Zombie nation?

Three generations from those foundational, identity-forming events of the Exodus from Egypt and the Sinai covenant, God’s people are in crisis. They have arrived in the promised land and are emerging as a nation, but the seeds of idolatry and injustice are in full bloom, strangling the image-bearing quality of the covenant people. The response to failure does not result in rooting out idolatry and injustice—in fact the people wrongly diagnose the problem (i.e., unstable political governance) and consequently propose the wrong solution (i.e., strong, perpetual leadership). We witness a seemingly unending cycle, in which the people of God are not dead, but they are by no means thriving and flourishing. Israel is a zombie nation!

In this way, Judges stands as a prophetic clarion call for the people of God today. To what extent have the seeds of idolatry taken root and choked out our call to bear the image of Christ in the context of the twenty-first century? Is our commitment to the idols of our day compromising our calling to be faithful witnesses to Jesus and his countercultural kingdom for the sake of the flourishing of all people? Are we looking for solutions in all the wrong places, retreating into pietistic isolationism, or putting our trust in the wrong things (e.g., authoritarian government)? It is possible that the church has become a community of zombies?—from the introduction of David J. H. Beldman, Judges, Two Horizons Old Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, forthcoming)