The reason why movements that are solely a reaction turn vacuous and evil, is because they have no balance. By balance I mean a harmony between justice and mercy. When everything is about one topic, lets say, Islam, and not about all of the evils of the world, then what happens is a situation in which you have a people lethargic to the transgressions of their own society while fixating solely on the sins of foreigners and outsiders. Meanwhile, what else always happens in this occurrence is that nefarious groups, people that are for degeneracy, euthanasia, eugenics and the like, are accepted to the reaction group because, regardless of their perfidious beliefs, they are in agreement to the reaction. The movement against Islam then becomes a group from just being “counterjihad,” to being an advocacy group for eugenics, racialism and homosexuality, all under a guise of being “anti-Sharia.” A pure reaction group is, at the end of the day, an empty shell. The renown Scottish theologian, Richard of St. Victor, warned about those who “go beyond the bounds of proper balance.” (1)
It is like the sons of Jacob slaughtering the Shechemites because Shechem raped their sister Dinah. Even though Shechem agreed to be circumcised and was going to marry Dina, and even though the entire city of Shechem agreed to be circumcised and to trade with the Israelites, and to be at peace with them, and to be one with them, the sons of Jacob in their exceeding imbalance slaughtered the people who allowed them to settle in their land. In this show of justice, there was imbalance, and even though they felt that they were doing good, it was not in harmony with the charity. Thus, it was excessive. Now, the Scripture says that not only Shechem agreed to be circumcised, but all the city of Shechem agreed to endure this right. Shechem went before all the city and said:
“These men are peaceable and willing to dwell with us: let them trade in the land, and till it, which being large and wide wanteth men to till it: we shall take their daughters for wives, and we will give them ours. One thing there is for which so great a good is deferred: We must circumcise every male among us, following the manner of the nation. And their substance, and cattle, and all that they possess, shall be ours: only in this let us condescend, and by dwelling together, we shall make one people.” (Genesis 34:21-23)
The people agreed to do the rite taught by God to Abraham, they agreed to become one with Israel, God’s nation. And the Scripture recounts that the sons of Jacob answered Sichem and his father deceitfully (Genesis 34:13) when they promised that Dinah would be given to Shechem after the men of his city were circumcised, meaning, that they gave their word with bad intentions. This was their chance to bring the people of Canaan to becoming one with Israel, but they wanted nothing to do with unity, they wanted bloody justice without the balancing force of charity. The Scripture says that “Jacob, Simeon and Levi, the brothers of Dina, taking their swords, entered boldly into the city, and slew all the men” (Genesis 34:25), this was done out of an imbalance excess of justice, which is truly not justice at all. It was not just to slaughter all the men of the city even though they agreed to do and did the rite of circumcision. Richard of St. Victor, in a beautiful style of prose, describes the imbalance demonstrated in the extermination of the Shechemites:
“See how much they do; see how much they do for the sake of Dina. For the sake of Dina, masculine parts are circumcised. For the sake of Dina those circumcised are killed. All this is for the sake of Dina, all for the sake of human shamefacedness.” (2)
The people of Shechem were willing to conform to the rule of Israel, and to become one with this nation, but anger and hatred clouded the intellect of the sons of Jacob, and they killed a people who had extended a hand of unity. After they killed the men and took their women captive, the Scripture says that “Jacob said to Simeon and Levi: You have troubled me, and made me hateful to the Chanaanites” (Genesis 34:25), which means that Jacob did not desire an extermination of the people, but rather the union with them. When Abraham settled in the land of the Canaanites, it says that they had made league with Abram. (Genesis 14:13) The Canaanites of Gibeon made a covenant with Israel, and when the other Canaanites came to annihilate them, Joshua defended them in what is one of the greatest battles in the history of the saints. King Saul tried to exterminate the Canaanites of Gibeon, and the Scripture says:
“Saul sought to slay them out of zeal, as it were for the children of Israel and Juda” (2 Samuel 21:2)
King Saul was fixated, not on the things of God, but on this ‘strength of our people’ nationalism. Because of this God struck Israel with a famine, and declared to King David that:
“It is for Saul, and his bloody house, because he slew the Gabaonites.” (2 Samuel 21:1)
God honored the unity between Abraham and the Canaanites, between Joshua and the Canaanites of Gibeon, and He even demanded that King David make a sacrifice in the land of an Amorite named Orhan, declaring:
“build an altar to the Lord God in the thrashingfloor of Ornan the Jebusite.” (1 Chronicles 21:18)
God wanted the Canaanites and the Israelites to become one nation, but this beautiful truth was not seen by the clouded sight of the sons of Jacob when they butchered the people of Shechem.
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