PAGE 3 of 3
In destroying Abel, Cain also destroyed the possibility of wholesome society. The security of society would have to be based on the fear of revenge. Since it began with the shedding of innocent blood, humans may only know of themselves as social animals who are both guilty socially and insecure about their personal safety. Furthermore, since the shedding of innocent blood immediately impacted the soil, humans find themselves time and again destroying the natural world in an effort to stabilize their toppling societies.
Culture is equally skewed from the outset. Yoder points out that Cain was the first to cultivate, that is, to cooperate with the land by adjusting to the soils and the calendar in order to develop a fruitful field. But Cain was deemed an unfit cultivator since he defiled the soil with his brother’s blood. Having been driven further and further from truly natural cultivation, he had little recourse but to take refuge behind city walls. Cain traded relative harmony with God’s natural order for the urban center—which was the product of estrangement, not growth and prosperity. Yoder restates in contemporary categories what he believed these ancient stories assume: “Adam makes the transition from nature to culture; Cain from culture to war. Culture (whose root meaning, we remember, was agriculture), is already morally ambivalent. It is close to nature, but not natural. It scratches open the soil, wounds the breast of Mother Earth, in order to wrest sustenance from it. . . . It thus becomes the occasion for fresh sin and the multiplier of damages.”
After being banished from the soil, Yoder notes that Cain’s descendants quickly yielded the basic elements of fallen history and culture: the protective threat of revenge (the state), the city (civilization), the arts (Jubal’s music), technology (Tubal-Cain’s metallurgy), and Lamech’s escalating vengeance (war). All of these unfold from the first murder and all of them result from the estrangement with nature that began with Adam and multiplied with Cain and his descendants. Nothing to which humans apply themselves is free from sin’s taint. There is thus no sphere or realm of life that is fundamentally trustworthy, beyond suspicion, and immune to examination in light of Christ.
C. Christopher Smith is the founding editor of The Englewood Review of Books. He is also author of a number of books, including most recently How the Body of Christ Talks: Recovering the Practice of Conversation in the Church (Brazos Press, 2019). Connect with him online at: C-Christopher-Smith.com
 Reading for the Common Good From ERB Editor Christopher Smith "This book will inspire, motivate and challenge anyone who cares a whit about the written word, the world of ideas, the shape of our communities and the life of the church." -Karen Swallow Prior Enter your email below to sign up for our weekly newsletter & download your FREE copy of this ebook! |
Understanding Christian Nationalism [A Reading Guide] |
 Most Anticipated Books of the Fall for Christian Readers!
|
 Hilarious One-Star Customer Reviews of Bibles |
![Paul Lynch - Prophet Song [Excerpt]](https://englewoodreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Prophet-Song-130x130.jpeg "Paul Lynch - Prophet Song [Excerpt]")
![Brian Zahnd - The Wood Between the Worlds [Excerpt]](https://englewoodreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/The-Wood-Between-the-Worlds-1-130x130.jpeg "Brian Zahnd - The Wood Between the Worlds [Excerpt]")
Hi, I am from Australia.
Why does everything have to turn out to be Christian?
And of what relevance are the writings of a tiny ancient tribal cult in a now instantly inter-connected globalized world of seven billion human beings.
A cult that by the way practiced systematic even genocidal slaughter of its enemies and/or those who stood in the way of their territorial expansiveness.
Just like Christians always have – as depicted in this stark image
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~spanmod/mural/panel13.html
That having been said please check out these references on the now necessary politics of the future – if there is to be a future!
http://www.dabase.org/not2p1.htm
http://www.beezone.com/AdiDa/reality-humanity.html