We can follow the example of those who have gone before us. This is how we can pray Psalm 137 today. We call on and plead with God to be faithful to his promises. And we know that all of God’s promises find their Yes and Amen in Jesus (2 Corinthians 1:20). The exiles by the waters of Babylon appealed to God’s Word revealed in Scripture and we do the same today. And we have so much more – we have the Word himself who has revealed the glory of the Father (John 1).

Where were you on May 2, 2011? I was at an Usher concert with a few friends. It was a great concert, and I enjoyed hearing Usher perform several hits from his newest album, Raymond v. Raymond. The concert, though, is not the reason I remember that day. I remember May 2, 2011 because of what happened after the concert. As my friends and I left the venue, we noticed a lot of people excitedly looking at their phones. We assumed they were just reliving the concert we all just experienced. Until, that is, a pick-up truck with a huge American flag in the back drove by and a man shouted from the window, “Osama’s dead! We got him!” On May 2, 2011, Osama bin Laden was killed by U.S. special forces, and people halfway around the world broke out in jubilant shouts.
What was behind that? How did the killing of a stranger thousands of miles away provoke joy and excitement in the parking lot of an Usher concert? To state it succinctly, celebration broke out in that parking lot because the death of bin Laden represented the satisfaction of a communal grief and rage that was occasioned by an act of true evil.
What about Psalm 137? How could a group of people unflinchingly state, “Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock” and then have the audacity to write such a statement down? More to the point, how does a psalm that celebrates little ones dashed against rocks (Ps. 137:9) belong in the same Bible where Jesus says, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 19:14)? In Psalm 137, the Bible confronts our modern sensibilities and gives us significant pause. The goal of this article is not to sanitize the passage by reading it allegorically, nor is the goal to assert that this passage is an aberration from the biblical witness. Instead, a careful and faithful reading of Psalm 137 leads us to Christ and, in so doing, provides us with the means by which we can engage with evil and suffering in our world today.
The Bible is a strange book. It’s okay to admit that. Psalm 137 was likely written in the 6th century BC in ancient Hebrew. The cultural and historical setting in which Psalm 137 was expressed is far removed from the United States in 2021. And yet, Christians recognize that presiding over the cultural and personal diversity that led to the Bible is a sovereign, powerful, and single Author. When we encounter passages that highlight cultural distance, our first reaction ought to be a humble curiosity.
Where does Psalm 137 fit in the story of history? The first question a humble curiosity asks is one of context. Indeed, context will provide the key to understanding Psalm 137. Where does Psalm 137 sit in history, in the literary story, and in the redemptive story of Scripture? The historical setting of the psalm is apparent in the very first verse:
By the waters of Babylon,there we sat down and wept,when we remembered Zion.
Robert Alter, a professor of Hebrew and comparative literature at the University of California, Berkeley, writes of Psalm 137 that, “This psalm was almost certainly composed shortly after the deportation of the Judahites by the Babylonians in 586 B.C.E.”[1] Psalm 137 is one of the few psalms which makes clear its own historical context. The psalmist writes of the community of exiles sitting down by the waters of Babylon to weep. The city of Babylon and the surrounding country was known at that time for its extensive system of canals. The Jewish exiles likely retreated to different places of this system in order to gather as a community and, as this psalm makes clear, give voice to their grief.
But why grief? These original Jewish singers of this psalm lived through the capture of Jerusalem, the looting and destruction of the Temple, and their forced exile to Babylon. 2 Kings 25 describes the siege of Jerusalem lasting for two years. The siege resulted in a famine so severe that it led to mothers boiling their children for food (Lam. 4:9-10). The king at that time, Zedekiah, was captured. The Babylonians killed his sons in front of him and then put his eyes out so that the last thing he ever saw was the murder of his sons. The Temple was looted and burned down, along with the palace and all the houses of Jerusalem.
Psalm 137, then, is a song of lament. It is a communal expression of grief, an opportunity for the Jewish people to gather and tell the truth of their oppression. Their lament is further occasioned, however, by a more immediate context. In the midst of their weeping, their Babylonian captors goad them on, “Sing us one of your Zion songs.” These Zion songs are scattered throughout the Psalter and scholars have identified several of them. One of them is Psalm 48, which opens with, “Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised in the city of our God! His holy mountain, beautiful in elevation, is the joy of all the earth, Mount Zion, in the far north, the city of the great King. Within her citadels God has made himself known as a fortress.”
Can you imagine the scene Psalm 137 depicts? The people of Judah are gathered along the canals of Babylon, lamenting the death and destruction visited upon them. And then, like taunting schoolboys, their captors jeer at them: “Sing us one of your songs! How about that one that says Zion is the city of the great king? The one that says God has made himself known as a fortress?” A hermeneutic of humble curiosity necessarily entails empathy, particularly since Christians are grafted into the story of Israel. The story of these Jewish exiles in the 6th century BC is our story. We weep with them.
Where does Psalm 137 fit in the literary story of Scripture? History is not the only important context we must examine. The Bible is a book written by one Author through many individual authors. Where does Psalm 137 fit within that picture? Here it is helpful to introduce the idea of a canonical reading of Scripture. In the 19th and 20th centuries, it became popular among scholars to attempt to trace the various sources of the Bible to disparate authors. Instead of recognizing the unity of Scripture, scholars sought to dissect Scripture, particularly the Old Testament. A professor of Old Testament at Yale University changed this with the introduction of the “canonical reading” of the Bible. Brevard Childs asserted that it was most helpful to approach the Bible as it is received by faith communities. In other words, rather than dissecting Scripture into many individual parts, Childs recognized the Bible as a united literary document which deserved study as such. A canonical reading of the Psalms, then, considers questions such as the arrangement of the psalms and how the book functions as a literary whole.
Scholars have generally identified five ‘books’ within the Psalms. Psalm 137 is located in Book V of the Psalter. This final section of the Psalter consists of Psalms 107-150. O. Palmer Robertson describes Book V as “the climactic praises of the consummation of the kingdom” (emphasis in original).[2] Interestingly, the Psalm itself sits within a trio of Psalms that serve as a hinge between two larger collections within the book. Psalms 120-134 are known collectively as the Songs of Ascent.
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And therein lies the danger – when the wrong fear compels us to embrace the wrong kind of savior. But our souls are anchored elsewhere – where our real Hope awaits within the Veil. We cannot afford to forget that, no matter how discouraged or desperate we become when we consider how to rescue our country.

Once there was a Christian community which loved its Church, its country and its God.  Its members were patriotic and loyal. Indeed, to be a Christian was to be a member of the national community. To serve God was to serve their country and vice-versa.
Flawed as it was, its constitution was one of the most advanced of any Republic in history. More than any other around it, this nation had successfully integrated a significant minority which had become an important part of its community, contributing to its wealth and progress. Compared to the oppression this minority had suffered in the past, their status since the mid-nineteenth century showed what was possible if freedom and equality was extended to everyone.
But a dark side had emerged. After a recent catastrophic war, this country’s standing at home and abroad had taken a serious downturn. The land these Christians were so proud of was no longer the respected leader it had been.  And they became fearful of the future.
Their fears would come to govern their behavior and justify their actions.  No longer were they governed by a fear of God, but by fear of “the other.”
Their government seemed incapable of governing. Factions, left and right, grew more and more hostile to each other as they battled for control. As one historian points out, The language of politics was permeated by metaphors of warfare, the other part was an enemy to be smashed, and struggle, terror and violence became widely accepted as legitimate weapons in the political structure….proceedings degenerated all too often into unseemly shouting matches with each side showing open contempt for the other, and the chair unable to keep order… Mutual fear, mutual recriminations and mutual hatred between the two parties far outweighed any potential purpose they might have had in common.
The language of many Christians became more and more violent as did their behavior.  At one point a “Fighting League” of Christian students was established at every university.  What began politically led to conflicts in the streets. Many Christians feared the growing power of socialists and communists and the implications of their influence on the morality and the churches. Their anxieties grew.
Open gay lifestyles, pornography, and bizarre entertainment alarmed Christian citizens who wanted only the best for their country and a return to the morality of an earlier era. Older Christians felt angry and betrayed by the new cultural trends that openly mocked older traditions, both religious and political.  There was also the growing belief that the new feminism and sexual openness was seriously eroding the traditional family.  Indeed, as historians note, many conservatives perceived a “crisis of masculinity” and were especially incensed at the public campaigns for gay rights.
Democracy as they understood it wasn’t working.  Serious economic problems threatened the middle classes.  In desperation, many Christians were attracted to extreme right-wing groups that promised to restore the country’s greatness, to overturn the inept system, and to respect and nurture Christianity and the traditional family.  A widely-held belief was that a left-wing conspiracy had overthrown their previous leadership to establish a socialist system.   Loyal, patriotic citizens had been stabbed in the back and betrayed.
Street violence, effective use of new media technology, and political intrigue grew.  Some media even undermined the Republic with their sensational exposures of real or imagined wrongdoings of… politicians.  One major media empire had as part of its mission the “constant harping on the iniquities of the Republic… (and) was another factor in weakening (its) legitimacy and convincing people that something else was needed in its stead.   In place of the feeble compromises of…democracy, authors…proclaimed the need for strong leadership, ruthless, uncompromising, hard, willing to strike down the enemies of the nation without compunction. 
To overturn an unjust, inept, unpatriotic, and foreign system would require actions which were extreme but necessary. We must save our country or lose it. This is what God would want. We have no other choice.
And a leader emerged – uncompromising, patriotic, moral and, above all, effective. The fact that he was a political amateur worked in his favor since he was seen as untainted by the corrupt and inept politicians of the Republic.  Here was a leader whose popularity was largely untouched by scandals that he himself generated. Even a violent attempt to overthrow the government was viewed by most of his patriotic Christian followers as unfortunate, but necessary to save the nation.  Although tried and found guilty of treason, his record only enhanced his reputation to his followers.   Christians flocked to his movement.
He was not alone. Judges routinely ruled “selfless patriotism” as mitigating factors in the extremists’ revolt against the State.  In many ways, the legal foundations of the Republic were being slowly undermined by those who did not believe that the current government was “constitutionally anchored.”
Within the national Christian community, politically liberal sentiments were suspect.  Christians associated with Christian communities in other countries were viewed as unpatriotic globalists.  These nationalist Christian leaders rejected anyone who dared to deny the greatness and destiny of their nation.  Influential media reported that more than half the candidates for ordination were followers of the extreme right.  One Christian leader attending a conference reported that there seemed to be more concern for the economy and foreign policy than there was for theological issues.  However, one clear-thinking theologian warned his fellow Christians in a broadcast that a leader like this could gradually become a “misleader,” making an idol of himself and therefore, mocking God.
Loyalty to the leader and his agenda soon became commensurate with loyalty to the nation. Anything less was branded as treason. Those with opposing political views were no longer merely friendly opponents but enemies of the people. It wasn’t long before Christians so embraced the leader and his movement that even the Scriptures were subject to bizarre interpretations based on the leader’s principles.  The racism that had always percolated below the surface soon became the law of the land. Indeed, most Christians did not object to this increasing isolation of vulnerable people.  After all, didn’t they do it to themselves? They have too much influence.  It’s not our problem.   They are “other,” politically and socially, and therefore, the enemy.  They are vermin and have poisoned the blood of the nation.
One pastor and former war veteran, remembering his fellow soldiers who had died in action wrote that, “We had to fight on so that their death should not have been in vain or forgotten.  But what had become of our country? A land of injustice and corruption, subject to the whims of liberal and conservative alike. Then the Party came into power with a program having a moral and religious basis. That’s why I became a member of the movement.” He went on to say that the leader, as opposed to his followers, possessed a deep morality and religion that could change people’s hearts so that the nation could be reconstructed.
The voices that sought to remind Christians that real power lay in suffering and in the weakness of Christ were ignored or silenced. The prophetic calls to return to the pure word of God were replaced by the word of the leader. Christians traded their birthright for the lure of naked political power. The fear of man had become a snare that failed to save their church and nation they loved. And what is saddest of all is that the leader they clung to in desperation shared neither their faith nor their morality. In private moments he despised their Christianity, their morality, and their sheep-like subservience.  Their desperation borne of fear led them to cling to a leader and system that betrayed them in the end. The actions that their fear generated swallowed them and their nation whole.   The reputation of their country never recovered.
Be careful, my dear brothers and sisters in Christ in what you place your hope. Proverbs 29:25 is just as meaningful today as it was in 1933 Germany. Snares do not advertise themselves. As Michael Horton points out in his magnificent book Recovering our Sanity: How the Fear of God Conquers the Fears that Divide Us, the fear of losing cultural, social, and political power often drives a large number of evangelicals to ‘put their trust in princes.’
And therein lies the danger – when the wrong fear compels us to embrace the wrong kind of savior. But our souls are anchored elsewhere – where our real Hope awaits within the Veil. We cannot afford to forget that, no matter how discouraged or desperate we become when we consider how to rescue our country.
Chris Bryans is a member of Northside Presbyterian Church (PCA) and is a retired professor of history from Eastern Florida State College in Melbourne FL.

*Whether one agrees with Bonhoeffer’s neo-orthodox theology is not the point here.  What is clear is that he was so very convinced that Christ’s commands were not optional.  He possessed an extraordinary command of Scripture as well as its applications. This was missing from what had increasingly become a cultural “cut-flower” Christian faith that characterized much of Germany even prior to the Weimar era. Indeed, liberal theology had so poisoned the Reformed doctrine of Scripture that it was easy to infect Christianity with extremism.  Biblical illiteracy abounded within the average church.  How else could so many believe the view that the Old Testament was a “Jewish book” that needed to be purged from Christianity?  How else could the German Christian movement reconstruct a Christ who had more in common with Norse heroic myths than the New Testament?  I remember hearing Bonhoeffer’s friend, disciple, and his greatest biographer discuss how very strange it was when Bonhoeffer had his seminary students engage in what we would call today “a quiet time” on the seminary grounds.  It wasn’t a part of their church experience.
Sources:
Eberhard Bethge Dietrich Bonhoeffer Man of Vision, Man of Courage (Harper and Rowe, 1977).
Georg Denzler & Volker Fabricius (Herausgeber) Die Kirchen im Dritten Reich Band 1 & 2 Fischer Verlag 1988.
Richard J. Evans The Coming of the Third Reich The Penguin Press, 2003.
Heinz Hürten (Herausgeber) Deutsche Geschichte in Quellen und Darstellung Band 9 Weimarer Republik und Drittes Reich 1918-1945 Reklam, 1995.
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Written by Amy K. Hall |
Saturday, August 6, 2022
This is what pro-lifers do. They usually do not make religious arguments when making their case publicly. Instead, they reason from widely-accepted moral/philosophical principles (e.g., murder should be illegal and every human being should have equal protection under the law) and scientific principles (e.g., a human being is the same kind of being from conception to death). Because both Christians and non-Christians share the ability to recognize basic moral truths (regardless of how those truths are actually grounded), and because the case against abortion can be made by arguing from these basic moral truths to pro-life conclusions, you will rarely (if ever) hear pro-life advocates appeal to their specific theological doctrines or cite the Bible to argue publicly against abortion. They have no interest in imposing their religion on others. They merely want the laws of our land to protect the lives of innocent unborn human beings just as they protect the innocent born ones.

The accusation that Christians have been “imposing their religion” on everyone through the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade has been widespread. Leaving aside the relevant point that the Supreme Court has not imposed a view of abortion on society but has merely returned abortion legislation to the states (since there is no actual right to abortion in the Constitution), is there any merit to the idea that the pro-life argument is religious? Well, yes and no. I do think the pro-life view is ultimately grounded in the Christian view of human beings, but not in the way most people think (and not in a way that would justify calling the argument “religious,” but we’ll get to that in a moment).
The pro-life argument, in its foundational form, is simple:

It’s wrong to intentionally kill innocent human beings.
Abortion intentionally kills innocent human beings.
Therefore, abortion is wrong.

The first thing to do when someone accuses you of making a religious argument against abortion is to clearly state the premises and conclusion of the argument and then ask, Which premise of this argument is religious?
I suspect most people’s answer will be #2,* but that is incorrect. The second premise depends on scientific reasons, not religious ones. It’s a biological fact that human beings are the same kind of organism from the moment they begin to exist, throughout every normal stage of development. Any embryology textbook will explain this. There’s no scientific reason to think we start out as some other kind of being and then become human at a later date.
The scientific truth is that the unborn is a living, growing, developing, very young human being. Abortion intentionally kills that human being. So no, the second premise is not where uniquely religious truth is hiding. (Incidentally, only those who argue for the mystical view that the unborn is later infused with a soul, or value, or whatever are making a “religious” claim about the unborn when it comes to this premise. Pro-lifers do not argue this way.)
Why Human Beings Have Equal Value and Equal Rights
That leaves the first premise: It’s wrong to intentionally kill innocent human beings. Here is where Christianity (and Judaism before it) is informing the view that human beings are intrinsically valuable (having equal rights because all equally share a valuable human nature made in the image of God), not merely instrumentally valuable (with unequal rights earned as a result of individual characteristics), and that it’s wrong to end the lives of those who are inconvenient, or damaged, or unwanted. That religious idea utterly revolutionized the world over the last 2,000 years as Christianity spread—ending slavery in the West, fighting racism, making infanticide unthinkable, and more.
At each point in history when these evils were first opposed by those who believed in the Christian idea of intrinsic, equal human value, the Christians were ridiculed, but since the Christian view of human beings is actually true and beautiful, it has, by the mercy of God, prevailed. Thankfully, today in the West, Christians are no longer ridiculed for being against infanticide. Instead, most people are horrified by the very idea of it. But please hear me when I say you should not imagine you would have been against infanticide then if you are for abortion now. The same reasoning—a lack of belief in intrinsic human value, a belief that one’s convenience, economic situation, desires, etc. justify disposing of your children—has undergirded support for both practices.
So yes, it is very Christian to think human beings are valuable and should not be disposed of—no matter their characteristics, no matter the care they require from others, no matter whether or not they’re wanted by the world—and it is indeed lurking behind the first premise of the pro-life argument. After all, even our own founding documents here in America recognize the fact that our unalienable natural rights come from our Creator, who endowed them.
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