‘Occupy Leviticus?’ An Idea Whose Time Has Gone

By Neil Earle

With the “Occupy Wall Street” movement still raging and words such as “class war” being bandied about in North America, it’s no surprise that a former parishioner of mine from north of Sudbury, Ontario – the rugged Canadian bush – called up. He reminded me of some Bible Studies I had conducted 25 years ago in Calgary, Alberta.

Frank R. is the kind of fellow many of you would like – a combination gold prospector, geologist and film-maker and all around great guy. A true entrepreneur if ever there was one and a man not afraid to pay the price by hiking into the “bush” occasionally to see if there’s enough gold laying around to make his trek profitable.

The Party's Over!

The internationally respected geneticist David Suzuki of the University of British Columbia is a household name in Canada for his 32 year broadcasting on the CBC show “The Nature of Things.” From 1969 to 2001 he made the complexities of science easily understandable to the average citizen. Here is an excerpt from his November speech to the Occupy Vancouver movement:

My generation and the boomers that followed have lived like reckless royalty and thoughtlessly partied like there’s no tomorrow. We forgot the lessons taught to us by our parents and grandparents who came through the Great Depression – live within your means and save some for tomorrow; satisfy your needs and not your wants; help your neighbors; share and don’t be greedy’ money doesn’t make you a better or more important person.

Well, the party’s over. It’s time to clean up our mess and think about our children and grandchildren.

The laws of physics tells us we can’t build a rocket that will travel faster than the speed of light…Biology dictates our absolute need for clean air, clean water, clean soil, clean energy, and biodiversity for our survival and health.

These are laws of nature and we can’t change them. We have to live within their boundaries. Capitalism, free enterprise, the economy, corporations, currency, markets and regional borders are not forces of nature. We invented them. If they don’t work we can and must change them.

Instead we try to alter nature to fit our priorities. We should be looking for ways to make our systems work with nature, not the other way around.

That’s a message that’s starting to emerge from the Occupy movement. Although not all corporations are bad, many of them, and the super-rich who run them, are increasing their wealth at the expense of generations to come – exhausting resources, extinguishing species, and poisoning air, water and soil. The costs of these problems will be most strongly felt but successive generations to come.

Corporations may produce things that we need and that are good for society but their real mandate is to make money. Corporations often go for the lowest standards of medical care, wages and environmental regulations because it’s all about maximizing profit.

We need democracy for people, not corporations; we demand social justice and we want to recognize and protect our most fundamental needs – clean air, clean water, clean soil, clean energy, biological diversity and communities that support our children with love and care.

What he called me up about in light of the obscene debt loads governments and citizens in the Western world are now carrying had to do with the laws on debt release and land Sabbaths found in a book few people study – the Biblical book of Leviticus.

God’s Economics?

When Yahweh, through Moses, reorganized the nation of Israel after the Exodus from Egypt he set up a political-religious system variously called the Law of Moses, or Torah or just “the law.” Some of these edicts related to managing the economic system. The most practical of these were the laws relating to the Sabbatical Year where the land was to lie fallow every seventh year (Leviticus 25:1-7) and the thinking that flowed from this. Even the weekly Sabbath rest was a reminder that Israel had duties to God and family as well a obligations to the environment.

At any rate, seven sabbatical years led to the time of Jubilee when everyone was to return to his own original family property (25:13). Most striking to today’s readers is the law that forbade the Israelites to charge interest to each other (25:36-38). And – the piece de resistance in today’s coverage of the Occupy movement – the cancelling of debt in the seventh year.

Release from Debt

In the book of Deuteronomy, which was given just before Israel was poised to inherit the Promised Land, these rules were reiterated – no loaning of interest-free money and the cancelling of debt every seventh year in a Jubilee Cycle, the Year of Release, tied to the sabbatical year. “At the end of every seven years you shall grant release of debts” it plainly states in Deuteronomy 15:1 (NKJ). There is even a term given for this regular debt cancellation. It was called “the Lord’s release” (verse 2),

“In this way the poverty-stricken were privileged to share in the material things of the prosperous citizen,” writes Samuel J. Schultz in his commentary. ”Hebrews enslaved by Hebrews were to be released after six years of service (15:12-18). At the time of release the released individual was to be endowed liberally by his owner who thereby acknowledged God’s goodness in freeing Israel from Egyptian bondage” (Deuteronomy: The Gospel of Love, page 57).

There is even some background humor here. As, for example, if a neighbor needed a loan in the sixth year and had only less than a year to pay it back before the seventh year of release. “Beware lest there be a wicked thought in your heart saying, the seventh year, the law of release is at hand” (Deuteronomy 25:9). Smart God, Yahweh.

These regulations were designed to keep poverty out of the land. But these laws also included the possibility of servitude to a creditor during the six years. This is called slavery today and is a good reminder that there are more complexities in the Law of Moses than meets the eye. Frank R was not suggesting we reinstitute slavery nor am I. He is simply suggesting – as many have before him – that Israelite laws on debt were exceptionally progressive for the Bronze Age even if it is an idea whose time has gone. And the concept of the nation as a collective, harmonious whole also stands out as a rebuke to our “every man for himself” mentality.

Dominion Theology

For purposes of clarification we should mention that there are Christian teachers and theologians today who go much further than what we’ve been reading so far. Some teachers called “Dominion teachers” or “Reconstructionists” – from God’s command for humankind to exert dominion in Genesis 1:28 – insist that the law of Moses from Exodus to Deuteronomy would be just fine for America and Canada today. Many preachers can be found advocating the burning of witches and heretics and full-fledged capital punishment, no exceptions. Homosexual rights? Don’t even mention it.

According to this theology Christians are the new chosen people – an idea as old as the Mayflower. But, as writer Chris Hedges, points out, the application of Leviticus and Deuteronomy to today’s world could lead to some scary premises. “The death penalty is to be imposed not only for offenses such as rape, kidnapping, and murder but also for adultery, blasphemy, homosexuality, incest, striking parents, incorrigible juvenile delinquency, and in the case of women unchastity before marriage,” warns Hedges.

For strict Dominionists or Christian Reconstructionists, the 10 Commadnment should be the basic legal code and men will rule. Women will be removed from the workforce and abortion outlawed. Labor unions, civil rights laws and public schools will be abolished. To support all this the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy are quoted selectively – swift penalties for law-breakers, for example, but not much on debt cancellation, for example.

Dominion theology and the whole program of reapplying Leviticus in modern-day America and Canada is an idea whose time has gone. It founders under some obvious theological facts. Christians no longer live in a land where God Himself holds title deed. It is impossible even to know when to construct the chronology for a seven year period and a Jubilee cycle. What benchmarks to use? There are no tabernacles or Levitical priests to spell it out even if we knew. So a direct across-the-board application of debt cancellation and fifty-year social reconstruction based on the Bible alone must always fail the test of solid interpretation.

Then there is something called the New Covenant of Jesus Christ that replaces the Old. Jesus has a refrain going in Matthew 5-7, his reinterpretation of the Law, and it is “you have heard it said…but I say unto you.” And his apostle St Paul spelled out Christian social justice under the New Covenant in stark terms. “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ”(Galatians 5:22). That law God gave Israel turned eventually into a yoke of bondage and Christians are advised to steer away from making too much of it today.

But what then was its purpose? It couldn’t have been “God’s biggest mistake.”

The Law helped a slave-holding society of farmer to regulate itself and keep public order. It gave Israel a basic constitution and in some remarkably glaring examples such as cancelling debt every seven years – it must be said – it gave us remarkable insight into the mind of God. Despite the fact that the laws on cancelling debt and returning property every seven years – appealing as that may sound to some – fails to meet the test of Biblical theology it is still fascinating that such laws are there.

Bible writers knew that meditating upon the Law gave wisdom. Even if you can’t abstract one part of the law and apply it without regard to the rest, it pays to be reminded of what the Book says in total. Legal servitude was okay for the six years before the year of release but after that….

So now where are we?

The Boom/Bust Cycle

Well, Frank R remembers me speculating back in the mid-1980s that our economic system still has not eliminated the Boom/Bust Business Cycle. There are still recessions every several years and scary threatened meltdowns every few decades. Would any of this be alleviated by the debt cancellation principle? Many would say no. Still, debts have now become so astronomical that it seems they will never be paid. Perhaps the ultimate lesson for us today is that if the Tea Party movement of 2010 represented one reaction than the Occupy Movement seems to be a blast from the other end of the spectrum. [See box for an article Frank sent on the latter.]

It’s all very provocative to say the least. Given that the default mode for most American Christians is conservatism we perhaps can look at Leviticus again and – through that lens – extend more than sympathy to those who are genuinely losing their homes, tossed out in the street, even those camped out in a park and with nothing but unemployment and debt in front of them. Poverty wasn’t God’s original intention, neither was kicking people when they were down. Instead he gave us the principle of “the Lord’s release.” You have to admit that has a nice ring to it, even today.