Redeeming a Nation (Timeless Teaching)

by Philip Quenby

  Despite this initial submission to William, hardly a year passed between 1066 and his death in 1087 when the Conqueror was not in the saddle directing the suppression of rebellion somewhere in his new kingdom. In truth, many of these outbreaks were minor local affairs that posed no real threat to Norman rule. Some were more in the nature of feudal quarrels amongst the Normans themselves. The exception, however, which clearly shook William and lead to far harsher rule on his part, was the great national revolt of 1068-71.

  The catalyst for widespread uprising was the killing of the Norman Robert of Comines, whom William had made earl of Northumbria beyond Tees, in 1069. Thereupon, the men of Yorkshire joined with a Danish force to take the newly built castle at York and at this the West Saxons and Mercians, too, took up arms. William’s response was typically vigorous. He bought off the Danes, leaving him free to engage and defeat the English rebels. Thereafter, he showed no mercy. In the winter of 1069-70, the king set about the deliberate devastation of the most fertile and populous parts of Yorkshire. Not only was livestock slaughtered and stores of grain and other foodstuffs burnt, but the implements which the survivors needed to recover from the disaster by planting and harvesting were systematically destroyed. The destruction was appalling, the suffering agonising.[17]

  At length, such resistance as remained centred on the fenland of Cambridgeshire. At Ely lay an island of firm ground amidst the swamp, then so wide and deep that the only practicable means of transport was by boat. Here gathered a desperate group, led by an English thane called Hereward, known to posterity as the Wake, meaning “the Watchful” or “the Wary.” The battle was noble but forlorn, and utterly hopeless once William had ensured that there was no chance of Danish support. The Normans blocked escape routes from Ely with ships and built a causeway across the marsh, whereupon all surrendered save Hereward, who escaped with a handful of followers. What became of him thereafter is unknown. So ended the last serious English challenge to the Conquest.

  The battle within.

  The English struggled manfully against their foes. There was no shortage of “fights and quarrels” (James 4:1). Yet, try as they might, after Hastings they were unable to throw off the Norman yoke. As one Norman king succeeded another, Englishmen came to accept the fact of foreign rule, even if they were not entirely reconciled to it. Love between the people and their overlords there was little or none, but the Conqueror’s sons William Rufus and Henry I reigned secure in England. Further revolt and restoration of the West Saxon monarchy gradually became the stuff of fantasy. For ordinary people, the most important struggle increasingly became, as at most times and in most places in human history, the “battle within” (James 4:1).

  In his letter to the early church James, the brother of Jesus, tells his readers how to wage this battle and to emerge victorious, whatever the outward circumstances may be. The starting point is to identify the root of the problem correctly: “What causes fights and quarrels among you?” (James 4:1). James’ answer is clear and uncompromising. The cause lies in “desires that battle within.” (James 4:1). The result is failure to obtain God’s blessing: “You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.” (James 4:2-3). The indictment rings just as true today as when it was written.

  What we need to look to first and foremost are our own attitudes and behaviour: “don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred towards God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.” (James 4:4). There is a constant temptation to conform to the values and standards of the world around us at the expense of doing and saying what is right. This we must do our utmost to resist. Instead, we need to keep a proper perspective on the passing fads and fancies of the human world and fix our eyes on the unchanging truths and values of God: “For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come.” (Hebrews 13:14).

  Resistance and submission.

  Thoughtless strife and striving are not the answer. Instead, we need a balance between resistance and submission. There is a time to resist and a time to submit. There are circumstances which we should resist and ones to which we should submit. Above all, there is a person whom we should resist and a person to whom we should submit: “Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you.” (James 4:7-8).

  There is a strand running through both Old and New Testaments that brings into sharp relief the difference between human ways and the values of the kingdom of God. “If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; if he is thirsty, give him water to drink. In doing this, you will heap coals on his head, and the LORD will reward you.” (Proverbs 25:21-22). Or, as St Paul puts it in his letter to the Christians in Rome: “Bless those who persecute you ... Do not repay anyone evil for evil ... Do not take revenge ... Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” (Romans 12:14, 17, 19 and 21).

  This is counter-intuitive and can lead to confusion about whether our resistance to evil must always be passive. Richard Wormbrand, a Romanian pastor who suffered terrible persecution under that country’s fascist and communist regimes from the nineteen thirties onwards, neatly summed up one way of striking the balance between resistance and submission: “The enemy we have conquered must also have our help. But any help given to an enemy when he is in power is wrong, because it makes us his accomplices.” Sometimes Christian resistance to evil in our land has seemed passive almost to the point of invisibility. As a nation, our recent past has too often been characterised by capitulation to the devil and resistance to God. These things need to change before there can be any hope of improvement. There is a war to be fought and we must not flinch from fighting it.

  Fighting the good fight.

  When James talks about the battle within he is referring to the war between good and evil within our own souls, but there is also a battle for the soul of society. We need to take great care in how we go about waging this battle. It must not become a witch hunt or an excuse for pointing fingers at those who happen to be different: “Who are you to judge your neighbour?” (James 4:12). We should remember that: “When [we] judge the law, [we] are not keeping it but sitting in judgement on it. There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy.” (James 4:12).

  That, however, does not allow us to sit back or wash our hands of responsibility for what is going on around us. The prescription that James gives his readers applies equally to the battle within and without. Like any army, we must:

  • Mobilise: we must clear the decks of things that will impede our ability to fight. In a spiritual context, what hampers us is sin. James makes the point three times for emphasis: “Wash your hands, you sinners ... Grieve, mourn and wail ... Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom” (James 4:8-9). This does not mean that we are to go around with long faces all the time, for joy is one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22). It does mean, however, that before we can fight properly we need to confess our faults to God and bring ourselves under the umbrella of his forgiveness.

  • Train: having dealt with the negative by getting rid of the things that form a barrier between ourselves and God, we then need to acquire the positive things that will aid us in the fight. This takes effort and training. We are told to: “Purify your hearts” (James 4:8). The more we are able to “call on the Lord out of a pure heart” (2 Timothy 2:22), the more we are likely to find power in prayer. Jesus taught: “blessed are the pure in heart” (Matthew 5:8).

  • Equip: if we want God to equip us, we need to humble ourselves before him. Humility is a precursor to blessing (2 Chronicles 7:14), wisdom (Proverbs 11:2), guidance (Psalm 25:9), honour (Proverbs 22:4) and salvation (Psalm 18:27 and 149:4). Humility is not just desirable. It is one of the characteristics of God himself: Jesus says, “I am gentle and humble in heart.” (Matthew 11:29)
. Thus James emphasises the need for us to: “Humble yourselves before the Lord” (James 4:10). We do so by recognising that there is nothing we are able to do in our own strength, nothing we possess that is our own, nothing for which we are not dependent on God.

  • Work as a unit: a united front is vital in any conflict. Unity amongst his people is dear to the heart of God. That is why one of Jesus’ last prayers was that “they may be one, as we are one” (John 17:11). When James tells us, “do not slander one another” (James 4:11), he is likewise making a plea for unity. Too often, Christians have concentrated on the things that divide them. Now above all times we need to concentrate on the things that unite us.

  As St Paul advises, we must don the full armour of God (Ephesians 6:10-18). Not merely put it on, but use it, remembering that along with things for our defence we are also given the most powerful offensive weapon of all: “the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.” (Ephesians 6:17).

  Conclusion.

  Hereward the Wake makes an unlikely freedom fighter. His identity is obscured by lack or contradiction of details, but such fragmentary records as exist suggest that he was a native of Lincolnshire and that he was of turbulent and lawless character, one who would forever be picking “fights and quarrels” (James 4:1).[18] It seems that he was already an outlaw before ever he was in revolt against Norman rule. Worse yet for those seeking a hero, at least some aspects of his career seem rather less glorious than the afterglow of the centuries has painted them. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle recounts that, upon the appointment of the Norman Turold as abbot of the monastery of Peterborough, Hereward and a group of Danes attacked and destroyed not just the monastery but the town as well. Only one house and one sick man are said to have remained untouched. That looks less like spirited resistance to foreign rule than out and out brigandage. At the very least, it shows a woeful inability to distinguish friend from foe, since the dwellings laid waste in Peterborough presumably belonged mostly or even entirely to Anglo-Saxons.

  After the Peterborough raid, the Danes headed home (they are said to have been lost in a shipwreck on the way back), whilst Hereward and his men repaired to the fastness of Ely. It is on the fight there that his reputation is built. Doubtless he was brave and strong. He must have been an inspirational leader, since he remained head of this band even when they were joined by men of greater position and wealth, but he was not to be England’s saviour.

  We are presently fighting a battle for the life and soul of our country. It is above all a spiritual battle, a “battle within” (James 4:1). Our situation is grave precisely since so many have scarcely noticed that a battle is under way. Amongst those who have, there is too often a reluctance to recognise the true nature of the fight.

  There is reluctance, too, to identify and take hold of the means of victory. We already have a Saviour. The issue is whether we will give Him pride of place in the life of our nation and thereby allow Him to cleanse and renew us. The prescription is simple. We need to mobilise, train, equip and work together. We need to: “Wash [our] hands ... purify [our] hearts ... Humble [ourselves] before the Lord and he will lift [us] up.” (James 4:8 and 10). When we free ourselves of “wrong motives” (James 4:3), we will be able to ask God and then to receive from him. Each of us must take a lead in showing our people the way, for: “How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?” (Romans 10:14).

  We must not flinch and we must not fail in this great task.

  7. A nation divided

  Habbakuk 1:1 -2:4.

  Key word: faith.

  There are around 600 loan words thought to be of Scandinavian origin in modern English. Most of these are seafaring or everyday words, such as cast (kasta), knife (knifr), take (taka), window (vind-auga), egg (egg), ill (illr) and die (deyja). The Vikings also introduced the plurals ‘they’, ‘them’ and ‘their.’ English dialects contain even more Norse words, many relating to agriculture. The strong linguistic influence resulted from the similarity between Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse, so that words were readily imported from one to the other. The nature of the terms that have come into English reflects the fact that Scandinavian settlers cultivated their own land and tended their own animals. It is true that for decades Viking and Englishman may have lived parallel lives, but at no point did one form a caste of masters and the other of servants. Assimilation of the newcomers was thus based on relations of equality.

  Words that have come into English from French paint a very different picture of the Normans. It is no great exaggeration to say that, to this day, English can be seen almost as a French dialect or as a German dialect, depending on how it is spoken and what words are used. The Normans lived apart from the conquered people, whom they treated as labourers and servants, with whom they spoke only as these roles demanded: thus the remarkable linguistic apartheid that attends the English tongue. When a domestic animal is alive, we use a Germanic word for it, since the Anglo-Saxons were the ones who continued to tend the land: hence cow (Kuh), pig or swine (Schwein, Pigge), dog or hound (Hund, Dogge), sheep (Schaf) and roe deer (Reh). Once dead, however, the meat of the animal bears a French name, for it was served at table to Normans who would have described it in their vernacular. So we eat beef (boeuf), pork and ham (porc, jambon), mutton (mouton) and venison (venaison). To control the subject population, the Normans imposed curfews (a word derived from the French couvre-feu).

  The very language preserves a memory of the oppression of our forefathers.[19] This was no short-lived phase. English did not supplant French in the law courts until the reign of Edward III (1327-77): in 1362 to be precise, almost exactly three hundred years after the Conquest.

  Oppression.

  Habbakuk describes a time of coming oppression. He speaks in the form of an “oracle” (Habbakuk 1:1), a word specifically used for a declaration by God. He is amongst the several prophets sent to warn the Israelite kingdom of Judah that God is “raising up the Babylonians, that ruthless and impetuous people, who sweep across the whole earth to seize dwelling places not their own” (Habbakuk 1:6) and that Judah will fall to them. These are fearsome foes indeed: “They are a feared and dreaded people ... a law to themselves ... they fly like a vulture swooping to devour; they all come bent on violence.” (Habbakuk 1:7-9). The Babylonians will be the instruments of God’s justice: “O LORD, you have appointed them to execute judgment; O Rock, you have ordained them to punish” (Habbakuk 1:12).

  God has been patient beyond measure with the Israelites, yet still they persist in their wrongdoing and their rejection of him. There is corruption and apostasy. Israelite society is awash with “Violence ... injustice ... wrong ... destruction ... strife ... [and] conflict” (Habbakuk 1:2-3) – so pervasive is the rot that “the law is paralysed, and justice never prevails. The wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice is perverted.” (Habbakuk 1:4).

  The Israelites were intended by God to be a light to the Gentiles, to be “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” (Exodus 19:6). They were supposed to show the world how to worship God in holiness and truth. Instead, there is little to choose between them and the surrounding nations. Whilst the Babylonians “promote their own honour” and are “guilty men, whose strength is their god” (Habbakuk 1:11), sadly the Israelites, too, have relied on their own resources rather than on the Lord. They have sought their own glory rather than God’s. Now they will learn that human strength alone cannot avail and that “pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.” (Proverbs 16:18).

  Questioning.

  Against this background, Habbakuk asks three of the most fundamental questions of human existence: why does evil go unpunished? (Habbakuk 1:13); why does God not respond to prayer? (Habbakuk 1:2 and 13); and why must we wait so long? (Habbakuk 1:2). Within these is a subsidiary question: why does God use “the wicked [to] swallow up those more righteous than themselves?�
�� (Habbakuk 1:13).[20] The process of questioning and listening to God leads Habbakuk to a new way of looking at the world. It leads him beyond logic to faith, beyond form to truth and beyond acceptance to trust.

  The questions were not just private musings and the prophet did not keep the answers to himself. They were designed for use by the nation as a whole. The book ends, for example, with the words: “For the director of music. On my stringed instruments” (Habbakuk 3:19), showing that it was intended to be sung and used in worship.

  Logic and faith.

  God is almighty and eternal, the creator of the universe and all that is in it: “O LORD, are you not from everlasting? ... You have made men” (Habbakuk 1:12 and 14). Despite this, he is accessible to humankind. He does not hide himself from his creatures, but invites us to speak to him, saying: “Come, let us reason together” (Isaiah 1:18). God does not censure Habbakuk for questioning, even though the prophet himself describes his questions as a “complaint” (Habbakuk 2:1).