At the Bari-Bombing meeting in Garberville Bruce Anderson mentioned a conversation with an FBI agent concerning the Lord’s Avenger letter in which the editor asked him if he’d checked the Bible quotes in a Concordance?
The FBI agent asked “What’s a Concordance?” and our editor could only exclaim over the agent’s ignorance. I noticed some in the audience wondering — “What is a Concordance?” A Concordance is a vast and elaborate index of the Bible with lists of references each with an eight word or so headline.
If a person is not familiar with the Bible from the inside, he can take his topic — say, mercy — and look it up and receive a nice list of one-liners, and if he has a Bible at hand can look up his favorites to expand the quotes.
To remind our readers, the Lord’s Avenger letter was written five days after Bari’s bombing and contained specific information about the bomb’s construction. This credibility was used to try to convincing the police that the bomber was a born again Christian and anti-abortion activist. In the letter there are eight quotations from the Bible. I spent an afternoon with my Bible and Concordance looking at these eight quotes and here are my results. Obviously the Lord’s Avenger didn’t look up mercy. To see if this was the right track I went right to the word Vengeance and immediately found three of the quotes. In fact, two of them were the first two offered. But let’s go through the quotes in sequence.
The first quote: “Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection, But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. — Timothy 2: 11,” is used by the Avenger to condemn Judi Bari’s blasphemous behavior at the Baby-Killing Clinic (Planned Parenthood). We find this quote readily in the Concordance under woman/wife: the correct citation is 1 Timothy 2:11 and 2:12. When we read Timothy we find that the issue here is the wayward wife. It is usurpation of the man as head of the house that is condemned here. It was Eve being beguiled — “hath fallen” — transgression and nothing can save her but childbearing and fidelity. Adam should be “One that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity.”
The second quote: “And God said, let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. — Genesis 1:26.” This is the only quote readily found without a Concordance since it occurs on the first pages of Genesis and is the signature quote of all rapers of the planet, much used by Wise Use and other critics of Earth First!
The third quote: “The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance: he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked. — Psalms 58:10” This chilling quote is in the Concordance as the second entry under Vengeance; the end of the line is also quoted under wicked. Remember — this quote is chosen right in the middle of technical details of bomb making and with full knowledge that Judi Bari was in the hospital suffering the bloody results. The Wicked to be punished are those who go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies. “Their poison is like the poison of a serpent: they are like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear.” The Avenger says that “something that festered before my Eyes stirred him to strike down this demon.”
The fourth quote: “Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is. — Ephesians 5:17” The Avenger uses this quote to describe the time of waiting when the bomb should have already exploded and then the wonder of God who held the timer up until The Demon was joined in her car by the VERY SAME man who had helped her “Mock and Insult the Faithful.” How was this quote found in the Concordance? When we look under wife we are directed to Ephesians 5:22 “Wives, be in subjection unto your own husbands.” What is the will of the Lord here? The quote occurs in the middle of a chapter condemning fornication, uncleanness, and things which are done in secret: “it is a shame even to speak of” (Ephesians 5:12) and is immediately followed by the “Wives be in subjection unto your own husbands.” The will of the Lord is clearly directed to the straying wife (and how convenient that she was with the VERY SAME man).
The fifth quote: “suffering the vengeance of eternal fire — Jude 7” is used by the Avenger to justify the pain and suffering of Judi Bari. This quote is found verbatim in the Concordance under Vengeance with one small omission. The entry in the Concordance reads “Sodom — suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.” The crime being punished here is not pagan tree worship but rather fornication and going after strange flesh (i.e., homosexuality). We go directly from eternal fire to these words: “Yet in like manner these also in their dreamings defile the flesh, and set at nought dominion, and rail at dignities. But Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing judgment, but said, The Lord rebuke thee.” Even when arguing with the devil to save Moses you won’t hear any railing out of Michael, who defers to the authority of the supreme Father; yet here we have a pair of fornicators who rail at worthy things and, presumptively, defy the paterfamilias.
The sixth quote: “To me belongeth vengeance, and recompense, their foot shall slide in due time for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make haste. — Deuteronomy 32:35.” This quote is the first entry in the Concordance under Vengeance. The Avenger says this quote is meant as a warning to the followers of Judi who are worshipping trees. What does the Bible refer to here? What kind of foot-sliding is going on? For what is vengeance coming in haste? Here is the full quote: “For their vine is the vine of Sodom, and of the fields of Gomorrah: Their grapes are grapes of gall, Their clusters are bitter: Their wine is the poison of serpents, and the cruel venom of asps. Is not this laid up in store with me, sealed up among my treasures? Vengeance is mine, and recompense, At the time when their foot shall slide: For the day of their calamity is at hand, And the things that are to come upon them shall make haste.” Once again, the crimes are crimes of sex and the Avenger has long been storing up the poisons of snakes and betrayers.
The seventh quote: “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. — James 4:7” is meant by the Avenger to evoke the demon’s pagan faith. The quote is found directly in the Concordance under devil. But the devil referred to in James is not the pagan demon but the Freudian devil that lives in our loins — the pleasures that war in your members — too much lust, too much pleasure and laughter — “Ye adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God?”
The last quote: “I will early destroy all the wicked of the land; that I may cut off all wicked doers from the city of the Lord. — Psalms 101:8” This quote is found in the Concordance under Wicked. It is the Psalm of the Upright man: “I will walk within my house with a perfect heart because a perverse heart shall depart from me; the slanderer will be destroyed; the person with the high look and proud heart” will be gone; and “he that works deceit shall not dwell within my house.” Concluding with the “I will early destroy,” etc.
A few conclusions. The quotes were readily found under a small handful of words in the Concordance: woman/wife, vengeance, wife, vengeance, devil, and wicked. Five of the quotes explicitly refer to the wayward or straying wife, adultery, fornication, and lusting after strange flesh and unnatural sexual practices. The opening and concluding quotes evoke the upright man who would rule his own house which is forever in danger of destruction from the lying and deceiving woman.
I agree that the baby killing abortion mills should be shut down.