Category Archives: History

October 12, 2013 · 23:43

A Global Force for Good: Happy 238th Birthday to the US Navy

Navy Heritage WWII Recruitment Poster

http://www.navy.mil/viewVideo.asp?id=17676

“A good Navy is not a provocation to war. It is the surest guaranty of peace.” Theodore Roosevelt 

For me anything to do with the United States Navy is historical as well as decidedly personal. Sunday is the 238th anniversary of the founding of the United States Navy, actually the founding of the Continental Navy but let’s not get too technical.

The fact is that back in 1775 most people and political leaders in the revolting colonies felt that founding a Navy was quite foolish. After all, who in their right mind would ever dare to challenge the might of the British Royal Navy? Even revolting colonies. But like when King George III was told that “the Colonies are revolting” he reportedly said “tell me something I don’t know.” But I digress…

In fact had General George Washington not sent a letter to the Continental Congress say that he had taken some vessels in hand to disrupt the supplies of the the British Army a Navy might not have ever been established. Timing is everything and in this case it was pretty good timing.

Since that fortuitous day in 1775 the United States Navy went from being a piss ant annoyance to the Royal Navy to the premier naval power in the world. Men like John Paul Jones, Edward Preble Stephen Decatur, Thomas Truxtun, William Bainbridge, Oliver Hazard Perry, David Farragut, David Dixon Porter, George Dewey and many more blazed a path of glory which others, great and small would continue to build on the legacy of the iron men who sailed wooden ships into harm’s way. Men like Arleigh Burke, Howard Gilmore, John C. Waldron, Maxwell Leslie, Bull Halsey, Richard O’Kane, Daniel Callahan, Raymond Spruance, Ernest Evans built upon that legacy in the Second World War. Others would do so in the Cold War, Vietnam and the Global War on Terrorism.

Great ships like the USS Constitution, USS Monitor, USS Kerasarge, USS Olympia, USS Enterprise, USS Hornet, USS Yorktown, USS Growler, USS Tang, USS Hoel, USS Johnston, USS Samuel B Roberts, USS Laffey, USS San Francisco, USS Houston and USS Arizona, USS Nevada, USS West Virginia and USS California helped build a legacy of valiant sacrifice and service often at great cost in the defense of freedom.

But over those 238 years it all it came down to the men and now the men and women who served in every clime and place, many times outnumbered and facing certain defeat who through their courage, honor and commitment helped secure the liberty of their countrymen and others around the world. Most of these men and women served in obscurity in war and peace but all had the distinction of serving in the United States Navy.

As President John F Kennedy said: “I can imagine no more rewarding a career. And any man who may be asked in this century what he did to make his life worthwhile, I think can respond with a good deal of pride and satisfaction: ‘I served in the United States Navy.'”

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Like my father before me I can say that I am proud to have served and continue to serve in the United States Navy, because we are no matter what some may say or think,  a global force for good.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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October 3, 2013 · 23:40

It’s Called Sedition and Treason: “Prophet” Rick Joyner Calls prays for Military Coup to Oust President Obama

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Sedition: To write, print, utter or publish, or cause it to be done, or assist in it, any false, scandalous, and malicious writing against the government of the United States, or either House of Congress, or the President, with intent to defame, or bring either into contempt or disrepute, or to excite against either the hatred of the people of the United States, or to stir up sedition, or to excite unlawful combinations against the government, or to resist it, or to aid or encourage hostile designs of foreign nations. Sedition Act of 1798

I am always amazed when certain political preachers make their pronouncements about how they think that God is speaking to them about political issues. However yesterday, when my troubles seemed so far away the radical Christian Dominionist and self proclaimed “Prophet and Apostle” Rick Joyner stunned me. Joyner is one of the leaders of what he and others like C. Peter Wagner call the New Apostolic Reformation which inculcates people to believe that they and they alone are hearing from the Lord and that the task of the church is to rule the earth and if need be judge and destroy those that do not agree with this particular form of Christianity.

Now as most people who really know me know it takes a lot to stun me, even from the right wing political preachers that crowd the airways and cyber space of the United States and the world. I am not a fan of these very non-pastoral and often quite un-Christian political animals who claim to be speaking for God.

Now I am all in favor of freedom of speech and freedom of religion, even for men like the prophet Rick. In fact when I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States it included defending the rights of irresponsible, hateful and idiotic men like Joyner and others like him no matter what their political or religious persuasion.

But there is a line where what someone says is irresponsible, hateful and idiotic, which mind you are perfectly legal and Constitutional; after all there is nothing prohibiting people from being hate driven fear mongering idiots. That being said there is a time when speech borders or crosses the line into what Federal law, common law and the laws of most western civilized countries which have a Judeo-Christian heritage call “treason” or “sedition.”

I think that yesterday the prophet Rick looked to me like he crossed that line. He said yesterday on his broadcast that in terms of the President Obama that our “only hope is a military takeover, martial law.” Not only that but he continued: “And that the most crucial element of that is who to the martial [sic] is going to be,” he said. “I believe there are noble leaders in our military that love the republic and love everything we stand for. And they could seize the government.”

Now obviously Joyner neither understands the Constitution of the United States, nor knows history our military. The fact is that most of us who have been around any time at all in the military know the history of just how bad military coups are for Republics or Democracies. The fact is that they seldom end well and usually bring about worse conditions than if sensible people took charge and let the political system work as it was designed. The fact that our often badly divided founders understood that there would be times that one faction, party or another would not be happy with the way an election turned out.

I would have linked the video of this absolutely insane, treasonous and seditious video Joyner’s Morningstar ministries have now pulled it. I guess that some clearer headed people, likely his corporate lawyers realized that this was over the line.

I wonder what Joyner and his supporters would say if a religious leader of another faith other than their own uttered such foolishness. I suspect that if there was a Conservative Republican in the White House that they would be calling for the prosecution, conviction, imprisonment or maybe even the execution of such a person who suggested the overthrow of the civil government. But then for such people the irony of this is too rich for them to comprehend.

The sad thing is that this is now par for the course for people like Joyner whose hubris, narcissism and Gnostic understanding of the Christian faith justifies their radicalism and arrogance. I took some time to read Joyner’s comments about this controversy in his “Morningstar Prophetic Bulletin” and it looks to me like he is willing to go even farther in the coming days. Speaking to his disciples he wrote:

“I am very glad for this controversy, even the outrage I have created in some by the Prophetic Perspectives program. To quote King David, “I will yet be more vile” (see II Samuel 6:22 KJV). I don’t enjoy controversy, but I do appreciate it for what it can accomplish. It is not likely that anyone will be able to speak the truth in these times without it. I intend to use the controversy started by that program to delve into more depth on these issues. Therefore, future Prophetic Perspectives programs will likely be even more controversial….”

Sad to say it looks to me like Joyner is looking to collect some cash for his ministry by getting them fired up. Back in the late 1980s and early 1990s I heard Joyner speak and had some of his books. He is very good at deceiving people and ensuring his material well being by doing this kind of thing. He has been doing it for years. In fact he has been castigated by conservative and Fundamentalist Bible Christians for his incredibly shoddy and self serving “revelations.” Hank Handergraaf’s Christian Research Institute even noted that “Joyner leaves us no middle way. Either we treat him as God’s chosen super-prophet for the end-times, or we treat him as a man in the grip of evil deceit and seek to expose him as such.”

While I am not in agreement with Handergraaf on many things I can agree with him on this. Joyner and others like him in the Christian Dominionist movement are not only narcissistic, arrogant and full of hubris but are dangerous not only to those that follow them but to others. Especially those that they decide based on their personal “word from the Lord” are against Jesus.

Honestly this is little different from the way that people like Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban interpret Islam.

Yes if you ask me what Joyner is saying is seditious and borders on treason. However because people are afraid of the religious right in this country no charges will ever be filed. Joyner will get away with this and rake in more cash from those that he leads into disaster, people who swallow his heresy and radicalism hook line and sinker because it fits their world view.

The late associate Justice of the Supreme Court and Chief Prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials wrote: “[I]n our country are evangelists and zealots of many different political, economic and religious persuasions whose fanatical conviction is that all thought is divinely classified into two kinds — that which is their own and that which is false and dangerous.”

Joyner and those like him fit Justice Jackson’s description.

God help us all.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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October 2, 2013 · 23:50

Christian Dominionism and the Shutdown: Barry Goldwater and Robert Jackson Warned Us

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“[I]n our country are evangelists and zealots of many different political, economic and religious persuasions whose fanatical conviction is that all thought is divinely classified into two kinds — that which is their own and that which is false and dangerous.” — Justice Robert H Jackson, American Communications Assn. v. Douds, 339 US 382, 438; 70 SCt. 674, 704 (1950)

Well we are in day two of the government shutdown of 2013 with no end in sight. Sadly I have to say that the groups most responsible for this on the Tea Party and Republican Party side of the house are Evangelical Christians and ultra-conservative Catholics. The Evangelical are held in the thrall of Christian Dominionism, or Recontructionism while the conservative Catholics long for the days when their church owned the governments of Europe.

If the shutdown was about pragmatic budgetary considerations I might give the authors of the shutdown some consideration. However, it is not and their leaders have either said it openly or all but said this to be the case.

I am a Christian and a Priest in a small Old Catholic denomination. I am a graduate of a premier Evangelical Protestant Seminary where I came to appreciate and revere religious liberty. What I am going to write today may offend some but it has to be said. I believe that the cause of religious liberty, and for that matter the liberty of the Christian Church to be faithful to its call and unencumbered by unseemly political alliances is in danger due to the actions of people that in many cases honestly believe that they are defending religious liberty. Justice Robert Jackson prosecuted the major Nazi War criminals at Nuremberg and was able to view the results of what happened when churches that entered into such alliances.

I back in my days as a more “conservative” Evangelical Christian I attended and unlike conservative Christian TV icon and former governor of Arkansas actually graduated from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth Texas. This was in the days just prior to the Fundamentalist takeover of the seminary and the denomination. It was at Southwestern that I gained a distinct appreciation of and love for the concept of the separation of church and state and the importance of the rights, both civil and religious of non-believers, members of minority religions and others not in the religious majority, or those without power, be it religious, social or economic.

I look at what is going on today, just two days after the shutdown and it appears to me that the most vitriolic bunch pushing the Republican Party and their hapless, soulless and clueless Speaker of the House John Boehner into this are the Tea-vangelicals led by the like of SenatorTed Cruz, whose father Rafael Cruz is a prominent Dominionist pastor who has long been part of the movement to establish what amounts to a Christian Theocracy in the United States.

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However, whether people realize it or not we were warned by no less than conservative icon Barry Goldwater about such people.

Yes, I said it. Barry Goldwater. Goldwater was not a fan of the influence of preachers and religious zealots. In fact he warned us about them in very clear words.

My liberal and conservative friends both might be dismayed by this but Barry Goldwater, the man who inspired Ronald Reagan to run for President and who was the conservative bulwark for many years in Washington DC warned us of what would happen when the Religious Right took over the Republican Party. Goldwater said of the types of people that currently dominate the conservative movement, if it can be still called that:

“Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they’re sure trying to do so, it’s going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can’t and won’t compromise. I know, I’ve tried to deal with them.” November, 1994, in John Dean, Conservatives Without Conscience.

Billy Graham, a saint if there ever was one and a man who used his faith to build bridges even while being unabashedly evangelical warned back in 1981 about the current crop of religious conservatives and stand in sharp contrast to the words and actions of Franklin:

 “I don’t want to see religious bigotry in any form. It would disturb me if there was a wedding between the religious fundamentalists and the political right. The hard right has no interest in religion except to manipulate it.” Parade Magazine February 1, 1981, from Albert J Menendez and Edd Doerr, The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom

What we are seeing today is the expressed manifestation of religious bigotry operating under the guise of defending religious freedom. Likewise it is little different (except in the religion involved) to the Wahhabi Taliban or the the Saudi Arabian state, the Shi’te Hezbollah government in Lebanon or the Mullah’s of Iran.

This ultra-religious intransigence of the Tea-vangelicals is being shown in its ugliness by the brazen acts of Evangelical political and religious leaders during this shutdown. And they wonder why more and more people want nothing to do with the faith that they espouse. If there is any way to lose religious freedom it is to follow this attempt to marry the Christian faith with the American government is not only short sighted but does great damage to the faith and our American liberties.

A host of influential of Evangelical leaders, politicians and even Roman Catholic Bishops have said what they believe religious liberty means to them and it has little in common with the understanding of our founders. It has nothing to do with limited government nor religious liberty. It is the imperial religion of Constantine, dressed up a bit to keep up with the times.  It is simply an attempt by these leaders to use the apparatus of the government to support themselves and to establish their specific religion as a state religion with the full legal means to subjugate non-believers or others who do not agree with them.

The whole debate over the Affordable Health Care Act in the shutdown is a red herring. The actual goal is to achieve a merger of church and state with the Dominionists leading it and dominating what they call the “Seven Mountains” of culture and society. Attempting to delegitimatize President Obama through the shutdown and the debt limit is only a tactic in a larger strategy to achieve “dominion” over the United States and the world.

George Truett, the great Southern Baptist Pastor who served as President of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary wrote in his book Baptists and Religious Liberty in 1920 about the decidedly negative effect of when the Church became the State religion:

“Constantine, the Emperor, saw something in the religion of Christ’s people which awakened his interest, and now we see him uniting religion to the state and marching up the marble steps of the Emperor’s palace, with the church robed in purple. Thus and there was begun the most baneful misalliance that ever fettered and cursed a suffering world…. When … Constantine crowned the union of church and state, the church was stamped with the spirit of the Caesars…. The long blighting record of the medieval ages is simply the working out of that idea.”

The late Senator Mark Hatfield a strongly committed Evangelical Christian before it became popular in Washington made this comment concerning those that are now driving this spurious debate:

“As a Christian, there is no other part of the New Right ideology that concerns me more than its self-serving misuse of religious faith. What is at stake here is the very integrity of biblical truth. The New Right, in many cases, is doing nothing less than placing a heretical claim on Christian faith that distorts, confuses, and destroys the opportunity for a biblical understanding of Jesus Christ and of his gospel for millions of people.”  quoted in the pamphlet “Christian Reconstruction: God’s Glorious Millennium?” by Paul Thibodeau

The core of the current campaign in the shutdown is the imposition of Christian Dominionism onto the rest of the country. It may reference the Gospel and even certain Christian moral understandings even as it mocks other just as “Biblical” Christian teachings.

Back in 1981 Barry Goldwater said on the Senate Floor “The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent.” 

The leaders of this shutdown movement and their supporters are almost all self-proclaimed Evangelical Christians who represent gerrymandered congressional districts in which they only have to worry about being considered not extreme enough.

Like it or not Goldwater was right about this crowd. They will drive their churches and their political party into the abyss. The fractures in my former party, the Republican Party are becoming more and apparent and neither the Dominionist Preachers, or their allied politicians and pundits can see the end state of their party and for what they think they are fighting.

But then none are so blind as those who will not see. Please do not say that you were not warned.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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September 26, 2013 · 21:28

God’s Unfathomable Love: The Antidote to the False God of Christian Dominionism

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“God loves human beings. God loves the world. Not an ideal human, but human beings as they are; not an ideal world, but the real world. What we find repulsive in their opposition to God, what we shrink back from with pain and hostility, namely, real human beings, the real world, this is for God the ground of unfathomable love.” — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

I find much inspiration from the past, especially in the lives of men and women who opposed evil, especially evil done by those who perverted the Christian message. One who always challenges and inspires me is the German martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer grew up in an era of world war, the collapse of Empires and social order, economic collapse, revolutions and the rise of the greatest evils that the world has ever seen. Bonhoeffer recognized evil in the world and the dangers of radicalism. He was a child when the First World War ended and the Kaiser abdicated and Germany went through a violent civil war, the humiliation of the Treaty of Versailles, economic calamity, Communist and Fascist coup attempts which finally led to the Nazi takeover by legal means. When the Nazis came to power Bonhoeffer was a young pastor.  He was one of the first to recognize the evil of the Nazi state and Nazism as well as its hold over Christians from all denominations who rushed to embrace Nazism.

We live in somewhat similar times. The times are unsettled and great evil exists, evil which seeks to destroy the world in order to make it in its own image. Some of these are materialist and secular while others are rooted in the Great Religions. Still others are found in the mysticism and individualistic spirituality people who see the world and for that matter humanity as the enemy.

However for me the most troubling are those who claim the mantle of Christian Dominionism, Reconstructionism or the Seven Mountains theology. I say this not because the others do not pose a danger but because this popular perversion of the Christian faith is little different from the Moslem extremists of the Taliban in its goal of establishing a theocracy. Something which if I recall was opposed by the founders of the United States and enshrined in our Constitution.

We are well acquainted with the extremism associated with Islamic terrorism. Likewise we know all too well the more politically based ideologies which have committed murder on a massive scale.  However Christians are not immune to radicalism. They see radicalism as a godly response to the evils of their time.

Bonhoeffer saw the danger of Christians who become radicalized in relationship to how such radicalization stands in antithesis to the Gospel which is about restoring fallen humanity to relationship God. The Apostle Paul put it well, that Christ has“given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”  2nd Corinthians 5:18b-21

Bonhoeffer penned wrote about Christian radicalism from inside a Nazi prison while awaiting his execution.

“Radicalism always springs from a conscious or unconscious hatred of what is established. Christian radicalism, no matter whether it consists in withdrawing from the world or in improving the world, arises from the hatred of creation. The radical cannot forgive God his creation. He has fallen out with the created world, the Ivan Karamazov, who at the same time makes the figure of the radical Jesus in the image of the Grand Inquisitor. When evil becomes powerful in the world, it infects the Christian, too, with the poison of radicalism. It is Christ’s gift to the Christian that he should be reconciled with the world as it is, but now this reconciliation is accounted to be a betrayal and denial of Christ. It is replaced by bitterness, suspicion and contempt for men and the world. In place of the love that believes all and hopes all, in the place of the love which loves the world in its very wickedness with the love of God (John 3:16), there is now the pharisaical denial of love to evil, and the restriction of love to the closed circle of the devout. Instead of the open Church of Jesus Christ which serves the world till the end, there is now some allegedly primitive Christian ideal of a Church, which in its turn confuses the ideal of the living Jesus Christ with the realization of a Christian ideal. Thus a world which is evil succeeds in making the Christians become evil too. It is the same germ that disintegrates the world and that makes the Christians become radical. In both cases it is hatred towards the world, no matter whether the haters are the ungodly or the godly. On both sides it is a refusal of faith in the creation. But devils are not cast out through Beelzebub.” (Letters and Papers from Prison p.386)

This Christian radicalism has become a very real part of the American religious-political landscape and it has managed to poison a generation through the theology of Dominionism and Reconstructionism. The man who can be called the founder of this movement was R.J. Rushdoony. Dominionism has become one of the loudest and most powerful voices in American Evangelicalism, the Charismatic and Pentecostal movement and other Christian groups spanning the denominational spectrum. This version of the Christian faith is an Old Testament militancy based upon Israel’s conquest of the Land of Promise.

Some examples of Rushdoony’s theological argument which is echoed by many American Christian conservatives are found here:

“Israel was attacked by Amalek. According to Deuteronomy 25:17, Amalek “feared not God.” Amalek’s attack on Israel, according to the “Midrashic lore,” was an obscene defiance of God and a contempt for God. Where men attack God’s people, there we often have a covert or overt attack on God. Unable to strike directly at God, they strike at God’s people. There is thus continual warfare between Amalek and Israel, between God’s people and God’s enemies. The outcome must be the blotting out of God’s enemies…. the covenant people must wage war against the enemies of God, because this war is unto death. The deliberate, refined, and obscene violence of the anti-God forces permits no quarter… this warfare must continue until the Amalekites of the world are blotted out, until God’s law-order prevails and His justice reigns.” R.J. Rushdoony, The Institutes of Biblical Law (Nutley, NJ: Craig Press, 1973), p. 318.

Rushdoony’s son in law Gary North is now the primary ideological and theological spokesman for the Dominionist movement. He is very popular and influential in many conservative and political circles and with the Tea Party movement. North makes the following comment in relation to the Christian’s relationship and attitude when dealing with the world:

“It occurs to me: Was Moses arrogant and unbiblical when he instructed the Israelites to kill every Canaanite in the land (Deut. 7:2; 20:16-17)? Was he an “elitist” or (horror of horrors) a racist? No; he was a God-fearing man who sought to obey God, who commanded them to kill them all. It sounds like a “superior attitude” to me. Of course, Christians have been given no comparable military command in New Testament times, but I am trying to deal with the attitude of superiority–a superiority based on our possession of the law of God. That attitude is something Christians must have when dealing with all pagans. God has given us the tools of dominion.” Gary North, The Sinai Strategy: Economics and the Ten Commandments (Tyler, TX: Institute for Christian Economics, 1986), p. 214n

This militancy has gained popular support since the 2008, 2010 and 2012 elections. It is reflective of the bitter and angry undercurrent which pervades many Christian political activists. Many of these people are very comfortable with using violence against those that they believe are their enemies.

However such words and actions often mirror those of their proclaimed enemies, radicals who have used similar words of violence and justification of brute force to achieve their goals. Those who do not agree with the theology or ideology of the Dominionist movement are the enemy. Dominionists are quite clear. Thy will stop until they conquer and destroy their opposition. The war between the “godless and the godly” to quote Bonhoeffer is actual a war against the creation and humanity that God through Christ seeks to redeem.

Bonhoeffer made a very poignant observation:

“There is a truth which is of Satan. Its essence is that under the semblance of truth it denies everything that is real. It lives upon the hatred of the real and the world which is created and loved by God. It pretends to be executing the judgment of God upon the fall of the real. God’s truth judges created things out of love. And Satan’s truth judges them out of envy and hatred. God’s truth has become flesh in the world and is alive in the real, but Satan’s truth is the death of all reality.” Bonhoeffer Ethics p. 366

As I look around and see the great conflict in our country with Christians determined to win at any cost and demonize any contrary opinion. I fear for what will overtake us as the “Satanic truth” proclaimed from all sides of the political and religious spectrum consumes the land.

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The antidote to this is simple but profoundly difficult. People of faith, especially those that claim to be Christians must demonstrate the love of God to all people no matter how vile their outbursts or prejudice. As Paul wrote to the Corinthians “God has entrusted the ministry of reconciliation to us.” It is this reconciliation of the real Incarnate Jesus Christ that must be made present in the midst of the current darkness. The Christian radicalism of the Dominionist movement is as poisonous as godless radicalism and it has no answers. It is time to cast it aside.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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September 24, 2013 · 21:50

My Way or the Highway: The Zero Sum Game of American Politics in 2013

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“Politics is an art and not a science, and what is required for its mastery is not the rationality of the engineer but the wisdom and the moral strength of the statesman”Once upon a time in America there was a time when we had people in government who were statesmen.” Hans J Morgenthau 

These men understood something about the Constitution, representative government. pluralism, tolerance and dare I say compromise. Yet all were men of principle. The honestly believed in and worked toward the goals that they believed best embodied the American body politic as well as their own political, ideological and even religious beliefs. Basically when we cut to the chase the real thing that sets them apart from the legislators of today was that they knew that compromise was actually desirable in many cases. They understood that there were times to “duke it out” on Capitol Hill but that at the end of the day that as Americans we could have different opinions yet still come together for the benefit of all Americans, not just those that we were beholden to for the money needed to keep us in office.

But that was a different era. Men like Edward Dirksen, Scoop Jackson, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, Tip O’Neill and Ronald Reagan or for that matter even Jack, Bobby or Teddy Kennedy would not survive in the zero-sum politics if 21st Century American. They would be despised by their political “allies” even more so than their opponents.

The sad thing is that in the United States of 2013 it is much easier to be against something than it is to be for something. Likewise it is now more beneficial for politicians of both parties in the gerrymandered congressional districts which ensure the safety of the incumbent to adopt a no-quarter attitude. It has allowed elected leaders to adopt a zero-sum game of no-compromise.

The results are a broken system of government, a deep division of the people almost all of whom distrust and even despise the very people that they elected.

As I watch the current proceedings in Washington I am reminded of what I thought when the “deal” to agree to the sequester was reached. I remembered the words of Thomas Jefferson concerning the Missouri Compromise. I knew back in 2011 that the even the threat of sequester would not change the behavior of those in Congress, particularly the Tea Party faction of the Republicans, a group who have in many cases so wedded the most uncompromising aspects of religion to political ideology that there can be no backing down for them. Politics is an extension of God’s will. It is the extension of the theology of Christian Dominionism which has at its center the takeover of the systems of the world by Christians, the Seven Mountains theology. That is why compromise if there is any in the current situation will by only delay the reckoning.

Jefferson noted: “but this momentous question, like a fire bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror. I considered it at once as the knell of the Union. it is hushed indeed for the moment. but this is a reprieve only, not a final sentence. a geographical line, coinciding with a marked principle, moral and political, once conceived and held up to the angry passions of men, will never be obliterated; and every new irritation will mark it deeper and deeper.” 

We need a revival of statesmanship in our country but in the current political environment I fear that those who would attempt to be statesmen would not survive. Much like Weimar Germany our politicians, pundits and preachers, the Unholy Trinity are paving the way for something unimaginably terrible when they finally wreck our current system of government. They are doing it and those who do not speak out against them regardless of our politics have to take part of the blame.

Martin Niemoller wrote after the Second World War:

In Germany they first came for the Communists,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me –
and by that time no one was left to speak up.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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September 22, 2013 · 22:43

Social Justice from the Prophet Amos and Pope Francis

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Hear this, you who trample upon the needy and destroy the poor of the land!

“When will the new moon be over,” you ask, “that we may sell our grain,

and the sabbath, that we may display the wheat? We will diminish the ephah,

add to the shekel, and fix our scales for cheating! We will buy the lowly for silver,

and the poor for a pair of sandals; even the refuse of the wheat we will sell!”

The LORD has sworn by the pride of Jacob: Never will I forget a thing they have done! Amos 8:4-

There is a certain joy and challenge to having to preach every week, especially when one follows the lectionary instead of making things up as we go based on our favorite theological biases or interests.

Thus coming back to a place where I am having to preach each week it is a challenge. It is interesting for me to see what the Bible has to say on issues that Christians including me like to ignore. The funny, but not so funny thing is that those parts of the Bible that many conservative American Christians of all denominations, but especially Evangelicals like to ignore are the kinds of passages that are more the norm than the exception. Thus we tend to ignore the really challenging things and focus on what tickles people’s ears. Now I have never been a fan of having my ears tickled but evidently some do or the Apostle Paul wouldn’t have not warned Timothy about it.

In the United States Christians have it good. As rich and fashionably well to do entitled Christians we love to cite verses that talk about prosperity.  Those more theologically adept love to misuse the writings and theology of John Calvin to show who our material success somehow equals God blessing us. The sad thing is in order to do that many of us will totally ignore most of Jesus’ teachings about the misuse of wealth and the abuse of the poor as well as those of Paul, James, and the vast majority of the prophets of the Old Testament in such matters. But then what do they know? They didn’t study Ayn Rand did they?

I can only imagine what Amos, a prophet from Judah whose ministry was primarily directed at the Kingdom of Israel in about 750 BC would be if he walked among American Christians today. I mean really, think about it. Amos almost sounds like he is talking about the Prosperity Preachers and those in the church who for the sake of partisan political power are willing to ignore or even worse to sacrifice the most vulnerable people in society for their own place at the seat of power.

How Constantinian of them. Yet Amos and most of the other prophets seem to have a most egregious disregard for the issues that contemporary Christians have sacrificed on the altar of political power and expediency. Yes “Christian Right” I and they are talking about you.

Pope Francis is nailing the issue. For too long the Christian Church in the United States and western Europe have been engaging in the so called “culture wars.” While some of the issues are legitimate including some of the pro-life related issues, they are actually subordinated to a broader and much more insidious agenda which is neither Christian or for that matter American, at least in the sense understood by the religiously tolerant and pluralistic founders of the country understood.

Ever since Nazi apologist Pat Buchanan (See his book Hitler Churchill and the Unnecessary War) declared the beginning of the “Culture Wars” in 1992 and long after the foundations were laid by others on the Christian Right the Church, Evangelical Protestant and Roman Catholic decided on the Christian version of Jihad to achieve political goals. In fact men like Catholic theologian Peter Kreeft actually wrote books like Ecumenical Jihad to define their strategy and goals. Clothed in the veneer of Constantinian virtue these people helped lead the church into an abyss that from which may not be able to extricate itself in our lifetimes.

Unfortunately the problem is that the culture wars are more often fought with the goal of maintaining the political power and influence of Christians while ignoring the very tenants of what writer after writer, prophet after prophet and even Jesus made foundational issues of their day. We Christians have sold out the Gospel in order to be co-opted by the very people and interests who hate the kind of justice that Jesus and  the prophets preached about.

When Pope Francis talked this week about those “culture wars” this week in a number of ways. He decried the manner in which some bishops were more at war with the culture than caring for the people of their own dioceses and how in terms of caring for and loving people “The church sometimes has locked itself up in small things, in small-minded rules…” He said that in regard to the focus that many Catholics have had on abortion and homosexuality. Pope Francis said: “The most important thing is the first proclamation: Jesus Christ has saved you. And the ministers of the church must be ministers of mercy above all.” To finish the week, or rather to start this week on a high note Francis attacked the culture of greed which many in the church have blessed and furthered.

I am all in with Pope Francis on this because he is speaking the truth. The fact is that he is saying things that most of us do not want to hear. Francis is talking about redemption, the fact as the Apostle Paul wrote in 2nd Corinthians that “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself counting men’s sins not against them.”

Yes these are tough words, but the proof of their validity is in the pudding. Non-believers want nothing to do with the church, even if they happen to like what Jesus says and many believers are fleeing the church and not coming back. And yes this is different than the days when young people would leave the church for a few years and then come back. The folks leaving now for the most part have no desire to return. The reasons are self evident. It is not Jesus, nor is it even doctrine. It is how Christians and the Church treat the world. Something that Pope Francis seems to understand while many of his Bishops as well as leaders of Evangelical Christian Churches in the United States seem oblivious.

George Barna, an Evangelical Christian who runs one of the most respected polling agencies around has done a number of polls on this very subject. Sad to say his polls, which are scientific in the way they are conducted line up with what I am saying here and what Pope Francis is speaking about.

One Barna poll asked the words which most describe Christianity. The results: Hypocritical, anti-homosexual, insincere, sheltered and too political. Another Barna study dealing with why young people are leaving the church included that nearly 25% of young people said “Christians demonize everything outside of the church” while 20% said that “God seems missing from my experience of church” while 22% said that “church is like a country club, only for insiders” and 36% said that they were unable “to ask my most pressing life questions in church.”  That survey was of young people of Christian backgrounds, people for the most part raised in the church.

Frank Schaeffer, son of the late Dr Francis Schaeffer noted in his book Crazy for God: “I personally came to believe that a lot of the issues that were being latched onto by the Christian Right, whether it was the gay issue or abortion or other things, were actually being used for negative political purposes. They were used to structure a power base for people who then threw their weight around.” Schaeffer should know, in the 1970s and 1980s he was a key player in the growth of the political Christian Right.

But I digress…. Soren Kierkegaard noted “The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly.”

The fact is that if we actually decide to look at the way we do life, faith, politics and ethics in light of the writings of men like Amos, James and even Paul to some extent not to mention Jesus we might have to actually repent. But then, when all that matters is maintaining our political and social power who needs repentance?

But I digress, after all, repentance in our American Christian culture is never having to say your sorry. It is no wonder that Mark Twain noted: “If Christ were here there is one thing he would not be—a Christian.” 

I think that old Amos might just be talking to us as much as he was talking to the people and leaders of Israel. But hey, I could be wrong.

Peace

Padre Steve+

PS. I do plan on doing some articles over the next few weeks about how people of all religions attempt to use the political and police power of the state to advance their beliefs and to demonize dissenters.

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September 17, 2013 · 23:58

Antietam and Syria…Beginning to Understand How Societies Slip Into Carnage

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On September 17th 1862 the there was a battle in the War Against the Slaveholder’s Rebellion, sometimes called the American Civil War. It occurred when the Rebel Army under the command of Robert E Lee invaded the North, moving into Maryland. After a series of smaller engagements the Army of the Potomac under Major General McClellan engaged the Rebel forces at the town of Sharpsburg on the banks of the Antietam Creek.

The ensuing battle was the bloodiest single day engagement fought on the North American Continent. Almost 23,000 Union and Confederate soldiers were killed or wounded that day. Historian Stephen Sears titled his book about the battle Landscape Turned Red: The Battle of Antietam. 

I have been to that battlefield a number of times, both on my own and as part of a formal “Staff Ride.” My own military career touches the battle because when I served in the Texas and Virginia National Guard units that I was a part of traced their lineage to units that fought on that blood drenched parcel of land. In Texas units I served with were part of the 1st and 5th Texas Regiments which served in John Bell Hood’s Texas Brigade and in Virginia the 2nd and 17th Virginia Infantry Regiments.

Each time that I have been there I have never failed to be overwhelmed by the carnage inflicted on Americans by other Americans in the space of under 12 hours.

Then I think about other current civil wars and I begin to understand how places like Syria or Iraq can degenerate into sectarian bloodbaths. Both of those countries have only existed in their present form about 80 years and even then they were under the rule of military leaders for decades.

Actually it is not that hard for this to happen. We in the United States like to hold ourselves up as a model of how to do things right. But our own “Civil War” or the Slaveholder’s Revolt shows just how easily the populace a supposedly Christian and religious society can turn against each other and in the course of a day slaughter thousands and in the space of a few short years kill nearly 600,000 of their own countrymen.

Thus when I look at what is happening in other nations I am less likely to judge them so harshly. I wonder how bad the carnage of our civil war would have been had we had modern weapons including chemical weapons. Somehow I think that we would have used them quite effectively against each other and that the casualties of the war would have been at least twice as great as the Civil War.

What would the rest of the world think if it was happening here today? But more importantly what would we do?

Peace

Padre Steve+

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September 15, 2013 · 13:28

Four Little Girls: The Birmingham Church Bombing 50 Years Later

MCNAIR ROBERTSON COLLINS WESLEY

Most Americans will not recognize the names and I would dare say that many do not even know about what happened in Birmingham Alabama 50 years ago today. At 1022 in the morning on September 15th 1963 a bomb exploded during the worship service at the 16th Street Baptist Church. Most people also do not know that before that beginning in 1955 there had been 19 other bombings of black churches and the homes of black leaders in Birmingham. Even before that Birmingham had become known as “Bombingham” because over 50 bombing attacks against blacks, black churches and black institutions in the years after the First World War.

Four young girls, three 14 year olds and one 13 year old were killed. Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley lost their lives that day and 22 other church members were wounded in an attack carried out by members of the KKK and tacitly approved of by many political leaders including Alabama Governor George Wallace.

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The church had served as a focal point of the Freedom Summer where Civil Rights activists and students from around the country had met, trained and organized to register blacks to vote. This made it a prominent target for violence.

Early in the morning of September 15th four members of the United Klans of America Frank Bobby Cherry, Thomas Blanton, Herman Cash and Robert Chambliss placed a box of 10 sticks of dynamite under the church steps near the basement. A time delay detonator was set o ensure that the church was filled when the bomb went off. The blast occurred as children were entering the to listen to a sermon, ironically entitled “The Love that Forgives.”

It was a heinous crime and an act of cold blooded premeditated murder which maybe a number of years before might not have made the news in much of the country. But this was 1963 and over the preceding months of the Freedom Summer many people across the nation had an eye on the South. The brutal attacks on many blacks, civil rights workers and student volunteers had raised the profile of the Civil Rights Movement and shown the ugly hatred towards blacks held by many Southerners hidden underneath the veneer of polite Southern hospitality.

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Not only was the attack heinous, but the response of many in law enforcement at the local level and even at the office of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover was criminal. Chambliss was identified by a witness and was not charged with the bombing, simply having a case of dynamite without a permit. He was fined $100 and given a six month jail sentence.

The FBI had investigated and discovered evidence against all four men but Hoover ordered the evidence not be provided to local or Federal prosecutors. However in 1971 Bill Baxley was elected Attorney General of Alabama, he re-opened the case and requested the FBI files. In 1977 Chambliss was indicted and convicted of first degree murder, he died in prison. Blanton was tried in 2001, convicted of four counts of murder and sentenced to life in prison. Cash died in 1994 with ever having been charged with a crime and Cherry was convicted in 2002, sentenced to life in prison and died in 2004.

The attack and the deaths of the four girls served as a catalyst in the Civil Rights Movement. in 1964 Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act. However it did not end the fight. Dr Martin Luther King Jr would die at the hands of an assassin’s bullet less than 4 years later. Many advances occurred. Many blacks have been elected to office, serve in the highest ranks of the military, two Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice have served as Secretary of State, one, Eric Holder as Attorney General of the United States and one, Barak Obama elected as President. Black sports stars, actors and singers are celebrated as heroes among much of society.

One of my former co-workers from Georgia, a white Baptist minister and retired military chaplain noted that many whites may not be explicitly racists in interpersonal relationships with blacks, but have an attitude that blacks still need “to stay in their place.” He noted that he thinks that quite a few believe that many whites believe that this is a large part of the reason that President Obama is opposed and even hated by so many whites. It is not just politics or ideology and while those may play a role the root of it is racism.

But the sad truth is there still is an undercurrent of unrepentant racism in the country and not just the South. In fact many places in the South have seen greater advances in racial relations than other parts of the country. That is not to say that there are those who would attempt to disenfranchise blacks, some of the voting laws recently passed are designed to ensure that significant parts of the black population, specifically the elderly and students living away from home have greater difficulty voting. It is actually a more insidious method than past Jim Crow laws because the drafters of these laws hope to peel off just enough black and other poor or minority voters to ensure that they maintain power.

Not only is racial prejudice experienced by blacks, it is experienced by many Americans of Hispanic origins, some of Asian descent but also by those of Middle Eastern, Iranian, Pakistani or Indian descent. And yes, even people of racial minorities can be racist. Racism is an ugly part of our human condition and no matter who it is targeted against and who does the targeting it is wrong and needs to be fought.

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The Southern Poverty Law Center http://www.splcenter.org lists 1,007 known hate groups operating across the country, including neo-Nazis, Klansmen, white nationalists, neo-Confederates, racist skinheads, black separatists, border vigilantes and others.

Too many people have died in this struggle to stop now. If today you read this before or after going to church, remember those four little girls who died at the hands of four murdering, racist Klansmen. Likewise remember that there are others out there full of hate who would not hesitate to do the same again and others who would actively support those efforts. Sometimes even in the name of God.

As for me I will fight it no matter who it is against.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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September 11, 2013 · 00:31

The Real Conflict: Ethics and American Values Versus Realpolitik

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“A country that demands moral perfection in its foreign policy will achieve neither perfection nor security” Henry Kissinger

There are a times in a nation’s life that its leaders are confronted with situations that present conflicts between a nation’s values and realpolitik.

The fact is that there are “tribes” in foreign policy and national security debates. Some are the idealists, others pragmatists and some realists. There are gradients between the levels and sometimes depending on the situation an idealist might gravitate toward pragmatism or even realpolitik and visa versa. Sometimes it is a matter of politics, sometimes ideology and sometimes even  and no leader of no political is immune from these tensions.

The situation in Syria is one of those times where the conflicting agendas of the different foreign policy tribes conflict and where no matter what happens in Syria the conflicts between the tribes will remain and perhaps even grow more pronounced. The fact is that I often can find myself on several sides of the same argument. It might be the PTSD “Mad Cow” is causing these conflicts but it could also be that there are good arguments to be made on all sides of the argument. What is ultimately the right course or the wrong course is actually hard to say.

If we argue for the idealist position, which would argue that American values of stopping human rights violations and the use of chemical weapons, something prohibited under the Hague convention and the more recent Chemical Weapons Convention of 1992 against the realpolitik of what are the actual National Security interests of the United States, the vital interests which involve the survival of the nation itself, major interests which could impact national security or tertiary interests which might have some importance but do not threaten the survival of the nation, even of they are terrible crimes against humanity.

Whether one likes it or not these are legitimate ethical and policy conflicts. On one hand there is the position that the United States has taken following World War Two and the Nuremberg trials as well as its participation in the International Criminal Courts has a moral obligation to confront the use of chemical weapons even if other nations or international bodies stand aside. On the other hand the argument that what happens in Syria is not in the vital interests of the United States and that the United States should not take military action to stop the use of those weapons. The fact is that those that advocate military action in Syria be they politicians, pundits, preachers or profiteers need to remember the words of Carl Von Clausewitz that “No one starts a war – or rather, no one in his senses ought to do so – without first being clear in his mind what he intends to achieve by that war and how he intends to conduct it.” I really don’t think that we have thought this through as a nation.

Of course these two positions are not exclusive. There are also ranges of action which span the full spectrum of action between the either or situation that most Americans seem to find themselves caught between. The fact is that the National Security Strategy of the United States is not based on military might alone, no matter how much it has been used as the first choice by American leaders. The reality is that military force is only one element, and perhaps the weakest element of the elements of national security police known as the “DIME.” That is the Diplomatic, the Informational, the Military and the Economic power of the nation. What we seem to have forgotten is that the other elements of the DIME other than the gut level military response have value and are perhaps even more important.

I think that a large part of this conundrum is found in the reflexive use of military force as the preferred means of action since the attacks of September 11th 2001. On that day the United States was attacked by the terrorist attacks of Al Qaeda militants and while the victims of those attacks were overwhelmingly American the citizens of over 60 other nations we killed in the attacks.

Those attacks demonstrated the vulnerabilities of this nation. When one looks at our actual national security policy it is clear that those vulnerabilities are not always fixed by military action in other countries. In fact they sometimes can become even more glaring as resources required for Homeland Defense and economic recovery are spent on military operations of dubious strategic value and which at times undermine efforts to build trust with other nations, build coalitions based on shared values and to undercut the efforts of extremists using diplomacy, information and economic power.

What we have to answer now is how we address a situation in Syria that is both a violation of international law but which military force alone cannot solve. Of course there is a conflict between our ideals and what are vital national security concerns. I would suggest that the real threat of military action can be a part of the answer if it helps the United States and the world make the case through diplomacy, information and economic pressure not only to stop the slaughter but to hold those responsible for it accountable in International Criminal Courts for the commission of war crimes. At the same time the reality is that the United States and the world cannot allow an Al Qaeda dominated organization such as the Al Nursa Front gain control of Syria.

The fact is that despite how clear cut we want things to be as Americans that much of what happens in the world takes place in a world of more than 50 shades of gray. Unfortunately American conservatives and liberals alike prefer to see foreign policy in the “either or” world of using pure military force or doing nothing, neither of which of themselves are the answer. The full continuum of national and international power must be brought to bear in these kind of situations, recognizing that not everyone shares our values or has the same strategic interests.

It may not be comfortable for anyone but it is reality. How we navigate it is key, maintaining our values while ensuring that our nation survives. If military action is decided on one has to remember what Clausewitz said: “The political object is the goal, war is the means of reaching it, and the means can never be considered in isolation from their purposes.”

To make a decision without understanding this or as we did in Iraq ignoring it is to risk disaster. Such are the stakes. I personally would rather see more negotiation in the hopes that the Syrian chemical and biological weapons are secured and those responsible for using them, be they Assad, his government or even the rebels attempting to frame the Syrians and deceive the United States against the Syrian people are brought to justice.

This is a messy business and not for the faint of heart. Lives of thousands of people in Syria, the region and potentially around the world are at stake and a military strike that fails to accomplish the political object would be worse than none at all.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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September 8, 2013 · 23:34

Timing is Everything: Learning at the Pivotal Points of Life and History

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“It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.” Earl Weaver

Timing is everything, especially when it comes to learning. Tomorrow I begin my in processing and introductions to my class classes at the Joint Forces Staff College a student at the Joint Advanced Warfighting School. I have already began my studies refreshing myself on some of the basic National Security Strategy documents that form the basis of our nation’s Military and National Security strategy.

I have always sought to learn and even more importantly to be able to understand. I think that all of us need to have our beliefs and ideologies challenged. In my study of the great men and women of history I have found that those that it is those that learned in times of crisis. Thus when I look at history I find that many of the best learners did so at the pivotal points of their lives and the times that they lived. I have learned in formal and informal study but also in life and experience.

I have read all of them before but it was good to browse through them again after I downloaded them on my Kindle IPad App. I have to admit I like the ability to download, save and read documents so easily.

As I said this is not my first foray into these subjects on National Security policy and the Joint, Multinational and Interagency world. They were part of my study in the Marine Corps Command and Staff College back in 2003 to 2005. That too was a matter of perfect timing as far as learning was concerned. The National Security and Military Strategy documents that we studied in those courses were the ones hammered out in the years after the Cold War and to a large extent ignored by the Bush Administration as we went into Iraq. To remember the debates and discussions that we had in those courses is to remember that there were men and women who could honestly debate the gross mistakes that were unfolding in the wake of the invasion of that unfortunate country.

Now after 12 years of war I am back in class and there is a national and international debate about the use of chemical weapons in Syria and a possible military strike against the Assad regime. What I find amazing is that so few of the people debating the issue have the slightest idea about National Security Strategy, past or present and I would dare say that most pundits, politicians and preachers, that Trinity of Evil have little idea of what any of the baseline documents say, nor do most care. The issue for them is either the advancement of their particular party or ideological point of view or in the case of the politicians their re-election chances. Lay people for the most part just get what they are fed by media outlets and are often even less informed or knowledgeable about these critical issues.

In the past two days I have re-read The 2010 National Security Strategy http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/rss_viewer/national_security_strategy.pdf

the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review  http://www.defense.gov/qdr/images/QDR_as_of_12Feb10_1000.pdf  The 2011 National Military Strategy of the United States of America http://www.jcs.mil/content/files 2011-02/020811084800_2011_NMS_-_08_FEB_2011.pdf and the 2012 Strategic Guidance entitled “Sustaining Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense http://www.defense.gov/news/Defense_Strategic_Guidance.pdf 

The documents are the most recent guidance on these policies provided by the Defense Department and the White House. As far as they go for the time they were written they were fairly good. However like all such policy documents they are products of their time and in a fast changing world while many aspects still work they are limited. All except the 2012 Guidance none discuss the events of the Arab Spring because it had not yet occurred and few people anticipated it. Thus the continued strife in Egypt and Syria is something that will have to be addressed.

Likewise one deal with the budgetary realities that are currently crippling the military force and will impact any future military operations as well as force structure. Thus in the next year or so all will be updated. It will be good to be in the course because we will have our regular instruction plus guest speakers who have been involved in these debates and those working on policy for the coming years.

Despite their limitations I would recommend that anyone commenting on National Security matters at least take the time to familiarize themselves with these documents as well as those dating back to the mid-1990s. It is irresponsible for the chatty classes to make uniformed or half-informed pronouncements about what should be done in any of the many challenges confronting the nation without understanding the policies of the the past 20 years and more that got us to this point in time. Confucius said “Study the past if you would define the future.” His words are as pertinent now as they were when he penned them.

Since I have discussed some of the issues of the situation in Syria in previous posts recently it will suffice to say that going to this school at this time is going to expose me to a lot of different perspectives and I imagine will bring about some close friendships with the students in my seminar group.

I do expect to learn a lot over the coming months and as I said at the beginning of this article, when it comes to learning timing is everything. But as Albert Einstein said “Any fool can know. The point is to understand.”

I do not know how much time I will have to write but I will try to attempt to keep writing here over the next few months on a regular basis. I might not get as many articles up but I will keep writing and in mid November I will be able to resume a normal amount of writing.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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