On the third day, when they were sore, two of the sons of Jacob, Simeon and Levi, Dinah’s brothers, took their swords and came against the city while it felt secure and killed all the males. They killed Hamor and his son Shechem with the sword and took Dinah out of Shechem’s house and went away. The sons of Jacob came upon the slain and plundered the city, because they had defiled their sister.  –Genesis 34:25-27

Black Lives do matter, so let’s treat them to some Democracy.

There are a few basic ways that humans can work out their differences.  There is the old tribal way, we see illustrated here.  In this scenario when someone wrongs your tribe, you kill the bastards.  Then they reciprocate and the cycle continues.  The other option is to talk things out.  You establish a system of rules and you take votes and everyone agrees to follow the procedure.  This is democracy.

Christians have always been democratic, since the alternative is forbidden them.  Since the council in Acts, we have been working things out with talking.  Though there have been bloody battles, they were battles for doctrine, Istanbul vs. Rome, Catholic vs. Protestant.  I suppose a denomination is a kind of tribe.  You see Paul condemning this sort of thing from the very early days.(I Corinthians 3:4)  And in large part we have gone beyond this tribalism, agreeing to disagree.  This is the founding of America.  Thirteen Colonial Denominations agreeing that they would rather unite against England than be destroyed.

This is not the case with Muhammedans.  To this day they still believe only in tribalism.  Their false prophet claimed that God told him that their tribe would rule the world, because they were better than all the other tribes.  And they have been trying to prove it for 1400 years.  Sound familiar?  It’s so obviously a hack of the Judeo-Christian religion, it’s not even funny.  And it makes you wonder if tribalism wasn’t one day an improvement.  The story of the Old Testament is the story of God’s chosen tribe and their stewarding of God’s word and the fact that from them would come the Messiah.  But the tribal distinction ends with him. (Matthew 10:34,35)

Which is why it’s sad to see the streets filled with mobs demanding ‘justice’ for their tribe.  They use their shouting and aggressive presence, whatever we let them get away with, to strong-arm their way, instead of talking it out.  Let’s say a police officer killed someone with absolutely no reason, he is a murderer.  We have a system in place to deal with such a person.  An investigation takes place, evidence is gathered and each side get’s to present it’s story before an elected  or appointed judge who acts as referee.  If found guilty he may be subjected to a penalty which the people have all agreed to through their elected representatives.  But these mobs don’t care about facts or justice, they spread propaganda  and lies and try to get these people killed in the court of public opinion.  They destroy people’s lives because it suits their ends, because it’s easier than following the rules of public order.  It’s easier than Democracy.

When you go out on the street and start yelling and demanding your way, you are not for Democracy.  You are a tribal thug attempting force and revenge.  You, a small minority, are saying that the system is not capable of delivering justice.  Despite the fact that it is far superior to every form of tribal justice.  It really is much better than in most times and places.  Yet you come waving your tribal banners.  Now you may think this is what happened in the early days of the United States.  We threw a fit and had a protest and we got our way and everything turned out.  Except that’s not what happened.  This was no tribal dispute.  It was Democracy vs. Democracy.  It was a Constitutional Monarchy trying to assert dictatorial powers over Colonial Democracies.  There were years and years of talking it out, between the crown and the colonies.  But the King broke the rules that everyone had agreed to, so the colonies severed ties with him, with words.  But he didn’t like that, so he sent his soldiers in to invade their homeland.  He was throwing a fit. In the end, our Democracy won.  And we have proved ourselves by maintaining a better order on our own.

This stands in stark contrast to these mobs today.  Where is the proof that these people can govern themselves, much less their communities or counties or states?  They don’t change the process by the rules we have all agreed to. They don’t suggest better rules.  They don’t let the process work.  Of course there are problems, so replace them with more order, with a better rule, as the Founding Fathers did, don’t come with your sticks and stones and your tribal revenge.  You should be better than this.  You were certainly exposed to better.  But when you lose the argument you can accept it or you can throw a fit like a child.  Which only proves you even more wrong.  Occupy  Wall Street wanted to rule the world but they couldn’t even maintain basic sanitation in a city park, costing the responsible adults millions of dollars for their temper tantrum.  If your way is so much better, prove it, leave a remarkable civilization in your wake instead of burning cars and buildings.

The Old Testament improved on the tribal rules.  An eye for an eye was restraint.  When your sister is wronged you don’t kill an entire tribe, you can only take what was taken, a tooth for a tooth, life for life.  But ultimately the only way to resolve these conflicts is the Gospel.  Until we are at peace with Creator God, we can’t be at peace with our fellow man.  We European peoples are mostly not engaged in the Game of Thrones free-for-all.  But a lot of the world still needs  Jesus. Until they find him they continue to fight his children and each other.   Jesus came to bridge the divide between each man and his God, each tribe and his God.  And as members of Christ, we are one in him.  It is the only way.