GQ Magazine just got its hands on the cover sheets of secret war memos from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to President Bush from March-April 2003. Still hungover from the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Rumsfeld included Bible verses depicting the US as the faithful fighters of justice. In this slide, Rumsfeld quotes Isaiah 6:8: Whom shall I send and who will go for us? Here I am Lord, send me. This is known as the commissioning of Isaiah the prophet, sent to the nation of Israel in exile. Isaiah's message combines the challenge of faithfulness to God's will with the hope that God will return to Zion and reign forever as the world flocks to worship. The authors of the New Testament heavily relied on Isaiah as a forerunner to the Messiah Jesus, who they believed inaugurated the long-awaited 'kingdom of God,' described in Isaiah 2:2-4:
He shall judge between the nations,
and shall arbitrate for many peoples;
they shall beat their swords into ploughshares,
and their spears into pruning-hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war any more. [v.4]
God's reign of peace is fulfilled in Jesus who taught his disciples to love the enemy and pray for those who persecute us. His vision of the kingdom of God was not only taught, it was embodied in his obedience even to the point of death at the hands of the powers-that-be.
In Luke 4:17-18, King Jesus' inaugural address, he reads from the synagogue scroll Isaiah 61:1-2:
The spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me;
he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,
to bind up the broken-hearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and release to the prisoners .
'Today,' Jesus boldly proclaims, 'this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.' Over and over again, the New Testament especially draws on Isaiah 50-65, linking Jesus to the Suffering Servant, who triumphed with humility and silence.
The Defense Department's use of Scripture is appalling and should serve notice to anyone who seeks to use the Bible for their own skewed agenda. Searching for moral highground by prooftexting passages is neither appropriate nor credible. God's Word simply should never be uttered in this manner. In the world of biblical scholarship, it would be laughable if it weren't so deadly.
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