Tag: American Christianity

Tell Your Elected Officials You Want Peace in Venezuela

The Alliance for Global Justice is leading a world-wide campaign for Peace in Venezuela today, Feb. 7, 2019, in coordination with an international conference occurring in Montevideo, Uruguay.

Their letter begins:

“Today in Montevideo, Uruguay, nations from throughout the world, hosted by Uruguay and Mexico, are meeting “to establish the basis for a new dialogue mechanism that includes all the forces in Venezuela, in order to help restore peace in that country.” Shamefully absent is the Trump administration and its ordained “interim president” Juan Guaido. Instead, the Trump administration is threatening to invade Venezuela and Guaido is calling on the military to betray their oath to the Constitution. The number of voices in Congress raised against Trump’s illegal regime change policies is insignificant.”  (emphasis mine)

This link will take you to the webpage that allows you to contact your elected officials to let them know that you oppose the US backed regime change in Venezuela.

Please write your Senators and Representatives today.

The same link also reproduces an excellent article by Michael Weisbrot at The Intercept entitled,  “Trump Sanctions, Regime Change Strategy in Venezuela Can Only Cause More Violence and Suffering.”

Below is an excerpt highlighting the degree to which American imperialism serves the purposes of class warfare around the world.

Case in point:  the forces now working to unseat Maduro are primarily white and well off.  Whereas, Maduro’s supporters are overwhelmingly brown,  Indian, poor and marginalized:

“Venezuela is polarized along political lines and has been ever since Hugo Chávez was elected president in 1998 and launched his Bolivarian Revolution. The opposition’s attempt to overthrow Chávez in a military coup in 2002, aided and abetted by officials in the George W. Bush administration, as well as the opposition leadership’s vacillating willingness to accept the results of democratic elections in subsequent years laid the groundwork for many years of distrust.

“Venezuela’s political polarization, however, also intersects with a great chasm that permeates most of Latin American society: a division by class and race. As in most of the Americas, the two are correlated. In the opposition protests that have occurred over the past decade, one could see these differences in the clothes worn by pro- versus anti-government protesters and in their skin tones. The opposition crowds and their leaders have been considerably whiter and from higher income groups than Venezuelans who supported the government. In the most recent protests, there has been an increase in anti-government actions in working-class and poor areas in Caracas, but the class and racial divide between Chavistas and opposition has not gone away.

“Another line of Venezuelan polarization is the belief in sovereignty and self-determination. The Chavistas have made independence from the U.S. a centerpiece of their agenda, and their government, when it had money, pursued policies in the hemisphere that sought more independence for the region as well. The opposition and enemies of the Chavista governments, by contrast, have worked closely with the U.S. government for the past two decades — as can be seen in the coordination of this latest attempted coup. Washington’s intervention aggravates the polarization along the lines of sovereignty, and opens the opposition to charges of alignment with a foreign power — and a power that has historically played a terrible role in the region. To appreciate the animosity that this would create, think of how much ill will has been generated in the U.S. by Russian intervention in the 2016 presidential election, and multiply that by a few orders of magnitude.”

Christian Prayer vs. Magic, Part 3

(This is the third installment in a series of posts examining the differences between magical thinking and Christian prayer.)

Human beings tend to be result-oriented creatures.

I doubt that any society is more result-oriented than the United States.  As Americans, we tend to think, whether consciously or not, that the best way, the right way to do things is the way most likely to produce the desired results.

What behavior or principle is most useful for achieving my chosen goal?  That’s the question.

When I organize my life around answers to that question, I have become a utilitarian. (I know.  I’m not being precise.  I am omitting the importance of maximizing benefits for as many as possible, but this isn’t a philosophy paper.)

Utilitarianism is at the heart of magical thinking and its practices.  The goal of magic is always to achieve a desired result – to make someone fall in love with you; to have a successful business trip; to win the bet; to be cured of an illness; to receive god’s blessing by being promoted at work.

So, why not stay at home and pray for these things by yourself at the household shrine?  Didn’t the ancient spirits hear personal prayers?  Why go to the trouble of paying for a magician’s help?

Well, you pay the magician because he/she is the expert in knowing how to use the proper techniques for getting what you want.

Ancient magicians and their patrons saw the universe as if it were a cosmic harp.  The magician was the well-practiced harp player.  He understood that if you can pluck the right cosmic strings in the proper order with the correct

The alchemist’s workshop. Alchemy, the ancient precursor to modern chemistry, was an early form of magic

timing, then the world will sing the specific tune that the magician wants to hear.  Those connections are entirely predictable IF you know the necessary way to “pray,” how to cast the right spells, repeat the proper incantations, and position your body accordingly.

The New Testament book of Acts tells a brief story about a magician named Simon who offers an example of magical thinking.  It appears in Acts 8:18-20:

When Simon saw that the Spirit was given at the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he offered them money and said, “Give me also this ability so that everyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.”

Peter answered: “May your money perish with you, because you thought you could buy the gift of God with money!

Simon was thinking like a typical magician.  He assumed that when the apostle’s laid their hands on others and they received the Holy Spirit, he was witnessing an impressive new magical technique; something he hadn’t seen before.  So, he responds predictably.  Magicians regularly bought and sold their techniques to each other.  Archaeologist have uncovered libraries of books and manuscripts where descriptions of these techniques are stockpiled with instructions for how to use them effectively.

Peter’s indignant response captures a classical confrontation between two very different world-views.  He knows that the Holy Spirit’s appearance is not due to a human skill in practicing the most effective way to pray while using the correct placement of one’s fingers.

No, the apostle understands that the Holy Spirit is God’s gift given to His children because they need Him.  Christian prayer is not magic.  There is no “technique” for us to master.  The apostle was not a magician.

The most common magical techniques included:

Repetition – key words, names, titles, phrases and letters of the alphabet were said over and over again until repeated for the proper number of times.

Repetition led to persistence – asking for something repeatedly until “getting it right” was essential to striking the right chord, so to speak, so that the cosmic spirits heard the tune they were waiting for.

I suspect that Jesus had these techniques in mind when he told the disciples:

When you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. (Matthew 6:7-8)

Sometimes the effectiveness of a magical prayer was a matter of proximity.  In other words, some prayers/spells/incantations had to be spoken in the

A magical amulet with Greek inscriptions

vicinity of its subject.  Love spells, in particular, were only effective when uttered near the object of one’s affections.  Love potions, poured into the appropriate vial, had to be buried near the person’s home, preferably close to the entry way, if they were to work.

It is easy for us moderns to read about these ancient methods of playing the cosmic harp with large doses of incredulity.  But you might be surprised at how many modern, evangelical Christians have kept these magical techniques well oiled in the American Utilitarian church.

Years ago, I bumped into an old friend who had left the church we once attended together.  I asked how she was doing and if she was attending a new congregation somewhere.  She burst with excitement as she described her newfound church home which had finally taught her how to pray properly.

After years of offering what she described as “powerless prayers” for the conversion of her neighbors, she had now learned that “powerful prayers” had to be spoken immediately in front of a neighbor’s doorway.  Only when the prayers were proclaimed directly at the home’s front door could they penetrate the hearts of family members.

Folks, that is magical thinking par excellence.

Here is another example.

As a college professor, I was always happy to stay in touch with former students after they graduated.  I once received a letter with an accompanying brochure from a recent graduate asking me to pray for his involvement in a large evangelistic campaign to be launched that summer in a major U.S. city.

The brochure was emblazoned with a colorful picture of a hot-air balloon floating over the countryside.  Inside was a detailed description of the various preparations underway for the summer’s events.  Of course, the central activity was prayer, but not just any kind of prayer.

They were relying on balloon-powered prayer – I kid you not.

The brochure cited Ephesians 2:2, which explains that before following Jesus, the Ephesian Christians “followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.”

So, because the devil and his minions apparently lived up in the atmosphere according to Ephesians, and because effective, confrontational prayer must happen in close proximity to its subject, the obvious thing to do – or so they thought – was to bind the interfering demons from the wicker basket of a hot air balloon.

I don’t need to tell you how upset I became upon reading how far my former-student had been misled into unbiblical, thoroughly pagan, magical thinking about our Lord Jesus.

Christian prayer is not utilitarian; therefore, it does not depend on technique.

Christian prayer is possible because of the disciple’s personal relationship with our heavenly Father.  And because the Father cannot be manipulated, nor does he have any interest in manipulating us, there are no special techniques that make some people’s prayers more powerful than others.

Christian prayer is a personal conversation between Father and child.

What type of father tells his daughter, “I will only respond to your requests or questions if you walk into my presence backwards, repeat the words ‘daddy please, daddy please, daddy please’ in six consecutive stanzas, and then kiss me three times on each cheek.”?

I’ll tell you:  A psychotic, control-freak of a father.  But that does not describe our God.

Learning to grow in genuine prayer involves matters of spiritual development and maturity, which we don’t have space to take up here. (Again, I recommend reading my book, Knocking on Heaven’s Door: A New Testament Theology of Petitionary Prayer).  Such maturation occurs as a result of spending more and more time with Jesus, becoming more intimidate with our Father in heaven so that we increasingly share in the mind of Christ, living obedient, sacrificial lives.

Growing as a person of prayer has nothing to do with becoming a better technician.

Huge Pro-Maduro Rallies Today in Venezuela

Today the streets of Caracas and other Venezuelan cities were filled with huge crowds of pro-Maduro/anti-imperialist rallies.  A site that you will

Massive pro-Maduro/anti-imperialist rallies were held today throughout Venezuela

never see on corporate, mainstream news outlets in this country.

While American talking heads insist that Maduro is an unpopular dictator, the Venezuelan people say otherwise.

I don’t know how to copy video from Twitter, so I have supplied a few of the many links I have found today.  Take a look at the vast crowds of pro-government supporters here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Yes, president Maduro also has many opponents.  So does Donald Trump.  And….?

U.S. officials and their media puppets want the American public to believe that U.S. (military) intervention will rid Venezuela of an unpopular dictator, hated by a majority of his people.

If we all swallow that lie, then we are placated and will remain docile when we subjugate, undoubtedly with bloodshed, another nation for our own selfish, national interests.

In addition, would a real dictator allow anti-government rallies to be led by the upstart, US/CIA backed contender for his presidency?  I don’t think so.  A dictator would have arrested Guaido and his fellow opposition leaders long ago.

In any case, the one thing followers of Jesus Christ may never be is placated and docile in the face of evil, especially when that evil is being committed in our name by our country.

Citizens of God’s kingdom will stand up and say, “No!  This action is wicked and ungodly.  It is completely unacceptable.  We will not condone such evil with our silence.  We will speak and work to stop our government’s unwarranted, illegal use of force.”

Call your elected representatives and tell them, Hands Off Venezuela!

A Biblical Ode to America

A few days ago The Wall Street Journal published an expose revealing the Trump administration’s intention to remake Latin America in its own image, continuing to use the well-worn strategies of assassination, economic sanctions — which commonly lead to widespread starvation — and military intervention.

The headline and opening paragraph read, “U.S. Push to Oust Venezuela’s Maduro Marks First Shot in Plan to Reshape Latin America.”  

Recent assassination attempt against Maduro

“The Trump administration’s attempt to force out the president of Venezuela marked the opening of a new strategy to exert greater U.S. influence over Latin America, according to administration officials.”

Hence, I offer the following New Testament pesher (a contemporary interpretation) from John’s Apocalypse, chapter 18:

After this I saw another angel coming down from heaven. He had great authority, and the earth was illuminated by his splendor.  With a mighty voice he shouted:

The harvest of a US trained Salvadoran death squad

“‘Fallen! Fallen is America the Great!’
    She has become a dwelling for demons
and a haunt for every impure spirit,
    a haunt for every unclean bird,
    a haunt for every unclean and detestable animal.
For all the nations have drunk
    the maddening wine of her adulteries.
The kings of the earth committed adultery with her,
    and the merchants of the earth grew rich from her excessive luxuries.”

Then I heard another voice from heaven say:

“‘Come out of her, my people,’
    so that you will not share in her sins,
    so that you will not receive any of her plagues;
for America’s sins are piled up to heaven,
    and God has remembered the crimes of the United States.
Give back to her as she has given;
    pay her back double for what she has done.

    Pour her a double portion from her own cup.
Give her as much torment and grief
    as the glory and luxury she gave herself.
In her heart she boasts,
    ‘I sit enthroned as queen; I am the sole Super Power.
I am not a widow;
    I will never mourn.’
Therefore in one day her plagues will overtake her:
    death, mourning and famine.
She will be consumed by fire,
    for mighty is the Lord God who judges her…

..Then a mighty angel picked up a boulder the size of a large millstone and threw it into the sea, and said:

“With such violence
    the great nation of America will be thrown down,
    never to be found again.
The music of harpists and musicians, pipers and trumpeters,
    will never be heard in you again.
No worker of any trade
    will ever be found in you again.
The sound of a millstone
    will never be heard in you again.
The light of a lamp
    will never shine in you again.
The voice of bridegroom and bride
    will never be heard in you again.
Your merchants were the world’s important people.
    By your magic spell all the nations were led astray.
       In America was found the blood of prophets and of God’s holy people —  who stood to warn you but were few and far between — of ALL who have been slaughtered on the earth by your drones, your assassinations, atomic bombs, cruise missiles, special forces, cluster bombs, stealth fighters, torture programs, death squads, economic sanctions and regime changes.”

Christian Prayer vs. Magic, 2

Magic is nothing if not practical.  It focuses on immediate, temporal concerns first and foremost.

Several archaeological discoveries have unearthed large collections of magical artifacts at the bottoms of ancient wells.  For whatever reason, the chthonic deities (the spirits that dwelt below ground) were among the favorite patrons of magical practitioners, so it was common to throw magical artifacts into deep, dark places, like wells, that brought them into closer proximity with the appropriate spiritual powers.

This treasure trove of amulets, pottery shards, lead sheets, and other types of inscriptions afford some insight into the different sorts of problems motivating ancient people to consult their nearest magician.

Almost without exception, the incantations – or prayers, which is what they really were – concern requests for physical healing, business ventures, love interests, family needs, future plans, personal safety, travel, winning bets,

An ancient Jewish magical text, rolled tightly for insertion into an amulet

even cursing enemies.

In other words, the desired benefits of magic focused overwhelmingly on the material aspects of the hear and the now.

The widowed mother of a deathly ill son in John Chrysostom’s congregation (see post #1) was a stereotypical instance of the person most likely to bring prayer requests to the neighborhood witch, sorcerer, priestess or magician.

Which makes the public commendation by her famous pastor all the more significant.  She provided a brilliant example of openly, counter-cultural discipleship.

This characteristic trait of ancient magic also provides the first contrast I want to outline between magical thinking and New Testament descriptions of prayer, for the focus of Christian prayer is radically different from magic.

When you read the numerous prayers recorded in the New Testament such immediate, temporal concerns as physical healing, financial worries, business success, love interests, etc. are most noticeable by their absence.  The New Testament focus is overwhelmingly placed on the kingdom of God and the disciple’s transformation into a new creation.

Not that personal problems are explicitly excluded.  Of course not.  Paul tells the Philippians:

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. (4:6)

So, by all means, Christians are welcome to bring every issue, every personal problem to their Father in heaven, whatever it may be.

John Chrysostom’s elderly congregant was asking Jesus to heal her sick son.  And she is praised for turning only to Jesus with her fellow believers, rather than resorting to a magician for a little extra help.

The apostle Paul also seems to have prayed for deliverance from a physical limitation in his life when he mentions his many prayers that Jesus remove a “thorn in his flesh” (2 Corinthians 12:7-10).  But this passage also highlights the characteristic difference in Christian prayer even when it is for physical healing.

Paul’s request was not simply that “the thorn” be removed for the sake of improving his personal comfort or prolonging his life, but that its removal would somehow, he believed, allow him to become more effective in working for God’s kingdom.

Read through the many petitionary prayers recorded in the New Testament, especially in Paul’s letters.  There are quite a few.  I even went to the trouble of writing a book to help you with this assignment!  (Ha!  Aren’t I nice?)

You may be amazed at the consistent redirection of attention.  New Testament prayer requests focus like a laser beam on items like growth in personal holiness, obedience to the Holy Spirit, remaining blameless until Judgement Day, and becoming mature disciples who look more and more like Jesus.

The following two examples are typical:

And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God. (Philippians 1:9-11)

May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you. May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones. (1 Thessalonians 3:12-13)

I suspect that many disciples could benefit from some personal reflection on this score.

A good many of the prayer groups I’ve been a part of over the years sounded a lot more like a collection of magicians than a community of serious disciples.  And I include myself in that critique.

What is the primary focus of our prayer lives, both individually and collectively in the church?

Would an ancient eavesdropper to our prayers mark us out as practicing magicians or as devout followers of Jesus Christ?

Venezuelan Opposition Leader in Line to Become Another U.S. Puppet

Max Blumenthal and Dan Cohen have published an excellent piece of investigative journalism at the GrayZone entitled, “The Making of Juan Guaidó: How the US Regime Change Laboratory Created Venezuela’s Coup Leader.”

Remember that Juan Guaido is the young man selected by the Trump administration to be designed the real president of Venezuela, rather than the actually elected president, Nicolas Madura.

The article’s headline reads:

“Juan Guaidó is the product of a decade-long project overseen by Washington’s elite regime change trainers. While posing as a champion of democracy, he has spent years at the forefront of a violent campaign of destabilization.”

Blumenthal and Cohen have done their homework thoroughly, as always.  They detail the long history of U.S./CIA backed rebel training organizations in various parts of the world equipping people like Guaido — he an upper-crust graduate of such a program — to subvert governments that refuse to submit to U.S. foreign policy objectives.

An excerpt of the article is printed below.  I urge you to read the entire piece here.

“Guaidó is more popular outside Venezuela than inside, especially in the elite Ivy League and Washington circles,” Sequera remarked to The Grayzone, “He’s a known character there, is predictably right-wing, and is considered loyal to the program.”

While Guaidó is today sold as the face of democratic restoration, he spent his career in the most violent faction of Venezuela’s most radical opposition party, positioning himself at the forefront of one destabilization campaign after another. His party has been widely discredited inside Venezuela, and is held partly responsible for fragmenting a badly weakened opposition.

“‘These radical leaders have no more than 20 percent in opinion polls,” wrote Luis Vicente León, Venezuela’s leading pollster. According to León, Guaidó’s party remains isolated because the majority of the population “does not want war. ‘What they want is a solution.’”

But this is precisely why Guaidó was selected by Washington: He is not expected to lead Venezuela toward democracy, but to collapse a country that for the past two decades has been a bulwark of resistance to US hegemony. His unlikely rise signals the culmination of a two decades-long project to destroy a robust socialist experiment.”  (emphasis mine)

Sec. of State Mike Pompeo’s Policies “a product of ideology compounded by ignorance”

Consortium News has a recent article  by Lawrence Davidson,  emeritus professor of history, discussing the role that Mike Pompeo’s zealous evangelicalism plays in shaping his policy vision as the U.S. Secretary of State.

It’s scary, folks…very scary.

The frighteningly common notion that America’s problems can be solved by placing more “Christians” (that is, my kind of Christians; not your kind of

Pompeo talks to reporters on his recent flight to the MIddle East

Christians) in government repeatedly leads to incompetent leadership and horrific policies.

But that doesn’t stop true believers in the exceptionalism of “Christian America” from committing the same mistakes over and over again.

Secretary Pompeo is yet another example of everything that can go wrong with American evangelicalism.  His corrupted theology is affected nations around the world, exposing them to the dangers I explain, condemn and try to correct in my book, I Pledge Allegiance: A Believer’s Guide to Kingdom Citizenship in 21st Century America.

The article is entitled, “Mike Pompeo’s Deranged Foreign Policy.”  I have copied an excerpt below.  You can read the entire article here.

“U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo started out the new year—the date was Jan. 10—preaching “the truth” about U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, and for reasons we will get to below, he chose to do so at the American University in Cairo. He implied that he was particularly capable of discerning the truth because he is “an evangelical Christian” who keeps a “Bible open on my desk to remind me of God and His Word, and The Truth.” This confession indicates that Pompeo is wearing ideological glasses through which he cannot possibly see the world, much less the Middle East, in an objective fashion. We can assume that the decidedly unthinking and amoral president he serves has no problem with this prophet in the State Department because Pompeo is one of the few cabinet ministers whom President Donald Trump has not fired. 

“So what are Pompeo’s versions of foreign policy truth? In terms of his Cairo pronouncements, they are twofold. First, as is to be expected of a man of his temperament (he declared: “I am a military man” who learned his “basic code of integrity” at West Point), he has identified the true enemy of the civilized world. And, again not unexpectedly given his Christian zealotry, the enemy is of Muslim origin. It is the “tenacious and vicious” cabal of “radical Islamism, a debauched strain of the faith that seeks to upend every other form of worship or governance.

“This initial “truth” is noteworthy for what it does not take into consideration, such as traditional U.S. alliances with brutal and corrupt military or monarchical dictatorships. Any move to reduce support for such regimes in the Middle East is, in Pompeo’s view, a “misjudgment” that must have “dire results.” As long as these dictatorships oppose what Pompeo opposes, their brutality and corrupt

nature can be judged acceptable. For example, Pompeo praised his host, the military dictator of Egypt, Abdel Fattah Saeed Hussein Khalil El-Sisi, who is an

Secretary Pompeo with Egypt’s military dictator Abdel Fattah Saeed Hussein Khalil El-Sisi

archetypical example of this murderous breed of ruler. He praised El-Sisi exactly because he has joined the U.S. in the suppression of “Islamists.” The Egyptian dictator, in Pompeo’s words, is ‘a man of courage.’

“Pompeo’s second “truth” is the self-evident fact of American exceptionalism. He told his listeners that “America is a force for good in the Middle East.” Pompeo does not articulate the reference, but his claim taps into the Christian image of the U.S. as “a shining city on the hill”—a God-blessed light unto the nations. This was one of Ronald Reagan’s favorite themes. 

“As proof of American’s alleged beneficence, Pompeo makes a series of dubious claims about the behavior of the United States government. Here are a few. Comments within brackets are those of this author: 

“For those who fret about the use of American power, remember this: (No.1) America has always been, and always will be, a liberating force.” [Since World War II we have been liberating dictators from their own rebelling people.] (No.2) “We assembled a coalition to liberate Kuwait from Saddam Hussein.” [The subsequent two Gulf Wars plus the U.S. imposed sanctions regime killed at least half-a-million Iraqis.] (No.3) “And when the mission is over, when the job is complete, America leaves.” [Unless the “liberated” countries’ government wants Washington to establish bases which, it seems, they almost always do. The U.S. now has some 800 military bases in 70 countries around the world.] (No. 4) The U.S. and its allies helped destroy most of ISIS, and in the process “saved thousands of lives.”[There is no official number for the civilians killed in the so-called war on terror, of which the campaign against ISIS is but a part. However, there is no doubt that, to date, it is at least in the high hundreds of thousands. ] (No.5) “Life is returning to normal for millions of Iraqis and Syrians.” [Unless you have a really perverse definition of “normal,” this is a total fantasy.]”

Christian Prayer vs. Magic, Part 1

(This is the first in a series of posts discussing the problems of confusing Christian prayer with magical incantation.)

God’s people have always been tempted to confuse prayer with magic. Bible readers will recall the Old Testament warning that the people of Israel steer well clear of witches, sorcerers and magicians (Deuteronomy 18:10).

Such warnings admit that the the temptation is real.  Impotent temptations are easily ignored, so warnings are unnecessary.  Only powerful allurements receive their own warning signals well in advance.

Magic is one of those.

Unfortunately, human nature has not changed.  Today’s church shares the same tendencies as ancient Israel in its predisposition to blend piety with (sometimes sizeable) doses of magic, to turn intercession into incantation.

The warning against magic is not only for us to stay away from the corner-store medium, crystal ball gazer or the neighborhood séance (though it certainly includes those temptations, too), but to respect the boundary separating Christian prayer from magical practices.

Human beings have always been characterized by impatience, impetuousness and an addiction to material goods such as wealth, power and success. This triumvirate of the tawdry conspire to stir up the human desire for control over God (or whatever spiritual forces we happen to believe in).

The Christian church is no different.

In any gathering of human beings, we will always find an amalgam of the good with the bad.  In any Christian congregation, we can see maturity and immaturity, faith and unbelief, genuine prayer and unadulterated magic masquerading as devotion – often as a more attuned, more insightful, deeper brand of devotion.

In my book, Knocking on Heaven’s Door: A New Testament Theology of Petitionary Prayer (Baker, 2006), I tell the story of a fourth century church father, John Chrysostom, who publicly commends an elderly woman in one of his sermons for refusing to resort to a magician’s help as she watched her only son die of an illness.

Placing all of her faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, whom she believed was the one and only spiritual power listening intently to every one of her prayer requests, she waited to see what Jesus would do, regardless of the outcome.

Obviously, not everyone in Chrysostom’s congregation was as single-minded in their devotion as was this grieving mother.  That’s why he held her up as exemplary, the model of prayerful devotion that every other congregant should emulate.

Here’s the question:  Will we hold faithfully to Jesus, even when he says “No” to our most feverish requests?

Every Christian in the ancient world knew exactly where they might turn for a little extra help, especially in times of crisis, if their prayers remained unanswered, if their pleadings and petitions needed a power boost, some additional “uuumph” to speed them on their way to God’s throne.

Find a magician, perhaps a “Christian” magician.

There were lots of them available and plenty (or so it seems) of Christians went to them for help, especially when God’s apparent deafness put the entire process of Christian prayer in doubt.  Check out the book Ancient Christian Magic: Coptic Texts of Ritual Power (Harper, 1994) and read an ancient collection of magical “prayers” for yourself.

The 4th century pastor, John Chrysostom, was addressing a serious problem for his congregation.  It remains a serious problem for the church today.

The shape of modern Christian magic in the developed world may have changed, but the substance of Christian magic remains the same in both the developed and undeveloped nations.  Magical thinking permeates the church in a variety of ways, but it becomes especially evident in (a) the techniques that we teach people to use when they pray and (b) the role of faith that we urge them to embrace.

This is the first in a series of posts that I hope will help my readers to distinguish between Christian prayer as taught in the New Testament and magical prayers bastardized by the human penchant for quick solutions, visible results and the nurturing of a feeble faith that never wishes to be tested.

National Budgets as Weapons of Class Warfare

(This is the final installment in my series on class warfare in America and the church’s failure to address its immorality.)

Budgets are moral documents.

How we budget our money, whether personally or as a nation, is determined by our priorities.  And our priorities are an expression of our ethics, our moral concerns.  As Jesus reminds us, your treasure is invested where your love is directed (my paraphrase; Matthew 6:21; Luke 12:34).

What we care about determines where and how we spend our money.

Which raises two important questions accompanied by a few implications concerning the politics of rising deficits and the ethical significance of Christian support for conservative  politicians.

First, what does it say about this country when approximately 25 cents out

President Trump signs the Republican tax plan

of every tax dollar is spent on the military-industrial complex?

For 2019, the total amount of defense spending is budgeted to be $951.5 billion; nearly 1 trillion dollars.  The military alone will receive $688.6 billion of that money.

When that budget item is combined with various other tidbits, such as our 800 military outposts in some 70 countries around the world, and our standing as the #1 manufacturer and exporter of military armaments around the world, it is hard not to conclude that the U.S. finds its moral raison d’etre in the maintenance and expansion of the American Empire, no matter the cost in human lives.

How else can we explain our persistent, even habitual, addictive, military interventions across the globe?  According to The National Interest, the U.S. “engaged in forty-six military interventions from 1948–1991, from 1992–2017 that number increased fourfold to 188.”

Those figures are incredible.

In light of the recent revelations regarding the mind-boggling, fiscal fumblings that pass for book-keeping at the Pentagon (see post #2), I suspect that no one has the slightest idea how much money has been spent on these continuously bloody exercises in global, American muscle-flexing.

But I do know this:  between 2001 to 2014 the wars and continued U.S. military presence in Afghanistan and Iraq alone cost the U.S. $1.6 trillion.  Spending on all of America’s post-9/11 wars reached $5.6 trillion by 2018.  A large portion of that expense is made up of the interest payments required to service the debt created by those wars.

Yep, America fights its wars, in large part, with borrowed money.

So, when was the last time Congress tried to stop another U.S. military intervention, another war, or another bombing campaign because we could not afford it; because it was another “unfunded mandate” not included in the budget; because it would grossly inflate the ballooning national debt?

To the best of my knowledge, this has never happened.  We always seem to find the money necessary for more war, which speaks volumes about the blood-thirsty American character.

Second, the national debt has become the most grotesquely manipulated budget item in our national conversation…but NOT for the reasons many suppose.

Ever since Ronald Reagan implemented the voodoo economic formula of “tax cuts for the rich + massive military spending = a growing national deficit” conservatives have eagerly used their feigned hysteria – feigned because they never complain when Republican presidents are creating this debt; in fact, as with the recent Trump tax overhaul, they applaud the creation of more debt – over the national debt as an excuse to cut the budgets of government social programs like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Head Start and others.

The Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell – one of the more manipulative, cynical politicians ever to sully the halls of Congress – is

Sen. Mitch McConnell

already at it.

Not long after Congress passed both Trump’s disastrous new budget and his tax overhaul last year, Sen. McConnell began trumpeting the predictable, and wholly fallacious, lament that the growing national deficit is due to “the three big entitlement programs that are very popular, Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid.”

But his conservative mantra bemoaning our “entitlement” programs as wholly responsible for the national debt is the Republican (and weak-kneed Democratic) equivalent of Chicken Little flailing her wings and crying, “They sky is falling!”

Not only is this warning a lie, even if it were true, it would be a predictable result of our immoral budget priorities, inhuman spending decisions flaunted by Congressional conservatives every time they take out their fiscal crowbars and pull the sky down onto the heads of America’s weakest members.

Let’s think clearly about this issue:

  • America does have a growing debt, but let’s be honest. That debt grows faster during Republican administrations.  That claim is not partisanship; it’s just a fact.  (I know, analyzing national debt is complicated. I am not suggesting that budget priorities are the sole cause of the national debt.  But because conservative arguments always make it the #1 issue, I make it my primary focus.)

Sorry for the poor quality of the following image.

This is class warfare.  It is the weaponization of our national budget, using it to bludgeon the poor while enabling the rich.  It is the very behavior that God’s Old Testament prophets condemned as deserving of God’s judgement.

Some of the richest members of our society – remember that Congress is composed largely of millionaires (see post #1) – decide to give more and more of our tax dollars to support the expansion of American Empire and protect its multi-national, corporate investments around the world.  (Read The Devil’s Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America’s Secret Government, by David Talbot, for a shocking account of the CIA’s history of shameless dirty-work performed in obedience to America’s richest, corporate task-masters.)

At the same time, those millionaire politicians ask the richest Americans to contribute less and less to assist the country’s most needy members.  See here and here about the vast level of economic inequality in America and the global economy.)

Then these very same millionaires have the unmitigated gall to accuse senior citizens and the poor of inflating our debt burden and insisting that the only solution is to cut their benefits.

Really?!  Are you kidding me?

To make matters worse, most evangelicals, who overwhelmingly vote for conservative, Republican candidates, mindlessly support this God-forsaken economic hocus-pocus.

Not only is it all a tawdry display of narcissistic political theater, it is a heartless strategy to balance the budget-breaking expense of American Empire on the trembling backs of society’s weakest members; to rip food from the mouths of children whose only healthy meal comes through a school lunch program in order to shovel new, despoiling delicacies into the voracious, gaping maw of the American war machine, endlessly thirsting for more blood.

I am sorry, but I must be emphatic.

Every follower of Jesus Christ, every disciple who is serious about conforming themselves to the image of a crucified, suffering Savior, has no choice but to decry the politics of America’s ever-expanding global warfare in the cold-hearted pursuit of America’s intensifying class warfare.

Voting matters.  Why do most evangelical voters use theirs to oppress the poor at home and to wreak havoc around the world?

CBN Christian News Misrepresents the Issues While Advocating for the Rich

CBN Christian News has recently posted an article that grossly misrepresents Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’s suggestion about increasing the marginal tax rate.

The article is written by Stephen Moore, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation (more on this later).  It is entitled, “Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s 70% Tax Rate Won’t Work.”  Sadly, it is another example of the many ways

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

in which so-called Christian journalism regularly fails on both counts – failing to provide either real journalism or a distinctively Christian analysis.

Like so many others,  Mr. Moore is too busy carrying water for the wealthy powers-that-be to offer his readers anything beyond the standard conservative, Reaganomics talking-points.  (See my first post in my series on Class Warfare in America).

Since I recently wrote a post discussing American taxation and Ocasio-Cortez’s suggestion, I thought it would be worthwhile to use this CBN article for another exercise in how to think critically while reading the news.

There are many things that could be discussed here but I will limit myself, first, to dissecting three specific instances of misrepresentation and falsehood.  Second, I will then pull back for a broader discussion of the political origins to Mr. Moore’s commentary.

Three Specific Points:

First, throughout his entire article Mr. Moore’s tone works to conjure up the conservative bogey-man of a predatory federal government hell-bent on confiscating as much of the reader’s money as possible through higher taxes.

Since, his writing is a piece of commentary, I can let Moores’s overt subjectivity slide.  (His obvious disdain for Democrats reeks through every sentence, but he is entitled to his opinion.  I am no fan of the Democratic party, either).

I’ll give just one example:  Moore describes Ocasio-Cortez’s suggestion as “cheery talk of returning to confiscatory tax rates.”

“Cheery talk”?  Notice that Moore’s opponents can’t be taken seriously.  Their heads are in the clouds.

But we can’t forget that all taxation is “confiscatory.”  Should no one pay any taxes at all?  Many libertarians will answer Yes to that question.  But I am not a libertarian.

Taxation is a part of the social contract in which we all participate, allowing our government to provide the numerous services benefiting us all.  It is not a confiscation but a contribution to the common good and the general welfare of the country, of our communities.

Choosing to use that negative word, confiscate, is a rhetorical strategy intended to appeal to every reader’s defensive, selfish, inner-Scrooge.  Sadly, it works, all too well.  Even among the readers of “Christian news.”

Only the selfish – and study after study shows that the billionaire class has a very high percentage of those folks – begrudge assisting their neighbor (who needs the fire department when his house catches fire) or paying their own way (for wear and tear on the roads and highways they drive every day) by paying their share of taxes.

Returning to my main point, what cannot be forgiven, however, is Moore’s clear suggestion that a 70% tax rate would take 70 cents out of every dollar earned by every taxpayer in America.  He knows better, but stoking this lie works to the advantage of his propaganda.

In other words, Mr. Moore is lying and he knows it.  Unfortunately, many readers will not understand that this entire discussion is about marginal tax rates, and Moore has no interest in clarifying this confusion.  He is more interested in sowing fear and anger than he is in educating his readers, so he fails to mention this important fact.

Check out the following sites for easy explanations of how marginal taxation works (here, here and here).  The fact is, only a portion of the millionaire’s/billionaire’s highest bracket of income would be taxed at 70% (or 90% or 50% or whatever); much of it would not.  And the vast majority of Americans would never come anywhere near that higher bracket, remaining unaffected by the marginal tax increase.

Mr. Moore knows all of this.

He is purposely misleading his readers by feeding us misinformation and falsehoods.  This, folks, is utterly unacceptable in any source touting its “Christian perspective.”  It is the most un-Christian, even anti-Christian, sort of writing one can imagine.

In fact, I will say this:  it is worse than printing something overtly Satanic, because Mr. Moore is deliberately abusing his readers’ trust by planting lies which he knows will manipulate his audience into supporting a position built on falsehood.

Now, THAT, my friends is a truly demonic strategy, if ever there was one.

Second, Moore repeats a favorite argument of Reaganomics fans by claiming that Reagan’s tax cuts, and the majority of subsequent tax cuts, increased the national revenue (with no citations for personal follow-up).  In other words, the government gains more money, not less, when it cuts taxes on the rich, according to Moore.

But recall economist Paul Krugman’s claim about “reputable economists”

Professor Paul Krugman

in his article endorsing Ocasio-Cortez’s suggestion:

We need to do some research here.  As luck would have it, I already did some.

Check out this detailed analysis and discussion of the Kennedy, Reagan and Bush tax cuts and their effect on the U.S. economy (at econdataus.com with copious citations and data for follow-up, unlike Moore’s article).  It is fascinating.  Or you can jump down to the excerpted summary below:

“The argument that the near-doubling of revenues during Reagan’s two terms proves the value of tax cuts is an old argument. It’s also extremely flawed. At 99.6 percent, revenues did nearly double during the 80s. However, they had likewise doubled during EVERY SINGLE DECADE SINCE THE GREAT DEPRESSION! They went up 502.4% during the 40’s, 134.5% during the 50’s, 108.5% during the 60’s, and 168.2% during the 70’s. At 96.2 percent, they nearly doubled in the 90’s as well. Hence, claiming that the Reagan tax cuts caused the doubling of revenues is like a rooster claiming credit for the dawn.”

I won’t fault Moore for having a different interpretation of the economic data, but I can fault him for: (a) not citing the sources for his argument in a way that allows the reader to check it on her own; (b) failing to mention that there is a serious debate on the issue among economists; and (c) leaving the impression that all those on the opposite side of the fence are ignorant, dopey-eyed dreamers out of touch with reality and ignorant of history.

Finally, strangely enough, Moore dismisses the idea of taxing billionaires at higher rates by claiming that in the bad old days of higher taxes:

“IRS data confirms that almost no rich people paid those 70, and 80 and 90% tax rates. They hired lawyers and lobbyists to escape paying the taxes, or they stashed their money away in exotic tax-exempt shelters or bought tax-free municipal bonds to avoid forking over the majority of their income to the IRS.”

This is a strange way to bolster his argument.  In fact, it undercuts his point.

His claims may be true, I don’t know.  But, if so, the obvious solution is not to lower taxes on the rich (that is like saying “since a speed limit does not prevent drivers from speeding, we should do away with the speed limit”) but to impose stricter regulation on the many ways created by billionaires for hiding their wealth – methods, by the way, that are not available to the poor or the average taxpayer.

The Author and the Bigger Picture:

Where do Mr. Moore and his article come from?  To answer that question, we need to step back and look at the broader political context of this taxation debate.

For a number of decades, the conservative movement (including Libertarians like the Koch brothers) have brilliantly implemented a strategy

US President George W. Bush speaks on the war on terror 01 November 2007 at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, DC.  AFP PHOTO/Mandel NGAN.

for changing – even controlling – the terms of economic and political debate in this country.

A key ingredient in that strategy was the creation of the think tank.  Think tanks are “academic” institutions that employ researchers to produce books, articles and position papers legitimizing the conservative worldview held by the wealthiest, conservative Americans.

The Brookings Institute, the American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation are three examples of U.S.-based think tanks.  Remember that our author, Mr. Moore, works for the Heritage Foundation.

These think tanks are bankrolled by wealthy, conservative donors for the sole purpose of influencing public debate to their own political and economic advantage.  Of course, there is nothing wrong with wealthy donors contributing to a research institution…as long as their money does not control the results of the institution’s research.

Once that shift occurs, it’s no longer doing research but producing propaganda.

These think tanks are not intended to promote academic freedom.  Just the opposite.  Their researchers, like Mr. Moore, are paid for one purpose and one purpose only:  to produce “data” and to make arguments that advance the economic and political interests of their wealthy, conservative sugar-daddies.

So, now that we know who Mr. Moore is, where his ideas come from, and what he is being paid to do, his arguments and information are not the least bit surprising.  Neither are his lies, manipulation and misinformation.  He is a hired gun, paid handsomely to promote trickle-down Reaganomics to the general public, by any means necessary.

I wish I could say it is surprising to see a supposedly Christian news outlet like CBN promoting and benefiting from what is, in effect, a public swindle by a high-priced conman.  But, alas, this has become not only the way of the world, but the way of modern, American evangelicalism.