This morning we heard from AKMA, his talk was called “The Strong Right Arm That Holds for Peace: Godliness a an Alternative for Empire” He spent a lot of time speaking about the insistence of the first three commands in the Decalogue that we hold no other God or loyalty over, above or against the LORD. We cannot have God on our terms, we cannot devise semi-gods that we can easily mold to our image, God cannot be rallied to our causes…

God is utterly useless to us.

That is, God is in no way to be used for our purposes. God is not our cheerleader, God is the LORD to whom all praise, worship and allegiance is due. God does not tolerate anything that comes between God’s creation who is beloved and God’s self.

This is especially clear in reference to symbols of idolatry. As AKMA pointed out in his presentation the Israelites would not tolerate foreign symbols of other Gods. They didn’t just say you can put your symbols in our cities, but we refuse to worship the Roman Gods, they flat out did not tolerate the existence of Roman symbols within the Holy City. Fast forward to today when the strongest supporters of American symbols (the flag, the pledge of allegiance) are Jews and Christians. At one time we would not tolerate the presence of the symbols of other gods in our communities, much less giving loyalty to them. Now we actually fight to maintain our idolatry!

AKMA goes on to pass out a handout of an old advertisement for a soap called SAPOLIO. This ad had Lady Liberty stretching her arm out over the US and the colonies it was subduing at the time; the Philippines, Cuba, and Puerto Rico. The ad reads,

The strong right arm that holds for peace
Shall with our nation’s emblem go
To darker lands beyond the seas,
And light them with SAPOLIO.

An American product that has won the patronage of the civilized world. The use of Sapolio is a distinguishing mark of enlightened people. Darkness, dirt and disease are driven before it. No nation is stronger than its homes. Sapolio makes bright clean and happy homes, and a powerful, progressive, peaceful nation is the result. Sapolio must clean, that the flag may civilize.

Imitations Disappoint.

the Flyer

AKMA points out that the ad agency apparently wasn’t concerned with offending the religious community at this obvious distortion and there apparently wasn’t any uproar. He goes on to point out the strength of the state to co-opt our language. Words such as justice or freedom are quickly redefined for and by the powers. Many pacifists have spent many a useless hours (myself included) telling people that “if you only understood that’s not the real definition of justice/freedom.” These explainations very rarely make any difference. AKMA points out that we do still have a term that isn’t easily co-opted by the powers, and that is Godliness. Godliness is not a term that can be taken in service of unGodly things (at least for now).

I especially liked AKMA’s challenge that we not solve differences by voting. The idea that some things are not really better than others, and we must decide these differences by numbers is not a Christian idea and rejects the claim that we are really under the authority of God even if God’s will is not popular or is a minority viewpoint. Voting is in a way saying that we hold ourselves and our ability to choose based on how many of us agree over and above God’s commandments.

The Strong Right Arm That Holds For Peace (1:02 – 28 MB)