Instr. for Revolution 4: Get Intel

If you've gathered no intel and are already “shooting” you've adapted the ludicrous Hollywood-style strategy a friend of mine likes to call the “S.A.C.” or “Scream and Charge” strategy. I have news for you, this only works if you have some idea what is waiting for you on the other side. You might think this is pretty obvious for a battle, though it is far less obvious for human relationships. In attempting to win the friendship or good will of persons who have repeatedly repulsed your advances, spoken ill of you and have no respect for you; dropping by for a random visit or a giant bear hug are probably going to be heavy handed 'weapons' for winning them over. The result may be about as pretty as charging a machinegun nest across an open field.

What do we look for against our tyrannies? Vulnerabilities. The random drop by is only going to work on a needy person, a vulnerable person, a person willing to genuinely admit “defeat” (wrongness, illegal actions or what have you.). It is no coincidence that Jesus won souls from those who were willing to admit they were “sick”, He didn't come to heal the healthy (the self-righteous, the spiritually rebellious, the spiritually “undefeated”) but rather the sick.

It is necessary therefore, to be sensitive to persons, to listen to the data, hear the recon, listen to the reports etc and appraise where your enemy stands. Remember that you do not need to annihilate an enemy to win the battle. Seeking out vulnerabilities is not to destroy and enslave your tyrant, that would again, merely be to make oneself a tyrant in his place. Seeking out vulnerabilities in personal relationships is not for the purpose of exploiting them cruelly. Listening to information and using it to pull someone out of deception and delusion is one thing, listening to information and maybe embellishing it to everybody else is another.

Similarly, utterly destroying an enemy's army by means of tactical maneuver from good intelligence is not cruel, it is simply good fighting. Even a defeated soldier can respect, in principle, the superior strategem of his enemy (should it have been the genuine cause of defeat).

Gloating likewise, is worthless. Fighting for bragging rights is the stuff of unruly schoolboys, and even invites the judgement of providence. Superior strategem does not always win over time and chance, which are far more powerful. Khan's army sank before it reached China. Napoleon and Hitler were defeated by the Russian winter. A host of historical horrors should be enough to hold the haughty in humility.

The bottom line is this: get intelligence about your enemy and take it seriously. Don't let arrogance, sentimentality, emotions or memories of the past lead you into terrible defeats. Listen to everyone, even your opponent may give away a hint about his or her weaknesses. Take counsel and advice. Listen to everybody, but do not trust everybody. And remember, you are gaining knowledge to destroy tyranny, not to take it over.

Inst. for Revolution 3: Don't be Defeated Early

You will probably succumb at first to the temptation, in your moral outrage, to use the wrong weapons for the task. It is human to become angry for combat; but combat is best waged without the heat of emotion and rather with the coolness of calculation and cunning. For interpersonal relationships, anger against tyranny all too frequently results in an unwarranted escalation of force. Using the wrong kind of force has the potential to weaken or even destroy your cause, or at least to destroy its credibility.

For example, those wishing to impose a supposed moral Sharia Law upon a people, and these same people attempting to achieve this end by suicide bombings on women and children must be treated as fundamentally deranged in their thinking.

But just as some weapons are categorically wrong for the wrong kind of battle, so also can some weapons be unproductive, inhuman(e) or cruel. Strangely enough, even some weapons of physical warfare bear this stigma, such as anti-personnel mines (landmines) or chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, suicide attacks, torture. By contrast, in relationships these categorically 'cruel' weapons are used all the time: threats, insults, lies, gossip etc. In politics; blackmail, lies, smear campaigns. In spiritual battles; lies, intimidation, threats, temptations, accusations, discouragements and so on. If you resort to these weapons, you are perpetuating the tyranny. Life is full of combat, but there are ways to fight, and there are ways not to fight. Don't let your moral outrage turn into a vicious revenge. Even if you win, you have lost.

You will probably also succumb at various points to the temptation to despair. One of the best, most common, and most rotten ways evil uses to defuse attacks against itself is simply convincing others or the attacker himself that he or she is the evil one. One of the greatest ways of achieving this is to make pretences of peacefulness and then accuse the opponent of perpetuating the conflict when he or she refuses to accept a compromise with an untenably evil state of affairs. To word this again differently, the enemy will pretend to be your friend or have your interests at stake when really they have none, and when you refuse to compromise, they will attempt to make you look like the bad guy. Terrorists (Hamas), communists (Mao) and fascists (Hitler) have been pulling this for years, being diplomatic with one handshake and firmly clasping a dagger in the other hand.

I have always loved Ezra 4 as an illustration of how evil operates. The enemy will always try to identify his evil with your cause, appearing to put you on similar ground (destroying the purity of your values and thus attempting to undermine your will to fight). If that fails, they will resort to any amount of lies, intimidation, threats and fear mongering to destroy your morale.

This is why when one enters into combat with tyranny, the firmness of one's values must be continually remembered. “It is a hard heart that kills. If your killer instincts are not good and clean, you will hesitate in the moment of truth.” as the foul mouthed Sergeant Hartman says in Full Metal Jacket. He's right. If you don't know why you're there, or your commitment is weak, you're already finished. The enemy will find its way into your mind, defuse your will to fight and you will fail.

Furthermore, if you start the fight thinking that it is merely a disagreement, and not combat, you are really in for a world of hurt (see: “The Little Black Book of Violence”). Your enemy has probably “killed” before, he's a tyrant after all. Don't lose your stomach when the fight isn't cordial or pretty anymore, when the enemy then accuses you of being the malicious monster “he always knew you were after all”. It is a scare tactic designed to throw you off your game, and you off his back. Your enemy is trying to “kill” you (control you, exploit you, enslave you, whatever the tyranny may be), don't kid yourself. Combat is not the time for hesitation. Bring out your appropriate and/or sanctioned "weapons", stand your "ground", establish your "beachhead".

Instructions for Revolution: 2. Choose Your Weapons Carefully

The sparks of revolution are predicated by moral outrage and/or despair. The unreasonableness and outright immorality of tyranny reach a fever pitch, provoking the oppressed and/or offended party to action. This is when “violence” begins.

In speaking about the kingdom of heaven and the tyranny of the Old Testament Law, Jesus said,

“...from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and violent men take it by force. For all the prophets and the Law prophesied until John (Matt 11:12-13, See also Luke 16:16).” Jesus was speaking on the one hand, about the pharisees, who had been trying to force their way into the kingdom of heaven through their personal righteousness, by trying to obey the prophets and the Law. But Jesus Himself denied that it was possible to reach the kingdom of heaven with the righteousness of the pharisees. On the other hand, Jesus was speaking about the violence with which His true followers were entering the kingdom of heaven. Martin Luther, the spiritual reformer, spoke of the aggression and boldness with which the Christian was able to enter the Kingdom of God due to the death and resurrection of Christ, the violence, he might say, of entering the kindgom of God by grace through faith alone. As Ephesians 3:12 states, “we have boldness and confident access through faith in Christ.”

The lesson here in particular is the kind of violence being used. You cannot access spiritual victory over tyranny by means of physical, emotional or mental labours. Just as you cannot be reborn or have a revolution into a new system by means of a likewise tainted source, neither will corruption overcome corruption. The project of the pharisees therefore would inevitably end in failure. Using the law to combat spiritual death was a lesson in futility. It is incomparably absurd, like literally trying to destroy a tank with a team of lawyers; what we would call a categorical error. Violence must be of the right degree, as well as the right kind if it is to end tyranny.

Jesus knew the right weapon against the power of death: Himself. When accused (unjustly) of being the 'rule of demons', Jesus simply stated that if Satan was casting out his own demons, his kingdom of death would not stand (Matt12:26). With His miracles and status as the incarnate God, Jesus indicated that He Himself was not just a force against the tyranny of sin and death, but also the only 'weapon' against such forces,

"But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. Or how can anyone enter the strong man's home and carry off his property, unless he first binds the strong man? And then he will plunder his house. He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me scatters (Matt 12:28-30)."

If this were anybody but God in the flesh, I guarantee you he'd be another tyrant, amongst other not so good things. It's no coincidence that then Jesus stated the consequence of forsaking the Spirit of God as sure damnation (Matt 12:31). Crudely put, if you discard your only effective weapon against a deadly threat, annihilation is only a matter of time.

My point is this, you must accurately appraise the kind of threat being posed by the tyranny you face. Is it physical, mental, emotional, spiritual? Is it other or self or both? A tyranny may in fact pose a threat to all of these, but the tyranny itself, the source of the tyranny must be identified and uprooted. Sometimes it is necessary to uproot one tyranny before dismantling another. It is quite common that before spiritual, mental or emotional liberation can occur, physical safety or health is necessary. But this is not always the case. Once you know what you are destroying, then you know what to pick up, the pen, the Bible, the rifle, or a plate of cookies.

It is my belief that spiritual tyranny is the root cause of all tyranny. This kind of tyranny cannot be directly combatted by any other means than the gospel. However, there are now other moral challenges and realities we must face in a world devastated by human moral failure and rebellion against the rulership of God. Spiritual death has afflicted every part of human existence; there is now also a moral imperative that there are mouths to feed, broken hearts to nurture, minds shattered and helpless people to protect. To ignore one is to ignore another. But that's a topic for an entirely different post.

Hoped you enjoyed this slice. More to follow.