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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.

Why Did Early Political Zionists Want to Confuse Anti-Zionism with Anti-Semitism?

(This is the second in a series of posts discussing the recent debate over anti-Semitism vs. anti-Zionism.  You can find the first post here.)

I have a favorite book shop in the Palestinian section of Jerusalem.  It’s only a short walk from our favorite hotel just down the road from the Damascus Gate of the Old City.

Terry usually steps across the street to shop for children’s books while I search the long rows of “alternative” books on the history of Palestine, Israel, Zionism, the Israel-Palestine conflict, the political debates fueled by the post-Zionist movement, and much much more.

I never cease to be amazed at the ready availability (at least, if you know where to look) of anti-Zionist, pro-Palestinian literature in the heartland of ethnocratic, political Zionism.  I suspect that I could never find these titles in anything but the most exotic, well-hidden American bookstore.

My regular pilgrimage to this wonderful, mental oasis — owned and operated by a most congenial Palestinian family, whose children can operate the cash register as easily as their parents — always concludes as I carry away arm-loads of new books to devour during our stay.

I like to read as many of these titles as possible while we are living with our Palestinian family in the refugee camp.  It allows me to share what I am learning and ask questions of my friends, Ayed and Ghada, to compare their personal knowledge with the things I am reading.

One of the books I read this past November was State of Terror: How Terrorism Created Modern Israel, by Thomas Suarez, published by Olive Branch Press, 2017.  I encourage you to read it.

Suarez’s work is built upon extensive research in various national archives, and is bolstered with copious citations from these first-hand sources.

The esteemed Israeli historian Ilan Pappe wrote about this book:

The book is the first comprehensive and structured analysis of the violence and terror employed by the Zionist movement, and later the state of Israel, against the people of Palestine.

A German, Jewish physicist, Wolfgang Yourgrau had emigrated to Palestine but decided to abandon the Zionist project in 1948.  On the front-piece of

Wolfgang Yourgrau

his book, Suarez quotes Yourgrau from the February 1943 edition of the Orient.  Yourgrau wrote:

The growth of Fascism in Palestine at a time when the liberated nations will put it into its grave is a tragi-comedy.

These two citations will give you a sense of the story-line waiting to unfold when you pick of a copy of State of Terror. It’s a book that makes for horrific reading, especially for anyone not already familiar with the revolutionary, nationalist-racial movement known as Zionism.

Heck, I’ve studied this story extensively, and I still found myself horrified by the new things I learned while reading Suarez.

David Ben-Gurion

One of the themes Suarez documents is the efforts of men like David Ben-Gurion (Israel’s first prime minister) and his circle of cronies to identify anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism.

Weaponizing the charge of anti-Semitism so that it could be lobbed like a hand-grenade at anyone critical of early Zionism and their methods was a deliberate rhetorical strategy devised by Zionists in public debate.

Ben-Gurion and his comrades were shrewd.  People were especially sensitive to accusations of anti-Semitism before and during the Second World War.

Defenders of Zionism knew they could get away with such slanderous smears with minimal push-back in the era of Adolf Hitler.

But more importantly there was an important ideological basis for this particular word game.

The early Zionists insisted that their new state of Israel would become THE

Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the AIPAC policy conference, 2011

national homeland for all of world-wide Jewry.  Even today, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, can insist that when he opens his mouth, he speaks “not just as the prime minister of Israel but as a representative of the entire Jewish people.”

As the author of this piece in Haaretz (Feb. 12, 2015) says, the leader of Israel readily claims to “speak for all Jews whether they like it or not.”

Ben-Gurion and his cohorts believed what they wanted to believe: Israel was going to represent all Jews everywhere.  All Jews everywhere were automatic citizens, whether or not they had ever set foot in Palestine.  Zionist Israel would become the global, collective “Jew” standing astride the world stage.

By this logic, if you accept it, wittingly or unwittingly, criticizing Israel is transmogrified into criticizing Judaism and all Jews.  Anti-Zionism becomes anti-Semitism because there is no longer an independent concept of Jewishness apart from the life, health and prosperity of the new Zionist nation-state.

Consequently, from its very early days, Zionist leaders worked to exacerbate anti-Semitism (real or imagined) whenever and wherever possible in order to motivate immigration to the Promised Land — the only place for all Jews to properly belong.

Many people do not realize that before Israel was officially established, Zionist leaders refused to assist European Jews escaping the Holocaust unless they first pledged to settle in Palestine.  If you were a refugee fleeing the Nazis and you wanted passage to Canada or American, for example, David Ben-Gurion happily left you to your fate in Auschwitz.

Early Zionism also fomented anti-Semitism in order to encourage increased in immigration through fear.  Suarez provides documentation describing the well-known Zionist bombing of an Egyptian movie house for the sole purpose of stirring up anti-Jewish sentiment.  The resulting Arab attacks against Egyptian Jews prompted a sizeable increase in Jewish emigration from Egypt into Palestine.

In fact, Suarez documents internal conversations confirming that early Zionist leaders depended on something they called “the eternal crisis” of global anti-Semitism.  The never-ending threat of this “eternal crisis” became an important means of fueling the perpetual fear and insecurity that Zionists could exploit in motivating people to immigrate to Palestine, the only land where they could ever “be safe.”

Fortunately, many people, both then and now, have seen through the web of lies and illogic at the root of Zionism’s language games.  The Jewish authors mentioned in my previous post well describe how to untangle this web of misrepresentations.

Israel does not represent all Jews or all of Judaism.

Zionism is not the same as Jewishness or Judaism.

Orthodox Judaism can be thoroughly anti-Zionist

In fact, the earliest and most vocal anti-Zionists were orthodox rabbis and their congregations who saw the identification of a nation-state with the aspirations of their revered religion as nothing short of blasphemy.

Anti-Zionism is not the same as anti-Semitism.

They are not synonyms.  They are two separate things all together.

It’s not hard to see how the ghosts of David Ben-Gurion, Golda Meir and Menachim Begin live on in the likes of Benjamin Netanyahu, AIPAC, the Anti-Defamation League and the current crop of pro-Israel spokespeople attacking Rep. Ilhan Omar.

The US Congress is powerfully haunted by the illogic, deceit and deliberate misconceptions planted by pro-Zionist apologists.  As Mark Twain said, A lie can travel around the world and back again while the truth is still lacing up its boots.

However, that only means that those who know and speak the truth, people like Ilhan Omar, Rebecca Vilkomerson, Phyllis Bennis and numerous orthodox rabbis will need frequent encouragement never to give up.

I pray that my readers will join their ranks and defend the universal principles (applicable to all people in all nations) of human rights, dignity and justice for all, without discrimination.

 

When is Anti-Semitism Not Anti-Semitism?

Answer 1: when the alleged anti-Semite is actually defending Palestinian human rights by highlighting the oppressive, anti-Palestinian policies implemented by political Zionist parties in the state of Israel.

Answer 2: when the alleged anti-Semite is criticizing Israel’s political Zionist policies that discriminate against and overtly oppress the Palestinian people within Israel and the Occupied Territories.

Answer 3: when the alleged anti-Semite is criticizing specific actions taken by and/or specific policies advanced by a Jewish individual or a Jewish organization that intends to support and defend the anti-Palestinian policies of political Zionism in the state of Israel.

An anti-Semitic cartoon from pre-war Germany

Anti-Semitism has historically been defined as belief or behavior that is hostile, discriminatory or prejudicial against Jews as a religious or ethnic group simply because they are Jews.

Sadly, since the rise of Donald Trump and the political victories of extreme right-wing groups in Europe, the vile beast of anti-Semitism appears to be growing and spreading its hateful influence.  That is very, very troubling.

But another cause for sadness is the pernicious way in which political Zionism has deliberately muddied the waters through its longstanding propaganda tactics of confusing anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism.

It is no accident that Rep. Ilhan Omar is this very day (Wednesday, March 6, 2019) being reprimanded (though her name is not mentioned) on the floor of the House of Representative through a bi-partisan Resolution

Graffiti found by Rep. Omar in a public bathroom

condemning anti-Semitism within the halls of Congress (read the text here), at the very moment she is receiving death threats and public excoriation for her criticisms of the pro-Zionist Israel lobby in this country.

Political Zionism’s confusion of (a) conscientious antagonism against the discriminatory practices of an exclusive, ethnocratic, Jewish-only state with (b) a “belief or behavior that is hostile, discriminatory or prejudicial against Jews as a religious or ethnic group simply because they are Jews” is one of the most stone-cold, cynical exploitations of human suffering imaginable.

I’m sorry, but it’s not much different from Jack the Ripper dressing himself up as a virginal washer woman innocently roaming the London streets.  Anyone perceptive enough to see through his disguise risks immediately being tackled and beaten up as one more would be rapist.

On the one hand, the mainstream victory of Zionist polemics in manipulating the terms of public debate is a remarkable achievement in public relations, deserving of the highest accolades in the halls of modern propaganda.  As long as we remember that propaganda prefers to work for liars and con-men.  People who stand for the truth never need propaganda’s trickery.  In that respect, Josef Goebbels would be proud of what political Zionism has wrought.

On the other hand, these tactics also pave the way for government officials to strip people of their civil rights, especially the freedom of speech.  We see this trend already embedded in Israel, Canada, France and the United States where bills outlawing the BDS movement as anti-Semitic are being passed faster than a crippled snail at the French Grand Prix.

Here is the million-dollar question, however:  How is criticizing Israel any different than criticizing Russia, which is every pundit’s favorite punching bag nowadays?  It isn’t.

How is criticizing a powerful lobbying organization that devotes itself to promoting American financial aid, arms shipments, as well as domestic and international support for the state of Israel any different than criticizing comparable organizations that do the same for China or Cuba or Kazakhstan?  It isn’t.

The root of the problem is political Zionism’s successful confusion of Jewishness with Zionism in the public mind.

Unpacking that problem will require more space and time.  I will have more to say about this problem, but for now please take some time to read and/or listen to the following excellent defenses of Rep. Omar and her criticisms of the Israel Lobby in America offered by two outspoken American Jews who also criticize AIPAC, Israel and political Zionism.

Who is going to call them anti-Semites?!

Well, actually, many political Zionists will call them “self-hating Jews.” But that, too, is a discussion for another post.

First, “I’m Jewish, And I Find the Hypocrisy of Republican Islamophobes Hounding Ilhan Omar Breathtaking,” in Newsweek magazine, by Rebecca Vilkomerson, Executive Director of Jewish Voice for Peace, a staunchly anti-Zionist organization.

Here is an excerpt:

“It has never been more important to be able to distinguish between the critique—even the harshest critique—of a state’s policies (Israel,) and discrimination against a people (Jews.)  Israel does not represent all Jews.  Not all Jews support Israel. Speaking out for Palestinian human rights and their yearning for freedom is in no way related to anti-Semitism, though the Israeli government does its best to obscure that.  And yes, there are anti-Semites who support Palestinian rights. They have no place in any movement for justice, which Palestinian leaders of the movement have made very clear.”

Second, “The Democratic Party Attacks on Ilhan Omar are a Travesty,” in The Nation magazine, by Phillis Bennis, another staunch anti-Zionist Jew.

Here is an excerpt:

“Attacks on Congresswoman Ilhan Omar are rising. One of the first Muslim women elected, Omar is also black, an African immigrant, a former refugee from Somalia, and wears her hijab in the halls of Congress. She is under attack from the leaders of her own party for anti-Semitic statements she never made, for anti-Jewish prejudice she never expressed, for hatred of Jews she doesn’t hold. And the Democratic Party leadership is considering a resolution whose early text, at least, while not mentioning Omar by name, is clearly aimed at accusing her of precisely those things, despite the fact—ignored by the Speaker of the House and other top officials—that she never said or believed any of those words.

“The most recent attacks on Representative Omar are based on her answer to a broad question about anti-Semitism during a recent town hall meeting at Busboys & Poets in Washington, DC. I was there, sitting just a few feet from Omar, asking a question during the Q&A. She never said that Jews have dual loyalty. She never expressed “prejudicial attitudes” or supported “discriminatory acts” against Jews or anyone else. And yet that is the language being proposed for a Democratic Party–sponsored resolution aimed at undermining Omar’s credibility, and likely that of Rashida Tlaib, the other Muslim woman just elected to Congress. Like Omar, Tlaib, who is Palestinian, stands forthrightly in support of Palestinian rights, against the power of the pro-Israel lobby and other lobbies that use money to influence Congress to support guns, environmental destruction, and Israeli violations of human rights—and she stands against racism and anti-Semitism.”

 

 

Yes, AIPAC is Much Too Powerful

Yesterday the New York Times published an article by Sheryl Gay Stolberg entitled, “Ilhan Omar’s Criticism Raises the Question: Is Aipac Too Powerful?”

Her article offers a clear answer to the question.  You can read an excerpt

Israel’s prime minister speaks to the annual AIPAC convention

below (all emphasis is mine). You can read the full article by clinking the title above:

“When Representative Ilhan Omar landed a coveted seat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Stephen Fiske began working the phones to Capitol Hill.

“Alarmed by messaging that he saw as anti-Semitic and by Ms. Omar’s support for the boycott-Israel movement, Mr. Fiske, a longtime activist with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, began texting and calling his friends in Congress to complain. He is hoping Aipac activists will punish Ms. Omar, a freshman Democrat from Minnesota, with a primary challenge in 2020.

“On Wednesday, House Democratic leaders will mete out one form of punishment: Spurred by outrage over Ms. Omar’s latest comments suggesting that pro-Israel activists ‘push for allegiance to a foreign country,’ they will put a resolution condemning anti-Semitism on the House floor.

“”Many other people involved in the pro-Israel community, a lot of Aipac-affiliated members, there’s a lot of concern; there’s a clarion call for activism,’

A bi-partisan meeting of Congressional leaders with Israel’s prime minister, hosted by AIPAC

said Mr. Fiske, who is the chairman of a political action committee that backs pro-Israel candidates…

“’It is so disingenuous of some of these members of Congress who are lining up to condemn these questioning voices as if they have no campaign finance interest in the outcome,’ said Brian Baird, a former Democratic congressman from Washington State, who became a vocal critic of Israel, and Aipac, after a constituent of his was killed by an Israeli Army bulldozer in Gaza while protesting the demolition of Palestinian homes in 2003.

“’If one dares to criticize Israel or dares to criticize Aipac, one gets branded anti-Semitic,’ Mr. Baird added, ‘and that’s a danger to a democratic republic…’

“Mr. Fiske’s Florida Congressional Committee is one of a string of political action committees with anodyne names — NorPac in New Jersey, To Protect Our Heritage PAC outside Chicago, the Maryland Association for Concerned Citizens outside Baltimore, among others — that operate independently of Aipac but whose missions and membership align with it.

“Countless individual Aipac members and other pro-Israel donors give on their own — including megadonors like the billionaire Sheldon Adelson, a onetime Aipac backer who has started a harder-line rival to the group…

“[I]n a recent article in The Nation, M.J. Rosenberg, who worked for Aipac in the 1980s and is now a critic of the organization, described how ‘Aipac’s political operation is used precisely as Representative Omar suggested,’ including during policy conferences, when members gather ‘in side rooms, nominally independent of the main event,’ to raise money and ‘decide which candidate will get what.’…

“In 1982, Aipac activists organized to oust Paul Findley, an Illinois House member who had embraced the Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasir Arafat. The To Protect Our Heritage PAC, run by Aipac activists in Skokie, Ill., backed Richard J. Durbin, according to Marc Sommer, a PAC official.

“Two years later, Aipac activists mobilized to replace Senator Charles Percy, then the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a backer of a deal allowing the sale of sophisticated military planes called Awacs to Saudi Arabia, with the Democrat Paul Simon. Mr. Simon wrote in his memoir that Robert Asher, an Aipac board member in Chicago, asked him to run.

“The back-to-back victories established Aipac as an organization not to be trifled with. In the more than three decades since, Aipac has helped create and maintain a staunchly pro-Israel Congress…”

The Cultural Captivity of the Church:  Corporate Worship as Group Therapy

(This is the second in a series of posts that I am calling The Cultural Captivity of the Church.  You can find the first post here.)

I recently attended a Sunday morning service where the sermon topic intended to answer the question, “why do we sing together during worship?” (Check out my series about the Biblical understanding of worship vocabulary here.)

The message had three points. We sing “worship” songs together because it:

  1. Stirs our faith.
  2. Helps us to remember the truth.
  3. Connects our emotions to the truth.

At no point was there any discussion of the lyrics or the content of these songs; of the importance of understanding and reflecting on the words we are saying, and whether they are appropriate words; of how or why the words we repeat may help or actually hinder us in remembering and becoming emotionally connected to “the truth.”  (The clear implication was that we simply trust our worship leaders and sing – with more enthusiasm and raised hands, no less – whatever we are shown on the big screen.)

Don’t misunderstand me.  I do not begrudge the fact that each of these things may happen when we participate in well-planned, well-led, congregational singing with meaningful content.  And I agree that they are three important experiences when song leaders lead well.

But notice the final outcome of this three-point outline.

From beginning to end, the message is entirely self-centered.

The clear implication is that we attend congregational worship and sing praise songs purely and simply because of what it does for us.

So, I should go to church because of what I can expect to get out of it.  I worship my God because of the things that I expect him to do for me.

The further implication, then, suggests that I can determine whether or not a service “has been a good worship service” by how it makes me feel.  Did it excite me?  Did it make me feel happy, or elated, or boisterous, or whatever – fill in the blank here.

In fact, the message’s final application was a rather guilt-manipulating insistence upon louder singing from more people with many more hands lifted higher into the air.  Apparently, the outward measure of worship “acceptable to the Lord” is measured by our conformity to denominational traditions about public, physical gesturing and emotional elation.

I couldn’t help but wonder what a Roman Catholic visitor might say about the absence of their traditional kneeling benches and the fact that this church never provides time for a congregation of sinners collectively to confess their sins.

I am sorry, but devoid of any broader context reminding us of God’s holiness (see my series on holiness here), of God’s majesty and his worthiness of our adoration, such messages are nothing more than lessons in religious self-gratification. (Note – the speaker did offer a 30-second introduction about glorifying God.  But it was so brief, so hurried and so undeveloped that the speaker left the impression that God’s nature was incidental to the things he had to say about music.)

Why do I offer this Sunday sermon as my first illustration of the cultural captivity of the American church?

In 1966 Philip Rieff, a professor of sociology at the University of

Prof. Philip Rieff

Pennsylvania, wrote an extremely insightful book entitled, The Triumph of the Therapeutic: Uses of Faith after Freud (check out the 40th anniversary edition, published by ISI Books in 2006).

Reiff was a keen social critic who observed a self-destructive trend in American society.  According to Reiff, the public role of traditional, Western religion had been to function as a faith community that defended (and even enforced) moral standards and ethical expectations in society.

But American life after Freud had begun to shift dramatically.

In post-Freudian America, the purpose of all religion was purely therapeutic; that is, religion is now supposed to cure our ills, not point out our wrongs.  How will we know when that’s happened?  The church will become a principle agent in teaching us to feel good about ourselves.  Our spiritual, that is, egocentric, dreams will be realized.

Let me share a taste of Reiff as he first quotes and then critiques a British spokesman for this new “therapeutic Christianity”:

“’Any religious exercise is justified only by being something men [sic] do for themselves, that is, for the enrichment of their own experience.’  Attached as [this writer] is to the word ‘Christian,’ the writer even seeks to make Jesus out to be a therapeutic…

 “What then should churchmen do?  The answer returns clearly: become, avowedly, therapists, administrating a therapeutic institution – under the justificatory mandate that Jesus himself was the first therapeutic.  For the next culture needs therapeutic institutions…

 “Both East and West are now committed, culturally as well as economically, to the gospel of self-fulfillment…Grudgingly, [church leaders] must give way to their Western laity and translate their sacramental rituals into comprehensible terms as therapeutic devices.”

 Sadly, professor Reiff was a secular prophet.  Though he lamented this social transformation (rooted in an American abuse of Freudian psychology) as the growth of an “anti-human” culture, his predictions have been realized.

Worse yet, American Christianity jumped on board this therapeutic railway, stoked its engines to overflowing and commandeered the controls.

Rather than challenging our culture, we have surrendered to it, replacing the glorified Lamb of God with a cosmic therapist whose greatest achievement is to help us ensure our emotional well-being.

Rather than proclaim the gospel of Christ which confronts a culture of self-centeredness, we float with the prevailing current wherever it takes us, as long as it helps us fill the seats, maintain the budget and grow the church.

And to add agony to agony, we are such inept students of our times, so unreflective, so lacking in self-awareness, and so ignorant of Biblical theology and church history that many evangelical leaders are dining happily with the devil while imagining they are exorcising the demonic.