Tantalizing If True

There are no limits, there are no rules, anything can happen – if you’re in the Matrix.

Of course, if you’re in the Matrix, nothing is really happening.

Pornography, if it’s defended, is defended in the name of freedom of expression. The creators of pornography, it is argued, are making an artistic statement. Okay, few defenders of pornography are willing to call it art. But they claim that pornographic performers are proud of their bodies, free from sexual hang-ups, and eager to share their worldview with the rest of us.

That makes pornography the direct counterpart of the 19th century minstrel show. Both pornography and minstrelsy depict an idealized world that doesn’t really exist. And both involve the exploitation of the people they are supposed to be depicting.
(more…)

I’m too busy following Jesus to spend much time being politically conservative. There is a difference between the two goals.

Feel free to have an opinion, even a strong opinion, about immigration and illegal aliens. But don’t call your opinion Christian if it’s not in the Bible. Leviticus, in fact, talks quite a bit about aliens. You could look there.

Don’t call your opinion about war Christian if it’s not in the Bible. Yes, many people in the past have called their war Christian, most famously the Crusaders. The Crusaders don’t count. They weren’t prophets or apostles. They weren’t inspired.

Some people believe the Kingdom of God can be advanced by killing Muslims. Some people believe it can’t. Accept it as a difference of opinion. Accept it as a difference in strategy.

The saying used to be, “What’s good for General Motors is good for America.” The saying among many conservatives is now, “What’s good for America is good for Jesus.”

Why do they call it the Christian Right when so many of its best spokespeople are Jewish? Syndicated columnist Don Feder, talk show host Dennis Prager, Rabbi Daniel Lapin, film critic Michael Medved, pornography researcher Judith Reisman: all these find common cause with conservative evangelicals.

And how about intellectuals Norman Podhoretz and Irving Kristol, or talk show host Laura Schlessinger, or journalist Charles Krauthammer? Other influential heroes of the Christian Right are Jewish converts: former abortionist and now pro-life advocate Bernard Nathanson and World Magazine editor Marvin Olasky.

And there’s another category of Jewish leaders that the Christian Right has been willing to follow: Douglas Feith, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Lewis Libby, and Elliott Abrams. Several of them have not been convicted of any crimes, something which cannot be said for certain Christian ministers.

The moral is that right doesn’t always mean Christian. And perhaps, that Right doesn’t always mean right.

Most American Christians wouldn’t say they support the war in Iraq as a means of defending Christian beliefs. But certainly one of their main justifications for the war is to defend American beliefs. The Moral Majority and the Christian Coalition claimed exactly the same moral basis for their work that the Qu’ran claims for jihad (holy war) – to make our homeland safe for our faith. Now, I am not implying any other similarity between the Christian Right and Muslim jihadists. I realize that the Christian Right has not yet produced suicide bombers. But they are fighting for privileges that Jesus and Paul never had.

My recent satire on the similarities between some Muslims and Christians seems to have been misunderstood. I’ve taken four graduate courses on the relationship between Islam and Christianity, and spent hundreds of hours talking with members of both religions. But I’m still learning how to write clearly.

No, I wasn’t saying that all Christians and Muslims have destructive beliefs and attitudes in common. Just many of them. More about that tomorrow.

Many of them cling to presuppositions such as these:

1. They believe that God approves of waging war to defend their beliefs.
2. Though their faith has spread throughout the world, they believe that one culture is divinely inspired.
3. They see God’s will as unalterably predestined.
4. They oppose theological interpretations that disagree with the established commentaries.

And so do many Muslims.

Might without right creates wrong. Vengeful allies after World War I helped create Hitler. An autocratic Hitler helped create the alliance that defeated him. Corrupt colonizers helped create corrupt post-colonial rulers, who helped create the opponents who toppled them. Avenging Muslim fundamentalists helped create an avenging America, whose policies helped to create more avenging Muslims. Retribution creates only retribution.

Abraham Lincoln said it: “Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.” He said it as an unannounced candidate for President under the banner of a party that had never won a presidency, before he had political might.

People who turn the other cheek don’t get much respect. Oh, some admire us for their constancy. But if they really want to get something done, and done quickly, most people count on weaponry. (more…)

I just finished reading “The Children” by David Halberstam, about the nonviolent students who integrated lunch counters in Nashville. It gives me insight into what it’s really like to turn the other cheek, and how love is more powerful than hate. Some of these early leaders were young black fundamentalists, but unfortunately the book implies that nobody in those days had both a social conscience and a high view of the Bible.

What I like about that group is that most of them were motivated by their Christian faith and believed in nonviolence as a way of life, not just a temporary tactic. Even some who had lost their childhood faith seemed to be able to share in this fellowship. As if they had trouble believing the Christianity of their Sunday school but no trouble believing the Christianity of the civil rights movement. But by 1966 their organization, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, had been taken over by non-religious black power/black separatism advocates who wanted to abandon nonviolence.