Author: David Crump

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

Christian Nationalism is Not Only Un-American, It Is Anti-God’s Kingdom

Perhaps you heard about the controversy stirred by Rep. Stephanie Borowicz’s recent (March 25) opening prayer in the Pennsylvania state legislature.  If you haven’t watched it yet, take a look below:

Personally, I hesitate to describe this exhibition as a prayer.  It’s more a sermon, or a spiritual rant.

Was it an accident that Rep. Borowicz chose to “pray” in this way on the very day that Pennsylvania’s first Muslim-American legislator was being sworn into office? If you believe that, then I’ve got some Florida swamp land to sell you, real cheap.

I don’t doubt that Rep. Borowicz sincerely believed that she was offering a necessary Christian witness when she stepped up front and spoke as she did. But that is no excuse for her colossal mangling of an opportunity, her deliberate insult to a new colleague, or the anti-Biblical ideology of Christian Nationalism woven throughout her speech.

Doesn’t she make friends with her colleagues? Doesn’t she show them love and respect, getting to know about their personal lives? Doesn’t she speak with them individually about the work Jesus has performed in her own life?

Rep. Movita Johnson Harrell, Pennsylvania’s first Muslim legislator

Wouldn’t she communicate more effectively on a one-to-one basis, in personal conversation?  Was this all for the benefit of the camera?

Finally, I am convinced that the brand of Christian Nationalism expressed in her prayer is one of the most significant impediments to the church’s witness today. No, Rep. Borowicz, America is not and never has been a “Christian nation,” raised upon the shoulders of exclusively Christian founders.

Neither is America’s “greatness” a product of the blind, unthinking support we give to the racist state of Israel.

Andrew Seidel has a good article at Religion Dispatches entitled, “Penn. Legislators Jaw-Dropping Prayer Showcases America’s Christian Nationalism Problem.”

I have excerpted a portion below:

“The prayer was jaw-dropping—literally. Watch Speaker Turzai, who introduced Borowicz. As she begins, his jaw drops, and then it drops again. By the end, he’s shooing her off the dais.

“This was 103 seconds of sectarian division and proselytizing and it speaks for itself: ‘at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow, and every tongue will confess, Jesus, that you are Lord.’

“That Borowicz meant for the prayer to intimidate non-Christians seems self-evident. It’s probably less clear to many observers that Borowicz’s prayer is also a symptom of the virulent strain of Christian nationalism under which America is suffering.

Christian nationalism is a political theology that claims we’ve “forgotten . . . God in our country,” as Borowicz said, and that we must return to that golden age of the American founding. This is wrong.

“The Founding Fathers chose to keep state and church separate precisely because religion is divisive and they were seeking to build a pluralistic nation. They didn’t build that nation or secure our freedom with theology or prayer, but with a Constitution that draws its power from We the People, not We the Christians.

“Religion only unites believers of the same stripe, it excludes all others and often calls for worse. An early Wisconsin Supreme Court justice put it eloquently: “There is no such source and cause of strife, quarrel, fights, malignant opposition, persecution, and war, and all evil in the state, as religion. Let it once enter our civil affairs, our government would soon be destroyed.” Borowicz’s proselytizing prayer is a perfect illustration of the division religion sows when mixed with our government.

“Brimming with sectarian arrogance and division, it was easy to miss the outright errors in Borowicz’s prayer: ‘God, for those that came before us like George Washington at Valley Forge and Abraham Lincoln who sought after you in Gettysburg, Jesus, and the Founding Fathers in Independence Hall, Jesus, that sought after you and fasted and prayed for this nation to be founded on Your principles in Your words and Your truth.’

“These historical moments were probably meant to be poignant ties to Pennsylvania and American history, but they lacked ties to reality, history, and nuance.

“For instance, Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address is typically rendered to include the phrase, ‘…that this nation, under God, shall…’ But history is a bit more nuanced, and unclear. Lincoln’s first two versions of the speech, written by Lincoln himself, don’t include the ‘under God’ and we cannot say for certain that he added those words during the speech itself.

“Borowicz’s other two examples are clear: Neither happened. Washington did not pray in the snow at Valley Forge and the delegates at the Constitutional Convention did not fast or pray. These are invented myths, not historical moments.”

Finally, I’d bet my bottom dollar that Rep. Stephanie Borowicz is a product of home-schooling, and that is where she first learned, not American history, but the American mythology embedded in her legislative lecture.

Question: does God respond to prayer requests based on myths?

Learn About America’s Socialist History

Folks  on the Right screech the word Socialism as if it were the safe-word in a BDSM Vampire movie. Rarely, however, do they appear to know what they are talking about.

For example, how many understand the differences between socialism,

Daniel Hoan – Politician, USA*1881-1961+- 1916-1940 Mayor of Milwaukee – (Photographer: Sennecke- Published by: ‘Tempo’ 21.02.1929Vintage property of ullstein bild (Photo by Robert Sennecke/ullstein bild via Getty Images)

social democracy, and democratic socialism,?  They are not the same.  Bernie Sanders is usually described as a democratic socialist when in fact he is a social democrat. They are two different beasts.

Furthermore, corporate socialism is thriving in this country, but we will never hear a whiff of criticism about that form of socialism from cable news.

I have no hopes that America’s pundit class will ever learn to offer intelligent, historically aware, fully informed political commentary (because that would never serve the interests of the corporate status-quo), but I have found a good article describing a small slice of socialism’s important contributions to this country.

It is written by  John Nichols for The Nation magazine. It is  entitled “When Socialism Was Tried  in America — And Was A Smashing Success.”

The entire article is well worth reading. I have posted a select portion below:

“Polling tells us that young voters are more comfortable with socialism than capitalism. Older voters may still be susceptible to Republican appeals rooted in Cold War hysteria, but the challenges posed by the existential crisis of climate

Mayor Hoan speaking to a crowd of Milwaukee workers

change and the radical transformation of our economy in an age of AI-driven automation are going to make everyone far more open to radical responses. And many of the best of these—especially those that call for expanding the social-welfare state—will draw from historic and contemporary socialist thinking.

“Democrats can get ahead of the curve and disarm Trump and the trolls by embracing the opportunity that Milwaukee offers to talk about socialism as it has existed and succeeded in the United States. For American socialists in the 20th century, Milwaukee was a political mecca, a city that tested and confirmed the validity of their ideas. Vladeck, then the manager of The Jewish Daily Forward (these days known simply as The Forward), called it an example of “the America of tomorrow.”

“Socialists were proud to point to Milwaukee, which had a Socialist mayor for most of the period from 1910 to 1960, as a model of sound and equitable governance. And they were not alone: During Hoan’s 24-year tenure, Time magazine reported, ‘Milwaukee became one of the best-run cities in the U.S.’”

How Typically American to Punish Poor Brown People Twice

In 2009 the Obama administration encouraged a military coup that overthrew the democratically elected president of Honduras, Manuel

The democratically elected Honduran president, Manuel Zelaya

Zelaya.  This fact is not in dispute.  Hillary Clinton, then Obama’s Secretary of State, admitted as much in a 2014 interview.

Together Obama and Clinton helped to install a right-wing dictatorship that continues to rule over the Honduran people to this day. Not only has this dictatorship overrun the civil rights of the Honduran people, it works hand-in-glove with the drug cartels terrorizing all of Central America.

Those cartels use local gangs of enforcers to extort protection money from poor and middle-class business owners, often driving them out of business and killing anyone refusing to cooperate. These gangs, operating with the

Honduran gang members

silent approval of government leaders, are the primary cause of Honduras’ skyrocketing murder rate.

So, guess what. The U.S. bears the lion share of responsibility for the problems facing Honduras today.

If this is not familiar to you, please take a few minutes to watch two video

Lucy Pagoada

explanations. The first features Lucy Pagoada, an Honduran immigrant explaining the situation in her native country, and why she fled to the United States.

The second is an episode of On Contact with Chris Hedges. He interviews Professor Dana Frank, author of the book The Long Honduran Night: Resistance, Terror and the United States in the

Prof. Dana Frank

Aftermath of the Coup. She poignantly explains America’s role in transforming Honduras into a failed state.

Now, President Trump is threatening to close America’s southern border. He refuses to receive any more applicants for asylum and is ending all foreign aid to Honduras, Guatemala and San Salvador (two additional nations where the U.S. has meddled with disastrous effect).

So, let me get this straight.  First, we intervene in these nation’s internal affairs. We help to overthrow the Honduran government and install a corrupt dictatorship.

Then we support that dictatorship even as it enriches itself at the people’s

Honduran anti-coup protesters arrested

expense by allying itself with violent drug cartels. We stand by and watch as the dictators’ neo-liberal economic policies exacerbate poverty, unemployment and violent crime because those policies benefit U.S. corporate interests.

Then when the poorest of the poor flee for their lives, seeking asylum and a better life in the U.S., our esteemed president stigmatizes them as criminals, rapists, the “worst of the worst.”

He takes away their children, locks them into cages, loses hundreds if not thousands of those children due to poor record keeping, and closes the

Honduran refugees tear gassed

border. For the coup de’grace he orders border patrol agents to shoot these helpless, refugee families with tear gas and rubber bullets.

All the while, President Trump continues his xenophobic rants insisting that this southern “invasion” – vast weaponized caravans of brown invaders intent on destroying the American way of life – is THE greatest national security threat facing our country today.

And many Americans listen.  Too many are persuaded.

They are persuaded because they have never bothered to follow the news. They are persuaded because don’t know anything about our history of

Children cry next to their mother in a caravan of Honduran migrants near Ciudad Hidalgo, Mexico. (CNS photo/Edgard Garrido, Reuters)

Central American interventions.

Worse yet, they don’t care to learn.

They are too busy gulping down the poisonous swill of U.S. exceptionalism to hear the cries of innocent Hondurans crushed beneath the colossus of American geopolitical power.

We are witnessing a textbook definition of oppression unfolding before our eyes. It is more than a national disgrace; it is wickedness incarnate.

America is the beast risen from the abyss.

In Israel Fascism Can Smell Like Democracy

Perhaps you have heard about the strange campaign ad recently released by Israel’s Justice Minister, Ayelet Shaked. It describes her favorite perfume

Israeli Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked

called Fascism. But she believes it smells like Democracy.

I am posting a copy of the ad with accompanying English translation below.  Take a look:

 

Throughout her political career, Shaked has objected whenever the Supreme Court has (periodically) defended the civil rights of Israel’s Palestinian citizens.

She despises “liberal” activists who condemn Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, and described all Palestinians as inherently violent people who deserve to be eradicated.

She was a prominent advocate for Israel’s recently approved Jewish Nation-State Law which explicitly defines Israel as a state of, for and by Jews and Jews alone.

In other words, Shaked’s ad is mocking anyone who fails to understand what has, in fact, always been the truth about Israel — Israel’s political Zionism provides democracy for its Jewish population and no one else.

At least Shaked has the cajones to discard political double-speak. Unlike most politicians, she says what she means.

George Orwell once wrote that “political language…is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”

Nothing embodies Orwell’s maxim on the political abuse of language more graphically than Zionism’s stranglehold on the definition of “acceptable discourse” concerning Israel.

Take, for instance, Israel’s insistence on referring to itself as the only democracy in the Middle East.

Shaked believes in that lie as much as any successful politician in Israel. It’s a given.  What sets her apart however is her willingness to say what she actually means, what in fact every Zionist politician means by those words.

Israel has never been a democracy for all its citizens. But that stark reality has always been obscured by the smoke and mirrors of Zionist propaganda and its successful redefinition of words like democracy.

Shaked, on the other hand, is a rare phenomenon:  she is an honest Zionist.

She has publicly declared that if genuine democracy (e.g. equal treatment for everyone before the law) happens to threaten Zionist Israel’s status as an exclusively Jewish state populated and governed by a Jewish majority (which it certainly does), then Israel must give up its pretense of democracy.

That is the point of her ad.  And, even though few will admit to it, that is why her ad has caused such a stir within Israel and around the world.

Shaked is not playing the traditional Zionist word-games.  And for that, at least, I admire her.

She presents the ugly face of political Zionism for what it is: a mask.

It may be a lovely mask for Israel’s Jewish majority – just as Shaked could be a model if she wanted a new career – but for Israel’s Palestinian minority, Zionism has always meant fascism.

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.