Against the Flow: How Daniel Speaks to Us Today

The Book of Daniel in the Old Testament is filled with prophecies: the kingdoms which followed Babylon’s Nebuchadnezzar; the desecration of the temple in Jerusalem by Antiochus IV Epiphanes; the rise of Rome. The book also included prophecies of the end-times, dovetailing with the Book of Revelation in the New Testament.

In the last three chapters of Against the Flow: The Inspiration of Daniel in an Age of Relativism, author John Lennox describes the fourth and final vision, a kind of survey of the times that would follow Daniel. The information is detailed and in-depth, once again emphasizing the accuracy of what Daniel saw – and what the angel told him would happen.

Prophecy is an important study, and I’ve read the prophetic Old Testament books, read the Book of Revelation, and studied the Book of Revelation. I’m no expert, however, and if someone asked me what my favorite part of the Bible was, I would have to say it’s not prophecy and the study of end-times.  (If you want to know, my favorite books are the Gospels of John and Luke and the Book of Acts.)

So while I’m interested and intrigued with what Lennox writes about in these concluding chapters, I’m not completely riveted. What interests me most is what he had to say in the earlier chapters.

Despite some 2500 years, Christians today have a number of things in common with Daniel and his times.

Here in the United States, the last 50 to 60 years have seen a phenomenal shift in culture and values. It’s not so much a shift “away from the church,” although that’s certainly part of it. Instead, what more describes what has happened is an enormously significant shift in how we understand individual freedom. That freedom has become our Holy Grail, our expectation, our entitlement, what we demand. And that freedom has come largely through the impetus of the federal government, and especially through the federal court system.

What the Supreme Court says and decides has become so important, so wrapped up in this cultural concept of individual freedom at all costs, that we don’t mind the baggage these decisions brings with them as long as “our side” is vindicated and “wins.” (This also says something about the political polarization happening in the United States as well.)

Some of that baggage includes the court having to make up stuff in order to write the decision the majority wants. Harry Blackmun searched the Constitution long and hard in writing his opinion in Roe v. Wade and finally gave up using the Constitution to justify abortion. Instead, he turned to Roman law. Justice John Roberts was only able to uphold the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act by declaring it to be exactly what the Obama Administration and the Congress that passed it said it wasn’t – a tax. In fact, it was such a badly written law (which even most of its supporters didn’t read) that then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was right – they had to pass the law to find out what was in it. And the administration has had to rewrite key provisions of the law, not once but several times, to make its programs actually function.

What has happened with these court decisions and laws is that gradually, almost without notice, our society has been dismantling anything that could potentially stand between us and the federal government. All of the mediating institutions – the states and state legislatures, cultural and social organizations, even Congress – are becoming increasing superfluous.

I’ve heard many people compare these times to the end of the Roman Empire. If you read Roman history, you’ll find these people are wrong. Our times are not like the end of the Roman Empire; they do, however, resemble the end of the Roman Republic.

And the times of Daniel. Daniel lived under a succession of autocracies, where the king was essentially considered an absolute god. Because of his skill, competence and intelligence, he rose in position under both the Babylonians and the Medo-Persians.

More importantly, he had to learn how to navigate those autocracies and still remain faithful to God. He managed, through his own skill and wits as well as more than a little supernatural help. He had to make choices and decisions, hard ones, facing problems that could have been solved so easily – just bend the knee to the king; just worship the king for 30 days – that’s all, just 30 days.

Daniel couldn’t, and didn’t. He understood the consequences. He decided that being thrown into the lion’s den was less onerous than worshipping a false god.

He was a man of conviction and courage. He accepted God at His word. And he knew that God could save him, or not, but that regardless, he would still remain faithful and accept God’s plan.

In the times that are coming, that are now just arriving, we Christians will need the conviction and courage of a Daniel. That, to me, is the significant lesson of the Book of Daniel.

For the past several weeks, I’ve been discussing Against the Flow. This concludes the discussion. But the lessons learned go on.

And we do have another example, one closer to our times, that's worth considering. In February of 1974, a man was arrested by his country's secret police and then expelled from the country. This is what he was writing the day he was arrested: Live Not by Lies. 

He was blessed in that he lived long enough to see the downfall of the regime that arrested him. That, however, is not always the promise, as Daniel well knew.

Photograph by Xoan Seoane via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

Against the Flow: A Dark Vision of Relativism

The prophet Daniel had two visions that terrified him. One was of four beasts (Daniel 7). The other was of a ram and a goat (Daniel 8). Both were connected to the idea of a ruler who would terrorize the faithful (the faithful Jews, in this case).

Theologians and Biblical historians see the point of these visions in the person of Antiochus Epiphanes, the descendant of one of Alexander the Great’s generals who ruled what today is Israel, Syria, and part of Iraq, and who almost conquered Egypt. Antiochus believed he was a god, or perhaps “the” god, and everything was to reflect his deity: coins, building inscriptions, buildings, culture, religion – including the Jewish temple at Jerusalem. He was determined to Hellenize his empire, including Israel.

When the Jews resisted, he struck back, and hard. The temple was turned into a temple of Zeus. Faithful Jews were imprisoned and killed. Circumcised babies were killed, hung around their mothers’ necks, and thrown from the walls of Jerusalem.

Antiochus overreached (a gross understatement). He inspired the successful Maccabean revolt. He lost Palestine. His legacy is cited in the New Testament as “the abomination of desolation.” What is also clear is that the story of Antiochus Epiphanes is not over; both the account in Daniel and references in the New Testament suggest more is to come, at some point in the future.

In Against the Flow: The Inspiration of Daniel in an Age of Relativism, John Lennox discusses what happened, and what could happen, in great and fascinating detail. As he’s been doing previously in the book, Lennox draws the parallel with the multi-god worship practices on Daniel’s time with the relativism that dominates so much thinking today. And this he explains why this is important.

“Relativism weakens intellectual and moral resistance to totalitarianism,” he says, “and opens us up to manipulation and deceit; so that in the end the ‘truth’ we believe is dictated by those who hold the power.”

Earlier this month, a very small example of what can happen was noted.

Edward Schlosser is the pseudonym of a college professor. He writes for Vox, the online news and commentary site. In early June, he published an article that has gained a fair amount of notice: “I’m a Liberal Professor, and My Liberal Students Terrify Me.” What he described is the growing fear of professors, even and perhaps especially liberal ones, of offending their students in the normal course of teaching.

As in, “Your reading of that quotation by Mark Twain offends me.” Or, “You are not taking my opposing view seriously enough.” Professors have been reported and disciplined for less. Yes, in America. I wish I was making this up.

As Rod Dreher at American Conservative says, “Welcome to the Maoist Cultural Revolution.”

I have to admit it’s difficult for me to feel sympathy for a self-acknowledged liberal college professor. This is what post-modern thinking comes to – so far – and what “progressive” professors may well have brought on themselves.

It’s the ultimate challenge of relativism, boomeranged back on the very people whose thinking and beliefs enshrined relativism as the new religion. If everything is relative, your truth is no better than my truth, your “facts” no better than mine, and if you offend me or cause me anguish, I will report you, because I have the power to do so.

The implications reach far beyond the college classroom. Imagine a U.S. Internal Revenue Service punishing groups because they adhere to the “wrong” political philosophy. If they have that power, they can use it.

For the past several weeks, I’ve been discussing Against the Flow and how the book of Daniel in the Old Testament has meaning application for us today. This post is based on Chapter 16, “The Four Beasts and the Son of Man,” and Chapter 17, “The Vision of the Ram and the Goat.”

Painting: The Triumph of Judas Maccabeus by Rubens, circa 1630.