against his regime. Now God is totally and unquestionably accessible to the king and those to whom the king grants access. This new dissolution of the tension is asserted in the old poem of reliable presence:

The Lord has set the sun in the heavens,

but has said that he would dwell in thick darkness.

I have built thee an exalted house,

a place for the to dwell in forever. (1 Kings 8:12-13)

God is now "on call" and access to him is controlled by the royal court. Such an arrangement clearly serves two interlocking functions. On the one hand it assures ready sanction to every notion of the king because there can be no transcendent resistance or protest. On the other hand it gives the king a monopoly so that no marginal person may approach this God except on the king's terms. There will be no disturbing cry against the king here.

The tension between God's freedom and God's accessibility is a tricky issue that every religious person and especially ministers would do well to reflect upon. Indeed, the whole point of having relgious functionaries is to assure access. That is the sociological expectation; "Will you say a prayer, pastor?" It is a burdensome irony that the bearer of the same office is the one called to assert the freedom of God which tempers the the notion of accessibility. As it concerns Solomon this tricky issue is resolved in an undialectical fashion. This poem, commonly regarded as in fact from the dedication of the temple, has God now as a permanent resident in Jerusalem. Any abrasion on the part of this God is unthinkable and untenable.

That, I think, is an almost exact description of the "god" of much of contemporary American Christianity, the kind of "god" who can be commanded to bless America as, in fact, he can be commanded in the British Commonwealth to bless the monarch of Britain. Today for tens of millions of mainly white professed Christians he - and for them "god" is HE - is the patron of Trumpian-Republican-fascism or, to hear Trump and his toadies tell it, they're "god's" patron and protector and the only thing standing between "god" and the terrible Joe Biden. Among "traditionalist" Catholics you can substitute Pope Francis for Joe Biden though the Trump is still the same.

And, as with Solomon's use of the Temple cult, Trump's and Republican-fascism's use of "god" is as a means of obtaining power so the billionaires can get more, the poor and destitute and, especially the stranger among us can get shafted.

Anyone who thinks this is unimportant or irrelevant to our lives in the most vital way is simply unaware of the fact that this is the radical counter-culture that has a history of working to oppose what Trump is merely the most recent figurehead of. The secular alternatives have had a uniform history of either total failure here or, where it was applied, of becoming Trump's wet dream of gangster rule with a thin gloss coat of Marxist blather to gull the gullible, many of them with impressive educational credentials and some of them professorships at some of our most reknowned universitites and associations with the official "opposition". If I wasn't having trackerpad issues with this old junker I'm writing this on, I'd go look up what Stephen F. Cohen is up to these days. Not to mention the frequent guests on Putin's RT propaganda machine. 

 

Note: The earlier piece I posted this morning on the Maine Covid-19 outbreak through the "pastor" of Calvary Baptist in Sanford, Maine is certainly not unrelated.  Romans tells us that the way of sin is death and in what results from the actions of such "pastors" I would think we have a pretty good demonstration of the nature of their preaching and actions and the actions that they advocate.  It doesn't say the way of truth and virtue are death, after all.  I have since writing that talked to a member of my family who tells me that there is a family not a mile from here who goes to that "church".  He said he thinks one of the town employees does and that there are children who go to the school district with the children of my town who do.  We were relatively lucky up to this point in Maine, I think our luck is about to break.