{"id":62605,"date":"2019-09-08T17:40:11","date_gmt":"2019-09-08T14:40:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=62605"},"modified":"2023-04-02T22:49:32","modified_gmt":"2023-04-02T19:49:32","slug":"is-war-the-only-alternative-to-unity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/is-war-the-only-alternative-to-unity\/","title":{"rendered":"Is War The Only Alternative To Unity?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"entry-content\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[383,444,543,434],"acf":{"old_id":"62605","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":33992,"related_cahpter":"302","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"Getting along is literally a matter of life and death - and a key test of democracy as an alternative to chaos and violence\u00a0\r\n","content":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The unified Kingdom is shattered. While it had never been a wholehearted matter, the tribes had worked together under King David and King Solomon and had achieved great things. A nation unified, a temple constructed, city fortified and expanded, garrisons throughout the country, mining \u2026 even royal tourism with Sheba!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In a blink, all that is lost as the two kingdoms go their own way. Israel in the north breaks away from Judah in the south, creating a separate and parallel monarchy, a separate and competing Temple, and wrestling on its own with the implications of serving the invisible God who brought us from Egyptian slavery to risk creating a nation of our own.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Perhaps most disheartening in this disintegration is that they don\u2019t merely agree to part and go their own separate ways. No, again and again we are told that their paths now erupt into full-blown warfare: \u201cThere was war between Abijam and Jeroboam all the days of his life (6).\u201d \u201cThere was war between Asa and King Baasha of Israel all their days (16).\u201d \u201cThere was war between Asa and King Baasha of Israel all their days (32).\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Is there no midway point between complete unity and utter warfare? Are those our only two alternatives?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This history of Biblical Israel, and a scan of both anthropological data and biological information reveals a bleak reality. In most instances, unless there is a mingling of populations \u2013 shared intimacy and progeny \u2013 then the general result is violence and death. This is true for lion prides, for ape populations no less than for human communities.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Getting along is literally a matter of life and death. And the daring experiment of democracy is to institutionalize ways of disagreeing without erupting in chaos and murder.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">How we rise to that challenge will make all the difference, and the stakes could not be higher. The track record so far leans heavily on the side of death and destruction as the likely outcome. All we have on the other side are hope, clear standards of what is demanded of us, faith, and the warning stories of our ancestors, whose disastrous failures make clear God\u2019s deepest imperative: choose life, that you may live!<\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":62610,"id":62610,"title":"1kings15-democracy","filename":"1kings15-democracy.png","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/1kings15-democracy.png","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/is-war-the-only-alternative-to-unity\/1kings15-democracy\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"1kings15-democracy","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":62605,"date":"2019-09-08 14:39:58","modified":"2022-05-18 03:13:59","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/png","type":"image","subtype":"png","icon":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":1280,"height":911,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/1kings15-democracy-150x150.png","thumbnail-width":150,"thumbnail-height":150,"medium":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/1kings15-democracy-300x214.png","medium-width":300,"medium-height":214,"medium_large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/1kings15-democracy-768x547.png","medium_large-width":768,"medium_large-height":547,"large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/1kings15-democracy-1024x729.png","large-width":1024,"large-height":729,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/1kings15-democracy.png","1536x1536-width":1280,"1536x1536-height":911,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/1kings15-democracy.png","2048x2048-width":1280,"2048x2048-height":911,"post_full_size":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/1kings15-democracy-1200x854.png","post_full_size-width":1200,"post_full_size-height":854,"home_baner":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/1kings15-democracy-590x420.png","home_baner-width":590,"home_baner-height":420}},"embedded_video":"","video_duration":"","show_fb_comments":true,"credit_media":""},"tile":{"top_caption":"","main_caption":"Is War The Only Alternative To Unity?","main_caption_size":"1","sub_caption":"Getting along is literally a matter of life and death - 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