12 Your maxims are proverbs of ashes,
your defences are defences of clay. (Job 13:12)
As Job girds his loins, first against his so-called "friends" who insist that he must have done something to deserve getting crapped on by God; and second, to demand an audience before God to answer his plea, he rebukes the three who sit just outside the midden-heap, "defending" the LORD's actions.
In light on my current frustrations with (a) the pusillanimity of the Church, and (b) the exploitation of fears over our current social state by those seeking personal gain, it might be well to consider Job's budding courage in the face of the counsel of the foolish. Listening to the words of the ill-informed only muddies the waters. It is long past time for persons who believe (rather than know) the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who are accounted children of God through the power of the Spirit sent by the risen Christ to stand up and simply call out those who, through ignorance or a lust for power and control, would turn us from what we believe.
For someone like Glenn Beck (Glenn Beck!) to insist there is nothing "Christian" about Liberation Theology is almost unworthy of rejoinder. All the same, it would have been nice if Chris Wallace had asked Beck the liberation theology he had actually read and studied. Cone? Wilmore? Gutierrez? Boff? What about these authors is unChristian?
Beyond those questions, if he even had an answer, one should simply dismiss him. Beck is one of those people to whom Job is speaking when it is written in 13:5, "If you would only keep silent, that would be your wisdom!" There are others, to be sure, but this rebuke, it seems to me, is sufficient.
That part of me that continues to struggle is strengthened by the courage Job shows in telling off the counsel of the foolish, demanding his place before the Divine throne. I doubt if Job's "friends" shut up, anymore than I doubt those who claim to speak for God in our day will quiet their words of ashes and defense of clay. All the same, the Church does have the duty to make clear that, like Joshua, our House will serve the LORD.
