Babel, Hadron Collider and the Glasgow Tobacco Lords 14/02/2024

I hope that this blog is not misunderstood. This is not attack on city-life. I have not lived permanently in any city but I spent several years studying at Glasgow University and I came to love the architecture and the people of Glasgow. I have always found Glaswegians friendly and entertaining. Nor am I being like the Victorians who were prone to favour country living and despised the urban life - especially in the large industrial cities where disease was rampant due to overcrowding, poor housing and insanitary conditions.

In the Bible, the city is a metaphor for human civilisation. It represents human achievement and it demonstrates aggrandisement and self-promotion in defiance of God. It was Cain, the first murderer-son of Adam and Eve, who built the first city in order to establish his dynasty (Genesis 4:17). We don't know much about this city but we do know more about the next mentioned city in Genesis 11 - it is called Babel and is probably the origin of the city of Babylon which features prominently in the Bible.

11 Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. 2 As people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there. 3 They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. 4 Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”

5 But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. 6 The Lord said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”

8 So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. 9 That is why it was called Babel —because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth. [Genesis 11:1-9 NIV]

There is evidence of community cohesion and forward planning. Their actions are following a clear plan and they are communicating with each other to realise their vision. This is not haphazard or disjointed action. Their goal is clearly stated: "Let us make a name for ourselves." They were wanting to establish a reputation and to be respected by other earth dwellers. This is the start of competition and rivalry and this is a feature of today's society. There is considerable rivalry between the two largest cities in Scotland - Glasgow and Edinburgh. There is rivalry between suburbs and parts of each of these cities. When Janie and I were first married, we lived in the small town of Auchinleck, in East Ayrshire. It was less than a mile from the neighbouring town of Cumnock whose football team won the Junior Cup. There was great celebration in the town but the coaches and buses carrying supporters, returning from the match, had to make a detour because some of the residents in Auchinleck were waiting to throw stones at the buses.

Ancient Ziggurat in Iraq.

The people of Babel built a massive tower which was probably a Ziggurat - a monumental tower. This was an anti-God project. They were wanting the top of the tower to reach to the heavens. Were they seeking to compete with God who dwelt in the heavens? God knew the plans that they had and their motivation. He detected a challenge to His authority.

There are three features of this city to which I would like to draw attention.

1. Celebration of modern technology. This technology seems primitive but it is very important in its context. They had developed the means to build using bricks and they believed that their buildings would be permanent and impressive. Prior to their new inventions, buildings were built with stones which were irregular and were not capable of being built to a great height. These mud baked bricks were regular in size and therefore could make a more lasting construction. They did not use mortar to join these bricks but they used bitumen instead which is still used today in road surfacing.

2. Celebration of human freedom. Notice the phrases used in the short description of this city - "they said to one another"; "come let us make"; "come let us build". They are celebrating their capacity to do what they want. Maybe that sounds familiar.

3. Celebration of human achievement - "let us make a name for ourselves."

These three aspects are very much present in our postmodern world. We celebrate the wonder of technology. The war which is being fought between Ukraine and Russia has demonstrated the destructive power of new technology - especially drones. Their capacity to locate targets using sophisticated GPS navigation is impressive but equally unsettling. The news recently featured the expansion of the Large Hadron Collider at the CERN (Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire) underground laboratory deep underground in Switzerland. This new machine was to cost £12 billion - a staggering amount. One of my friends, who is not a Christian, commented on this BBC news story and he talked about the juxtaposition of reports as the next item featured the current famine in Ethiopia and its effects on women and children there. I remember seeing one of these scientists extolling the virtues of this invention in language which was akin to worship in our churches.

The statue of the German Kaiser Wilhelm 1 in Koblenz. Compare the height of the statue with the people in the foreground.

In today's world there is a similar desire 'to make a name for ourselves.' When Janie and I were touring the Rhineland in Germany we came across a huge statue to the German Kaiser Wilhelm in Koblenz. Its location at the confluence of two rivers was designed to emphasise the prominence of this statue to a man who had an inflated ego. Do we have similar characters on the international scene in 2024? I used to teach young people about the Glasgow Tobacco Lords who made huge fortunes from importing tobacco into Scotland and the United Kingdom. They dressed ostentatiously and built huge mansions which are still part of the city landscape in the city centre. Many of the streets in Glasgow City Centre are named after the tobacco lords. They too had a desire 'to make a name for themselves.'

One of the many buildings in Glasgow with links to the Tobacco Lords.

A picture of a Glasgow Tobacco Lord. They strutted along the pavements to impress the general population with their wealth and influence.

Man's religion is similar to his city. In general terms, most religions are about human achievement – they are about human efforts to please a deity. They celebrate human achievement and elevate humans to places of dignity and honour which displaces the rightful place of God. There are those who argue that they will not follow Christianity because it will limit their freedom – in other words they are not prepared to accept God's authority over their lives. There are also those who quite openly prefer to trust in man's achievement rather than God – they wrongly claim that there is a choice between science and knowledge on the one hand and God and the Bible on the other hand and so many prefer to trust in science. For many people, science can be a barrier to belief in the Bible and God.

I hope to develop some of these threads in future blogs.