Category Archives: Religion

March 13, 2010 · 23:58

Glenn Beck Attacks the Churches and Threatens Religious Liberty

Glenn Beck “Am I advising people to leave their church? Yes!” (Fox News Photo)

Preface: This post comes in the midst of my Lenten journey in which I have become reacquainted with the works of those who confronted Nazi policies that placed their ideology over the Christian faith. During this time I was not expecting to begin to see certain commentators actually attempt to blatantly attack a key part of the witness of the Christian Church in telling Christians to place political ideology over faith and recommend that church members leave their church if it does not conform to those commentators’ political ideology. As a historian as well as a Priest I can only draw parallels to the Nazis who placed their ideology above the Church and persecuted those who stood against them, even before they took power. Glenn Beck did just that this week, though not in power he has thrown down a gauntlet to the Church which does not agree with his ideology and strikingly urged church members to leave their churches if those churches had “social justice” as one of their belief’s equating it with Communism and Fascism. This is an attack on the church and as a Priest I cannot be silent. There would be some that will disagree saying that the Left is more of a threat and I do not disagree that ideologues on any part of the spectrum can threaten religious liberty, however I have never seen anyone as popular as Beck is with the Right, who on the Left propose what Beck has this past week. That is why I must oppose Beck on this issue now. I do hope that my readers understand that this is not an attack on conservatives or conservative principles but rather against a man whose ideas if carried to their logical conclusion would be dangerous. Beck talks a lot about faith and religion on his show which attracts many listeners but he seems to believe that religious expression is one in the same with political ideology.

Peace,

Padre Steve+

“It is not God who divides us but human beings. The Almighty has blessed our work; therefore it cannot be destroyed. No power within or without the Reich will keep us from going our way into the future.” Adolf Hitler speaking in an address at Regensburg July 7^th 1937 referring to the arrests of 11 Catholic Priests who condemned Nazi policies.

“We have been silent witnesses of evil deeds; we have been drenched by many storms; we have learnt the arts of equivocation and pretence; experience has made us suspicious of others and kept us from being truthful and open; intolerable conflicts have worn us down and even made us cynical. Are we still of any use?” Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unionists, but I was neither, so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew so I did not speak out. And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me.” Martin Niemöller

“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body [is] joined and knit together.” (Eph. 4:15,16)

The Christian Church is the congregation of the brethren in which Jesus Christ acts presently as the Lord in Word and sacrament through the Holy Spirit. As the Church of pardoned sinners, it has to testify in the midst of a sinful world, with its faith as with its obedience, with its message as with its order, that it is solely his property, and that it lives and wants to live solely from his comfort and from his direction in the expectation of his appearance.

We reject the false doctrine, as though the Church were permitted to abandon the form of its message and order to its own pleasure or to changes in prevailing ideological and political convictions.” The Barmen Declaration Article Three.

I do not think that people learn anything from history. This week Glenn Beck called his own church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints “Communist or Fascist” its official statements of beliefs regarding social justice. Now I may disagree with LDS theology but I hardly think them to be Communist or Fascist in fact I think for the most part they are to be commended for their love of this country as well as their ethic of doing good and taking care of needy LDS members. Not only did Beck call his own church these rather pejorative names but he recommended that people not only leave the church but urged the same for any member of any church that espouses social justice in their official beliefs. To quote Beck:

“I’m begging you, your right to religion and freedom to exercise religion and read all of the passages of the Bible as you want to read them and as your church wants to preach them . . . are going to come under the ropes in the next year. If it lasts that long it will be the next year. I beg you, look for the words ’social justice’ or ‘economic justice’ on your church Web site. If you find it, run as fast as you can. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words. Now, am I advising people to leave their church? Yes!”

Beck went on the attack this week against churches who teach social justice. The reason according to Beck is that “Social justice was the rallying cry—economic justice and social justice—the rallying cry on both the communist front and the fascist front….” He went on and attacked his own church saying “Where I go to church, there are members that preach social justice as members–my faith doesn’t–but the members preach social justice all the time. It is a perversion of the gospel….” When called out had to try to reframe his very clear attack on his own church’s official doctrine as well as so many other churches and religions groups. Speaking as a Christian I cannot answer for other religions but Beck has attacked the clear commands of Scripture and the Christian tradition of caring for the least and the lost in elevating his ideology above both his own church as well as the vast majority of Christian faith and belief that goes back 2000 years. He has sought to divide people from their churches and from the faithful of their traditions for political expediency. However Beck is not the first to do so. Let us take a trip back to the end of the Weimar Republic and Nazi era….

Niemöller in WWI Inperial Navy Uniform

Martin Niemöller was a war hero. He had served on U-Boats during the First World War and commanded a U-Boat in 1918 sinking a number of ships. After the war he resigned his commission in the Navy in opposition to the Weimar Republic and briefly was a commander in a local Freikorps unit. His book Vom U-Boot zur Kanzel (From U-boat to Pulpit) traced his journey from the Navy to the pastorate. He became a Pastor and as a Christian opposed what he believed to be the evils of Godless Communism and Socialism. This placed him in the very conservative camp in the years of the Weimar Republic and he rose in the ranks of the United Evangelical Church of the Old Prussian Union. Active in conservative politics, Niemöller initially support the appointment of Adolf Hitler as Chancellor. However, he quickly soured on Hitler due to his insistence on the state taking precedence over the Church. Niemöller was typical of many Germans of his era and harbored ant-Semitic sentiments that he only completely abandoned his anti-Semitic views until after he was imprisoned. He would spend 8 years as a prisoner of the Nazis a period hat he said changed him including his views about Jews, Communists and Socialists. Niemöller was one of the founding members of the Pfarrernotbund (Pastor’s Emergency Federation) and later the Confessing Church. He was tried and imprisoned in concentration camps due to his now outspoken criticism of the Hitler regime.

Herman Maas was another Evangelical Pastor. Unlike Niemöller, Maas was a active participant in the ecumenical movement, built bridges to the Jewish community and defended the rights of Jews as German citizens. He received a fair amount of criticism for his attendance of Reichspräsident Friedrich Ebert’s funeral. Ebert was both a Socialist and avowed atheist. Maas too was active in the Pfarrernotbund and the Confessing church, and unlike Niemöller maintained his opposition to anti-Semitism and the Nazi policies against the Jews. He would help draft the Barmen declaration. He too would be imprisoned and survive the war. Maas was the first non-Jewish German to be officially invited to the newly formed state of Israel in 1950. In July 1964 Yad Vashem recognized the Maas as one of the Righteous Among the Nations.

Bonhoeffer in Nazi Prison in 1944

Dietrich Bonhoeffer a young Pastor and theologian would also step up to oppose the Nazis and offer support for the Jews. He helped draft the Bethel Confession which among other things rejected “every attempt to establish a visible theocracy on earth by the church as a infraction in the order of secular authority. This makes the gospel into a law. The church cannot protect or sustain life on earth. This remains the office of secular authority.” He also helped draft the Barmen declaration which opposed and condemned Nazi Christianity. Bonhoeffer would eventually along with members of his family take an active role in the anti-Nazi resistance as a double agent for Admiral Canaris’ Abwehr. For this he would be executed after his final sermon in the concentration camp at Flossenburg just a month prior to the end of the war.

Karl Barth convicted of “Seducing the German people” and exiled to his native Switzerland

Another opponent of the Nazis in the Confessing Church was Swiss-German theologian Karl Barth. Barth angrily denounced Naziism when it attempted to create new “German Christian” churches in which National Socialist political theories were given the same sanctity as theological dogma. Barth went into exile as a Swiss citizen after being removed from his professorship at the University of Bonn for refusing to take the mandatory oath to Adolf Hitler, alter his teaching to meet Nazi standards or begin class with the customary “Heil Hitler!” He would say that it would be in bad taste “to begin a commentary on the Sermon on the Mount with Heil Hitler.” For his efforts he was found guilty by a Nazi court of “seducing the minds” of German students. For an excellent short article on Barth see “Witness to an Ancient Truth” Time Magazine April 20^th 1962 online at http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,873557-1,00.html

Fr Rupert Meyer the “Apostle of Munich” and steadfast opponent of Hitler

Bishop Galen of Münster and Father and others including Father Rupert Meyer in Munich who opposed Hitler in the early 1920s would also oppose the Nazi policies toward the Church, the Jews and Nazi policies on euthanasia. They would also end up in concentrations camps with some dying at the hands of the Nazis, in fact over 2000 priests and Protestant ministers from Germany and occupied countries were housed at Dachau.

All these men took risks to defend the Jews who were religious minority group that had been traditionally discriminated against in Germany as well as other groups, political and religious. They opposed the Nazi policies which were widely supported by much of the German populace making them unpopular in their own churches as well as among the traditionally conservative supporters of the Evangelical and Catholic Churches. Since I have dealt with the Nazi persecution and atrocities against the Jews and others in other posts I will not elaborate further here.

General Wilhelm Groener, despised by the Nazis for saving the by working with Socialists to prevent a Communist takeover

Not only were Jews the enemy but so were any parties that disagreed with the Nazi policies including the church or rather the church that refused to surrender to them. Likewise military officers who stood by the Republic against Nazi and other right-wing putsches during the 1920s, men who risked all to defend the rights of people on both sides of the political chasm that divided the country.

Deposed after the Nazi seizure of power General Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord was deposed as head of the German Army and in retirement worked against the Nazis including the Valkyrie plot until his death from Cancer in 1944

Leftist accused them of being reactionaries and Monarchists while the right did whatever they could to discredit men like General Wilhelm Groener, General Major Walther Reinhardt, General der Infantrie Georg Maerker, General der Infrantie Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord and General Kurt von Schleicher were either driven from office and ostracized, forced out of the military or in the case of von Schleicher killed by the SS during the “night of the long knives.”

Confidant of President Hindenburg, opponent of the Nazis and briefly Chancellor of the Weimar Republic General Kurt von Schleicher would be assassinated by the Nazis during the Night of the Long Knives

Additionally other men who kept the German Republic from becoming a Communist state notably Gustave Noske of the Social Democratic Party who was the first Reichswehr Minister and who with his successor Otto Geßler of the German Democratic Party worked with the military leadership to keep both the extreme left in the form of the Spartacist League, the Independent Socialists and from the extreme Right who attempted to overthrow the government in the Kapp Putsch. All were treated shamefully by the Nazis and even their successors did not fare well, to consolidate power Hitler had the General Leutnant Werner Freiherr von Fritsch falsely accused of homosexual acts and disgraced and evidence points to his murder on the Polish front in 1939 as the “honorary colonel” of his old Regiment. Those who opposed Hitler and the Nazis later in the war, even those who were genuine heroes were put to death before Nazi “People’s Courts.” They did the same with politicians who they viewed to be threats to their rule, even conservatives not just Socialists or Communists. Religious leaders who resisted both Protestant and Catholic were sent to concentration camps where many did not return from.

Too frequently we here Beck and others call Americans with views different from their ideology “traitors” or “un American.” Before Iraq I listened to talk radio almost every day and when I came back I could no longer stomach the invective and malice that is so widespread among these commentators. If they continue to dominate “conservative” politics then I fear that they will use the power of the government and media to silence those that oppose them and it will not matter if the opponent has served in the military as they routinely condemn former high ranking military officers who disagree with them such. These propagandists are not patriots and neither Beck nor any of the major conservative talk show hosts have served a day in the military yet they influence “conservative” opinion more than anyone else and dare to slander those in the military or those who have served honorably including Senator John McCain who dare to disagree with them. The Nazis did the same thing.

Today we face a similar movement by some “conservative” voices in the United States. Many influential members of the “conservative” media, including Rush Limbaugh and most recently Glenn Beck who I have previously referred to own the airwaves, their words listened to often more than those of the Gospel. They derive some of their popularity from voicing support for “Christian moral values” such as being against abortion. This has endeared them to many conservative Christians who listen to them more than their faith or religious institutions. Unfortunately many “conservative” Christians cannot differentiate between the vitriolic and un-Christian rage of these talkers against anyone identified as the enemy that they have forgotten the Gospel and become simply an appendage to Republican or “conservative” politicians. It is not uncommon to see Christians on the web or on the call in talk radio programs agree lock stock and barrel Beck and others on the crass materialism and social Darwinism of “pure” Capitalism and the anti-Christian policy of pre-emptive war, even when they attacked Pope John Paul II when he refused to countenance the invasion of Iraq. Beck uses Scripture only to give his ideology, whatever it may be some semblance of decency. What Karl Barth said of Nazi ideology can be said of Beck’s ideology: “This was a nationalist heresy…. confusion between God and the spirit of the German nation.” Pundits and politicians on the Left may also place ideology over religion however they seldom espouse the heresy of linking the Christian faith with the spirit and destiny of the United States.

That may seem harsh, but there is a group led by Andrew Schlafly the “Conservative Bible project” that seek to re-translate the Bible into their own political, social and economic policies even seeking to change or minimize any Scripture that might be equated with to the “Social Gospel.” I guess if Beck wants he can get a copy when it comes out. If you don’t like what Scripture says change it…right?

I cannot sit by while Beck and others smear people including churches who disagree with their ideology which does not rest on Scripture or but merely uses it to inflame people into actions that turn them against the members of their own churches. This unfortunately is evil masquerading as good. Too many turned their eyes away from the Nazi menace thinking that Hitler could be reasoned with and that he really stood for their values. Too few stood up early to sound a warning. My issue with Beck and others like him be they pundits, talk show hosts, media personalities or politicians of any stripe regardless of whether they come from the right or the left do what Beck did this week I will call them on it. People can play political games and fight all they want but when they attack the Church for political and ideological gain, seek to divide it against itself or co-opt churches to do their bidding then I have a problem. I do not care if that threat comes from the Left as it sometimes does or the Right where a few years ago I would not think it was possible to come from. Unfortunately Beck’s message is main stream to many of his followers regardless of their faith and this is a threat to religious freedom for if those like Beck gained power then religious freedom would only be for those who agree not with Scripture or 2000 years of the Christian tradition but for those who agree with the ideology espoused by Beck and those like him. It would be the “freedom” of the German Christians who gave themselves to the Nazi ideology to be “free.” Ideas have consequences and when one advocates revolution and for people to leave their churches for any political ideology it is a grave threat to religious freedom.

Beck and those like him are enemies of freedom of religion. For Beck that cannot be blamed on being a Mormon. In fact he has attacked, perverted and misconstrued the doctrine of that church as well as the Roman Catholic Church and numerous Protestant denominations spanning the theological spectrum simply because he paints them “progressives” which is simply another word for Communist or Fascist. Beck is an enemy of religious liberty because he places his political ideology over that of the Gospel, not just that of his own church, but others. That is why he should be opposed and confronted every time that he makes such statements. They reveal his true heart, ideology and intentions and no amount of backtracking, excuses or attempts to change the subject can alter that hard cold and brutal fact. His sleight of hand to go on the attack and criticize offenders on the left, notably Jeremiah Wright only clouds the issue and does not change the fundamental truth of Beck’s worldview. Likewise his attempt to separate the Church from the poor is destructive and if Christians want to follow Beck’s teaching then they chose evil over truth. As Father James Martin SJ said in America “Glenn Beck’s desire to detach social justice from the Gospel is a subtle move to detach care for the poor from the Gospel. But a church without the poor, and a church without a desire for a just social world for all, is not the church. At least not the church of Jesus Christ.” http://www.americamagazine.org/blog/entry.cfm?blog_id=2&id=21159420-3048-741E-7761300524585116

To again quote the Barmen Declaration”

“Lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age.” (Matt. 28:20.) “The word of God is not fettered.” (2 Tim. 2:9.)

The Church’s commission, upon which its freedom is founded, consists in delivering the message of th free grace of God to all people in Christ’s stead, and therefore in the ministry of his own Word and work through sermon and sacrament.

We reject the false doctrine, as though the Church in human arrogance could place the Word and work of the Lord in the service of any arbitrarily chosen desires, purposes, and plans.” The Barmen Declaration Article 6

I am afraid of the Glenn Beck’s of the world. We appear to be at a precipice that we may or may not be able to pull back from. The Nazis used the same kind of language to attack the Christian faith and co-opt the vast majority of them. Men like Niemöeller, Bonhoeffer and many others were sent to the concentration camps, tried by kangaroo courts and some killed. I was on another blog where the discussion of this has been heated. I don’t like getting called a communist by allegedly “Christian” people who have bought Beck’s vision hook, line and sinker. If this is Beck’s version of the faith he can keep it. Unfortunately the rhetoric is so high, the division so deep and the anger so real that I am afraid that the fuse of violence may have been laid and that nothing will stop it especially with Beck and others stoking the fire on a daily basis on television and radio. Beck seems to be predicting and almost hoping for some kind of violent revolution seizing upon the now boiling anger on the Right and to some extent on the Left, anger that has consumed and co-opted so many conservative Christians is so great that at sometimes I wonder if this can end well though I do not predict civil war or revolution like Beck.

While I criticize Beck I cannot exclude from criticism those on the Left who have used angry, inflamed and hateful language and actions which also raises ante in ideological clash because it does take more than one faction to stir the witches’ cauldron of hatred which threatens not just religious liberty, but all liberty in this nation. I will pray for peace, respect and mutual understanding and I will not give up hope or resign myself to despair as my faith is in Christ crucified and resurrected. I will maintain the faith and remember the words of Bonhoeffer which help to undergird me in times like these:

“The essence of optimism is that it takes no account of the present, but it is a source of inspiration, of vitality and hope where others have resigned; it enables a man to hold his head high, to claim the future for himself and not to abandon it to his enemy.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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March 11, 2010 · 23:20

Difficult Days: A Lenten Meditation

“As lousy as things are now, tomorrow they will be somebody’s good old days.” Gerald Barzan

The Good Old Days to Some…the Bad Old Days to Otehrs

The past few weeks being laid up dealing with Adolf the Kidney stone and his remove this week have been unusual for me. I have been in pain and even now am dealing with the aftereffects of the procedure to remove Adolf I find that it has given me a pause during Lent that I seldom get. The pause to look at life, mortality and what is and is not important. Now a Kidney stone is not normally a life threatening condition and was not in my case, but the condition has slowed me down from my normal hyperactive manner of doing things, even slowed down the pace of my writing. It has not been fun but I have gained some spiritual grace that I think that I needed. Tonight I am not feeling as well as I was this morning and hopefully this too will pass so I can get back to getting well.

It is difficult at times to be hopeful when all around there is bad news. We seem to be living the ancient Chinese curse that says “May you live in interesting times.” The times are certainly interesting with lots going on of historic significance that may years from now be remembered as one of those tumultuous times where the world changed before our eyes. History of course is replete with such times, the rise and fall of ancient empires, the age of exploration, the Reformation, the French and American Revolutions, the Napoleonic era, the American Civil War, the Industrial Revolution, the First and Second World War with the Great Depression sandwich, the 1960’s, the post Cold War era and the post-911 era just for a start. I could go back further in history for other epochal periods, but I think that the reason that today’s crisis seem so much more dire is that we are both the beneficiaries and the victims of the instantaneous communication revolution in which common people have real time access to events that are impacting their lives. This causes many a great deal of anxiety both real and imagined, anxiety which usually finds expression in a desire for the good old days as well as seeks solace and security from those who feverishly exploit that anxiety. It does not matter if the security comes from religion, political ideology and matters neither if it comes from the left or the right so long as the call resonates with them they will follow it. They will faithfully follow even as the purveyors of the message drive up their worry and anxiety that they no longer can actually enjoy life or be thankful because they are so consumed with how “lousy” things are or “evil” their opponents are.

Fun and Games in the Good Old Days…

It is in times like these that one has to take a deep breath, look around at all that they have to be thankful for and just really examine of the nostalgia that they feel for “better times” is that or an escape from an unpleasant present and fear of the future if the other side wins. The fact is that we have seen such times before and somehow made it through. I hear from friends and relatives who lived through the Great Depression and World War II that those were good times in spite of everything happening, much of which is present today but somehow things are worse now. Even I fall into the trap about somehow thinking that the times that I grew up in were somehow better than the present, this may be true for music but overall things were not that good for a lot of people but somehow we made it through them. Lent is a time to step back from the brink, take stock and renew our life with God and our neighbor.

When I returned from Iraq back in February 2008 I soon discovered that the bombardment of bad news and über-partisan political battles took its toll on me. I was neither as resilient as I thought that I was nor as consumed by the need to continue to ratchet up rhetoric on one side or the other as the more extreme elements on the right or left were doing. PTSD or not I realized that the purveyors of the 24/7 bad news cycle were driving people with legitimate ideological differences to extremes that I had never seen, but which I recognized from history have a lot of precedent and can lead to making things even worse. One only has to look at Weimar Germany to realize how things can go so very wrong when extremes on both sides of the ideological spectrums squeeze out those in the middle or chance at mutually beneficial solutions and that was in the days before type of information overload that is the bedrock of the political and ideological landscape of today.

I am not attacking those who get caught up in this but I do question the politicians, pundits, “news-networks” and talk show hosts who continue to ratchet up rhetoric to the point that many feel that the only alternative is some kind of “revolution.” Again those that call for “radical change” or revolt against those who are in favor of that kind of change are both calling for revolution when revolutionary talk reaches a point where one side or the other does not see a way to resolve things in a civil manner then the those alternatives slip away and the only recourse is violence. It is not the fault of one side or the other as those that stoke this talk are found on both sides of the American as well as other nations political and ideological spectrum testify to daily. In the United States we also have a long history of apocalyptic thought which presents the lousy state of current events in any generation as something that will certainly bring the end of life as we know it or the return of the Lord, the Great Tribulation or whatever you chalk it up to. There are those on both the religious and secular side of the spectrum who have apocalyptic visions related to their world view. For some reason we Americans do the apocalyptic quite well whether we believe in God or not.

I am not a radical, my temperament is such that I may have strong beliefs but realize that there are many other opinions out there than mine and that even if I do not agree with one side or the other on every issue it does not mean that I cannot find common ground. I think this is part of the reason for the diversity of friends that I have from across the religious, political and ideological spectrum, we can agree to disagree and in the process still value one another and our opinions and remain friends who care about one another.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer in the Courtyard of the Tegel Strasse Prison

The thing that has been most on my mind this Lent has been the idea of being reconciled both to God and to one another. Lent is a season of self examination, repentance and forgiveness. The call to “be reconciled to one another” is a never ending command and applies across the variety and spectrum of life. Lent reminds us that that “we are dust and to dust we shall return” but that we are also all made in the image of the God who created us, redeems us and sanctifies us who calls us to himself and reminds us that mercy triumphs over judgment and “not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.” I am afraid that in times like these even the best intentioned of people can find themselves pulled into the orbit of those that in less stressful or trying times that they would never be involved with. The German martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer once wrote: “Our enemies are those who harbor hostility against us, not those against whom we cherish hostility… As a Christian I am called to treat my enemy as a brother and to meet hostility with love. My behavior is thus determined not by the way others treat me, but by the treatment I receive from Jesus.”

I know for some this message is lost and not because they are rejecting the message of the Gospel but because that have become so deeply involved in whatever cause they or their champions espouse that they have lost the ability at least temporarily to see the good that may rest in their opponents and their ideas. As Bonhoeffer also wrote “Judging others makes us blind, whereas love is illuminating. By judging others, we blind ourselves to our own evil and to the grace which others are just as entitled to as ourselves.” Now of course Bonhoeffer knew the evil that was the Nazis and eventually gave his life by supporting the German resistance to Hitler. Loving our enemies does not absolve us from public responsibility but in ensuring that we do not ensnare ourselves in ideology that restricts our ability to love them as Christ has commanded.

I think in the past few years that I have gained a new perspective on life that has changed the way that I look at the world. I know that things are not good right now and that there are a lot of things to be legitimately concerned about, but I know too that somehow our country as well as much of humanity have weathered worse and like Barzan said that for some these will be the good old days someday and that helps me to live in the present knowing that the future is not yet written and known only to God who in his grace condescends to love us and desires that we better love him and one another and not be conformed to any ideology that would prevent that. I do pray that we will both see better days as well as be reconciled to God and to one another that is my Lenten prayer.

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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March 2, 2010 · 18:02

Faith, Hope and Identity a Mid-Lent Meditation

“If it is hope that maintains and upholds faith and keeps it moving on, if it is hope that draws the believer into the life of love, then it will also be hope that is the mobilizing and driving force of faith’s thinking, of its knowledge of, and reflections on, human nature, history and society. Faith hopes in order to know what it believes. Hence all its knowledge will be an anticipatory, fragmentary knowledge forming a prelude to the promised future, and as such is committed to hope.” Jürgen Moltmann- Theology of Hope

When someone goes through a spiritual crisis or loss of faith it is a chilling time. Even when you are trying to believe there is always a time that you really take stock of exactly what you believe and why. Without regurgitating the crisis in my life and faith that came after my return from Iraq and near physical, emotional and spiritual collapse that came with my PTSD I wanted to just take a few paragraphs to meditate on the grace, mercy and love of God that is a central theme of the Gospel.

I have talked about the miracle that embraced me during the season of Advent and Christmas. I call it my “Christmas miracle” because the year prior I had spent Christmas Eve walking in the dark and cold wondering if God even existed even as most of the Christian world was celebrating the Incarnation of Christ the Lord. Since that time my faith has continued to be renewed and restored and with the exception of battling Adolf Von Grosse Schmertzen my very painful and very big Kidney Stone have come to feel like my old self for the first time since Iraq.

As I have entered Lent it has been a time of renewal. Part of that renewal has been being able to believe again and as the Psalmist says, “be still and know that I am God.” This has been a refreshing time as I have continued to experience God’s grace as well as grown in my faith which is founded on the Anglican Triad of Scripture, Tradition and Reason. That actually has helped me as I have experienced some measure of healing and recovery from what I experienced.

My time in Iraq was meaningful and I loved my Marines, Soldiers and other advisers as well as our Iraqi allies. When I came back I felt alone and a lot of that came as my church had endured a series of scandals and splits and even before Iraq I had been thrashed by some of the people at the center of the storm who have all since left the church for other places that they can afflict. Coming home to that was disillusioning, as isolation that I felt from many in the chaplain community. I have found that my experience is not uncommon and that others have had similar experiences upon their return from Iraq.

For me this meant a period of almost two years where it seemed that God himself had disappeared from my life. I struggled to even pray. That is no longer the case, I seem to be on the rebound and God is real again. So things have changed, I think that my faith has matured in some ways, I don’t need to go argue points of doctrine that saints, theologians and philosophers much smarter than me have legitimate disagreements about for centuries. Nor do I need to push my views on people in my church or anywhere else as if I had the latest and last word from the Almighty. I used to seek approval and want to have input on denominational theological or liturgical committees and I would write in the hope that my “brilliance” would be recognized and that my opinion would be sought after. When I write something now it is because I believe it and to stimulate interest and discussion and occasionally to answer or critique those who use faith as a weapon to bludgeon or intimidate those that they are against. I do not expect to change anyone’s mind and since I have no position where I can enforce my beliefs on anyone else (nor would I want to thank you) my thoughts are simply that. I hope that they edify and encourage and if someone has a “wow I could have had a V-8 moment” reading something that I write I’m okay with that.

Hans Kung once said: “Time and again we see leaders and members of religions incite aggression, fanaticism, hate, and xenophobia – even inspire and legitimate violent and bloody conflicts.” I guess to some this will sound “liberal” but I came back different from Iraq and I have seen too many people suffer from those that would use religion as a weapon to control others. In Iraq I had Iraqi officers; including Generals tell me that they did not trust their Islamic clergy Sunni or Shi’a because they by their words and actions had caused so much suffering during the insurgency that followed the US invasion of Iraq. Unfortunately I am seeing the same kind of attitude that the Iraqi officers describe grow exponentially in this country, especially among the farthest right of the religious right. The use faith and religion to enforce their particular understanding of the Bible on people who are not Christians is troubling and something that our often very secular and not very Christian “Enlightenment” thinker founders understood. Some now declare anyone who doesn’t agree with them 100% as enemies not only of them, but of God and often over things that are not even Biblical like economics, gun control, taxes and a host of other conservative political issues. Now there are those on the far left that do the same thing but most do not use the Christian faith as justification for their intolerance of opposing views. Somehow while I don’t think God sees things that way that the extremes see them I know that the Al Qaida Iraq, the Taliban and other groups think much in the same way. However, such speech is protected and even if disagree with it would not support attempting to silence those who hold beliefs that I disagree with be they religious or political. Debate, dialogue and even disagreement on issues are important in both the Church and society in order that we don’t become a tyranny of the right or left, religious or secular.

As such my faith has grown in that I have no agenda other than to care for the people that God allows me to have contact with. I’m certainly not perfect at this and at times my default setting of being an ass can re-emerge but I know that Christ is working in my life again. I have emerged from what Saint John of the Cross called “the dark night of the soul.” My faith is in God and in Christ crucified who in the words of St Paul who said “in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.” (2 Cor 5:19 NRSV) I like what Chrysostom says about this passage: “For had it been His pleasure to require an account of the things we had transgressed in, we should all have perished….” The fact that God has condescended to reach out to his creation in this manner is evidenced also in 1John 2:1-2 where the Apostle writes: “My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. ²He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for^[the sins of the whole world.” For me this Lent is about reconciliation and the forgiveness of sins in an age where so many are drawing lines in the sand and preparing for war, be it religious, social or ideological.

So anyway, it has become more important to me after having gone to war and seeing its effects on people as well as having looked into the abyss of hopelessness to be an advocate for reconciliation, peace and hope for the future especially in my own country where the anger, division and even hatred between the political and religious right and the political, religious and secular left seems to rise to new heights every day.

My identity is not in a political leader, party or ideology, it is in Christ crucified. My optimism is based on him and the creation that he reconciles unto himself and I cannot give up hope or be silent about God’s love and reconciliation . As Dietrich Bonhoeffer said: “The essence of optimism is that it takes no account of the present, but it is a source of inspiration, of vitality and hope where others have resigned; it enables a man to hold his head high, to claim the future for himself and not to abandon it to his enemy.”

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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February 23, 2010 · 23:11

The Heretic: Padre Steve Critiques the Christian Sub-Culture

I guess I am a heretic. It is a hard thing to admit but I will have to join the ranks of heretics tonight as I attempt to pass my yet as unnamed Kidney stone. I have had some interesting suggestions so far and if you have one for the 7mm by 4mm unnamed stone please feel free to suggest it. Today I say my family practice doctor who put in a Urology consult and told me to come back Thursday morning if there is no change, to go to the ER if things get worse and who sent me home for two more days until the next appointment. I can only say that it is hurting and I do hope that pain and sleep medications will help me sleep tonight since I did not last night.

Since selves are very hard to help I am amazed daily with the latest self help books “baptized” with a smattering of Bible verses which are marketed to the hungry hordes that inhabit our Late Great Planet Earth. At the risk of offending everyone who knows and loves these books and yea verily even patterns their life after them as if they were the Scriptures themselves I have decided to write about this subject. I have seldom discussed this with anyone outside my wife, the Abby Normal Abbess and a few brother miscreant Priests and un-named heretical co-conspirators. As heretics who buck the party line we generally keep these conversations among ourselves in order not to offend the brethren and the sisteren. But today I just decided to say the heck with it all and be bold, yet hopefully funny in looking at these phenomena. Of course the Christian Taliban will pronounce me a heretic worthy of death for venturing to criticize the holy writ contained therein.

Back in the late 1960s and early 1970s Evangelical Christians of who I once was began to crawl out of the typical Bible thumping, cheap suit and revival meeting evangelist look. Evangelicals, driven on by early Christian rock groups and artists dared to get contemporary. At first this was confined to dressing like regular people including hippies and to adopting relatively recent pop, rock or country music styles. Of course while motives were good and the early pioneers did good work much of it because of a lack of theological and philosophical depth was really pretty shallow. “Jesus loves me yeh, yeh, yeh, Jesus loves me, yeh, yeh yeh and he loves you too…” and other equally inspired lyrics. Believe me I know this because I had a lot of the albums of the early artists. However, they were a light years above and beyond some of the crap that came later as real record labels like MCA swallowed up Christian labels such as Maranatha, Light, Sparrow, Birdwing and Word. After that even the innocent shallowness of some of the early groups was lost amid the focus on market share, image, ratings and corporate profit. Of course since Capitalism is of God, or at least as its “Christian” supporters claim notwithstanding the fact that is it simple economic social Darwinism. At the same time there were some good conservative Christian thinkers of various traditions who advocated a more active engagement with contemporary society including Chuck Colson, Francis Schaeffer and Richard John Neuhaus. They were all learned and humble Christian men, unfortunately many who claim to be their successors have neither the training, temperament nor the Christian character of these men.

Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t have a big issue with Christians finding common ground in anything, including music, the arts or even the sciences. I just prefer that it retain some sense of theological, philosophical and Biblical integrity when it does so, especially when Christians assume a tacit moral. Spiritual and artistic superiority over “non-believers” in said areas. Sorry Mr. Christian Taliban if you say the secular pioneers of a field of study are in Hell and you somehow have baptized their methods it is a clear example of assuming a moral, spiritual or intellectual superiority over the benighted unbelievers, heretics and infidels. Such actions have no integrity, no Christian character or superiority to the people condemned to Hell (i.e. Freud, Jung, Maslow, Jung or Adler.)

Of course this branched out into other areas of life including and especially pop-psychology and self-help. Christian groups who had previously loathed and condemned to Hell or as a minimum darned to Heck anything to do with the disciplines of Psychiatry or Psychology embraced them like a blow up love doll, not content with the real thing but finding something less effective but at least buttressed by a few Bible verses. The fact that insurance will pay for at least part of it if you get a state license is even better. When actual therapy, even Christian counseling or therapy fails there are the latest in Christian Self-Help titles to satiate the soul and make everyone feel better or worse of they don’t measure up to what the Christian Self-Help industry promoters claim.

What really drove this was seeing friends Romans and countrymen flock to these baptized self-help books as if they were the latest editions of the Word of God printed in heaven and distributed by the Archangel Gabriel himself. Now this may be a bit of an over-reach on my part for literary purposes but I think in some cases it is not far off the mark. I don’t for a moment presume that everyone who finds meaning and value in these books has crossed this line into obsession but I am amazed with the almost cultic hold that they have over some people and ministries. I cannot count the number of times when people have asked me as a Priest if I have read….fill in the blank. Since my theological or inspirational reading usually deals with Church History, Ethics, Christology written by German theologians whose names start with “B” the early Church Fathers and Folks like Martin Luther as well as books by Henri Nouwen or one of the plethora of Father Andrew Greeley “Bishop Blackie Ryan” mysteries that I own, I have to no recourse but to say “NO” as my interests lay elsewhere. Another line that I might use is that I’ve heard from people that name the book is supposed to be good. In either case I am being honest. This being said the next line from the person asking me is “well, you should, you’d really like it” or something similar. I am always polite as I genuinely hope that they are getting something good out of these works and that the Deity Herself is using them in their lives. I would after all patently hope that they have not wasted their hard earned money on a bunch of theological tepidness in light of our current economic difficulties.

What gets me in most cases is not the actual content of the books in question which especially in the case of the Purpose Driven Life or the Five Love Languages to be pretty benign, though I have heard some folks really hammer these books and their authors. My concern is the almost hypnotic grip that these and other “method” promoting books have on their readers. I have seen places where there are extended classes and seminars that go through the Purpose Driven Life or The Five Love Languages or any one of a number of other books where week after week people drag out their notebooks, Palm Pilots or whatever means of electronic note taking that they have and studiously listen and share about the book in question. While Bible study is an ingrained feature of Evangelical Protestant life, it seems to me that these books are almost replacing Bible study with the study of what someone says that the Bible teaches. Now this isn’t new at all as one only has to look at the number of books on the Rapture and Second coming by the multitude of “prophecy experts” to see this. Again, I say that I find the contents of the Purpose Driven Life and the Five Love Languages to be rather benign, my concern is the importance being given to them which sometimes to me seems to border on cultic. The list can go on especially in light of the books allegedly written by popular televangelists but certainly written by more literate but equally insipid and theological, philosophical and Biblical ghost writers who hope that their work will sell. After all it is all about the bottom line. As a mega-church pastor told Chuck Colson when asked why he didn’t tackle difficult subjects “They pay me to fill the church.”

My feeling in regard to the Prayer of Jabez industry is another matter. This is simply narcissistic prosperity gospel teaching repackaged for a new audience. This book takes an incredibly minor prayer by an equally minor character (1 Chronicles 4: 9,10) and turns it into a revolutionary means of getting God to bless us. It has spun off a whole line of targeted versions for every gender and ethnic group as well as kids and even a women’s Study Bible. Likewise it has spun off an array of merchandise apparently modeled on Yogurt’s marketing of Spaceballs merchandise. The merchandise could be found in the “Jabez Junk” section of your local Christian book, music and novelty shop and included key chains, mugs, backpacks, Christmas ornaments, scented candles, mouse pads, and a framed artist’s conception of Jabez himself.A line of jewelry was introduced in 2002. I found the whole thing deeply offensive and felt it to be a crass attempt by the author and the publishers to make money off of the flock of God. I knew of pastors who spent years with their congregations dealing with the Prayer of Jabez. I wonder what they would have accomplished had they actually been teaching their congregations actual Christian doctrine, ethics and responsibility. But what can I say…mediocrity sells when slickly packaged and marketed…beats real study and responsible scholarship every time. God forbid we actually deal with difficult stuff. Until then if it sells its swell, but if I want to make money off the flock of God I’ll just do it the old fashioned way and ask for a “love offering.” Maybe I should post a Pay-Pal link on this site so I can make some money too? After all it is better to receive than give isn’t it?

Fortunately for me and maybe unfortunately for others I have a rather twisted way of looking at life, which some of kindred spirit find amusing and those not find offensive. I cannot for the life of me get around odd thoughts that occur when I see these books which is nowhere more evident than when I hear the words the Five Love Languages. Unfortunately my mind goes to the movie A Fish Called Wanda where Jamie Lee Curtis (who I have always found to be hot) plays an American in England who is let us say sexually excited by her lovers speaking in foreign languages. In the case of the movie Kevin Kline speaking faux Italian and John Cleese who speaks Russian. Thus when my office mate in Iraq was running a series of Five Love Language seminars for Marines and Sailors who were stationed at the base that I operated from I had a hard time keeping a straight face. The chaplain was a very good guy and eventually I confessed what had been running through my mind and he did have a good sense of humor about it and began to laugh when he recalled the movie. I guess my five love languages would be German, Dutch, Gaelic, Klingon and Romulan, I’ll have to try them on the Abbess sometime.

Until then I’ll just have to wage a battle in my mind to discover the purpose that drives my life while I navigate the Battlefield of the Mind, extend my tent out to cover the five love languages on this the late great planet Earth as I learn to discipline the Strong Willed Child.

Now let me add something. I am not opposed to orthodox or even fundamental beliefs so long as they are not used as a weapon against those who don’t agree with them as if we were unbelievers or infidels. Nor am I opposed to them if they are not used as fodder for someone else’s political agenda. I actually am a moderate and theologically Orthodox Anglo Catholic Christian. My faith is based on a high view of Scripture, Sacred Traditions including the Creeds and the first seven Ecumenical Councils and Reason. Unfortunately most of the mass produced “Christian” crap is neither based on the total witness of Holy Scripture, does not match what faith has been proclaimed since the beginning of the Church and often is befit of reason. Instead it is personal interpretations of proof texted Bible verses cobbled together in isolation from the rest of the Christian faith, tradition and testimony of nearly 2000 years. If someone wants to pick a fight with me on that they can but they are on shaky ground.

God I love how a bunch of good Gordon Biersch beer helps me express my thoughts especially when trying to pass a big Kidney Stone.

Pray for me a sinner.

Peace,

Padre Steve+

PS. No offense intended even if it was taken. Or is it the other way around?

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February 17, 2010 · 16:19

Ash Wednesday…Padre Steve’s Lenten Survival Tips to Make this a Happy Lent

“God, deliver me from gloomy saints.” – – Saint Teresa of Avila

We’ll it is here, my least favorite season of the liturgical year. As I have mentioned before I do not do well, at the same time it is something that I need to commit myself to observing for the sake of actually wanting a better spiritual life that is not simply a way to make me feel better about life but help me more fully to love and serve God my neighbor with an attitude of thanksgiving and joy.

Those who know me know that such is not an easy task and that for me no matter how hard I have tried Lent has always been painful. By the end of Lent I am thankful for Easter not simply because of the resurrection and the promise of redemption, but frankly because I was glad that Lent was over. In my early days as a Priest I tried to out do others on Lent doing not just Friday but Wednesday as meatless. I have even tried doing opposite of what I was doing and hope that it would work. Last year in the midst of my spiritual crisis I tried to go extra-lean on Lent and that didn’t help either. Perhaps that was due to my overall poor emotional, physical and spiritual condition as I was trying to climb out of the abyss of PTSD but still, Lent was not very productive for me no matter what I did.

So this year I’m going to be a good Anglican and find the via media where I actually gain some spiritual benefit, give up something that I can actually succeed at giving up for Lent and add or increase some spiritual discipline that I can succeed at doing not just for Lent but in real life too. I realize that I can’t overdo it or I will simply give up when something keeps me from doing it and the same time I need to do something not too difficult but not so easy as to be meaningless. The goal is to have a meaningful Lent that actually does me some spiritual good while not becoming any more of a pain in the ass to the people around me that have to endure me.

Today was Ash Wednesday and I had the responsibility for conducting the Protestant service which for me comes straight out of the Book of Common Prayer. The Gospel lesson from Matthew chapter 6 was Jesus telling folks how to fast not be idiots about it, in other words to “Steveicize” the language Jesus wants his followers to be able to and pray without drawing attention to ourselves and actually look happy about it. I figure and I assume that Jesus figured out that there were too many gloomy religious people around and that the disciples needed to get a life before he sent them out into the world; of course just like me and maybe you too made plenty of mistakes and at times made a mess of things in their time with Jesus and even after. The disciples who with the exception of Judas who got hung up on the details all became Apostles still all finished well and most got schwacked by the Romans or others displeased with their message.

So with this in mind here are a few hints on how to get through Lent, not that I have been successful at doing this but figure that through my failures I might have a few insights in how to navigate the often treacherous season of Lent.

First there are the spiritual disciplines, like starting simple, go to church, pray every day, even if it is something short and sweet. If you are a superstar Christian you can go onward and upward using spiritual steroids to improve your performance but I’m not there yet, I just use spiritual steroids to help my soul heal faster. As Saint Bernard of Clairvaux said:

“Wherever…thou shalt be, pray secretly within thyself. If thou shalt be far from a house of prayer, give not thyself trouble to seek for one, for thou thyself art a sanctuary designed for prayer. If thou shalt be in bed, or in any other place, pray there; thy temple is there.”

Now to what to give up: Most of the time for Americans this involved food, particularly meat on Friday’s and sometimes other things. I’ve heard of people giving up chocolate or certain delicacies but most of the time it is meatless Fridays and sometimes Wednesdays and there have been some that I have met who have gone on 40 days fasts during Lent. I can get the meatless Fridays and I am going to give up something that I love that I don’t eat much of normally, like maybe once a week after successful weigh-ins, but really enjoy…I mean really enjoy, the Gordon Biersch Cheeseburger cooked medium rare with everything on it and Garlic Fries on the side. Since there is not a lot else for me to give up being on the Fat Boy program, that once a week treat will be a sacrifice.

Now since I tend not too eat most things that swim in their own toilet such as fish the whole deal of fish on Friday is something that I don’t observe…now I still go meatless but find alternative ways to do it. In the past I have done bean burritos, meatless salads, meatless pasta usually with a Marinara sauce, pizza with tomatoes, garlic, olives and mushrooms, or something simple like red or black beans and rice, vegetable soup, pea soup, black bean soup and other things like that. This makes meatless doable. One year though I had to suffer for Jesus on the USS Hue City as Friday was “surf and turf.” Since the turf was definitely out for Lent I had to make due with Alaskan King Crab or lobster tails. That was difficult but I did survive.

I think one of the things that I missed during previous Lenten seasons was the grace of God, somehow in trying to jump through all the Lenten hoops I became so fixated on the actions that I forgot to experience the love of God and the joy that comes with that. This year will be all about that process and discovering the joy in life that has been coming back to me after my “Christmas miracle.”

Martin Luther the German reformer wrote something very appropriate about how to approach Lent,a s well as the rest of the Christian life which I think is pretty profound as Lutehr sees the process of the Christian life:

“‘Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind (Rom. 12:2).’ In this way the Apostle describes (Christian) progress; for he addresses those who already are Christians. The Christian life does not mean to stand still, but to move from that which is good to that which is better. St. Bernard (of Clairvaux) rightly says: ‘As soon as you do not desire to become better, then you have ceased to be good.’ It does not help a tree to have green leaves and flowers if it does not bear fruit beside its flowers. For this reason – (for not bearing fruit) – many (nominal Christians) perish in their flowering. Man (the Christian) is always in the condition of nakedness, always in the state of becoming, always in the state of potentiality, always in the condition of activity. He is always a sinner, but also always repentant and so always righteous. We are in part sinners, and in part righteous, and so nothing else than penitents. No one is so good as that he could not become better; no one is so evil, as that he could not become worse.'” (Commentary on Romans, by Martin Luther, Translated by J. T. Mueller, Kregel Publications, Grand Rapid MI 49501, reprinted 1976, page 167-168.)

On a side note one cool thing about this Lent is that it is happening about as early in the year as it can, thus it will not affect the baseball season as opening day at Harbor Park is the week following Easter. So anyway with all of this in mind I bid you a blessed Lent and hope and pray that you will come to experience the love of God in a special way this year that impacts you and those around you. Pray for me a sinner.

Peace, Padre Steve+

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February 17, 2010 · 00:00

Giving Up Ideology for the Cross…Entering Into Lent

“If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other direction.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday and for many it will be as any other day. For others it will be a religious event that is done because we have always done it and it is a part of the liturgical life of the Church. For others it will be a time of commitment to a cause, a belief or in some cases ideology to base their lives upon.

Lent is a penitential time, a time to take stock of our lives and in the Christian faith in which it has a important place a time where over a period of seven weeks we seek to again renew our faith in Christ, examine our lives in light of the Gospel and learn again how to experience the grace love and mercy of God in the simple words of Jesus to the woman at the well “Your sins have been forgiven, go and sin no more.”

While this is the crux of Lent for some it will be a time of misplaced activity, not activity centered on prayer, good works and renewing faith in the Crucified One but rather in transitory political, social and ideological agendas that often have little to do with the Gospel, but are rather activities where well meaning people have been seduced into the false promises of ideologues of various persuasions who have no real interest in the Gospel but political or economic power be they conservative or liberal, capitalist or socialist. The seductiveness of these ideologies appeals to the passion and emotion of people who regardless of their political or religious persuasions become enamored with the ideology and then reinterpret life, faith and relationships to fit the ideology. When this happens to Christians this can lead to twisting Scripture and Tradition to fit the ideology much as did the theologians, pastors and lay people in German churches in the late 1920s and 1930s.

When two powerful ideologies collide as did Communism and National Socialism in Germany, Socialism and Gaullism is France or contemporary Liberalism and Conservatism in the United States the conflict will spill out and over into Churches and other religious institutions. Well meaning people will sublimate their faith beneath the ideology and political ethos that they most agree with. The ideology overrides faith even as the religious institutions and individuals within them conform their faith not to Christ crucified but to ideologies which may have merit and benefit but ultimately, despite the protestations of tier loudest purveyors have little actually to do with the faith and which embraced in their totality are the antithesis of the faith and the enemies of Christ. It matters not if the ideology is “liberal” or “conservative” because ultimately these ideologies even when defended by pastors, theologians and “baptized” with Scripture, and despite some qualities which may be complimentary to the Gospel are often set against the Gospel and seek to use the Church, Christians and others simply as pawns to sacrifice in their quest for total unadulterated political, social or economic power.

In our contemporary American culture the loudest and most prominent voices and those which have more influence on churches and individual Christians are the political ideologues of the right and the left who inhabit talk radio and the various cable television news networks. It seems too often that well meaning Christians and others assume everything being spoken from media personalities and entertainers that they like and agree with is compatible with the faith. However just because Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, Keith Olberman, Chris Matthews or any other commentator on the airwaves says, nor because our political party leaders and Presidential or Vice Presidential candidates echo our passions and feed our fears about the other party does not mean that what they say is Christian or compatible with the Christian faith and tradition even when those individuals claim the mantle of a “Christian” leader. The adoption and blessing of the often perverted theological ideas of media personalities, talking heads and politicians by individual Christians, Church leaders and denominations can only result in their enslavement by the individuals and organizations to whit they give their blessing. When this happens the ideologues will readily support social or policy goals of the religious groups but only to gain their vote. This is proven by history and experience. One only has to look at how German Christians of various traditions were seduced by the promises of Hitler and the Nazis during a time since November 1918 their society had been ripped apart by military defeat, economic humiliation, internal revolution and societal change which threatened the values that they held dear and in reactions to the Nazi promises sold themselves and their country to the devil. This type of thing has happened in other countries but is most glaringly seen in the transition from the Weimar Republic to the Nazi era.

Swiss-German theologian Karl Barth, a leader of the Confessing Church was an outspoken opponent of the Nazis lectured about how ideology can become its own idol and the purveyors of ideology can themselves make it an idol from which they cannot separate themselves and to which they become mouthpieces for as they bend their deeply held belief’s to the ideology. The ideology itself becomes an absolute from which no deviation is allowed. As Barth so poignantly stated:

“[Ideology] comes about as [one] thinks he can and should ascribe to the presuppositions and sketches he has achieved by his remarkable ability, not just a provisional and transitory but a permanent normativity, not just one that is relative but one that is absolute, not just one that is human but one that is quasi-divine. His hypotheses become for him theses behind which he no longer ventures to go back with seeking, questioning, and researching. He thinks that they can be thought and formulated definitively as thoughts that are not merely useful but instrinsically true and therefore binding. His ideal becomes an idol. He thinks that he knows only unshakable principles and among them a basic principle in relation to which he must coordinate and develop them as a whole, combining them all, and with them his perceptions and concepts, into a system, making of his ideas an ideology. Here again the reins slip out of his hands. This creature of his, the ideology, seems to be so wonderfully glorious and exerts on him such a fascination that he thinks he should move and think and act more and more within its framework and under its direction, since salvation can be achieved only through the works of its law. This ideology becomes the object of his reflection, the backbone and norm of his disposition, the guiding star of his action. All his calculations, exertions, and efforts are now predestined by it. They roll towards its further confirmation and triumph like balls on a steep slope. Man’s whole loyalty is loyalty to the line demanded by it. He thinks that he possesses it, but in truth it already possesses him. In relation to it he is no longer the free man who thought he had found it in its glory and should help to put it on the throne. He now ventures to ask and answer only within its schema. He must now orient himself to it. He must represent it as its more or less authentic witness and go to work as its great or small priest and prophet. At root he no longer has anything of his own to say. He can only mouth the piece dictated to him as intelligibly as he can, and perhaps like a mere parrot. His own face threatens already to disappear behind the mask that he must wear as its representative. He already measures and evaluates others only from the standpoint of whether they are supporters of this ideology, or whether they might become such, or whether they might at least be useful to it even without their consent, or whether they must be fought as its enemies. Its glory has already become for him the solution not only to the personal problem of his own life but to each and all of the problems of the world.” ~ Karl Barth, The Christian Life: Church Dogmatics IV/4, Lecture Fragments, 225.

Barth’s words which are the result of seeing good people surrender their faith to ideology should not be taken lightly as we enter into the Lenten season. The season of Lent is a time to acknowledge our need for the grace and mercy of God and find forgiveness for ourselves while extending the same grace, love and mercy shown to us to our neighbor, even the neighbor who does not agree with the ideologues that we prefer.

Our challenge in a time of turmoil and conflict is not to be seduced by the shameless appeals of ideologues of all stripes but to return to faith in the God who comes to us, suffers for and with us and in himself provides the promise of redemption and the forgiveness of sins.

For me this Lent will involve a more premeditated effort to encounter Christ in all that I meet and rebuilt spiritual disciplines that suffered when I went through the crisis of faith that dominated my life for nearly two years. I do pray that for those who elect to observe this season that it will not be a time of legalistic obedience under which we chafe but rather a time of returning to our first love and forsaking the idols of ideology that can so poison our life and relationships with those that we live and interact with on a daily basis.

Peace

Padre Steve+

God in the Empty Places…Padre Steve Remembers the Beginnings of Padre Steve’s World

The 16^th will be the first anniversary of Padre Steve’s World…Musings of a Passionate Moderate. When I began the site it was about a year after I returned from Iraq. When I began the site I was running pretty ragged from my PTSD, the deteriorating condition of my father who has end-stage Alzheimer’s disease and from throwing myself so intensely into work in the ICU and PICU at the Medical Center that I was operating on fumes. This is one of my earliest posts and reflects to a large degree where I was in my life at the time. It is a reflection on life, ministry and military history and identity. For me the return from Iraq and the continued wars that we are engaged in bring to mind the experience of the French military in Indo-China and Algeria and as I note here it is my view that the current generation of American Soldiers, Marines, Sailors and Airmen have more in common with the career soldiers of the Foreign Legion, Paratroops and Colonials (Marines) who served in Indo-China and Algeria than we do with the men and women of the “Greatest Generation.” Unlike those veterans who by and large were draftees and were able to fight a conventional war against nation state actors which they vanquished, the current generation serves against shadowy forces in counterinsurgency campaigns in wars that show no sign of ending soon. I came back feeling isolated and alienated from people who had not served in Iraq, Afghanistan or our predecessors in Vietnam. This is my reflection on that at the beginning of this website a year ago I have added pictures as well as some video links about the Battle of Dien Bien Phu but have not altered the post.

Peace,

Padre Steve+

Foreign Legion Troops in Indochina

I have been doing a lot of reflecting on ministry and history over the past few months. While both have been part of my life for many years, they have taken on a new dimension after serving in Iraq. I can’t really explain it; I guess I am trying to integrate my theological and academic disciplines with my military, life and faith experience since my return.

The Chaplain ministry is unlike civilian ministry in many ways. As Chaplains we never lose the calling of being priests, and as priests in uniform, we are also professional officers and go where our nations send us to serve our Soldiers, Sailors, Marines and Airmen. There is always a tension, especially when the wars that we are sent to are unpopular at home and seem to drag on without the benefit of a nice clear victory such as VE or VJ Day in World War II or the homecoming after Desert Shield and Desert Storm.

VJ Day…It will never happen again

It is my belief that when things go well and we have easy victories that it is easy for us to give the credit to the Lord and equally easy for others to give the credit to superior strategy, weaponry or tactics to the point of denying the possibility that God might have been involved. Such is the case in almost every war and Americans since World War Two have loved the technology of war seeing it as a way to easy and “bloodless” victory. In such an environment ministry can take on an almost “cheer-leading” dimension. It is hard to get around it, because it is a heady experience to be on a winning Army in a popular cause. The challenge here is to keep our ministry of reconciliation in focus, by caring for the least, the lost and the lonely, and in our case, to never forget the victims of war, especially the innocent among the vanquished, as well as our own wounded, killed and their families.

But there are other wars, many like the current conflict less popular and not easily finished. The task of chaplains in the current war, and similar wars fought by other nations is different. In these wars, sometimes called counter-insurgency operations, guerilla wars or peace keeping operations, there is no easily discernable victory. These types of wars can drag on and on, sometimes with no end in sight. Since they are fought by volunteers and professionals, much of the population acts as if there is no war since it does often not affect them, while others oppose the war.

Marines at Hue City

Likewise, there are supporters of war who seem more interested in political points of victory for their particular political party than for the welfare of those that are sent to fight the wars. This has been the case in about every war fought by the US since World War II. It is not a new phenomenon. Only the cast members have changed.

Foreign Legion in Algeria, the ancestral home of the Legion

www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YSsetJU-tU&feature=related

This is not only the case with the United States. I think that we can find parallels in other military organizations. I think particularly of the French professional soldiers, the paratroops and Foreign Legion who bore the brunt of the fighting in Indo-China, placed in a difficult situation by their government and alienated from their own people. In particular I think of the Chaplains, all Catholic priests save one Protestant, at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, the epic defeat of the French forces that sealed the end of their rule in Vietnam. The Chaplains there went in with the Legion and Paras. They endured all that their soldiers went through while ministering the Sacraments and helping to alleviate the suffering of the wounded and dying. Their service is mentioned in nearly every account of the battle. During the campaign which lasted 6 months from November 1953 to May 1954 these men observed most of the major feasts from Advent through the first few weeks of Easter with their soldiers in what one author called “Hell in a Very Small Place.”

www.youtube.com/watch?v=th7tImvzutc

Another author describes Easter 1954: “In all Christendom, in Hanoi Cathedral as in the churches of Europe the first hallelujahs were being sung. At Dienbeinphu, where the men went to confession and communion in little groups, Chaplain Trinquant, who was celebrating Mass in a shelter near the hospital, uttered that cry of liturgical joy with a heart steeped in sadness; it was not victory that was approaching but death.” A battalion commander went to another priest and told him “we are heading toward disaster.” (The Battle of Dienbeinphu, Jules Roy, Carroll and Graf Publishers, New York, 1984 p.239)

Of course one can find examples in American military history such as Bataan, Corregidor, and certain battles of the Korean War to understand that our ministry can bear fruit even in tragic defeat. At Khe Sahn in our Vietnam War we almost experienced a defeat on the order of Dien Bien Phu. It was the tenacity of the Marines and tremendous air-support that kept our forces from being overrun.

Terrorism and the Battle of Algiers

You probably wonder where I am going with this. I wonder a little bit too. But here is where I think I am going. It is the most difficult of times; especially when units we are with take casualties and our troops’ sacrifice is not fully appreciated by a nation absorbed with its own issues.

French Chaplain and Soldiers Indochina 1950

For the French the events and sacrifices of their soldiers during Easter 1954 was page five news in a nation that was more focused on the coming summer. This is very similar to our circumstances today because it often seems that own people are more concerned about economic considerations and the latest in entertainment news than what is going on in Iraq or Afghanistan. The French soldiers in Indo-china were professionals and volunteers, much like our own troops today. Their institutional culture and experience of war was not truly appreciated by their own people, or by their government which sent them into a war against an opponent that would sacrifice anything and take as many years as needed to secure their aim, while their own countrymen were unwilling to make the sacrifice and in fact had already given up their cause as lost. Their sacrifice would be lost on their own people and their experience ignored by the United States when we sent major combat formations to Vietnam in the 1960s. In a way the French professional soldiers of that era have as well as British colonial troops before them have more in common with our force than the citizen soldier heroes of the “Greatest Generation.” Most of them were citizen soldiers who did their service in an epic war and then went home to build a better country as civilians. We are now a professional military and that makes our service a bit different than those who went before us.

Yet it is in this very world that we minister, a world of volunteers who serve with the highest ideals. We go where we are sent, even when it is unpopular. It is here that we make our mark; it is here that we serve our Soldiers, Sailors, Marines and Airmen. Our duty is to bring God’s grace, mercy and reconciliation to men and women, and their families who may not see it anywhere else. Likewise we are always to be a prophetic voice within the ranks.

Marine Advisers and Afghan Soldiers

When my dad was serving in Vietnam in 1972 I had a Sunday school teacher tell me that he was a “Baby Killer.” It was a Catholic Priest and Navy Chaplain who showed me and my family the love of God when others didn’t. In the current election year anticipate that people from all parts of the political spectrum will offer criticism or support to our troops. Our duty is to be there as priests, not be discouraged in caring for our men and women and their families because most churches, even those supportive of our people really don’t understand the nature of our service or the culture that we represent. We live in a culture where the military professional is in a distinct minority group upholding values of honor, courage, sacrifice and duty which are foreign to most Americans. We are called to that ministry in victory and if it happens someday, defeat. In such circumstances we must always remain faithful.

French Commanders at Dien Bien Phu

For those interested in the French campaign in Indo-China it has much to teach us. Good books on the subject include The Last Valley by Martin Windrow, Hell in a Very Small Place by Bernard Fall; The Battle of Dienbeinphu by Jules Roy; and The Battle of Dien Bien Phu- The Battle America Forgot by Howard Simpson. For a history of the whole campaign, read Street Without Joy by Bernard Fall. I always find Fall’s work poignant, he served as a member of the French Resistance in the Second World War and soldier later and then became a journalist covering the Nurnberg Trials and both the French and American wars in Vietnam and was killed by what was then known as a “booby-trap” while covering a platoon of U.S. Marines.

There is a picture that has become quite meaningful to me called the Madonna of Stalingrad. It was drawn by a German chaplain-physician named Kurt Reuber at Stalingrad at Christmas 1942 during that siege. He drew it for the wounded in his field aid station, for most of whom it would be their last Christmas. The priest would die in Soviet captivity and the picture was given to one of the last officers to be evacuated from the doomed garrison. It was drawn on the back of a Soviet map and now hangs in the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in Berlin where it is displayed with the Cross of Nails from Coventry Cathedral as a symbol of reconciliation. I have had it with me since before I went to Iraq. The words around it say: “Christmas in the Cauldron 1942, Fortress Stalingrad, Light, Life, Love.” I am always touched by it, and it is symbolic of God’s care even in the midst of the worst of war’s suffering and tragedy.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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Filed under History, iraq,afghanistan, Military, PTSD, Religion, vietnam

February 11, 2010 · 23:59

Padre Steve muses about Lenten Traditions and Spirituality…as Usual a Bit Differently than Others

Looks Like a Lot of Salad ahead for Padre Steve

As we know Lent is a time of penitence and fasting. My little goof ball brain has wrestled with this ever since coming into a Catholic tradition back in the mid-1990s. As someone who grew up pretty ecumenical and culturally Protestant it was a hard transition. Getting to an Anglican and then more Anglo-Catholic theological viewpoint in seminary and the years following was easy. “Head stuff” theology, Church History and other academic disciplines come very easy to me. I live in that world and I love that world, even as a Chaplain in a major teaching medical center I find that I am deeply involved in academics, in this case health care ethics and the role of religion and spirituality in health care.

Developing spiritual disciplines have always been harder for me; however I have developed some over the years especially since I entered the Anglo-Catholic tradition. I value the Daily Office and my spirituality centers around the Eucharist. That being said I have struggled with the more aesthetic aspects of the spiritual life. I think that a major part of this is due to my early life in the Evangelical Protestant tradition. These disciplines are not deeply imbedded in the evangelical tradition. It is not that fasting is not found among Evangelicals, but it plays a different role and for most it is not a routine part of spiritual life for most. In the churches I grew up in fasting or abstinence were both voluntary and for most not a part of church life. There are exceptions to this. Some churches take on 40 days of fasting programs, but these are usually just another part of the churches program for a particular time and usually not continued on a regular basis. So for me this did not come naturally and as a result I struggled with Lent and never looked forward to it. I discussed this some in my previous essay.

Yet, fasting and abstinence can be very beneficial in developing spiritual disciplines, even for people like me. I always try to ensure that I observe meatless Fridays and sometimes Wednesdays. When I was deployed on USS Hue City during Operation Enduring Freedom I had to deal with Lent. Every Friday evening the ship typically served “Surf and Turf.” Since the “turf” was off the menu for me I had to deal with the “surf.” To be sure I am not a big fan of fish or seafood in general. However in the evening the “surf” was either Alaskan king crab or lobster. So for that Lenten observance I had to suffer for Jesus as I made due with these awful delicacies.

Now I have struggled and still struggle at Lent, especially when I focus or become obsessed about what I am giving up, versus trying to use this time as a means to develop and my own spiritual disciplines. When I get focused on the “what’s” of Lent and not the purpose for it I fail miserably. Lent is often for me like spiritual New Year’s resolutions. To be honest I’m still working on these disciplines, I figure I will be doing so the rest of my life as old habits die hard.

My own journey in learning to “survive” Lent is to let go. If things impede and frustrate me then I need to let go of them and focus on what will actually build me up spiritually. Last year I decided to reduce the amount of time I spent watching all the talking heads on TV news and listening to the incessant drumbeat of talk radio. When I did this I noticed a radical shift, I was not long spun up about all the apocalyptic invective on both the right and the left. I began to be able to relax and actually let God’s grace begin to work in me, especially because of what I went through coming back from Iraq. It worked so well that I never went back. Now I watch religious programming like Sports Center, Around the Horn and Pardon the Interruption and listen to Mike and Mike in the Morning and The Tony Mercurio Show on my local ESPN station FM 94.1. Another thing that helped me was reading Andrew Greeley’s “Bishop Blackie Ryan” mystery novels which I started doing in Iraq. They are so full of the grace of God and numerous times have touched my very soul. It is now easier, for the most part for me to see people of all religious and political viewpoints as people who God loves and not enemies of me or the unnamed political party to which I may or may not belong.

This year Lent should be better than last when I was still battling the demons of PTSD and was trying to climb out of that hole. That did not happen during Lent last year but began to happen during Advent and Christmas. This year I expect to celebrate Lent beginning on Ash Wednesday when I will conduct the “Protestant” Ash Wednesday service at the Medical Center where I work and also celebrate the season with the good people of Saint James Episcopal Church who during Lent of last year embraced me and helped me reconnect with Christian community.

Of course on Fat Tuesday I will celebrate with my friends in the Stein Club at Gordon Biersch. I will have to bring donuts for everyone that night to have with our beer.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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Filed under philosophy, Religion

Tagged as alaskan king crab, andrew Greeley, anglican tradition, around the horn, ash wednesday, bishop blackie ryan, espn, evangelical protestants, god's grace, lent, lenten traditions, lobster, mike and mike in the morning, new year resolutions, pardon the interruption, PTSD, sports center, surf and turf, talk radio, talking heads, uss hue city

February 10, 2010 · 23:32

One Week Warning: Lent Begins Next Wednesday

Contemplating Lent

I have never ever done the season of Lent well. From Ash Wednesday through Good Friday I pray for it to end. First I don’t look good in the liturgical color of the season, purple. I actually prefer the green of Ordinary time or the Red of Pentecost. However I do have a really cool “cope” (which is liturgical jargon for cape) and stole (liturgical scarf) in purple that I picked up at little religious goods store in Poland back in 1996. I thought it was a chasuble (liturgical poncho) but it is still pretty cool. Unfortunately I have never had the occasion to wear it in a service despite the color which would not do me well.

However aesthetics aside Lent is my least favorite season of the Church year. Now I am not adverse to it on principle as I do think that we all need to take stock of our relationship with God and humanity as well as the things that we mess up on a daily basis. As someone whose spiritual life stays about at the Mendoza line I know that I have a lot that I need to improve in my life. That is a given. I would love to be a .300 spiritual hitter than a .215 spiritual hitter. However I do work at trying to get better. Lent is a season that reminds me of what a screw up I am, thus like anyone who doesn’t like to be reminded of their shortcomings for 40 days I find Lent a painful reminder of my imperfections.

So with that in mind and knowing that I am not the only person who is in my boat I have to provide some survival tips but those will wait. Since many readers have little idea what Lent is about let me do some “splainin” as Ricky Ricardo would have said.

Lent is the season of spiritual preparation that leads up to Holy Week and Easter. It is a “penitential season” meaning a season where we examine our lives in relationship to God and the folks that we hang with, sometimes referred to as humanity and seek to receive God’s grace to make amends and to find ways to do better. One of the ways that Christians have done is to give up certain foods or activities during the season. Others seek to add spiritual disciplines to their lives.

Lent begins on the Wednesday following “Fat Tuesday” which is called Ash Wednesday. On Ash Wednesday Christians have themselves marked with a cross from ashes on their forehead as a sign of the reality of their mortality and promise to use the season to return to God, make changes in their lives that will deepen their spiritual lives and their relationship with their neighbor. It’s the whole “which are the greatest commandments?” “Love God and love your neighbor” on steroids. Unfortunately the whole relationship thing sometimes gets lost as folks get caught in the legalism and minutia or trying to figure out what to “give up” for Lent, which often is like a New Year’s resolution which almost invariably goes bad. Lent then continues for 7 weeks but only 40 days are actually Lenten Lent as all the Sundays are “feast days” which mean that you can eat all the stuff that you don’t get to eat on Fridays or Wednesdays if your Church or Diocese is a bit stricter than others. There are also three major Feast Days, Saint Matthias (Apostle), Saint Joseph and the Annunciation. There is also Saint Patrick’s Day which though not a major feast day is often locally observed and of it falls on a Wednesday or Friday is sometimes is allowed by the local Bishop to supersede the fast day. Speaking of “Fast Days” these are days where the Christian gives up most food except for a couple of very small and simple meatless meals, though some are stricter in their observance of “Fast Days” and actually fast throughout the day, not that there is anything wrong with that. Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are “Fast Days.” There are also days known as days of abstinence where the individual gives up certain foods or activities. Traditionally meat is given up on Fridays and depending on how strict your diocese is Wednesdays as well. Most people do fish on these days. I will write more about this later in the week.

I have struggled with Lent for most of my life even as a Priest. When I made my first confession I asked the Priest who heard it “if they deserved it was it still as sin?” Though that was not during Lent you get my drift. I admit that I struggle with Lent but over the past few months I have had a rather remarkable spiritual and emotional start to recovering from my case of PTSD. So as with most things I am not in dread of Lent this year. I will pick reasonable spiritual goals as well as things to abstain from during the season.

So with the warning given enjoy the next week.

Peace,

Padre Steve+

Gordon Klingenschmitt Calls Admiral Mullen a “Liar”

How do you know when Gordon Klingenschmitt is lying?

When his lips are moving.

Well Gordon James “Chaps” Klingenschmitt a former Navy Chaplain convicted by a Special Court Martial for disobeying a lawful order not to wear his uniform to participate in a partisan political rally back in 2006 is at it again. The defrocked Priest, former chaplain, convicted criminal, compulsive liar, and theological thug has called the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen a “liar” in an e-mail sent out through the Washington Times Marketing Showcase in which he was calling for Christians to join his petition “DEFENDING OUR TROOPS AGAINST OPEN HOMOSEXUAL AGGRESSION.” Since I received this unsolicited and poisonous e-mail I figured that thousands of others had it well. The fact that the conservative bastion Washington Times allows a man of Klingenschmitt’s low ethical and moral character to send out poison like this to collect money for his particular political-religious crusade shows me that this paper is nothing more than a shill for the extreme right wing fringe of American political and religious life.

Klingenschmitt who has little regard for truth as was evidenced during his relentless campaign against the Navy while serving as an active duty Navy Chaplain as per his standard operating procedure has one again engaged in the character assassination of yet another military officer, this time Admiral Mullen. Klingenschmitt who has a palpable propensity to spin the truth in such a manner that it is no longer recognizable as truth; has launched this gratuitous attack against Admiral Mullen using the venomous invective that is his specialty. The title of his e-mail reads: “Top Admiral Lies to Senate about Homosexuality.” If I recall lying to Congress is like a felony, so not only has Klingenschmitt accused Admiral Mullen of being a liar but committing a Federal Crime. Well I guess that Klingenschmitt knows what that is about having done it himself and then using it afterward to make a decent living off of gullible Klingenschmitt believing Christians who I sometimes refer to as the Klingenban who eager eat up his fabricated tails of being persecuted for “praying in Jesus Name.”

Since lying to congress is a pretty stiff charge to level at anyone let’s see the Klingenfraud’s leap of legal logic which allows him to make such a claim about the nation’s top military officer. Klingenschmitt is his e-mail makes the following explanation of his case in his e-mail:

CHAIRMAN OF JOINT CHIEFS DEMANDS HOMOSEXUALS LIE TO MILITARY

Tuesday the Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen deceived the Senate Armed Services Committee, repeating President Obama’s demand to repeal the “don’t ask, don’t tell” (DADT) prohibition against open homosexual aggression within the ranks of the military. “We have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens,” Admiral Mullen fibbed, revealing his personal belief that “allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly would be the right thing to do.”

First he claims that Admiral Mullen “deceived the Senate Armed Services Committee” by “repeating President Obama’s demand to repeal “the don’t ask, don’t tell” (DADT) prohibition against open homosexual aggression within the ranks of the military.” If don’t ask, don’t tell was a “prohibition against homosexual aggression in the military” then the charge might have merit, but alas Gordon is serving up his own lie. “Don’t ask don’t tell” was designed to protect homosexuals and allow them to serve in the military with the restriction that they could not openly admit that they are homosexual and to prevent commanders or others from asking if they are homosexual which then could be used against them in judicial, non-judicial and administrative procedures which leave them with a criminal record like Mr. Klingenschmitt and end their career. It was never designed to protect the military from “homosexual aggression” as is charged by Mr. Klingenschmitt. The fact that the nation’s top military officer supports allowing homosexuals to serve openly is lying by saying that don’t ask, don’t tell is a “policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are” is frankly insulting to any rational human being. The policy indeed forces these men and women to daily hide a major part of who they are in order to serve.

Now here is where Mr. Klingenschmitt’s argument gets a little bit, oh well a lot loopy. Instead of perusing any actual point of law in regard to the crime of lying to congress he goes into an anti-homosexual screed built around his theology which is taken loosely out of Romans Chapter One but even so incoherently argued that it makes your head spin. It as if that he believes that his interpretation of scripture places him as the judge of Admiral Mullen or anyone, especially homosexuals who dare to disagree with him. He then makes this incredibly ignorant statement of circular logic that says in short that homosexual man are trying to be women and homosexual women are trying to be men. You have to read this to believe it:

“Here’s a simple proof: Men who were created by God with male body parts are not women, and they lie to themselves, the world, and their commanders when they pretend to be, and act like, women. Women who were created by God with female parts are not men, and they lie to themselves, the world, and their commanders when they pretend to be, and act like, men.” So in other words if a gay person admits to being gay they are lying about who they are because they are pretending to be the opposite sex.

He then goes on:

“Mullen’s confused argument would permit men to deceptively act like women, and women to deceptively act like men, openly deceiving themselves, the world, and their military commanders, and boldface lying against God’s very truth, that He created men to be men, and women to be women. But today’s confusing homosexual propaganda equates “honesty” with men openly flaunting their femininity, and “truthfulness” with women openly flaunting masculinity. Who’s really telling God’s truth?”

Gordon states that: “Admiral Mullen’s confused argument…” You have got to be kidding. I don’t know any homosexual men on active duty who deceptively act like women and some of the homosexual men and women who are lesbians would surprise you, manly men and feminine women. You see Gordon Klingenschmitt attempts to impose his beliefs on others and uses the basest of stereotypes to paint homosexual men as effeminate, when only some are and homosexual women as the classic “dyke” which again pandering to the basest of prejudice which seeks to all lesbians as the crudest stereotype imaginable. He continues on in this vein for some time and it is not worth regurgitating here.

He then launches his attack loosely paraphrasing Romans One interspersed with his own commentary to buttress his charge that Admiral Mullen lied to Congress and that homosexuals are liars and that we need to help Senator McCain to “fight this open perversion, and protect our troops from open homosexual aggression…” The attack is disingenuous and dishonorable, but then I would expect nothing less out of a man who has made a career out of defaming others and using bully tactics to attempt to force the Navy to let him do whatever he wants.

He then makes a vicious and yet nonsensical attack at Army Lieutenant Daniel Choi a West Point Graduate.

“CBS news interviewed homosexual Army Lt. Dan Choi, a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point who currently faces discharge for publicly announcing he’s gay.

“I think it’s a very healthy thing for people to be able to tell the truth and to come to terms with who they are. I think it’s a sign of maturity,” Choi said, “At my very first day at West Point, I learned that the honor code says a cadet will not lie, will not tolerate those who lie,” said Choi. “They didn’t say that a cadet who was gay could lie whereas straight cadets didn’t have to lie.”

As a USAF Academy graduate knowing the honor code, I now personally confront Choi as a liar, who now openly violates his honor oath, since he deceives himself and the world, by claiming to be feminine, when God created him masculine, with a male body. LIAR. Choi should immediately be thrown out of the Army, not merely for sexual perversion, but for DISHONESTY AND LYING. The only reason he graduated West Point is that he never lied by openly claiming to be feminine while a cadet, when God created him to be masculine. THIS PROVES DON’T ASK DON’T TELL IS THE MOST HONEST POLICY, because it encourages people with sexual perversions not to openly lie about their sexual identity. But if DADT is repealed by Congress, men will claim to be women, and women will claim to be men, and the open season of dishonesty and lying will begin.”

Klingenschmitt once again uses the argument that Choi like other homosexuals is a liar because they are honest about their sexual identity. Whether Klingenschmitt and the Klingenban agree with this or not we live in a free country. We don’t live in Afghanistan or Iran where guys just like Klingenschmitt, only Moslem versions, preach the same hatred and use their religion as the law of the land. Klingenschmitt though “Christian” is no different than the Taliban and if people like him were ever to assume control of the country we would discover what fun it is to live in a country where religious fanatics have the power of the gun to enforce their law. Lieutenant Choi in my view whether one agrees with his sexual preference has demonstrated integrity, honor and devotion to his country and never in his protest against don’t ask, don’t tell slandered his superiors. However I digress. Klingenschmitt who did not lie about being on a combat tour on USS Anzio his combat record pales in comparison to Choi a Military Academy graduate, son of a Korean Baptist minister, Arabic and Farsi translator and interpreter who served two combat tours as an infantry officer in Iraq before returning to the National Guard was discharged under don’t ask, don’t tell when he revealed his homosexuality. Since then he has become an advocate for ending don’t ask, don’t tell. Both are advocates for their cause but Choi has never offered public prayers for the death of his opponents or smeared the reputations of honorable men who were his superiors either before his discharge or after.

Klingenschmitt then recites a litany of reasons of why don’t ask don’t tell should not be ended. His e-mail makes the following points:

“Four reasons: 1) Allowing open homosexuality especially hurts unit cohesion and would cost American lives in war, damaging the trust shared in close proximity, common sleeping quarters and showering facilities that are unavoidable in close combat. 2) Men and women do not share the same showers for obvious reasons, so why force men to share showers with openly homosexual men? This fact alone would hurt recruiting. 3) The rampant spread of the HIV-AIDS virus contaminates the blood often shared by necessity on the battlefield. Soldiers requiring blood-transfusions and medics would be immediately endangered. 4) “Gay promotion quotas” would soon be forced upon presently impartial promotion boards, causing a burdensome rise in sexually-charged “equal opportunity” complaints against commanders, especially those who offend gays by inadvertently speaking of their traditional Judeo-Christian faith.”

First he makes the charge of decreased unit cohesion and trust but most recent polls of military personnel do not bear this out. Yes some will not be comfortable with open homosexuals in the ranks. However as I have said it is about conduct, if the standards of how one conducts themselves toward other service members are enforced uniformly there will be few problems. Shower facilities are an issue often thrown up by people like Klingenschmitt but there is no actual facts to back it up. His misuse of AIDs and HIV being blood donors either in combat zones or outside of them is spurious. No one with AIDS or HIV is allowed to donate blood and military personnel regulations which I helped to draft in 1987-88 forbid the deployment of HIV positive people to areas that they cannot be treated or that could endanger their medical condition. Since HIV and AIDS is not confined to the homosexual population and is not being spread rampantly as Klingenschmitt alleges the argument is a straw man. Finally the charge that there would be homosexual quotas for promotion is also disingenuous.

Plainly speaking Klingenschmitt has no honor. He is an expert at distortion of the facts, misusing scripture and character assassination. He has since his first days in the Navy sought to enforce his brand of Christianity on his shipmates, peers and superiors. He lodged complaints against every commanding office that he served under and with his accomplices at World Net Daily engaged in every form of malicious conduct imaginable to include clandestine recording of the his superiors informing him of his court-martial charges. His shipmates from USS Anzio have told me in person and in comments to this site of his intimidation tactics and bullying on that ship. Following his discharge from the Navy he has engaged in a tactic called “imprecatory prayer” against a number of adversaries, praying for God’s judgment on them and that their days be few, a comment that he says is not a prayer for their early death but in the context of the entire scriptural passage (Psalm 109: 7-11) can only be read as such.

Klingenschmitt also quoted Elaine Donnelly of the “Center for Military Readiness” a right-wing organization that features Phylliss Schafly as a member of its board of advisors, that “it is unconvincing to hold up the small, dissimilar of foreign nations…as models for America’s forces.” Well since 25 nations including our closest allies, Britain, Canada, Australia, Israel, Germany and France as well of most of NATO whose soldiers both straight and gay serve alongside of ours in Afghanistan have allowed homosexuals to serve with little or no disruption in operations or efficiency I wonder what she is getting at. Maybe its that she feels that American military personnel are less professional than our allies and would not behave professionally if we end don’t ask, don’t tell. It is curious that I don’t see too many elected Republicans getting on the Klingenban bandwagon…huh… perhaps they know that a large majority of voters would find their support of Klingenschmitt’s crusade unpalatable and might react negatively to them if they oppose the change.

I have posted a myriad of links to other things that this dangerous man has done here:

http://shamefulchaplain.blogspot.com/

http://pubrecord.org/religion/3355/ex-chaplain-offered-sacrifice-jesus/

http://www.militaryreligiousfreedom.org/press-releases/audio_recordings.html

http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2009/04/klingenschmitt_prays_for_death.php

http://blog.au.org/2007/04/05/a-matter-of-honor-the-truth-comes-out-about-former-chaplain-klingenschmitt/

http://undergroundunbeliever.blogspot.com/2009/04/continuing-tale-of-court-martialed-navy.html

http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=33868

http://faithfulprogressive.blogspot.com/2009/08/scaring-naive-christians-and-elderly.html

http://www.benedictionblogson.com/2009/04/28/the-imprecatory-prayer-of-gordon-james-klingenschmitt/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-rodda/conspiracy-theorist-milit_b_204948.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/09/AR2006010901812.html

http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2008/07/the_continued_absurdity_of_gor.php

http://bypi.blogspot.com/

http://hamptonroads.com/node/153451

http://www.britannica.com/bps/additionalcontent/18/25635760/ExChaplains-Boss-Says-Religious-Right-Tales-Inaccurate

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389×6708951

http://www.religionnews.com/index.php?/rnstext/does_god_answer_prayers_to_do_someone_ill1/

The list can go on and on, these are but a few reports about Klingenschmitt so here are my own tributes to “Chaps” which are linked below:

https://padresteve.wordpress.com/2009/05/30/gordon-klingenschmitt-and-his-followers-the-klingenfraud-and-the-klingenban/

https://padresteve.wordpress.com/2009/08/08/oh-lord-stuck-in-lodi-again%E2%80%A6-gordon-klingenschmitt-does-lodi/

So with Klingenschmitt in the news it is right that his theological cousins in the Taliban, Iran’s President Ahamadinejad and the Mullahs seek to enforce the same standards of belief on their people as Klingenschmitt and the Klingenban seek to do here. He may be a “D-lister” but he serves an evil purpose and masquerades as a minister of light. Klingenschmitt’s cause is not the redemption and reconciliation paramount in the Christian Gospel, but rather a twisted and hateful campaign of self promotion as he exalts not Jesus but himself and his political cause which he baptizes with Scripture verses. This is not Waziristan and the Taliban and Al Qaeda are not in charge. Our founding fathers fought to prevent the United States from becoming a theocracy. While we cherish the role of religion in particular the Judeo-Christian tradition of this country we recognize that this is a pluralistic nation where no religion can impose its views simply because they believe that they are more correct than others and no-one including Gordon Klingenschmitt can issue a Fatwah stating otherwise.

Have fun with the links and spread the news that Gordon Klingenschmitt is coming to town.

Peace,

Padre Steve+

2 Comments

Filed under faith, Lies of World Net Daily, Military, Political Commentary, Religion, US Navy

Tagged as admiral mike mullen, center for military readiness, christian taliban, don't ask don't tell, elain donnelly, gays in military, gays in the military, gordon klingenschmitt, imprecatory prayer, lt dan choi, phyllis schlafly, president barak obama, secretary of defense robert gates, taliban, uss anzio, World Net Daily

Category Archives: Religion

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Padre Steve muses about Lenten Traditions and Spirituality…as Usual a Bit Differently than Others

One Week Warning: Lent Begins Next Wednesday

Gordon Klingenschmitt Calls Admiral Mullen a “Liar”

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