We Don't Do Babylon: Erin Runions in English Political Discourse

Abstract

There are several reasons why Erin Runions’ new book is important. For what it might be worth, I find myself in strong agreement with her anarchic reflections on authority, power and radical equality. In terms of the field, The Babylon Complex is a model of what biblical studies can be: it is both unashamedly from biblical studies but it also shows how biblical studies can contribute seriously to wider debates in the humanities, cultural studies and politics. In terms of the frame of reference, it is a significant contribution to the growth area of the role of the Bible in contemporary political discourses. Runions convincingly shows how the fluid and often ambiguous image of Babylon in American politics and culture is pervasive and is found in present debates about national sovereignty, hierarchy, wars, free markets, (theo-)democracy, family values, sexuality, biopolitics, and so on. What was particularly striking to me was that her general results about the Bible in American politics and culture are similar to what has been happening in my own area of research: the Bible in English politics and culture (Crossley 2014; 2015). Some emphases are obviously more prominent and polemical in American mainstream political discourses than British or English ones (e.g. explicit fears about sexuality). Nevertheless, the idea that the Bible functions as a higher authority is, as we will see, precisely what has been happening contemporaneously in English politics. One particularly important insight, which almost inevitably cuts across both contexts like a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, is the idea that transcendence functions as sovereign authority in the absence of such authority when the market is prioritized. In particular, Runions shows how this effectively has to be the case “if the United States wants to continue to lay an ideological claim to world power, and if lines of privilege are to be protected against the tyranny of too much equality (i.e. revolt).” Runions adds: