We Don’t Turn the Other Cheek
January 21st, 2007 by 
drunkentune
The history of the world does not begin until the Shoah. It is the culmination of two thousand years of hatred and violence towards Jews, but the beginning of how Jews choose to survive in a world that thinks of them as a cancer. Everything today is understood in this light. As the engraving at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, the first Holocaust memorial, reads, ‘Forgetfulness is the way to exile. Remembrance is the way to redemption.’ No one has ever given the Jews anything but sorrow.
I’ll be giving a brief overview on my thoughts on the subject, along with my impression of the general Jewish attitude the world at large. I could have talked about the religious implications for so many Jews and how some have rejected or refined their religion; I could have talked about the Shoah itself, but I will do neither of these things. This isn’t the time or the place. So sit tight for a bit and listen.
The Shoah did not occur in a vacuum. The antisemitism of Germany is a result of one part classic blood libel (The Vatican itself continued using the blood libel up until 1914. Kertzer, “Modern Use.”), a good helping of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and a dash of Luther’s writings (’They are the boastful, arrogant rascals who to the present day can do no more than boast of their race and lineage, praise only themselves, and disdain and curse all the world in their synagogues, prayers, and doctrines,’ etc. (On the Jews and Their Lies, p. 156)). That much is clear.
The accusation can be found in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (in ‘The Prioress’s Tale’), presented in courts of law (Russia, for instance, tried Mendel Bellis on this charge) and raised as a possiblity in the United States (such as Massena, New York, 1928). In pre-Christian times, Apion, an anti-Jewish propagandist living in Alexandria, said that the Jews each year captured a Greek, fattened him up, and sacricied him. The first recorded Christian use of this libel was in 1144 in Norwich, England , when a hoax eventually became a local legend (St. William of Norwich), followed by several subsequent blood accusations, including one in Lincoln (1255), where the victim, an 8-year-old boy, was later made a saint (St. Hugh). Today this same charge is present in the Islamic world. In 1960 the Muslim paper in Daghestan accused Jews of needing Muslim blood to practice their rituals. Sheikh Colonel Nader Al-Tamimi, claimed that there can be no peace with the Jews because they suck the blood of Arabs (Al-Jazeera, October 24 2000; see also Passover and the Blood Libel, by Steven Stalinsky). In the past ten years, there have been several long-running Muslim television shows, such as al-Shatat (The Diaspora), and interviews propagating the blood libel, such as Iranian TV.
Of course, I pass over the lesser-known host desecration charges that began in the early 10th century, where at least ‘100 instances of the charge have been recorded, in many cases leading to massacres’ (William Nichol, Christian Antisemitism: A History of Hate). Charges of host desecration died out in the Middle Ages, but even now, during the mid-90’s, there were charges in Mississippi and Ontario.
Lastly, Jews are Christ-killers, and I will never forget the first time I heard a Christian spit that vile title at me. Of course, humor being a muse of pain x time, I myself use this name in friendly discussion.
A number of he Nazi-promulgated Nuremberg Laws of 1935 can be found to have their anteceents in laws passed in 1215 by the Fourth Lateran Council (Canons 78 and 79, forcing Jews to wear a badge as identification, and prohibiting Jews from owning land or embarking upon civil or military careers), an international Christian conference convened by Pope Inncocent III - itself having antecedents in the Theodosian Code of 439 and the Third Council of Toledo in 589. In no other religion were Jews treated as something so profoundly demonic as Christianity. If there’s a good force in the world, there must be an evil force: God and the Devil; Christians and Jews. But oh, how to twist the Jewish culture: The Jewish desire for ‘freedom of the press’ is ‘[The Jews’] term for poisoning and lying to the people. (Mein Kampf, p. 245).’ The Jewish love of knowledge and intelligence is there, too, ‘but his intelligence is not the result of his own development, but of visual instruction through foreigners (ibid., p. 300).’ The Jewish obligation for chairity is twisted again, this time because ‘the Jew, despite all his love of sacrifice, naturally never becomes personally impoverished. (ibid., p. 314)’
I. Never, ever again
Never again will we sit by and mumble while other Jews are killed, and never again will we be paid lip service. If you try to kill the Jews, I want to make this as simple as I can: you fuck with us, and we will destroy you. When Russia attempted to interfere with Israel back in the 60’s, the Israeli government immediately bared their teeth and held the Atom bomb aloft. The message was clear: do not fuck with us. When Hezbollah and Israel began fighting in late 2006, everyone saw the connection linking Hezbollah to Iran. Iran was testing the waters, and the response from Israel was clear: don’t fuck with us. As Dan Halutz, a Israeli Air Force Lt. General, said of Hezbollah, ‘we will turn Lebanon’s clock back 20 years.’ We are willing to kill every last human being; we are willing to destroy the planet – the entire universe, because for close to two thousand years, every last country, culture and religion has been trying to wipe the Jews off the face of the Earth. They almost succeeded once, and we’ll never let them do it again. As Kinky Friedman, the Jewish Texan country singer and author said,
II. Multiculturalism
After World War II, the Jews looked around Europe, and Jewish guilt being such powerful juju, they saw smiles, but no raised hands. Instead, they pointed south to Africa. We cut our losses and headed to Palestine. The methods used were the modern equivalent of the Tamyl Tigers with tanks - and what’s with this ‘We will destroy the world’ thing? Some would call these ideas ‘terroristic’, so some may say, ‘what difference is there between the Jewish culture and the Muslim culture at large?’
If the Palestinians had arrived with Martin Luther King, Jr. (a symbol of many things, and in this case, for non-violent action), holding hands and singing about peace, love and understanding, do you think the Israelis would have blown them up? If the Palestinians had tried to resolve any conflict peacefully, would the Israelis have taken them up on their offer?
If the Israelis had arrived with Martin Luther King, Jr., do you think the Palestinians would have blown them up? Every time Israel extends the olive branch, what happens?
Due to the Shoah, the Jews have become true multiculturalists, for they know there are fundamentally different cultures. A real multiculturalist doesn’t mush all cultures together claiming ‘we can all get along.’ A real multiculturalist recognizes that there are deep-rooted differences between cultures, and always with variation within a species, some are just better than others. There are some cultures that are as good as we’ll going to get: educated, intellectual, full of humor, inquisitive, protecting, and secular. Some cultures aren’t worth shit. Nazi Germany is bad, Iran is bad; Israel is good, Scandinavia is good.
When a Jewish soldier dies, there is mourning. Someone has lost their life, and they can never get them back. When a Palestinian suicide-bomber dies, there is celebration. Someone has essentially evaporated a small child with an IED. The mother and extended family of the suicide-bomber are showered with gifts, there is dancing in the street, and people are overjoyed that their own blood has set off a bomb in a crowded market, killing men, women and children. The children are told time and again that Jews are a pestalance on the world.
They are different. The Jewish and Muslim cultures are different. No. I hate that word. The Jewish culture is demonstrably better. They are a secular nation, minimizing violence, facilitating rights for all, have working elections, have a working democracy in one of the crummiest parts of the world, and provide protection to the weak and old. The Muslims? Bombing them back to the Stone Age isn’t an option, since they’re stuck in the 14th century. Israelis are the Scandinavians, only with an army, and the only reason they need an army is because on all three sides of them, there are dictatorships ready to kill every last Jew. The Palestinian culture, just like the Muslim culture at large, is backwater, repressive and inferior on every single level to the Jewish culture.
As Emma Lazarus, the Jewish poetess of Statue of Liberty fame, wrote in 1882:
Coward? Not he, who faces death,
Who singly against the world has fought,
For what? A name he may not breathe,
For liberty of prayer and thought.
Links
>Dspatches - Undercover Mosque
>NPR (Click on ‘They Ain’t Makin’ Jews Like Jesus Anymore’)
>Kinky Friedman: Cowboy Way
>Never Again?, by Charles Krauthammer
Posted in current issues, ethics | 
January 22nd, 2007 at 1:44 pm
I appreciate your honesty and openness talking about a sensitive issue, drunkentune. I want to respond with equal sensitivity, so please help. How do you see this fitting into our dialogue between atheists and theists? Spell it out for me a little so I will know how to respond, if I should respond at all. It might be that I should just hold this in silent witness. If that was your intention, please let me know. I have some reactions within me, but, out of respect for the issue at hand, I await your guidance before I move on.
January 22nd, 2007 at 2:17 pm
I see the world after WWII as fundamentally different than it was before. What I wrote, I suppose, at times is more directed to dialogue between the historical Christian, atheists, and today’s Christian - is there anything as religiously motivated as the ‘Christ-killer’ curse? Can Christians leave this behind, or is it a central historical piece of Christian theology? Does Jew-hatred in part make one a Christian?
I’d love to hear your thoughts, since I’ve ran through plenty of issues: religious violence, religious law, current geopolitical issues, and multiculturalism.
January 22nd, 2007 at 2:43 pm
“Does Jew-hatred in part make one a Christian?”
Is that a real question? I mean, are you actually unsure as to whether Christians are theologically required to hate Jews?
January 22nd, 2007 at 3:01 pm
It’s not a requirement (I don’t think this at all), but historically, yes: hating Jews was a big part of the first Christian sects. I think the two have been linked together. After all, Jews rejected Christ and were cavorting with Satan. Christianity and Jew-hatred have been inseperable for at least a thousand years. Gibson’s The Passion comes to mind. Let me tell you, watching a pre-Vatican II Catholic’s view of the crucifiction is enough to shit your pants - especially when it’s packed full of blubbering Christians screaming at the screen when ‘the Jews’ are introduced. When not one Nazi was excommunicated before, during, or after WWII, but plenty of theologians and scholars were excommunicated - simply for holding heretical beliefs, I think not much has changed.
Do I think antisemitism is part of being a Christian? My personal experiences say yes, and it scares me. I could be mistaken, but when I see the Christian culture at large, I am frightened. I don’t think the Catholic Church has changed since it lost its power, and I don’t like the way American Evangelical Protestantism purposefully undercuts a secular government.
January 22nd, 2007 at 5:26 pm
RE drunken
What can I say? I dunno. The concept that the jews were “christ killers” is a concept that has been used for political gain throughout the centuries and is probably used by some groups for political gain even in our modern times.
The concept that jesus was a jew, is also used by some christian groups for political gain.
Superstitious people will probably always see those who do not follow the same superstitions as acting suspiciously or as being potentially dangerous.
I don’t see any way around this until the majority of the populace comes out of what I consider to be the fog of religious belief.
Unfortunately, none of this helps if you are jewish and have had to bare the brunt of these superstitions.
When I considered myself to be a christian, I just accepted that jesus was jewish and that some jews agreed with him and some didn’t.
The jews who agreed with him went on to found another religion in his name and the jews who didn’t, kept their original religion.
When I was religious, I also accepted that there were many paths towards god. I may have been a particular demonination within christianity, but I believed that other people’s paths did not exclude god because they were members of a DIFFERENT demonination or a DIFFERENT religion.
I would hope that the majority of believers today would think similarly. But I doubt that this is the case.
Unfortunately, while there is political gain to be had by victimizing one religion over another, or worshipping one religion over another, there will always be people who will travel this path.
January 22nd, 2007 at 5:33 pm
“ I could be mistaken, but when I see the Christian culture at large, I am frightened.”
The Christian culture? That’s the one you’re frightened of? Frightened how? Of whom? For whom?
January 22nd, 2007 at 7:06 pm
ben,
Simply put, I don’t Christianity has changed that much from when heretics and Jews were killed. Islam in the Middle East and Persia today is a good indicator of historical Christianity. I don’t want to live in the Middle East, and I don’t want it over here.
Christianists (and such ilk) can reach their objectives in a society like the United States without overt violence. That doesn’t mean they don’t continue to fight for what they believe in - so bystanders beware. If in a democracy such as ours a portion of Christians won’t agree to lose on issues because of their faith, democracy is in trouble. I am also fearful of believers that claim dominion over the land, and other fanciful beliefs on the age of the earth or evolution, because their belief will attempt to silence criticism any way possible.
And they also get elected to all manner of public offices, or write best-selling books about the Rapture. When one in four Americans actually thinks that Jesus is coming back in 2007 [*], I don’t think the Christian culture has changed one bit. Give it an inch, and it will take it all back - and then some.
Christianists, maximalists and Christian nationalists. They’re all the same name: Christians that want to conform every aspect of society to a Biblical framework. A theocentric worldview where secularism (read atheism) - (read ‘the Jew’) - is finally stamped out. I don’t see moderate Christians standing in opposition to this in the least.
For myself and my family, along with other Jews, secularists and atheists. It may be an irrational fear - but only because, as I hope, these Christionists won’t get a chance, not because they don’t want to.
Let’s take, for example, one of the largest threats to America during the 1950’s: Communism. Of course, there were Communists in America, trading secrets to Russia. However, the terror brought out the real America. Real Americans don’t like Jews. ‘Large numbers of moving pictures that come out of Hollywood carry the Communist line,’ said Congressman J. Parnell Thomas (New Jersey), chairman of the House Un-American Activities Committee, in 1947. But Parnell never specified which movies had the ‘Communist line’. In fact, no one could name any - there were none. But what does a Communist have to do with a movie industry that doesn’t have any Communists in it? Well, for one thing, Jews are in the ‘moving pictures’ business.
Billy James Hargis, an evangelist from Sapulpa, Oklahoma, warned that the Communists had infiltrated the Federal Reserve, the Department of Education, and numerous other national organizations. His voice rang out on nearly five hundred radio stations and two hundred and fifty television stations. Hargis, himself a flunked student of Ozark Bible Collage, established several colleges, including the Christian Crusade Anti-Communist Youth University. When asked what was taught at his schools, he said, ‘anti-Communism, anti-Socialism, anti-welfare state, anti-Russia, anti-China, a literal interpretation of the Bible and states’ rights.’
In 1950, three FBI agents published a book titled Red Channels: The Report of Communist Influence in Radio and Television, implicating 151 celebrities - including Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, Howard daSilva, Edward G. Robinson and Irwin Shaw - of seditious acts, namely speaking for religious tolerance, opposition to fascism, supporting world peace and the United Nations.
We now have an equation:
(A) Religious tolerance + liberal/socialist movements + progressive thinking and support for world peace = Communists
(B) Working in the radio, television and movie industries = Communists
(C) Religious tolerance + liberal/socialist movements + progressive thinking and support for world peace = Jews
(D) Working in the radio, television and movie industries = Jews
So,
Jews = Communists
The Jew (read the secularists) - (read liberal thought) - is the enemy.
You think that’s a stretch?
John Rankin, a senior congressman from Mississippi, observed: ‘Remember, Communism is Yiddish. I understand that every member of the Politburo around Stalin is either Yiddish or married to one, and that includes Stalin himself.’ Pay no attention to the death camps Stalin constructed to work Jewish Russians to death. Pay no attention to the Communists that claimed that capitalism was the Jew’s child. Capitalists hated Jews, but called them Communists; Communists hated Jews, but called them Capitalists.
January 22nd, 2007 at 8:57 pm
RE: “Unfortunately, while there is political gain to be had by victimizing one religion over another, or worshipping one religion over another, there will always be people who will travel this path.”
Should have read - “Unfortunately, while there is political gain to be had by victimizing one religion over another, persecuting one religion over another, or worshipping one religion over another, there will always be people who will travel these paths.”
January 22nd, 2007 at 8:59 pm
“ I don’t see moderate Christians standing in opposition to this in the least.”
So what do you make of the wide and enthusiastic support of Israel by the Evangelicals?
Christianists? I guess you’re trying to draw a parallel with Islamists? Because they’re the same? You see no difference? What do you see the Christianist agenda to be? Be specific.
January 22nd, 2007 at 9:12 pm
As I’ve read drunkentune’s post, my first thought was that if I identified myself as Jewish, I’d probably feel as he does. My ethnicity is mostly Irish and German, but my ancestors came to America so long ago, that I am ethnically American. So, as I read about the response to persecution, I was thinking of the Bill of Rights, First Amendment (tolerance via social contract) and Second Amendment (deterence by arms). Perhaps, in a practical sense, that is what mankind needs, but I still think the Second Amendment idea is ultimately going to become less prominent on history’s stage. That is certainly another lesson of World War II, that nations’ right to bear arms like hydrogen bombs, is not a very helpful way to find a way to live together. I also don’t see the Second Amendment as being so crucial to my freedom as many other aspects of the Constitution. In fact, in its major application, the Civil War, it was a bit overdone, IMHO. Perhaps the way to tolerance is via better understanding and respect of widely divergent beliefs/ideas, as we are trying to accomplish in a small way on this forum.
January 22nd, 2007 at 9:21 pm
ben,
I take them at their word. They say that once all the Jews are back in Israel, the End Times are at hand. On a pragmatic level, I’ll take who I can who’s on my side and has enough political clout.
As I said, ‘Christians that want to conform every aspect of society to a Biblical framework. A theocentric worldview where secularism … is finally stamped out.’ Furthermore, I fear a point in the future where, due to these men’s actions, freedom of speech, our system of democracy, and freedom of and from religion are not allowed. It’s Bibles as teaching material (just like pre-1890), Ten Commandments on every courthouse (it’s already beginning today) with biblical law in place, and a faith-based initiative to solving all our problems through prayer. There’s no sexual or science education (just like the good old days), the world goes back to being 6,000 years old and the center of the universe, there’s no global warming, and we end up with a Middle East Light form of sharia where, like the 1950’s, I have to take an oath to do anything and I can’t criticise the government without strict jail time. It’s happened before in the United States, and it can happen again.
I am scared of the large portions of the population that are - I sincerely think - out of their minds [*].
And the term ‘Christianist’ is farily common. I’m not saying they’re the same as Islamists; you are. Their goals are the same, but their methods are usually different.
January 22nd, 2007 at 9:45 pm
“I’m not saying they’re the same as Islamists; you are.”
No, you did:
“Simply put, I don’t Christianity has changed that much from when heretics and Jews were killed. Islam in the Middle East and Persia today is a good indicator of historical Christianity. I don’t want to live in the Middle East, and I don’t want it over here.”
Tell me how your words DON’T indicate that, functionally speaking, Christianity = Islam?
The term “Christianist” is not at all common.
“Their goals are the same”
You’ll need to explain further how the goals of “Christianists” and Islamists are the same. I guess I just don’t know that many Christians who call for the murder of the Jews and the em-burqa-fication of all women, perpetual war on unbelievers, and the subordination of the whole world under one supreme goverment headed up by council of clerics.
January 22nd, 2007 at 11:03 pm
The Christianists embrace cultural antimodernism, war hawkishness, Armageddon prophecy, and a demand for governments by literal interpretation of the Bible. Really. It’s hard to believe, but that’s what they’ve been saying for a long time. These are the key aspects - as I see it - of Christianists, and their ultimate goal, of dominion through biblical law, is the same as Islamists. They only use a different holy book.
When 77% of born-agains, fundamentalists and evangelicals believe that the events in the Book of Revealations will occur sometime in the future, 60% of all Christians believe that Noah’s Ark really happened, 61% believe God created the world in six days (ABC Prime Time Poll, February 16, 2004), 71% of Evangelical Protestants believe the world will end in an Armageddon battle between Jesus Christ and the Antichrist (Newsweek, October 1999), and 83% of Evangelical Protestants believe the Bible is literally true (Newsweek Poll, December 2004), there must be many American Christians that ‘want to conform every aspect of society to a Biblical framework.’ It terrifies me. I can’t think of a situation you’d understand, but think of this: if I were to walk down an alley somewhere in the heartland of America, I wouldn’t want to advertise my Jewishness. There have been times, the most recent one occuring in late 2005, when in D.C. I hitched a ride with a Pentacostal Christian. Out of terror I claimed to be a Christian and we had a wonderful discussion the entire way on how great Christianity was. There is a pit in your belly as you see the cross dangling from the rearview mirror and the Bible resting on the dashboard. Christians don’t have to deal with this.
As Randall Terry, founder of Operation Rescue said, ‘That means you view the world in His terms. Theocentrists don’t believe men can create law. Man can only embrace or reject law.’
We’re talking biblical law, here. Biblical law, which includes stoning of heathens and the subjugation of women. In the Middle East they have biblical law according to the Koran; there are people in the U.S. that want biblical law according to the New Testament, and are attempting to push things through one at a time. In the Middle East they have theocracies; there are people in the U.S. that want a theocracy, and are trying to inch closer to this goal. In the Middle East they have a ‘jihad’ with the West; in the U.S. we have a ‘crusade’ with the East.
‘We are here to start a gentle revolution. To reclaim the godly heritage. And when you go to war in your land - and make no mistake about it, we are at war…’ (Pastor Rusty Thomas of Waco, Texas)
I don’t think Christianity has changed or will change, and it scares me. No. More than that: it scares the piss out of me. I am afraid to be a Jew around Christians that believe that insanity, and where the step from believing the Bible is literally true to thinking Jews are ‘Christ-killers’ is a baby-step at most. I am not openly an atheist or a Jew other than to close friends. I would not tell 70% of America that I am a Jew out of a thousand-year-old fear. Christians scare me.
January 23rd, 2007 at 3:15 am
RE: ” I would not tell 70% of America that I am a Jew out of a thousand-year-old fear. Christians scare me.”
Christians scare me too, and I am not jewish.
Muslims scare me as well.
The fight for dominionism is well and truly underway. Anyone who hasn’t noticed, must have been busy napping.
January 23rd, 2007 at 9:59 am
The Palestinian culture, just like the Muslim culture at large, is backwater, repressive and inferior on every single level to the Jewish culture.
Actually, Palestinian bread is better than Jewish bread.
Sure, I am absolutely incapable of proving this ridiculously subjective claim, but trust me here. It’s better.
January 23rd, 2007 at 11:58 am
I read this today, and thought it relevant to the topic at hand:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0122/p99s01-duts.html
Anyone is capable of committing religious/ethnic persecution, and instead of condemning specific people(s), we should condemn the behavior wherever it arises.
January 23rd, 2007 at 1:19 pm
Benny is right on, it makes no sense to say that one ethnic group is more/less persecutory than another. The problem can arise anywhere. And, ethnic groups can change over time. I remember reading a description from a Victorian Englishman about the degraded moral and intellectual capacity of the “Celt” of Ireland. Now, Ireland is the booming economy in the vicinity, and is rated as one of the best places in the world to live. The key to breaking this pattern is to increase dialog and understanding, and learn from history, but with the understanding that the future is not the past, the world can become a better place. If we make it so.
January 23rd, 2007 at 1:31 pm
I’m not talking about ethnic groups; I’m talking about culture. Don’t tell me that the German culture during the 30’s and 40’s was ‘more/less persecutory than another.’ It’s simply not so. Cultures are very different, and some are simply better than others. You really think that increasing dialog and understanding with a culture like Nazi Germany or Iran is even advised, much less possible?
January 23rd, 2007 at 1:55 pm
Sure, some cultures are better than others… but which cultures are “better” depends on your definition of “better”. Frankly, i’m not all that interested in talking about which cultures are better than others, because i don’t see the point in that. A more productive discussion, in my opinion, would be one about what values or attributes are desirable in cultures.
And yes, i think increased dialog and understanding of other cultures are always possible, and always advisable. Persecution starts with drawing a line that divides people into “us” versus “them”; increasing dialog and understanding makes it harder to draw that line. What do you think is more likely to reduce persecution, more dialog or ostracizing cultures because we don’t think they can be talked to?
January 23rd, 2007 at 3:13 pm
Yes, actually Iran shows some hope because its young people love western culture. Many of them see the clerics as poor examples to follow. I’d say Nazi Germany had more internal resistance, and more hope for change than did Middle Age Golden Horde culture. They did quite a number on Baghdad in 1258: “Iraq in 1258 was very different from present day Iraq. Its agriculture was supported by a canal network thousands of years old. Baghdad was one of the most brilliant intellectual centers in the world. The Mongol destruction of Baghdad was a psychological blow from which Islam never recovered. Already Islam was turning inward, becoming more suspicious of conflicts between faith and reason and more conservative. With the sack of Baghdad, the intellectual flowering of Islam was snuffed out. Imagining the Athens of Pericles and Aristotle obliterated by a nuclear weapon begins to suggest the enormity of the blow. The Mongols filled in the irrigation canals and left Iraq too depopulated to restore them.” (wikipedia) Those guys didn’t have industrialized genocide, but they did a pretty effective job when they decided to wipe out other civilizations. And their reign of terror lasted longer than the thousand year reich of 12 years.
I agree some cultures are worse than others, but the answer is not always military defeat of bad cultures. Especially if they have horse archers that you can’t beat or hydrogen bombs that foul the whole planet. In that case, dialog and understanding is all you have. Remember, the Mongol Golden Horde eventually was influenced by Nestorian Christians, Muslims, and Confucians and became a more civilized culture without suffering a military defeat like the Nazis. So, yes, cultures are quite distinct, but they don’t remain static, and religion is not always a bad influence upon them. The Mongols would not have settled down very well without it as an example among many.
January 23rd, 2007 at 5:35 pm
The point that people may be missing when it comes to islam is that of course there are muslims who love capitalism. They like to be able to own expensive things, they like to be able to go skiing and to go to coffee clubs and golf clubs.
In fact, many muslims like the same things that a modern life through modern technology and science have been able to provide. They even want to be able to vote for their leaders. But they want to be able to access these things through am islamic filter.
In other words, is you are muslim, all these things, voting, technology, science, education, and government would be approved of or disapproved of according to the koran and the religious leaders who would interpret the koran to see what was permissible and what was not.
Islam is not just a religious faith, it is a political system and ideology just like christianity, that puts its holy book as the authority over men. Therefore ANYTHING that man does, must comply with the quran.
I have spoken to muslisms who love living in “the west”. Ask them how it could be better and inevitably they say that it would be better if it was an islamic theocracy.
Of course many christians feel EXACTLY the same way. They also love living in a modern world with modern technology, science etc, but they believe that the word of THEIR god, in THEIR holy book, should be the ultimate authority and NOT what they see, as the laws of men.
There are, however, a percentage of the christian community who see their religion as personal. Who like living in a secular country and who do NOT support the concept of a christian theocracy. I am yet to meet a muslim who sees a secular authority/government as superior to a religious authority.
And the other thing, is that “liberal christians” (those who don’t require a christian theocracy as their form of government), do NOT speak out against the christians who do. I think they put their faith filters on, just like muslims do, in defence of people who share the same religion.
January 23rd, 2007 at 6:24 pm
This thread started off with a defense of Israel and its right to exist and to defend itself against the aggressions of its violent and violenter neighbors.
Then, pretty quickly, it became, “Christianists want to take over America, maybe even the world, impose theocracy, and subjugate or possibly even kill all the Jews, Atheists, and anyone else–you can’t be sure. All other Christians are either their ‘fellow travelers’ or their ‘useful idiots.’ In every way that counts, these Christianists the equivalent of the Islamists. Be afraid. Be very afraid.”
If I’m wrong, rephrase my little manifesto so that it’s correct. Be succinct, be specific– even better, give a prescription for what should be done about these pupating terrorists, these Christianists.
January 23rd, 2007 at 6:58 pm
ben,
I didn’t see a defense of Israel in what I wrote. I am, at times, against Israel’s actions. I am no hardliner. However, I wanted the post to be about, in part, the fear I have (it may be reasonable or not, as I’ve said before) of Christians and Muslims, how this fear is present in many Jews, how it is justified with past events (and present events as well) and how we have decided to deal with it. If anyone messes with us, we will hurt them in a way that will deter anyone else from ever trying. There is no trust, since any that could be there is long gone. It can be rebuilt, I suppose, but I don’t know if Jews can ever trust Christians.
A good deal of what I wrote has been about fear. What scares me a good deal is that I feel like I cannot do anything. I’ve searched, but I don’t see a solution, other than combating every case of encroachment on the Constitution.
You’ve asked me questions, and I elaborated on my feelings on the subject. Christianists say they intend to do things, and I take them at their word.
January 23rd, 2007 at 7:53 pm
I guess I’d be considered a “liberal” Christian because the idea of a theocracy is abhorrent to me. Also, I’ve joined the ACLU since GWB has become president. I’ve also had friends that are Jewish, and I haven’t sensed at all that I was feared by them. In fact, one friend who was an Orthodox Jew seemed to feel refreshed that I was a person of faith as compared to most of our colleagues who were not. We had more in common because of our personal religious sentiments. As for the danger from the “Christianists”, and there are some fundamentalists who have such ambitions, I’ve recently read David Kuo’s “Tempting Faith”. One lesson of his experience in the Bush administration: even in the country with the most fundy Christianists, they are more used by the powers that be than they are about to become the powers that be. I do not approve of Christianists, I’ve spoken out against them with my friends and family, and I don’t vote for them. I consider them to be a negative influence on the church and its mission in this world. Jesus said that the Kingdom of God is within us, not like the earthly kingdoms. And he told us to preach, not to conquer or exterminate.
January 23rd, 2007 at 8:17 pm
Ed,
You go! Proud ACLU member too! Another prime example of two people coming to agreement on real-world issues from very different worldviews.
January 23rd, 2007 at 8:38 pm
Another insight I’ve had into Christianists, having known some fundamentalists of such ideation: The ones I’ve personally known are all rather naive souls who seem afraid of the changes to our society in terms of what is viewed as entertainment, the breakdown of the family, and the increased problems of youth such as delinquency and drugs. Their reaction is to develop a nostalgic backward looking activism. Many of them have little hope of doing any more than slowing what they perceive as negative changes. Others hope their activism will lead to better local conditions (for their way of life, of course). Only a few seem to have a feeling of confidence that any kind of theocracy is in their future. In fact, in the USA, the fundies are not very united (most are in little independent churches with a head pastor who is like the local lordship). They have church splits all the time, when someone else wants to have his own little place to be powerful in. The activism they embrace against “secularism” is in some ways enhanced among their followers using much the same fear that their faith and way of life is in danger as what you are describing in terms of persecution. In fact, they commonly point out “persecutions” against Christians in modern society to justify their stance. I don’t see them as a big threat to my freedom, especially since they’ve hooked their cart to that highly regarded, wise, and intelligent leader, GWB…
January 23rd, 2007 at 8:47 pm
I live in Texas, the fundie heartland. I don’t know ANYONE who supports a “Christianist” agenda that would in any way mirror the Islamist agenda. Like I said, rephrase my manifesto, if I’ve phrased it wrong: “Christianists want to take over America, maybe even the world, impose theocracy, and subjugate or possibly even kill all the Jews, Atheists, and anyone else–you can’t be sure. All other Christians are either their ‘fellow travelers’ or their ‘useful idiots.’ In every way that counts, these Christianists are the equivalent of the Islamists. Be afraid. Be very afraid.”
“ I do not approve of Christianists, I’ve spoken out against them with my friends and family, and I don’t vote for them.”
Ed, WHO are these Christianists you’re talking about? Joel Osteen types? The 700 Club? Who? Is Bush a Christianist?
“Christianists say they intend to do things, and I take them at their word.”
Tell me what they are planning to do. Be specific. Name names.
Tell me what I should do about them. I support Israel strking back, and hard, against its Islamist threats. So, if these Christianists are an equivalent threat, what should we do?
January 23rd, 2007 at 8:52 pm
Shush, now. I’m watching our great leader speak tonight.
It’s always good to hear things like that, Ed. I agree on a logical level with what you said, but I always remember what my old Russian grandmother said: “The Jewish elders would always say, ‘Stay calm. It will pass. Let the fanatics enjoy themselves.’ The elders are all dead now. They were killed because they were silent. They allowed this to happen.”
[I realize now that it’s uber-cliche.]
It’s different, in America, but I can’t help but feel the terror.
January 23rd, 2007 at 8:53 pm
ED: I hope you are right. Personally, I don’t see christian fundamentalism or islamic fundamentalism going away soon.
Both dynamics are extremely well funded and both have their sights set on their religion as being the dominant world power.
In other words, their goals are not personal religious salvation, their goals are political domination.
January 23rd, 2007 at 9:09 pm
Shush?
January 23rd, 2007 at 10:15 pm
Sorry. I was directing that to Ed. You posted while I was writing, and didn’t notice.
January 24th, 2007 at 12:28 am
What alerts me to “Christianism” is a view that political influence is a valuable tool to “restore Christian values” to America. I don’t follow the television guys who proclaim such views but Robertson and Dobson seem to fit. I have some cousins who are Pentecostals (charismatics with the speaking in tongues) and they tend to buy these ideas. When I speak to them, the issues that they seem most set on are allowing school prayer and teaching creationism in schools. Abortion, too, but many non-Christianists oppose that, including my Orthodox Jewish friend. An example of such antics is the Board of Education in Dover, PA which was nicely sliced and diced by the court over trying to introduce religious doctrine in high school science. My poor cousins, when I ask them about the form of school prayer that should be done in Utah. That’s another irony, Mitt Romney is the most “Christianist” candidate for 2008, and he’s a Mormon! The fundies I know won’t support him like they did “holy Bush”. In fact, the fundies I know are much less vocal about their support of Bush with all his nonsensical management of both domestic and foreign policies. Not that they’ve given up on him, he’s their man.
The other indication that someone is likely holding “Christianist” beliefs is that they subscribe to a highly scrubbed, biased view of history. They make statements like “the founding fathers established this as a Christian nation” and tend to be pretty speechless when asked to reconcile that with racial slavery, genocide against Native Americans, wars of aggression against Mexico and Spain, and other official government policies hardly in line with even their current belief system.
Ben is right about the Christianists being very different from Islamists. I’ve never met a Christianist who thought genocide, violence, terrorism, or even economic discrimination against non-Christians was right. I’m sure there may be a lunatic fringe in spots, but I’ve not encountered any. To be as afraid of them as bin Laden can only be accomplished with liberal doses of the slippery slope hypothesis.
January 24th, 2007 at 8:30 am
Ed,
Mark Noll, one of America’s foremost religious historians, in his book The Old Religion in a New World explained the differences of Christianity in North America and Europe. While there is a superabundance of denominations, and a higher percentage of the population attending church (In 1996, there were roughly 19 Presbyterian denominations, 32 Lutheran, 36 Methodist, 37 Episcopal or Anglican, 60 Baptist, and 241 Pentecostal. (Mark Noll, The Old Religion in a New World, p. 162)), but, as Noll says,
One only needs to look at the Southern Baptist Convention, with over 16 million members, from over 40,000 churches. I’d like to make clear that I don’t think Christianists are as violent as Islamists. In America, it’s clear, one can accomplish one’s objectives through other means. That doesn’t mean that violence doesn’t happen, only in much smaller doses. In 2001, there was a spike in violence against abortion clinics —790 incidents, as opposed to 209 in 2000 (”Violence and Harassment at US Abortion Clinics,” Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance, November 9, 2004.)
ben,
Name a subject. Are we talking about attempts to roll back science in government and public schools, conduct a faith-based war, erode the separation between church and state, rewrite history to retroactively make America into a Christian nation, say outright that they’re at war with secularism, work the shady political deals with the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, or provide special treatment to those of the Christian faith over all other Americans? I don’t know where to begin!
Or should we just drop it and get back on track?
January 24th, 2007 at 9:17 am
What can I say? I have cried with my Lebonese friend while his hometown was bombed in the recent conflict with Israel. I’ve endured racial slurs and violence with friends of different skin color. I’ve been a victim of it myself. I’ve seen fundies cry for the future of their families in a scary world, and I’ve been shown their stock piles of guns (no kidding). I’ve joined in snyagogue worship and celebrated with Jewish friends and developed a deep respect for that rich culture. So where can I fall in these comments? How can I join with any who condemn, since they will condemn that people and places I have both loved and hated?
I spent the first twenty years of my life as a fundie or ‘Christianist’. Many close friends and family members I love still are. I have friends who are Jews and friends who are Muslim. And friends who are agnostic and atheist. My closest friends are non-whites, my wife Asian. I have watched people all my life hating and hurting and being hated and hurt. All this has led me to hate one thing: fear. It is the engine of war, the heart of conflict.
So I will do this: I will make friendships with all I can. I will make myself known, so I do not have to be feared. I will live sacrificially for the benefit of others — to the extent that someone is different or my self-declared ‘enemy’, I will do it more. To do any less is to join with those who, through fear, degrade and destroy those I love on one side or another. Theologically, to do any less is to deny the Kingdom that’s every fiber is bent on shalom.
January 24th, 2007 at 9:41 am
I admit, soulster does have a point. I wish we could all get along, but conflict is inevitable. To show how hypocritical I can be, I must admit that I was in a relationship with a Muslim girl for over a year.
I wouldn’t make such broad statements as to say, ‘All Muslims are wrong,’ but seeing the Muslim culture, I can’t help but thinking, ‘The Muslim culture is wrong.’ It’s really messed up, and whatever their zeitgeist is, it’s causing violent conflict, not preventing it. In no way is this similar to Jew-haters, when told that their best friend is Jewish, respond ‘Well, he’s a good Jew, an exception to the rule.’ Islam is just as good as Buddhism on a theological ground, but there’s a big difference between the two when its followers live their lives.
January 24th, 2007 at 12:26 pm
Actually, I see some hope in Islamic culture. Whenever there is a disaster like an earthquake or tsunami, Muslims seem like they want to help, and they show great appreciation for help. In fact, GWB’s biggest mistake has been his squandering of Muslim goodwill after the 9-11 attacks. True, not all Muslims showed goodwill, but most seemed to. (The Palestinians and radicals did not show much, at least as the press reports showed.)
My prediction (better than Pat Robertson’s divine messages): Sometime in the next 20 years, some idiot is going to set off a nuclear weapon and some other idiot is going to retaliate (most likely in the Middle East or Asia). The resultant press coverage and fallout effects will get more world leaders motivated to adopt strategies of cooperation rather than confrontation. It will be in their self-interest. The reason it did not happen after Hiroshima was that the damage there was small potatoes compared to the overall horror of World War II. My best guess is that many Muslims will be victims, and this will be the catalyst for change in their culture, especially as the rest of the world responds with massive assistance to the survivors.
January 24th, 2007 at 12:35 pm
Ed,
If I may make a prediction (I kid you not, I’ve got one on ice right here I’ll be thawing out) as well…
The next time there is an attack on the United States – and you can quote me on this – you will see more Muslim men disappearing. They won’t be the last. History doesn’t repeat itself, but it sure does rhyme. Whenever there is a threat, people dissapear.
Every time a catastrophe happens in America, we take away our civil rights. I’m not talking about some imagined puissant laws here: I’m talking about Eugene Debs, Maher Arar, and Dr. Ernest Chain. I’m talking about spending ten years in jail for being against a war, shipped off to Syria and tortured, or being barred from entering the country. In 1951, Dr. Chain, a Briton who was awarded a Nobel Prize for helping to develop penicillin, was barred from entering the United States because he had traveled to Czechoslovakia, under the auspices of the WHO to start a penicillin plant there. I’m talking about people that express a liberal thought (think humanists, liberal Christians, the cultural North, and atheists) - (think most Jews too) being extradited, thrown into prison for years, or being barred from travel.
Did you know that during the 50’s people were sentenced to jail for saying among close friends ‘Jesus was against war’?
January 24th, 2007 at 4:37 pm
“Or should we just drop it and get back on track?”
You made the accusation that Christianity hasn’t changed since the middle ages, that the Middle East is representative of mideval Christianity, and thus that Islamists and “Christianists” are equivalent. I was asking you to back up that huge claim.
I’m not sure what you think the “track” is here or what you want me to “drop.”
January 24th, 2007 at 4:57 pm
I have a simple test for god believers and it goes something like this.
“Would you kill someone if you believed with all your heart, all your body and all your soul that god wanted you to?”
January 24th, 2007 at 5:07 pm
All right. You asked for it, ben!
I’ll go one step further than McCarthy. Each name will be underlined. In most cases, I’ll let them speak for themselves.
1. The Discovery Institute intends to ‘function as a wedge…[to] split the trunk [of materialism] at its weakest points’ and ‘replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God.’ Jonathan Wells, a member of The Discovery Institute, says he was inspired by Unification Church founder Sun Myung Moon to ‘devote my life to destroying Darwinism.’ Another, Stephen C. Meyer, is a professor at Palm Beach Atlantic University, whose faculty ‘must believe in the divine inspiration of the Bible, both the Old and New Testaments. (Chris Mooney, The Republican War on Science, pp. 164–174).’
2. Yet, how am I to describe in any semblance of detail such junior-high textbooks like The American Republic for Christian Schools, United States History for Christian Schools (by Mark Sidwell and Timothy Keesee, who are on a misson. Sidwell has a B.A. in history and an M.A. and Ph.D. in church history from Bob Jones University), and Economics for Christian Schools (by Alan Joseph Carper, written for the 2-million-odd homeschooler crowd? The epigraph of the 2000 edition of The American Republic for Christian Schools, states, ‘Who, knowing the facts of our history can doubt that the United States of America has been a thought in the mind of God from all eternity?’ Other examples include David Barton, president of a history ministry called WallBuilders and Charles Colson, writer of such books as How Now Shall We Live? and Against the Night: Living in the New Dark Ages. As Bill Apelian, director of Bob Jones University’s BJU Press, said, ‘History is God’s working in man.’
3. The audiotapes and book by the radical Rousas John Rushdoony teach that democracy practiced today is in defiance of God’s intentions. His other books include The Messianic Character of American Education and Intellectual Schizophrenia. Rushdoony may be best known as helping to launch Christian homeschooling and reading history through a providential lens. As Rushdoony said, ‘All sides of the humanistic spectrum are now, in principle, demonic; communists and conservatives, anarchists and socialists, fascists and republicans.’ The Christian historian David Barton claims that there never was a separation of church and state (a view endorsed by a number of congressmen). Walter McDougall’s Promised Land, Crusader State, rewrote history to claim that the United States was a Christian nation with a biblical mandate. Dave Daubenmire leads a ministry called Minutemen United and intends to rewrite history to show that it has always been a Christian nation. Tim LaHay sold millions of copies of his best-selling series, or his current book on American history, titled Mind Siege, demand biblically-sanctified war. His Left Behind series has been one of the most popular books in history, selling over 60 million copies since 2001. LaHay’s wife Beverly LaHay founded Concerned Women for America, whose stated mission is to rally against abortion, gay rights, and the Equal Rights Amendment. The Rev. Sun Myung Moon pops up again, having helped fund LaHay’s American Coalition for Traditional Values. Yet, perhaps LaHay’s most frightening moment was when he helped found the Council for National Policy, whose ranks are closed to the public, but suspected roster includes many who want to trade democracy for theocracy.
4. But who isMoon, exactly? He owns the Washington Times, Insight magazine, The University of Bridgeport Connecticut, wire service UPI, and The World and I. Moon says, ‘We must have an autocratic theocracy to rule the world (Atheism.about, archived from the St. Petersburg Times). David Carara, ex-president of Moon’s American Family Coalition, now oversees VISTA, the government organization that funds projects in low-income areas, doling out millions of dollars to ‘faith-based’ programs. Josephine Hauer, graduate of Moon’s Unification Theological Seminary, works for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as a marriage specialist. Moon funds Free Teens USA, which teaches ‘no sex’ education, which received $475,000 to run celibacy programs for teens. H.W. Bush was hired by Moon to give speeches at Moon conventions, praising Moon as a ‘man of vision’, and was reportedly paid $100,000 per speech (Kevin Philips, American Dynasty, p. 234). Moon also bailed out Falwell’s financially floundering Liberty University. Did I mention that in March of 2004 he was ‘crowned‘ by Rep. Danny K. Davis (D-Il) as royalty?
5. Gary North, founder of the Institute for Christian Economics, publicly says we should have theonomic rule: ‘When people curse their parents, it unquestionably is a capital crime,’ he writes. ‘The integrity of the family must be maintained by the threat of death.’ ‘Why stoning?’ asked North. ‘There are many reasons. First, the implements of execution are available to everyone at virtually no cost. …executions are community projects–not with spectators who watch a professional executioner do `his’ duty, but rather with actual participants. …That modern Christians never consider the possibility of the reintroduction of stoning for capital crimes,’ North continues, ‘indicates how thoroughly humanistic concepts of punishment have influenced the thinking of Christians.’
6. Gary DeMar of American Vision has said ‘Biblical law must be made the foundation of all righteous judgment in every government: personal (self government), ecclesiastical, familial, and civil.’ (Gary Demar, “Reconstructing Civil Governmentâ€), the Coalition on Revival is set up to ‘bring America back to its biblical foundations’, and former Virginia lieutenant governor candidate Mike Farris told The Washington Post that he left the group because ‘it started heading to a theocracy…and I don’t believe in a theocracy.’
7. ‘When someone tries to undermine the commitment to Jehovah which is fundamental to the civil order of a godly state–then that person needs to be restrained by the magistrate…those who will not acknowledge Jehovah as the ultimate authority behind the civil law code which the magistrate is enforcing would be punished and repressed,’ wrote Greg Bahnsen, Scholar in Residence for the Southern California Center for Christian Studies.
8. The California-based Chalcedon Foundation says at its website, ‘We believe that the whole Word of God must be applied to all of life. It is not only our duty as individuals, families and churches to be Christian, but it is also the duty of the state, the school, the arts and sciences, law, economics, and every other sphere to be under Christ the King. Nothing is exempt from His dominion. We must live by His Word, not our own.’ Affirmed Andrew Sandlin, in the January Chalcedon Report: ‘if man is permitted autonomy in one sphere he will soon claim autonomy in all spheres….We therefore deny every expression of human autonomy–liberal, conservative or libertarian.’
9. David Hager, a board member of the FDA, said of the morning-after pill, after religious pressure canned its passage:
10. In 2004, over three dozen U.S. representatives and senators, including Rep. Michael Pence (R-IN) Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-Haleyville), Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS), Sen. Zell Miller (D-GA), Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC), Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), cosponsored the Constitutional Restoration Act. The bill called for judges who recognized the distinction between church and state to be impeached, and an underhanded attempt to institute provisional biblical law. Roy Moore, the ex-Alabama Chief Supreme Court Justice (an advocate for implementing biblical law – you know, that guy who had the five-thousand-pound Ten Commandments monument in a courthouse) was one of the original drafters, and said of the bill,
11. John Ashcroft, ex-Attorney General, told an audience at Bob Jones University that ‘we have no king but Jesus,’ and called the wall of separation between church and state a ‘wall of religious oppression.’(Kaplan, With God on Their Side, p. 34.) In 2001, there was a spike in violence against abortion clinics —790 incidents, as opposed to 209 in 2000 (”Violence and Harassment at US Abortion Clinics,” Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance, November 9, 2004.) Ashcroft refused to send marshals to quell the epidemic of violence (Kaplan, With God on Their Side, pp. 135–136). Ashcroft then subpoenaed hospitals for their files on hundreds of women who had undergone abortions (Eric Lichtblau, “Ashcroft Defends Subpoenas,” The New York Times, February 13, 2004).
12.
The New York Times recently published a six-part series on degredation to the First Amendment, where the laws have been systematically changed so that Christian groups are allowed far more freedoms than their secular counterparts.
13. Evangelicals have also been leaders of the pack when it comes to denying global warming. The White House removed cautions against global warming from a draft report on the environment in 2003. Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) has called global warming ‘the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people,’ and called the EPA a ‘Gestapo,’ likening its female director to ‘Tokyo Rose.’ (Michael Barone and Richard E. Cohen, The Almanac of America Politics, 2006 p. 1365). Inhofe is a self-professed evangelical Christian who says that Israel was given the West Bank by God and the attacks on the World Trade Center was caused by America’s poor support for Israel (James R. Inhofe, speech in the Senate, March 4, 2002).
14. The deputy undersecretary for defense intelligence, General William Boykin, said,
He then attacked the ‘godless’ courts in America, saying, ‘Don’t you worry about what these courts say, our God reigns supreme. (Leiby, “Christian Soldier.”)’
Boykin was backed by several religious leaders: Charles Stanley, a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, wrote, ‘We should offer to serve the war effort in any way possible…. God battles with people who oppose him, who fight against him and his followers.’ Jerry Falwell, someone who always pops up around this time, put it plain English: ‘God is pro-war.’ A Southern Baptist Convention article said that, ‘American foreign policy and military might have opened an opportunity for the Gospel in the land of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.’ Franklin Graham, and Marvin Olasky (of ‘compassionate conservatism’ fame) agreed (Charles March, “Wayward Christian Soldiers,” The New York Times, January 20, 2005).
In a short video on faith and diplomacy made after 9/11 by Christian Embassy, Dan Cooper, undersecretary of veteran’s affairs, announced that his weekly prayer sessions were ‘more important than doing the job.’ Major General Jack Catton said that his position as advisor to the Joint Chiefs of Staff was a ‘wonderful opportunity’ to evangelize men and women. ‘My first priority is my faith. I think it’s a huge impact.’ Brigadier General Bob Caslen puts it differently: ‘We’re the aroma of Jesus Christ.’
15. Southern Baptist preacher Dr. Bruce Prescott is a Christian scholar that takes the threat of these Christianists seriously. Prescott says the Christianists are trying to:
Man’s laws are of no importance to Christianists; they look to an imagined higher authority, a mythical past, and a black/white absolutist worldview. They want, ultimately, a theocracy. ‘Theocentric’ is the term preferred by Randall Terry, founder of Operation Rescue. ‘That means you view the world in His terms. Theocentrists don’t believe man can create law. Man can only embrace or reject law.’
‘We must use the doctrine of religious liberty to gain independence for Christian schools until we train up a generation of people who know that there is no religious neutrality, no neutral law, no neutral education, and no neutral civil government. Then they will get busy in constructing a Bible-based social, political and religious order which finally denies the religious liberty of the enemies of God,’ said Gary North. ‘The Christian goal for the world,’ theologian David Chilton has explained, is ‘the universal development of Biblical theocratic republics.’ Pastor Rusty Thomas said, ‘The symbol of the state is a sword. Not a spoon, feeding the poor, nor a teaching instrument to educate the young. And the sword is an instrument of death!’
In conclusion, Christianists have heavy political and social clout, and are: (1, 9, 13) anti-science; (2&3) active historical revisionists; (4-8, 10) pro-biblical law and punishment; (11) against secular law and government; (12) for giving Christians privilege over non-Christians; (14) religiously-motivated to invade other countries; (15) and militant.
The thing is: are they a minority, a small, vocal, fanatical voice? If they’re just some quacks with cash that happen to hold political office, that’s one thing. It’s another if a significant portion of the population agrees with them.
37% of Americans endorse religious leaders influencing government decisions (2005 AP/Ipsos Poll, ‘Religious Ferver in the US Surpasses Faith in Many Other Industrialized Countries,’ 6 June 2005)
25% of Americans support a Bible-based government (Kevin Philips, American Dynasty).
Simply put, that’s four out of ten Americans agreeing with what these men do; one out of four Americans want to go further and institute a theocracy.
While it may sound paranoid, I trust what William S. Burroughs said: ‘A paranoid is someone who knows a little of what’s going on.’
January 24th, 2007 at 5:49 pm
Your final stats don’t support your conclusion that most or even a large minority of Christians support the small whack-job circles that you mentioned, (most of whom run in the same Rushdooey circles.)
Further, all of your cutting and pasting only prooves my point: That there is a world of difference between the Islamists and your Christianists. Rudy Ray Moore, jackass that he is, is no Osama bin Laden.
“Simply put, I don’t Christianity has changed that much from when heretics and Jews were killed. Islam in the Middle East and Persia today is a good indicator of historical Christianity.”
“. There is a pit in your belly as you see the cross dangling from the rearview mirror and the Bible resting on the dashboard.”
“Their goals are the same“
January 24th, 2007 at 6:43 pm
ben,
Some questions:
1. Do you dispute my hypothesis, that, ‘[The Christianists] ultimate goal [is] of dominion through biblical law … the same as Islamists. They only use a different holy book.’?
2. Do you dispute a second, more detailed hypothesis I make, that, ‘The Christianists embrace cultural antimodernism, war hawkishness, Armageddon prophecy, and a demand for governments by literal interpretation of the Bible.’?
3. Do you dispute my point, that, ‘Christianists (and such ilk) can reach their objectives in a society like the United States without overt violence.’?
4. Do you dispute my prediction, that, ‘I fear a point in the future where, due to these men’s actions, freedom of speech, our system of democracy, and freedom of and from religion are not allowed.’?
5. Do you dispute my claim, that, ‘there must be many American Christians that want to conform every aspect of society to a Biblical framework.’?
6. Do you dispute my comparison, that, ‘In the Middle East they have biblical law according to the Koran; there are people in the U.S. that want biblical law according to the New Testament, and are attempting to push things through one at a time. In the Middle East they have theocracies; there are people in the U.S. that want a theocracy, and are trying to inch closer to this goal. In the Middle East they have a ‘jihad’ with the West; in the U.S. we have a ‘crusade’ with the East.’?
7. Do you dispute the evidence I give of influential men in and out of government that want to conform every aspect of society to a Biblical framework, such as ‘The Christian goal for the world,’ theologian David Chilton has explained, is ‘the universal development of Biblical theocratic republics.’?
8. Do you dispute the statistics I give, such as, ‘25% of Americans support a Bible-based government’ and ‘37% of Americans endorse religious leaders influencing government decisions’?
January 24th, 2007 at 9:13 pm
Beep (comment 39): Some Christians like my wife are committed pacifists. Some Christians were war loving. Most, like me, take a middle view. So, since I strive to do what God wants, then, yes, in the context of just war and other circumstances like self defense or the defense of innocents, yes. In the context of killing to steal someone’s food so that I might not starve, no. Actually, I have participated in one killing: as a medical student I assisted in a dilation and extraction abortion. I am generally against abortion, though being a male I do not hope to fully understand how a woman makes such a personal decision, nor would I try to obstruct her right to decide. I am also pro-choice, there is no reason the government should involve itself in such a decision. My view is that “life” begins at the point normal brain waves emerge, around 20 weeks gestation. That was the age of the fetus that I assisted the gynecologist in surgery with. The mother was extremely ill with multiple medical problems. She had hoped to keep the pregnancy until viable, but it had become clear she was going to die within a week if the abortion was not performed, so she agreed. I believed then and now that I probably was assisting in taking a life to save one, and that it was the right choice for me to make. I have lost no sleep over this decision (the gynecologist had offered to let me sit that one out).
Another personal experience was that of my interaction with a college friend who was also a Christian. He decided to take a job that involved the manufacture of nuclear weapons. I had a problem with that, and we had many long discussions about the Christian participating in such an endevour. In that case, there was only hypothetical killing, but on such a massive, indiscriminate scale, that I deeply question if I could ever feel that was part of God’s will for me personally.
January 24th, 2007 at 9:43 pm
RE: ED
Thank you for your reply, but it wasn’t really what I was getting at.
How do you know that your moral position is not YOUR moral compass and NOT god’s?
If you BELIEVE completely that god asked you to kill someone, how could you not do it?
(This is not advocating violence btw - I just think that it is the individual’s moral compass they follow, but that they attribute this moral compass to the will of god.)
Essentially, they shoehorn their own ethics and morality into a religious belief.
For example: If I heard a voice telling me (revelation), to go and bash up the nextdoor neighbour, I would be likely to go and seek psychiatric counselling.
History is littered with people who believed with all their heart that they were doing the will of god by warring against another group, by committing others to slavery, and by practising wholsale slaughter.
Sometimes when they win, the only “evidence” they need for the justification of their actions in the eyes of god, IS the fact that they have won.
January 24th, 2007 at 10:03 pm
By the way, I agree with drunken’s argument.
January 24th, 2007 at 11:01 pm
I looked at the data, and something was missing. What do you think?
52% of Americans are Protestant, 24% Roman Catholic, 2% Mormon. (78% of the total population) (cia.gov, World Factbook) Let’s consider them Christians.
25% of Americans support a Bible-based government (Kevin Philips, American Dynasty). Let’s call those in favor of this ‘B’.
37% of Americans endorse religious leaders influencing government decisions (2005 AP/Ipsos Poll, ‘Religious Ferver in the US Surpasses Faith in Many Other Industrialized Countries,’ 6 June 2005) Let’s call those in favor of this ‘C’.
As insignificant minorities, Jews and Muslims (both 1%) can safely be considered ~C, ~B (‘~’ is shorthand for ‘not’) out of self-interest. Agnostics, atheists, and those with no religious affiliation do not endorse religious leaders influencing government, nor do they support a Bible-based government, so they are ~C, ~B as well. The two groups are 22% of the total population (cia.gov, World Factbook). This leaves in all likelihood a certain number of Christians that do want religious leaders influencing government, or C, B. What matters now is what percentage of Christians supports a Bible-based government.
If America had exactly 100 people that represented the diversity within its boundaries, this is what we’d see:
Out of 100 Americans, 78 are Christian; 32% of Christians support a Bible-based government, or B (25). From the same 100 Americans, 22 non-Christians do not support Bible-based government and 67% of Christians do not support Bible-based government (53), ~B.
Out of 100 Americans, 78 are Christian; 47% of Christians support religious influence in government, or C (37). From the same 100 Americans, 22 non-Christians do not support religious influence in government and 52% of Christians do not support religious influence in government, or ~C (41).
I initially thought an estimated fourth were B and a third of the population were C, I think we should revise our perceptions of the data. While this is true on a larger level, it masks that an estimated third of Christians support Bible-based government (B) and an estimated half of Christians support religious influence in government (C).
(I should note now that the damage has been done that I really like statistics.)
January 25th, 2007 at 12:15 am
Beep: I guess I was thinking in terms of the title of this discussion about “turning the other cheek”. In your example, yes, I would, like you, seek psychiatric help (and not from myself, the doctor who treats himself has a fool for a patient and a fool for a doctor). Any kind of “revelation” I seem to perceive that is inconsistent with the 26 year long relationship I’ve had with God would be questionable. But you are right, there have been lots of people who thought they were doing the will of God but instead were doing evil things. In fact, there is a warning about such situations from Jesus (I’m forgeting the reference). Obviously, those people not only forgot the reference but that the statement was made at all.
Drunkentune: Probably the best example of attempts to implement drastic social change via religious effort was the Christian Temperance Movement which culminated in the highly successful Prohibition. I think you are right to be afraid that if Americans get scared enough, they might go Christianist-leaning in policy for a while. But I doubt that it could be sustained for very long, since the outcome would be ridiculously awful. There are also the built in checks against majority rule to the detriment of the minority, that we must be diligent to protect via the ACLU, etc. One thing about your historical examples is that the country usually corrected itself (though each generation is subject to amnesia to the lessons of the previous). I do find it ironic that hatred against Jewish people has often been spread via false accusations of a secret conspiracy by them against the majority ethnic group. When in fact, the rulers of the majority ethnic group were actually conspiring to dupe the populace to cement their own power. Who said that God made the Jewish people to be a way to measure how evil someone is? That is, the more someone spews hatred against Jews, the more evil she/he is?
January 25th, 2007 at 12:19 pm
Ed,
It’s not just a Christianist mentality. Whenever things go down the toilet, there’s a rampant surge of nationalism and a revoking of our civil rights.
Jew hatred, I see it, can be about what Jews are, and what they stand for. Jews are alien to many people, so historically they’re both the evil capitalist and the evil Communist; the wandering Jew with no home and the isolated Jew in the ghetto; the visible greedy moneylender and the hidden Jew; inferior vermin that are anathma and yet part of a global cabal – all symbols that are scapegoated by ones in power.
Today, factually, Jews are generally liberal, civil libertarians, above average in wealth, value education and learning, irreligious, and are assimilated into society.
Some people hate what Jews are or what they stand for, but it doesn’t make them evil.
January 25th, 2007 at 1:08 pm
“(I should note now that the damage has been done that I really like statistics.)”
Can’t you see that your stats DO NOT support your conclusion that political Christians in the US are the same as Islamists?
Here’s answers to your questions.
1. Yes. Nonsense context shifting.
2. No.
3. No.
4. Yes. Alarmist hyperbole.
5. Yes. Unclear definition of “Biblical framework.” Could mean anything.
6. Yes. Bloody libel. Equivocation of the worst sort.
7. Yes. Again, unclear.
8. No. But that doesn’t mean that they’re all just like the Islamists and want to kill all the Jews. That’s what I’m contesting, because that’s what you implied several times.
January 25th, 2007 at 2:22 pm
Do you dispute that the current systems of government in the Middle East are good indicators of historical Christianity? Simple language: I think that if many religious leaders in America had their chance, we would have a theocracy. I also think that if many religious men in the government had their chance, we would have a theocracy. As of now, they are beginning their first attempts to curtail science, push towards faith-based war, end the separation between church and state, remove women’s rights, end the right to privacy, and subjugate minority’s rights.
Their stated goal is a theocracy, just like shariah in the Middle East – just like it was when Christianity was in power.
Their goals are the same.
No, only that their goals are the same.
I don’t retract what I said. If these Christians had it their way, we would have a theocracy. Christianists specifically have an extraordinary narrow view of the world that they seek to impose on others in the style of a theocracy, just like shariah in the Middle East – just like when Christianity was in power.
Prominent men in the government and in several religious groups seek this agenda, and they have plenty of followers, as I demonstrated.
If Biblical law is in place, as these Christianists say they want, it will be no different than Nazi Germany, or shariah in the Middle East, or Communist Russia during Stalin’s reign, or the Inquisition, or at other times Christianity was in power.
Oops. Now I’ve gone and compared them to Nazis and Communists. Look: I’m not implying anything. I’m stating for the record that if Biblical law is in place, this means Jews will die, or forced to wear a special mark, or be unable to represent themselves in a court of law, or be outlawed from owning property, or be put into ghettos, or forced to convert to Christianity. It always happens. It always, always happens.
Andrew Sullivan, the man who coined the term ‘Christianist’ wrote a defense of his word.
January 25th, 2007 at 2:56 pm
“Oops. Now I’ve gone and compared them to Nazis and Communists.”
Yeah, “oops”.
I’m done with this thread, I can see you’re not interested in any sort of real comparisons.
Christianity = Islam = Naziism = Communism. Got it.
January 25th, 2007 at 4:33 pm
ben,
Read the quote from Sullivan.
January 25th, 2007 at 4:43 pm
Ben and D: I’m sorry your discussion has deteriorated. However, I’d like to point out that any ideology, be it religious or not, that seeks to use the power of government to exploit, hinder, abuse, brainwash, or exterminate people is wrong. That is why I am a strong advocate of civil liberties. Actually, the New Testament gives many examples of torture, threats, and executions against the early Christians by the Jewish authorities of that time. The cheif preists in Jerusalem misused government power then, as the Spanish Inquisition did in a “vice versa” manner. No country or ethnic group is immune to such abuses. Pointing out such injustices of the past are helpful to learning about the vulnerabilities of human societies. That is why drunkentune’s warning about Christianists (as coined by Andrew Sullivan) is valid. In Israel, there are “Judaismists” (my coinage) of the far right wing that want to make Israel a religious state as well. They’d shut the place down on Saturdays and require religious observation, etc. (Israel is secular now.) My concern in the USA is more about the inordinate power that may be exerted by corporate and wealthy power brokers than the Christianists, for reasons I mentioned above about the inherant weakness of Christianism and the traditions of separation of church and state and the great diversity in the country.