We Are Not David
One of the few lessons I have kept from my religious youth comes from an online sermon. I think it was from Matt Chandler, as I was super into that sect of Christian thought at the time, though I can't remember who said it for sure. All I remember is the sermon was discussing the story of David and Goliath, and the pastor was saying that we (that being supposed Christians) tend to view ourselves as David. We insert ourselves in to role of the heroic, the faithful, the outlier. But, in reality, we are actually the nameless members of the army. The pastor's point was that David was a stand-in for Christ, and that the everyday Christian can never live up to such greatness. However, the secular lesson I took from it is a bit of a counterpoint - the great man is a myth.
See, I am no longer religious, in case that was in doubt. I am not anti-religion, per se, as I do find spirituality to be a boon to many people. It is not my place, nor is it my desire, to attempt to deprive someone from that which brings them peace and/or joy.
I am, however, an anti-authoritarian, and it seems to me there is no greater authoritarian than an omnipotent God. See, my issue with religious structure, if not religion and spiritualism itself, is the kick-the-can hierarchy. The soldiers in the story of David and Goliath did not need to fight for themselves, because they had their champions. The modern fundamentalist does not need to fight for and love their neighbors, because that's what God is for. And sure, God may command them to do as such, but much like with any law, it is only truly there to separate the out-group more than to correct its followers. That is to say, to the fundamentalist mind forgiveness is guaranteed, and if forgiveness for breaking God's commandments is guaranteed then what is the purpose of God's commandments?
The answer is obvious: to demonstrate those who can be cast aside. If we do not follow our nation's laws, the supposed good, law abiding citizen will report us to authority for punishment. So it goes with the fundamentalist. Hell exists, for them, as a cosmic prison within which all deviations from their preference is condemned.
But I'm not telling you something you don't already know.
Conflated with this, however, is the idea listed above - that many such folks consider themselves to be a David. This raises the question, who was David? This is no theological or biblical lesson, so suffice it to say that David was...complicated. He was a murderer, a womanizer, a king, a psalmist, and on and on. But what he was most of all, to the fundamentalist, was a lesson in recycled repentance. See, the lesson most of such pastors would like for you to take from David is that we all are prone to failure, but there's always a way back to forgiveness with God. The lesson it actually conveys, however, is that you can be effectively blameless in whatever you do so long as you're sorry about it later. This is, of course, a toxic view of the world and an awful way to live in society, but it is rife within fundamentalism.
And so we have this dichotomy: folks believe they are both David and that it is unachievable to be David. What does this create? Well, look around you. It creates a social rot wherein people believe they are the dominant player in the narrative of everyone's lives, that they are the hero, but that they are also allowed to be capable of great destruction and to produce great evils - just so long as they say sorry. Their morality, then, is not in the doing of a thing or even the being of a thing. Rather, it is in the apology entire. All can be forgiven, and therefore all is permitted.
What does that have to do with hierarchy? Quite simply, everything. This entire mindset is an appeal to authority. It only works if you are on the side of an almighty deity. If God does not exist, or if spiritual realities are horizontal in nature, there is no perpetual divine forgiveness to fall back on. If there is no perpetual divine forgiveness to fall back on, then David is not a complicated man, he is a complicated monster. He is a warmonger and tyrant with honeyed lips. And if that is indeed the case, then those who see themselves as David are much the same kind of evil. They are not accountable to friend, family, or neighbor, and as such they may perpetuate whatever word or deed they wish upon them. After all, God forgives them - why can't you?
Herein is one of many reasons I am anti-authoritarian. Herein is the reason I have taken to heart the lesson that we are not David. To believe in a hierarchical authority is to both subject yourself and your neighbors to its rule, and to rid yourself of personal responsibility. In a hierarchy, should you help the homeless person starving in the streets? Well, no, that is either the job of someone further up the hierarchy or, conversely, that individual did not follow the hierarchy's rules well enough and thus deserves their station. Either way, the follower of the hierarchy is absolved - it is not their problem and they are not required or inclined to help create a solution. Hierarchy, then, is cruelty made manifest. It feeds on misery and perpetuates an undeserved contentment.
And so I remember often that we are not David. In fact, we should desire there be no David. We must, all of us, fight for ourselves shoulder to shoulder with one another. Horizontal. Whole. After all, neither David nor Goliath could have never destroyed an entire army.