Genesis 4.9 reports a portion of the conversation conducted between Yahweh and Cain immediately after Cain’s murder of his brother Abel—a murder inspired by envy and a desire to possess what another rightly possessed. The passage contains the first recorded words uttered by a mortal being after the expulsion from Eden. One can think of any number of probable and earlier mortal utterances that might have been more positive and uplifting. But, in portraying and advancing their thesis concerning the brutal nature of mortality, the writers and editors of Genesis reported these words first.
 
Though Cain’s response to Yahweh’s question concerning the location of Abel takes the form of a question, it is, in fact, anything but an honest query. Rather, it is Cain’s arrogant and dismissive denial of his responsibility to or for anyone other than himself.
 
“Am I my brother's keeper?”
 
Sadly, this attitude is alive and well today. It is evidenced in both private and individual acts of selfishness and in the choices that society makes concerning public policy—policies that proudly and loudly proclaim that no American need be his brother’s keeper. The America version of Cain’s selfish and murderous belligerence can be seen in a myriad of private and public acts and policies, but the recent anti-masker and anti-vaxxer movements with their tens of millions of members is as good and as concrete an example as any. Unlike Cain, these modern-day American Cainites are responsible not for one death but for many—tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of fellow citizens.
 
This is tragic enough but is made even more tragic when so many millions of American Cainites call themselves “Christian”—this with the Bible’s anti-Cainite position staring them in the face. And it isn’t like Genesis’ authors and editors were the only and last to rebuke the Cainite doctrine of vile and violent sacrifice of others out of selfish self-service. As but one example, we offer up the admonition of the apostle Paul—a man so many “Christians” claim to admire, love, and follow.
 
“Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others” (Phil. 2.3-4).
 
This counsel is not only ignored almost entirely by American “Christians,” it is proudly rejected as some kind of socialistic plot against decency. But, it is American “Christianity’s rejection of the “brotherly” principle and its willful adoption of the murderous Cainite attitude that is indecent.
 
It is not enough to personally resist in our individual lives this Satanic delusion that we are not our brother’s keeper. The times call for true evangelists and activist that push back against American Cainite delusions with equal and opposite force. Without this, the modern American Cainites gain ground inch by inch. Those worthy of the name, “Christian” must join forces with all decent people to publicly renounce Cain’s age-old Satanic lie and to actively agitate for private attitudes and behaviors and public policy that recognize and act upon the truth that God has called us to be our brother’s keeper; that we are all truly connected, interrelated, indeed, related. Without this, we can only expect deeper belligerence and more murder on grander and grander scales until the nation and then the whole earth is wasted.