by Edward _
Via Kos
Preface: There’s enough confusion about where this was originally published to make me question whether a bit of grape vine reporting has altered the full story. However, there’s more than enough highly disturbing about it (including photos) to warrant discussion.
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Liminal, on his anti-war blog Shlonkom Bakazay? (whose tag line is "an iraqi-american ashamed, in denial"), offers some disturbing images and commentary by a writer named "locomono" whose original post is apparently no longer available (or is for members only).
In a nutshell, locomono attended a Father-Son function at their local Baptist Church in Lexington, Kentucky, and the militaristic nature of the presentation disturbed him enough he began taking photos after a film was shown:
First off, this is absolutely true and only happened about an hour ago. I am a Christian, a republican and support the war in Iraq, but this pisses me off in ways I cannot explain even to myself. […]
When the lights come up my earlier discomfort is redoubled. I realize something is very ********ed up, and start taking pictures. What I see reminds me of footage from the third right [Reich?] the way patriotic imagery is thrown around bugger all. What you’re looking at is government mesh thrown over the steps to the balcony, and a huge flag covering up all but the tip of a huge cross in the first picture, and the huge amount of people sitting below various armed forces banners in the second. There was a nice POW one behind me. I apologize for the poor quality but it’s a new camera, and I’m still learning how to use it, especially in low & mixed light conditions. […]
After that, they had guys wearing the traditional US uniforms over time walk out in order while scenes from a Jesus movie I cant recall played. I was never aware of voodoo style witch doctors, or Indiana Jones being members of our military (far left and second from right respectively in the first pic). I think it’s kinda funny that unless I’m wrong that fellow on the far left of the second pic is wearing a confederate uniform. I know it’s ridiculously bad taste but yes, that really is Jesus on the cross in the first picture…in behind our troops. When the final modern troop stepped out too the front and center he thrust his rifle one handed into the air to shouts of approval, the Jesus footage was still playing, and at that particular point even my dad was uncomfortable.
Read the whole thing and see the photos. Locomono nails what’s wrong with this:
Even as I had already taken these photographs of something that I clearly know is wrong, hell we ended with “I‘m proud to be an American”, after a sermon and a combined rendition of all the services anthems. I was conflicted. I knew, and know that almost all of the people I’m depending on to bring this to light disagree with me on virtually every issue. I wasn’t going to release this unless they were recruiting. They were.
Jesus himself only got mad once. It was because merchants were using the church to sell their wares, he flipped their tables, seized a whip, and attacked them. This day the answer to “what would Jesus do?” is grab one of the m-16s laying around and start kneecapping.
OK, so perhaps Jesus wouldn’t kneecap anyone, but is there any doubt he’d find this display about as unChristian as any imaginable?
Liminal uses this to suggest the military is recruiting for a war against Iran and asks:
What is the difference between Muslims trying to defend their homeland by recruiting from mosques and Christians trying to defend their homeland by recruiting from churches?
You could argue it depends on whether they’re on offense or defense, but pre-emptive invasions have blurred that distinction. You could argue it depends on whether they’re targeting civilians or military targets, but "shock and awe" operations don’t discriminate.
There are differences in my opinion. The US military is not a terrorist organization for one thing (and one must assume the Muslims referenced here are), although our military’s recent widespread slackening in its vigilance against the use of torture does, shamefully, leaves that difference less stark than it was 5 years ago.
I’d like to add that Christians are not trying to forcibly dominate the world, but look at the text on the program for the event locomono attended:
Our mission statement: "To worship God, globally lead people to faith in Christ, and grow together to be like Him."
On one hand that’s just scary juxtaposed as it is (see other side on Liminal’s site) with clip art of tanks and helicopters. On the other hand its blasphemous, as Christ would not appreciate being associated with such warmongering.
Edward, do you really want to go here?
Like it or not, this sort of stuff, however “scary” it seems to you (and, me too, FWIW) is precisely the sort of “patriotic”/militaristic pitch that resonates to the max with a large percentage of “Heartland” America: the mixture of nationalism, kick-ass militarism and religion that is a hallmark of most right-wing/authoritarian philosphies and regimes the world over.
Whatever you might think of it (and believe me, my views on this are probably quite close to yours) – critiquing it runs a big risk of looking, well, anti-American. Regardless of the pure simple-mindedness of reflexively associating a nation’s military service with Holy Good and Righteousness, it is a reflex that all too many people have and will react to. IOW, what’s your point?
I’ll probably get into all sorts of trouble for this remark, but I’d argue that it would be anti-American to not argue against nationalism, militarism, and even patriotism if one sees them as wrong or being used in ways that are wrong or harmful to the US or world. Which is more central to the US: the flag or the Constitution, that is, the symbol of the country or the legal document that makes the country a place worth fighting for?
I think the point is to shine light on the shadows where dark things thrive.
A typical Democratic/liberal, but very mistaken, response would be to agitate against the legality or propriety of such absurd demonstrations in American churches. But that’s just a symptom, and fighting the symptom will engender a lot of ill will for no gain. The problem is not that it’s happening. The problem is that enough people in the congregation want it to happen that it happens. It’s the responsibility of the people in that congregation to decide whether that’s what they want their church to look like. . a fusion of religion and hypermilitaristic statism.
If enough of them do, then that’s what their church should look like, and the best response is to make it well known to everyone else in the country. Maybe they’ll be shamed. If enough of them don’t, maybe they’ll stand up and say it.
Deutchland, my Deutchland…. I mean America, America God shed His Grace on Thee…. I mean….
Hey did everybody hear that Dave Neiwert won over at Wampum for best blog series of the year? I voted for Katherine of course, but it was a tough decision. Anyway, although it is about an f-word I won’t use on many blogs, Orcinus is over to the left in hilzoy’s links. Highly recommended, especially to those who might confuse the varying types of political extremism.
This was intended to be dead on-topic.
Regardless of the pure simple-mindedness of reflexively associating a nation’s military service with Holy Good and Righteousness, it is a reflex that all too many people have and will react to. IOW, what’s your point?
My point is Christ would not approve. Period.
The Christians I respect the most (my father included) tell me time and again that Jesus asked us to rise above our basest instincts. Look at how he lived his life. What about it would even begin to suggest he’d be less than furious about this display in his “Father’s house”?
It’s blasphemy. That’s my point.
For me, the recruitment literature and a Confederate-dressed soldier crossed the line of good taste and propriety, otherwise I don’t see the big deal. This was an annual event by a church men’s group with an “honoring the military” theme. When a soldier is invited to talk to a group of Christians in a church about his experiences and his faith while serving his country, you might expect to see a mix of military nd religious themes. I find it not a little warped that Kos would interpret an “honoring the military” banquet to be some sort of military recruitment meeting. But then again, I find “screw ’em” Kos to be a bit warped about certain things. If the men’s group had a banquet next month with an “honoring the teachers” theme, why would that be any more or less inappropriate?
I see nothing wrong or ominous with a church mission “to worship God, globally lead people to faith in Christ, and grow together to be like Him.” That is what Christians are called to do, sans sword of course.
For those of us that live in the South, this kind of thing hardly merits notice. Non-issue. Next topic.
“… sans sword of course.”
Which is the point, no?
For those of us that live in the South, this kind of thing hardly merits notice.
Even covering the cross with a flag and playing images of a crucified Christ as back drop to a parade of costumes? Isn’t it supposed to be God, Country, etc. in that order?
None of this is seen as tasteless or inappropriate?
Bird Dog: I see nothing wrong or ominous with a church mission “to worship God, globally lead people to faith in Christ, and grow together to be like Him.”
No, I wouldn’t expect that you would.
Tasteless and inappropriate, yes. Scary, no.
I presume you have heard of “Piss Christ”? Tasteless and inappropriate, yes. Scary, no.
sans sword of course.
Indeed
I presume you have heard of “Piss Christ”?
Total non sequitor. One is critiquing religion, the other is supposedly celebrating it.
Total non sequitor. One is critiquing religion, the other is supposedly celebrating it.
The parallel is in the overreaction of those who don’t like the expressed point of view. You called it scary. I’m willing to go with you on tasteless and inappropriate but not scary.
Last time I heard, nobody was standing next to Piss Christ trying to convince gallery attendees that pissing on the cross was their christian duty. That’s why Piss Christ is not scary. Because it exists only to offend.*
Religion is sui generis, because the duty people feel to their god is so absolute and so deep, that to explicitly connect a worldly duty** to join the military with a religious (Christian) duty is the deepest manipulation I can imagine. Yes, religious authority, speaking from the altar, and directing the congregation to the recruiting table is scary. It is, in fact, the primary recruiting technique of those scary terrorists we are fighting. Unless you are willing to accept the mantle of holy war, the cross v. the crescent, this should at the very least rub you the wrong way. Draping the flag over the cross and handing out the papmphlets – it’s like biting tinfoil. It’s just not right.
Maybe this is just another one of those “real america” things that I just “don’t get.” Well, thank god. Oh, sorry, I mean Thank G-d.
* which it does. I personally think Piss Christ is a childish, stupid, empty piece of “encounter art” that demonstrates the artistic depth of a two-year-old s***ting on the rug in front of company.
**no matter how noble you may think it is, joining the military is a secular decision.
Yes, religious authority, speaking from the altar, and directing the congregation to the recruiting table is scary.
Excellent way to put it, st. So excellent in fact, I won’t even defend Serranos (who is somewhat overrated IMO…and whose work is totally off topic).
I presume you have heard of “Piss Christ”? Tasteless and inappropriate, yes. Scary, no.
If Andres Serrano led a devoted congregation of millions and asked that they kill in the name of his beliefs, you would fear him.
And it’s going to get worse…way worse.
“I’m willing to go with you on tasteless and inappropriate but not scary.”
The comingling of religion, statism, and militancy has a history of being scary. Fool me twice, shame on me.
Some fun readings on similar subjects:
The Christian Right and the Fascist Aesthetic
Smart Bombs, Serial Killing & the Rapture: The Vanishing Bodies of Imperial Apocalypticism
Prophecy, Politics & the Popular: The Left Behind Series & Fundamentalism’s New World Order
No, I wouldn’t expect that you would.
Then perhaps you can tell me why the church’s mission statement is wrong and ominous, Jes.
Indeed
Edward, are you suggesting that Struecker is a religious crusader bent on using his military arsenal to convert non-Americans to Christianity? You’re not making sense with this conflation you’re making.
I see nothing wrong or ominous with a church mission “to worship God, globally lead people to faith in Christ, and grow together to be like Him.”
Nor do I, BD, except that in this case, the church leadership seems to have taken it for granted that God and Christ are serving members of the US Armed Forces, and that running what looks like a recruitment rally in a house of worship is just fine with the Big Guy Upstairs.
So I guess all that “Prince of Peace” stuff is just so much moonbattery, huh?
Haven’t followed the links, but I have lived in some of the redder parts of California. In a number of those places, the local church was the only building large enough to accomodate a crowd.
Perhaps the commingling of church and state was incidental.
Bird Dog,
What I mean exactly is that Christ went way out of his way to preach a message of peace. It was in no way a message congruous with military themes or imagery. Anyone mixing his message with one of war is committing blasphemy. Full stop.
It’s like what we’re always discussing about the perversion of the true message of Islam. The true message of Christianity is PEACE.
The Pope totally gets this (although clearly he’s clueless when it comes to other, ahem, issues of the day), but many Protestant leaders don’t seem to.
Suggesting, even as casually as the placement of clip art on a church program, that Christ in any way would approve of war is unforgiveable. He wouldn’t. He promoted peace. You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war.
Notyou:
Apparently NOT: the pamphlet Edward linked to makes it clear that this “event” was planned by “ministry” of the church, that church functionaries were part of the ceremonies, and that it was held in the church as a sanctioned event (and that the attendees were all, or mostly, church members). Nothing “incidental” here.
I’m perfectly willing to agree with your interpretation of Christ’s message. These people apparently do not. The fact that it is blasphemy according to our understanding isn’t really relavent to the idea that they should or should not promote the armed services in their congregation.
“You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war.”
Don’t agree with that famous quote at all. Often the best way to prevent war is to prepare for it enough to scare off your potential attacker.
Sebastian: Often the best way to prevent war is to prepare for it enough to scare off your potential attacker.
Gosh. Why didn’t Saddam Hussein think of that?
I think there are just wars, but I don’t like this at all and I think it is gross distortion of Christ’s teachings. But I have gone from a bad Christian to a non-Christian, and find so many of the beliefs of Christian fundamentalists* repellent, and they find so many of my beliefs repellent, that I don’t really think I could say anything useful on this score. I’ll just quote James Madison again on separation of church and state. Madison believed in it as firmly as Jefferson, but in his case it was as much to protect religion from being corrupted by the state, as to protect the state from undue religious influence. This is from the famous “Memorial and Remonstrance” against establishing a religion in the state of Virginia:
*I don’t actually know the correct term. Evangelicals? The Christian right? Whatever you prefer, except I categorically refuse to say “fundagelical”.
The fact that it is blasphemy according to our understanding isn’t really relavent to the idea that they should or should not promote the armed services in their congregation.
I’m lost in the flotsam now. Are you suggesting I should accept that they don’t see Christ’s message as one of Peace? How am I supposed to relate to them, then? We’re not worshipping the same God at all if the central messages are that different. They might as well be worshipping Mars.
except I categorically refuse to say “fundagelical”.
Ahhh, you’re breaking TS Elliot’s heart. 😉
“Standin’ on the verge of gettin’ it on, of gettin’ it on…”
Oh, wait, that’s “funkadelical,” not “fundagelical.” My mistake.
I’m lost in the flotsam now. Are you suggesting I should accept that they don’t see Christ’s message as one of Peace? How am I supposed to relate to them, then? We’re not worshipping the same God at all if the central messages are that different. They might as well be worshipping Mars.
Great point here, I always thought of them as Pharisees, but thinking of them as pagans makes them easier to bear.
They might as well be worshipping Mars.
I suppose that’s pretty much what they’re doing.
Off-topic, but since it was brought up, I once read an elegant, if a bit tortured, defense of “Piss Christ” as interpretable as a comment the ongoing participation of unfaithful Christians (and, specifically, lapsed or apostate Catholics) in the debasement of the body of Christ. It was real po-mo, ignore-the-artist’s-intent kind of stuff, but interesting nonetheless. Wish I could find it, I’d link it.
Jes,
Gosh. Why didn’t Saddam Hussein think of that?
…or Kuwait?
“Are you suggesting I should accept that they don’t see Christ’s message as one of Peace? How am I supposed to relate to them, then? We’re not worshipping the same God at all if the central messages are that different. They might as well be worshipping Mars.”
Historically it might be more accurate to suggest that they are worshiping Mithras.
Maybe you aren’t worshipping the same God at all. Is that so troubling?
Historically it might be more accurate to suggest that they are worshiping Mithras.
😉
except that it looks like they’re hellbent on wrecking havoc in Mithras’ home turf.
Maybe you aren’t worshipping the same God at all. Is that so troubling?
Only in a larger social context, when the rhetoric is boiled down, and it can be asserted that I’m not a good Christian because I don’t support the war. Then it’s infuriating.
Wow. Millions? Think of the cost of the building alone…never mind the property taxes.
“Only in a larger social context, when the rhetoric is boiled down, and it can be asserted that I’m not a good Christian because I don’t support the war. Then it’s infuriating.”
Heh, Edward I think quite a few Christians might suggest neither of us are good Christians for reasons having nothing to do with the war. 🙂 [or should that be 🙁 ? It is sad, but I meant the quip to be light hearted]
Tough decision? Katherine did great research on a real important story; Neiwert conjures fascist demons out of his rear end.
I thought it was sad that Katherine didn’t win. I thought it was almost as sad that Neiwert did. He is an excellent conspiracy theorist–he can turn the actions of elected Democrats in the South into evidence of a Republican plot to institute fascism. Well I guess they didn’t say “non-fiction” blog series.
Thank you for this, Edward. Liberalism’s roots are in Christianity, and it is vital that liberals stand against its debasement by the ultraright. If the Democratic party were as comfortable talking about the Christian roots of their beliefs as the Republicans are for theirs, they (the Democrats) would be a lot better off.
The true message of Christianity is PEACE.
Hm… given the multiple indirect sources for Christ’s words and the fact that “Christianity” has come to encompass so much more than the gospels, I don’t think it’s possible to speak of the “true” message of Christianity.
Anyway, one thing that can be said confidently is that Jesus was speaking to us as individuals, not as a society. He really had nothing to say on how governments should behave (not surprising, given the socio-political context of his times). And though of course he told us to turn the other cheek, that’s for when someone slaps us ourselves — he doesn’t say what we should do if someone is slapping someone else’s cheek, or pulling a knife on them or something. In deciding WWJD in relation to protecting innocent third parties, we don’t have much to go on.
Wow. Millions? Think of the cost of the building alone…never mind the property taxes.
Churches pay property taxes now?
Oh, crud. Well, I was trying to conjure up a vision of a church whose membership is in the millions, and failed miserably.
I think these guys are very scarey. I have been trying to define why and I think its because I am not a Christian. The site of armed men, claiming to be the best of America, and announcing their intention to to bring the world to their god certainly has an implied “Convert or die” message. .
Tough decision? Katherine did great research on a real important story; Neiwert conjures fascist demons out of his rear end.
and
I thought it was almost as sad that Neiwert did. He is an excellent conspiracy theorist–he can turn the actions of elected Democrats in the South into evidence of a Republican plot to institute fascism. Well I guess they didn’t say “non-fiction” blog series.
I’m waiting for Slarti to tell you guys to go over the Neiwert’s blog the way anyone complaining about Jane Galt was supposed to go over to her place.
Phil, Rutherford Institute. Maybe it’s tortured, maybe not. Mormon theology goes in a very different direction, so it’s hard for me to judge. Excerpt:
I’d the impression I’d read something like that too, so I googled a bit and found an article by one moderate/liberal Christian Joshua Anderson, published online by the
And about the topic (sorry!) of this thread, I’m sad and a little appalled, but it’s hard to figure out where to direct or work up outrage. Like some of the commenters here, my first reaction is that in many places, the church is the local gathering center, more socially relevant (and comfortable) than the civic institutions. What makes me saddest, I guess, is that the evening was billed as a father-son event, as though the only way to be a good son was to join the military. The whole thing was manipulative, of course, but that angle seems particularly unpleasant–but not in any way actionable.
Sorry, the link to the Rutherford article didn’t go through. Here’s the url, the inelegant way:
http://www.rutherford.org/oldspeak/blog/
articles/religion/oldspeak-christ2.asp”
So I guess all that “Prince of Peace” stuff is just so much moonbattery, huh?
Yeah, sure ;). I’m failing to see how honoring fellow believers who have chosen to risk their lives by defending the freedoms of their countrymen is an un-Christian act. While Christ is indeed the Prince of Peace, the Bible also lays out the foundations for engaging in just war. I don’t believe the two concepts are contradictory or cross each other out.
Are you suggesting I should accept that they don’t see Christ’s message as one of Peace?
One of Christ’s central messages is one of peace, but he was no pacifist, Edward. Also, everyone one of us falls well short of the standards He set out for us. A group of believers honoring another group of believers who chose to face the risk of making the ultimate sacrifice is neither dishonorable nor blasphemous.
From an article called “Divided by a Common Faith”
Excerpts:
Evangelicals in the United States are increasingly estranged from their counterparts everywhere else. by Tom Sine
Few Americans seem to realize that the church in other industrialized countries is not nearly as divided over this issue. In fact, most evangelical leaders in Britain, Australia, and New Zealand-in contrast to their American cousins-were opposed to the war. What accounts for this surprising difference between many American evangelical believers and their global siblings?
In fact, Tom Frame-the Anglican Bishop to the Australian Defense Force-was the only Anglican bishop in Australia to support the war. Recently even he changed his viewpoint, as he explained June 18 in the Melbourne, Australia newspaper The Age.
“As the only Anglican bishop to have publicly endorsed the Australian government’s case for war,” Frame wrote, “I now concede that Iraq did not possess weapons of mass destruction. It did not pose a threat to either its nearer neighbours or the United States and its allies…. Looking back on the events of the past 18 months I continue to seek God’s forgiveness for my complicity in creating a world in which this sort of action was ever considered by anyone to be necessary.”
I have not found anything comparable to the Religious Right anywhere else on the planet. It is an American anomaly. This partially explains the growing divide in political opinion between American evangelicals and their cousins in the Commonwealth.
American evangelicals tend to subscribe to a revisionist understanding of the U.S. founding story that encourages them to view the United States as God’s unique redemptive agent in the world. Not surprisingly, this view of messianic nationalism makes it very easy for many American evangelicals to support the neoconservative doctrine endorsing the pre-emptive and redemptive use of violence to make the world a better place. Very few evangelicals around the world support either this view of American exceptionalism or this imperial use of pre-emptive violence to “improve” life on this planet.
Sociologist Donald Kraybill of Messiah College offers an important word for American evangelicals who have allowed right-wing fears and nationalistic dreams-rather than teachings of a biblical faith-to shape their Christian worldview. He wrote, “When public piety is surging, Christians must be careful to distinguish between the god of American civil religion and the God revealed in Jesus of Nazareth. The God of…Jesus sends the rain on the just and the unjust. This God urges us to love our enemies, to bless those who curse us…. For this God there is no east or west, no political borders, no pet nations.”
The whole article is at:
http://jmm.aaa.net.au/articles/13604.htm
This is all very nice, but Jesus did say he came not to bring peace, but a sword. Now, that saying may have been fabricated by later writers after his death, but it’s clear that Christianity has always been closer to the sword than the plowshare. Militarism, nationalism, imperialism, racism, slavery and Christianity have walked hand in hand for nearly 2000 years. The Christians who oppose that stuff have always been a small minority.
“Militarism, nationalism, imperialism, racism, slavery and Christianity have walked hand in hand for nearly 2000 years.”
Mostly human nature, I certainly do not entirely blame Christianity, in theorey or in interpretation, for this history. That would be like blaming a particularly strict interpretation of Islam for the actions of terrorists.
On the other hand, it is certainly hard to make a case that Christianity has ameliorated our baser drives, and I can think of religions or religious with a better record.
This is all very nice, but Jesus did say he came not to bring peace, but a sword.
Read that verse in context and you will find that it does not mean what you seem to think it means.
Charles: One of Christ’s central messages is one of peace, but he was no pacifist
Hmm, I also wonder how you can say this so confidently. What passages do you have in mind?
Okay, since I happen to have my handy-dandy cross-indexed Bible nearby, I’d like to take up the not-peace-but-a-sword quote. It occurs in exactly one of the Gospels. In other words, it’s not as theologically important as, say, the Sermon on the Mount is for the enduring message of Christianity or the legislative structure of Paul was for the early Christian population.
And then (and here’s my Protestant bias), let’s take a look at where it does show up.
Matthew 10:33-37 (KJT):
No real advice for national security there. The not-peace-but-a-sword line is a metaphor: following Christ will involve breaking old habits and family bonds. This makes total sense within the context of the story: Christ is giving his apostles a pep-talk before sending them out as missionaries. They’re about to be cut off from their homes and families–hence the sword imagery.
Obviously, the violent messiah does exist, both in the Jewish texts and in the book of Revelation. It isn’t really present in the books more closely tied to Jesus as an historical figure. The imagery was out there in his time–and of course it was some of the most powerful stuff in the canon–but in most of the reported teaching of Christ, he turns it into metaphor or denies it altogether. (As reported by the gospels, of course.)
Okay, I’ll stop. I know that undertaking a theological discussion on a blog is probably a silly endeavor.
I recommend the Unbound Bible, because you can get multilingual versions side by side.
Matthew 5:9 “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.”
Obviously not by these clowns. I guess the moment in mass after the Lord’s Prayer, they must greet each other with “War be with you.”
But the Neo-Christian believes Christ’s meekness and long-suffering were wimpy. What all Christians need is a Pagan ethos! The fruit of the spirits are to French.
Warrior Politics: Why Leadership Demands a Pagan Ethos by Robert D. Kaplan
What passages do you have in mind?
Jesus running the moneychangers out of the temple was not a peaceful act. Someone else brought up a reference to Christ saying that he comes bearing a sword. I believe He was talking on a spiritual plane, not a physical one.
Jesus didn’t kill the money-changers! Nor did he torture them! Nor did he perform “shock-and-awe” on their asses, although some say he could have!
Jesus was chasing the moneychangers out of the temple for using the temple to sell thier wares, in exactly the same way this church was used to sell war. The irony is delicious, but not filling. 🙁
liberal japonicus, thanks! That is a totally awesome resource. There goes my free time for the next few days.
Charles, what NeoDude said but with less snark. The definition of pacifism I had in mind was “Opposition to war or violence as a means of resolving disputes.” Certainly Jesus was not Buddha, but AFAIK he nowhere advocates or justifies physical violence against any person.
On the moneychangers story, we have three versions:
Matt. 12-14 (KJT):
Mark 15-17:
John (warning, non-synoptic gospel!) 1:13-17:
Bird, it’s a weird story. It’s one of the few instances where Christ enforces a literalist reading of Jewish law on the books at the time. Most Biblical scholars agree that John was the latest of the Gospels: the story seems to have gotten more violent the further away from Christ’s life.
In any event, the story again has more to do with internal purification than with conquest or expansion. (As this story has been a favorite with anti-capitalist writers, it surprises me that you’d bring it up). And, amazingly, it pertains to the topic of the thread: non-sacred uses of church space.
And ditto Ken B: LJ’s Bible Unbound is a cool, cool site.
Whatever…I don’t make it a point to chase down every bit of social injustice, here. If you’re looking for complete consistency and vigilance, you’re going to have to find someone who’s unemployed. But please feel free to pay Orcinus a visit and let him know you think he’s a fine conspiracy theorist.
If you think comments such as this one:
merit any attention at all, please let Dave know. I don’t really have any negative thoughts to express to Dave, because I don’t ever think of him. It’s nothing personal; I just don’t care for that sort of speculation.
Several of my ancestors were persecuted for their version of Christian religion.
Think Huguenots, and Roger Williams little band.
Did they fight for their religion? Probably somewhere along the way.
So these Baptist folks believe that it is sometimes important to fight for their beliefs, and it can be argued that fighting Communism and Fascism was to many people the same as fighting for one’s own religion. And maybe they feel that they must be willing to fight against a worldwide Wahhabist/Salafist movement that sees the destruction of the infidels as an ultimate goal.
Now I was raised as a Southern Baptist, and while I do not share many of their views, I am not particularly frightened by them. I think it might be just a cultural thing. I have actually been to a 4th of July service honoring all the of the servicemen in the church. There may have been American flags and bunting, which didn’t intimidate me. There was a slide show of men in women from the congregation and past members of the congregation (generally in uniform). The choir sang patriotic hymns and songs (think Battle Hymn of the Republic, America the Beautiful.)
The sermon was pretty short. I did have a problem with some point where the preacher made the claim that the US was founded as a Christian nation. I pointed this out to my sisters later, that there quite a few Unitarians and Quakers and so forth back then (not exactly evangelicals), and that this was around the time of the Romantic era, when people understood many concepts from Greek and Roman pagan religion. (By the way, I think that the study of Greek Mythology is an excellent way for children to develop a way to think crically about religion.)
I have been much more offended by things I have heard in the Unitarian church where my wife and kids are and have been active. For instance, Rev. R Davidson Loehr, UU of Austin, TX has this thing about giving anti-American sermons on Veterans Day.
From Veterans Day 2003 comenting on Afghanistan and Iraq:
These are the battles our soldiers are being used to fight. They are battles for a concept of empire so similar to the vision of Hitler’s Nazi party of sixty years ago that it’s hard to consider the similarities accidental. This is the ideology our soldiers are carrying into battle with them as they fight, kill and die not for freedom or the American way, but for greed, arrogance, and a murderous lust for power that seems terrifyingly insane.
From 2004, the title Living Under Fascism about says it all:
You may wonder why anyone would try to use the word “fascism” in a serious discussion of where America is today. It sounds like cheap name-calling, or melodramatic allusion to a slew of old war movies. But I am serious. I don’t mean it as name-calling at all. I mean to persuade you that the style of governing into which America has slid is most accurately described as fascism, and that the necessary implications of this fact are rightly regarded as terrifying
From the 2002 sermon Oil, Arrogance and War
And that is why our World Trade Center and Pentagon buildings were attacked on September 11, 2001. It was not an attack on “America” any more than the bombing in 1920 was. It was an attack by angry and murderous people against symbolic buildings in a country whose military they perceive to be employed in the service of its economic ambitions, and whose economic arrogance and greed are grinding billions of humans into the ground.
Spinmasters have played bad word games here, by identifying “America” as the victim of the 9-11 attacks. No: the victims were the roughly three thousand innocent citizens who happened to work in highly symbolic buildings. “America’s” role was as the country whose long-term economic and military arrogance brought the murderous actions of the terrorists – crimes for which those responsible should be brought to international justice.
…
Still, Pearl Harbor wasn’t really the right historical precedent for 9-11 and its aftermath. That precedent, as many have noted, was the Reichstag fire of 1933. Please understand that I will not compare our President with Hitler. I think the comparisons are inaccurate, off-base and vulgar. But I will compare, as others have, the tactics both administrations used to transform a terrorist attack into a means of taking authoritarian control of their citizens.
And then he goes into a lengthy comparison of Bush to Hitler.
Now I didn’t hear these sermons personally. But I have heard similar sermons from other UU ministers who were also friends and supporters of Ramsey Clark and ANSWER.
For those who don’t know, Ramsey Clark supported both Kims of N Korea, Khomeini, PolPot, defended terrorist of the PLO, Saddam Hussein, defended the a 7th Day Adventist preacher who in Rwanda helped orgainize the murders of thousands, and on and on.
And you know what, the educated UU members were just as ignorant about ANSWER, etc as the Baptists were about, well
America being a Christian country.
And dont get me start about divestment from Israel, which I think should be subtitled “We don’t hate all Jews, just about 1/3 of them who think they can have their own country”.
—
ObWi, provactive as usual.
Sorry Slarti if I led you to think that I expect total vigilance, I’m just hoping for even-handedness. You’ve made it clear that people should take up points where they appear. Bizarrely enough, there is not one word that Neiwert wrote here, just a reference by Bob McManus, yet we have Jonas suggest
Neiwert conjures fascist demons out of his rear end.
and Seb chiming in with wholehearted agreement. Just pointing out that comity begins at home…
It’s blasphemy. That’s my point.
Well Edward, I come from a religious background where “Touchdown Jesus” or ending the “Hail Mary” (before a sports contest) with “Queen of Victory Pray for Us” is a part of the religious culture. I don’t believe Mary or Jesus were football or baseball fans notwithstanding I don’t believe TJ or “Queen of Victory” is blasphemous. How about all those latin players pointing to the heavens (well God) after each home run.
Comparing a sporting event to an action that produces killing, cheating, rape, theft, murder, destroying families, destroying houses, disease, a violation of every Chrsitian ethical standard, is sick.
And no, claiming to perform those acts in the name of democracy, justice, freedom, civilization, pride, honor and etc., sounds like blasphemy.
War is hell…and to many of the faithful are in a hurry to get there.
Two thoughts. First, on Neiwert. I think that because he’s spent so much time covering Nazis that he begins to see Nazis in places where they aren’t. “To a hammer, everything looks like a nail” and all that.
As for the question of war in Christianity, well, pacificism has always been a minority opinion in the Christian faith, since in the New Testament, when John the Baptist preaches to soldiers, he doesn’t tell them to give up soldiering. Rather, he tells them not to plunder, be content with their pay, etc. Likewise, in Matthew Chapter 8 and Luke Chapter 7 we have the story of the Centurion who comes to Christ when his servant is ill. Christ admires the faith of the centurion, telling the people that he has not seen such faith among the people of Israel. He does *not* tell him to give up soldiering.
Likewise, when Peter baptizes Cornelius the Centurion, he does not tell him to give up soldiering.
You *can* get pacifism out of Christianity, but it’s tough, since you basically have to take a pacifistic interpretation of the sermon on the Mount and hold it up against the entire rest of the Old and New Testament.
It is precisely the avoidance of a conspiratorial framework that makes Neiwert’s work so useful. He describes the “mobilizing passions”, moods, attitudes that allow fascism as a mass movement to gain momentum and become political action.
“Mobilizing passions” that are strikingly similar to the subjects of Edward’s post. Mere coincidence? Or an early symptom and warning?
Coincidence, I am sure. And the Wampum awards seemed flooded by the large crowds at DKos and Atrios, which isn’t unfair at all, but should be taken into account in judging Neiwert’s merit. Just read Part 2 of the series and see if anything looks…..familiar.
Christian ethics, you mean as it pertains to a “just war”.
Edward, please don’t ever visit the U.S. Air Force Academy as the Cadet Chapel is the dominant structure.
Christian ethics do not allow for many Machevalian geo-strategic conserns…I’m sure the Augustinians and Thomist in the Roman Catholic church and churches throughout the world, did their homework, and saw this as a self-rightious land grab.
Most Christian churchs from all spectrums around the world saw the invasion of Iraq and the deployment of killing, cheating, rape, theft, murder, destroying families, destroying houses, and disease for our cause unnecesary.
Andrew,
In Matthew, 7:10, we do find “Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel,” but before it is a synoptic reference to the centurian’s power of authority over his servants–indicating that Jesus’s reference measured his followers’ obediance against the centurians. Perhaps an ironic statement?
Then in Matthew 7:11-12, the continuation of the story, we find:
Interestingly, the “Young’s Literal Translation” source from LJ’s link translates “kingdom” as “reign.”
I read this passage as a testament to Jesus–the Jew–being tolerant towards a Roman soldier as an honorable person. In other words, Jesus’s restraint towards and openminded admiration of certain aspects of a soldier of the occupying power is one more sign of his desire to spread his message among the many nations. Jesus agreed to heal a Roman soldier’s servant–this is supposed to be a sign of Jesus’s pro-war tendencies?
The Luke passage is more problematic and more interesting, as Luke is generally considered to be the source closest to Jesus in chronology. Luke gives more info about the soldier. His reputation, according to Jesus’s friends, is that “he loveth our nation, and he hath built us a synagogue” (luke 7:5). And, as the soldier (remember, a Roman soldier of the occupying power) is warned that Jesus is coming, he sends word that “I am not worthy that though shouldest enter under my roof” (Luke 7:6). He goes on to remind Jesus that he has authority (and, perhaps, implicitly, reports to an authority), and Jesus still heals the sick.
No, Jesus did not actually condemn the Centurion for his profession, but that would seem beside the point, I think.
(If this is getting boring for the regulars, just tell me to stop.)
Reeves,
Would they have to have given up “soldiering” to follow Him?
He seemed to show love to many types of degenerates, but didn’t they have to give up things to follow him?
He blessed prostitutes, can one be a prostitute for Christ?
Would our desire for oil equal a desire for plunder?
Jackmormon,
You go girl.
Jack, yeah, the context of the passages really isn’t about the military, it’s about Christ’s authority and relations to the gentiles. It is nonetheless telling that He (and Peter) have nothing to say against such a profession.
Neo, the thing is, only part of Christ’s message is forgiveness, the other part is “repent.” When Jesus told those who were going to stone a woman caught up in adultery that he who was without sin could cast the first stone, He followed up by telling her, “Go, and sin no more.” And as for the issue of Mary Magdalene, the entire creation of her out of three Marys and the story that she was a reformed prostitute was more a product of Pope Gregory the Great’s exegesis than the text of the Bible itself.
All of which is to say that if the NT were completely pacifist, soldiers would have an admonition to repent.
The whole identifying the U.S. with Christianity, though, that’s kind of creepy.
Edward, I agree with you — including the part where you point out that they can do it, but we can also show it to as many people as possible…shine a light on it, so to speak.
If the men’s group at church wants to honor our fighting men and women – especially if they are part of the congregation — and the sacrifices they make, that doesn’t bother me. Christ told his followers to render unto Caesar, and Caesar has taken us to war. A soldier who chooses to conscientiously* follow his orders is doing no wrong, as far as I’m concerned.
What bothers me about this incident is threefold:
1. The fervor re: the military that caused the organizers to be oblivious to the wrongness of covering up the cross with symbols related to war.
2. The recruitment table. Just no. NO.
and
3. This is a larger issue that has bothered me for some time, and which I should do a post on sometime: the move of the right-wing, fundamentalist Christians to an Old Testament-driven theology. The “new covenant” that Jesus brought is hardly acknowledged, while the war, strict prohibitions, and politics of the Old Testament seem to be used as justifications for discrimination, governmental control of personal lives, and violence in the name of justice.
Tomist, you mean Aquinians, and I missed the land grab, maybe you could point it out to me.
While the Curia struggled with the Iraqi conflict geopoltically speaking, it was smart enough to leave the ethics alone. Which given the recent elections in Iraq, was very wise indeed.
As I’ve said before, being Roman Catholic, I leave the Christian comments to others.
*The asterisk in my post was supposed to connect to this:
*There are problems, of course, with a Christian soldier who is violent or cruel or otherwise “unChristlike” outside his orders (or even, I suppose it might occur, within them). See: Abu Ghraib.
Would you argue that Jesus believed the Romans had “just cause” to occupy Palestine?
Was Jesus an admirer of Pax Romana? I mean he was kind to some of the representitives of that Empire?
(and yes, I think the scene in The Life of Brian, where the Judean Liberation Front gave a list of all the wonderful things the Roman Empire provided was funny)
The cross was behind an American Flag. Opus on the altar of the church I go to the American Flag is prominently displayed. From time to time we even sing patriotic songs.
As for the New Testament, human “dignity” is a high priority in my religion.
Roman Catholic, eh?
link
Nope,…Thomist.
The mantra “Elections justify all. Elections justify all.”
So morals and ethics are relative to political theories conserning electoral politics?
Elections justify killing, cheating, rape, theft, murder, destroying families, destroying houses, and chaos?
Was that in the letter to Corinth?
John Paul II stated before the 2003 war that this war would be a defeat for humanity
While it doesn’t happen often, John Paul II was wrong. Just look at what is transpiring in the Middle East. Good thing his comment was an article of faith.
Was the establishment of an Iraqi Republic worth it, yup, it sure looks that way.
Roman Catholic, eh?
Yes, I’m a member of the Holy Roman Catholic Church with an Irish twist.
My apologies for questioning your faith, Timmy, I obviously got under your skin, given the three consecutive out of order responses. I would like to know how you justify disagreeing with the Pope on this, but as it seems too close to home, feel under no obligation to answer. Again, my apologies. I’ll stay clear of this line of discussion from now on.
Andrew,
It is nonetheless telling that He (and Peter) have nothing to say against such a profession.
Are you referencing the conversion of Cornelius (Acts 10)?
My bible who’s who points out that Cornelius was the first gentile to embrace Christianity without first embracing the Jewish people and cause. A roman soldier being baptized to the faith of the charismatic preacher? Sounds like a major propaganda coup to me. I sure wouldn’t make the moment ugly by proclaiming that no occupying soldiers had the right to join our cause. And I doubt I’d linger on the probably nasty bureaucratic results of an Imperial underling’s choosing to convert to a minoritarian nativist religion, whose leader had been executed for treason and hubris.
But I also note that Peter is written as replying to Cornelius’s extraordinary story of conversion thus:
See, here’s what keeps bringing me back to the Bible, years after I lost my literal faith. Peter’s first line is funny. It’s a subtle jab: “well, I wouldn’t’ve expected such commendable faith from you!” But the super-cool part is that Peter goes on to take the Roman soldier at his word, despite all the reasons to suspect him.
The goal of the Gospels is to bring everyone–anyone–into the tent. Yes, this involves repentence. It’s telling, though, that the conspicuous soldier mentioned so far here are Romans who convert: one presumes that their process of repentence will involve being less hostile to the local nativist movement represented by Christ.
If you’ve got more Biblical Christian soldiers you’d like me to parse, let me know. If you’re sick of the discussion, I’ll fade away.
I like the way the United States invaded Ireland and Eastern Europe to democratize them.
Jackmormon: I have been lurking in this thread, mostly because I was occupied writing my own, but I’m not bored in the least. I was Christian for ten crucial years (13-22), and one of the things I really miss is intelligent Bible-parsing. (Seriously.)
Have you read Slacktivist’s Left Behind Commentary? The author is an evangelical liberal who is seriously annoyed at how his religion is being abused. He takes it in small chunks, and is now only up to p. 71 of the first book. It’s only worth it if you’ve actually read any of the Left Behind series, but if you have, it’s great. I particularly liked his scathing account of the heroes of the book picking their way through the rubble: the authors describe the wreckage of planes, etc., in a sort of detached-yet-lurid way, but the heroes don’t stop to help anyone, and this fact is not remarked on at all. If I were still Christian and I read those books, I’d be writing an exhaustive angry commentary too.
Anyways, I mention it because it has an account of a scarily twisted premillenial dispensationalist rationale for thinking that the Antichrist will be a man of peace. One of those Biblical arguments that leave you thinking, they believe what???
When I wrote: “He takes it in small chunks”, I meant the Left Behind books, not his religion.
“Anyways, I mention it because it has an account of a scarily twisted premillenial dispensationalist rationale for thinking that the Antichrist will be a man of peace.”
It can’t always be the butler.
It can’t always be the butler.
It’s… Beelzebutler!
“a scarily twisted premillenial dispensationalist rationale for thinking that the Antichrist will be a man of peace…”
Well, it seemed relevant to this post …
Anyway, it’s “premillennial”. And it’s probably “Bill ze Cat”.
I don’t mean to interfere as a relatively completely non-Christian person, but insofar as I can tell the “Left Behind” phenomenon is the result of quick and completely superficial bible-parsing followed by a quick retreat to faith. All of my right-wing fundamentalist friends are completely dumbfounded by how many Christians are swept up by this scripturally weak notion and have no idea what to do about it.
I had a taste of why this holiday season when I was at a dinner party where there was a born-again Christian who adhered to this particular end-times view. I brought up that my friend, who is working on his masters to enter the ministry and who takes a very strict view of scripture, thought this was completely absurd. Her reply was for him to read the passages again and pray to God for wisdom. That’s all she had to offer.
And that’s why I’m not bullish on this dream people are peddling of conflating our (liberal) politics with our faiths. We all have enough trouble communicating with each other as it is without having things break down like that.
As a semi-related — ok, tenuously related — tangent to the above post, do people know of any libertarian Christians? Libertarian evangelicals? It occurs to me that libertarianism need not be antithetical to religiosity but that I don’t actually know of any examples…
Anarch,
Me mum, devout Mormon in her way (direct descendent of Joseph Smith, tho’ she married me pa, atheist scientist), votes the straight Cromwellian ticket, as she calls it. I swear to you, Mormons have encorporated Milton into their theology, but it’s the rare Mormon who invites Milton into her politics!
This last season, both she and dad voted Badnarak (sp?!?)–in Berkeley. They were aghast by Bush (and staunchly libertarian Canadian dad was the first to bring canadians being extraordinarily rendered to my attention), but couldn’t quite join their community’s zeitgeist to the extent of voting for Kerry. I think this has more to do with their Californian why-don’t-our-votes-count-dammit pride than anything else.
(Of course, in the early days of the Mormon church, the economic structure was basically communistic: when you joined, you signed over your property. The economy was, in Utah, centrally planned, and while allotments of land were distributed to private owners, residents were forbidden to break up lots to sell. The church still runs parallel taxation, welfare, and communications systems.)
Hilzoy, I have read some of the Slacktivist’s parsings. I tried to read the first installment. I should have been able to finish it: I was in Germany, English-language fiction was hard to come by, it was there–but, oh, it was so incredibly bad. I think it’s a gauge both of my desparation to read English and of the badness of the book that I abandoned it a mere thirty pages before the end.
The millenial strand is present in most Protestant faiths, but it comes and goes according to contemporary political and cultural conditions. Growing up Mormon in Berkeley, I was vaguely taught about the theological roots of these sorts of ideas, but the directives (“You should keep a year’s worth of food in your house to be prepared for the disasters that will prefigure the Second Coming!”) from Utah sounded alarmist. Many–if not most–Christians will take such warnings as metaphorical. In California, response to such Utah directives often went like this: “And earthquakes can, of course, strike at any time, so it’s important to be self-reliant in emergencies. Emergency supplies are key, and know where the gas-main is.”
See, I missed that one completely. As unreasonable as this might seem, I don’t read every comment. Especially of late, given that I’m un$DEITY-ly busy at work. Plus I’m repainting and reflooring the front couple of rooms. I’ll try to save up all the swear-words I use (coming from a first-time installer of wood flooring) and post them on my own personal (albeit sadly neglected) blog.
I’m going to invite Jonas to go over and discuss his opinions of Orcinus with the source, though. Jonas, what say you?
No worries, Slarti, I just thought pointing it out the way I did rather than repeating the offending phrase might get the message across. I honestly didn’t mean to ask you to step in, and I should have said something like ‘Now is a good time to remember Slarti’s dictum that…’
Wood flooring. Just when you figure out how to do it, you’ll be finished, if I remember correctly.
One of Christ’s central messages is one of peace, but he was no pacifist, Edward. Also, everyone one of us falls well short of the standards He set out for us. A group of believers honoring another group of believers who chose to face the risk of making the ultimate sacrifice is neither dishonorable nor blasphemous.
Overturning the moneychangers tables in the temple? That’s all you’ve got to suggest Christ was not a pacifist?
Anyway, one thing that can be said confidently is that Jesus was speaking to us as individuals, not as a society.
Then I don’t expect to hear another Christian cite the Bible when it comes to social issues. Come on, KenB, you can do better than that.
In deciding WWJD in relation to protecting innocent third parties, we don’t have much to go on.
Quite the contrary, we have his daily life as an example.
His focus was always on the poor, downtrodden, and abused. He elevated them and insisted they were as valuable in his father’s eyes as kings. Kings decide to go to war and the poor and downtrodden are killed in their wars, like so much fodder. There’s absolutely no way to conclude from his teachings or his life that Christ would approve of war. Kings have no more right to risk the lives of the poor than the poor have to risk the life of the king. “Render unto Caesar” does not include one’s life. That idea is both unChristian and unAmerican. It means pay your taxes so the government can do its business and you can be a productive member of society.
Fifteen years of Bible study have me convinced Christ is sorely disappointed each time humans can’t find a better solution than wars that kill his people. Again, the Pope totally gets this. I’m not Catholic, but on that point I know he’s right.
When did “the ends justify the means” become part of Catholic/Christian ethics?
Just askin’.
Fifteen years of Bible study have me convinced Christ is sorely disappointed each time humans can’t find a better solution than wars that kill his people.
A Nietzsche aphorism: There was only one Christian and he died on the cross.
There was only one Christian and he died on the cross.
Surely, but when your mission statement is to “together to be like Him” you do have an obligation to understand who he was and what he stood for and make a good faith effort to honor that.
As a semi-related — ok, tenuously related — tangent to the above post, do people know of any libertarian Christians?
There was a guy who used to post on the Straight Dope Message Board — maybe still does — who went by the screen name “Libertarian,” and was exactly that: An evangelical born-again Christian who was also a fervent libertarian in the Von Mises/Hayek mode. He often critiqued Rand on the basis that she got one thing wrong: The existence of God is a necessary precondition for libertarianism.
Anyway, one thing that can be said confidently is that Jesus was speaking to us as individuals, not as a society.
Then I don’t expect to hear another Christian cite the Bible when it comes to social issues.
If by “social issues” one means getting the government to act in a certain way, then I don’t think Christians are justified in citing the Bible, at least not the NT. Where does Jesus say “You shall force all the people in your city or country to give a certain percentage of their income to feed the poor”?
In deciding WWJD in relation to protecting innocent third parties, we don’t have much to go on.
Quite the contrary, we have his daily life as an example.
If you can point to a story or parable where person A is beating person B and Jesus recommends a particular course of action for person C who’s witnessing this, then you might have something. Otherwise I’ll stick with my original statement.
Sorry…Timmy, when you brought up Ireland…I was yhinking something else…anyway.
If you can point to a story or parable where person A is beating person B and Jesus recommends a particular course of action for person C who’s witnessing this, then you might have something. Otherwise I’ll stick with my original statement.
well, there is this:
But I don’t think that’s what you’re after. Perhaps if you explain more fully what you’re seeking I can respond.
In that story, Jesus is speaking directly to the abusers and convinces them to stop. What I’m looking for is a situation where simply speaking to the abuser(s) doesn’t make him/them stop. How do we determine what Jesus would want us to do in that situation?
IOW, would Jesus say that it’s OK to go to war if that seems to be the only way to save a given population from horrible treatment?
Would Jesus say that it’s OK to go to war? There are clues:
Edward, again, these speak to our not defending ourselves. What would Jesus have us do if we come across some guy getting beaten up by a gang of toughs in an alley, and they don’t respond to our cries of “Stop!”? Should we just counsel the victim to turn his other cheek too, whether or not he’s Christian?
Lew Rockwell is a Roman Catholic.
Gary North: A Protestant libertarian Christian.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north-arch.html
How I Became a Christian Libertarian
http://www.lewrockwell.com/yates/yates87.html
Libertarian Christian Web Pages
http://www.theadvocates.org/christian/
I thnk most Christian Libertarians/Libertarian Christians were against the invasion of Iraq.
What would Jesus have us do if we come across some guy getting beaten up by a gang of toughs in an alley, and they don’t respond to our cries of “Stop!”?
OK, I see your question now.
For me there’s a significant difference between the spiritual and secular. Christ was aware of the secular realities of our lives (in fact to learn about them was supposedly the reason God sent him to earth, and that in and of itself suggests He recognized it was complicated), but Christ’s teachings and especially the sancutary of His Father’s House were meant to provide a respite from our daily grind and concerns.
Mixing the two, especially mixing a house for prayer (arguably where we find the very best of ourselves) with a call to arms (arguably the very worst of our secular selfs), is something I belive Christ would become angry about.
He would fully understand that we, weak humans, would not find an altrusistic alternative to war in each instance. He would not understand at all soiling the very place we go to try and learn that altruism.
Oh, and serious dweeb points to kenB for the gruesome pun.
Mixing the two, especially mixing a house for prayer (arguably where we find the very best of ourselves) with a call to arms (arguably the very worst of our secular selfs), is something I belive Christ would become angry about.
I agree with you, but of course we have similar ideas about who Jesus was. I don’t feel certain enough of my interpretation to point to the folks in that church and say they’re definitely wrong, especially since the world we live in now is vastly different from the one Jesus lived and preached in.
Oh, and serious dweeb points to kenB for the gruesome pun.
Thanks — I was wondering if anyone would get that one. But wasn’t that in a different thread?
I may be wrong, but federalizing the rules for a member of a Christian church is theocracy. (Baptism, marriage, confessions of faith, communion, tithing, church discipline, etc. is for in-house, and not the nation).
Early Christian teachings were indeed “pacifistic.”
Many pagans began to blame Christianity for the fall of Rome. Christianity valued Faith, Gentleness, Meekness, Self-Control Temperance, all things a warrior culture must reject. Augustine fought back by blaming Rome’s “foriegn policies”. Hubris and pride and the “pagan ethos” were the Pagan’s thang, and Augustine pegged them for it. What goes around comes around, and the Roman empire was full of itself, it thought it was God on earth.
Nietzsche (and Marx) believed that Christian ethics were a tool to keep the masses weak, while the “real men” understood the pagan ethos and would never allow their power to be stripped because of some hippie Jew’s teachings.
Nietzsche (and Marx) believed that Christian ethics were a tool to keep the masses weak, while the “real men” understood the pagan ethos and would never allow their power to be stripped because of some hippie Jew’s teachings.
Perhaps, but it is important to remember that Nietzsche (and Marx) were simply adopting Hegel’s notion of ‘slave morality’. One also has to remember the much more stifling nature of Christian practice at the time and note that a number of Nietzsche’s criticisms of Christianity were (and are IMO) painfully true.
If Nietzsche is a little too harsh, I think Kierkegaard is probably a good subsitute. Here’s a nice site with side by side quotes of Nietzsche and Kierkegaard.
And since we are talking about biblical interpretations, here is Kierkegaard’s discussion of the story of Abraham from _Fear and Trembling_,
Upon rereading this in the light of discussions about torture here, that last sentence is very disturbing.
There should be a Godwin-type rule about Nietzsche. By the time he gets mentioned, the thread’s over.
Holy Shit LB, that KIERKEGAARD VS. NIETZSCHE is fun as hell, thanks.
Students I hang out with usually are surprised that many of the criticism NIETZSCHE had of Christianity are the same critiques modern day right-wingers have of liberalism and pluralism.
NIETZSCHE, I think, thought it was foolish for Christians to believe they could maintain their faith as well as their commitment to the state and/or nationalism and modernity. KIERKEGAARD seemed to be sensitive to this view. (He wanted Protestants to return to the monasteries, for goodness sake.) NIETZSCHE seemed to be sugesting that Christians working outside of a Puritian/Monastic method, were wolves in sheep-clothing. In other words…Christianity was to strict for any normal person to follow. Acetism is the logical outcome and a nation-state and/culture can not have its foundations based on acetics. So many Christians, who love modernity and all it has to offer, will begin to contort Christian ethics into modern/rational catagories, which for N & K misses the point.
(these are the musings of a student with a BA in continental philosophy, so have mercy)
NIETZSCHE, I think, thought it was foolish for Christians to believe they could maintain their faith as well as their commitment to the state and/or nationalism and modernity.
Our Christian Fundamentalist Party (with a program to restore theocraty, ban women from politic functions and 2 seats in parlement) SGP assumes that a christian cannot know the will of god and therefor have to rigidly follow the government (which should follow gods law). Their chairmen in WW2 condemned Dutch resistance against the Germans because of this and had to leave after the war.
That’s all you’ve got to suggest Christ was not a pacifist?
No. A couple of points. Jesus himself said that He didn’t seek to destroy the Old Testament but to fulfill it and complete it. If He were speaking in modern terms, I wouldn’t be surprised if He said that you have to work with the humanity that you have, not the humanity you want to have. Some excerpts:
There’s more here, which recognizes that there are times when war must be prosecuted. Using Pearl Harbor and Hitler’s subsequent declaration of war on us as an example, had we taken the pacifist approach the world would have been a darker, more evil place. I simply find it hard to believe that Jesus would have preferred that pacifist alternative.
Using Pearl Harbor and Hitler’s subsequent declaration of war on us as an example, had we taken the pacifist approach the world would have been a darker, more evil place. I simply find it hard to believe that Jesus would have preferred that pacifist alternative.
Why? Not that I disagreee with the first sentence I’ve quoted, but Jesus didn’t concern himself with the political systems under which people lived and died. He concerned himself with the souls of individual human beings and their salvation. An unsaved soul is an unsaved soul whether it lives in a world in which the Allies won WWII or the Axis did. I would think that Jesus would be more concerned with how many unsaved souls there are than with who won the war.
Then again, I’m an atheist, so what do I care?
Nice try Bird Dog, but you can’t cherry pick ideas from the Old Testament and suggest Christ supported them willy nilly. Your acting in good faith only when you go by what he’s reported to have said himself.
Upon rereading this in the light of discussions about torture here, that last sentence is very disturbing.
For a somewhat different take, I recommend Leonard Cohen’s Story of Isaac.
“I brought up that my friend, who is working on his masters to enter the ministry and who takes a very strict view of scripture, thought this was completely absurd. Her reply was for him to read the passages again and pray to God for wisdom. That’s all she had to offer.”
There’s an interesting debate going on that I’m paying moderate attention to about the intellectual underpinnings of Protestantism, especially Evangelical Protestantism, in comparison with the tradition of apologetics and debate coming from Catholicism. Here’s a good article in First Things by Mark Noll on the topic.
One thing that strikes me is the increasing postmodernism of Protestantism. As faith becomes more convenient and people get more used to convenience, they become more assertive in redefining Christianity to be whatever they want it to be. Rather than seeking out authority from a pastor or other authority on a right course of action, they just redefine Christianity to be whatever they were going to do anyway, or whatever they feel strongly about. And their belief is intractable. If you try to argue from any position of reason, it is easy to simply say you intuit God’s will because He’s inside you and you just know what’s right.
This is, I think, a sickness in modern Christianity. Religion is about a lot of things, but one of the things it’s really about is being denied for your own good. And Westerners, particularly Americans, are really bad at being denied.
But Iraq (and many invasions after and before WW2) were not done in self-defense. They were done for many reasons, but our existential survival was not one of them.
This seems to be the reason so many Protestants (early American history) were isolationist…they had seen the thousands of years of war in Europe. All those wars were commited in the name of God and Country. The whims of the dynamic leader (Prince, King, Lord) who could convince his subjects that it was religious reasons to invade. Many early Americans seemed to be suspicious of a military Class/professional soldiers, and prefered militias.
Jesus doesn’t seem to be impressed with devotions to the state…he certainly realized that one must respect the laws of that state…but aligning one’s soul with the essence of one’s nation is certainly blasphemy.
Being a Christian who is a soldier is one thing, being a Christian soldier who “only follows orders” is quite another thing.
On WWJD:
Jesus’ teachings were rarely situational, they were exemplary. It was never intended that people should just simply do what he did and they would be saved (a point illuminated nicely in the Life of Brian). The point was that if you made yourself into a good, holy person, all of your actions therefrom would be proper. The horse comes before the cart.
I would expect, without trying to be presumptuous, that if you asked Jesus for advice on the Iraq war, he would give you the same advice he’d give if you asked whether you should eat meat or whether you should root for the Red Sox or the Yankees. I think he would advise all of you to go home, kiss your children, work on your garden, be brave in your convictions, be kind to your neighbors, and not to suffer from fear. What you did after that would be up to you.
Lovely comment sidereal. Thank you!
Rather than seeking out authority from a pastor or other authority on a right course of action, they just redefine Christianity to be whatever they were going to do anyway, or whatever they feel strongly about.
This is not necessarily a bad thing. There’s always a tension in non-fundamentalist churches between the individual conscience and the church’s dogma, and the more liberal the church, the more the individual conscience wins out. Sometimes the individual conscience acts in wise ways, sometimes not. Or rather, sometimes an individual mistakes the voice of temptation for the voice of conscience.
“This is not necessarily a bad thing.”
Not at all, but the pendulum can swing too far, and I think it has. It’s worth noting that when Calvin and Luther opted out of church doctrine, they did so with enormous thought, conflict, and with the highest aspirations to holiness. (Though Pope Leo didn’t think so: “Luther is a drunken German. He will feel different when he is sober”). It was in no way a matter of convenience or laziness.
I’d like to add a little background about the militarisic church service I attended. (I know this is a little late in the game.)
My mom ( from the Hugenot line), well she was sort of a religious sceptic. I think her religion was books. She really loved reading, and that was a major source of conversation when we went visiting. My wife, the Unitarian, is a school librarian, by the way. Anyway, my mom once showed me obituaries of her cranky grandfather, great uncles, etc., that read “In his later years, he accepted Jesus Christ as his personal saviour, etc., etc.”:
I think this was to comfort the relatives.
Mt Dad is a deacon in that Baptist church, and he regularly prays that all of his family find Jesus, so that we will all be together in heaven. Aloud, before Thanksgiving dinner, for instance. Here I actually have to confess that my dad’s ancestor was not a particularly religious person; his brothers were with Roger Williams. My ancestor was sort of kicked out of Rhode Island and went to work in the slave plantations in Barbados. His grandson moved to Charleston, South Caarolina, but his son didn’t want that kind of life, and headed for the hills. (so yes, I’m a hillbilly.)
That guy that ran for the hills made his way in life after he was given a land grant for fighting the British at the battle of Kings Mountain. (More tangental information: his grandchildren had their town burned down because they refused to join the Confederate army (I think led by General Kirby) in the campaign that ended at the battle of Perrysburg.. My mom’s ancestors fought for the union, and I think were characterized as really mean people who liked fighting. I think that if you lived way back in the hills of Kentucky during the Civil War, there weren’t people forcing you to join an army like in the Cold Mountain book.
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To steer this back on topic, my mother in May 2004, after many many tests and doctors visits, was diagnosed with multiple myeloma. We all had colds anmd couldn’t go to visit until late in June, when my daughter was going to Mountain Camp, a Unitarian camp in a beautiful mountaintop setting not near, but not so far from Kings Mountain. She decided mnot to begin chemo until we came down because she didm’t want to be sick when we visited.(By the way, for you liberals, “The Mountain” – google it – needs all the support it can get. The nearby town of Highlamds, NC is absolutely stunning, and “The Mountain” is a great place for retreats, very liberal and gay friendly. I highly recommended it, although I don’t think it is generally available in summer.
So, anyway, we got to visit my mom and she seemed to be pretty much all right. My son still had a cold, so he stayed at my sisters house. We had a nice visit, yes a lot of book talk, which is limited for me because I’m a blog reaader, not much a book reader anymore. Mom was opposed to the war in Iraq. My father was for it.
Two weeks later I went doen to pick my daughter up. I went back to my sister’s house, near Cumberland Gap, and was going to visit my parents the next day. At around 5;00 in the morning, my sister banged on the door and told me my mother had died. It took a while to get over freaking out about this, but pretty soon we went down to Knoxville to my parents’ house. and my childhood home.
It’s a little crackerbox house, kind of messsy, my dad is a hoarder. But the living rom is neat as well as her bedroom. Yes, they slept in separate beds now, hers neat and his bedroom full of bargains (“junk”) that he had bought at the thrift stores that “somebody could use”.
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So another one of my sisters is already there, my dad has a dish rag in his hand. He wants to clean up the place. See, before my mom died, she felt like she needed to use the bathroom, but she didn’t want someone else to lift her up because of the pain that she felt from the crushed disk in her back that was from the myeloma. So my dad had been waiting for her to say “OK help me up” all night when she collapsed, and I think she was already dead when he picked her up and carried her into the bathroom and put her on the toilet.
Anyway, my sister and I cleaned up the shit (not very much) and took the comforter, etc to the laundromat. The ambulance people had already taken my mother away before I got there. I opened the windows. The smell of death is not the same as the smell of the shit. I can’t explain it.
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When my sister and I got back from the laundromat, around 8:00 or 8:30 I think, there were already people from the church at the house. This was Saturday on the 4th of July weekend, and many people were out of town or doing picnics , etc.. Dad wanted the funeral on Monday. The choir director’s wife was insistent that my dad write the obituary immediately, so that people might come to the funeral on Monday. Then came the chicken. Buckets of fried chicken, ham, cakes and so on. All kinds of people from the church showed up, to offer whatever consolation and help they could give, including all the various ministers. (This is a pretty big church).
…. I’ll leave some stuff out here …
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My Dad insisted that he wanted to sing in the choir the next day, in the service commemorating the veterans. That’s why I attended the pro-military service.
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My mother’s funeral was overflow capacity for the funeral home, even though she rarely attended church. My wife and son had flown in to Nashville instead of Knoxville, because the ticket price difference was about $400.I had no difficulty picking my wife and son up, but some tornados went though and blew down trees on I-40. Traffic stopped at least 3 or 4 times,so I was LATE FOR MY OWN FREAKING MOTHERS FUNERAL. I phoned the funeral home to tell my sister to start without me. We arrived just after the funeral started, I had my suit on, but the rest in shorts and Tshirts. I did hear the first minister’s eulogy, which ended with a Psalm that I, the sort of atheist, had selected:
Psalm 116
1: I love the LORD, because he has heard my voice and my supplications.
2: Because he inclined his ear to me, therefore I will call on him as long as I live.
3: The snares of death encompassed me; the pangs of hell laid hold on me; I suffered distress and anguish.
4: Then I called on the name of the LORD: “O LORD, I beseech thee, save my life!”
5: Gracious is the LORD, and righteous; our God is merciful.
6: The LORD preserves the simple; when I was brought low, he saved me.
7: Return, O my soul, to your rest; for the LORD has dealt bountifully with you.
8: For thou hast delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling;
Nice try Bird Dog, but you can’t cherry pick ideas from the Old Testament and suggest Christ supported them willy nilly.
Matthew 5:17-19: “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”
Again, Edward, if there is a scriptural basis for Just War Theory, which applies doctrine from both the Old and New Testaments, how can you say with certainty that Jesus was a pacifist? Virtually all of his words were spoken on a spiritual plane, not on an earthly one.
My grandparents converted from Roman Catholicism/Santeria to a radical Charasmatic Pentecostalism (Mystic Protestantism)…they were converted during the Pentecostal Revivals of the 20s. Those revivals spilled over into the hills of the Caribbean. They were Jibaros (Puerto Rican hillbillies) and many of the kids from the hillside villages got out by-way of missionary work or the military. Or even both.
As patriotic and devout as they are, and as “country” as they can be, losing family and neighbors to the Cold War adventures (Korean War, Vietnam, Gulf War 2) is a hard pill to swallow.
The men who come back, their resentment, for having to kill other people, is felt. They never speak about killing for freedom or liberty or democracy, they always talk of war as disagreements between rich and greedy people, and the poorest will suffer for it.
Oohh. . scripture tag. I’ll play!
Romans 7
“4So, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God. 5For when we were controlled by the sinful nature,[a] the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for death. 6But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.”
if there is a scriptural basis for Just War Theory
Wow, that’s a big if…
Julia Ward Howe
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored,
He has loosed the fateful lightening of His terrible swift sword
His truth is marching on.
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps
His day is marching on.
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.
I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnish`d rows of steel,
“As ye deal with my contemners, So with you my grace shall deal;”
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel
Since God is marching on.
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.
He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet!
Our God is marching on.
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.
In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me:
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.
Again, Edward, if there is a scriptural basis for Just War Theory…
Them’s fightin’ words!
“Them’s fightin’ words!”
How’s that Nobel Prize for Literature entry coming along?
Swell!
Re the invocation and dismissal of David Neiwert upthread, he’s put up a new post on Orcinus detailing his particular views. They don’t seem to cohere too closely to the usual pat summations (either pro or con), so it’s worth a read.
I would Like to simply relate a fact pointed out by the german political theorist,Carl Schimtt in his book “Concept of the Political”: The often quoted
“Love your enemies”(Matt 5:44;Lukee 6:27)reads in the Latin Vulgate:”Diligite inimicos
vestros,”(love your private enemies) and not “diligite hostes vestros” (love your public enemies) There is no mention of loving the enemy on the battlefield.Never in the thousand-year struggle between christians and moslems did it occur to a christian to surrender rather than defend Europe out of love toward the saracens or turks.A public enemy can be defined as one who (Fights) against us.A private enemy is one who simply (hates) us without ncessarily waging war. I would like to here your opinions on this verse: “He that shall lead into captivity,shall go into captivity:he that shall kill by the sword,must be killed by the sword.Here is the patience and the faith of the saints.”Revelations 13:10 Lastly,Mr. Randy Paul we christians have no need of a “Pagan” ethos. Instead we have a Christian Israelite ethos which is shown in the Old Testament and in The Book of Revelation Rev 19:11 And I saw heaven opened: and behold a white horse. And he that sat upon him was called faithful and true: and with justice doth he judge and fight.
Rev 19:12 And his eyes were as a flame of fire: and on his head were many diadems. And he had a name written, which no man knoweth but himself.
Rev 19:13 And he was clothed with a garment sprinkled with blood. And his name is called: THE WORD OF GOD.
Rev 19:14 And the armies that are in heaven followed him on white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean.
Rev 19:15 And out of his mouth proceedeth a sharp two-edged sword, that with it he may strike the nations. And he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness of the wrath of God the Almighty.
Rev 19:16 And he hath on his garment and on his thigh written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.
Rev 19:17 And I saw an angel standing in the sun: and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the birds that did fly through the midst of heaven: Come, gather yourselves together to the great supper of God:
Rev 19:18 That you may eat the flesh of kings and the flesh of tribunes and the flesh of mighty men and the flesh of horses and of them that sit on them: and the flesh of all freemen and bondmen and of little and of great.
Rev 19:19 And I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies, gathered together to make war with him that sat upon the horse and with his army.
Rev 19:20 And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet who wrought signs before him, wherewith he seduced them who received the character of the beast and who adored his image. These two were cast alive into the pool of fire burning with brimstone.
Rev 19:21 And the rest were slain by the sword of him that sitteth upon the horse, which proceedeth out of his mouth: and all the birds were filled with their flesh.
I forgot to mention I liked Mel Gibson’s Film “The Passion of the Christ”.
The “Just War” Doctrine should be renamed the “Crusade” Doctrine.I Like the word “Crusade” it probably strikes terror and Fear in the hearts of the muslims and Pagans.
I like the cat. Where did you get that picture. You should have more pictures of angel costumes for worship dances on this site, all the words were boring, like blah blah blah. Thank you for wasting your time by reading this. God Bles You! (Whoops I mean bless)
I like the cat. Where did you get that picture. You should have more pictures of angel costumes for worship dances on this site, all the words were boring, like blah blah blah. Thank you for wasting your time by reading this. God Bles You! (Whoops I mean bless)