Theology of Nuance; Struggling with God and Man and Overcoming

Some of my faith opinions are still in flux. In other words there is some circumstantial data that is in harmony with my “fringe” opinions, but my conclusions are, to some degree, a willing “leap of faith”. This is true for just a few of my beliefs.

Nevertheless, all opinions are a mixture of bias and knowledge.

Also, there is so much to my belief, that I will not be able to include everything; otherwise it would be a very long and boring autobiography.

These are the questions that I will address.

• A. Why do I believe in a Creator of the universe?
• B. Why do I believe that Jesus is the Messiah and the actively creative power of this Creator?
• C. Why do I believe that this Creator is the inspiration behind the scriptures?
• D. And, why do I believe that the Church is the body and Bride of Jesus the Creator?

I have focused the question by the modifications above. I think that our answers become more apparent, when our questions become less ambiguous.

ANSWER FOR ITEM “A”

The issue of “Does God Exist?” was a problematic one, in my early adult life, i.e. Age 18 to Age 21. There were some ancillary issues (which are of a personal nature that I won’t include here) that affected my ability to accept “belief.” I have used the term “belief” and not “belief in God”, with intent, which you will see as this answer develops in a later post.

Things that I began to observe in the world, appeared to be out-of-step with what I had been taught by my parents, bible teachers, preachers, etc. And it finally culminated in my 1st freshmen year at Oklahoma Christian College, in the fall and spring of 1983-84. I was in a class that challenged me on my “Belief in God.”
“Genesis”, which was taught by a respected Bible professor and PHD at OC, ironically, challenged my belief in God. Very quickly into the course, the 2nd week, as I recall, we got to Genesis 3. This is the fall of Adam and Eve.

I raised my hand and asked the professor the question, “Did God create the devil?” I thought it was a valid question. Incidentally, I still think it is valid, but I now have the answer that is sufficient to me. (I will give my answer to this at a later date. I believe that this answer is a part of Matt’s “etc.” from his question quoted above.)

We had studied the “creation” episode in the preceding week. But, in Genesis 3:1, we were looking “eye-to-eye” with a talking serpent. The professor gave only a very cursory answer, that I will paraphrase from recollection; ‘Yes, God created all things…, but I don’t have time to go off on “a wild goose-chase.”’

It was my opinion, at that moment, that he had perceived my question as an insolent attempt to divert the focus of his lecture.

And, now that I am 23 years removed from my passions of that morning, I must admit that I was, indeed, a very cheeky college student. And, that I may have, in-fact, been acting mischievous by asking the question to him, in the fashion that I did.
What self-respecting college student wouldn’t take an opportunity to ask an “honest and legitimate” question, which has as an added benefit of pinning the shoulders of an “Ivory Tower” professor to the floor?

I could even feign an indignant offense and by doing so, take the desired excuse for abandoning my faith.

After all there was a “fun” social function coming up in a couple of weeks with a sister club. Hey, if Dr. Blah,Blah can’t answer a simple question about the origin of the devil, then the answer is obvious, right? God, doesn’t exist? And “Come on guys, let’ parrrrrrty!”

It was a very useful Ad Hominem and it opened up my social calendar quite well.

I subsequently dropped out of college that semester, so that I could fully devote myself to hedonism, which had become my new religion.

However, I had not truly abandoned all my knowledge of the bible, which was something that always caused an irritation to my moral conscience, even as I went about my apostate ways.

I won’t go into the dark period of half-life. But, suffice it to say that I awakened one day.

I think it happened when I found my bible in the trunk of my car. There was a lot of symbolism in this storage of what had been a High School graduation gift from the congregation where I’d grown up. The symbolism did not go unnoticed by me. It was a cold shower and demanded that I take a decision on where I was headed. I should either throw away this moldy old book and get on with my life, such as it was, or I should take some serious time restoring the book to a readable condition.

I decided to go the restoration route. The bible had slipped into the lowest part of the trunk, in the fender well. There it got wet from water that seeped up from the drain plug that was in that low area. Each and every page had fused to its neighboring pages. So, the effort to get the pages open was quite time consuming.

But, the pragmatic answer of just disposing of the book and getting a new one, begged the question; Why get a new one? If I don’t care enough about this one that was a gift. I managed to open the bible and I keep it on a prominent bookcase in my living room. It is still misshapen and most of the pages are discolored by mold and water stains. But, it still has the power of life for a seeking heart. And it reminds me of where I have been.

Following my apostasy, a phase that lasted two years, I went back to college and enrolled in a course that had the opposite affect. This course too, was a profound irony.

This post is a simple expression of emotional and spiritual isolation.

I believe that much of what I do, devolves from avoidance and/or fear of pain.

I further believe that my perpetual appetite for obsessive behavior, which inevitably consumes my time and energy, is the result of my attempts to cover my shame.

I hide myself behind Spiritual Fig Leaves.

American foreign policy — both good and bad — has always been deeply influenced by Christian theology.

Note: This is part of FPIF’s new Religion in Foreign Policy Focus. for more, visit www.fpif.org.

American foreign policy is built on a deep foundation of Christian theology. Some of the people who make our foreign policy may understand that foundation. Most probably aren’t even aware of it. But foundations are hidden underground. You can stand above them, and even take a strong stand upon them, without knowing they are there. When it comes to foreign policy, we are all influenced by theological foundations that we rarely see.

For example, few Americans have read the work of Reinhold Niebuhr, the most influential American theologian of the 20th century. Many have never even heard the name. Yet Niebuhr’s thought affects us all. In the 1930s, he launched an attack on the liberal Christianity of the Social Gospel, a movement that powerfully influenced U.S. foreign policy in the first third of the 20th century. The liberals were starry-eyed fools, Niebuhr charged, because they trusted people to be reasonable enough to resolve international conflicts peacefully. They forgot the harsh reality of original sin.

Niebuhr wrapped that traditional notion of sin in a new intellectual package and sold it successfully, not only to theologians but to the foreign policy elite. Since the 1940s, foreign policy has largely been reduced to an endless round of debates about how to apply Niebuhr’s “realism.” Policymakers who still tried to follow the Social Gospel path have been marginalized and stigmatized with the harshest epithet a Niebuhrian can hurl: “unrealistic.”

It’s a Jungle Out There

Many policymakers, like much of the public at large, have come to find a strange comfort in the world as Niebuhr described it. They see a jungle where evildoers, who are all around, must be hunted down and destroyed. Though frightening, this world can easily become the stage for simplistic dramas of good against evil. And the moral certainty of being on the side of good — the side of God — can provide a sense of security that more than makes up for the constant terror. That was not what Niebuhr had in mind. But as he found out so painfully, once you let ideas loose in the world, you can’t control what others do with them.

Niebuhr would have been pained to see what the neoconservatives have done with his ideas. Their theory starts out from his own premise: All people are born naturally selfish and impulsive. The godfather of neoconservatism, Irving Kristol, was (like most of the early neocons) an intellectual — a teacher, writer, and editor — and (like many of the early neocons) a Jew. But he turned to Christian theology to describe his Niebuhrian view of human nature: “Original sin was one way of saying this, and I had no problem with that doctrine.”¹ Selfish impulses, when they get out of control, can tear society apart, he warned. To preserve social order we need a fixed moral order. We therefore need a clear sense of the absolute difference between good and bad, strict rules that tell us what is good, and powerful institutions that can get people to obey those rules.

According to this worldview, organized religion has been the most effective institution to promote moral absolutes and self-control. Religion now needs to be strengthened to stave off a rising tide of moral relativism that, along with secular humanism, is breaking down the bulwarks of social order and threatening to release a flood of selfish impulse to drown us all in chaos. A favorite neoconservative columnist, Charles Krauthammer, complains that American mass culture, dominated by skepticism and pleasure, is an “engine of social breakdown.” The best antidote would be a “self-abnegating religious revival.” Since that is not likely to happen, Krauthammer admits, the best place to recover moral discipline and will power is in foreign affairs: America must find the will to exercise its strength and become “confident enough to define international morality in its own, American terms.”²

Original Sin Goes Global

When neoconservatives apply their views to international relations, they deviate from Niebuhr’s teaching. All people may be sinners, they imply, but not all nations. They assume an (often vaguely defined) hierarchy of nations. At the bottom are the enemies of America, consistently described as chaotic, irrational monsters who are incapable of self-control and bent on provoking instability and evil for its own sake. Above them are neutral nations and then U.S. allies near the top of the pyramid. At the top is the United States, in a class by itself because its national motives are good and pure, somehow untainted by original sin.

Neoconservatives insist on this hierarchy, with its dramatic contrast between the good United States and its evil enemies, because it gives them the sense of moral clarity and certainty that they rely on to hold back the relativism they fear. They bolster their sense of certainty by reducing international affairs to simplistic myths: black-and-white tales of absolute good versus absolute evil. (Here I use the word “myth” in its religious sense of a narrative story that expresses a community’s worldview and basic values.) George W. Bush tapped into this mythic world when he said that the war on terrorism is “a monumental struggle between good and evil. But good will prevail.” The outcome is certain, according to Bush, because “we all know that this is one nation, under God.” But Americans must do their world-ordering job pretty much alone, since other nations and international institutions are too selfish to be trusted. The United States must rely primarily on military might, since the only language that the sinful evildoers understand is force.

The neoconservatives did not invent this myth. It goes back to the Puritan belief in “the new Israel” and Americans as God’s chosen people, with the special privilege and responsibility of bringing order to a sinful, chaotic world. Most Americans are still likely to see their nation as the global hero fulfilling that sacred task. Only the United States, they believe in a great leap of faith, is moved by an unselfish desire to serve the good of all humanity by spreading ordered liberty.

Throughout the Cold War era, across the political spectrum, there was no doubting the name of the threatening evil: Communism. After a decade of drift and uncertainty in the 1990s, the September 11 attacks, despite their horror, allowed the nation to breathe easier, at least in terms of the theology of foreign policy. Once again, it seemed that everyone agreed on the name of the monstrous sinners, the source of instability. Rudolph Giuliani could have been speaking for most Americans when he explained that the cultural payoff of the war on terrorism was moral stability: “The era of moral relativism…must end. Moral relativism does not have a place in this discussion.” That crusading tone of certainty gave Bush and the neoconservatives a very free hand in the early post-September 11 days, when they launched the invasion of Afghanistan. The administration then invaded Iraq with the approval of 75% of the U.S. public and nearly all the foreign policy elite.

Iraq War

The myth of U.S. moral and global supremacy - Americans as the world’s chosen people - went largely unchallenged until the U.S. venture in Iraq went sour. The myth says that the good guys are supposed to win every time, because they are good. When the myth does not get played out in reality, people start to complain. If you look at the current debate about Iraq from the standpoint of myth and theology, the complainers fall into three broad groups.

First there is the mainstream of the foreign policy elite, made up of Democrats and more moderate Republicans. They complain that the Bush administration is pursuing the right goals but using the wrong tactics. That’s because the elite still hold on to some shreds of the old Social Gospel view. They give most of the world a bit more credit for rationality; they fear the impulses of original sin a bit less. So they see military strength as one of several ways to secure America’s global hegemony. They are more willing to take a multilateral approach and use the carrot as well as the stick - to pull diplomatic and economic levers before calling out the troops.

But these differences, though they can be very important, are largely ones of degree and tactics. Across the board, members of the foreign policy establishment, even the liberal Democrats, still give a very respectful (sometimes slavish) hearing to the great theologian Niebuhr. But they apply his “realistic” view of original sin only to other nations. The liberals among the elite, too, want their sense of moral clarity and certainty reassured by seeing it played out in a global drama of good against evil. So they make a huge exception for the supposedly pure and innocent motives of their own nation, the chosen people. They believe that the U.S. has a higher moral standing, which gives us the right and duty to rule. That’s how they can justify the most ruthless policies against anyone who stands in their way.

The bipartisan elite may not value the display of American strength as an end in itself, the way neoconservatives do. They are willing to risk a short-term appearance of weakness in one place in order to bolster long-term U.S. strength everywhere else. But long-term strength (including a long-term military presence in Iraq) is still crucial, because they feel a sacred calling to enforce “stability” - their favorite code word for a single global order that protects U.S. interests - everywhere and forever.

The second group of war critics is on the right. A growing number of traditional conservatives criticize the administration and the bipartisan establishment for betraying genuine Niebuhrian “realism.” These hard-core “realists” want the United States to recognize that it too is a sinful nation, limited in its goodness as well as its resources, all too likely to overreach and eventually destroy itself if it doesn’t scale back its hubristic dream of enduring empire.

Thus the right-wing “realists” become strange bedfellows with the third group of war critics, the left-wingers, who, starting from very different principles, arrive at the same anti-imperialist conclusions. Though most of them don’t know it, what makes leftists leftist is that they still champion many of the basic values of the Social Gospel movement. They do not accept the doctrine of original sin; they don’t think people are inherently doomed to be selfish and unreasonable. They assume that the vast majority of people, if treated decently and given decent living conditions, will respond by being decent people. For the left, order and stability are not as important as human growth, creativity, and transformation. The key to a better world is not strength and dominance, but sharing and cooperation. And leftists often assume - or at least hope - that the long-term trend of history is leading to that better world, a view that is rooted in the biblical hope for redemption.

In Middle America

Leftists who are consistent extend their Social Gospel view to its logical conclusion: There are no monsters - no inherently bad people — only bad conditions. So the good guys versus bad guys myth always distorts reality. But a surprising number of leftists sacrifice logical consistency for the emotional pleasure of the traditional myth. For them, of course, the monsters are the Bush administration, the neoconservatives, sometimes the mainstream Democrats too, and always, above all, the corporate elite whose hand they see behind every gesture of U.S. imperialism.

This left-wing version of the myth does not play very well in middle America, or even on the coasts apart from a few ultra-liberal enclaves. The hardcore “realist” view may get slightly higher ratings, but not much. Most Americans still demand a heavy dose of moral idealism in their foreign policy. They want to continue believing in the myth of American innocence. They won’t give in to a full-blown Niebuhrian pessimism about human nature - at least not when it comes to American humans. And they don’t want to believe that the economic and political leaders of their nation are utterly cynical “realists,” devoid of ideals, caring only about money and power.

So the mass of the citizenry, sick and tired of losing in Iraq, swing in line behind the only critical voice they can support: the foreign policy elite. The public criticizes the administration for its inept effort in Iraq. But most citizens don’t raise any questions about the long-term goals or the theological premises underlying them.

Only when something looks broken do people think about fixing it. The last time the U.S. foreign policy system broke down was when the United States suffered defeat in Vietnam. However, after a short period of radical questioning, a powerful reaction set in, fueled by the deep and widespread need for idealism and moral certainty. The neoconservatives got control of the public conversation in the late 1970s because they recognized that need and offered a Cold War myth that satisfied it.

The same need for moral clarity arose after September 11, but it’s been bitterly betrayed by the failure in Iraq. How can we avoid a similar neoconservative reaction as we question the underpinnings of U.S. foreign policy in the years to come? And if the Iraq debacle boots the neoconservatives out of power for good, how can we use this window of opportunity to challenge the most powerful alternative view, the bipartisan establishment consensus? From the outset it won’t help to scorn the average citizen’s idealistic view of America. That’s like wishing away the Rocky Mountains. Claiming that this worldview is unrealistic would be caving in to a simplistic Niebuhrian “realism.” After all, we on the left believe in our own idealism. We are happy to hear right-wing “realists” argue that Americans are no more idealistic than anyone else. But we forget that Americans are no less idealistic either. That includes even the most powerful leaders of the nation. Rather than demonizing them and dismissing their claim to good intentions outright, we would do better to look for common values that we can all agree on and then find progressive programs that can put those values into practice.

Different Moral Certainties

Just about all Americans, from Bush and Cheney and the CEOs of Exxon and Lockheed-Martin on down, sincerely want the nation to be secure. As long as our notions of security are built on the myth of well-meaning Americans versus ever-threatening evildoers who embody original sin, we can never dispense with the evildoers. They are as necessary in U.S. foreign policy as sin is in Niebuhr’s theology. They always have to be out there threatening us, in our imaginations at least, in order for our pursuit of national security to make any sense at all.

The bipartisan consensus on U.S. foreign policy calls for us to be powerful enough to dominate them. But every step we take to dominate only antagonizes more people and makes some of them really want to harm us. As long as we keep on this self-defeating road, we are not a national security state. We are a national insecurity state. So, we need to redefine national security in a way that meets people’s need for a second value that so many of us share: moral certainty. This involves a faith in some rock-bottom kind of goodness in the world, which many Americans believe has a special home here in the United States.

There is a special kind of goodness, rooted in a special kind of theology, that does have an old and honored home here — the goodness of nonviolence. There have always been Christians who were certain that the only moral way to treat others, even enemies, is with love, not violence. They knew it because Jesus said it, right there in the Bible. In 19th-century America, the abolitionists and Thoreau turned the theology of nonviolence into a homegrown strategy for political change.

Martin Luther King, Jr. took this strategy a crucial step further. He preached that it’s the government’s role to help bring all people together in what he called “the beloved community” (something very much like what the Social Gospel called the Kingdom of God). Every government policy should promote “the mutually cooperative and voluntary venture of man to assume a semblance of responsibility for his brother [and sister]” — the responsibility to help every person fulfill their God-given potential.

In King’s words, no matter how bad a person’s behavior, “the image of God is never totally gone.” So, government must serve everyone, everywhere. No one can be written off as a monstrous evildoer, sinful beyond redemption. That was a moral certainty for King, an essential foundation of his religious faith. King knew all about moral clarity and certainty. He was willing to die for the truths he believed in so firmly. But he was not willing to kill.

A Different Narrative

With King as our guide, we could have a distinctly American foreign policy based on the conviction of absolute moral certainty we find in the Social Gospel and nonviolence traditions.. Our goal would always be to move the world one step closer to becoming a universal beloved community. We would no longer act out the myth of good versus evil. We would not demonize a bin Laden or Saddam — or a Bush or Cheney. We would recognize that when people do bad things, their actions grow out of a global network of forces that we ourselves have helped to create. King said it most eloquently: “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.”

We can never stand outside the network of mutuality, as if we were the Lone Ranger arriving on the scene to destroy an evil we played no part in creating. Just as Bush is tied to Osama, so each of us is tied to all those who do things that outrage us. We cannot simply destroy them and think that the outrages have been erased. To right the wrongs of the world, we must start by recognizing our own responsibility for helping to spawn those wrongs. Indeed, fixing our own part in the wrongs we see all over the world may be all that we can do.

But in the case of the United States in 2007, that alone would be more than a full time job for our foreign policy. We would have to, among other things:

• end the occupation that creates a breeding ground for violent jihadis in Iraq and Afghanistan;
• reverse the policy of supporting authoritarian regimes in the Middle East;
• stop participating in the mad rush for power and resources in Africa, which breeds disasters like Rwanda and Darfur;
• withdraw support for the corporations and financiers who would strangle the emerging popular democracies in Latin America;
• and treat everyone as our brothers and sisters, even the leaders of North Korea and Cuba and Iran.

In short, we would have to create a new notion of “national interest” based on the moral certainty that we are all threads in a network of mutuality that is the foundation of our national as well as individual life. Since our foundation is infinite and eternal, no one can threaten to destroy it, or us. Embracing that principle as the basis of foreign policy could set us on the road to a radically new way of thinking about genuine national security.

If that’s not something all Americans can agree on, at least it’s a program that gets the debate down to our most basic assumptions. This is a democracy. If the people want a religion-laden foreign policy based on the doctrine of original sin and the myth of good against evil, it’s what we should have. But at least we should all talk about it together, openly and honestly.

Notes

1. Irving Kristol, Neoconservatism: The Autobiography of an Idea (New York: Free Press, 1995), p. 5.
2. Charles Krauthammer, “When to Intervene,” The New Republic, May 6, 1985, p. 10.

Ira Chernus is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder and author of Monsters To Destroy: The Neoconservative War on Terror and Sin. Email: chernus@colorado.edu

Psalm 62
Song of Trust in God Alone

To the leader: according to Jeduthun. A Psalm of David.

For God alone my soul waits in silence;
from him comes my salvation.
He alone is my rock and my salvation,
my fortress; I shall never be shaken.

How long will you assail a person,
will you batter your victim, all of you,
as you would a leaning wall, a tottering fence?
Their only plan is to bring down a person of prominence.
They take pleasure in falsehood;
they bless with their mouths,
but inwardly they curse. Selah

For God alone my soul waits in silence,
for my hope is from him.
He alone is my rock and my salvation,
my fortress; I shall not be shaken.
On God rests my deliverance and my honor;
my mighty rock, my refuge is in God.
Trust in him at all times, O people;
pour out your heart before him;
God is a refuge for us. Selah

Those of low estate are but a breath,
those of high estate are a delusion;
in the balances they go up;
they are together lighter than a breath.
Put no confidence in extortion,
and set no vain hopes on robbery;
if riches increase, do not set your heart on them.

Once God has spoken;
twice have I heard this:
that power belongs to God,
and steadfast love belongs to you, O Lord.
For you repay to all
according to their work.

Author: Thomas Merton
Orbis Books, Maryknoll, NY, pp.165

An Excerpt from the Jacket:

“In this long-withheld manuscript, Thomas Merton identifies the readiness of many nations – led by our own – to prepare for and threaten mass murder as the most urgent moral crisis of our time. Ringing across four decades, his profound warning is more timely than tomorrow’s headlines.” Daniel Ellsberg

An Excerpt from the Book:

(Click here to read the Forward to the book)

This then in conclusion: the Christian is bound to work for peace by working against global dissolution and anarchy. Due to nationalist and revolutionary ideologies (for Communism is in fact exploiting the intense nationalism of backward peoples), a worldwide spirit of confusion and disorder is breaking up the unity and the order of civilized society.

It is true that we live in an epoch of revolution, and that the break-up and re-formation of society is inevitable. But the Christian must see that his mission is not to contribute to the blind destructive forces of annihilation which tend to destroy civilization and mankind together. He must seek to build rather than to destroy. He most orient his efforts towards world unity and not towards world division. Anyone who promotes policies of hatred and of war is working for the division and destruction of civilized mankind.

We have to be convinced that there are certain violences which the moral law absolutely forbids to all men, such as the use of torture, the killing of hostages, genocide (or the mass extermination of racial, national or other groups for no reason than that they belong to an “undesirable” category). The destruction of civilian centers by nuclear annihilation is genocide.

We have to become aware of the poisonous effect of the mass media that keep violence, cruelty and sadism constantly present to the minds of unformed and irresponsible people. We have to recognize the danger to the whole world in the fact that today the economic life of the more highly developed nations is in large part centered on the production of weapons, missiles and other engines of destruction.

We have to consider that hate propaganda, and the consistent heckling of one government by another, has always inevitably led to violent conflect. We have to recognize the implications of voting for extremist politicians who promote policies of hate. We must consider the dire effect of fanaticism and witch-hunting within our own nation. We must never forget that our most ordinary decisions may have terrible consequences.

It is no longer reasonable or right to leave all decisions to a largely anonymous power elite that is driving us all, in our passivity, towards ruin. We have to make ourselves heard.

Every individual Christian has a grave responsibility to protest clearly and forcibly against trends that lead inevitably to crimes which the Church deplores and condemns. Ambiguity, hesitation and compromise are no longer permissible. We must find some new and constructive way of settling international disputes.

It is clearly the mind of the Church that every possible effort must be made for the abolition of war, even though the theory of the “just war” and the right of legitimate self-defense remain intact. But appeal to this right must not blind us to the much higher and more urgent duty of working with all our power for peace.

This may be extraordinarily difficult. Obviously war cannot be abolished by mere wishing.

We have still time to do something about it, but the time is rapidly running out.

Table of Contents:

1. Preamble: Peace – A religious responsibility

2. Can we choose peace?

3. The dance of death

4. The Christian as peacemaker

5. War in Origen and St. Augustine

6. The legacy of Machiavelli

7. Justice in modern war

8. Religious problems of the cold war

9. Theologians an defense

10. Working for peace

11. Beyond east and west

12. Moral passivity and demonic activism

13. The scientists and nuclear war

14. Red or dead? The anatomy of a cliche

15. Christian perspectives in world crisis

16. Christian conscience and national defense

17. The Christian choice

This book has my highest reccomendations. It has helped seal my understanding of the issue of the Christian perspective on warfare once and for all.

Concerning the term “post -Christian” Merton writes this:

“Whether we like to admit it or not, we are living in a post- Christian world, that is to say a world in which Christian ideals and attitudes are relegated more and more to the minority. It is frightening to realize that the facade of Christianity which still generally survives has perhaps little or nothing behind it, and what was once called “Christian society” is more purely and simply a materialistic neopaganism with a Christian veneer… Not only non-Christians but even Christians themselves tend to dismiss the Gospel ethic on nonviolence and love as “sentimental”. “

Merton’s book was written in 1961 at the onset of the “Cold War” and the Vietnam conflict. Not only was it very prophetic for that time as well as this, but it recognizes the rise of the hardline neopagan pseudo- Christianity that holds sway in today’s toxic political discourse. If one were to substitute the word “terrorist” each time Merton wrote the word “Communist” he would be speaking directly to us today about the “War on Terror”.

For instance:

“At one extreme we have the “hard” and “realistic” view. It excludes all other considerations and concentrates on one inescapable fact: the “terrorist” threat to western society. It considers that negotiation with “terrorism” is for all practical purposes futile. It is thoroughly convinced that only the strongest pressure will be of any use in stopping “terrorism” and the victory over “terrorism” by any available means takes precedence over everything else. Hence this “hard” position is in fact favorable to nuclear war and makes no distinction between preemption and retaliation, except perhaps to favor preeemption as more likely to succeed…
…they tend to regard anyone who strongly favors peace and disarmament as a “terrorist” dupe or fellow traveller, simply because of the worldwide propaganda given to the “terrorist strategy for peace”.

The simplicity and ruthlessness of this view makes an immediate appeal to a very large proportion of the American middle class. It is simple. It is clear. It promises results. It has the advantage above all of permitting disturbed and frustrated people to discharge their anxieties upon a hated enemy and thereby achieve a sense of meaning and satifaction in their own lives. But unfortunately this kind of satisfaction leads to moral blindness and to the stultification of conscience. The fact that this “solution” at the same time favors nuclear war, and considers it fully morally justified by its “good cause” and also appeals to certain types of Christians, shows that it is a SERIOUS danger. To be succinct, it produces a state of invincible moral ignorance. It consecrates policies that have very dubius justice, blurring the ethical clarity of Christian thought, making base emotions and hatreds with the specious appearance of christian zeal.”

This book is the most refined, comprehensive and persuasive tesament on this subject i have ever read.

I recently discovered this set of comments on the Sojourners blog where I entered the fray by asking someone what defines someone as a “leftist christian”. Below these comments by someone calling themself “Semper Fi”, I make a few coments myself:

Semper Fi said:

“We need a president with the testicular fortitude to wage a serious war to end all wars. It’s time re-awaken the “Sleeping Giant”. Time to start kicking booty like we mean business. The only way we will win this war on terror is to strike first, strike extraordinarily hard, and create a massive wake of devastation large enough that no nation would dare cross the line in the sand for fear of being next to incur our wrath. We have the technology and resources to do this. What are we waiting for.

That won’t happen with a Hillary in office. It probably won’t happen with a Rudy in office. But, I’m putting my vote on the candidate that’s not willing to put up with any more crap from the Islamic sector. If they want a holy war, let’s give them one that puts Hiroshima and Nakasake to shame, and restore the balance of power to the only nation with the ability to hold that power and maintain justice on this spinning chunk of rock.

Jesus was not a wuss. He was obedient to his Father. Had he not been, he would not have died on the cross. He had the power to do something different, but was obedient. All this silly “Christian” talk about playing footsies with our enemies is hogwash. God is not a wuss. He instructed Israel to utterly destroy every that lived and breathed when they went to war. They did not listen, and here we are today, post 9/11, with a bunch of retarded Muslim infidels causing problems for the whole pamn dlantet.

Time to wake up, America. This is not a fire drill. This is for real. Let’s fight to win. I’m not a fan of Pat’s, but what in the world is wrong with some of his ideas, like hiring a hit man to take out Chavez, or even Castro. What ever happened to real Americans, like Truman and Eisenhower, and real soldiers, like Patton and Churchill? That’s not anti-Christian. It’s anti-stupid!

I’m not an extremist. I’m a realist. What have we done lately that has worked? Nothing meaningful since Reagan left office. Nothing. We took giant steps backward under the “leadership” (ha ha) of Slick Willy. Why in the world would we elect his goofy witch of a wife for President? It amazes me that it’s even an option for some people. And this Barak Osama clown? Tell me I’m dreaming! Anything on the Republican ticket is a better option than any of our Democratic options.

The right choices are simple:
(1) Stop murdering our unborn children;
(2) Stop putting up with crap off of nations that house radical Islamists;
(3) Stop putting up with people that want to force us into embracing their choice to live a sinful and sexually perverted lifestyle;
(4) Stop supporting government that takes our hard earned wages and handing out gifts to those that have not done as well;
(5) Start teaching our children there ARE moral absolutes;
(6) Start electing officials that govern of, by and for the people.
(7) Start using our own oil and let Venezuela and watch all the Arab nations economically implode when we stop purchasing anything from them, and stop selling anything to them, including food. Let’s see how tasty they find them steel barrels.

9/11 - WE WILL NEVER FORGET! Shame on those who think we should. How dare you call yourself a Christian, or an American?

“Friends don’t let friends vote Democrat.”

Semper Fi!”

Scott says:

This is the epitome of secular humanist, miltary- humanitarian, antithetical to the gospel, self idolatrous, nationalist propaganda …. and yet somehow it is considered “conservative” theologically? Rather this type of position is immoral, irresponsible and irrational and in fact helps to perpetuate and create factors that make terroism, mass violence, hatred and the self perpetuating cycle of violence and revenge more likely rather than less.

I have just read a book entitled “Peace in the Post-Christian Era” by Thomas Merton the famous Christian author. Concerning the term “post -Christian” Merton writes this: Whether we like to admit it or not, we are living in a post- Christian world, that is to say a world in which Christian ideals and attitudes are relegated more and more to the minority. It is frightening to realize that the facade of Christianity which still generally survives has perhaps little or nothing behind it, and what was once called “Christian society” is more purely and simply a materialistic neopaganism with a Christian veneer… Not only non-Christians but even Christians themselves tend to dismiss the Gospel ethic on nonviolence and love as “sentimental”. “

Merton’s book was written in 1961 at the onset of the “Cold War” and the Vietnam conflict. Not only was it very prophetic for that time as well as this, but it recognizes the rise of the hardline neopagan pseudo- Christianity from which Mr. Semper Fi speaks. If one were to substitute the word “terrorist” each time Merton wrote the word “Communist” he would be speaking directly to us and those like Mr. Semper Fi. Let me demonstrate:

“At one extreme we have the “hard” and “realistic” view. It excludes all other considerations and concentrates on one inescapable fact: the “terrorist” threat to western society. It considers that negotiation with “terrorism” is for all practical purposes futile. It is thoroughly convinced that only the strongest pressure will be of any use in stopping “terrorism” and the victory over “terrorism” by any available means takes precedence over everything else. Hence this “hard” position is in fact favorable to nuclear war and makes no distinction between preemption and retaliation, except perhaps to favor preeemption as more likely to succeed…
…they tend to regard anyone who strongly favors peace and disarmament as a “terrorist” dupe or fellow traveller, simply because of the worldwide propaganda given to the Communist “peace line”.
The simplicity and ruthlessness of this view makes an immediate appeal to a very large proportion of the American middle class. It is simple. It is clear. It promises results. It has the advantage above all of permitting disturbed and frustrated people to discharge their anxieties upon a hated enemy and thereby achieve a sense of meaning and satifaction in their own lives. But unfortunately this kind of satisfaction leads to moral blindness and to the stultification of conscience. The fact that this “solution” at the same time favors nuclear war, and considers it fully morally justified by its “good cause” and also appeals to certain types of Christians, shows that it is a SERIOUS danger. To be succinct, it produces a state of invincible moral ignorance. It consecrates policies that have very dubius justice, blurring the ethical clarity of Christian thought, making base emotions and hatreds with the specious appearance of christian zeal.”

Taking into consideration Luke Chapter 6 which contains these quotes straight from the mouth of Jesus

“Love for Enemies
27″But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. 29If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic. 30Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. 31Do to others as you would have them do to you.

32 “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even ’sinners’ love those who love them. 33 And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even ’sinners’ do that. 34 And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even ’sinners’ lend to ’sinners,’ expecting to be repaid in full. 35 But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. 36 Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
Judging Others
37 “Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. 38 Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”

39 He also told them this parable: “Can a blind man lead a blind man? Will they not both fall into a pit? 40 A student is not above his teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like his teacher.

41 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 42 How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.
A Tree and Its Fruit
43 “No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. 44Each tree is recognized by its own fruit. People do not pick figs from thornbushes, or grapes from briers. 45 The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks.
The Wise and Foolish Builders
46 “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say? 47I will show you what he is like who comes to me and hears my words and puts them into practice. 48 He is like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it, because it was well built. 49 But the one who hears my words and does not put them into practice is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. The moment the torrent struck that house, it collapsed and its destruction was complete.”

…there is simply no way Mr. Semper Fi can justify the quote I cited above from him. In fact, on point with the discussion of “conservatism” and “liberalism” his views are not biblically conservative at all… but in fact they are rather an extremely “liberal”, authoritarian self serving, humanist, idolatrous perspective. Before someone turns around the scripture about not judging and condemning others on my statements here… I am not judging or condemning anyone… The Word does that. However, I do love Mr. Semper Fi as my countryman and fellow sinner and only offer a rebuke because I care enough to confront and offer a rebuke so that he and anyone else reading this will reconsider their position in the light of scripture. I have much more to say on these topics… but as for now this will do.

For the curious… I am niether republican nor democrat nor do I care much for either party, so this assertion;
“Whose ever side your politics are on , that is what defines your Faith.”
…is groundless and basless and another skewing of biblical perspective.

For more thoughts along these lines Google the Geotheology blog and look for the post “Loving America By The Book” from October. You can also use the search bar at the top of the Blog to locate it.

God Bless.