Multiculturalism (The End of the Empire 5)
and when the Lord your God turns them over to you and you defeat them, you shall utterly destroy them. You shall not make a covenant with them nor be gracious to them. Deuteronomy 7:2 NASB
Utterly Destroy – Diversity is a good thing, right? How wonderful it is to be able to get a great Italian meal in Naples, Florida. Or a handmade New Zealand wool sweater in the Bronx. Or a Russian artist’s painting from his studio in Glendale, California. America is the melting pot of worldwide diversity. People from every background, every ethnicity, every tradition come to the shores of America and bring with them their heritage, culture, and contribution. And it’s all good, right?
But diversity is not the same as multiculturalism.
When Israel was about to enter Canaan, Moses addressed the issue of multiculturalism. What was his answer? We don’t like to say it, but it was an absolute rejection of any hope of a multicultural environment. Basically, Moses instructed the people to “Kill them all.” Don’t leave a single thread of the prior culture in place. Wipe it from the face of the earth. The word is ḥāram. It is used twice for emphasis.
The root ḥrm is used only in the causative stems; forty-eight times in the iphil and three in the Hophal. The basic meaning is the exclusion of an object from the use or abuse of man and its irrevocable surrender to God. The word is related to an Arabic root meaning “to prohibit, especially to ordinary use.” The word “harem,” meaning the special quarters for Muslim wives, comes from it. It is related also to an Ethiopic root, meaning “to forbid, prohibit, lay under a curse.” Surrendering something to God meant devoting it to the service of God or putting it under a ban for utter destruction.[1]
Why would God want such a radical action? Because multiculturalism is not simply assimilating elements of another culture into an existing society. It is importing another way of living, another complete culture, imposing it into the existing society. Under multiculturalism, some parts of the new culture will not assimilate. Some rituals, some expectations, some ideologies, some behaviors will remain as if they never moved. The result is an Islam occupation in the middle of Detroit. Multiculturalism does not expect assimilation. It preaches toleration, as if toleration will somehow enrich the society in a way that assimilated diversity doesn’t. The result is many cultures with competitive worldviews at odds with each other within the same society, and that is a recipe for chaos. God knew that Israel could not remain Israel, His chosen nation, if it accommodated the cultures of Canaan. Therefore, those cultures had to be destroyed. The fact that this did not happen is a testimony to God’s foresight—and Israel’s downfall. The reason the Roman Empire survived for so long was not because it was multicultural. To the contrary, Rome was a single culture that absorbed conquered territories into its way of thinking. When it stopped insisting on “the Roman Way of Life,” it crumbled. “A house divided” is the end of multiculturalism.
Today we might find it ethically repugnant to hear God command the extermination of entire people groups, but once we understand why perhaps we should be repulsed by our present tolerance policies. They will be the death of us.
Topical Index: utterly destroy, ḥāram, multiculturalism, diversity, Deuteronomy 7:2
[1] Wood, L. J. (1999). 744 חָרַם. R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 324). Chicago: Moody Press.
