Babylon

A song from the World War II era had a verse that went something like this: “How will you keep them down on the farm, now that they’ve seen Paree?” Those lyrics reflected a time when the city was where the excitement and fun was, and you just didn’t find much in the rural communities.

When I was a boy, cities were where you found evil. In our small towns there weren’t drugs to speak of, and violent crime was almost unheard of. Most towns didn’t have a liquor store, and the few bars were pretty tame. To find large-scale badness, a wide choice of sins, you went to the city. Or so we were told.

These days, cable TV and the internet have considerably broadened our options for bad choice-making. Alcohol is prevalent, we all play cards and go to the movies, and men and women of my generation regret that we never learned to dance. But there’s still a big difference between Orange City and New York City.

I’m prompted to these musings by John’s vision of the fate of the ancient city of Babylon, the center of much evil. Look at these excerpts from Revelation 17:2-2, 16, 28: 

“One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me, ‘Come, I will show you the punishment of the great prostitute, who sits by many waters. With her the kings of the earth committed adultery, and the inhabitants of the earth were intoxicated with the wine of her adulteries.’ . . . . Then the angel said to me, ‘The waters you saw, where the prostitute sits, are peoples, multitudes, nations and languages. . . . The woman you saw is the great city that rules over the kings of the earth.’”

I don’t think God put this in scripture to make any direct comparisons to today, but I do think there’s some truth that some of the greatest accomplishments of men end up seducing us to evil. Babylon was the shining jewel of civilization, and at the same time the great prostitute that seduced peoples, multitudes and nations away from God.

What works of our culture are doing the same thing? Do we have Babylon equivalents in places like Los Angeles, Paris, Rome, Dubai? Or are our Babylons more abstract, things like Facebook or political parties? Or maybe entertainments like sports and music?

It’s worth thinking about because I think one of the principles underlying John’s vision is that God hates evil. One thing Revelation shows us is personifications or objectifications of what evil is in this world. And Babylon seems in some way to represent earthly culture.

We have to beware the Babylons, or we become part of that filthy pool of misguided people that the great prostitute bathes in. And we jeopardize our chances of singing one day by the sea of crystal.