Author: David Crump

Author, Speaker, Retired Biblical Studies & Theology Professor & Pastor, Passionate Falconer, H-D Chopper Rider, Fumbling Disciple Who Loves Jesus Christ

Torture Happens

Well, I have been away for some time now. Partly, I have been doing a lot of traveling recently. Partly, I have been busy working on a new book project.

But I intend on becoming a more regular poster again soon after Christmas. For now, here are a few thoughts churned up by a recent encounter. Thanks for reading.

“Torture Happens”

The week before Thanksgiving signals an annual event that I have been blessed in being able to attend since my retirement in 2015. That event is the annual joint meetings of the Society of Biblical Literature, the American Academy of Religion and the Institute of Biblical Research.

This year the meetings occurred in San Diego, CA. Thousands of scholars, academics and independent researchers gathered together from around the world to enjoy a very large religious book fair (where I could easily spend hundreds, if not thousands of dollars!) and a vast cavalcade of lectures, presentations, seminars, panels and special events touching on the wide array of topics falling under the rubric of “religious studies.” (I confess that I am an academic geek and feel as though I’ve died and gone to hog heaven every time I attend this conference.)

Ever since my book on Christian Zionism was published in 2021—titled Like Birds in a Cage: Christian Zionism’s Collusion in Israel’s Oppression of the Palestinian People; if you have any interest in this subject and have yet to read my book, you should ask for it as a Christmas present—I have made a point of attending every session available on the subjects of Palestine, Israel, Christian Zionism, and the war against Gaza.

Among the many sessions I attended this year was one hosted by two Israeli Jews slated to discuss the achievements of political Zionism in modern Israeli society. At least that’s what I understood the catalogue description to promise.

The first speaker was an elderly rabbi who gave a long, rambling disquisition (a midrash, I guess you could say) on who knows what. I’m afraid I cannot tell you what his intended topic was supposed to be. It was a stream of consciousness oration that wandered, seemingly without purpose, from one disjointed topic to the next and could easily have given all rabbis a bad name were a listener prone to gauche generalizations.

The second presentation was offered by an Israeli journalist who shared interesting stories focused on the history of modern extremism in Israel. The general upshot seemed to be that “life in Israel is complicated.” Ok. Thank you very much.

I can’t remember what triggered my decision to ask a few questions of the second speaker. I can only recall that I wasn’t buying his pro–Israel slant on what it was exactly that made life in Israel so complicated. I raised my hand to remind him that Israel was a highly militarized society (much like ancient Sparta) which dominated and oppressed an entire group of people, i.e. the Palestinians, having kept many of them under severe, military occupation since 1948.

He replied with standard attempts at justifying the unjustifiable. It’s what most Zionists do.

I pushed back by mentioning the story of my friend, Munther Amira, who was tortured daily during his recent imprisonment in Israel. His physical abuse was not isolated. It was universal and systematic. No one was exempt.

“Torture happens,” was the Jewish Zionist’s answer.

I was dumbstruck. “Are you kidding me!?” I replied. “Is that all you’ve got to say?”

Yep, that was all he had to say. “Shit happens.” (My rephrasing).

I describe the daily dehumanization of my friend, and he hands me a cheap, working–class bumper sticker in response. Shit happens.

What kind of a tawdry, demented view of life is this? But, of course, such a perspective only applies when bad things happen (I’ll try to stop writing the word shit now, even though it seems very much at home in a story like this) to other people, not to oneself or to one’s own loved ones. When bad things happen to Israel, such as October 7, 2023, their pain serves to justify all manner of seething revenge and genocidal retribution.

In the case of Israel, “genocide happens.” The world says “Yes” and goes on its merry way.

I am not surprised to hear ethnic nationalists, like my political Zionist interlocutor, think or speak so crudely, without conscience. But I am truly shocked to hear Christians talk this way, for it reveals a moral compass smashed to smithereens. For, yes, I have also heard good, church–going folks also say things like “shit happens.” (Oops.)

Many bad things happen in life. Rape happens. Child abuse happens. Wickedness happens. What matters is not our ability to restate the obvious but our ability to respond with outrage and work towards a better world, a world where wickedness no longer happens without comment or correction.

The divinely endowed Image of God in humanity is defamed in myriad ways every single day in this world.  Every assault against another human being is an attack against the divine image. The awful repetitiveness of such blasphemies may become a recipe for conscientious exhaustion, but it can never become an excuse for indifference, acceptance or feigned impotence.

We are not helpless. Wherever wickedness is permitted it can also be condemned, corrected and terminated. Following this alternative path is the prophetic responsibility of the Christian church.

God cares deeply about such things. And because God cares, God’s people are obligated to devote their lives to doing whatever they can to stem the tide of wickedness in this world, and to mend the wounds of all those who have suffered such wickedness themselves.

I am not a postmillennialist, like many liberation theologians appear to be. I do not believe that anybody’s activism, no matter how far ranging, is ever going to eradicate all wickedness from this world. For that, we must await the return of Christ himself. But we are called to help “prepare the way.”

Yes, torture happens. Any craven numbnuts can know this much. The Christian’s obligation, however, is not simply to know that it happens, but to scream a lifetime of outrage over its reappearance; to work to stop it; to help to heal those who have suffered from it; to see that it is never resurrected in our lifetimes.

Yes, wickedness happens. This is one of the several reasons that Jesus died on the cross for all the wickedness of this world. We can thank our God that Christ did not look at this corrupt society of ours and conclude, “Well, wickedness happens down there.”

Christ did not shrug his shoulders and go on his merry way—a decision he certainly could have made had he wanted to. Rather, he stopped and saw. He heard. He cared. He came down, and he entered into the human condition. He served. He sacrificed. And he rose from the dead in victory.

He now calls us to serve, to sacrifice, to expend ourselves in doing whatever we can toward ending such wickedness as torture, rape, child abuse, and all other forms of human oppression as we await his Return. Though we will never end it all completely, we must do our part in smashing these works of the devil beneath the jackboots of righteousness.

No one is ever free simply to say “torture happens” as if it were a wisdom–filled observation on life.

We have but two options when we say these two words: we may weep, and we may plan to end it as we cry.

What is Wrong with Christian Nationalism?

I was recently invited to speak at an online web conference titled “Better Citizens for a Better World.” The conference addressed various aspects of how to live out our Christian citizenship in the here and now.

The conference addressed a wide range of subjects, including an opening talk about “God and Empire” followed by my talk, “Why Christians Can’t be Nationalists.”

My friend Dr. Rob Dalrymple does the first presentation, ending at the 20:15 mark. I then follow up with my presentation outlining what I believe are the proper Christian approaches to patriotism, nationalism and Christian nationalism.

My talk ends at 48:20 when Rob and I begin to answer write-in questions from viewers.

I hope that you find this interesting and helpful in this election season. Thanks for watching:

An Interview with Palestinian Theologian-Pastor, Mitri Raheb

My friends at the Christian Forum on Israel-Palestine recently interviewed the influential, internationally known Palestinian pastor-theologian, the Rev. Dr. Mitri Raheb.

We had a wide-ranging discussion about the war against Gaza and the West Bank and its effects upon the Palestinian Christian community.

Please check it out:

A Review of Andrew DeCort’s ‘Blessed Are the Others: Jesus’ Way in a Violent World’

Recently I have been trying to read more in the area of “peacemaking” literature. I seem to be bumping up against this topic a lot in my circle of friends.

So here is my brief review of the newest book in this field of study:

A review of Andrew DeCort, Blessed are the Others: Jesus’ Way in a Violent World (Bittersweet Books, 2024, 178 pp., $19.95)

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

–Yeats, “The Second Coming”

Andrew DeCort has an amazing, horrific story to tell, and he tells it well in his new book Blessed are the Others: Jesus’ Way in a Violent World. Civil war breaks out while Andrew and his wife are living and developing Christian ministries in Ethiopia. As Christian workers committed to serving in the kingdom of God and following the nonviolent way of Jesus, the DeCorts begin bravely to advocate for peace and reconciliation in a variety of important ways among the various parties in Ethiopia’s bloody conflict.

Eventually, they are branded as traitors by those in power. They receive death threats from authority figures who could easily carry out their threats at any time. If the enemy of your enemy is your friend, then the peacemaking enemies of warfare make themselves the enemies of warmongers who will eventually seek to eliminate you.

By the time the DeCorts leave Ethiopia for their own safety, Andrew is (unsurprisingly) experiencing serious emotional and psychological upheaval. Though he never uses the term, he undoubtedly experienced full–blown attacks of PTSD, complete with the entire range of physical and psychological symptoms involved. These experiences of warfare, trauma, peacemaking and persecution become the setting for DeCort’s exposition of the Beatitudes found in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5:3–12); this is the subject matter of Blessed are the Others.

There can be no doubt that DeCort’s experiences have equipped him to provide wise, first–hand insights into the dynamics involved in the beatific states of poverty of spirit, meekness, peacemaking and being persecuted for the sake of righteousness. In circumstances where many would have abandoned Christian faith altogether, DeCort has persisted in wrestling with questions of faith all throughout his dramatic journey.

Yet, it is the power of DeCort’s storytelling that also raises several problems for this reviewer. For instance, a reader cannot help but feel deep sympathy and admiration for DeCort while reading his story. Much of this book reads like a series of journal entries kept during the author’s counseling sessions. Taking the step to risk such public transparency lends DeCort a moral authority, at least for the sensitive reader, that is easily transferred from the confessional sections of the book to the expository sections dealing with scripture. Thus, the reader is invited to embrace DeCort’s explanations of the biblical text with the same quality of sympathetic acceptance as the reader has already extended to DeCort’s dramatic storytelling.

But is this a wise step to take?

Throughout the book, DeCort reminds his readers that the Beatitudes are God’s recipe for becoming “humanely happy.” But for all their value in illustrating how and why DeCort has arrived at his theology of peacemaking and humane happiness, there is a difference between telling powerful stories to illustrate biblical teaching and telling stories to determine the intent of biblical teaching. For DeCort, his authority for explaining the specifics of humane happiness appears in the therapeutic lessons he has discovered throughout the long process of coming to grips with his trauma. The meaning of the biblical text ultimately becomes subservient to his lived experience, not the other way around (as it should be).

At the end of the day, Jesus’ experience on earth is reflected in DeCort’s; and DeCort’s life of trauma becomes the very image of Jesus’ experience. When answering the question, “How did Jesus make peace in society?” DeCort answers, “It’s clear that Jesus’ peacemaking began with himself. Having survived acute trauma (i.e., Jesus was traumatized by his parents’ flight into Egypt), there is no other way. He went out to the wilderness, wrestled with his demons . . . He took time to rest and to grieve his suffering” (129). Note that Jesus was not recovering from his suffering on the cross, but from his childhood trauma. That was Jesus’ therapeutic path to peacemaking. Thus, Jesus has been conformed to the image of DeCort, and DeCort has become the model for Jesus.

Earlier in the book, DeCort rooted our humane task as peacemakers in God’s role as Creator, rather than in God’s work as Redeemer—where I believe it belongs. Therefore, Jesus’ model of suffering is exemplary for all humanity, just as “God is actually our parent” who “calls us all beloved children” (147). The natural relationships forged within creation have priority. DeCort introduces his perspective early in the book: “Jesus of Nazareth invites us into a strange wisdom as ancient as the pillars of creation. He promises that opening ourselves to our pain is the beginning of the Beatitudinal Way. Paradoxically, this is the path of humane happiness” (11).

Note that, for DeCort, the Beatitudes describe a natural process rooted in creation. The key to learning the Beatitudes is therapy, opening ourselves to our pain. How the eschatological arrival of God’s kingdom may be subverting the natural relationships of a fallen creation is never discussed. I find this surprising given that the Beatitudes describe kingdom citizenship, not the natural order of things. The kingdom does not arise from within creation! It invades creation from without. But this oddity becomes understandable once we recognize that, for DeCort, the therapeutic has overwhelmed the exegetical.

An obvious sign of this unfortunate interpretive move appears in the way Moses and Joshua are turned into Old Testament villains. As the people of Israel emerge from their own four–hundred–year period of trauma in Egyptian bondage, Moses undermines the possibility of Israel’s healing by instituting the Sinai Covenant—a series of obligations and blessings based on the misbegotten notion of Israel’s election as God’s chosen people (24, 27, 38, 100, 108, 127, 130). This retrograde idea of chosenness then sets the stage for Moses’ (and Joshua’s) horrific calls for Israel to ethnically cleanse the land of Canaan (25). It also presents us with a wrathful, nationalistic God of vengeance who is hardly the kind of deity who calls his people to become peacemakers, opposing civil wars and working for reconciliation.

In effect, DeCort is presenting us with another form of Marcionism. Marcion was an early church father/heretic who taught that the Old and New Testaments told the stories of two different gods: an OT god of wrath and warfare, and a NT god of love and peace. For Marcion, the OT god had to go. DeCort appears to follow suit.

In making this interpretive move, DeCort follows an old, old pathway. This method is sometimes called Tendenz Kritik. In other words, the interpreter fixes upon a certain tendency or theme which takes centerstage in the interpretive process. This theme is made canonical. Any texts or theological implications that appear to diverge from this preferred theme are downgraded or excised from the Bible in one way or another. Enlightenment Rationalists eliminated the supernatural from scripture because it conflicted with their elevation of human reason. Rudolf Bultmann developed his program of demythologizing for the same purpose. As he famously said (my paraphrase), “No one who uses an electric light can possibly take the NT miracle stories literally.” DeCort is offering his readers his own form of Tendenz Kritik. Anything that does not cohere with his understanding of a peacemaking Jesus activating principles rooted in creation must be rewritten or rejected outright.

When everything else is said and done, I cannot help but conclude that Andrew DeCort is offering us another version of Walter Rauschenbusch’s rationalistic, nineteenth–century Social Gospel filtered through the lens of the Ethiopian civil war and the personal trauma it created for the author. As Rauschenbusch explained, Jesus’ exemplary life is intended to reveal the universal Fatherhood of God and the universal brotherhood of humanity. The Beatitudes lay out Jesus’ instructions for “humane happiness” in this world where divine, universal love is not taken seriously enough. DeCort is clearly reading from this script.

DeCort’s idiosyncratic version of the social gospel also reminds me of the classic work by Philip Reiff, The Triumph of the Therapeutic: Uses of Faith after Freud. In that book, Reiff details the extent to which the processes and benefits of psychotherapy have replaced the historic liturgies, traditions and authority of religious (Christian) faith in modernity. Reiff explains that:

Any religious exercise is justified only by being something men (sic) do for themselves, that is, for the enrichment of their own experience . . . What then should churchmen (sic) do? The answer returns clearly: become, avowedly, therapists, administrating a therapeutic institution—under the justificatory mandate that Jesus himself was the first therapeutic. (215)

DeCort’s “exposition” of the Beatitudes closely conforms to Reiff’s prescription for modern religious leaders. It is, indeed, the triumph of the therapeutic.

But this is nothing new; it is an old, old story.

In 1906 Albert Schweitzer published his important book, The Quest for the Historical Jesus. After surveying every scholarly effort to recover the Jesus of history from the accumulated traditions of two–thousand years of Christian development, Schweitzer concluded (I am paraphrasing): “After peering down history’s well, searching for the historical Jesus, all that researchers have discovered is their own reflection staring back at them.”

Reading about DeCort’s reflections on himself, superimposed onto the Beatitudes, is not without some interest; the human story is compelling. But the theological conclusions he draws, concerning Jesus and the Beatitudes, must be taken with a large block of salt. I’d like to see more of the incarnate Jesus who suffered on the cross in order to make peace between his heavenly Father and fallen human beings, and less about the power of therapeutic empathy to perfect human happiness through “peacemaking.”

That difference is stark.

Why I Would Not Sign the Recent Statement, “Our Confession of Evangelical Conscience”

A week or so before it was published online (read it here) I was asked to sign the recent political statement titled “Our Confession of Evangelical Conviction.”

It is a political “confession” of implicitly anti-Trump, evangelical “unity” circulated in the run-up to the presidential election on November 5th.

My friend Dr. Bruce Fisk was also asked to sign this statement, but we both declined for reasons of conscience. We believed that, at best, the statement was ethically selective.

Bruce and I collated our critiques with suggestions for improvement and then sent our response to the one who asked us to sign. We included a note explaining that we would be happy to sign a revised confession if it addressed our concerns.

Our suggestions were ignored and the confession was publicized as it was originally presented to us.

Bruce and I decided that we did not have access to a significant enough platform to issue a counter-confession. So we agreed that I would publish our list of objections, concerns and emendations here at HumanityRenewed.

So here it is for all those who are interested. You may be asking, Why would anyone demure from signing a “Confession of Evangelical Conviction”?

Here’s why:

October 1, 2024 

Dear drafters of the Confession of Evangelical Conviction, 

Your call to non-partisan allegiance to our First Love is timely and urgent. We share your alarm when we see American Christians pledging allegiance to person and party, and deploying Scripture to sanction a political agenda that provokes division and fear. To the extent that the statement stirs all of us to love across the divide, we will be grateful. 

There is however an elephant in the room. There is a genocide in the room. We are troubled that a statement warning Evangelicals against the allure of partisan politics has nothing to say about Evangelicalism’s bipartisan support for the murderous campaign that America and Israel are waging in Gaza. Hence, the following observations for your consideration. 

Use of Scripture. As biblical scholars, we condemn with you the use of Scripture “to sanction a single political agenda.” To our dismay, we see fellow Evangelicals making this error when they use Scripture to defend unflinching support for Israel’s wildly disproportionate  response to Hamas’ egregious attack. 

Present reality. With you we worry about an American future with an autocratic narcissist as President. But fear of Donald Trump does not explain American Evangelicals broad based support for American and Israeli militarism that is claiming the lives of tens of thousands of women and children. 

Peace not war. The statement calls us to make peace and foster unity within the church. Amen. It is silent, however, when it comes to Evangelical support for America’s repeated recourse to war abroad.

Amos’ vision. We echo with you the prophetic call for justice and righteousness (Amos 5:24). We share the prophet’s condemnation of those who “trample on the poor” (v.11) and “push aside the needy in the gate” (v.12). We think Amos would be zealous to oppose and condemn publicly this very behavior in the alleys and camps of Gaza. 

Cultural wisdom. The statement concludes with a resolution “to uphold the truth of the Gospel in the face of political pressure and cultural shifts.” But not all such pressures and shifts are contrary to the Gospel. Some have even pointed the church in the right direction. We think the outcry against Israel’s US-funded genocide, coming from secular students, American Jews and the Uncommitted movement, is one such shift. 

Prophetic critique. Israel’s Evangelical partisans acknowledge that “Israel isn’t perfect” and claim to be “willing to call out Israel when we believe it is acting wrongly.” Rarely if ever, however, do these Evangelicals name specific discriminatory laws, policies, practices, and rhetoric. The absence of prophetic criticism in the midst of Israel’s current atrocities makes evangelicals complicit in injustice and profoundly harms the cause of the Gospel. 

For the cause of Middle East peace, 

Bruce and David 

Bruce N. Fisk, Ph.D. (Professor of New Testament, Westmont College, ret.) 

David M. Crump, Ph.D. (Professor of New Testament, Calvin College, ret.)

P.S. We develop some of these points in the following recent publications. 

David M. Crump, “Echoes of Slavery, Racial Segregation and Jim Crow: American Dispensationalism and Christian Zionist Bible-Reading” Journal of Holy Land and Palestine Studies 23.1 (2024): 1-17.

David M. Crump, “No, We Cannot Stand with Israel, and That Has Always Been Part of Israel’s Problem“ HumanityRenewed.com Oct 11, 2023.

David M. Crump, “Another Response to Russell Moore and His Complaint About Bothsidesism“ HumanityRenewed.com Oct 18, 2023.

David M. Crump, Like Birds in a Cage: Christian Zionism’s Collusion in Israel’s Oppression of the Palestinian People Cascade, 2021.

David M. Crump, I Pledge Allegiance: A Believer’s Guide to Kingdom Citizenship in Twenty-First-Century America Eerdmans, 2018.

Bruce N. Fisk “Lament is Not Enough: Evangelicals offer ‘Thoughts and Prayers’ for Gaza” Clarion Journal. Jan 24, 2024.

Bruce N. Fisk, “Genesis 12:3, Christian Zionism, and Blessing Israel” Bibliotheca Sacra (April-June, 2023), 144-63, 176-78.

Bruce N. Fisk, “Ever the Victim, Never the Aggressor: A Response to the “Evangelical Statement in Support of Israel” Clarion Journal. Nov. 30, 2023.

Bruce N. Fisk, “Praised by Faint Damnation: Why American Evangelical Responses to October 7 are Dangerous“ Red Letter Christians. Nov. 30, 2023.

Bruce N. Fisk, “The Allure of Moral Clarity in a Time of War: A Response to Russell Moore“ Clarion Journal. Oct. 13, 2023.

Tomorrow I will be interviewed by the Christian Forum on Israel-Palestine

On Tuesday, September 3rd I will interviewed by my friends at the Christian Forum on Israel-Palestine. Watch it live at 1 pm Eastern, 10 am Pacific.

We will focus attention our on the ways in which Israel is expanding its war against Gaza into the West Bank. I will talk about my most recent visit to the West Bank this past June where I stayed again with my Palestinian family in the Aida refugee camp.

Check out the link below to either watch the show live or to catch it later at your own convenience. Once it’s recorded, it will remain available available on YouTube.

 

A Review of Eric Metaxas’ New Book, Religionless Christianity

Review of Eric Metaxas, Religionless Christianity: God’s Answer to Evil (New York: Regnery Faith, 2024, $24.99)

Religionless Christianity is Eric Metaxas’ follow–up to his best–selling book, Letter to the American Church (see my review here). As in the earlier work, Dietrich Bonhoeffer remains Metaxas’ paradigm of Christian cultural engagement striving to effect societal transformation. By going so far as to participate in a plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler, Bonhoeffer exemplifies the kind of pious extremism expected of all truly radical Jesus–followers. (Yes, let the irony of that statement sink in.) According to Metaxas, Christians must reject “the idol of purity” (79). “Daring to act” (i.e. trying to kill Hitler), even if it means “making some mistake” (i.e. committing the sin of murder) is Metaxas’ exemplary motto for faithful Christian living (100).

Metaxas’ tone is strongly apocalyptic in response to the spreading “horrors” he believes have been encouraged by the Biden administration. What a difference four years of Democratic governance can make! (I say this with tongue firmly planted in my left cheek.) The dangerous implications of Metaxas’ valorization of Bonhoeffer’s decision to embrace violence are clear. Killing political opponents because they are judged to be God’s horrific opponents continues to be an important part of Metaxas’ message.

According to Metaxas, American society has become the resurrected analog of Nazi Germany complete with the demonic evils (and Metaxas means this literally) of socialism, cultural Marxism, critical race theory (all terms he never defines) as well as transgender advocacy. To his mind, one of the premier examples illustrating America’s slide into the pit of demonic thought and action is “the insane lie of the 1619 Project” (57). According to Metaxas, the 1619 Project’s lessons about the history of American slavery and the ongoing challenges of institutional racism are “lunatic,” “wicked,” “intentionally malevolent,” “dark and accusing,” and “diametrically opposed to God’s idea of grace” (58). In Metaxas’s mind, his political opponents are not well–intentioned human beings who hold different opinions or draw different conclusions from the historical evidence. No. Metaxas insists that all Democrats, liberals (whatever that label now means), progressives and left–wing social activists are involved in a dark, Satanic conspiracy.

According to Metaxas, the main instrument used to propagate this demonic, Nazi–like degeneration is the promotion of “cancel culture” (chapters six and seven). By this he means the suppression of one set of ideological voices by those on the opposite side of the debate. Metaxas warns that “at the dark heart of the evil we are seeing in our time lies that hideous thing called ‘cancel culture’” (55). His primary example of cancel culture concerns Christian voices being criticized or condemned on social media platforms. Combatting cancel culture is elevated to the status of spiritual warfare since “the spirit of cancel culture always operates in environments that are openly anti–God” revealing nothing but “a satanic spirit of accusation and cursing” (59).

In Metaxas’ worldview, only conservatives suffer the oppression of cancel culture. He remains blind to the many instances where either conservative and/or establishment forces have worked to “cancel” progressive/liberal voices in public conversation. (For instance, notice the absence from mainstream media of: anti–Zionist critiques of Israel’s war against Gaza, or any discussion of the war in Ukraine that places primary responsibility not on Russia but on the provocation created by NATO expansion. My political opinions are never represented in mainstream media. Yet, I restrain myself from imagining I am a victim of demonic forces.)

Metaxas’ believes that it is the church’s responsibility directly to attack such demonic phenomena as cancel culture and the 1619 Project. An obedient, socially active, politically engaged church that explicitly promotes conservative policies via Christian nationalism (120–25) is the only hope for national transformation.

The Christian church controls the tiller of society, according to Metaxas. A degenerate society, such as ours or Nazi Germany’s, reveals an apostate church. Bolstering his case by way of analogy to the German church prior to World War II, he lays the largest portion of blame for the rise of Naziism at the feet of the German church—a church that had surrendered to the demonic powers of secularism and religion.

This is where Dietrich Bonhoeffer reenters the picture. During Bonhoeffer’s imprisonment (for plotting to assassinate Hitler) he began writing about the need for “religionless Christianity.” Though I am not a Bonhoeffer scholar—by all academic accounts, neither is Metaxas—I understand Bonhoeffer’s call for a religionless Christianity to be a doubling down on his condemnation of “cheap grace” made so thoroughly in his book The Cost of Discipleship.

Rejecting the empty formalism and pietistic trappings of religious posturing, which includes the brand of rationalism that excludes the possibility of supernatural miracles, Bonhoeffer called for a thoroughgoing surrender to the Lordship of Jesus Christ in every dimension of life. This would be religionless, i.e., authentic Christianity which is exactly what both Germany and America require(d). A truly religionless American Christianity would lead to the final victory of conservative values in a Christian nation worthy of America’s Christian heritage.

This brief review of Metaxas’ arguments in Religionless Christianity has already indicated the book’s major problems. A little elaboration will fill in the picture.

Sections of this book sound as if the author has recently emerged from a time capsule. He seems to have missed the decades–long history of political activism instigated by America’s Religious Right movement, including such organizations as the Moral Majority, the Christian Coalition, Focus on the Family, the Family Research Council and more. The problem, obviously, is that acknowledging this piece of American history undermines Metaxas’ insistence about the ability of a politically active church to control the tenor and direction of American society. Why hasn’t the Religious Right’s decades of religious, political activism created a more moral, Christian society? Metaxas ignores the question because the answer undermines his thesis.

Metaxas also fails to grasp the internal problems of the German, Christian church in the early twentieth–century. Thus, his comparisons to American society consistently miss the mark. The German church’s two principal problems were theological before they were pragmatic.

First, the German church adhered closely to Martin Luther’s two–kingdom theology in which secular, political leaders—including a man like Adolf Hitler—were believed to be divinely installed by God’s providence. The Christian’s duty was to obey government leaders not to dissent; for civil disobedience was rebellion against God.

The second issue was closely related to the first. The Christian church in 1930s Germany wholeheartedly embraced its own form of Christian nationalism. Germany was God’s exceptional nation, carrying out God’s purposes in attempting to conquer Europe. Germany was establishing the kingdom of God on this earth, on both the eastern and the western fronts.

The supreme irony of Metaxas’ book resides in his failure to notice the overlap between his own political views and those of the Nazi, German Christian church which he criticizes. Though he calls upon the American church to follow in the footsteps of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, he fails to recognize that he is defending the very political positions— [1] Christian nationalism and [2] seeing God’s “blessing” on one’s preferred political leader, i.e., Donald Trump—that Bonhoeffer condemned. Metaxas’ partisan applause for Trump, especially as Trump promises evangelicals that he will protect Christian dominance throughout America, are mirror images of the theological posture taken up by the German church. THIS was the “secularism” condemned by Bonhoeffer’s call for a religionless Christianity. Yet, it is the very brand of American civil religion propounded by Metaxas.

But Metaxas is too busy promoting his own right–wing political ideology to notice that in riding the wave of today’s MAGA movement and blatantly manipulating Bonhoeffer’s legacy, he has styled himself as one more political hack pretending to write as an historian–theologian. Unfortunately, I suspect that Religionless Christianity will become another bestseller for Metaxas. But then Naziism was also a bestseller among members of the German Christian church.

Join the Conversation about Israel, Gaza and Western Evangelicals with Dr. Mae Cannon

Next Tuesday, August 13 you are invited to join a conversation Dr. Mae Elise Cannon, Executive Director of Churches for Middle East Peace.

Dr. Cannon wrote one of her two(!) doctoral dissertations on the history of the American evangelical church’s engagement with Israel. Which is more than a coincidence, since will be the topic of our conversation next Tuesday.

Why do western evangelicals generally side with Israel in its war against Gaza? Why don’t we respond to Palestinian suffering — some call it a genocide — as empathetically as we do the Israeli pain of October 7?

Tune in and share your own thoughts next Tuesday! Join us at 11 am Eastern, 8:00 Pacific at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHIs8HnRiMA

Farewell to the War Criminal, Genocide Joe

While the doe-eyed Democratic apparatchiks begin their predictably patriotic accolades for president Biden — the self-sacrificing commander-in-chief who willingly surrendered his presidential prospects in service to America’s beleagured democracy — now is also the time to remind ourselves that president Biden has served as the chief facilitator of the most public genocide in world history.

Joe Biden had/has the power to stop Israel’s genocidal assault against the people of Gaza at any time.  But he chooses not to use it.

Why? Because his commitment to a racist nation-state is greater than what could have been his conscientious concern for human lives.

Biden (together with the US Congress) has not only allowed the Gaza genocide to continue, he empowered the Netanyahu government’s criminal assault by providing 12.5 billion dollars in American financial support as well as the vast majority of the high-tech weaponry used to slaughter Palestinian men, women and children.

Joe Biden, who is always proud to wave his Zionist bone fides before a campaign crowd, is a staunch, unreflective Zionist who has hardended his heart against Palestinian suffering. This will be his, and America’s, Middle Eastern legacy.

He is another racist Zionist who refuses to acknowledge the bloody, heartless reality presented by countless Al Jazeera reports, Palestinian Tik Tok posts and personal Instagram films, all creating an overwhelming record  about the truth of Israeli genocide in Gaza.

This record will stand on its own as an historical indictment of all those, like Biden, who insist that what is happening in Gaza is not a crime against humanity.

Biden has admitted that he does not believe the casualty figures documented by the Hamas Health Ministry, but he confidently accepts the grotesque, well-documented lies spread by the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) regarding the death toll on October 7.

[Nothing exemplifes the racist underbelly of Israeli/Zionist rhetoric more clearly than this example. European-looking Israeli Jews are always trustworthy, no matter how far fetched their claims. Whereas, brown-skinned, bearded Muslim Palestinians are inherently untrustworthy, prone to lies, dissimulation and violence.]

Only days after October 7, president Biden claimed to have seen the photographs of “beheaded babies” from the kibbutzim of southern Israel.

Except…such photographs never existed because there were no beheaded babies from the Hamas attack on October 7. (Biden’s administration had to retract the president’s statement and correct his lie the next day.) This Israeli claim has been thoroughly debunked by reputable news reporting. (See the reporting at The Electric Intifada, The Grayzone and Mondoweiss).

No babies were beheaded that day; 40+ babies were not killed; no infant was cooked in an oven; no baby was cut from its mother’s womb. These were all grotesque fabrications, incredible lies!, manufactured by sick Zionist minds who naturally shared in the widespread western, Orientalist assumption that European-looking Jews will always be believed because they always tell the truth (especially when under attack!).

Palestinian Arabs, on the other hand, are inherently violent and conniving, constitutionally predisposed to exactly the kind of reprehensible violence described by Israeli sources. So, of course, their denials will not be believed by the majority of western listeners.

Joe Biden’s penchant for lies and exaggeration when standing behind a podium has always been a well-known character flaw. But his tendency to spew self-serving misinformation has descended to new depths of disgust whenever he talks about Israel and Gaza.

Take a few minutes to watch British, independent journalist Owen Jones as he offers an across-the-pond perspective on Biden’s legacy: