The Value of Life

The questions we face in dealing with Westerners is the underlying mythology.

While you could easily round up a bunch of them and get each one to profess a different set of moral values, all of them together will remain within the matrix built on Western mythology. Even criminals who reject mainstream value systems will stand on a form of self will that is peculiar to the West. Listen to what they say and how they say it. Everything remains painted in the same color scheme.

Choosing the ANE mythologies results in an entirely different matrix. The first and most obvious issue is the otherworldly assumptions. Despite lip service, Westerners reflexively place the afterlife within this realm of existence. ANE folks reject anything like that as folly. The latter finds the otherworld so completely other that there is no comparison.

We live in the prison of shadows, where life itself is fundamentally deceitful. We do not value our lives in this world. Human life is not precious, though we have a duty to preserve it when we can. The issue is not at all a matter of the value of human life, but the necessity of divine justice. We are willing to sacrifice something in our lives for the sake of another because that’s the mission, not because life matters in itself. The mission of revealing mercy is what matters.

Can the mission ever mean taking life, too? I can’t answer that for you, but for the ANE folks broadly, the answer is “yes.” Tell me you won’t kill a rapist grabbing your children or your spouse. You have to decide, but you can’t say it’s wrong for someone else to defend life that way. That’s part of our mission thinking; each of us implements divine justice in our own way in accordance with our calling.

At the same time, if killing is truly necessary in your mission, it should be without anger or any other human passion. “Nothing personal, but if I can’t get you to stop destroying, I’ll have to kill you.” That’s written into the Code of Noah. You have to be ready to go as far as necessary to prevent someone destroying social stability as God defines it. Taking life need not be traumatic for the one who has to pull the trigger.

This is part of why we have such a boatload of PTSD cases among war veterans. The troops in the field are operating under a Western mythology. This world is all they have, as they see it, so all that death and killing tears them down inside. Not that Westerners can’t do it sanely. I had friends return from Vietnam without trauma in their souls, but they were sane and mature when they went over. Those who came back messed up weren’t very stable when they left. As time goes on, Western Civilization eats her children by making each generation progressively more stupid.

My generation saw the death of the original American Christian otherworldly viewpoint. It literally died out with my grandparents (though the effects were uneven across the social geography). Those folks believed in Heaven as totally above this realm. Their Christianity was still pretty weak in many other ways, but the single key was that assumption about reality, that there was another realm altogether. They faced sorrow and trauma on the promises of a better world in the afterlife. While the words are still part of Christian talk these days, it’s nothing like it was when I was a child. My parents’ generation was far more worldly.

But from a full ANE approach, you should be able to kill anyone, even your closest family and friends, if it’s necessary for the mission. No one but God can tell you when that’s the case, but if you find yourself wrapped up in valuing this life too much, you’ll fail the mission. You’ll fail holiness and you won’t understand reality. You won’t be able to face death with faith and confidence.

It’s not a question of bringing the gospel into disrepute, if reputation is measured by this world. The world killed Jesus and He went gladly, officially marked today as a criminal. We don’t seek the world’s approval. And while Jesus did raise the dead, virtually no Westerner understands why: Because their death was morally unjust, the result of a vast moral injustice brought about by perverting the ancient Laws of God in the one nation that should have known better. Following the rules means nothing at all if you don’t understand the underlying fabric of justice in Creation. The Judean leadership were Hellenized and had no clue, so they could scarcely do anything right. King David didn’t sin by taking the lives of those who opposed his mission from God. If the mission requires it, you can raise the dead, too.

Your mission comes first. If Ultimate Reality as revealed by God, and His divine justice, isn’t more important to you than your life and my life, then you don’t understand. You can’t claim to love me with His love if you don’t love His Laws even more.

Our values are not their values, and we should never pretend they’ll understand.