The Law Ancient, the Reality Today

Summary

In the midst of this ongoing, ever-erupting shift of ownership and possession, it appears that aggressive legal actions have preempted human rights and the theology of ‘God among us’ has been shelved. In the world's desire to right one wrong, another was committed. As John Bright says in referring to the law of the Hebrew Bible, ‘…the law, as law, is ancient, irrelevant, and without authority. But what of the theology of the law?… It seeks to tell us that the land is God's and that we live on this earth as aliens and sojourners, holding all that we have as if it were on loan from God’ (Bright 1967: 153). We are aliens – sojourners – guests of God on God's own home planet, yet we behave as though the land is ours – for this generation – for this moment in time – forever.

The Native Americans who believe that we should make decisions based on what is best for the seventh generation to come, are more in tune with Genesis and Exodus and our holy scripture than we who so rudely grasp at the ground, abuse it and one another in our attempts to gain what we see as our needs – our wants – our rights.