Month: March 2019

The Great March of Return, One Year Later

An estimated 40,000 Palestinians gathered in Gaza today (read the entire article for the figures listed below), as they have every week for the past year, in order to celebrate the anniversary of their Great March of Return rallies protesting their 12 year confinement.

As always, they were met by armed Israeli tanks and soldiers on the opposite side of the fence. That’s right. It’s sling shots against tanks.  And it’s not really a “border.” Israel has no internationally recognized borders. Palestinians and the Israeli military face-off at a prison fence.

During today’s rally, 4 more people were shot dead, 3 of them teenagers. 40 more people were wounded.

Over the past twelve months,  the Israeli army has murdered 194 people, including women, children (41), medics (3) and journalists (2).

More than 29,000 people have been wounded, over 7,000 by live ammunition resulting in 120+ limb amputations.  Evidence indicates that much of this ammunition is of the exploding variety deliberately used to cause maximum tissue damage.

Let that number sink in: 29,000 people shot, many permanently injured and maimed for protesting their illegal imprisonment.

It’s called mass murder, maybe even genocide.  The one thing it is NOT is Israeli self-defense.

Israel is not protecting a border; it is executing ethnic cleansing.  According to Israeli sources, as reported by U.N. investigators, “No Israeli civilian deaths or injuries were reported during or resulting from the
demonstrations.” Only 4 Israeli soldiers have been injured, none killed.

So the score is Israel — 29,000; Palestinians — 4. Not much of a match, if you ask me.

As usual, the world remains silent in the face of Israeli bloodletting.  Well, almost.  The United Nations recently released a 22 page report from its Human Rights Counsel detailing and condemning Israel’s persistent violation of “international humanitarian law.”

The Council concluded that Israel is committing war crimes in Gaza.  But since when has a U.N. report changed national behavior?

The Israeli government immediately condemned the report, as it always does whenever anyone tries to call them to account.

Israel’s U.N. ambassador, Danny Danon, responded with the tried-and-true “poor me, I’m the victim” defense,  insisting that the “council is blinded by hatred of Israel.”

No nation has fine-tuned the self-pitying instrument of perpetual victimhood as masterfully as Israel. It is her favorite tool in the propaganda arsenal. If you can’t dispute the facts, attack the messenger knowing full well that your fellow bullies will eagerly join you in the fray.

Sure enough, the United States remains Israel’s favorite partner in international bullying, having consistently blocked such investigations whenever possible.

And the #1 American enablers of Israel’s brutal criminality is not the pro-Zioniist lobby AIPAC but the conservative Christian church. (Check out these article: here and here and here and here. )

So, once again, just as the German Christian church embraced Adolf Hitler; just as Christians of the Confederacy defended slavery; just as the Pilgrims of Massachusetts Bay slaughtered Native Americans to make way for their New Zion; so American evangelicals blissfully bless Israel’s weekly massacre of encaged Palestinians without a twinge of doubt, shame, or guilt.

There is no greater testament to the death of the evangelical social conscience and the self-absorption of American Christianity.

 

Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing Preach Partisan Politics

(This post is the 4th in a series that deals with the cultural captivity of the church.  You can read previous posts here, here and here.)

“The political process has failed. Capitalism has failed. Socialism has failed. Libertarianism has failed. Marx has failed. Populism has failed. Anarchism has failed. I say this not because of any glaring flaws in any of those ideas (in theory any of them could potentially work in an alternate universe), but because we are hurtling towards extinction in the fairly near future, and none of them have saved us.”

That is the opening paragraph to a recent post by one of my favorite commentators, Caitlin Johnstone. The post is entitled “Your Plans for Revolution Don’t Work. Nothing We’ve Tried Works.” (You can read the entire post by clicking on the title.)

Ms. Johnstone insightfully  discusses the many ways in which every political party and social movement has “failed.”

They have failed in the sense of not making this world a better place to live, despite all their promises; not lifting the world’s masses out of poverty and starvation; not ending senseless wars; not leveling the playing field for everyone, especially the disenfranchised, enabling them to have an equal say in their future; and especially, by not getting to grips with the inevitability of an uninhabitable planet overheated by global warming.

Despite her best efforts to sound hopeful, her post concludes on a note of despair:

“What we’ve tried up until now hasn’t worked, so if there’s anything that might work it’s going to come from a wildly unanticipated direction, from way outside the failed mental processes which have accompanied us to this point. We need to open ourselves to that kind of idea.

“That’s basically all I’ve got to offer today. A helpless but sincere plea for humanity to try something new, spat out onto the internet in the Hail Mary hope that it might plant some seeds and loosen the soil for something unprecedented to open up in human consciousness. Sometimes that’s all that we can do.”

My heart always goes out to atheists and genuine, secular humanists such as Ms. Johnstone.  I have heard many such laments over the years, going back to my own youthful days in the 1960s.

As a Christian, I want to talk with Ms. Johnstone and let her know that there IS a solution to all of humanity’s problems.  And it does, in deed, “come from a wildly unanticipated direction, from way outside the failed mental processes which have accompanied us to this point.”

Our salvation comes from heaven, from eternity, in the man who walked through Palestine 2,000 years ago and will one day return, the Lord Jesus Christ.

But I know exactly what she would say: “Your answer is one of the reasons I reject your religion. You offer the proverbial ‘pie in the sky, by and by.’ The human race needs rescue now!”

Well, Jesus intends his people to have a specific answer to that question, too. It should go something like this:

“Look to the Christian church! Look at the inter-racial, multi-cultural people of God and how they love each other. Observe their service to one another AND to the rest of this world. Look at their efforts to be peace-makers. Look at the practical ways they implement God’s commitment to equality, justice and forgiveness wherever they go. Look at how seriously they take their duty to care for and to preserve God’s creation.”

Yet, I suspect that Ms. Johnstone would laugh in my face. That gospel message is tough to communicate, mostly because it is so very, very difficult to see in real life.

Where is the evidence?  Where is that church?

God’s vision for his church is especially difficult to defend in Trump’s America where false teachers like Robert Jeffress (pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas, TX and ‘spiritual advisor’ to the president) parade themselves on national television spouting the false gospel of Christian nationalism, and the church’s identity with Republican party politics.  (You can watch his most recent 9 minute appearance on Fox News here, complete with a much deserved take-down by another atheist commentator, Kyle Kulinski.)

I pray you are horrified after listening. (Hopefully, I can add to your horror when you read my dissection of these false doctrines in my book, I Pledge Allegiance: A Believer’s Guide to Kingdom Citizenship in 21st Century America).

I don’t disagree with Jeffress’ discussion about the growing number of American’s disaffected by organized religion.  But the hypocrisy embedded in his diatribe is mind-bending.

Mr. Kulinski’s  merciless roasting of pastor Jeffress is spot on and entirely deserved.

Coupled with his own utter lack of self-awareness, Jeffress and his ilk are cardboard caricatures of true ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

While mocking preachers that merely repeat the things that people “hear on CNN or the Rotary Club,” he goes home to offer the same repetitious, sectarian message from his pulpit as he does on Fox News.

He dares to equate “the never-changing truth of God’s word” with the chest-thumping partisanship that binds him to the heart of Fox News executives and the American president.

He maliciously likens Republican voter turn-out with Christian commitment, suggesting that it is a litmus test for piety.

He simultaneously, suggests that anyone who disagrees with him — people like Caitlin Johnstone, Kyle Kulinski, me, and many of my friends — anyone who does not vote for his Republican party-ticket as lacking in “deeper convictions.”

Apparently, the 70% of white evangelicals who put Trump in office and continue to support him do so because “they believe in absolute moral and spiritual truth and vote those convictions at the ballot box.”  Unlike anyone else who votes his or her conscience?!?

Are you kidding me?

This is the non-gospel according to Jeffress and most white, American evangelicals today: anyone who believes in the morality and the spiritual truths of the gospel will vote Republican.

It is false teaching, plain and simple.

It puts political partisanship over devotion to Christ because it confuses political partisanship with devotion to Christ.

Any and every “Christian leader” falling into this trap deserves to be defrocked. For they are not spiritual leaders at all, but wolves in sheep’s clothing.

Clan-Jeffress,  one and all, are false shepherds leading God’s flock in paths antithetical to the paths of our Lord and Savior.

All of us in the American church share responsibility for our failure to provide men and women like Kyle Kulinski and Caitlin Johnstone with genuine, thorough-going examples of real (which means radical), transformational Christian community in this world.

In many respects, we all continue to live “like sheep without a shepherd.”

But false shepherds like Robert Jeffress pose a heightened danger to the church, for they deliberately lead God’s people like lemmings to a cliff.

It doesn’t take a prophet to predict that the choppy, partisan waters below that spiritual cliff will one day drown Pastor Jeffress and his partisan congregation in the same brand of hopelessness and despair that now washes over Ms. Johnstone.

Israel Loves Collective Punishment

Osama bin-Laden’s writings explain that the 9/11 Al Qaeda attack on the Twin Towers was a response to US imperialism in the Middle East; particularly the presence of American troops on Saudi Arabian soil.  That was a defilement of the holy land, in his eyes.

Bin-Laden justified the mass-murder attack in the heart of New York City because, in his mind, all Americans were equally guilty for the crimes of U.S. forces around the world.

Bin-Laden saw American civilians in the same way that many 19th century military commanders viewed Native Americans.  They were all equally guilty of resisting white settlement.  Therefore, all of them, including women, children and the elderly, were legitimate targets for white retribution.

Israel thinks the same way about Palestinians. As a nation, Israel stands in the same moral league as Osama bin-Laden and Col. John Chivington (the man responsible for the Sand Creek massacre of Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians in 1864).

Gaza bombarded again

Once again, Israel is bombing the people of Gaza after several Israeli’s were tragically killed when their home was struck by a rocket fired from within Gaza.

Personally, I wish everyone would stop dropping bombs and firing rockets.

Both sides are behaving like Osama bin-Laden.  But there is no question that Israel remains the aggressor, the instigator of this entire horrible tragedy. How long will this Zionist state keep the people of Gaza locked up inside their open-air prison, with minimal food supplies and no –that’s right, NO – sources for clean drinking water anywhere?

Israel has always used this strategy of collective punishment.

I have seen it with my own eyes.

We were living with friends in the West Bank during the run up to Israel’s last assault on Gaza in 2014, Operation “Protective Edge.”

Three Israeli settlers from one of the many illegal settlements popping up

Operation Brother’s Keeper, every member of the Hamas political party was arrested and jailed

around the West Bank like mushrooms on steroids were kidnapped and later found dead. (I may write about the supposed search and rescue efforts – called Operation Brother’s Keeper – which swirled around us that summer in a future post.)

Israel had identified two suspects, though they never released any evidence to verify their definitive claims. Israeli officials said the two men were members of Hamas (the party that now governs Gaza), even though Hamas representatives not only vehemently denied the connection, but insisted that Hamas had nothing to do with the kidnappings.

The Hamas argument was entirely believable, given that Hamas was in delicate negotiations with the Palestinian Authority (the group that governs the West Bank) to form a unity government. Jeopardizing those negotiations with such a senseless stunt, knowing that it would bring down the wrath of Israel, made no sense at all.  (By the way, Israel’s government at that time hated the idea of a unified Palestinian government.)

We had become friends with an independent photojournalist that summer.  One evening she learned that the Israeli military was entering Hebron on a search and destroy mission. They intended to arrest their two suspects or at least let the Palestinian community know the consequences of not handing them over.

Our journalist friend intended to document the mayhem, and I was going along to take photos of my own.  Late into the night we searched for transportation to Hebron, but every effort failed.  Reports were circulating about gangs of Jewish settlers roaming the streets, together with the soldiers, attacking Palestinian cars and pedestrians.  No one was willing to drive us.

In the morning, we caught the first public bus to Hebron.  My friend had heard that Israel soldiers had bombed two Palestinian homes.  Since the soldiers were unable to find the two suspects, they located two family homes of the suspects’ relatives and destroyed them completely.

Eventually, we found both homes.  The shell-shocked families led us through the ruins.  Nothing, absolutely nothing, was left intact.  You can see it all for yourself in the accompanying photos.

Anything that was breakable was broken.  Everything shreddable had been shredded. All foodstuffs were torn from their bags or containers and strewn everywhere.

Both families were made to sit at a table and watch as the soldiers ridiculed them, hitting, kicking and slapping them, insisting that they tell them the whereabouts of their accused cousins.

Finally, once every nook and cranny of the homes were made unlivable, the soldiers walked upstairs to detonate a bomb in the family room.

Both explosions sent concrete walls flying through the air, opening large, gaping wounds blackened by flames. Fires raged throughout the remains as both families were forced to watch their belongings go up in smoke.  Once the soldiers left, they were free to put out the fires as best they could.

As I walked through the ruins, taking in the heartlessness and injustice of it all, I thought of General Sherman’s strategy of eliminating the American Indian.  His subordinates received explicit commands to kill, burn and destroy everything and everyone they met.  Attacking an Indian village meant that nothing was left standing.

Collective punishment has always been at the heart of Israel’s Palestinian policy.

Imagine that you are awakened late one night by soldiers kicking down your front door. Your children are pulled out of their beds and everyone is made to sit at the kitchen table.

Then the soldiers inform you that your second cousin (on your mother’s side) is suspected of a serious crime.  If you don’t tell the police where to find him, they will destroy you home.

Think about that.

Your cousin is suspected of a crime.  He has not been arrested or charged, much less tried or convicted. No evidence of your cousin’s involvement has been presented anywhere. Not in court; not on a charge sheet; and certainly not in the media.

The government can simply make a naked, unsubstantiated accusation. And on the basis of that accusation, your home will be demolished.  Why?  Because you are related to the accused.

Yep.  That, my friends, is what passes as “justice” for Palestinians living under Israeli military occupation.

Similar situations occur over and over again, month after month in the Occupied Territories.

And people wonder why rockets fly out of Gaza…

An Example of Why We Need the Equality Act

Take a few minutes to watch Carter Brown  tell his story of what happened once his boss and co-workers learned that he was transgendered. He is a perfect example of why we need the Equality Act.

The human inclination to shame, ridicule and stigmatize those who are “different,” who stand outside the established social norms, may have an a-moral, sociological  explanation, but this kind of behavior has no place in either the Christian church or a “civilized” society today.

Human nature requires that legal protections are created to protect Mr. Brown and others subject to similar workplace discrimination.

Why is Slaughter More Acceptable Than Nudity?

(This is the third in a series of posts addressing questions about the cultural captivity of the church.  You can read the previous posts here and here.)

During my last semester as a college professor, I came across a surprising article in the weekly student newspaper.  At least, I found it surprising; though in retrospect, I should have been known better.

It was a detailed review of a newly released computer game.  I didn’t pay any attention to the game’s title because I was so caught off guard by the fact that the student newspaper at a Christian college had no qualms about praising, and encouraging others to buy, the latest graphic game of military slaughter.

The reviewer described in bloody detail the game’s improved graphics, enhancements that depicted the bloodshed more realistically than ever. (I wondered how he knew what realistic blood splatter looked like.)  The game was the newest “first person shooter” game. (That is, a game where the player holds the computer gun in his/her hand, then points and shoots at human figures on the screen in order to survive and accumulate points).

All in living color, of course.

I initially considered writing a letter to the editor to express my dismay, but I thought better of it.  Why not wait to see if anyone else shared my dismay.

No one did, apparently.  Or, perhaps they were biting their tongues like me.  Several weeks passed with no response.

So, I devised a better plan.  I would submit my own article reviewing the latest version of my favorite sex game.  (No, I have never played any such thing, but I assume that they must exist.  My imagination was not strained at all by concocting one ex nihilo.)

My review would go on and on in effusive detail praising the graphic depictions of the female (or the male) anatomy – in living color, no less – and the many arcane, sexual positions available as the player scored more and more points by scoring with more and more sexual partners.

Then, at the end of my imaginary review, I would admit to my satire and ask a simple question:  Why, dear reader, are you preparing to write a letter to condemn my fictitious review when you had nothing to say about an earlier review glorifying a graphic, bloodthirsty game of war, complete with exploding bodies and crushed skulls?

What kind of moral calculus is that?

I wish I had gone through with my plan, but I didn’t.  It was my final semester before moving on, and I didn’t quite have the energy needed for another campus-wide controversy.  In my experience, many readers of that particular newspaper had difficulty recognizing, much less appreciating, the art of satire.  And my days as an educator were coming to an end.

But my questions remain.

Why is bloodshed and human slaughter, the kind of violent acts that our Lord Jesus explicitly prohibits, so much more acceptable to Christian people than images of nudity and sexuality?

No, I am not diminishing the destructive power of pornography.  But is pornography any more corrosive to the human psyche, any more more dehumanizing for those who participate in it than a blood-thirsty killing game that transforms a player into a butcher, that desensitizes him to the horrors of murder, pain and human suffering?

At least sexual intercourse was God’s idea, and He blessed it with the bonds of marriage.

But human violence arose from the sulpherous heart of original sin. Our Creator rendered his eternal verdict over this brand of wickedness when He cursed the first murderer, Cain, and banished his blood-stained hands from his presence.

Does the church think or act any differently than the rest of our violent society when it comes to this problem of casual, gaming violence?  Murder as entertainment?

I don’t know the definitive answer to this question, but I suspect that on average, we are no different than anyone else in the neighborhood who relaxes after school (or work) by watching a computer screen filled with atrocious, bloody acts of human carnage created by yours truly.

Lt. Col. Dave Grossman has written a fascinating and disturbing book examining the psychological effects of violent video games on children and adolescents.  It’s entitled Assassination Generation: Video Games, Aggression, and the Psychology of Killing (Little, Brown and Co., 2016).

Grossman excerpts the findings of a medical report presented to Congress in July 2000 by a coalition of 4 professional medical, psychiatric and pediatric associations.  Their congressional report concluded that:

“Well over 1,000 studies…point overwhelmingly to a causal connection between media violence and aggressive behavior in some children…[V]iewing entertainment violence can lead to increases in aggressive attitudes, values and behavior, particularly in children. Its effects are measurable and long-lasting…[it] can lead to emotional desensitization toward violence in real life.” (10-11)

Grossman also compares first-person shooter games to the military training methods used to desensitize soldiers to killing on command.  He says:

“Violent video games teach kids to kill using the same mechanisms of classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and social learning employed to train soldiers.”

What happens when a depressed teenager who is addicted to violent video games and feels that the entire world has become his enemy grabs a family gun and walks to the local mall?

We all know the answer to that question.  We have seen on TV time and again.

Sadly, this is the kind of world we live in.

What are the people of God doing to address the social plague of daily violence traumatizing our school children?  Placing armed guards inside our churches is the devil’s own suggestion, though I have seen and read about many churches doing just that.

But surely, everyone can understand, that is not the way of Jesus.

We need to examine ourselves and confess to the many ways in which we have eagerly conformed to a godless society. We are unable to find wisdom in the mind of Christ because we are too busy entertaining ourselves (for hours and hours) with the latest version of Call of Duty and Modern Warfare 2.  So, we turn to armed guards instead of the Spirit of compassion.

Ask yourself this question.  Can you imagine Jesus sitting for hours in front of a computer screen, laughing with glee and giving himself high-fives over his rising body count as he plays Call of Duty: Black Ops?

How many throats could Jesus slit?

The question answers itself.

It is long past time for God’s people to return their eyes to Jesus, the lamb of God, prince of peace, our suffering servant who came not to kill but to be killed.  What does he ask of his church today?

What is So Threatening About the Equality Act?

Last Wednesday, Nancy Pelosi reintroduced the Equality Act for the Congressional Democrats.

The Equality Act is a bill that aims to eliminate discrimination against LGBTQ people in the same way that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed discrimination against African-Americans.

Predictably, the Religious Right is up in arms denouncing the bill as another assault upon religious liberty in general, and Christianity in particular.

But is it any such thing?  Personally, I don’t see it.

I am old enough to remember the 1950s and 60s.  A southern block of religious conservatives then described Dr. Martin Luther King as a communist tool of the devil.  They fought to kill any hopes of passing the 1964 Civil Rights Act.  Furthermore, they staunchly defended racial segregation as an expression of their Christian faith, just as so many religious conservatives are now condemning the Equality Act as an attack on their Christian views of human sexuality and marriage.

Andrew T. Walker of The Gospel Coalition has an article entitled, “The Equality Act Accelerates Anti-Christian Bias.”  He warns that “the bill represents the most invasive threat to religious liberty ever proposed in America.”

Monica Burke at the Daily Signal writes that the bill will cause “profound harms to Americans from all walks of life” under the heading “7 Reasons Why the Equality Act is Anything But.”

But even if some judicial tweaking is required as our society navigates the social effects of this new legislation, I have yet to see anyone explain away the fundamental parallels between African-Americans in need of the 1964 Civil Tights Act and gay/transgendered Americans in need of similar protections in 2019.

Christianity in America was not destroyed in 1964, despite the explicit warnings of Christian racists.

Neither will American Christianity come to ruin if gay, lesbian and transgendered human beings are granted similar civil rights protections in 2019, despite the apocalyptic warnings coming from the doomsday, propaganda mills of the Religious Right.

Instead, what this debate reveals is something much more dangerous now deeply rooted in the heart of American evangelicalism/fundamentalism: an insistence that the Christian religion (as defined by highly politicized, partisan, social conservatives) deserves preferential treatment in America; indeed, that this politicized, culture-warrior view of Christianity must become normative for acceptable social behavior in the public square.

I discuss this misunderstanding of Christian citizenship at length in my book, I Pledge Allegiance: A Believer’s Guide to Kingdom Citizenship in 21st Century America (Eerdmans, 2018). This country’s politicized brand of Christianity is a tangled mess of confusion over what is required from citizens in the kingdom of God living as citizens in a secular society.

Mr. Walker throws out the predictably fawning, meaningless sop intended to distract his critics by saying, “To be clear, Christians reject all forms of invidious discrimination. We believe all persons, including those who identify as LGBT, are made in God’s image and deserve respect, kindness, and neighborliness.”

Well, good for you, Mr. Walker.

But pledges of personal affection are no substitute for legal guarantees.

The entrenched racism of the Jim Crow south also declared, ever so kindly, that they loved their black folks and always treated them with nothing but love and kindness, often insisting that their contented “Negroes” were just fine with the status quo.

Then the Civil Rights movement came along.

Turned out that African-Americans weren’t as contented as the white people imagined.

Unfortunately, the conservative Christian church has lost its ability to speak  with any moral authority on issues of justice and equality, because its pronouncements are generally selfish and self-centered.

The misguided case of the Masterpiece Cake Shop (for more thoughts on that debate, read my “Wedding Cakes, the New Testament and Ethics in the Public Square“) exemplified all the problems of the current Equality Act debate:

  1. Conservative Christians confuse the church with the world and the world with the church – which is odd given their tendencies towards intellectual and social isolation. New Testament morality is directed at kingdom citizens filled with the Holy Spirit, not the world at large, however beneficial its approximation would be. (I discuss this issue at length in I Pledge Allegiance.)
  2. Too many would-be Christians simply do not want to love (not really, not with actual tolerance and loving-kindness in person, face-to-face) the people they don’t like, or don’t agree with, or see as the unclean enemies of their beloved Christian civilization. Let’s get real – many evangelicals are homophobes (though I do not like that term). They don’t want anyone telling them that they must accept gay/transgendered people as equally human with the same dignity as anyone else, whether in the workplace, at school or anywhere else.
  3. They fail to distinguish personal preference from public accommodation. The Equality Act addresses issues concerning “public accommodation.”  Read the entire bill here.  The core of the legislation simply requires equal treatment, saying:

The Department of Justice (DOJ) may bring a civil action if it receives a complaint from an individual who claims to be:

  • denied equal utilization of a public facility owned, operated, or managed by a state (other than public schools or colleges) on account of sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity; or
  • denied admission to, or not permitted to continue attending, a public college by reason of sexual orientation or gender identity, thereby expanding DOJ’s existing authority to bring such actions for complaints based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.

The bill revises public school desegregation standards to provide for the assignment of students without regard to sexual orientation or gender identity.

The bill prohibits programs or activities receiving federal financial assistance from denying benefits to, or discriminating against, persons based on sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity.

Most of the protests I have seen are in reaction to the protection of transgender rights and its various implications for public space/accomodation.

On this score, the conservative church must get to grip with two problems.

One, we have to enter the age of modern research science and recognize that many (a majority?) of gay people are born gay.  For them, there is no therapeutic cure. Insisting otherwise discredits us and guarantees that we will never really understand the struggles of our gay friends and neighbors.

Two, there is a good chance that similar genetic issues are in play for people suffering gender dysphoria.  I have no idea how it must feel to spend my life tormented by the sense of being trapped in the wrong body.  I doubt very much if anybody decides or chooses to live such an existence.  There is obviously a great deal yet to be discovered in this arena.  The church needs to stop prejudging such people, their histories, situations and motivations while accepting that transgendered people merit the same legal protections as everyone else.

The Equality Act will not affect the policies or operations of churches and other religious institutions unless those facilities accept federal funding.  The obligatory cries of religious persecution, or the loss of religious freedoms are actually laments about the possible loss of federal dollars.  It’s about the money, folks.

Losing one’s tax exempt status is not anti-religious discrimination.  Actually, I have long believed that the tax exemption for churches is actually discrimination against the surrounding community.  Why should the church’s neighbors be required to pay more for their community services (which is what happens) in the way of a public subsidy for the tax-exempt churches, which most of them don’t attend anyway?

The same logic applies to religious schools, colleges, hospitals, etc.  These types of institutions will only be affected by the Equality Act if they accept federal financial support.  Far too many of these groups want to have their cake and eat it too.  They want to benefit from public money (supplied through our tax dollars) while enforcing their own, private sectarian policies.

That is hypocrisy.

You can’t have it both ways and hope to remain anywhere within the ethical ballpark.  Remember when Bob Jones University went to court because it insisted on collecting federal money while continuing to refuse admission to black applicants? (I don’t know why any African-American would want to go there.  But, to each his own.)

I do.

If a religious institution believes that it cannot abide by the Equality Act, then let them surrender their federal grants, subsidies, or what-have-you.  Yes, this will also mean that students receiving federal scholarships or other tuition assistance will either lose their grants or be required to look for another college.  This is one of those arenas where details would need to be worked out in the courts, perhaps.

Let’s face it.  Way too much of the energy invested in these types of fights by Christian social organizations basically boil down to a fight for comfort and/or money.  Christians want to relax in a culture that accommodates itself to them.  We don’t want inconvenient types, like gays, or lesbians, or transsexuals, the kinds of people who challenge our conservative expectations in the moral, social order to raise questions or challenge the status quo.  A status quo that allows us to remain relaxed and in control.

It is long past time for American politicized Christianity to stop acting as if (a) fighting for a Christianized public square were the same thing as (b) being an faithful citizen of the kingdom of God in public.  The two are not the same thing.  In fact, they are two very, very different things.

Abigail Disney, A Rare Millionaire Who Talks Sense About American Inequality

Abigail Disney is heiress to the Disney fortune.  Walt Disney was her great uncle.  She is also a documentary film-maker and generous philanthropist.

I recently discovered a CNBC interview and a short film in which she argues for the importance of higher taxes on the top 1% of Americans.  This, obviously, includes her and her family fortune.

She is a rare person.  A very wealthy woman who recognizes the structural injustices and systemic inequality built into American society.

The first clip is from an interview on CNBC.

Pay close attention to the obvious pro-status quo, business-as-usual bias on display by the three network anchors asking her questions.  It’s not actually an interview as much as it is an interrogation.

It’s another example of the typical shallowness that passes as insight for our corporate media.  The older fellow on the far right clearly thinks tha Ms. Disney is nuts.

But we have always known that the capitalist, moneyed class hates those it sees as traitors to their class.

Ms. Disney targets the recent Trump tax overhaul, its excessive benefits for the rich and its favoritism for large corporations.  Watch it here.

The second clip comes from “Now This.”  Here Ms. Disney explains a few of the ways in which Trump’s tax cuts have enriched the already super-rich while doing little or nothing for the poor and the middle-class.  Watch it here.

Remember, we are living in the midst of class-warfare, folks.

And, guess what.  You and I are on the losing side.

Out of the Mouth of Bibi

“Out of the mouths of babes,” so the old saying goes.  Children, in their naivete, are often more familiar with the truth than those jaded grown-ups talking in “grown-up” speak all around them.

But sometimes speaking the truth can also help the cynical prime minister of Israel jockeying for position in his upcoming, national elections.

Bibi is trying to woo the right.  He has always been a right-winger, but he is desperately working to polish his ethnocratic-Jewish-nationalist credentials.

So, baby Bibi (aka Benjamin) Netanyahu dared to speak the truth about Israel’s institutionalized, state-run racism — Israeli democracy is not for everyone, but only for its Jewish citizens.

That’s what he said.  Netanyahu was prompted to lay bare the ugly truth about life in Israel by a

Israeli actress, Rotem Sela

posting on social media from the Israeli actress Rotem Sela.  (You can read the complete story about this racial broo-haha in Haaretz and the Jerusalem Post newspapers.)

In response to a televised political interview promoting Israel’s Jewish exclusiveness, Ms. Sela wrote a social media posting saying that:

“Israel is a country for all its citizens. And every person was born equal. Arabs, too, God help us, are human beings. And so are the Druze. And so are gays, by the way, and lesbians, and…shock…leftists.”

In reply, Netanyahu uploaded a picture of himself against the backdrop of an Israeli flag, and said:

“Dear Rotem, an important correction: Israel is not a state of all its citizens.

Bibi Netanyahu

According to the Nation-State Law that we passed, Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish People – and them alone.” (emphasis mine)

You can read about the other Israeli celebrities, including the actress who played Wonder Woman, jumping into the debate here.  The article is entitled “Wonder Woman vs. Bibi.”

What I find amazing about this Israeli conversation is not the prime minister’s willingness to openly admit that Israel is NOT a nation for all its citizens.  Nor am I surprised to read about celebrities giving voice to their humanitarian instincts, desiring justice and equality for all of Israel’s citizens.

What amazes me the most is the utter lack of self-understanding, the absence of any cultural or historical awareness on the part of these Israeli “liberals” who can say things as:

“Israel is a country for all its citizens. And every person was born equal. Arabs, too, God help us, are human beings.”

Really?  Since when?, I wonder.

I wonder, has Ms. Sela ever  lived in an Arab (read Palestinian) neighborhood, either in Israel or the Occupied Territories?

Has she seen the gross inequality for herself?

Has she ever witnessed the daily experience of Israeli Palestinians whose

A Palestinian family in East Jerusalem. Israeli authorities demolished their home because the state wants their property for Jewish construction

schools, hospitals, trash collectors (and every other sector of public services) are dramatically under-funded in comparison to the wealthy, well-subsidized Jewish neighborhoods nearby?

Has she watched the weekly slaughter of Palestinian protesters in Gaza, innocent men, women and young people being gunned down by the beloved Israeli army?

The results of Israeli bombing in Gaza

Has she ever watched the daily dehumanization suffered by Palestinians in the West Bank as Israeli soldiers abuse them for doing nothing more than walking to school or driving to a neighbor’s house?

Sure, many resident Palestinians are technically “citizens of Israel.”  But they are always second-class citizens.  Just as African-Americans were second-class citizens in this country long after they had received the right to vote.

I once asked a member of an Israeli leftist organization working to end Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories, how it was possible for an entire society to exist where the vast majority of the people refuse to see, or cannot see, the gross injustices daily inflicted upon its Palestinian population.

After a pause, she shook her head and said:

“Zionism has done an amazing job at branding an illusion.  It’s a collective psychosis.”

So, while I admire these celebrity instincts, we also need to challenge Rotem Sela and her friends to shake off their Zionist psychosis.

To raise a ruckus, challenge, confront and overthrow the entire, elaborate, dehumanizing affair known as political Zionism, from top to bottom.

Dig down to the roots and pull it all out. It has always been rotten to the core.

Israeli Journalist Says, Keep It Up, Ilhan Omar!

Gideon Levy, of Haaretz newspaper, has written an important endorsement of Ilhan Omar and her fellow newcomers to Congress.  Mr. Levy is an anti-

Israeli journalist, Gideon Levy

Zionist, Israeli Jew who has condemned the inhumanity of political Zionism, both in Israel and the US, for many years.

Levy speaks as an insider and knows what he is talking about.  We should listen to him.

His article is entitled, “Keep It Up, Ilhan Omar.”

I have copied the article below:

“Maybe Mogadishu will turn out to be the source of hope. This war-torn city was the birthplace of the most promising U.S. congresswoman today.

“Ilhan Omar is not only one of the first two female Muslim members of the

Rep. Ilhan Omar

House of Representatives, she may herald a dramatic change in that body. “Hamas has entered the House,” Roseanne Barr was quick to cry out; “A black day for Israel,” tweeted Donald Trump. Neither Hamas nor a black day, but a glimmer of hope on Capitol Hill.

“Maybe, for the first time in history, someone will dare tell the truth to the American people, absorbing scathing accusations of anti-Semitism, without bowing her head. The chances of this happening aren’t great; the savage engine of the Jewish lobby and of Israel’s “friends” is already doing everything it can to trample her.

“The president mentioned removing her from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Congress was set to pass a resolution, the second in one month, against uttering “anti-Semitic expressions,” specifically aimed at Omar’s statements.

“When will Americans and Europeans stop running scared every time someone screams “anti-Semitism”? Until when will Israel and the Jewish establishment succeed in exploiting (the existing) anti-Semitism as a shield against criticism? When will the world dare to distinguish between legitimate criticism of an illegitimate reality and anti-Semitism?

“The gap between these two is great. There is anti-Semitism one must fight, and there is criticism of Israel and the Jewish establishment it is imperative to support. Manipulations exercised by the Israeli propaganda machine and the Jewish establishment have managed to make the two issues identical.

“This is the greatest success of the Israeli government’s hasbara [the Hebrew word for propaganda]: Say one critical word about Israel and you’re labeled an anti-Semite. And labeled an anti-Semite, your fate is obvious. Omar has to break this cursed cycle. Is the young representative from Minnesota up for it? Can she withstand the power centers that have already mobilized against her in full force?

“Maybe it’s important that she knows there are people in Israel crossing fingers for her? 

“Her success and that of her congressional colleagues, Rashida Tlaib from Michigan and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez from New York, could be the first swallows that herald the coming of spring. This is the spring of freely expressing opinions about Israel in America. Cortez already asked this week why isn’t bigotry aimed at other groups condemned just like statements against Israel are.

“What, after all, has Omar said? That pro-Israel activists demand “allegiance to a foreign country”; that U.S. politicians support Israel because of money they receive from the pro-Israel lobby group AIPAC, and that “Israel hypnotized the world.” What is incorrect in these statements? Why is describing reality considered anti-Semitic?

“Jews have immense power in the U.S., far beyond the relative size of their community, and the blind support given by their establishment to Israel raises legitimate questions regarding dual loyalty. Their power derives from their economic success, their organizational skills and the political pressure they exert. Omar dared to speak about this.

“Just imagine what Israelis and Jews would feel if Muslim Americans had the same political, economic and cultural power Jews have. Such power, above all the intoxication with power that has seized hold of the Jewish establishment, comes with a price. Omar and her colleagues are trying to collect on it.

“Due to the Israel lobby, the U.S. does not know the truth about what is happening here. Congress members, senators and shapers of public opinion who are flown here ad nauseam see only Israeli victimhood and Palestinian terror, which apparently emerged out of nowhere. Islamists, Qassam rockets and incendiary balloons – not a word about occupation, expropriation, refugees and military tyranny. Questions such as where the money goes and whether it serves American interests are considered heresy. When talking about Israel one must not ask questions or raise doubts.

“This cycle has to be broken as well. It’s not right and it’s not good for the Jews. Omar is now trying to introduce a new discourse to Congress and to public opinion. Thanks to her and her colleagues there is a chance for a change in America. From Israel we send her our wishes for success.

“When will the world dare to distinguish between legitimate criticism of an illegitimate Israeli reality and anti-Semitism?” (all emphasis mine)

The Trouble with Tropes and Sloppy Thinking

(This is the third in a series of posts discussing the popular confusion of anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism.  You can find the previous two posts here and here.)

I was unfamiliar with the word “trope” until I began following the recent attacks on Rep. Ilhan Omar for her criticisms of the powerful Israel lobby in Washington D.C.  (See my previous posts on this controversy here, here, here, here and here. )

Rep. Omar objected to two well-attested lobbying dynamics in Washington politics.

First, she pointed out the powerful influence on policy decisions exerted by campaign contributions and similar “gifts” offered to our elected officials by pro-Israel lobbyists.  This gold-plated pipeline of pro-Israel political influence is well documented by such groups as The Center for Responsive Politics. Check their page providing a break-down of the nearly $15 million contributed to US politicians by the various instruments and individuals working with/for the pro-Israel lobby in 2018.  This page has a graphic showing which politicians received the most pro-Israel money.

The old adage “follow the money” remains as true today as ever when it comes to deciphering the voting records of our elected officials.

Second, Rep. Omar objected to the very real problem of American politicians developing “dual loyalties” as a result of the pro-Israel influence-peddling that makes our elected officials extremely pliable to the pressure of pro-Israel political PACs (i.e. political action committees).  Again, we all know that if we want to understand why our members of Congress vote as they do, you follow the money.  It’s that simple.

Furthermore, at no point did Rep. Omar offer any generalizations, derogatory or otherwise, about Jews as a group or of Judaism as a religion.

However, this did not prevent a host of people, both Jews and Gentiles, from jumping onto the “call out” bandwagon.

Omar was immediately called out, as they say nowadays, for using “well-known anti-Semitic tropes” in her speeches and Twitter statements. (I observe that this is a particularly popular way of making accusations against Omar on Twitter.)

Her fellow legislators repeatedly reminded us that accusing Jews of (1) controlling the government, banking system, etc. with their wealth and (2) being untrustworthy citizens because of their “dual loyalties” are both long-standing, anti-Semitic tropes.

Of course, both of those statements are true.  I have heard these tropes myself recently and have bluntly condemned them in a heart-to-heart talk with a bigoted friend.

But the problem in this current debate becomes evident as soon as you try to follow the logic from (a) the purported evidence of these two offensive “tropes” to (b) the conclusion that, because Omar referred to the problems created by a well-financed Israel lobby and the dual-loyalties fostered in those politicians who receive its money, that Omar must be speaking in anti-Semitic code.

The problem, however, is that the logic is fallacious and the conclusion is bogus.

But, then, nobody ever accused US politicians or the American public of possessing an excess of probity or clear-headed, logical thinking ability.

So, let’s dissect the numerous, illogical problems in these anti-Omar attacks.

We’ll start with the easiest one first, which I have already touched on in multiple posts.  Omar is an anti-Zionist.  (So am I.)  So are a good number of Jews in this country and around the world.

Anti-Zionism is not synonymous with anti-Semitism.  Many pro-Zionists are Christians and Gentiles. Rep. Omar (and I) includes them in her criticisms.  Many anti-Zionists are Jewish. Omar (and I) ally ourselves with them.

There is an intersection between Jews and Zionism, but they are not identical!

The consistent refusal of pro-Zionist/pro-Israel advocates to admit this obvious distinction is evidence of the continuing legacy of political Zionism’s deliberate confusion of the two terms for their own ideological, propaganda purposes.  (See my previous post on this subject.)

Second, not only did Omar never refer collectively to “Jews” in her statements; she never generalized about Jews or Judaism in any way at all.  But stereotypical generalizations are an essential ingredient in any racist, bigoted trope.

Omar, however, has only spoken specifically about the lobbying performed on behalf of Zionist, Israeli policies that create suffering for Palestinians.  The only generalizations appearing in the current debate are those being assumed and then imported into the conversation by Omar’s critics.  These people are seeing what they want to see, not what is actually there.

Third, we need to answer the question of what is a trope, and why has it become the favored term in this debate?

Trope has several definitions, but the most relevant sense for this conversation is its denotation of a commonly understood plot device or character used in story-telling.

So, the popular romantic-comedy story-line of boy meets girl, boy gets girl, boy loses girl, boy reunites with girl is an example of a popular movie trope.  Everyone has seen this plot-line many times before, but it helps the viewer/reader enter into the story and, if well done, its popularity does not detract from the enjoyment of seeing it dressed up in new clothes.

Tropes also appear in certain well-know characters that show up again and again: the gruff but gentle giant, the hero who chooses suffering over compromise, the anonymous stranger who delivers a town from a band of marauding outlaws.  These are common tropes in Western narratives.  We easily recognize these “tropeic” characters and immediately know something about how to fit them into the rest of the story.

This second sense of “character tropes” is the meaning of the word most relevant to the current debate over Omar’s words.

There is no doubt that images of “the rich, manipulative Jew” and “the secret, Jewish conspiracy to control the world” are age-old, hateful, paranoid, anti-Semitic character tropes.  Such mindless bigotry helped to fuel the Holocaust, and it deserves to be expunged once and for all from human history.

BUT, I will say it again.  Similarity is not identity.

For example, my dog and I both have two eyes, a nose and a mouth.  But those similarities do not make me a dog (though, perhaps I should defer to my wife here). Nor does it mean that my dog is really a human being.  We both have certain similarities, but those similarities do not prove we are of the same species.

Those traits are characteristic of both people and dogs, but they are not distinctive of either.  In other words, they are descriptively ambiguous.

For anyone to conclude otherwise would be an example of a logical fallacy called the Fallacy of Ambiguity.

Here is another example of the logical fallacy of ambiguity:

Premise – all dogs have four legs.

Premise – my cat has four legs.

Conclusion – therefore, my cat must be a dog.

Here the ambiguity appears in both of the premises.  Walking on four legs is characteristic of both dogs and cats, but it is not distinctive of either.  So it is descriptively ambiguous.

We are now in a position to see how this brand of illogical argument is being applied to Rep. Omar:

Premise – anti-Semitic tropes sometimes refer to rich Jews with dual-loyalties controlling government

Premise – Omar referred to the Israel lobby’s money creating dual-loyalty and influencing government

Conclusion – therefore, Omar must be using anti-Semitic tropes

It’s not hard to spot the ambiguity and, thus, the illogic.  Here the ambiguity appears in the first premise.  There are other ways to talk about Jews without reference to these tropes.  Such generalizations may be characteristic of all anti-Semites, but they are not distinguishing characteristics of all conversations about Jews or Judaism.

Isn’t it possible to talk about specific instances of Jewish (and Gentile) lobbying, money, national loyalties and influencing government without deploying anti-Semitic tropes? Of course, it is.

Can’t we speak with historical specificity (rather than generalities) without being accused of using bigoted generalizations and stereotypes?  The answer to these questions is obvious.

Perhaps you noticed that the effectiveness of this particular fallacy of ambiguity presupposes a related logical ambiguity that works similarly:

Premise – Israel declares itself to be the Jewish state that speaks for all Jews

Premise – Omar has criticized the state of Israel

Conclusion – therefore, Omar has criticized all Jews and Judaism (by using anti-Semitic tropes)

There is no need for repetition here.  The conclusion is obviously false.  The first premise hides the ambiguity of Israel’s claims to universally represent all Jews.  Many Jewish people reject that claim outright.

Thus, not only is this argument illogical on its face, but it is refuted by the evidence when you read and listen to Omar’s statements as well as the many statements offered by anti-Zionist Jews in her defense.

Finally, I want to close by mentioning one of the more trivial but nonetheless significant elements of the accusations brought against Rep. Omar.

Many of the posts calling her out for her anti-Semitic tropes include some reference to how “painful,” “hurtful,” or “damaging” her language has been, insinuating that hearing or reading Omar’s words have caused some sort of psychic trauma in the lives of her critics.

Unfortunately, this particular way of confusing the spoken/written word with acts of personal violence has become deeply rooted in modern American discourse.  But I don’t believe that means we should allow it to stand or to go unchallenged.  Instead, we all need to stand up and say,

“I’m sorry, but that’s rubbish.  Grow up, and stop with the emotional manipulation already!”

I strongly suggest that you read the recent book by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt, The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas are Setting up a Generation for Failure (Penguin, 2018).

For our current purposes, focus on chapters 1, 2, 4, 5 and 10.  Of particular interest here is the authors’ description of America’s growing “victimhood culture,” a culture having three distinct attributes:

First, individuals and groups display high sensitivity to slight; second, they have a tendency to handle conflicts through complaints to third parties; and third, they seek to cultivate an image of being victims who deserve assistance. (page 210)

Sadly, the US Congress is occupied by a large collection of these “coddled minds,” some of whom are happy to facilitate another person’s faux victim-hood.

This post is already too long.  But if you want to read an excellent exploration of the ways in which political Zionism and the state of Israel have sought to ingrain perpetual psychic trauma and victim-hood into Zionist identity, see Norman Finkelstein’s provocative book, The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering (Verso, 2015, second edition).

Also check out the brilliant book by Avraham Burg (a former member of the Israeli Knesset), The Holocaust is Over; We Must Rise from Its Ashes (St. Martins Griffin, 2016, second edition).

I hope that this post will help my readers to think through the inaccuracies, the illogic, and the injustice now being inflicted upon Rep. Ilhan Omar as the defenders of political Zionism pile onto this woman of great character.