Rosner is a typical apologist for political Zionism, evincing all the heartlessness and ideological blindness we have come to expect from such defenders of the indefenseless.
Mr. Robinson provides a text-book lesson in how to read as a critical thinker. He does a marvelous job of deconstructing Rosner’s propaganda line-by-line.
I encourage to read the entire piece. It will reward your effort many times over. Just click on the title above. Thanks.
Last week’s school shooting in Santa Fe, Texas brings the count to 22. That’s right. Five months into 2018 and there have already been 22 school shootings (slightly more than 1 mass shooting per week) in America.
Widen the circle beyond our schools and there have been 101 mass shootings in this country so far this year, leaving 202 dead and 473 injured (see MassShootingTracker). And these figures do not include the many additional causes of gun injuries and deaths such as suicide, police shootings and accidents. According to the research organization Gun Violence Archive, there have been 22,257 gun related incidents in 2018, including 5,511 deaths and 10,071 injuries. Those numbers include 1,000 teenagers, 238 preteen children and 646 accidental shootings.
Yet, many public officials continue to insist that guns have nothing to do with this problem. In fact, as they feed themselves at the NRA corruption-trough of gun manufacturer campaign contributions, discounts, pay-offs and lobbying efforts, these folks want us to believe that the solution to mass shootings and other gun deaths is to sell MORE guns to more people.
But this is not surprising. It is exactly what I expect lobbyists for the arms industry to say. (See me earlier post on guns, shootings and the NRA here).
American politicians and makers of public policy love guns, and all the cash that comes with it, more than they care about Americans. It is a pop culture form of idolatry.
In the March 14, 2018 edition of the Christian Century, Peter W. Marty penned an article entitled “Guns are Americans’ Golden Calf.” Below is an excerpt:
President Trump and his son being introduced at this year’s NRA convention, 2018.
“We’re in golden calf country here, elevating a loyalty to the gun over a fidelity to God’s desire for abundant life. More than a hunting or safety device, the gun has become an object of reverence. We bow in devotion at its altar. ‘Sacred stuff resides in that wooden stock and blued steel,’ onetime NRA president Charlton Heston said. And when a gun becomes an idol, it demands loyalty even if it regularly disappoints. Like other small g gods that offer false consolation, a gun’s guarantee of ultimate safety and security is a myth.”
Unfortunately, people calling themselves Christians are no more immune to idolatry than anyone else. If anything, church-goers have even more ways to express this human penchant for worshiping false gods than do atheists and other non-religious folk. Believers have to navigate the many run-of-the-mill secular temptations to idolatry as well as the many corrupting excesses of religious practice and aberrations of faith.
Vice-President Mike Pence speaking at the recent NRA convention, 2018.
When those two streams of temptation flow together and succeed in sweeping the church away in its turbulent currents (always with a heavy undertow), well, the resulting idolatry is especially repugnant.
Idolatrous, Fake Christianity, Exhibit A – Recently a friend of mine showed me the notes of a church council meeting approving its newly minted plan for well-armed, congregational security guards at its corporate gatherings. Church members were selected for the necessary training in order to become body guards for the Body of Christ. Can there be such a thing as a body guard of Christ? I don’t think so.
In how many different ways can you say apostasy?
Asking for church elders and deacons to arrive packing heat whenever the congregation gathers for corporate worship is one of the grossest expressions of anti-faith I can imagine.
Unless you are part of a church with an extremely high public profile for its incredibly effective, vocal, activist agitation uprooting America’s military-industrial-intelligence-surveillance-corporate media-war mongering empire, then arming your church members reflects an astonishing level of paranoia.
We are all more likely to be struck by lightning than we are to be shot in
This flier promises a free AR-15 giveway to people who attend the March 23 service at Grace Baptist on Fourth Avenue in Troy.
church by an anti-religious misanthrope – unless you are shot accidentally by one of the armed elders during an over wrought hymn-sing.
I know that the church’s leadership team will undoubtedly defend itself by
pleading marriage and parenthood. That is, as leaders of their households, these men must remain vigilant in protecting their families against surprise attack in an increasingly violent America.
There is so much wrong with this picture that it would take a small book to address the overflow of theological, Biblical, pastoral and practical disasters revealed by any plan to arm the local church. I will touch on 3 issues but focus on only the last one.
First, the ancient, Christian justification for using violence in self-defense finds its roots in the Just War Tradition that arose after Christianity’s embrace by the Roman Empire. I discuss the many Biblical mistakes committed by that tradition in chapter 9 (“Does Kingdom Service Permit Military Service?”) of my new book, I Pledge Allegiance: A Believer’s Guide to Kingdom Citizenship in 21st Century America. Please take a look. You will find it as helpful as it is interesting.
I also encourage anyone interested in this topic to read John Howard Yoder’s classic little book, What Would You Do? If a Violent Person Threatened to Harm a Loved One…. A violent reaction to violent threats is the default position for fallen human nature. Yoder will help you to think more clearly, more practically and more Christ-like about non-violent ways (and thus more Christ-like ways) of responding.
Second, one of my seminary professors, who was also the pastor of a large city church, would regularly complain about Christianity’s “idolatry of the nuclear family.” Aided and abetted by popular ministries such as James Dobson’s “Focus on the Family” and similar programs, many people in the church have replaced obedience to Jesus with obligations to one’s family.
We excel at finding seemingly unimpeachable, family-friendly ways of abandoning Jesus. So we can conveniently ignore our Lord’s words when he says things like this:
“Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” (Matthew 10:37-38)
“If any man come to me, and does not hate his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brothers, and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. And whosoever does not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:26-27)
Regardless of the details, Jesus’ central point is clear: disciples must have greater devotion to Jesus than to the dearest members of their families, including spouses and children.
The third and final point is intimately connected to the last one above. Faithfulness to Jesus requires every disciple to follow in his footsteps, including his submissive acceptance of suffering and death, for him/herself as well as others, including parents, spouses and children.
“Anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:37)
“If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.” (Mark 8:34-35)
Hear it again. Whoever wants to save his/her life will lose it, but whoever loses his/her life for me and for the gospel will save it. Affluent Christianity’s obsession with self-preservation and the avoidance of suffering arises from a false gospel. A ‘gospel’ that can never save anyone.
Carrying a gun into the body of Christ, for whatever reason, is a grotesque act of unbelief and idolatry. In fact, carrying a gun anywhere and thinking that you are ready, willing and able to use it against another human being, is the quintessential act of an anti-disciple.
Fortunately, Jesus still loves and can save even anti-disciples, just as he can save all of us faithless believers. But relying on firearms to protect members of the body of Christ remains a consummate act of faithless unbelief, all the same.
Jesus models faithful kingdom living when he goes to the cross without attempting to defend himself. He explicitly tells every would-be follower that we all must be as non-violent and ready to die as he was.
“If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.” (Mark 8:34-35)
Not only did Jesus not try to defend himself, neither did he defend his disciples, knowing full well that they too might be subject to arrest and execution as his co-conspirators. In fact, Jesus quickly put a stop to Peter’s misguided efforts at defending both the Lord and himself, insisting that he wanted nothing to do with violence for any reason at all (reflect on Matthew 26:51-56).
Jesus praises his followers when/if they are ever killed or injured as a result of belonging to him. He promises that they will be blessed many times over in eternity. What sort of Christian is hell-bent-for-leather on making sure that Jesus’ promises can never be fulfilled, not for them, not for others, and especially not for a spouse or child?
The Answer: a fake Christian. An idolatrous Christian. An anti-disciple who has bowed the knee to America’s Golden Calf of guns.
Scot McKnight has a good blog post today criticizing Israel’s brutality in Gaza this past month. He also takes the opportunity to respond to his “hate mail” (why don’t I ever receive hate mail?) from fellow Christians (why is anyone claiming to be a Christian sending hate mail?) condemning him for failing to support Israel as he should.
Scot’s response is spot on. Here is an excerpt, but I do recommend reading it all at his blog, Jesus Creed:
“It was a shameful thing for evangelical pastors to be celebrating the opening of the embassy in Jerusalem while just a few miles away the Israeli army was killing dozens of Palestinian protesters against Israeli policies. (The death toll stood at 60 as of Tuesday, Palestinian officials said, and more than 1,700 people had been hospitalized.) It’s shameful, not only because they use their theology to make the moving of the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem a matter of “eternal” significance, but also because they refuse to hold the Netanyahu government accountable for Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, some of whom are themselves evangelical Christians.
“Do I fear being cursed by God for saying that it was a shameful thing for these two pastors to join in the celebration at the opening of the Jerusalem embassy? No, because those who so easily invoke that ancient promise fail to think about what it covers. I do want God to “bless” Israel, as did the ancient prophets who regularly delivered divine messages to their compatriots.
“But those prophets never called for an uncritical acceptance of whatever happened to be the current policies and practices of Israel’s leaders. Here, for example, is a typical one of those ancient messages from the Lord: “So I will come to put you on trial. I will be quick to testify against sorcerers, adulterers and perjurers, against those who defraud laborers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive the foreigners among you of justice” (Malachi 3:5)…”
Kierkegaard is often criticized for being too individualistic and not having sufficient appreciation for the importance of community. I disagree.
Kierkegaard’s book, A Literary Review, discusses a contemporary novel, Two Ages. Without getting into the details of the book’s historical background, Kierkegaard uses his book review as an opportunity to unmask what he sees as the social dangers of mass movements. Kierkegaard refers to such movements as “the herd.”
The herd finds its power in a “leveling” process; that is, in its insistence on uniformity, keeping everyone scripted, on message, thinking, saying and doing only that which is approved by the herd.
The herd’s efforts at leveling always work to destroy individualism. And, I would agree with Kierkegaard in saying that an especially powerful place for leveling is the Christian Church.
In contrast, Kierkegaard defends the vital importance of courageous individuals who will stand up for what they believe is right and act accordingly, especially when driven by Christian conviction.
The principled individual is more important than the largest, unprincipled herd, for herds are controlled by the whims and fancies of “abstractions” like the press and popular opinion.
Therefore, the principled individual does not hesitate to act, to do what is right, all alone, if necessary.
The principled individual’s greatest enemy arises from within, appearing in the form of “reflection.”
Reflection, in this context, involves overthinking a situation so that “due consideration” stalls the impetus to action. Instead of standing up for what it right, the “reflective” person remains seated because taking a stand might prove irrational before knowing all the facts, all the possible consequences, exploring all the alternatives, etc., etc., etc.
Kierkegaard’s social critique is as relevant today as in his own day. I believe that it is especially urgent advice for anyone in the American church, particularly in so-called evangelical churches, who wants to follow Jesus faithfully:
“The idolized positive principle of sociality in our time is the consuming, demoralizing principle, which in the thralldom of reflection transforms even virtues into vitia splendida [i.e. glittering vices]. And to what can this be due other than to a disregard for the singling out of the religious individual before God in the responsibility of eternity? When terror begins here, one seeks comfort in company, and reflection then captures the individual for life…
“Stopping it [i.e. the leveling process] is possible only if, individually singled out, the individual achieves the fearlessness of religiousness…
“…only he [sic] becomes an essential human being in the full-bodied sense of equality…for if the individual is unwilling to learn to be satisfied with himself in the essentiality of religiousness, before God rather than ruling over the world; unwilling to be satisfied with ruling over himself…if he is unwilling to learn to be inspired by this as the noblest he should achieve because it expresses equality before God and equality with all men, then he will not escape reflection…”
In part 1 of this series covering the Biblical concept of holiness, I (hopefully) explained how understanding holiness begins by understanding the unique nature and character of God. Holiness is fundamentally a theological category. God is essentially holy as the One who is Wholly Other, incomparable, the one and only God.
Part 2 then explained the resulting relational dimension of holiness. People and places may become holy when God comes into contact with them. Ancient Israel is called a holy nation because God enters into a covenant relationship with them and only them.
Now, in part 3, the stage is set for understanding the ethical dimension of holiness. Behavioral holiness, being set apart, being different, is the most common, popular definition of holiness. And behavior is certainly an important component of holiness, but notice how much Biblical groundwork has been required for us to construct the necessary framework for understanding this ethical dimension properly.
We are finally in a position to grasp the apparent strangeness of a text like Leviticus 20:7:
“Consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am the Yahweh your God. Keep my decrees and follow them. I am Yahweh, who makes you holy.”
What’s the deal? If the Israelites became holy when God brought them into the covenant (i.e. I am Yahweh who makes you holy), then why do they need a warning about making themselves holy (i.e. consecrate yourselves and be holy)? Are they already holy or not?
How can these two seemingly contradictory statements stand side-by-side in the same sentence?
“You are holy, so you must become holy.” “Make yourselves holy because you are holy.”
It sounds contradictory…UNLESS you understand the multiple levels of meaning connoted by this word – holy/holiness.
Because our holy God is distinctive and unique (part 1), when he brings others into relationship with himself (part 2), he requires that they, too, become distinctive and unique like him (part 3). So, Yahweh commands the Israelites:
“Consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am Yahweh your God. Keep my decrees and follow them.”
This is a repeated refrain throughout the Old Testament, especially in the book of Leviticus, sometimes called the book of holiness. Here is a short list of further examples:
“I am Yahweh your God; consecrate yourselves and be holy because I am holy.” (Leviticus 11:44)
“I am Yahweh who brought you up out of Egypt to be your God; therefore, be holy because I am holy.” (Leviticus 11:45)
“Be holy because I, Yahweh your God, am holy.” (Leviticus 19:2)
God emphatically presents himself as the model of holiness. For the Old Testament, the process of making oneself holy, of consecrating oneself, entailed obedience to the Torah, that is, the code of behavior given to Moses for members of the Sinai Covenant.
The Torah included a wide variety of elements that we would see as both cultic/ritual (e.g. what kinds of clothes to wear) and ethical (e.g. do not steal), although no self-respecting Israelite would have considered making a division between ritual and ethics. As far as Moses, Aaron and every other Israelite were concerned, it was all ethics.
God’s people were expected to live unique, distinctive lives because their God was/is a unique, distinctive Person. They were to be set apart just as the eternal Creator is set apart from his temporal creation. And a central component of God’s holiness is his unique, divine character distinguished by personality traits like justice, righteousness, faithfulness, mercy, compassion, patience and love, etc.
Yes, God emphatically presents himself as the model of holiness, but God’s people cannot make themselves Wholly Other. (Please, don’t try. It gets really creepy.) But we can obey God’s call to emulate his character, to live among others in the same way that he chooses to live with us.
Thus, for God’s people to display his character, to make ourselves holy as God is holy, means that we too must live lives of justice, righteousness, faithfulness, mercy, compassion, patience and love – “being perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48).
So, holiness does eventually become a matter of ethics.
In a world characterized by injustice, unrighteousness, faithlessness, lack of mercy, absence of compassion, impatience and hatred, reflecting the holiness of God’s character will set God’s people apart as a unique community; a stark contrast to the status quo around us. At least, that is the goal.
I believe that understanding this 3-step unfolding of holiness is crucial to a proper, Biblical Christian ethics. By rooting our view of holiness positively in God and who God is, we are better able to cultivate a positive, rather than a negative, approach to godly behavior.
Typically, when conversations about holiness begin (rather than conclude, as I do here) with ethics we end up thinking negatively. Becoming holy is a matter of what we don’t do. “I don’t drink, and I don’t chew, and I don’t go with girls who do!” as the old saying goes. Being different from the world around us becomes a primarily negative concern focused on prohibitions; a matter of not associating, not doing, not participating, not sharing in the concerns or behaviors of those around us.
Certainly, abstaining from evil is important if holiness is to mean anything. But making these sorts of prohibitions the entry point into holiness is wrong Biblically and theologically. It, therefore, leads to any number of wrong-headed, practical mistakes. (Perhaps, most significantly, it has a horrible tendency to blind God’s people to the continued reality of God’s Image in every human being, no matter their misbehavior. But this is an important issue for another day.)
For our purposes in this post, I will only mention one practical mistake: a prohibitive view of holiness invariably teaches us to view life principally in terms of what we don’t do, who we aren’t. That is, we are not like them.
That is grossly backwards and upside-down. Holiness is intended positively to express who we are. We are God’s people! And so, we are like our God in the sorts of things we do, in how we love others, show mercy, remain faithful, always being compassionate and patient.
Thus, holy behavior is rooted in our identity as sinners saved by God’s grace. Only in a derivative sense is holiness concerned with not being like others. Holiness is first and foremost concerned with being like Jesus, our Lord and Savior in the flesh.
Naturally, anyone who truly wants to live like Jesus will find any number of abhorrent thoughts, feelings and actions to avoid, but that is only the shadow-side of holy living. The substance of a holy life is not determined by the shadows but by the beautiful light of God’s own presence and by heeding the Spirit’s call to “fix our eyes on Jesus” (Hebrews 12:2; see 3:1).
With our lives fixed on following Jesus, we avoid the shadows without even trying because we will be too busy living out the grace, mercy, righteousness, faithfulness, love and compassion of our crucified Lord.
See the difference?
OK, there has to be a 5th installment. Next time: The Meaning of Holiness, Part 3B, “Sinners in the Hands of a Forgiving God”
Gideon Levy of HAARETZ continues to speak as the prophetic conscience for an inhumane, Zionist Israel. Today, one day after the Gaza Land Day protests, he writes a lament, a funeral dirge, for the final burial of his nation’s conscience.
I have excerpted his Opinion piece below, but please be sure to read the whole thing. It merits pondering and prayers for our humanity.
He predicts, correctly I believe, only dark days ahead, unfolding predictably from the dark decades past.
The verdict of “heartless persecutor, shameless executioner,” has been passed on the American establishment as well as Israel. America funds Israel’s military, provides their weaponry and then bites its tongue whenever Israel goes on another blood-curdling rampage, leaving shredded, dismembered Palestinian bodies in its wake.
None of us should have any time to waste on the self-righteous debates about “even-handedness,” on the importance of seeing both sides of this “complicated story.” It is meaningless platitude advanced by shallow thinkers that only obscures the truth of history.
I have no more time for David Gregory’s condescending smirks on CNN as he so graciously allows Diana Buttu a few moments (though he can’t stop from interrupting) to “share her perspective” on the Gazan slaughter.
Thank you CNN. A statement of facts is only a “perspective.”
I have no more time for the arrogance of Thomas Friedman and his ilk (in the White House and beyond) who continue to blame the victims as if they were mindless robots programmed by Hamas master-minds, with no personal agency and too bloody impatient to wait for the Utopia that could be Gaza if only the people would stop shitting in their own nest. (Has Friedman never cracked open a book not written by a propagandist for political Zionism?)
The moral insouciance of these self-important talking heads is infuriating.
Remember when Friedman urged the Palestinians to mimic Gandhi and adopt his methods of non-violence? (If you don’t remember, I have written about Friedman’s piece with links to his article here.) From his over-stuffed office chair, Friedman urged Palestinians, young and old, to sacrifice their lives for freedom, promising a compassionate Israeli response.
We have all now seen how Israeli compassion deals with massive non-violent marches.
But even worse is the evangelical/fundamentalist obsession with an embassy in Jerusalem while, on the very same day, more than 60 unarmed people are assassinated, and thousands more maimed for life, by the most immoral army in the world.
The silence of American evangelicalism screams an eternal accusation, “Here we are, a godless people; bloated by comfort; hardened by selfishness; ignorant by choice; disinterested by design…and guilty as hell.”
“When will the moment come in which the mass killing of Palestinians matters anything to the right? When will the moment come in which the massacre of civilians shocks at least the left-center? If 60 people slain don’t do it, perhaps 600? Will 6,000 jolt them?
“When will the moment come in which a pinch of human feeling arises, if only for a moment, toward the Palestinians? Sympathy? At what moment will someone call a halt, and suggest compassion, without being branded an eccentric or an Israel hater?
“When will there be a moment in which someone admits that the slaughterer has, after all, some responsibility for the slaughter, not only the slaughtered, who are of course responsible for their own slaughter?
“Sixty people killed didn’t matter to anyone – perhaps 600 would? How about 6,000? Will Israel find all the excuses and justifications then also? Will the blame be laid on the slain people and their “dispatchers” even then, and not a word of criticism, mea culpa, sorrow, pity or guilt will be heard?…
“The truth is that Israel is well prepared to massacre hundreds and thousands, and to expel tens of thousands. Nothing will stop it. This is the end of conscience, the show of morality is over. The last few days’ events have proved it decisively. The tracks have been laid, the infrastructure for the horror has been cast. Dozens of years of brainwashing, demonization and dehumanization have borne fruit. The alliance between the politicians and the media to suppress reality and deny it has succeeded. Israel is set to commit horrors. Nobody will stand in its way any longer. Not from within or from without….
“We’re already there. That moment is here. Rwanda is coming to Gaza and Israel is celebrating. Two million human beings we’ve imprisoned already, and their fate matters to no one. The pictures that occasionally flicker of children without electricity and parents without water, of crippled people being shot to death and of leg amputees, all children of refugees from the 1948 disaster we landed on their heads.
“What has that to do with us? It’s Hamas’ fault. Sixty individuals killed in one day, and not a shred of sorrow has been sighted in Israel. From now on, it never will be.”
To read the entire Haaretz opinion piece, go here.
“Protesters in Gaza lobbing rocks and Molotov cocktails or cutting through the fence are far from the textbook definition of “peaceful protesters” engaging in civil disobedience.
“But neither do they present a lethal threat to 13 battalions of Israel army forces.
“Indeed, to call every teenage protester a terrorist recruited by Hamas bent on murdering Israelis flies in the face of truth. For Jared Kushner to say, in the day’s sole mention of the day’s accumulating death toll, that Gazan protestors were “part of the problem, and not part of the solution” is to fail to recognize that Gazans themselves – yes, flesh and blood humans living just over hour southwest of Tel Aviv – must be part of the solution.
“The feeling of being forgotten and caged in is part of the reason they are protesting, most of them with full knowledge that reaching the homes of their grandparents, rusty old keys in hand, is a symbolic show rather than a realistic goal.
“Do we really imagine this so-called “March of Return” to be an existential threat to the strongest army in the Middle East? Demonstrators might be wild with rage and even psyched up by Hamas slogans, but they’re not armed and equipped to take on Israel.
“Are we to the point where the IDF is more worried about the optics of setting a precedent – a Gazan reaching Israeli soil – than the loss of life?
“Hamas may as well be sending young demonstrators into a firing squad. But does that mean Israel has no choice but to keep pulling the trigger?”
Ilene Prusher is a journalist, columnist and author. She teaches journalism at Florida Atlantic University. Twitter: @ileneprusher
There appear to be no limits to either Israel’s lust for Palestinian blood or American indifference to an ally’s crimes against humanity.
A young boy overcome by tear gas.
Of course, the ongoing crime scene is Gaza.
Today alone, Israeli soldiers have killed 58 people, bringing the total death toll thus far to 107. 2,700 people, men, women and children, were seriously wounded today, bringing the total number of crippled and maimed to 12,000.
One of Monday’s victims.Israeli civilians watch the protests and the shootings as sightseers.
Not one single Israeli soldier has been injured or killed by these unarmed protesters. In fact, so sleight is the “threat” that for some Israeli civilians, watching Palestinians get shot inside the Gaza fence has become a leisure time activity. Pack up a picnic box and relax for a few hours while cheering for the bravery of “the world’s most moral army.”
Please, let those figures sink in.
107 people dead. 2,700 additional human beings wounded. Why?
Gazan town after Israeli bombing
Because they want to be treated like human beings. They want freedom of movement; to decide for themselves where they will live; to gain an education and seek employment as they please; to carry themselves with dignity without the constant fear of being shot by an irritated Israeli sniper.
Palestinian refugees 1948
Tomorrow the massacre may become even worse. Tuesday is Nakba Remembrance Day. May 15, 2018 will mark the 70th anniversary of the mass expulsion of Palestinians from their homes by Israeli military forces in 1948.
I have heard that there may be a plan for the protesters to throw themselves en masse against the prison fence confining them to Gaza.
I have no idea if this is true. Norman Finkelstein reported that he was told by leaders in Gaza that it may be a possibility.
Please pray that this will not happen. Pray that the leaders of these protests will decide against that action, if they haven’t already (if it was ever a real possibility). — (And NO, the Gaza marches have NOT been organized by Hamas, nor is Hamas using them for “terrorism.” This is pure propaganda. The council of organizers for these marches has one Hamas representative, where he is outnumbered by numerous other community representatives.)
Remember that this famous fencethat Israel guards so fervently is not a border crossing. It is not an internationally recognized territorial, state or national boundary. It is a prison fence.
The people of Gaza are not a population of illegal aliens hoping to immigrate into Israel. They are 1.8 millionprisoners, confined against their will to 141 square miles of territory. Barred from a place they once called home.
Gaza is one of the most densely populated pieces of real estate on the planet. Israel makes life insufferable there.
Gaza is a prison. Israel is the jailer. The precious “fence” keeps Gazans in a cage like animals. Who wouldn’t want out?
If you have absolutely no control over your manner of living, and you have no hope of planning for a better future because everything about your world is controlled by the indiscriminate violence of a heartless occupying power, then maybe dying as a martyr in the cause of winning freedom for the next generation is the best way, the only way, to give your life meaning.
I can understand that.
I bet you could too if you found yourself imprisoned in a place like Gaza.
Remember this when you next hear Israeli and American propagandists demonize the people of Gaza for their “failure to value life.”
As I read about the many poor, abused victims of America’s broken justice system in Just Mercy, I was reminded of stories told to me by one of my dearest friends. Let’s call him John. John is a convicted felon, now out on parole.
If I introduced John to you, you would quickly come to know one of the kindest, gentlest men you would ever meet. A tall, gentle giant with a ready smile, John would give you the shirt off his back if you asked for it.
Yet, somewhere in his early to mid-twenties, John’s brain began to malfunction with the defective neural-circuitry of the illness now called bi-polar disorder.
Trying to relax in a large public lobby, John was working hard to ignore the loud, commanding voices that only he seemed to hear. Speaking with ominous authority, the voices kept shouting that it was up to him to eliminate the evil demons preparing to murder everyone around him. Only he could see them. Only he knew who they were. If he didn’t act now, the innocent victims’ blood would be on his hands.
So, John screwed up enough courage to attack the demons himself.
By the time local police officers had tackled John and restrained him, face-down in handcuffs on the lobby floor, two men were seriously injured. John had attacked and beaten them, as the voices had told him to.
John was arrested and jailed in one of America’s southeastern states. He is not white. He was sent to a psychiatric facility for treatment, but John’s public defender apparently didn’t know how to argue a defense based on mental illness.
John was convicted and sent to the county jail to await sentencing. He would wait for seven years. Seven years – before he was ever sentenced! – while his family scrimped and saved to find enough money for a decent attorney and another trial.
In the meantime, John endured the some of the most brutal, inhumane treatment I have ever heard about.
John’s small cell had two metal benches set against opposite walls. On his first day, two of John’s jailers introduced him to the benefits of having two benches, rather than one, by making him lay across them face down. With his face and shoulders on one bench and his feet laying on the other, the jailers sat on John’s back while beating his shoulders, legs and thighs with their clubs.
I remember the tears in John’s eyes as he told me about this introduction to his new “home.”
As John shrieked with pain, screaming that his back was breaking, the jailers would periodically show pity by standing up, relieving what I can only imagine as unbearable stress along John’s spine.
But they weren’t finished.
John was forced to stay in that vulnerable position as the guards continued beating him with their billy clubs. They pounded the flesh and muscle up and down his shoulders, arms, back, thighs, calves and feet. During it all, he wept, begging them to stop, crying out for mercy.
But they didn’t show mercy.
This was only the first of John’s many beatings. Beatings, as well as other physical and psychological abuses, that became a regular part of life in the county jail. The guards seemed to invest what little creativity they had into devising new ways to inflict pain on other human beings.
Finally, after seven long years of effort, John’s family had gathered enough money to hire their first lawyer. When a new, more competent judge heard this story about my friend waiting seven years for the completion of his trial, he set a hearing date immediately. For the first time, the court learned about John’s bi-polar disorder. The doctors who treated him at the state psychiatric facility were finally able to testify about John’s mental condition, and how it remained undiagnosed and untreated at the time of the attacks.
Thankfully, John was released from jail with time served and very restrictive conditions for his parole. He is now raising a beautiful family with his wife, takes his daily medication and has not had a single run-in with the police.
To the best of John’s knowledge, no one at the jail was ever punished for the ways they had tortured my friend.
No one took his complaints seriously. They all kept their jobs and continued to abuse other prisoners whenever they felt like it, which was most of the time.
Byran Stevenson writes:
“America’s prisons have become warehouses for the mentally ill…the internment of hundreds of thousands of poor and mentally ill people has been a driving force in achieving our record levels of imprisonment…
“Today, over 50 percent of prison and jail inmates in the United States have a diagnosed mental illness, a rate nearly five times greater than that of the general adult population. Nearly one in five prison and jail inmates has a serious mental illness. In fact, there are more than three times the number of seriously mentally ill individuals in jail or prison than in hospitals; in some states that number is ten times. And prison is a terrible place for someone with mental illness or a neurological disorder…” (186, 188).
When will a genuine “pro-life” movement arise in this country? A movement that values and defends the lives of the living as much as the unborn? Every Christian pledges to follow and obey a poor, homeless, tortured savior; a savior who was said to be mentally ill by his family, arrested on trumped up charges, jailed by corrupt officials, beaten and executed by an occupying military power.
When will we see a truly Christian pro-life movementthat works to defend alllife, no matter how old, regardless of race or circumstances, no matter the type of death being threatened.
As often as we can afford it, Terry and I travel to Israel/Palestine in order to live with friends in the Aida refugee camp, located on the outskirts of Bethlehem. Our main focus involves volunteer work in a local, Palestinian community center. I have also done educational research when I was teaching at Calvin College. We always try to document and participate in some of the local protests against the Israeli military occupation of Palestinian communities.
In the summer of 2014, our stay coincided with the tragic kidnapping and murder of three Israel, Jewish teenagers. We witnessed some of the effects of Operation Brother’s Keeper, the Israeli military response to the kidnappings, an exercise in massive, indiscriminate collective punishment throughout the West Bank.
I gave this talk, complete with illustrative Power Point slides and video, at Calvin College in February, 2015. The MC introduces me at the 5:48 minute mark. I begin to speak at 9:15.
I hope that, if you haven’t already, you will take the time to listen and then, perhaps, pray for the plight of the Palestinian people.
Robinson entitled “PROPAGANDA 101: HOW TO DEFEND A MASSACRE.”
Widen the circle beyond our schools and there have been 
excerpt:
Asking for church elders and deacons to arrive packing heat whenever the congregation gathers for corporate worship is one of the grossest expressions of anti-faith I can imagine.
committed by that tradition in chapter 9 (“Does Kingdom Service Permit Military Service?”) of my new book, 
save all of us faithless believers. But relying on firearms to protect members of the body of Christ remains a consummate act of faithless unbelief, all the same.
Kierkegaard’s book, A Literary Review, discusses a contemporary novel, Two Ages. Without getting into the details of the book’s historical background, Kierkegaard uses his book review as an opportunity to unmask what he sees as the social dangers of mass movements. Kierkegaard refers to such movements as “the herd.”
an inhumane, Zionist Israel. Today, one day after the Gaza Land Day protests, he writes 
allows Diana Buttu a few moments (though he can’t stop from interrupting) to “share her perspective” on the Gazan slaughter.
personal agency and too bloody impatient to wait for the Utopia that could be Gaza if only the people would stop shitting in their own nest. (Has Friedman never cracked open a book not written by a propagandist for political Zionism?)
promising a compassionate Israeli 
response.
“When will the moment come in which the mass killing of 
Remember that this famous fence that Israel guards so fervently is not a border crossing. It is not an internationally recognized territorial, state or national boundary. It is a prison fence.
meet.
money to hire their first lawyer. When a new, more competent judge heard this story about my friend waiting seven years for the completion of his trial, he set a hearing date immediately. For the first time, the court learned about John’s bi-polar disorder. The doctors who treated him at the state psychiatric facility were finally able to testify about John’s mental condition, and how it remained undiagnosed and untreated at the time of the attacks.