Tag Archives: religious right

December 18, 2020 · 21:50

A Christmas Coda: Joyeux Noel and My Call after the Military

Friends of Padre Steve’s World

As a veteran who served in the badlands of Al Anbar Province during Christmas of 2007 I can relate to Father Palmer, the British priest and chaplain in the film Joyeux Noel (Merry Christmas) when he makes the comment “I belong with those who are in pain, and who have lost their faith, I belong here.”

I again watched that film tonight. The film is the story of the amazing and exceptional Christmas Truce of 1914. It is a film that each time I see it that I discover something new, more powerful than the last time I viewed it. It reminds me of serving in Iraq, at Christmas from my perspective as a Chaplain, and thereby giving voice to those who serve now, as well as those who served God’s people in hellish places before me. It reminds me of how much I hate war, and how much I often hate the clergy who are all too often, bloodthirsty

As a Chaplain I am drawn to the actions of the British Padre in the film, who during the truce conducts a Mass for all the soldiers, British, French and German in no-man’s land, who goes about caring for the soldiers both the living and the dead. His actions are contrasted with his Bishop who comes to relieve him of his duties and to urge on the replacement soldiers to better kill the Germans.

As the Chaplain begins to provide the last Rites to a dying soldier the Bishop walks in, in full purple cassock frock coat and hat and the chaplain looks up and kisses his ring.

As the chaplain looks at his clerical superior there is a silence and the Bishop looks sternly at the priest and addresses him:

“You’re being sent back to your parish in Scotland. I’ve brought you your marching orders.”

Stunned the Priest replies: “I belong with those who are in pain, and who have lost their faith, I belong here.”

The Bishop then sternly lectures the Priest: “I am very disappointed you know. When you requested permission to accompany the recruits from your parish I personally vouched for you. But then when I heard what happened I prayed for you.”

The Priest humbly and respectfully yet with conviction responds to his superior: “I sincerely believe that our Lord Jesus Christ guided me in what was the most important Mass of my life. I tried to be true to his trust and carry his message to all, whoever they may be.”

The Bishop seems a bit taken aback but then blames the Chaplain for what will next happen to the Soldiers that he has served with in the trenches: “Those men who listened to you on Christmas Eve will very soon bitterly regret it; because in a few days time their regiment is to be disbanded by the order of His Majesty the King. Where will those poor boys end up on the front line now? And what will their families think?”

They are interrupted when a soldier walks in to let the Bishop know that the new soldiers are ready for his sermon. After acknowledging the messenger the Bishop continues: “They’re waiting for me to preach a sermon to those who are replacing those who went astray with you.” He gets ready to depart and continues: “May our Lord Jesus Christ guide your steps back to the straight and narrow path.”

The Priest looks at him and asks: “Is that truly the path of our Lord?”

The Bishop looks at the Priest and asks what I think is the most troubling question: “You’re not asking the right question. Think on this: are you really suitable to remain with us in the house of Our Lord?”

With that the Bishop leaves and goes on to preach. The words of the sermon are from a 1915 sermon preached by an Anglican Bishop in Westminster Abbey. They reflect the poisonous aspects of many religious leaders on all sides of the Great War, but also many religious leaders of various faiths even today, sadly I have to say Christian leaders are among the worst when it comes to inciting violence against those that they perceive as enemies of the Church, their nation or in some cases their political faction within this country.

I was reminded of that last night and today as the now Impeached President called upon and received the fealty and obedience of his Imperial Court Clergy, and the ever faithful cult of conservative and Evangelical Christians while pledging to destroy his enemies. In such a time I cannot

The Bishop who relieved Father Palmer went on to preach a sermon to newly arrived troops.

“Christ our Lord said, “Think not that I come to bring peace on earth. I come not to bring peace, but a sword.” The Gospel according to St. Matthew. Well, my brethren, the sword of the Lord is in your hands. You are the very defenders of civilization itself. The forces of good against the forces of evil. For this war is indeed a crusade! A holy war to save the freedom of the world. In truth I tell you: the Germans do not act like us, neither do they think like us, for they are not, like us, children of God. Are those who shell cities populated only by civilians the children of God? Are those who advanced armed hiding behind women and children the children of God? With God’s help, you must kill the Germans, good or bad, young or old. Kill every one of them so that it won’t have to be done again.”

The sermon is chilling and had it not been edited by the director would have contained the remark actually said by the real Bishop that the Germans “crucified babies on Christmas.” Of course that was typical of the propaganda of the time and similar to things that religious leaders of all faiths use to demonize their opponents and stir up violence in the name of their God.

When the Bishop leaves the Priest finishes his ministration to the wounded while listening to the words of the Bishop who is preaching not far away in the trenches. He meditates upon his simple cross, takes it off, kisses it hand hangs it upon a tripod where a container of water hangs.

The scene is chilling for a number of reasons. First is the obvious, the actions of a religious leader to denigrate the efforts of some to bring the Gospel of Peace into the abyss of Hell of earth and then to incite others to violence dehumanizing the enemy forces. The second and possibly even more troubling is to suggest that those who do not support dehumanizing and exterminating the enemy are not suitable to remain in the house of the Lord. Since I have had people, some in person and others on social media say similar things to what the Bishop asks Palmer the scene hits close to home.

When I left Iraq in February 2008 I felt that I was abandoning those committed to my spiritual care, but my time was up. Because of it I missed going with some of my advisors to Basra with the 1st Iraqi Division to retake that city from insurgents. It was only a bit over a month after I had celebrated what I consider to be my most important Masses of my life at COP South and COP North on December 23rd as well as Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. In fact until very recently they were really the last masses that I felt the mystery and awe of the love of God that I used to so much feel.

When I left Iraq the new incoming senior Chaplain refused to take my replacement leaving our advisers without dedicated support. He then slandered me behind my back because what I was doing was not how he would do things and because I and my relief were under someone else’s operational control. It is funny how word gets back to you when people talk behind your back. Thankfully he is now retired from the Navy and I feel for any ministers of his denomination under his “spiritual” care. So I cannot forget those days and every time I think about them, especially around Christmas I am somewhat melancholy and why I can relate so much to Father Palmer in the movie. While I cannot prove it I do believe, and have heard from others who used to work at the Chief of Chaplains office that I have been shunned and punished by past and present leaders of the Chaplain Corps because of my witness in being open about my struggles with faith and PTSD. A can recount a number of incidents that would be of circumstantial evidence, but I digress. That being said I am much better off for that experience than I would be had it not occurred.

It has been thirteen years since those Christmas Masses and they still feel like yesterday. In the intervening years my life has been different. Just a year later I was walking home from church where my wife was to sing in the choir during the Christmas vigil mass. I couldn’t handle the crowds, the noise, and I felt so far away from God. That night I walked home in the dark looking up into the sky asking God if he still was there. If there had been a bar on the way home I would have stopped by and poured myself in.

Since Iraq I have dealt with severe and chronic PTSD, depression, anxiety and insomnia were coupled with a two year period where due to my struggles I lost faith, was for all practical purposes an agnostic. I felt abandoned by God, but even more so and maybe more importantly by my former church and most other Chaplains. It was like being radioactive, there was and is a stigma for Chaplains that admits to PTSD and go through a faith crisis, especially from other Chaplains and Clergy. It was just before Christmas in late 2009 that faith began to return in what I call my Christmas Miracle. But be sure, let no one tell you differently, no Soldier, Sailor, Marine or Airman who has suffered the trauma of war and admitted to PTSD does not feel the stigma that goes with it, and sadly, despite the best efforts of many there is a stigma.

Now that faith is different and I have become much more skeptical of the motivations of religious leaders, especially those that demonize and dehumanize those that do not believe like them or fully support their cause or agenda. Unfortunately there are far too many men and women who will use religion to do that, far too many. Unlike a few years ago they now occupy the seat of political power as sycophants of our soon to be ex-President, offering no prophetic voice but speaking the words of death covered in the veneer of the Christian faith.

As for me I had the floor kicked from out from under me in the summer of 2014 and it has been a hard fight and while I am beginning to get back to some sense of normal it is a day to day thing. I still suffer the effects of the PTSD, especially the insomnia, nightmares and the nightmares which came back with a vengeance that summer. I have a REM sleep disorder in which my body doesn’t shut down when I get into REM sleep. This reacts well with the Nightmare and Night Terror disorders because I act out my responses to those terrors. In 2014 I ended up with a visit to the medical clinic with a concussion and sprained jaw and neck. In 2016 I broke my nose, and dark and early this morning I busted my head open requiring 9 stitches, 2 deep ones and 7 on top. Thankfully Judy got my stubborn ass to the ER. Coupled with my other ongoing maladies of the past couple of months I am really getting too old for this shit.

As for faith, I do believe again, more often than not, though at the same time I doubt. Though I believe I think I still consider myself to be a Christian Agnostic who echoes the cry of the man who cried out to Jesus, “Lord I believe, help my unbelief!” I believe and yet, I don’t and I don’t think that is a bad thing, I think it helps me understand those who no longer believe, those that struggle, and those who raised as Christians have left the faith.

Like the Priest in Joyeux Noel I know that my place is with those who are “in pain, and who have lost their faith.” For me this may no longer be on the battlefield as I will be retired, unless some massive war breaks out and they start calling back recent retirees to service. That has happened before and the Soviets, Chicoms and Iranians aren’t taking time off for Christmas.

However, that being said I will strive to be there for those that struggle with faith and believe, especially those who struggle because of what they saw and experienced during war and when they returned home. Three years ago I hosted the NATO contingent at my former chapel, and had the honor of preaching an Advent message in German.

Over the last year of my service I continued speak truth to those in power and those whose faithfulness is more a product of their comfort with the God that they create in their own mind rather than the Crucified God wise death on the Cross s a scandal. For many Christians the scandal of the cross is too easy to avoid by surrounding ourselves with pet theologies that appeal to our pride, prejudice and power. The kind of malevolent power represented by the bishop in Joyeux Noel as well as the leaders of the so called “Conservative Evangelicals” who supported a President who says “Merry Christmas” even as he continues to defecate on all who believe in the God who became incarnate as a helpless babe in a manger and who died on a cross. Last year I saw a mocking meme of Trump saying “Merry Christmas” as he holds a bigger than life Bible to his chest from a very conservative evangelical friend on Facebook, it was blasphemous. Those people remind me of the hate filled nationalist British Bishop.

The French mystic Simone Weil said “He who has not God in himself cannot feel His absence.” I think that sums up the President and his ardent Evangelical supporters. I don’t think they would recognize Christ if he walked among them and would have been among those shouting “Crucify him!” but of course I could be wrong in some individual cases.

So, this Christmas, like the theologian Paul Tillich I have come to believe that “Sometimes I think it is my mission to bring faith to the faithless, and doubt to the faithful.” In other words I am going to be faithful to the Crucified Christ and remain a complete pain in the ass to them until the day that I die, a real Padre Smedley if you get my drift.

Once again I watched Joyeux Noel, and as usual I cried. Though I had my retirement ceremony Monday, and am officially retired on 31 December and I am praying for peace in hopes that someday it becomes real. St. Francis prayed:

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace;
Where there is hated, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is discord, harmony;
Where there is error, truth;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
And where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master, Grant that I may no so much seek
To be consoled as to console;
To be understood as to understand;
To be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
And it is in dying hat we are born into eternal life.

After all, I still belong with those who are in pain, and who have lost their faith, whether I am in the Navy or not.

So until tomorrow,

Praying for Peace this Christmas,

Padre Steve+

7 Comments

Filed under christian life, faith, film, History, Military, ministry, movies, Pastoral Care, Political Commentary, PTSD, Religion, spirituality, Tour in Iraq, US Navy, world war one

Tagged as al anbar province, chaplain ministry, christmas truce, evangelical christians, father palmer, iraq, joyeux noel film, night terrors, nightmare disorder, operation iraqi freedom, Paul Tillich, prayer of st Francis, president donald trump, PTSD, religious right, REM sleep disorder, retirement from military, smedley butler, st francis of assisi, tour in iraq, world war i

November 26, 2020 · 02:07

An Emotional Roller Coaster: Medical Problems, IT Issues, Hating Religious Theocrats, and Remembering those I Have Lost Through the Lens of MAS*H

Me as a young Medical Service Officer Second Lieutenant, Neubrucke Germany, 1984

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

I started this article Tuesday night but couldn’t yesterday I was on emotional roller coaster, dealing with continued medical issues due to my jaw infection that began a month ago when a lower rear molar, cracked, the nerve abscessed, died, and infected the and more. I tried to finish it Wednesday night but couldn’t. I finally finished it dark and early after midnight Friday. Well, I thought I had, but for whatever reason what I wrote didn’t save correctly. So I just add this to let you know that as I revise it and put in the tags and topics represented in it. “That is All.”

I am finishing my last two weeks on active duty before taking 20 days of job hunting and house hunting leave. I honestly cannot believe the emotions that I am feeling.

The Original Opening to the Film M*A*S*H

Tuesday morning I went in to work still suffering some of the effects of my tooth extraction and jaw infection still persist. Migraine like headaches, swelling in the jaw, lymph nodes and Parotid gland still persisted. I went to the Endontist who extracted my tooth and prescribed more antibiotics after the tooth extraction and he recommended that I get an appointment with my primary care doctor. I was glad he dad that because he realized that he didn’t have an answer.

My regular primary care physician who I really like wasn’t available, and he is an outstanding physician who listens and cares. But the physician I was assigned in his place was incredible. Our initial appointment on Monday was over the telephone and after taking time to listen to all that happened to me she made sure I got an appointment to see her in person Tuesday.

Unlike so many physicians bound by the time limits of insurance, including the business model of Navy Medicine she and her nurse took the time to listen to me, to do a thorough examination, to explore the what antibiotics might treat all my different symptoms. The appointment took a long time but it was worth it. I received medicines to treat the lower jaw, upper jaw, sinus and ear infections caused by that damned tooth, as well as an order to get a CT scan to see what is actually going on.

That fact made a difference because even as that was going on I was experiencing problems with an Navy personnel site. That followed a NMCI Microsoft 10 update that will not allow me to access it in order to make sure that my DD-214 is correct. No matter what I do online and no matter how many times the Navy says my access is fixed I still cannot access the site, which mattes for all of my my retirement and veterans benefits.

Because I had a low grade fever due to the infection and needed needed lab tests and another medical appointment today so I won’t be able to go in to fix ot until Monday.

Truthful I am mad as hell and I am not going to take it anymore. I am too old for this shit I am going to vent my spleen. Before the update I never had an issue getting into the website. I really get frustrated and angry with the contractors whose programs don’t interface with the multiplicity of other hardware and software so that when one makes a change there is a cascade effect that fucks everything else up, like the simple fact of trying to access a site to check the one document everything in my post military career depends on. That pisses me off and I hate the damned Navy and military System for allowing this to happen.

I am really a fine with some of contractors, as I have noted, not all of them, not all of them, because there are quite a few who provide outstanding products and support, and have the integrity to back up their work. My friend David owns one of the highest ranked IT hardware firms that deals with DOD and many other government agencies. I have also encountered some very fine contractors for some of these IT firms who take the time to walk with you through the problem and fix it. There are also others who hire good people to provide services that the Navy can no longer due because those functions were added following wars our uniformed and GS systems were not prepared to deal with because of a never ending war. I might end up working as an educator for one using my experience to help personnel and their family members get the help they need and prepare to leave the service.

However, I get the feeling that I could be dying and it wouldn’t matter the damned corporate war and defense profiteers who the Navy hired to replace sailors that used to do these jobs. The thing is that a lot of these corporations have the backing of some of the leading politicians of both parties and are marketed and lobbied for by former high ranking military and DOD civilian officials. They are doing it for corporate profit but selling their services saying they will reduce cost and make things more efficient. But that is most often a lie, because we end up paying more for less, and harm readiness in the process.

Between them, and the former corporate defense and business executives who run much of DOD, they cut the active duty force in the name of “efficiency” and deprive Sailors (Also Soldiers, Marines and Airmen) from other active duty or DOD civilians who can fix their problems. I hate them, these corporations, with a passion. I miss the days when Yeomen and Personelmen, working with civilian GS personnel specialists, who we called the Little old ladies in tennis shoes would look at you in the face and fix what was wrong or what needed attention. Now that isn’t the case. All is handed online and you get an email response saying your problem has been resolved even when you still can not access their damned website. I want to say Duckmäuser them to hell, and I honestly doubt that the majority of senior Navy and military leadership cares.

The Navy decided long ago that regardless of its technical ineptness and reliance on for profit defense profiteers that sailors who have full time jobs have to also manage and perform tasks that used to be handed by people they knew who were trained to do them. I don’t want any part of such a bastardized impersonal “personnel” system that doesn’t value sailors and their families as people but “Human Resources” who can be expended without consequences because they really don’t matter. The same applies to training as well. These things take up so much of sailors time that they scarcely have time to do their real jobs. No wonder readiness rates are crap, ships can’t deploy, and aircraft cannot fly.

I read an article this week that a Navy official downplayed those rates and suggested the metrics showing how unready our Navy is for a major war were wrong and needed to be changed. That’s like lowering academic requirements to make sure students pass so their failure doesn’t harm the overall rating of Schools, school, districts, or universities. The only problem in the military are that such actions lead to defeat in in battle, massive losses of American lives and the inevitable after effects of losing a major war against a peer competitor. We have really never experienced that, but many others have, and we should learn from them before it happens to us.

Our humiliation will be greater than that of Imperial Germany, Imperial Russian, France in 1870 and 1940, Nazi Germany, Napoleonic France, Rome, Byzantium, the Holy Roman Empire, the Austro Hungarian Empire in the First World War, and so many others. Military defeat combined with economic collapse, loss of territory, and great political and social calamities that In many cases are still being felt even centuries later. If we don’t take decisive actions to protect our democracy from all enemies, foreign and domestic, including the profiteers the coming collapse will make the division of the Trump years feel like the good old days. I personally wouldn’t doubt if Trump is actually hoping for that since he doesn’t give a damn about his oath, the people of the United States, including those who support him, or what happens to this country so long as he can line his pockets with unearned riches.

Marine Corps Major General and two time Medal of Honor recipient Smedley Butler realized that at the end of his illustrious career as a Marine when he wrote his classic anti-war book War is a Racket. If you haven’t read it you better well need to before you ever mindlessly thank a veteran for his or her service in wars that only weaken our defense and diminish our standing as a bastion of Liberty in the world. Most of the corporations Butler condemns in his book are still profiting from the business of war and “defense” today. Mind you I am an old anti-Soviet and Chinese Communist Cold Warrior. I fucking hate their systems, and while the Chicoms combine a nationalist bastardization of Capitalism with a desire for world domination at the expense of freedom at home and abroad; and while the former KGB Officer Vladimir Putin leads Russian which is nothing more than a rebranded Soviet Union, President Trump looked the other way and weakened us in more ways than anyone cannot imagine until the hell he created destroys our country long after he leaves office.

Iraq near the Syrian Border with Advisors and Bedouin Family, Christmas Eve 2007

Don’t get me wrong. I am proud of my service in war and peace, but I cannot fathom treason or abandoning military personnel to IT systems run by for profit contractors that have so many problems that they cannot be successfully navigated even by experts much less than the people who have full time jobs who need that specialized support. And yes it is treason when one looks at the billions of dollars paid to big defense contractors for the chump change that it would cost to pay military personnel and civilians to do things the old fashioned way using pen and paper while looking people in the eye to make sure that it was done right. This is a scandal for the ages that harms veterans and their families, undercuts combat readiness, and enriches defenses profiteers.

A Montage of Characters from the Series with the Original Score

I hate to say this but those in various Presidential administrations, Senators and Representatives of both parties, and high ranking Military Officers and Senior Executive Leaders in the Defense Department are all guilty as charged when it comes to sacrificing the well being of the volunteers who serve this nation in uniform in unending wars to enrich war and defense profiteers are all traitors. If it was up to me I would have them tried and after a fair trial s tan ever them and have them hanged until dead.

If I have to take up the mantel of men like Smedley Butler, David Hackworth, and Hal Moore, and countless number of men and women who remain unknown because they were crushed by the system or died through its uncaring incompetence, especially in the area of mental and spiritual health. In retirement I will be a prophetic voice. Since while I was on active duty I had member of my congregation try to have by tried by Court Martial for preaching prophetically fro the pulpit and was exonerated after an investigation, I no loner give a damn who I offend.

With my Beloved Second Platoon, 557th Medical Company Ambulance, in the Taunus Mountains, Hessen, West Germany, 1985

By the latter I do not mean the fake spirituality of memorizing Bible verses or reciting The unbiblical and unchristian mantras of modern American Christianity. I don’t promote feel good Christian jibber-jabber but walking with people though The Valley of the shadow of Death, without abandoning them, or condemning them when they show weakness. Personally, I would rather have a caring Atheist or Agnostic at my side than a supposed Christian shoving a bastardized version of the Christian faith down my throat in my time of crisis.

We don’t need that. We authentic Christian ministers and Priests who admit that they don’t know the answers. We need ministers and Priests who are Un afraid to admit that they struggle with faith and yet still believe. Men and women who are transparent servants of a God that they only known through the Crucified God, not the opaque, impenetrable and unbiblical theology of Christian nationalism and Dominionism. Those are not theologies of faith in the Crucified God, but arbitrary, authoritarian systems to reconcile Christian beliefs to ungodly, nationalist, often racist, and exploitive systems of government which destroy the liberties of all, but even worse make Christians isolators of anti-Christian leaders and systems. It started with Constantine and has never stopped.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Well those that Truett and Goldwater warmed us about got what they wanted. They got control of a political party by prostituting themselves to a man whose heart is evil, and could not care less about Christians so long as they vote for him and his amoral, unchristian, and anti-freedom ideas which rip up the ideals of the Declaration of Independence and shred the Sacred protections of our Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Amendments to the Constitution.

Contemporary Conservative Christian Teachings have become hollowed out, unbiblical, unchristian, and untenable politically driven apologetics of Unfreedom which spit on the face of God on the Cross, just as much as did his Roman executioners.

Anyway I couldn’t finish this Tuesday night because I was too busy crying my way the final episode of the television show M*A*S*H, “Goodbye, Farewell and Amen.” The sobbing, tears, and overwhelming emotions made me put down my iPad. I was using it as the basis for my final message to my Shipyard friends, family, and coworkers who mean so much to me now. They helped me recover my sense of faith, belief, calling, and belief in good people. As I watched the show I remembered all the men and women I have served with over the years, those still alive and those who passed away to natural causes, were killed in combat, or died by their own hand after coming home from war. People who like me suffered from the terrible effects of war; wounds to body, mind and spirit, which were so bad for some that they killed themselves. Believe me there were so many times that I could have done the same. I actually planned out how I would do it in a number of different ways, but some were so violent that just the image of me doing it in a public setting among other military personnel would have traumatized them in ways I could not bear, and the many nights I thought about driving into a tree while serving at Camp LeJeune Naval Hospital from 2010 to 2013 I could not imagine what my dog Molly who was with me would think when daddy never came home.

I am doing better now, I want to live and bear witness for those who no longer can. I certainly don’t have the answers. I can only be there for others. The words of the theme song to M*A*S*H are unknown to those who only watched the series and never saw the film. The song’s music was written by Johnny Mandel, the lyrics written by his teenage son. The song was performed by an uncredited group of musicians and simple called MASH. It was played on AM music stations after its release in 1970. It is haunting and I certainly do not agree with the message of the chorus “Suicide is painless, it brings on many changes, and I can take or leave it if I please…” I have found that life matters too much and I grieve for my friends and comrades who committed suicide, many far more brave, heroic, and selfless than me. Men and women who I wished I could have helped keep alive had I been there in their time of crisis.

But the lyrics of the verses all have an element of truth in them. The first said:

Through early morning fog I see, visions of the things to be, the pains that are withheld for me, I realize and I can see… (Chorus)

The game of life is hard to play, I’m going to lose it anyway, the losing card I’ll someday lay, so this is all I’ve got to say… (Chorus)

The sword of time will pierce our skin, it doesn’t hurt when it begins, but as it works its way within, the pain grows stronger watch it grin… (Chorus)

A brave man once requested me, to answer questions that are key, “Is it to be or not to be?” And I replied “oh, way ask me?” (Chorus)

The faked suicide and salvation of Dr. Walt “the Painless Pole” Waldoski In the Film M*A*S*H

The song was sung in the film during a fake suicide and funeral for the 4077th’s Dentist Dr. “Painless Pole Waldoski” (John Schuck) sung by Private Seidman (Ken Prymus) accompanied by Captain Bandini (Corey Fisher) on the guitar. Out of context the scene is one of the saddest in film history, with the doctors sitting at a table in a film rendition of Leonardo DaVinci’s The Last Supper as “Painless” takes what he thinks is a cyanide capsule and lays down in a coffin. He wanted help to die because he thought he was impotent. Hawkeye, Trapper, and even Father Mulcahy decided to play into his fantasy but save the life of Painless. So they recruited a nurse, Lieutenant Dish, played by the beautiful actress Jo Ann Pflug, who was to return to the States the next morning to make love to painless. The next morning Painless is alive, and Dish flies away. They lied to a suicidal man to stage a fake death in order to save his life. Yes, the ethics are completely convoluted, but in the end life was affirmed, and suicide ruled out. One interesting thing about the song is the faked suicide is a different verse which said “The only way to win is cheat, and lay it down before I’m beat, and to another give my seat, for that’s the only painless feat…” (Chorus)

I thought I would finish this by midnight but so many things intruded. It is now officially Thanksgiving on the East Coast and I have much to be thankful for, even though we will celebrate the holiday in a very private and personal way, just us, our pups, and our friend Stephanie. We are making a fresh homemaker chicken pot pie with bone in chicken breast cooked for over 15 hours on low heat in our crock pot seasoned with fresh garlic, Black pepper corns, rubbed sage, bay leaves, poultry seasoning, garlic powder, and a dash of salt which will be baked minus the chicken bones with sliced carrots, sweet peas, whole kernel corn, and small broccoli florets and yellow onions. It will be the first time since Iraq that we have not had a large number of guests over for a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. That will be strange, but it is better to adjust and protect the lives of others than keep traditions that can be continued after the COVID-19 Pandemic has passed.

Suicide and willingly subjecting others to a deadly virus are little different. The first is the murder of yourself, which I like the German word better than our word suicide. The German word is Selbstmord, or the murder of yourself. However, ignoring all the science and clinical evidence that indoor social gatherings of people traveling across state lines is potentially deadly, is the participation in mass murder. The choice to do that is like playing Russian Roulette with more than one chamber loaded, and the virus being spread to many more people than it should be if we weren’t so damned selfish and narcissistic. By they way, most of the people I know to be doing this are Christians, but sorry, your Holy Spirit Lungs won’t protect you from COVID-19 anymore than they did the Great Influenza or the Plagues of the Middle Ages, Yellow or Dengue Fever, Ebola, AIDS, or any other infectious disease. If you think your spiritually will protect you and others, you are fools who are not to be pitied, though the people you infect should be.

I am tired of death. After being present at over 700 I stopped counting. Many of the faces, lives, and stories of those people are forever seared into my conscience.

So anyway, this post that began some 54 hours ago, or 76 hours if you count this update, is at an end. It has meandered from my medical problems, my frustration with the Navy’s fucked up computer systems, national security, religious liberty, and freedom from religious tyranny, the issue of suicide, veterans who commit suicide, and the film and television series M*A*S*H, including the behind the scenes lyrics to its theme song Suicide is Painless.

It is kind of ironic that I was commissioned as a Medical Service Corps Officer in the Army on 19 June 1983, and that when I graduated from the Medical Department Officer Basic Course the theme song of the Army Medical Department, minus the words was the Theme Song of M*A*S*H, “Suicide is Painless.”

So I hope you had a happy and safe Thanksgiving. Please do not put others at risk, and by all means please do your best to remain alive and healthy so we can properly celebrate Thanksgiving in 2021. Maybe I will be in a more celebratory mood by then.

Pray for me a miserable and useless has been Chaplain and sinner.

Peace,

Padre Steve+

11 Comments

Filed under christian life, Coronavirus 19 Pandemic, crimes against humanity, Diseases Epidemics and Pandemics, dogs, faith, film, History, iraq, Korean Conflicts, Loose thoughts and musings, Military, national security, News and current events, Political Commentary, racism, Religion, suicide, Tour in Iraq, us army, US Marine Corps, US Navy, Veterans and friends

Tagged as abandonment, army medical service corps, chaplain corps, defense readiness rates, depression, george truett, godbye, goodbye farewell and amen, impersonal DOD profiteers, johnny mandel, M*A*S*H, Medical problems, religious right, smedley butler, Suicide is Painless Song, thanksgiving, Traitor Donald Trump, war profiteers

December 22, 2019 · 21:05

Joyeux Noel: the Christmas Truce of 1914, and the Personal Reflections of an Old Chaplain

Friends of Padre Steve’s World

As the Chaplain begins to provide the last Rites to a dying soldier the Bishop walks in, in full purple cassock frock coat and hat and the chaplain looks up and kisses his ring.

As the chaplain looks at his clerical superior there is a silence and the Bishop looks sternly at the priest and addresses him:

“You’re being sent back to your parish in Scotland. I’ve brought you your marching orders.”

Stunned the Priest replies: “I belong with those who are in pain, and who have lost their faith, I belong here.”

The Priest looks at him and asks: “Is that truly the path of our Lord?”

The Bishop who relieved Father Palmer went on to preach a sermon to newly arrived troops.

It has been twelve years since those Christmas Masses and they still feel like yesterday. In the intervening years my life has been different. Just a year later I was walking home from church where my wife was to sing in the choir during the Christmas vigil mass. I couldn’t handle the crowds, the noise, and I felt so far away from God. That night I walked home in the dark looking up into the sky asking God if he still was there. If there had been a bar on the way home I would have stopped by and poured myself in.

Now that faith is different and I have become much more skeptical of the motivations of religious leaders, especially those that demonize and dehumanize those that do not believe like them or fully support their cause or agenda. Unfortunately there are far too many men and women who will use religion to do that, far too many. Unlike a few years ago they now occupy the seat of political power as sycophants of the President, offering no prophetic voice but speaking the words of death covered in the veneer of the Christian faith.

As for me I had the floor kicked from out from under me in the summer of 2014 and it has been a hard fight and while I am beginning to get back to some sense of normal it is a day to day thing. I still suffer the effects of the PTSD, especially the insomnia, nightmares and the nightmares which came back with a vengeance that summer. I also still have the anxiety in crowded places and bad traffic, but working with my new therapist I am coming up with some effective coping mechanisms. As for faith, I do believe again, more often than not, though at the same time I doubt. Though I believe I think I still consider myself to be a Christian Agnostic who echoes the cry of the man who cried out to Jesus, “Lord I believe, help my unbelief!” I believe and yet, I don’t and I don’t think that is a bad thing, I think it helps me understand those who no longer believe, those that struggle, and those who raised as Christians have left the faith.

Like the Priest in Joyeux Noel I know that my place is with those who are “in pain, and who have lost their faith.” For me this may no longer be on the battlefield as I will retire from the Navy in a few years, unless as I expect a major war breaks out with North Korea, and maybe China, and Iran too.

However, that being said I will strive to be there for those that struggle with faith and believe, especially those who struggle because of what they saw and experienced during war and when they returned home. Two years ago I hosted the NATO contingent at my former chapel, and had the honor of preaching an Advent message in German.

I expect that in the final months of my service before I retire in August of 2020, I will do my best to speak truth to those in power and those whose faithfulness is more a product of their comfort with the God that they create in their own mind rather than the Crucified God wise death on the Cross s a scandal. For many Christians the scandal of the cross is too easy to avoid by surrounding ourselves with pet theologies that appeal to our pride, prejudice and power. The kind of malevolent power represented by the bishop in Joyeux Noel as well as the leaders of the so called “Conservative Evangelicals” who support a President who says “Merry Christmas” even as he defecates on all who believe in the God who became incarnate as a helpless babe in a manger and who died on a cross. In fact I saw a mocking meme of Trump saying “Merry Christmas” as he holds a bigger than life Bible to his chest from a very conservative evangelical friend on Facebook, it was blasphemous. Those people remind me of the hate filled nationalist British Bishop.

I am watching that film again tonight, and praying for the peace that it hopes will become real. It is hard to stop the tears as I watch it.

So until tomorrow,

Praying for Peace this Christmas,

Padre Steve+

6 Comments

Filed under christian life, faith, film, History, Military, Political Commentary, spirituality, Tour in Iraq, world war one

Tagged as as al anbar province, chaplain ministry, christmas truce, evangelical christians, father palmer, iraq, joyeux noel film, Paul Tillich, president donald trump, PTSD, religious right, tour in iraq, world war i

February 23, 2018 · 00:05

“Don’t Try to be Like Me, I didn’t Always Get it Right” Rest In Peace Billy Graham

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

No matter how one viewed him Billy Graham was both a legend, a remarkable man, and a truly historic figure in terms of the Evangelical Christianity that he popularized more than any other preacher before or after him. His legacy will be debated for years and I think that it is very possible that in death he will become larger than he was in life; mostly because those who attempted to follow him were poor imitations or politically motivated hucksters that Graham himself would later have nothing to do with.

Though many knew him as “America’s Pastor” he only briefly served as the pastor of a small church before he became an evangelist, a role for which he was particularly suited, he was the entire package. Graham was young, good looking, and could communicate a simple evangelical message with conviction, passion, and grace in a way that few evangelists before or since have been able to do. He was also incredibly adept in understanding the potential of television and the broadcasting of his message world wide.

When I was a kid his crusades were a staple of television. I had an aunt in Stockon California who when she wasn’t watching Lawrence Welk she was watching Billy Graham crusades. Whenever we visited her viewing habits didn’t change, no wonder my uncle Ted spent so much time in at his favorite local bar, but I digress…

That being said, even when I was eleven or twelve years old Reverend Graham’s crusades were amazing to watch. First was the fact that despite the simplicity of his message he was exceptionally talented in delivering it. To see thousands of people responding to his call for conversion or rededication to Christ as George Beverly Shea led choirs singing the invitational hymn Just as I Am was a thing of rare beauty when it comes to evangelical crusades and altar calls. Billy Graham was a master of manipulating emotions to bring people down the aisle, and I do not mean anything malicious by that.

Graham’s message was simple in its traditional evangelical message. All have sinned, and that means all of us; Christ died to save sinners; repent, believe, and confess Jesus as your savior. The message was not new, it had been preached by Christians in a variety of forms and in many cultural variations for about 1900 years before Graham ever began his first crusade, but Graham’s were much more of the simplistic fundamentalist evangelicalism that has been part of the American landscape since the Second Great Awakening. It had been a staple of Fundamentalist revival preachers for decades before Graham but unlike the hellfire and brimstone message of previous preachers like Billy Sunday Graham focused on the love of God, and unlike so many his sincerity in preaching that message came through whether in person or on television.

His message was grounded in the theology of Pre-millennial Dispensationalism of Irish Anglican Priest John Darby which found its way to North America where it was popularized by American C.I. Schofield. The message was simple and based on the belief the the return of Christ to judge the world was imminent: accept Christ and avoid the wrath to come.

His message was no different than thousands of other preachers like him, but he was better at it and understood the role of media, particularly television in spreading the message. Likewise while he encouraged Christians to become more politically active in the 1950s and 1960s though when Jerry Falwell and other fundamentalist preachers formed a political movement that became the current Christian Right he warned against it. In 1981 he said:

“I don’t want to see religious bigotry in any form. It would disturb me if there was a wedding between the religious fundamentalists and the political right. The hard right has no interest in religion except to manipulate it.”

He had learned the hard way, while he was a gifted evangelist, he was not a prophet and in the first two decades of his career, Graham, the North Carolina Democrat allowed himself to become captive to Republican Presidents. He compared Dwight D. Eisenhower’s first foreign policy speech to the Sermon on the Mount and said that Richard Nixon was “the most able and best trained man for the job in American history.”

To his credit Graham did not seek the friendship or companionship of Presidents, except for Nixon, but every President after John F. Kennedy regardless of Party sought Graham’s counsel, advice and spiritual support. That being said the low mark of his career and ministry was when tapes of him and Richard Nixon emerged in 2002 in which while they agreed with their support of Israel, disparaged American Jews and their supposed control of the media, to which Graham added the Jews support for pornography. When that came to light Graham apologized and tried to put his remarks in context of those of President Nixon but his retractions for that was well as his remarked in a letter to Nixon to “bomb the dikes” in order to flood North Vietnam irregardless of civilian casualties demonstrated a ruthlessness in support of American military power being used against civilians damaged his credibility for many people.

In terms of civil rights and race relations Graham desegregated his crusades, even personally taking down the ropes that separated whites and blacks at one location. He told one audience in Mississippi that “there was no room for segregation at the foot of the Cross.” He supported Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to a degree but when Dr. King was jailed in Birmingham Alabama and wrote his classic Letter from a Birmingham Jail, Graham told reporters that King should “put the brakes on a little bit.” His unwillingness to take risks in supporting civil rights later in life was something that would also damage his reputation among Christians and non-Christians alike.

In the 1980s he said that AIDS was the judgement of God, a comment that he quickly walked back. Later he realized his mistakes in being too close to Presidents and avoided Washington and the White House. That did not keep him from befriending or caring for Presidents including Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barak Obama.

To his credit Graham could admit his mistakes with a display of humility that is lacking in most big time preachers and evangelists. When Jonathan Merritt asked Graham how people could be more like him Graham responded: “First, I’d say, don’t try to be like me, because I didn’t always get it right.”

Likewise, in 2007 when he was asked why he never supported or was affiliated with the Moral Majority or other Right Wing Christian Evangelical political groups he said:

“I’m all for morality, but morality goes beyond sex to human justice. We as clergy know so very little to speak with authority on the Panama Canal or the superiority of armaments. Evangelists cannot be closely identified with any particular party or person. We have to stand in the middle in order to preach to people, right and left. I haven’t been faithful to my own advice in the past. I will be in the future.”

I only wish that those who pretend to be the leaders of the Christian Right today, including Graham’s son Franklin and daughter Annie would be wise enough to heed his advice.

I could go on and try to evaluate the other parts of his life and ministry both positive and negative, and those debates could could go in for decades.

As for me, I always found Reverend Graham to be a genuine, yet flawed man. Whether one agreed with his theology, style of ministry, or positions on different issues he wasn’t a fake. He was exactly who he was, he believed the message that he preached. He was neither a prophet or theologian, and he approached the political world with a certain naivety that unscrupulous politicians like Richard Nixon exploited.

Charles Templeton who traveled with Graham and frequently roomed with him in various crusades eventually parted ways with Graham and became an agnostic. Templeton, who died in 2001 was asked about Graham and said something that resonates with how I feel about him and his influence:

“I disagree with him profoundly on his view of Christianity and think that much of what he says in the pulpit is puerile nonsense. But there is no feigning in him: he believes what he believes with an invincible innocence. He is the only mass evangelist I would trust. And I miss him.”

Honestly, I don’t think there will be another like him, certainly among those who have tried to emulate him or take up his mantle in the now hyper-political world of American Evangelicalism. Graham learned lessons in dealing in the political world that those who have followed him, including his son Franklin have ignored, and when American Evangelicalism crumbles under the weight of political, social, and financial malfeasance and painfully shallow theology it will be their fault.

Later in life Graham moderated some of his views on salvation. When asked by John Meacham in 2006 whether he believes heaven will be closed to good Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus or secular people, Graham said:

“Those are decisions only the Lord will make. It would be foolish for me to speculate on who will be there and who won’t … I don’t want to speculate about all that. I believe the love of God is absolute. He said he gave his son for the whole world, and I think he loves everybody regardless of what label they have.”

As I reflect on his passing I think that he will understand the implications of eternity more than any of us will and whether I agreed with him or not I will miss him and wish that his son and other Evangelicals would take heed and learn from his experiences rather than to keep digging the Church into the abyss.

Until tomorrow,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

2 Comments

Filed under christian life, culture, faith, ministry, News and current events, Religion

Tagged as american christianity, billy graham, Charles Templeton, Evangelicalism, faith, franklin graham, fundamentalism, Political Commentary, region, religious right, richard nixon

December 20, 2017 · 23:51

“Is that Truly the Path of the Lord” A Reflection on Faith, Calling, and the Christmas Truce in the Age of Trump

Friends of Padre Steve’s World

As a veteran who served in the badlands of Al Anbar Province during Christmas of 2007 I can relate to Father Palmer, the British priest and chaplain in the film Joyeux Noel (Merry Christmas) when he makes the comment “I belong with those who are in pain, and who have lost their faith, I belong here.”

As the Chaplain begins to provide the last Rites to a dying soldier the Bishop walks in, in full purple cassock frock coat and hat and the chaplain looks up and kisses his ring.

As the chaplain looks at his clerical superior there is a silence and the Bishop looks sternly at the priest and addresses him:

“You’re being sent back to your parish in Scotland. I’ve brought you your marching orders.”

Stunned the Priest replies: “I belong with those who are in pain, and who have lost their faith, I belong here.”

The Priest looks at him and asks: “Is that truly the path of our Lord?”

I was reminded of that last night and today as the President received the worship of his most vocally Christian cabinet members and the Vice President as they celebrated the passage of a tax cut bill that end up harming many more people than it will help, even as he edges closer to a devastating war with North Korea, a war that besides being more deadly than in since the World Wars will bring many unexpected and unintended consequences, none good, but I digress…

The Bishop who relieved Father Palmer went on to preach a sermon to newly arrived troops.

It has been ten years since those Christmas Masses and they still feel like yesterday. In the intervening years my life has been different. Just a year later I was walking home from church where my wife was to sing in the choir during the Christmas vigil mass. I couldn’t handle the crowds, the noise, and I felt so far away from God. That night I walked home in the dark looking up into the sky asking God if he still was there. If there had been a bar on the way home I would have stopped by and poured myself in.

Now that faith is different and I have become much more skeptical of the motivations of religious leaders, especially those that demonize and dehumanize those that do not believe like them or fully support their cause or agenda. Unfortunately there are far too many men and women who will use religion to do that, far too many. Unlike a few years ago they now occupy the seat of political power as sycophants of the President, offering no prophetic voice but speaking the words of death covered in the veneer of the Christian faith.

As for me as opposed to . I had the floor kicked from out from under me in the summer of 2014 and it has been a hard fight and while I am beginning to get back to some sense of normal it is a day to day thing. I still suffer the effects of the PTSD, especially the insomnia, nightmares and the nightmares which came back with a vengeance that summer. I also still have the anxiety in crowded places and bad traffic, but working with my new therapist I am coming up with some effective coping mechanisms. As for faith, I do believe again, more often than not, though at the same time I doubt. Though I believe I think I still consider myself to be a Christian Agnostic who echoes the cry of the man who cried out to Jesus, “Lord I believe, help my unbelief!” I believe and yet, I don’t and I don’t think that is a bad thing, I think it helps me understand those who no longer believe, those that struggle, and those who raised as Christians have left the faith.

However, that being said I will strive to be there for those that struggle with faith and believe, especially those who struggle because of what they saw and experienced during war and when they returned home. This Sunday, Christmas Eve I will preach at my chapel’s Protestant service. Likewise as I wrote last week I had the honor of conducting the Christmas service for the German contingent of the NATO headquarters here.

I expect that in the coming year I will do my best to speak truth to those in power and those whose faithfulness is more a product of their comfort with the God that they create in their own mind rather than the Crucified God wise death on the Cross s a scandal. For many Christians the scandal of the cross is too easy to avoid by surrounding ourselves with pet theologies that appeal to our pride, prejudice and power. The kind of malevolent power represented by the bishop in Joyeux Noel as well as the leaders of the so called “Conservative Evangelicals” who support a President who says “Merry Christmas” even as he defecates on all who believe in the God who became incarnate as a helpless babe in a manger and who died on a cross. In fact I saw a mocking meme of Trump saying “Merry Christmas” as he holds a bigger than life Bible to his chest from a very conservative evangelical friend on Facebook, it was blasphemous.

Praying for Peace this Christmas,

Padre Steve+

Resisting Catastrophe and Looking to Resurrection: Faith in the Trump Era

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

Sophie Scholl, who played a pivotal role in the White Rose resistance movement wrote: “Somebody, after all, had to make a start. What we wrote and said is also believed by others. They just don’t dare express themselves as we did.”

The more I see the ways that many Christian pastors and leaders are prostituting their faith to defend the indefensible actions

‘of men like President Trump and Alabama candidate for the U.S. Senate, Roy Moore, the more I am convinced that regardless of whatever political power or success that they achieve, that have forever destroyed the credibility of the Christian Church in the United States. They have aligned themselves with White Nationalists, Neo-Nazis, and sexual predators in ways not seen since the German Christians threw away their faith for the cause of Adolf Hitler in the early 1930s.

What was especially discouraging was the rally where a number of Moore’s clergy supporters joined the candidate to hail him as a hero and martyr in his stand against the rights of LGBTQ citizens, Flip Benham who told Moore that he gets “the applause of heaven.” Even more discouraging were the comments of Alabama Governor Kay Ivey, also a conservative Evangelical Christian said while she “has no reason to disbelieve” Moore’s female accusers said that she will vote for Moore because “we need to have a Republican in the United States Senate to vote on things like the Supreme Court justices, other appointments the Senate has to confirm and make major decisions,”

My friend Father Kenneth Tanner, a conservative Priest wrote: “No. It is never OK to turn a blind eye to multiple and credible witnesses against a leader running for public office because utilitarian politics are more important than principles and human decency.

It matters not one wit if a presidential agenda or a senate majority or the makeup of the Supreme Court or any other grave moral challenge—like the precious life of the unborn—hangs in the balance.”

Today Andrew Sullivan wrote: “The Christian right’s support for a sociopathic, cruel, and vulgar pagan was inevitable, in other words, from the moment the Moral Majority was born. If politics is fused with religion, and if your opponents are deemed evil, then almost anything can be justified to defeat them. Sooner or later, you’l find yourself defending the molestation of a minor. Which is why I have long refused to call this political movement Christian, but Christianist. It is not about faith; it is about power.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The German pastor who would be murdered at the command of Adolf Hitler in April 1945 wrote:

“Christianity stands or falls with its revolutionary protest against violence, arbitrariness and pride of power and with its plea for the weak. Christians are doing too little to make these points clear rather than too much. Christendom adjusts itself far too easily to the worship of power. Christians should give more offense, shock the world far more, than they are doing now. Christian should take a stronger stand in favor of the weak rather than considering first the possible right of the strong.”

Sadly, I don’t think that what passes for Christian in the United States can do this. It would be better that what passes for Christian would collapse under the weight of its own lies and misrepresentations in the pursuit of temporal power than for it to continue in this rotten state. It has sold its soul for a prize that can only destroy it. The good thing is that Jesus the Christ is still engaged in bringing new life to the dead and that he works through people who know their inadequacy in order to bring it to the world. As Juergen Moltmann wrote:

“Believing in the resurrection does not just mean assenting to a dogma and noting a historical fact. It means participating in this creative act of God’s … Resurrection is not a consoling opium, soothing us with the promise of a better world in the hereafter. It is the energy for a rebirth of this life. The hope doesn’t point to another world. It is focused on the redemption of this one.”

So in spite of my pessimism in regard to the state of what Sullivan calls Christianist I still believe in the energy of resurrection and rebirth in this life and world. I believe that I have to be part of that even if it offends the Christianists who would use the power of the state to persecute and kill those they despise, the same people who Jesus defended.

I have come to realize that the offense I take against the notion of a Christian Nation promoted by Roy Moore and his supporters and their idol President Trump is that they prostitute the Gospel for the filthy rags of unrequited political power. I have come to realize more and more that my faith, as small and insignificant as it so often is, is the source of my politics. That is why I must resist as Bonhoeffer noted:

“If I sit next to a madman as he drives a car into a group of innocent bystanders, I can’t, as a Christian, simply wait for the catastrophe, then comfort the wounded and bury the dead. I must try to wrestle the steering wheel out of the hands of the driver.”

Sophie Scholl and her friends in the White Rose circle, Bonhoeffer and others resisted when others who called themselves Christians either wholeheartedly supported Hitler and the NSDAP or chose to remain silent during the Nazi era. Traudl Juergen who served as Hitler’s Secretary from 1942 until his death in Berlin struggled with her roll in the war and how after the war it occurred to her that she could have done more:

“All these horrors I’ve heard of during the Nurnberg process, these six million Jews, other thinking people or people of another race, who perished. That shocked me deeply. But I hadn’t made the connection with my past. I assured myself with the thought of not being personally guilty. And that I didn’t know anything about the enormous scale of it. But one day I walked by a memorial plate of Sophie Scholl in the Franz-Joseph-Strasse. I saw that she was about my age and she was executed in the same year I came to Hitler. And at that moment I actually realised that a young age isn’t an excuse. And that it might have been possible to get to know things.”

I cannot remain silent.

Until tomorrow,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

3 Comments

Filed under christian life, faith, History, Loose thoughts and musings, nazi germany, News and current events, Political Commentary

Tagged as andrew sullivan, christian faith, dietrich bonhoeffer, donald trump, Juergen Moltmann, religious right, Roy Moore, sophie scholl

December 11, 2016 · 06:30

Two Types of Faith: Fiendish Sadistic Cruelty or Mercy and Justice

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

The great Philosopher Alfred North Whitehead once wrote, “Religion carries two sorts of people in two entirely opposite directions: the mild and gentle people it carries towards mercy and justice; the persecuting people it carries into fiendish sadistic cruelty…”

As I watch the reaction of many people who call themselves Christians in the wake of Donald Trump’s election I find much truth in Whitehead’s words. I feel that what has posed as Christianity in the United States has been revealed as a sham; a way for religious leaders to enrich themselves and gain power even if it means forsaking the Gospel to do so.

Those who follow my writings know how much I struggle with faith and doubt on a daily basis. I believe, but as the man told Jesus when he asked Jesus to heal his child “I believe, help my unbelief.” I no longer believe in the “absolute truths” that I once believed. Of course to some this makes me a heretic or worse. That being said, I have faith in a God I cannot see. I have faith in a God who clothes himself in human weakness and allows himself to be killed based on the trumped up charges of corrupt and fearful religious leaders. Thus I have a problem with Christians or members of other religions try to use the police power of state to enforce their beliefs on others, something that is about to become reality in our country.

I believe, but my doubts are all too real. Frankly I cringe when I hear religious people speaking with absolute certitude about things that they ultimately cannot prove, and that includes the concept of justice, which cannot always be measured in absolutes. Captain Jean Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) noted in the Star Trek the Next Generation episode Justice:

“I don’t know how to communicate this, or even if it is possible. But the question of justice has concerned me greatly of late. And I say to any creature who may be listening, there can be no justice so long as laws are absolute. Even life itself is an exercise in exceptions.”

I have found and learned to accept that life as we know it “is an exercise in exceptions.” We all make them, and the Bible and the history of the church is full of them. So I have a hard time with people who claim an absolute certitude in beliefs that wish to impose on others. Whitehead wrote: “There are no whole truths; all truths are half-truths. It is trying to treat them as whole truths that plays the devil.” Unfortunately many true believers fail to understand that fact and whenever they gain political power use it to enforce their half-truths as if they were absolute truth. This behavior is demonstrated throughout history by people who profess every religious creed in the world.

Proving Whitehead’s words, many true believers frequently wrap themselves in the certitude of their faith assuming that they are the custodians of all truth, not recognizing that they are ignorant of their very ignorance. The true believers espouse doctrines that are unprovable and then build complex doctrinal systems to prove them, systems that then which must be defended, sometimes to the death; and may whatever God you believe in protect you should you cross them.

Eric Hoffer wrote: “A doctrine insulates the devout not only against the realities around them but also against their own selves. The fanatical believer is not conscious of his envy, malice, pettiness and dishonesty. There is a wall of words between his consciousness and his real self.”

Henri Nouwen wrote, “Theological formation is the gradual and often painful discovery of God’s incomprehensibility. You can be competent in many things, but you cannot be competent in God.”

No one can be competent in God, and that those who claim to be are either hopelessly deluded, or worse, are evil men masquerading as good. Those that speak of absolutes and want to use the Bible or any other religious text as some sort of rule book that they alone can interpret need to ask themselves this question, “When has justice ever been as simple as a rulebook?”

Sadly too many people, Christians, Moslems, Jews, Hindus, and others apply their own misconceptions and prejudices to their scriptures and use them as a weapon of temporal and divine judgement on all who they oppose. However, as history, life and even our scriptures testify, that none of us can absolutely claim to know the absolutes of God. As Captain Picard noted “life itself is an exercise in exceptions.”

It takes true wisdom to know when and how to make these exceptions, wisdom based on reason, grace and mercy. Justice, is to apply the law in fairness and equity, knowing that even our best attempts can be misguided. If instead of reason we appeal to emotion, hatred, prejudice or vengeance and clothe them in the language of righteousness, what we call justice can be more evil than any evil it is supposed to correct, no matter what our motivation. Whitehead noted something that people of faith should remember and practice: “Religion will not regain its old power until it can face change in the same spirit as does science. Its principles may be eternal, but the expression of those principles requires continual development.”

The temporal power of the Christians who have thrown away the Gospel to use the election of Donald Trump to to further their temporal agenda of gaining earthly power completely miss the essence of faith, and the concept of justice. They have shown themselves to be little different from the theocrats that they condemn in the Islamic world, but then the mirror can be a difficult thing to look at.

But we see it all too often, religious people and others misusing faith or ideology to condemn those they do not understand or with whom they disagree. When such people gain power they tend to expand that power into the realm of theocratic absolutism and despotism. As Captain Jean Luc Picard noted in the Start Trek Next Generation episode The Drumhead:

“We think we’ve come so far. Torture of heretics, burning of witches it’s all ancient history. Then – before you can blink an eye – suddenly it threatens to start all over again.”

That day is already here and it will become much worse before it gets better, especially since there will be little to restrain them unless the man that they sold their souls to support in order to increase their power turns on them; and that is always a possibility with Donald Trump.

Peace

Padre Steve+

3 Comments

Filed under faith, History, philosophy, Political Commentary, Religion

Tagged as alfred north whitehead, captain jean luc picard, christian right, donald trump supporters, eric hoffer, faith, henri nouwen, Religion, religious right

December 3, 2016 · 06:30

A Reflection on HIV/AIDS for World AIDS Day

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

Thursday was World AIDS Day, and so today I am going to reminisce about the events in my life that helped bring me to not just care about the treatment of people infected with HIV or suffering from AIDS but for becoming an advocate for the Gay Community. This is kind of an emotional post as I have friends from high school, college, and the military who have died of AIDS, I have known far too many others who have been cut off from their families, and faith communities once they were discovered to be infected with HIV or came out and admitted that they were homosexual.

The role of right wing political Christians in condemning these men and women has been one of the most disgraceful aspects of my experience, and I am a straight, married, white Christian minister. Sadly, many of the people that I will mention in this article continue to condemn LGBTQ people, those infected with HIV, and those suffering with AIDS. Likewise, they have been involved with demonizing men and women infected with Ebola a couple of years ago. They are without compassion, and without empathy. Gustave Gilbert, a psychologist who worked with the Nazi War Criminals at Nuremberg. Gilbert noted: “In my work with the defendants (at the Nuremberg Trails 1945-1949) I was searching for the nature of evil and I now think I have come close to defining it. A lack of empathy. It’s the one characteristic that connects all the
defendants, a genuine incapacity to feel with their fellow men. Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy.” It is the same lack of empathy demonstrated by supposedly Christian leaders that bothers me today, including Vice President Elect Pence, and several of Donald Trump’s cabinet nominees, and many of his advisors.

In 1986 the late Dr. C. Everett Koop, then the Surgeon General courageously went against the feelings of many people, especially his fellow Evangelical Christians by saying:

“At the beginning of the AIDS epidemic many Americans had little sympathy for people with AIDS…The feeling was that somehow people from certain groups ‘deserved’ their illness. Let us put those feelings behind us. We are fighting a disease, not a people.”

Dr. Koop reminded us all of the basic humanity of those suffering with AIDS and would go on to be a committed advocate for caring for the men and women infected, often going against the bulwarks of the Religious Right including James Dobson and Phyllis Schafly. As a young man he became an inspiration to me.

I met someone with AIDS for the first time, at least knowingly for the first time in the summer of 1987 while serving as a Medical Service Corps personnel officer at the Academy of Health Sciences, Fort Sam Houston Texas. I was the Adjutant for the Academy Brigade, which is the unit that all medical training courses fell under for administrative and command and control issues. My job normally was consisted of basic personnel administration, working with commanders and legal officers when court-martial proceedings were needed, appointing investigating officers for different purposes, reviewing line of duty investigations and running duty rosters. It was nothing to write home about.

But that summer, after years of ignoring the issue the Reagan administration, which had made light of the disease and refused to do anything about it following the initial clinical diagnosis of it in 1981, belatedly, directed the Defense Department to start testing servicemen and women for the disease and to develop personnel policies for infected personnel.

Since it was considered by most in the mainstream to be a “gay” disease the Reagan administration treated it with distain, during some of the White House press conferences, Press Secretary Larry Speakes mocked and laughed about it to reporters who asked questions about it.

On October 15th 1982 this exchange took place: in the White House Briefing Room.

Q: Larry, does the President have any reaction to the announcement—the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, that AIDS is now an epidemic and have over 600 cases?

SPEAKES: What’s AIDS?

Q: Over a third of them have died. It’s known as “gay plague.” (Laughter.) No, it is. I mean it’s a pretty serious thing that one in every three people that get this have died. And I wondered if the President is aware of it?

SPEAKES: I don’t have it. Do you? (Laughter.)

Q: No, I don’t. MR. SPEAKES: You didn’t answer my question.

Q: Well, I just wondered, does the President—

SPEAKES: How do you know? (Laughter.)

Q: In other words, the White House looks on this as a great joke? MR. SPEAKES: No, I don’t know anything about it, Lester.

Q: Does the President, does anybody in the White House know about this epidemic, Larry?

SPEAKES: I don’t think so. I don’t think there’s been any—

Q: Nobody knows? MR. SPEAKES: There has been no personal experience here, Lester. Q: No, I mean, I thought you were keeping—

SPEAKES: I checked thoroughly with Dr. Ruge this morning and he’s had no—(laughter)—no patients suffering from AIDS or whatever it is.

Q: The President doesn’t have gay plague, is that what you’re saying or what?

SPEAKES: No, I didn’t say that.

Q: Didn’t say that?

SPEAKES: I thought I heard you on the State Department over there. Why didn’t you stay there? (Laughter.)

Q: Because I love you, Larry, that’s why. (Laughter.)

SPEAKES: Oh, I see. Just don’t put it in those terms, Lester. (Laughter.)

Q: Oh, I retract that.

SPEAKES: I hope so.

Q: It’s too late.

The late Congressman from San Francisco, Phil Burton told those seeking government help in diagnosing and treating the new disease that:

“I’ll introduce a bill. But if all the angels came dancing down to earth like the Rockettes, even they couldn’t get a dime out of this administration for anything with the name “gay” on it.”

I seriously doubt had Reagan’s friend, Rock Hudson, a closeted homosexual who was a cinematic idol in his day had not died of AIDS in October of 1985 if the administration would have even acted then. Their intentional disregard and negligence was criminal. But they finally did act, and the military acted to begin testing for the disease and to develop personnel policies for infected service members.

Back then no one wanted to deal with AIDS or the people infected by it. This was especially true in much of the military. Since I was the junior Medical Service personnel officer at the Academy of Health Sciences I was told that I would coordinate all services to those infected and work with those appointed by the Army Surgeon General’s office to develop appropriate personnel policies. People in the office joked that I was “CINC AIDS.” That was not a compliment.

When a soldier was diagnosed then they were given a form by their physician stating that they would let any partners know that they were HIV positive and that if they had sex they would only have protected sex. These were a host of other restrictions given in that medical “counseling” and all of these were reinforced as each soldier was then given an order by their commander to the same effect. The difference was that what the doctor gave was “counseling” and what the commander gave was an order, which if disobeyed could result in punishment under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

Following this they were sent to me to discuss assignment limitations and career options. When people saw a soldier sitting outside my door, they pretty much knew what the person was there to see me for, as my job became more and more about dealing with those infected with HIV. As I took the job I read everything that I could and discussed the matter with physicians dealing with the disease.

Despite that in the beginning it was a scary experience. I attended a local mega-church and much of what I heard, read and listened to on Christian radio was full of paranoia, conspiracy theories and an attitude that could only be explained as an almost joyful gloating that the “homosexuals” were being judged by God. Not only that since HIV was determined to come from Africa, there was a tremendous amount of “old South” racism interspersed with their theological pronouncements.

Dr. James Dobson and Dr. D. James Kennedy, early leaders of the political religious right were particularly vindictive. These unscrupulous leaders helped spread much disinformation about HIV from the a book published by a charlatan named Gene Antonio who wrote what was then a popular book called “The AIDS Cover Up,” They claimed that AIDS could be spread by kissing, mosquito bites or even by touching surfaces that had been touched by those infected. These men were bolstered by their allies in the Reagan White House, Secretary of education Bill Bennett and his assistant Gary Bauer who were the official administration spokesmen regarding AIDS.

These political preachers and activists marginalized Surgeon General Koop who noted in the early days of the epidemic how he was “completely cut off from AIDS” by Bennett and others in the Reagan Administration. They were so wrong that Koop, who was by no means a liberal took them to task on their hateful, dishonest and un-Christian proclamations. Koop told a journalist:

“the Christian activity in reference to AIDS of both D. James Kennedy and Jim Dobson is reprehensible. The first time that Kennedy ever made a statement about AIDS, I saw it on television. It was so terrible, so homophobic, so pure Antonio that I wrote him a letter.”

Koop said of Dobson, who he had worked with earlier on HIV/AIDS: “I don’t know what happened to him. He changed his mind, and last August in his paper he attacked me for two pages as leading people down the garden path. But again his arguments were full of holes. I just cannot believe the poor scholarship of so many Christians.”

But that was the world that part of me lived in. The other world was one of logic and reason, informed by human compassion, so unlike what I was being fed by church leaders and the “Christian” media that I immersed myself.

The sad truth of the matter is then, as today, that far too many Christians, especially influential leaders intentionally and malevolently spread lies to bolster their position. For them it is far easier to profit from demonizing people than it is to work with people they hate, to find solutions that help everyone. In my view many of these supposedly “Christian” leaders, apart from their fashionable clothes, are no different than the Nazis who blamed the Jews, Socialists and homosexuals for every ill in society; or the Japanese leaders who organized the Kamikaze Corps to send true believers to their deaths in a hopeless cause simply to maintain their power.

There is no love, there is no care and there is no empathy in any of them. As Army psychologist Captain Gustave Gilbert noted at Nuremberg “evil is the absence of empathy.”

When you do not know or have never have met someone being demonized by religious people it is easy to surround yourself in comfortable theology. However, when a family member, friend or colleague becomes one of those being demonized it tends to blow up your comfortable theology unless you are a sociopath.

I never will forget the day in the late summer of 1987 when an officer came to my office. He was the first person who I had ever met who was HIV positive. He was a medical professional, an Army Captain who had been selected for promotion to Major. He was married, had children and was a “born-again Christian.” He had contracted HIV when dealing with a combative drunk patient, who was HIV positive. The patient smashed glass, cutting himself severely and started bleeding. The shattered glass cut this officer as he tried to intervene and subdue the man. The officer was infected by the man’s infected blood, which entered him through his own wounds. Though he attempted to disinfect himself by normal protocols he became infected. I was looking at a man, just a few years older than me. A man who loved God, loved his family, who had did all the right things but had become HIV positive.

Even now I can see and hear this man, his face is etched deep into my memory, struggling to fit what happened to him into the message of God’s judgment that his fellow Christians and church members said was the cause of his disease. As I talked to him I realized that what I was being told by men who I was listening to every day on the way to work, as well as what I was reading by “Christian” authors and what I was hearing in church was a lie.

My worldview was forever changed that day. I realized that this man had done nothing wrong, in fact he was trying to do his job as a medical professional to keep a patient from further harm. I was able to help him get into a Master’s degree program in Healthcare Administration since he was no longer allowed to serve in a clinical environment. I have no idea what happened to him after I left the active duty Army to attend seminary in late 1988, but I presume since the mortality rate for HIV/AIDS was so high back then that he probably died years ago. I would hope that by some miracle that this man was fortunate and like NBA great Ervin “Magic” Johnson has not only survived but continues to do well. But I know that the odds were not in his favor.

When he left my office we shook hands, something that my fellow Christians said that I needed to avoid. Not only did I shake his hand, but I gave him a hug and I did not wash my hands or disinfect myself. I figured that God wanted me to get HIV from caring for and accepting someone infected with it than it didn’t matter.

Since that time I have worked with, cared for and ministered to more victims of HIV/AIDS, their families and their friends than I can count. Many of them have made significant impressions on me, my life, and my faith. Without them my life would not be as rich as it has been. I continued to deal with case after case and it is interesting to read the citation from my end of tour award for my time as the Adjutant of the Academy Brigade. It is almost all about AIDS.

So we fast forward to 2016. I’m still in the military, only now I am not a Medical Service Corps Officer in the Army but a Navy Chaplain and I am now teaching Ethics. During my career I spent about eight years in the critical care environment of major medical center ERs, trauma departments and ICUs. I have a rather unique perspective having experience with AIDS and other highly infectious diseases, as well as the ethics of treatment.

Since I was previously qualified as a Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Defense officer when I served in the Army in the 1980s, I understand the importance of, as well as the limitations of personal protective equipment and decontamination procedures. Of course because I know a good number of physicians who specialize in critical care, infectious diseases and pandemics and try to remain current in regard to such diseases, their causes, and the vectors by which they spread.

Thus I realize when I see and hear the Trinity of Evil; the politicians, pundits and preachers who make their living promoting fear, panic and hatred to keep their jobs and obscene profits coming in are at work in demonizing President Obama, the CDC and NIH and poor Africans in Liberia, Ghana and other countries. Like the HIV/AIDS crisis of the 1980s, the same cast of disingenuous, unscrupulous and dishonest preachers, pundits and politicians are at work today as we wrestle with the Ebola crisis, which is neither an epidemic nor a judgment from God.

Sadly, these people are not limited to their own religious networks to spread their lies, propaganda and hate. They have the full buy in from a major cable news network and countless political “news” services, “think tanks” and Political Action Committees; who are their fellow travelers in their quest to demonize those that they hate and dominate society.

The Ebola crisis of 2013-2014 provided these same people, this Trinity of Evil, and their followers; with the avenue to create havoc without taking any personal or corporate responsibility to demonize people, to hinder rational and reasonable solutions to meet the crisis and to ensure the political destruction of the Black man in the White House who they hate with a hatred beyond comprehension, and beginning in January these same people will have massive influence in the White House and Congress to do their worst in harming people by denying medical care, funding, and research into not just HIV/AIDS and Ebola, but any other disease that they choose to label as God’s punishment on people that they despise.

Their words and actions, often clothed in the language of faith may seem to some as a demonstration of righteousness; only now they are even more closely linked to political and economic entities that simply want more power and profit and use them to achieve their malevolent purposes.

The sad thing is that while the leaders of the “Religious Right” benefit from this deal, their followers do not. In fact should Ebola ever reach epidemic or pandemic status in the United States because of their actions which have helped to hinder the government’s response to it; they don’t have to worry, they have good healthcare coverage which is paid for by their followers; and little threat of exposure. On the other hand their followers will have to fend for themselves, paying exceptionally high insurance rates if they can even afford it all the while the people that they support fight to ensure that they do not have affordable, or reliable access to health care.

The sad thing is that Ebola, as bad is it is; is a hard disease to catch, unless you happen to get blasted by a load of the massively infected vomit or bodily fluids of someone in the final stages of it. In fact Ebola is a lot harder to catch many forms of the Bird or Swine Flu, which are airborne viruses and highly contagious. History has shown that both are far more deadly in terms of numbers killed than either Ebola or AIDS have ever been.

Sadly, the same people who fought against treating HIV/AIDS and Ebola are the same people who mock public health experts and agencies when they warn of potential Influenza epidemics or pandemics, and fight against reasonable vaccination and prevention programs and education.

The actions of these religious and political leaders and their media supporters are unethical, irresponsible and at odds with measure of human compassion. It is like they have a death wish for the planet. But truthfully I have to say that it does not look to me that they seem to care so long as they reap a political and economic benefit from it.

Dr. Koop was condemned by fanatical extremists like the late Phyllis Schlafly who said that Koop’s recommendations in his report about preventing AIDS looked “like it was edited by the Gay Task Force” and Schlafly, ever the loving, honest and ethical Christian that she is accused Koop of advocating that third-graders learn the rules of “safe sodomy.”

Koop replied in a very courageous manner to Schafly, who in my view was one of the most loathsome people to ever unite religion and politics: “I’m not surgeon general to make Phyllis Schafly happy. I’m surgeon general to save lives.”

In 1988 Dr. Koop said something that most people in positions of any public responsibility, be they public health officials, medical professionals, politicians or even loathsome preacher should abide:

“I separate ideology, religion and other things from my sworn duty as a health officer in this country.”

But then as it did in the 1980s, the band continues to play on… and those that unite religion and their hatred of others continue to do everything that they can to ensure that people die as they lie. As for me, I am glad that finally saw the truth about these people and I thank people like that HIV positive Army officer who walked into my office in 1987 who humanized that terrible virus, and for helping me see the light.

But our fight is not over, we have to continue to bear witness and speak the truth.

Peace

Padre Steve+

The “Unshackled” Trump Turns Against the GOP

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

With his poll numbers in freefall and dozens of GOP leaders fleeing his toxic fascism, Donald Trump has gone on the attack. Trump bragged that he is now “unshackled” from the GOP and yes while he is attacking Hillary Clinton and threatening in a typical banana republic fascist dictator sort of way that he is going to jail her if he is elected, even more importantly he is now gone nuclear on the GOP and the firestorm has just begun. His attacks against any and all GOP leaders who oppose him or are critical of him are creating a scorched earth situation which will scar the GOP and it is largely the fault of GOP leaders for creating the moral and ideological toxic waste dump from which he emerged. Today, after a firestorm of tweets directed at Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, in which he tweeted: Our very weak and ineffective leader, Paul Ryan, had a bad conference call where his members went wild at his disloyalty. Trump tweeted:

Disloyal R’s are far more difficult than Crooked Hillary. They come at you from all sides. They don’t know how to win – I will teach them!

It is the beginning of the end for the GOP and I have been predicting this for almost a year, often using the comparison of the meltdown that happened to the Democratic Party between 1858 and 1860. The bitterness and divisiveness of that collapse kept the Democrats out of the White House for 25 years and the trend would not be fully reversed until Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected in 1932.

But even so there was something very different about that collapse than what is happening today in the GOP. In 1858-1860 the meltdown was centered on the expansion of slavery into the new territories, and Northern Democrats who were in favor of allowing the Southern States to keep their slaves were opposed to slavery’s expansion. That divide blew up in 1858 and 1859 with the attempt of Southerners to get Kansas admitted into the Union as a Slave State when the vast majority of Kansans opposed slavery. Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, a man who most people expected to win the Presidency in 1860, led the opposition and fought his fellow Democrat, President James Buchanan to the bitter end to stop the attempt and in the process infuriated Southern Democrats so much that they would not support him and ran a Southern Democratic ticket against him in 1860. The result was that Abraham Lincoln won the election with a plurality of the vote. When the South seceded Douglas rallied Northern Democrats around the Union as Southern Democrats led their States into the Confederacy.

If you are interested you can see the first article that I wrote about it here:

When Political Parties Implode: The Battle over the Lecompton Constitution and its Relevance Today

I later revised and expanded that article into a five part series in March of this year.

But as I said, today’s situation in the GOP is different. It is not about policy. It is about a cult of personality centered on a Presidential nominee who demands absolute loyalty to himself and tolerates no dissent. It is about a man and a cult that sees no problem in trashing the Constitution, of banning reporters and news organizations that it disagrees with from their rallies, a leader and a cult that has no problem using physical violence against opponents, a leader and a cult that revels in xenophobia, which has hijacked the Christian faith, which supports the actions of a Russian leader who has relentlessly worked to subvert the United States and its allies, a man who brags about his ability to avoid paying taxes, who mocks the disabled, calls POWs and wounded warriors “losers”, demeans the military and its leadership at every opportunity, and views women as objects who should be sexually assaulted. I’m sorry, the man and his cult are deplorable. Conservative columnist George Will described the vapid world of Trump’s supporters in a column that was published yesterday. He noted:

“Trump is a marvelously efficient acid bath, stripping away his supporters’ surfaces, exposing their skeletal essences. Consider Mike Pence, a favorite of what Republicans devoutly praise as America’s “faith community.” Some of its representatives, their crucifixes glittering in the television lights, are still earnestly explaining the urgency of giving to Trump, who agreed that his daughter is “a piece of ass,” the task of improving America’s coarsened culture.”

To watch Pence, Pat Robertson, Robert Jefferess and other right wing religious hacks masquerading as ministers praise and defend Trump after his comments about assaulting women was to watch the old guard of the Religious Right throw themselves into the abyss. No wonder people are fleeing the church.

It is about a man who based on his actions as a businessman which crushed investors as well small business owners, who sues anyone that attempts to expose him, as well as his threats as a politician against his opponents, including those in his own party would be quickly establish himself as a dictator if elected. Sadly, it seems that many of his supporters want just that.

So now the Civil War in the GOP that I predicted months ago is erupting in full view of all. It is going to be a disaster for the party, a party that I belonged to for 32 years. I left the GOP in 2008 after I returned from Iraq, but that does not mean that I don’t have a certain amount of grief in watching the unfolding disaster. While it is too early to say what the final result will be, it is not too early to say that this will have a major impact in American politics and quite possibly hand the Democrats the reins of government for decades, but this is the fault of the GOP. For decades its leaders have basked in the support of unprincipled ideologues, talk radio hosts, and unscrupulous Christian religious leaders who have done nothing but sown the wind of hatred and division and now are reaping the whirlwind. As I said at the top, they created the moral and ideological toxic waste dump from which Trump emerged and they will have to own the result.

There are some who are now speculating that Trump is no longer trying to win the election and has ulterior motives. I have seen a number of commentators who think that he is going to use this to attempt to build a new media empire with the help of Breitbart’s Steve Bannon and former Fox News chief Roger Ailes. But I think that there is another good possibility, the possibility that Trump will take his supporters, especially frustrated Tea Party and Religious Right types and form a new party built around him. If that happens I believe that the rump of what is left of the GOP will struggle to survive after the election.

The GOP Civil War has broken out and while Trump’s supporters in Breitbart say that he has already won it, the fact is there is only one thing that is for certain, for the GOP there will be no winners.

Peace

Padre Steve+

2 Comments

Filed under History, leadership, News and current events, Political Commentary

Tagged as 2016 presidential election, breitbart, democratic party convention 1860, donald trump, fascism, george will, gop, hillary clinton, james buchanan, lecompton constitution, paul ryan, religious right, republican civil war, roger ailes, slavery, stephen douglas, steve bannon

September 28, 2015 · 16:00

Religion & State: The Less Mixed the Better

Virginia Anglicans Persecution Baptists in the 1780s

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

Robert Heinlein wrote that, “Almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.” His words are quite relevant and in a way consistent with the desires of the founders of the United States.

Since I am still getting readjusted to life back in the states after my very nice trip in Germany where I was mostly off the grid I will just share a few thoughts. They are not really original to me, but they are born of reflection on the palpable political anger of the politicians, pundits and preachers of the political-religious movement that I refer to as the “Christian Right.”

In order to be clearly understood it is important for my readers to understand that I am not lumping all “conservative Christians” into the political Christian right. In fact some conservative Christian traditions and their followers are diametrically opposed to the political theology of the Christian Right, which has as its heart the theology of Christian Dominionism, something I have written about many times. This is a modernized understanding of political Calvinism, which has sometimes known as “Seven-Mountain” theology, as such I make a profound distinction between such groups and the political movement which calls itself the Christian Right and assumes that as such it speaks for all conservative Christians.

Gary North, a prominent ideologue of the movement who has advised many of the current Christian Right leaders of the Republican Party, and whose ideas are widely promulgated by the politicians, pundits and preachers of the Christian Right was quite clear in what this movement desires. “The long-term goal of Christians in politics should be to gain exclusive control over the franchise. Those who refuse to submit publicly to the eternal sanctions of God by submitting to His Church’s public marks of the covenant–baptism and holy communion–must be denied citizenship, just as they were in ancient Israel.” Thus, every time you hear the words “religious freedom” or “religious liberty” being uttered by them, please understand that they are talking about their religious liberty only, and that that liberty has at its heart the desire to establish their political-religious dogma as law of the land. Thomas Paine, the author of the amazing little book “Common Sense” which was so much a part of the thought of our founders noted, “Persecution is not an original feature in any religion; but it is always the strongly marked feature of all religions established by law.”

Robert Ingersoll, one of this first prominent skeptics in this country and acknowledged atheists wrote something quite profound in understanding the nature of what our founders intended and why there were protections both for and from religion in the Constitution:

“They knew that to put God in the constitution was to put man out. They knew that the recognition of a Deity would be seized upon by fanatics and zealots as a pretext for destroying the liberty of thought. They knew the terrible history of the church too well to place in her keeping or in the keeping of her God the sacred rights of man. They intended that all should have the right to worship or not to worship that our laws should make no distinction on account of creed. They intended to found and frame a government for man and for man alone. They wished to preserve the individuality of all to prevent the few from governing the many and the many from persecuting and destroying the few.”

Ingersoll correctly reflected the thoughts of Jefferson, Madison, Adams and even George Washington as well as early Virginia Baptist John Leland, and other pioneers of religious liberty like Roger Williams, the founder of the colony of Rhode Island.

According to every scientifically based survey of Christians and non-Christian attitudes toward the church and its religious involvement show that ever-increasing numbers of Christians are fleeing the church. Likewise, increasing numbers of non-Christians want nothing to do with it, even if they are favorably disposed to Jesus and his teachings.

In light of this fact, maybe it is time for Christians to get off their high-horse expecting that they should hold the rights to the political franchise and remember the words of James Madison who said, “Every new & successful example therefore of a perfect separation between ecclesiastical and civil matters, is of importance. And I have no doubt that every new example, will succeed, as every past one has done, in shewing that religion & Govt. will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.”

Have a great night,

Peace

Padre Steve+

1 Comment

Filed under christian life, civil rights, ethics, faith, History, Political Commentary, Religion

Tagged as gary north, james madison, john leland, religious freedom, religious right, robert heinlein, robert ingersoll, seven mountain theology

Tag Archives: religious right

A Christmas Coda: Joyeux Noel and My Call after the Military

An Emotional Roller Coaster: Medical Problems, IT Issues, Hating Religious Theocrats, and Remembering those I Have Lost Through the Lens of MAS*H

Joyeux Noel: the Christmas Truce of 1914, and the Personal Reflections of an Old Chaplain

“Don’t Try to be Like Me, I didn’t Always Get it Right” Rest In Peace Billy Graham

“Is that Truly the Path of the Lord” A Reflection on Faith, Calling, and the Christmas Truce in the Age of Trump

Resisting Catastrophe and Looking to Resurrection: Faith in the Trump Era

Two Types of Faith: Fiendish Sadistic Cruelty or Mercy and Justice

A Reflection on HIV/AIDS for World AIDS Day

The “Unshackled” Trump Turns Against the GOP

When Political Parties Implode: The Battle over the Lecompton Constitution and its Relevance Today

Religion & State: The Less Mixed the Better

Welcome!

Subscribe to Padre Steve's World

Comment Policy

Padre Steve’s World on Facebook

What’s Hot

Padre Steve's Inglorius Statistics

Recent Articles

The Vault: Padre Steve’s Archives

Categories

Blogs I Follow

Tag Archives: religious right

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Welcome!

Subscribe to Padre Steve's World

Comment Policy

What’s Hot

Padre Steve's Inglorius Statistics

Recent Articles

The Vault: Padre Steve’s Archives

Categories

Blogs I Follow