The movies and television are replete with examples of stories based upon someone’s post-apocalyptic vision of the future. Three “Mad Max” movies, at least two somewhat forgettable movies by Kevin Costner (“Waterworld,” “The Postman”), “The Children of Men,” and on television “Jeremiah” and “Jericho,” in an abstract sense “Lost” and let us not forget Will Smith in “I am Legend” and Charlton Hesston in the classic “Omega Man.”
The gifted and talented writers of these futuristic stories use their fantastic imagination to paint an abstract portrait of a possible or even potential future world. They often take artistic license to conjure and fabricate the image of a decaying world that follows some cataclysmic upheaval. The architect or culprit of this “Brave New World,” whether overtly, inadvertently or covertly is always man, yet it is usually God whom the survivor’s blame for their current plight. God is always to blame for adversity and rarely even considered in prosperity. God is present, active and near in both circumstances even though unseen, unacknowledged and blamed.The back stories usually feature events such as an accidental or intentional unleashing of a global pandemic. Some stories feature the senseless and catastrophic accidental or intentional release of thermal nuclear weapons resulting in a global war of mutual assured destruction. The fictitious yet extremely imaginative stories of such events are generally followed by universal death and destruction. Left in there wake is the ragged remnants of human kind struggling for survival against inconceivable odds.
Detailed character sketches are drawn of ordinary people in difficult circumstances. Frequently men and women who are emotionally, physically and psychologically scared yet against all hope attempting to rebuild a broken world. These lone, often deeply flawed individuals wrestling against the elements and each other in an attempt to bring sanity and stability to an unstable and insane world. They discover that there is strength in numbers, as small groups of people banding together out of necessity or some survival instinct in and attempt to bring the bright rays of hope to a hopeless society. These intrepid pioneer’s of an upside down world, cultural relativism and society in upheaval, surviving seemingly insurmountable odds to bring hope of human survival or even triumph in the most hopeless of times and circumstances.
If you wrote yourself into such a story would you be hero or villain? Would you be a survivor or victim? What character flaws would exert themselves or what virtues would bubble to the surface? We would all like to imagine ourselves as the hero with its inherent nobility and virtue, yet in our very best moments the true image lies somewhere in between hero and villain. We are frequently less virtuous and heroic than we hope and wish we were, however, we are not nearly the villain that the accuser and our own doubts and fears would like to convince us we are. The truth for all of us is that in times of adversity and hopelessness we are all capable of great nobility and equally as great ignoble behavior. After the apocalypse what or who will survive?
Consider if you will a possibility of the re-imagining or rethinking of certain biblical stories with the preceding thoughts as a foundation and framework for there interpretation. It occurs to this writer that the story of Lot might be interpreted in such post-apocalyptic terms. Let us consider the possibility that the events surrounding the departure of Lot from Sodom and Gomorrah (the destruction of the cities of the plains, the subsequent death of his wife and his daughter’s solution regarding the preservation and propagation of the species) might be interpreted using just such a post-apocalyptic scenario. The world around them is in upheaval. Everything they have known and loved has been wiped out in an instant. They now exist in that dark haze amid the smoke and gloom of a shadowy world between what was and the uncertainty of what is yet to come.
One need not assume and I would not presume to assert that this is the only or even the correct interpretation of the events surrounding Lot’s departure from Sodom and Gomorrah. The following is presented as food for thought, as a mental and spiritual exercise to stretch our theological understanding. At the very least it may provide an interesting twist on a familiar story. It could also help us to understand the choice Lot’s daughters made. Understanding their choice is not to rationalize or justify their solution. The solution they came up with in their hour of desperation and in the midst of difficult and seemingly impossible circumstances is in final analysis their own. We are all tested by adversity and difficulty and by such events as these we learn volumes about our true nature and character.
Let us first consider the back story which is also the story within the story. Life in the cities of the plain, where the party never ends, must have been the ultimate hedonistic experience, one to rival “Animal House.” Sodom and Gomorrah are names, that even to this day, the very whisper of them conjure images of self-indulgence, debauchery, immorality, sexual perversion, pleasure, pain and every sort of evil. While these are the most famous cities, possibly the most evil, they were not the only cities of the plain. The two are the most extreme example of hedonism, narcissism, self-absorbed behavior and selfishness. They (Sodom and Gomorrah) are prototypically evil and perverse.
There were in fact five cities, one of which was Zoar (the city to which Lot and his daughter fled when leaving Sodom and Gomorrah). The fact is, they did not remain long in Zoar but fled to the mountains and caves to escape the destruction that surrounded them. It appears from the scripture that these other cities, in fact possibly all the cities of the plain were destroyed by fire and sulfur. Lot’s fear of staying in Zoar was quite rational in light of the destruction of every living thing which he and his daughters witnessed. The text says that even the vegetation was destroyed. Fight or flight is encoded in human genetic makeup.
Fleeing for your life with the screams and cries of death echoing through the valleys, mournful lament from the mountains where you hope to find shelter is the harshest reality one could imagine. It must have been both a helpless and hopeless situation for the trio running for the hills. When you combine these elements of the story with Lot’s wife death by salt (by turning to a pillar of salt) you have what must have appeared to all present to be an apocalypse. For all intent and purposes this is an end of the world scenario worthy of the best and most imaginative of Hollywood writers. Fire, smoke, sulfur, clouds of ash, people screaming writhing in agony, animals even vegetation destroyed in an instant. For all they know they are the only survivors.
Where there were once tens of thousands only three remain and their prospects for survival seem slim. In this drama where death and destruction are the stars, one also discovers a familiar formula which is a prescription for fear and hopelessness. It is this type of scenario where hopelessness reigns supreme and one’s metal is tested. Here in the crucible of fire and upon the anvil of adversity even good people will often consider drastic solutions, possibilities that in other circumstances would be unimaginable even unthinkable. It is “the best of times and it is the worst of times.” When tested by fire will we be consumed by the flame or purified by its heat?
If the world as you know it ended today what would you do? If you were forced to survive in a “Mad Max,” “I am Legend” world, how would you do it? What solutions would be, as they say, off the table? What choices would be unthinkable if survival of the species was at stake? What if you were or thought you were the last man or woman on earth? Would you cast aside old conventions, morality and ethical considerations? Will ignobility or nobility rule the day? Will we prove to be hero or villain or a little of both? How will we respond or react in an apocalyptic (end of the world) scenario? Does the good of the many out weigh the good of the few or the one?While this last statement sounds like an acceptable philosophy in theory it may not be quite so acceptable on a practical level. It is a philosophy that could lead to the application of situational ethics frequently carried to extreme measures. This could lead to potential solutions that fail to consider what the far reaching consequences of what these actions might be. Dare we suggest that this would seem to be the case with Lot’s daughters?
Their solution, choosing to have children by their own father under conventional circumstances would be unthinkable. Marriage to close, but not immediate, family members seems to have been culturally and socially acceptable among Abraham’s people. Yet under such dire and devastating circumstances the unthinkable, it appears becomes not only thinkable but a desirable solution. Under what circumstances would you consider the unthinkable? It is easy to pass judgment from our remote and secure setting, but what if the situation was not so abstract and remote? The truth is that they were trying to find a human solution to a divine dilemma. Certainly we are never guilty of such spiritual arrogance are we?
The final result of their choice, even though they are not yet able to see it, does have far reaching consequences. They will create two new nations, the Moabites and the Ammonites. The descendants of Abraham will remain in conflict with these two nations for generations. A future king of Moab will attempt to convince Balaam to curse Israel and Joshua will wage war against several Ammonite kings. The goal of these two women was to preserve and propagate their own line. Surely we can understand that no one wants to be the end of their family line or even the human race. It is clear that this is foremost on their minds as they hide from death and destruction in the mountains and caves. In this circumstance personal survival is not enough; survival of the species becomes a much more important issue. In this post-apocalyptic world hiding in the caves is not a long term solution. But what will happen when they come out of the caves? How do you go forward and rebuild a destroyed crumbling world?
In conclusion let’s consider two major points and one summary of what we can possibly learn from this post-apocalyptic “morality play.”
First, one should not expect people who lived most if not all of their lives in the most immoral cities in the history of human kind to make what would be regarded as traditionally acceptable moral and ethical decisions. They had lived among Sodomites and were married to Sodomites, why would they not act like Sodomites? Dare we suggest that to expect them to act any differently would be sheer foolishness on our part? When placed in stressful or difficult situations people will respond as they have been programmed or conditioned to respond. Or to quote from the movie "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan," “they will respond as with all things, according to their gifts.” Consider, then the possibility that this is exactly why Lot’s daughters responded the way they did. Remember that Lot and his daughters had to be forcibly removed from Sodom. They had lived there so long that they did not know any other way to react. Their response was in keeping with cultural and social norms of the people with whom they identified.
Second, it is an interesting side bar (a story within the story) that a future Moabite woman named Ruth would become one of the progenitors of Jesus. This Moabite is an important and pivotal woman in the history of the redemption of mankind. God is able in all circumstances to accomplish his purpose, his will. This in no way justifies the solution that Lot’s daughters came up with to preserve and perpetuate the species, yet it does reveal to us the sovereignty of God in all things. In fact we should feel no need or desire to justify their behavior; however, we should recognize the potential for failure when deeply flawed human beings are tested by adversity.
In a post-apocalyptic world where hopelessness rules the day, hope will reign only through the sovereignty of and solutions provided by a loving and merciful God. We live in a world where death and destruction rains down around us like fire from heaven. We inhabit a broken world where adversity is a constant companion and our character is being tested and tempered in the white hot furnace of struggle. The only question that remains to be answered is how we will respond to these events.
Surrounded by death and destruction the survivors must recognize and acknowledge that God alone can breathe life into the dying, decaying corpse of a post-apocalyptic world. It is a transcendent God who transforms death into life and creates a new world full of hope out of the hopelessness and helpless remains. It is God who exhales upon the dying embers, breathing the divine breath (Holy Spirit) to ignite the coals into life. In such a hopeless situation consider the arrival of a child named “Ben-Ammi” meaning “son of my people.” The birth of a son named Moab, father of a nation and from whom a woman named Ruth will be born. This daughter of Moab (Ruth) will be a mother in the line that will not only save Israel but provide salvation for the entire human species. Consider this post-apocalyptic twist on the redemption of a ragged, ragtag remnant rising from the ashes of the blacken charred remants of a destroyed world. It is from the decaying carcass of the old world that a new vibrant bright and shining world will emerge. The Phoenix will rise from the ashes to soar into the heavens taking its place among the stars.
In summation I submit the following proposition; Jesus is the answer for a broken world. Jesus is the only real hope for a hopeless people. Jesus brings healing to a fractured, beaten and scared humanity. Jesus is God’s solution for the post-apocalypse (just read the Apocalypse of John also know as Revelation). “And behold I saw a new heaven and a new earth coming down out of heaven.” This new world will not be reconstructed in some humanistic attempt by mankind to lift himself up by his bootstraps. It will be the direct result of the restoration and redemption of human kind by the creator of the universe who will recreate us in the image of his beloved son Jesus Christ. This post-apocalyptic vision is the final revelation.
Bob Phillips
