The TSA as a Tower of Babel

“Modern man is in danger of forgetting two things: first, that his plans and undertakings should be guided not by his own desires for happiness and security, usefulness and profit, but rather by obedient response to the challenge of goodness, truth and love, by obedience to the commandment of God which man forgets in his selfishness and presumption; and secondly, that it is an illusion to suppose that real security can be gained by men organizing their own personal and community life. There are encounters and destinies which man cannot master. He cannot secure endurance for his works. His life is fleeting and its end is death. History goes on and pulls down all the towers of Babel again and again. There is no real, definitive security, and it is precisely this illusion to which men are prone to succumb in their yearning for security.”

—Rudolf Bultmann, Jesus Christ and Mythology (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1958), 39-40.

No End In Sight

No End In Sight is far and away the best documentary about the Iraq War. While still fairly new (originally released in 2007), the producers of the film have decided to put it up on YouTube for free until the election. It is well worth the 1 hour and 41 minutes to sit down in front of your computer to watch this, if you haven’t already. I’ve embedded the film below for your convenience.

Reflecting on the national conventions

I usually avoid politics on this blog, in part because there are already too many political bloggers and I prefer to stick to issues in theology. But I am also an American citizen who loves to talk politics, and the Democratic and Republican national conventions have left big impressions on me and currently dominate my thoughts at the moment. So I will make a few observations about what I saw and heard over the past two weeks.

1. First, neither party’s convention mentioned the problem of torture, and that was a real shame. The Democrats had an opportunity to publicly reclaim America’s moral standing. Of course, that does not mean the two parties are equal on this issue. By no means! We heard a couple of the most scary and morally reprehensible lines from the RNC, given by Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney. (Romney’s speech, by the way, was the worst speech I’ve heard this entire election—truly a disgrace. I would write a whole post on it, but he’s not worth my time.) In the midst of a sloppy and factually false series of attacks on Obama, comparing her position with his, Palin said the following: “Al Qaeda terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic harm on America ... he’s worried that someone won’t read them their rights?” Last time I checked, our Constitution declares that all people are endowed with rights from their Creator, rights which do not suddenly disappear when it’s convenient. What distinguishes a modern democracy from a totalitarian regime is precisely the insistence that every person must be treated with dignity, even criminals and terrorists.

Earlier that day, in his attempt to argue that the current administration is not conservative but actually liberal (yeah, WTF??), Romney said the following: “Is a Supreme Court liberal or conservative that awards Guantanamo terrorists with constitution rights? It’s liberal!” Actually, Romney, it’s neither conservative nor liberal, it’s right. But Romney’s statement actually mischaracterizes the situation. It’s not that terrorists should be given “constitution rights.” Rather, the Supreme Court simply affirmed that every person has a right to due process, to habeas corpus—i.e., rights that have been in place since the Magna Carta of 1215. Moreover, the UN declarations on terrorism have all affirmed that states prosecuting terrorists must give them a fair trial. Romney and Palin show that they support Bush’s immoral treatment of detainees, which dehumanizes them by denying them the basic fundamental right of all democratic states: the right to hear what you are being charged with. The Bush administration placed terrorist suspects outside of legal jurisdiction—both physically, by putting them in Guantanamo Bay (if they were lucky), and theoretically, thanks to the Military Commissions Act of 2006, by calling them “unlawful combatants” (rather than criminals or POWs) and thus giving the U.S. government the “right” to do whatever they want with them, including all manner of torture. The failure of McCain to speak up about that in his speech shows that he is really not a maverick but a tool of the Republican Party, and his choice of Palin, who apparently supports such immoral and illegal actions, shows incredibly poor judgment.

2. With the nomination of Palin for VP, the RNC stopped criticizing Obama for a lack of experience, for obvious reasons. Instead, they criticized the kind of experience he has, hence the repeated mocking of his years as a “community organizer” in Chicago. They came close to outright laughing at Obama. Giuliani’s comments were especially bad: “He worked as a community organizer, and immersed himself in Chicago machine politics” (is this a NYC-vs.-Chicago jab? and is Chicago’s politics somehow different from other cities?); “he's never run a city, never run a state, never run a business” (neither has McCain for that matter); and “Barack Obama has never led anything. Nothing. Nada” (it’s almost as if he’s begging the Democrats to respond in kind). All of this is deeply offensive, not only because Obama accomplished a substantial amount in Chicago, but also because it demeans the important role of community service in the life of a nation. Quite frankly, I’d like to see more community organizers and less politicians.

3. The RNC’s most persistent criticism of Obama is that he will raise taxes. Of course, what Obama actually said is that he would raise taxes on the most wealthy who have received huge breaks under Bush and on corporations who ship jobs overseas. The RNC, again for obvious reasons, chose to oversimplify matters and charge him with a platform of higher taxes. This is the same old conservative tactic: scare voters by saying the T-word, even if the record shows that conservatives have consistently hurt the economy over the past 50 years, while the Democrats have consistently made the economy better. Moreover, as Bush ably demonstrated, it’s not as if the current Republican party is any advocate of small government. On the contrary, they are a big government party with different values: instead of valuing health care, socioeconomic justice, education, and infrastructure, they advocate military power and the freedom of the market.

4. One of the sharp differences between the two main speeches by Obama and McCain has to do with the way they attacked each other. Obama’s attack was the same one heard all convention: McCain voted with Bush over 90% of the time, and McCain’s economic platform is the same old trickle-down economics. In other words, Obama criticized him for things that everyone already knows, things that are not controversial. McCain, by contrast, attacked Obama not for what he has said or done, but for things that he “will” do: “I will keep taxes low and cut them where I can. My opponent will raise them. I will open new markets to our goods and services. My opponent will close them. I will cut government spending. He will increase it. My tax cuts will create jobs. His tax increases will eliminate them.” It’s easy to attack someone when you speak about the future, because the future hasn’t happened yet. The Republicans relied on blatantly false accusations about what “would” happen in the future, whereas the Democrats relied on well-known facts about McCain’s record. Most disheartening of all was the fact that during this part of McCain’s speech, the entire convention crowd loudly booed every time he mentioned what his “opponent” would do. This is the kind of partisan malice that Obama has really attempted to excise from his campaign.

Before I move on, it’s worth noting that Palin used the same tactic as McCain in attacking Obama: make wildly false claims using rhetorical abstractions which rile up the crowd and oversimplify the issues. For example, “Victory in Iraq is finally in sight ... he wants to forfeit. Terrorist states are seeking new-clear [sic] weapons without delay ... he wants to meet them without preconditions...” (The spelling of nuclear as “new-clear” appears twice in the text of the speech.) Neither of these claims is true, and it demonstrates the kind of low-blow politics that the Republicans are playing right now.

5. If I hear one more word about the surge “working,” I might explode. Everyone at the RNC, from McCain on down, made the Iraq surge the key point of contrast between McCain and Obama: McCain had the foresight to know that the the surge would work, while Obama rejected the surge and thus, implicitly, he disdains our troops and hates America. Listen, everybody, the surge did not work. Have we forgotten already? The primary claim was not that the surge was going to increase security; everyone already knew that more troops would help with that. The claim was that a surge would enable the Iraqi government to stabilize and unify so that they could be an independent nation. But the surge did not accomplish this goal. The Iraqi people are just as divided as before. There is somewhat less violence—of course, what violence there is the media here hardly even covers—but that’s not the same as peace. Moreover, the Iraqi government agrees with Obama’s timetable for troop withdrawal. But at the RNC all we heard were ridiculous claims about Obama wanting to “forfeit” and retreat into defeat. C’mon, Republicans, have you really descended to that level?

6. Finally, I just have to say how tired I am about every person, Republican and Democrat, closing his or her speech with “and God bless America!” As a Christian, I cringe every time the God-card is used. God has nothing to do with our national politics, just as the state has nothing to do with the church. Our nation is not a “Christian nation” and never has been. Unfortunately, if God is not mentioned in every speech, people in this country get worried and confused. Americans seem to think that paying lipservice to God is something commendable, something indicative of a truly good person. I actually think it breaks the commandment to not take the Lord’s name in vain. And if I were preaching this Sunday, that’s what I would preach about.

Of course, as always, the Republicans were the biggest offenders. Romney said that “I firmly believe, by the providence of the Almighty, that we will succeed.” (Does it get any worse than Romney? No one, in either party, was so presumptuous as to claim God’s providential support of his or her party.) Giuliani said that “we are a shining city on the hill.” And McCain closed with: “I’m going to fight to make sure every American has every reason to thank God, as I thank Him: that I’m an American, a proud citizen of the greatest country on earth.” Yeah, because you couldn’t thank God if you were a citizen of some godforsaken country—like Canada or France.

Sarah Palin: I Don't Believe in Same-Sex Running Mates!

That fake headline comes from another hilarious post by humorist Mo Rocca—who also happens to be my favorite guest on Wait Wait ... Don’t Tell Me and the various VH1 countdown shows. He has a list of other possible headlines, which include the following:

• Sarah Palin: She’ll Melt Your Igloo!

• Sarah Palin: More experience than Geena Davis when she became Commander-in-Chief!

• Sarah Palin: An Evangelical Erin Brockovich!

• Sarah Palin: A Hockey Mom who will beat the crap out of Soccer Moms!

• Sarah Palin: If Tina Fey Played Bobbi McCaughey in a production of Annie Get Your Gun!

• Sarah Palin: Eight is Enough, My Ass!

• Sarah Palin: Who Let the Dog Sled Out?!

So as everyone knows by now, John McCain chose Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, to be his running mate for office. The pundits have already said most of what could be said about this decision: its transparently political attempt to appeal to women and youth, the inexperience of Palin, her super-right-wing views, etc. Maureen Dowd compared her nomination to the plot of a Lifetime chick flick, which “features a wild stroke of fate, when the two-year governor of an oversized igloo becomes commander in chief after the president-elect chokes on a pretzel on day one.” Laura Ingraham, by sharp ideological contrast, said that the “elite” media “are launching a blistering assault on this woman and her family,” as if the conservative elites, of which she is a member, haven’t been doing exactly the same to Obama. As always, David Brooks provides clear-minded analysis, offering praise where praise is due, but also acknowledging Palin’s weakness: viz., that like McCain, “she has a tendency to substitute a moral philosophy for a political philosophy.” And Bob Herbert recognizes that “Palin is the latest G.O.P. distraction,” and that the Democrats are much better off focusing on the real issues at stake in this election. In the end, of course, no one really says it better than Jon Stewart:



Samantha Bee’s satire is both funny and scarily true to life. In the comments to another Mo Rocca article (“McCain Locks Up the Caribou Vote!”), some crazy nut wrote the following:

WOMEN OF THIS NATION, WOMEN OF THE WORLD, THIS IS OUR TIME! THIS IS NOT ABOUT PRO-CHOICE, PRO- LIFE, RUPUBLICAN, OR DEMOCRAT; THIS IS ABOUT ELECTING INTELLIGENT WOMEN INTO OFFICE.

MC CAIN HAS PROVEN ONCE AGAIN TO BE AN INDEPENTENT THINKER JUST LIKE 50% OF HILLARY'S SUPPORTERS. HE IS NEVER ON LEFT OR RIGHT BUT IN THE MIDDLE. HE IS REALLY AN AGENT OF CHANGE!

MC CAIN/PALIN 2008! HILARY CLINTON 2012!

This is the kind of sentiment that scares the hell out of me. These people have no interest whatsoever in the actual issues at stake in the election; they just want to see a woman in leadership. I am as excited about seeing true gender and racial equality in American politics as the next person, but I want a person who is qualified to be in office and holds to views that I actually believe will benefit the American people and contribute to the common good. I can acknowledge Palin’s strengths, but as Gail Collins rightly says, “you’re no Hillary Clinton.” And anyone who is a card-carrying member of the NRA loses my vote. (My rant about the second amendment will come in a future post.)

The most recent news about Palin, of course, is the fact that her 17-year-old daughter is pregnant. The irony is thick. (Mo Rocca’s headline: “Jamie-Lynn Palin.”) The real icing on the cake came when James Dobson praised the Palin family for “living out their ‘pro-life and pro-family values’ even in trying circumstances.” He went on to say that there is “forgiveness and restoration when we confess our imperfections to the Lord.” I’ll go ahead and say it: Dobson is right. The problem is that Dobson’s statements are disingenuous and smarmy. There is no way that he would say the same things about a Democratic candidate’s children. We would hear instead about the immorality that characterizes liberalism. We would hear about how liberals are undermining the family and destroying American values. In short, the conservatives would create a smear campaign out of such an occurrence. Dobson’s praise of the Palin family is only the most recent and transparent example of a person using power and influence to get someone elected into office. It just feels icky all over, even if the actual statements themselves are correct.

At the end of the day, Sarah Palin doesn’t change anything for me. She’s a gutsy pick, but the wrong pick—not only wrong for America, but wrong for McCain. And it’s sad that so many people are blind to the fact that McCain and the Republican Party are just using her to get into office, knowing full well that with her five children and one grandchild and her lack of political experience, she’ll just be a Yes-woman to McCain. That’s why Biden is such an incredible contrast to Palin, because unlike Palin, Biden is more experienced than Obama and will be honest and direct with him. Biden is no Yes-man. He’ll make Obama a better president, which is precisely what Obama needs. It’s also what this country needs.

Political music: Derek Webb and the Flobots

Two (relatively) new albums deal with contemporary politics in some thoughtful and provocative ways. The first, by Derek Webb, is not all that surprising for those who are familiar with his past work, most notably his previous album, Mockingbird. His most recent album, The Ringing Bell (released in May 2007), is not as musically or lyrically strong as his earlier efforts, and he still has not found a way to avoid sounding preachy and heavy-handed. That said, one of the weaker songs on the album is also the most politically incendiary. It’s title is “A Savior on Capitol Hill”:

I’m so tired of these mortal men
With their hands on their wallets and their hearts full of sin
Scared of their enemies, scared of their friends
And always running for re-election
So come to DC if it be thy will
Because we’ve never had a savior on Capitol Hill

You can always trust the devil or a politician
To be the devil or a politician
But beyond that friends you’d best beware
‘Cause at the Pentagon bar they’re an inseparable pair
And as long as the lobbyists are paying their bills
We’ll never have a savior on Capitol Hill

[Bridge]
All of our problems gonna disappear
When we can whisper right in that President’s ear
He could walk right across the reflection pool
In his combat boots and ten thousand dollar suit

You can render unto Caesar everything that’s his
You can trust in his power to come to your defense
It’s the way of the world, the way of the gun
It’s the trading of an evil for a lesser one
So don’t hold your breath or your vote until
You think you’ve finally found a savior up on Capitol Hill

Much more recently, on April 15, 2008, the Flobots released their debut album, Fight with Tools. The Flobots are a hip-hop/rap group who exchange songs about drugs, money, and women for songs that engage the social and political issues of our time. Wikipedia describes them as “a socialist anti-establishment alternative rock/rap group.” The rap genre works well for them. Rap has always had the latent (and sometimes realized) potential for being socially subversive, arising as it does out of the African-American musical tradition. Their songs are reminiscent of Eminem’s early work, both in the sound of James Laurie’s voice and in their lyrical in-your-faceness, though with superior lyrics. But the music of The Flobots is what sets them apart, far outstripping the majority of what passes as hip-hop today. Their band includes a violinist, in addition to bass and guitar. While all of their songs are socially engaged, one of the more impressive examples is the song, “Stand Up”:

Stand up
We shall not be moved
Except By a child with no socks and shoes
If you've got more to give then you've got to prove
Put your hands up and I'll copy you
Stand up We shall not be moved
Except by a woman dying from a loss of food
If you've got more to give then you've got to prove
Put your hands up and I'll copy you

We still don't understand thunder and lightning
Flash back to when we didn't fund the dam
Didn't fund the dam levee? No wonder man
Now our whole damn city's torn asunder man
Under water but we still don't understand
We see hurricane spills overrun the land
Through gaps you couldn't fill with a 100 tons of sand
No we still don't understand
We've seen planes in the windows of buildings crumbled in
We've seen flames send the chills through London
And we've sent planes to kill them and some of them were children
But still we crumbling the building
Underfunded but we still don't understand
Under God but we kill like the son of Sam
But if you feel like I feel like about the son of man
We will overcome

So Stand up
We shall not be moved
Except By a child with no socks and shoes
If you've got more to give then you've got to prove
Put your hands up and I'll copy you
Stand up We shall not be moved
Except by a woman dying from a loss of food
If you've got more to give then you've got to prove
Put your hands up and I'll copy you

I said Put your hands up and I'll copy you
Put your hands up and I'll copy you
If you've got more to give then you've got to prove
Put your hands up and I'll copy you

We shall not be moved
Except By a child with no socks and shoes
Except by a woman dying from a loss of food
Except by a freedom fighter bleeding on a cross for you
We shall not be moved
Except by a system thats rotten through
Neglecting the victims and ordering the cops to shoot
High treason now we need to prosecute

So Stand up
We shall not be moved
And we won't fight a war for fossil fuel
Its times like this that you want to plot a coup
Put your hands up and I'll copy you
So Stand up
We shall not be moved
Unless were taking a route we have not pursued
So if you've got a dream and a lot to do
Put your hands up and I'll copy you

I said Put your hands up and I'll copy you
Put your hands up and I'll copy you
if you've got a dream and a lot to do
Put your hands up

Now shake, shake
A Polaroid dream
nightmare negatives develop on the screen
We sit back and wait for the government team
Criticize they but who the fuck are we
The people want peace but the leaders want war
Our neighbors don't speak, peek through the front door
House representatives preach "stay the course"
Time for a leap of faith
Once More

Put your hands up high if you haven't abandoned
Hope that the pen strokes stronger than the cannon
Balls to the wall, Nose to the grindstone
My interrogation techniques leave your mind blown
So Place your bets lets speak to the enemy
Don't let em pretend that we seek blood
And who's we anyways Kemo Sabe?
Mighty warlord wanna-be street thug
a threat for a threat leaves the whole world terrified
blow for blow never settles the score
word for word is time need clarify
We the people did not want war

So Stand up
We shall not be moved
Except By a child with no socks and shoes
If you've got more to give then you've got to prove
Put your hands up and I'll copy you
Unless were taking a route we have not pursued
So if you've got a dream and a lot to do
Put your hands up and I'll copy you

I said Put your hands up and I'll copy you
Put your hands up and I'll copy you
if you've got a dream and a lot to do
Put your hands up

Growing disparity between rich and poor in the U.S.

The United States no longer boasts anywhere near the world’s longest life expectancy. It doesn’t even make the top 40. In this and many other ways, the richest nation on earth is not the healthiest. [Majid] Ezzati’s finding is unsettling on its face, but scholars find further cause for concern in the pattern of health disparities. Poor health is not distributed evenly across the population, but concentrated among the disadvantaged.

Disparities in health tend to fall along income lines everywhere: the poor generally get sicker and die sooner than the rich. But in the United States, the gap between the rich and the poor is far wider than in most other developed democracies, and it is getting wider. That is true both before and after taxes: the United States also does less than most other rich democracies to redistribute income from the rich to the poor.

—Elizabeth Gudrais, in Harvard Magazine (pdf)

Night of the living homeless

My pastor, Todd Hiestand, recently posted on a story about the homeless in inner-city Philadelphia. Due to a love triangle, one homeless person killed another. It is a sad and tragic situation, though similar stories are found everywhere among even the very wealthy. Love makes people do strange and even criminal things. And yet, in the comments to the news story, people said some incredibly horrifying, insensitive, and hateful things:

Mark C Student says: “that is one homeless person down - now if only they would all take care of each other so that those of us who work and pay taxes can enjoy our city - honestly - they have time to have sex love triangles and make all kinds of friends and sex partners - they could find time to get jobs - at least now this one woman has another solution to the homeless problem”

daddyimscared says: “OK..lets recap–in the heart of Center City we have TWO homeless woment fighting for the affection of another homeless guy, and one kills the other! They have the energy to kill but not to work??”

why says: “get them off the street. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. The rubbish, the crime, the exposing of themsleves and the filth. This is an easy solution. ENFORCE THE NO CAMPING. These people dont want help…..They want to have teh right to live on our streets and our parks…have sex……fornicate and relieve themselves in public…..How long does this city need to be subjected to this”

Mark C Student [again!] says: “people have themselves to blame for homelessness - and for all the breeding done by people who cant support their offspring - none of the people out ruining the city by peeing on the streets, harassing taxpayes - and now killing themselves - are going to contribute to society in a meaningful way - they are violating our social contract - so, don't blame the rest of us, curtis. When my house had a rodent problem - we took measures to protect our belongings and called an exterminator - we didn't look for ways to help the rodents coexist”

Thankfully, there was at least one sane comment, by the “curtis” to whom that last comment by Mark C Student was addressed:

It is sad to see how many posters are seemingly "happy" with this murder. These people posting such harsh comments seem to think that the homeless are the problem. I see the situation a bit differently: these unsympathetic Philadelphians posting on this website are just as much a part of the problem, by creating a general culture of not caring enough to work together and improve the situation for ALL citizens of the city. A real shame ... go work, volunteer and meet some of the homeless and you will probably see that these are people like you and me, with problems and issues but a desire to have a better life. This lack of compassion is a real shock to me, and I hope the victim of this crime rests in peace, far from these crazy comments that seem to rejoice in a meaningless murder.

It’s simply incredible to see how ignorant people are of the systems of oppression which enslave the homeless and keep them there. People, generally conservatives, seem to think that any person can just will themselves out of homelessness. If you just try hard enough and want it badly enough, it will all just go away. They toss around overly simplified clichés like “give a person a fish, feed him for a day; teach him to fish, feed him for a lifetime,” forgetting that sometimes you need to give him a fish so that he can live to learn how to fish. Of course, what’s really sad is that this cliché is usually used simply to excuse people from giving anything, when the other side of the statement—educating the homeless—is not done instead. We need both aspects, social welfare and comprehensive programs of rehabilitation, not shoddy excuses and self-righteous drivel.

When I read these kinds of comments about the homeless, I am reminded of the brilliant South Park episode from season 11, entitled, “Night of the Living Homeless.” The episode took the idea of the homeless as a kind of alien Other and ran with it. Here the homeless are not ordinary people who have had a difficult life; instead, they are a different race altogether. The film, as indicated by the title, combines the issues surrounding homelessness with the narrative of your typical zombie movie, especially 28 Days Later. In such stories, a human being slowly transforms into a zombie due to contact with other zombies; they become inhuman and monstrous, no longer worthy of basic human decency and respect. And just as zombies live by feeding on the flesh of living humans, so too the homeless live by feeding on the change given them by people on the street.

One of the brilliant moments in the episode occurs near the end, when the four boys are speaking with some men from the next town over. The leader of these “survivors” goes into the following monologue when asked how they got rid of the homeless:

The homeless first started arriving in Evergreen about three months ago. At first there were only a few of them—asking for change, sleeping in the parks. But then more showed up. And we realized there was something different about them. They fed off of our change to the point that they could start renting apartments. We knew it wouldn’t be long before the homeless actually started buying homes. And then we’d have no idea who was homeless and who wasn’t! People living in the house right next door to you could be homeless and you wouldn’t even know! Nobody could trust anybody. Fights broke out. War. That’s when I started suspecting that my own wife, who I’d been living with for 20 years, was actually homeless. So I had to burn her—in her bed, while she slept.

He goes on to reveal that their plan for dealing with the homeless problem involved luring the homeless to South Park. As Stan says, “But then you didn’t solve the problem. You just moved it.”

What makes this episode so smart is the way it taps into our rhetoric about the homeless as some homogeneous Other. They are all the same—lazy, parasitic, incompetent, selfish, etc. In short, not like us, essentially inhuman. The homeless represent that intolerable pest which we desperately want to be rid of altogether. They are a blight to society, who have chosen to be this way. They want to be homeless, in the same way that gays want to be gay, according to the conservative nutjobs out there. And like homosexuals or those who are racially Other, the homeless are then stigmatized. They become objects of fear and loathing. Like Latino immigrants that carry the stigma of illegal immigration, we associate any homeless-looking person with everything that threatens our way of life. Even if they take on this way of life—even if the homeless person rents an apartment or buys a home, as the man says in the South Park episode—they remain “homeless.” Like the gay man who works in the next cubicle or the Muslim family who participates in the local PTA, the homeless can never be true members of society. They can never be fully human. They still and always remain representatives of everything that we find undesirable and scary, unwanted and unknown. The homeless become part of this ever-expanding list of groups whom we identify as America’s enemies: terrorists, immigrants, blacks, gays, Europeans, liberals, Muslims, and now homeless. The list goes on.

Todd asks the question, “Why do we hate the homeless?” The answer, I submit, is that we simply hate that which is different from us. We hate the Other. We hate difference and diversity. This is the basis for misogyny, racism, and homophobia. People adopt the creed that we protect “our own,” and no one else. We look out for our individual interests and the interests of those who are “like us.” That is the limit of our interest and concern. Our empathy only extends to those with whom it is natural for us to empathize. In the end, it comes down to a blanket rejection of Christ’s parable of the Good Samaritan and his command to love our enemies. One might even say it boils down to a hatred, or at least suspicion, of our neighbor. Hence the “white flight” from the city to the suburbs.

In the end, we are called to love our neighbor, to love our enemy, to show compassion on those who different, other, and unknown. Like Israel, we are called to welcome the stranger, for we were once aliens and strangers in the land. We must remember that “there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all!” (Col. 3:11). Translated, we might say, there is no longer White and Black, gay and straight, homeless, Muslim, immigrant and citizen, imprisoned and free; but Christ is all and in all.

Christopher Hitchens: “if waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture”

You may have read by now the official lie about this treatment, which is that it “simulates” the feeling of drowning. This is not the case. You feel that you are drowning because you are drowning—or, rather, being drowned, albeit slowly and under controlled conditions and at the mercy (or otherwise) of those who are applying the pressure. The “board” is the instrument, not the method. You are not being boarded. You are being watered. This was very rapidly brought home to me when, on top of the hood, which still admitted a few flashes of random and worrying strobe light to my vision, three layers of enveloping towel were added. In this pregnant darkness, head downward, I waited for a while until I abruptly felt a slow cascade of water going up my nose. Determined to resist if only for the honor of my navy ancestors who had so often been in peril on the sea, I held my breath for a while and then had to exhale and—as you might expect—inhale in turn. The inhalation brought the damp cloths tight against my nostrils, as if a huge, wet paw had been suddenly and annihilatingly clamped over my face. Unable to determine whether I was breathing in or out, and flooded more with sheer panic than with mere water, I triggered the pre-arranged signal and felt the unbelievable relief of being pulled upright and having the soaking and stifling layers pulled off me. I find I don’t want to tell you how little time I lasted. . . . I apply the Abraham Lincoln test for moral casuistry: “If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.” Well, then, if waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture.

—Christopher Hitchens, “Believe Me, It’s Torture” (H/T Alan Jacobs)

Randall Balmer on the scandal of evangelical politics

Randall Balmer has a review in Books & Culture of Ron Sider’s most recent book on The Scandal of Evangelical Politics: Why Are Christians Missing the Chance to Really Change the World? His review is a rather critical one, summed up well by the title: “A Failure of Nerve.” Balmer censures Sider for three reasons: (1) Sider does not identify any real scandal worthy of the book’s title; (2) Sider’s positive proposals are far less radical and significant than they could be, particularly in light of Sider’s earlier work (e.g., Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger); and, most importantly, (3) Sider locates the promise of “changing the world” in the act of evangelicals “doing politics.” Regarding the last of these three charges, Balmer quite rightly states:

Change the world by "doing politics"? That's a remarkable statement, especially from someone who hails from the Anabaptist tradition. Anabaptists understand better than most Jesus' renunciation of earthly power and his declaration that his kingdom was not of this world. The cautionary lesson from the sorry saga of the Religious Right lies not in the movement's political ineptitude, egregious as that has been, but in its devaluing of the gospel in the quest for political influence. The New Testament suggests that religion always functions best from the margins of society and not in the councils of power—a principle strongly reinforced by an overview of American history. Whenever people of faith begin grasping after power, they lose their prophetic voice. This was no less true of mainline Protestantism in the 1950s, tethered as it was to white, middle-class Eisenhower suburbanism, than it has been of the Religious Right in the decades surrounding the turn of the 21st century.

Am I arguing that people of faith should not make their voices heard in the arena of public discourse? On the contrary: I believe that public discourse would be impoverished without those voices. But we should never delude ourselves into thinking that "doing politics," to use Sider's phrase, represents the highest or the best or even a proximate expression of our prophetic mission. A prophet always stands at the margins, calling the powerful to account. Misplaced allegiance to political power represents a form of idolatry, and the failure of evangelicals generally and the Religious Right in particular to call politicians to account, especially those politicians they propelled into office, is the stuff of, well, scandal.

In this latest issue of Book & Culture, you can also read a review of Balmer’s most recent book, God in the White House: How Faith Shaped the Presidency from John F. Kennedy to George W. Bush.

One more reason to move to Canada

In case you’re wondering, the maker of this film is serious. This kind of trash warrants a thorough response from the church, but I’m not about to waste my time with it. The video speaks for itself, in my opinion.

“Red Toryism”: Milbank’s hope for a new politics

John Milbank’s “Letter to the Editor” in the Guardian—in response to this article—has made its way around the theo-blogosphere, and for good reasons. He calls for a “red Toryism” or a “traditionalist socialism”—something that remains progressive, but on the basis of core values and virtues. Here is his letter in full:

Jackie Ashley (This fight really matters, May 19) reveals the bizarre bankruptcy of the current British left. By every traditional radical criterion New Labour has failed: it has presided over a large increase in economic inequality and an entrenchment of poverty, while it has actively promoted the destruction of civil rights, authoritarian interference in education and medicine, and an excessively punitive approach to crime. But never mind all that, says Jackie Ashley and her ilk: on what crucially matters - the extending of supposed biosexual freedom and the licensing of Faustian excesses of science - it is on the side of "progress".

Yet it is arguably just this construal of left versus right which is most novel and questionable. Is it really so obvious that permitting children to be born without fathers is progressive, or even liberal and feminist? Behind the media facade, more subtle debates over these sorts of issue do not necessarily follow obvious political or religious versus secular divides. The reality is that, after the sell-out to extreme capitalism, the left seeks ideological alibis in the shape of hostility to religion, to the family, to high culture and to the role of principled elites.

An older left had more sense of the qualified goods of these things and the way they can work to allow a greater economic equality and the democratisation of excellence. Now many of us are beginning to realise that old socialists should talk with traditionalist Tories. In the face of the secret alliance of cultural with economic liberalism, we need now to invent a new sort of politics which links egalitarianism to the pursuit of objective values and virtues: a "traditionalist socialism" or a "red Toryism". After all, what counts as radical is not the new, but the good.

We see the call for something very similar in contemporary American evangelicalism, it seems to me. Events like the Envision ’08 conference and the rise of voices like Jim Wallis testify to our interest in a kind of politics analogous to Milbank’s “red Toryism.” This is why Barack Obama is so interesting to evangelicals, because he is able to speak about Christian values and virtues more fluently than the Republicans. His liberalism is hardly the turn-off that it once was, primarily because of its union with Christian values.

Milbank’s final line is excellent: “what counts as radical is not the new, but the good.” That’s a political message I can get behind. But there’s an implicit criticism in this statement of any political party’s claim to solve our world’s problems. A “new” president is not necessarily going to bring radical change. Such change will only take place in correspondence to the Good, that is, to Jesus Christ. We might translate Milbank’s statement in this way: what counts as radical is not the new president, but the gospel—i.e., Jesus himself.

Rev. Wright at the National Press Club

This is necessary viewing. I urge everyone to watch these videos.

Part 1:


Part 2:


Part 3:

Is Obama a Mac and Clinton a PC?

This is a brilliant observation by the New York Times, judging based on the candidate’s respective websites—hillaryclinton.com and barackobama.com.

But what if we take Umberto Eco’s famous 1994 observation into account?

“The fact is that the world is divided between users of the Macintosh computer and users of MS-DOS compatible computers. I am firmly of the opinion that the Macintosh is Catholic and that DOS is Protestant. Indeed, the Macintosh is counter-reformist and has been influenced by the ratio studiorum of the Jesuits. It is cheerful, friendly, conciliatory; it tells the faithful how they must proceed step by step to reach -- if not the kingdom of Heaven -- the moment in which their document is printed. It is catechistic: The essence of revelation is dealt with via simple formulae and sumptuous icons. Everyone has a right to salvation.

DOS is Protestant, or even Calvinistic. It allows free interpretation of scripture, demands difficult personal decisions, imposes a subtle hermeneutics upon the user, and takes for granted the idea that not all can achieve salvation. To make the system work you need to interpret the program yourself: Far away from the baroque community of revelers, the user is closed within the loneliness of his own inner torment.

You may object that, with the passage to Windows, the DOS universe has come to resemble more closely the counter-reformist tolerance of the Macintosh. It's true: Windows represents an Anglican-style schism, big ceremonies in the cathedral, but there is always the possibility of a return to DOS to change things in accordance with bizarre decisions: When it comes down to it, you can decide to ordain women and gays if you want to.”

Granted, Eco’s essay is outdated—and that, perhaps, makes all the difference. But if we take his observations at face value, I would have to say that Obama is a PC and Clinton a Mac—that is, Obama is Protestant and Clinton is Catholic, figuratively speaking. Obama’s campaign is focused more on personal change and voluntary cooperation. Clinton is more rigid and programmatic.

But I would say Eco’s observation no longer applies to the Mac/PC distinction: today it is Microsoft which is programmatic and rigid, and Apple is youthful, dynamic, and personalistic. With that in mind, we can make the following observation: Obama is a Mac and Protestant, while Clinton is a PC and Catholic. Also, just as Catholics and Protestants are both Christians, so too both Obama and Clinton could serve well in the White House.

One final important observation: If we follow the Mac/PC analogy, then we are led to suggest that in the same way the new Intel Macs are capable of running the Windows OS and thus uniting the computing world, so too Obama is capable of uniting the American political world. Just as there is no need to buy a PC anymore, because a Mac can do it all and more, so too there is no need to vote for Clinton anymore, because Obama can do it all and more. Don’t get upset at me. I’m just following the logic.

PET VII: Can We Get Political?

Problems in Ecclesiology Today VII: Can We Get Political?

Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Politics

Last night, as part of our church’s monthly film discussion group, we watched the superb HBO documentary, Ghosts of Abu Ghraib, in coordination with the National Religious Campaign Against Torture. Our church was one of a thousand churches watching this movie in an attempt to bring political discussion into the church community. For too long, the Christian churches in America have sat idly by while policies of major historical significance have been carried out. Last night’s film group was an attempt to change this by bringing politics into the life of the church.

One of the major stains on the witness of the Christian church in America is the glaring silence of the church on the issue of torture. This is not a new problem. The German Lutheran Church was silent during the time of Hitler. The Catholic Church in Chile was silent during the tyrannical rule of Pinochet. Moreover, American churches have been consistently late in their participation in (or even absent altogether from) social change, including, for example, the Civil Rights Movement. Today we face a situation fraught with serious moral significance, and instead of a church ready to speak truth to power and confront evil no matter where it occurs, we have an impotent church incapable of and/or unwilling to be a voice of truth in an age of political pettifogging and chicanery. The case of Gregory Boyd is worth noting here. After witnessing an idolatrous July 4 church service, Boyd decided to preach against Christian involvement in right-wing politics. But his answer was not to rethink our politics; his answer was for the church to disassociate itself from politics altogether. Rather than proclaim the political implications of the gospel, whatever those might be, Boyd decided to abandon the political sphere. In seeking to avoid idolatry, he chose silence instead. But in choosing silence, Boyd inevitably renders the gospel impotent and irrelevant to a world that desperately needs to hear the Word of God proclaimed in and to the concrete political situation in which we find ourselves today.

My point here is not to debate the details of torture, the war in Iraq, or the so-called “war on terror.” I am, instead, interested in the problem of political discourse within the church. What enables or inhibits churches in the process of engaging in honest dialogue about the issues that define us—issues like terrorism, imperialism, torture, democracy, and fundamentalism? Should pastors talk frankly about the social and political issues of our time? Is it right to speak about the events in the newspaper, or should preaching only focus on Scripture and leave historical events to the “pundits”? Where do we draw the line between proclaiming the gospel and advertising a political ideology? On a more fundamental level, what is the church’s proper relationship to contemporary politics? What can and should the church say about (or to) Washington?

These are some of the basic questions of our time. These are the kinds of questions that pastors need to be able to answer or at least seek to answer. We must not become “good German Christians” who, in their silence, endorse a political machine that claims to be working in the best interest of the nation. We must not become idle spectators of the political drama occurring all around us. We must not allow ourselves to become detached from the world in which we live, the world which we as a community of believers are called to engage in the mission of reconciliation. We have to learn again how to translate the gospel into the concrete context in which we exist. We have to learn what it means to exist as the covenantal people of God who are called to be “a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God” (1 Pet. 2:9).

Toward that end, I wish to offer a few thoughts on the church’s relationship to the state and what it might mean to “be political” again in such a divisive and ideologically driven political environment.

1. The relation between church and state is dialectical. We often hear about the transition from a church at the “center” (Constantinianism) to a church at the “margins” (church-state separation). A lot of good has come from separating the church from the centers of political power. While the church certainly flourished in a Constantinian framework, such flourishing was often at the expense of the radical gospel of Jesus Christ. Today we face a unique situation: the separation between church and state in the United States has resulted in a strange paradox. On the one hand, the “two kingdoms” approach has left churches entirely unwilling to discuss political issues, because they belong to a different “sphere”; the church is concerned with “spiritual” matters, not political ones. As a result, many pastors refuse to discuss sociopolitical issues at all; their ecclesiastical position is one of silence. On the other hand, this same “two kingdoms” framework, which places the work of the church in a strictly “spiritual” sphere, has made it possible for the Religious Right to flourish. Such open politicizing of the gospel is possible because the gospel itself has been neutered of all radical political import. When the gospel of Jesus Christ loses its revolutionary character, then one can easily wed it to whatever reigning political ideology is presently available. The gospel becomes the friend of ideology, rather than the supreme defense against it. This is the purest form of “natural theology”: a theology in which the gospel is manipulated to conform to a particular ideology.

I argue instead that the church needs to adopt a dialectical approach to the nation-state. The relationship is dialectical in that the church is not either at the center or in the margins, but is rather both at the center and in the margins. The church, we might say, works from the margins but towards the center. That is, the church’s primary role is to care for those who are marginalized by power, but in its mission to the “invisible ones” in society, the church does not ignore the center. The church of Jesus Christ witnesses to the truth of the gospel in the centers of power. Such witness is subversive and radical, but it is also loving and gracious—it testifies to the state’s true calling to be the “beloved community.” It proclaims that the state is part of the “order of grace” (Barth) and thus belongs to Jesus Christ. Furthermore, to say that the church is dialectically related to the state is to say that the work of the church is both related and unrelated to the work of the state. The work of the church is thus both political and non-political. It is not partly political and partly non-political; it is wholly both. All this is to say that the work of the church in confessing Jesus Christ is already political in nature. We need not identify an additional work of the church which is specifically “political” in nature, as if the church’s mission does not already have deep sociopolitical significance. To miss or suppress the political implications of the gospel is to undermine the dialectical character of the church.

2. The relation between church and state is covenantal. The relationship between church and state is covenantal in a twofold sense: (1) the covenant of grace means that there are not “two kingdoms” but rather only “one kingdom” under the lordship of Jesus Christ (Barth); and (2) the covenant of grace means that the church itself is, as Peter says, “a royal priesthood” and “a holy nation.” Such terms quite intentionally unite both sacerdotal and political imagery. One might say that the church is both spiritual and political, but this is not dialectical enough: as I said above, we need to see the spiritual as itself political in nature, and the political does not exist autonomously without the spiritual. As Barth rightly states, “The state [like the church] . . . is an order of grace relating to sin.” The church is the covenantal community of Jesus Christ in fellowship with the reconciling triune God and with the world reconciled through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus (cf. 2 Cor. 5:19).

3. The relation between church and state is dialogical. God addresses humanity in the word of the cross. This word interrupts us in our present existence and redefines us in accordance with the gospel of justification in Jesus Christ. We are dialogically disrupted by the word of grace and so made to correspond to God, first, through an ontological change into God’s dialogical partners by way of Jesus Christ in the event of the cross, and second through a dialogical response to God in invocation and praise by way of the Spirit in the event of Pentecost.

The dialogical relation between God and the church overflows into a dialogical relation between the church and the world. The church’s being-in-act is a being-in-dialogue-with-God which is at the same time a being-in-dialogue-with-the-world. The church’s dialogue with the world, in particular with the local culture in which the community exists, is a dialogue centered around witness and proclamation. The dialogue is a true dialogue: it is not a one-way declaration of the church “from on high.” The church can only dialogue by entering concretely into the life of the broader community. In other words, dialogue only occurs among neighbors, whom we must get to know. And since Jesus commanded us to love our neighbors as ourselves, such dialogue presupposes a love of this world which mirrors the love that God has for the world as revealed in the incarnation of the Son for us and our salvation (cf. John 3:16; 1 John 4:9-10). To summarize, the missio dei is a divine mission of dialogue with the world and for the world, and thus the missio communionis is an ecclesial mission of dialogue with the world and for the world in light of what the missio dei accomplished in the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ.

4. Conclusion: What are the implications of the foregoing theses for a church that is struggling to remain faithful in a politically divisive climate? (1) First, the church cannot be silent on social and political issues. The church’s being-in-act is a being-in-dialogue, and therefore silence on political questions is ruled out in the same way that silence about God is ruled out: we are a people called to bear witness, and that means we are called to speak. (2) Second, the church’s speech cannot help but be political, since there are not two spheres of engagement but, in fact, only one sphere, one kingdom, one reign of Jesus Christ. We are forbidden from the start from creating a dichotomy between physical/political and spiritual/religious. We must realize that the gospel has radical political implications, and we must learn to be faithful to this gospel (and its implications) even if that means radically readjusting our relation to contemporary politics. (3) Third, we must be steadfastly opposed to all ideological manipulation of the gospel. We can guard against such manipulation through a more consistent emphasis upon the dialectical character of the church and its knowledge of God. The church does not “possess” anything—including, even, its very being. The gospel is not in the hands of the church; the church is rather in the hands of God. The possibility of manipulation is ruled out by the fact that we are never the masters of the gospel. Instead, Jesus Christ is our sole master. The early church confessed, in an act of clear political subversion, that Jesus Christ alone is Lord, which means that Caesar is not.

Finally, the church’s being-in-dialogue is a being-in-love. Modern political dialogue is inherently violent because it is rooted in a capitalistic climate of competitiveness. In order for the church to engage the world politically, it must find a way to establish a dialogue rooted in love. We can learn something from Paul’s discourse on love in 1 Cor. 13. The church needs to learn to interpret this passage as a guide to political dialogue. Here are some brief thoughts toward that end.

Love is patient. Political dialogue needs to be patient in seeking change. We often want change immediately, but love demands patience. Of course, patience is not complacency, nor does it ignore incompetency. Love demands action, but it is patient in its demands.

Love is kind. Political dialogue must be generous, gentle, and considerate.

Love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. The political implications of this statement are obvious. Political dialogue must not assert oneself over against the Other; rather, dialogue must be humble.

Love does not insist on its own way. This is especially difficult. Dialogue rooted in love should not demand that others conform to one’s own particular views. Dialogue thus engages with others and seeks to affirm the ways of others. It does not say, “my way or the highway.” This means empathizing with our interlocutors without compromising or manipulating the gospel of truth.

Love is not irritable or resentful. Since not everyone gets his or her own way in a dialogue, political discourse must not be easily annoyed or angered, nor should it express bitterness or hold on to grudges.

Love rejoices in the truth. Political dialogue must be grounded in the truth. Dialogue thus exposes lies and seeks truth in every dimension of life, including the secretive world of power politics. Political dialogue rooted in love demands openness and sincerity, honesty and truthfulness. Dialogue based on assumptions and half-truths only undermines the world community.

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Dialogue must have the “same mind . . . that was in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 2:5). In other words, true dialogue requires each person to endure hardship, bear each other’s burdens, to believe steadfastly in the truth, and to hope wholeheartedly in the God who binds us all together in perfect unity in Jesus Christ (cf. Col. 3:14).

Love never ends. Dialogue never ends; it continues by the grace and mercy of God.

I have sought in this reflection to think theologically about the nature of ecclesial speech in the world. We face a massive problem today in the silence of the church regarding issues that are politically sensitive. We cannot continue this silence without sacrificing not only our witness in the world but our very identity as the people of God. We must speak. We must speak faithfully and truthfully and lovingly. And we must also listen, both to the God who speaks and to the world which we engage. There are still many unanswered questions and many tough decisions. The call to speak is a call which should frighten us. But love, we remember, “hopes all things.” Because of the love of God, we can believe and hope in a church that hears and speaks the Word of God. Because of the love of God, we can engage the world in dialogue with patience and endurance, humility and kindness. The call to speak is a dangerous and challenging call, but it is also a call which should remind us of our dependence upon God, for we “do not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4).

Select a Candidate Quiz: Dennis Kucinich

Based on this political quiz, I should vote for Dennis Kucinich. Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama were tied at a score of 42, beneath Mike Gravell and Chris Dodd. Unfortunately, this quiz did not help me a bit in deciding whom I should vote for, since the only two Democratic candidates capable of winning in November were tied. But it was fun nonetheless.

(Unfortunately, I can’t make the graphic fit into the blog space. It was designed for MySpace.)

	Dennis Kucinich Score: 51	Agree Iraq Taxes Stem-Cell Research Health Care Social Security Line-Item Veto Energy Marriage Death Penalty	Disagree Immigration Abortion
-- Take the Quiz! --

Evangelicals for Human Rights

From the home page of the Evangelicals for Human Rights (EHR):

Evangelicals for Human Rights (EHR) seeks to reaffirm the centrality of human rights as an unshakable biblical obligation fundamental to an evangelical Christian social and moral vision. We oppose the weakening of these commitments by the United States—especially (but not exclusively) in relation to the practice of torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of persons detained by the United States in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere in the war on terror. This initiative is offered by Christians who agree that the threat against our nation’s security is real and who support our nation’s legitimate interests. We do not agree, however, with those who believe that national security may be secured by any and every imaginable means, such as the torture or cruel treatment of detainees. We believe that human rights protections apply in any and every situation, including the one we now face, and that the seeming necessity of weakening such protections in just this one exceptional case should be perceived as a temptation requiring determined resistance. We believe that any resort to torture is a violation of God-given human rights which Christians must strenuously resist.

EHR resources:

• EHR has an Evangelical Declaration against Torture which you can sign. It is well worth reading and passing along to others.
  
• There is a whole page of church resources, including articles, essays, links, and a Bible study on torture and the cross.
• David Gushee, the head of EHR, has an excellent page on “defining torture” and why the EHR has decided to not use a definition.
• There is also an excellent discussion of the so-called “ticking time-bomb” scenario that comes from Gushee’s article in Theology Today.
  

The War Racket

The conservative periodical, City Journal, has published a highly opinionated article denouncing the “peace programs” found at many major universities in the United States. The author, Bruce Bawer, calls these peace wackos the “Peace Racket.” Here is how he begins the article:

“If you want peace, prepare for war.” Thus counseled Roman general Flavius Vegetius Renatus over 1,600 years ago. Nine centuries before that, Sun Tzu offered essentially the same advice, and it’s to him that Vegetius’s line is attributed at the beginning of a film that I saw recently at Oslo’s Nobel Peace Center. Yet the film cites this ancient wisdom only to reject it. After serving up a perverse potted history of the cold war, the thrust of which is that the peace movement brought down the Berlin Wall, the movie ends with words that turn Vegetius’s insight on its head: “If you want peace, prepare for peace.”

This purports to be wise counsel, a motto for the millennium. In reality, it’s wishful thinking that doesn’t follow logically from the history of the cold war, or of any war. For the cold war’s real lesson is the same one that Sun Tzu and Vegetius taught: conflict happens; power matters. It’s better to be strong than to be weak; you’re safer if others know that you’re ready to stand up for yourself than if you’re proudly outspoken about your defenselessness or your unwillingness to fight. There’s nothing mysterious about this truth. Yet it’s denied not only by the Peace Center film but also by the fast-growing, troubling movement that the center symbolizes and promotes.

Call it the Peace Racket.

Bawer is an apologist for an individualistic, capitalistic, militaristic West. As a result, he stands steadfastly against the rising peace movement: “[The Peace Racket’s] opposed to every value that the West stands for—liberty, free markets, individualism—and it despises America, the supreme symbol and defender of those values.” Bawer simply takes it for granted that these are values worth defending, and that America is actually a defender of them. He goes on to vilify the founder of the International Peace Research Institute, Johan Galtung, as a “lifelong enemy of freedom,” because Galtung himself denounces the West’s “structural fascism” and America’s “neo-fascist state terrorism.” Once again, Bawer sees the world in black-and-white terms: America and “the West” are right, and the rest of the world is wrong. Anyone who contradicts this doctrine is clearly an enemy—not to mention downright nuts. In addition, like other advocates for peace, Galtung focuses his criticism against capitalism. Bawer writes, disapprovingly:

In 1973, explaining world politics in a children’s newspaper, [Galtung] described the U.S. and Western Europe as “rich, Western, Christian countries” that make war to secure materials and markets: “Such an economic system is called capitalism, and when it’s spread in this way to other countries it’s called imperialism.”

Bawer calls this criticism of capitalism “anti-Western.” The assumption is that capitalism and free markets are wholly positive. To criticize capitalism, in the mind of Bawer, is to reject the best of all possible economic systems. He goes on to summarize the teaching of peace studies programs in the following way:

First and foremost, they emphasize that the world’s great evil is capitalism—because it leads to imperialism, which in turn leads to war. ... Students acquire a zero-sum picture of the world economy: if some countries and people are poor, it’s because others are rich. They’re taught that American wealth derives entirely from exploitation and that Americans, accordingly, are responsible for world poverty.

Bawer does not offer any criticism of the points made by these proponents of peace. He takes it for granted, it seems, that what they proclaim is nonsense. In any case, his strategy is to divert attention away from the arguments themselves by employing ad hominem. Bawer’s primary criticism is that this “Peace Racket” is thoroughly hypocritical in its criticism of capitalism, because the people in these peace studies programs are products of the capitalist system. In other words, they are biting the hands that feed them. He does have a point: these peace studies programs are thoroughly bourgeois, and that certainly makes their stand on behalf of the oppressed a little hard to swallow. But this is no argument against the position of peace itself, just as the infidelity of a priest is no argument against the gospel. Even so, Bawer jumps on the opportunity to point out the irony:

If the image of tenured professors pushing such anticapitalist nonsense on privileged suburban kids sounds like a classic case of liberals’ throwing stones at their own houses, get a load of this: America’s leading Peace Racket institution is probably the University of Notre Dame’s Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies—endowed by and named for the widow of Ray Kroc, founder of McDonald’s, the ultimate symbol of evil corporate America. It was the Kroc Institute, by the way, that in 2004 invited Islamist scholar Tariq Ramadan to join its faculty, only to see him denied a U.S. visa on the grounds that he had defended terrorism.

Bawer’s article basically boils down to the following “thesis”: These “Peace Racketeers” are rich anti-American Americans who are disseminating nonsensical ideas against capitalism and warfare, when it is capitalism who has made them rich and warfare which has given them the ability to speak so freely against American policies. For all his overblown rhetoric, Bawer effectively raises the question regarding whether pacifism is an inherently bourgeois position—i.e., a position that takes for granted what warfare has accomplished in the past. I think that’s worth discussing, but it diverts our attention from the issue at hand—viz. whether people ought to study peace rather than warfare, reject capitalism rather than revel in it, and embrace other cultures rather than dominate them.

Bawer essentially presents two groups: the “Peace Racket” which hypocritically fights against capitalism and warfare while benefiting from them, and what I will call the “War Racket” which continues to advocate for both capitalism and warfare without any obvious hypocrisy. In other words, both groups benefit from the Western, American economic system, but one group argues against it while the other argues for it. The assumption is that the latter is right, because they are honest about their loyalty and dependence upon the capitalist system. But this is patently ridiculous. To accept the views of the “War Racket” would be like agreeing with casino gambling lobbyists because they admit their addiction to gambling over against those who have won money from the lottery but now argue against gambling altogether. Or, to use another example, it would be like agreeing with oil tycoons who admit their stake in oil over against advocates for an oil-free transportation system who still drive around in their cars. Just because one side is straightforward about their personal investment in a particular social system does not make their position right. Even if the other side is somewhat compromised, they may still have the correct view. Moreover, Bawer gives no indication whether the advocates for peace are actively trying to curb their own complicity in the capitalistic-militaristic system.

In the end, we desperately need to get beyond this superficial dualism. Not only does this dichotomy—between “Peace Racket” and the “War Racket”—create a false dilemma that ignores the arguments for and against the pursuit of peace rather than warfare, but it also obscures the fact that there are other options. The Christian church must be the third way: a way which confronts the evils of capitalism, American imperialism, and global violence, while at the same time embodying a life of peace and simplicity as the community of God’s “covenant of peace” (Ezek. 37:26). The confessing community must advocate on behalf of peace while leaving warmongers like Bruce Bawer no opportunity to use ad hominem attacks. As the church, we must say, “If you want peace, seek the God of peace.”

See Also: “Why Study War?” by Victor Davis Hanson: Since Bawer told us why we shouldn’t study peace, City Journal has another article discussing why we should study war. Here is the thesis: “democratic citizenship requires knowledge of war—and now, in the age of weapons of mass annihilation, more than ever.” This is really the companion piece to Bawer’s article. Hanson laments that there are so few war studies programs, which is the converse of what Bawer lamented. Nothing new; just more warmongering.

Iraq in the eyes of soldiers

The most popular article in the NY Times at the moment—“The War as We Saw It”—is an excellent piece written by several soldiers who have recently served in Iraq. The article gives a sense of just how complex the situation is on a day-to-day basis. Two quotes stood out to me. The first is just a good bit of wisdom:

Trying to please every party in the conflict — as we do now — will only ensure we are hated by all in the long run.

The second is more directly related to the war in Iraq:

In the end, we need to recognize that our presence may have released Iraqis from the grip of a tyrant, but that it has also robbed them of their self-respect. They will soon realize that the best way to regain dignity is to call us what we are — an army of occupation — and force our withdrawal.

[NYT; H/T to WTM]

New blog: Kevinsubers

My friend Kevin Subers has started a new blog focused not on theological but on political issues. His training in economics and finance has led him to start a series on the ethics of Bush’s tax policies. A lot of this stuff is pretty technical, but if you are interested in a close analysis of Bush’s economic policies, this blog is the place to go.

A thought on hidden agendas

My recent debate with John Wilson of Books & Culture—which was a positive experience, and I hope the conversation continues—has made me think about the way groups suspicious of each other seek to find “hidden agendas” in each other’s ideas or actions. Wilson finds the claims of Charles Marsh (“partisan captivity of the gospel”) and Chris Hedges (“Christo-fascists”), among others, simply untrue in relation to the world in which we actually live. In his latest column, he criticizes their positions by engaging in a bit of sarcasm:

On to other things. We have to maintain our cover, you know—talking about all kinds of books and ideas as if we cared, when what really matters to us is the agenda of the Religious Right, the "Christo-fascists," as Chris Hedges says. But wait a minute. What is the agenda for today? Maybe Hedges or some equally acute observer can let me know what it is I'm actually doing when I think I am doing something else.

Wilson ridicules the opposing viewpoint as a witch-hunt, a fruitless quest to find some “hidden agenda” in the minds of conservative evangelicals. Rather than debate this point, it seems to me more interesting to switch perspectives. If Wilson gets so upset about liberals searching for hidden agendas among evangelicals, should we not get just as much upset over evangelicals searching for hidden agendas among liberals? How many times have we heard of the “homosexual agenda”—that insidious plot to corrupt the minds of our children, pervert the sanctity of marriage, and destroy the American family? How many times have we heard myths about the ACLU plotting the downfall of Christianity? How many times have we heard of the hidden agendas of mainstream media—which are clearly pawns of the ACLU, PETA, and other liberal machines seeking the eradication of “Christian America”?

I am not accusing Wilson of holding any of these positions. All I mean to do is point out the one-sidedness that plagues these debates. Conservative evangelicals criticize their liberal opponents for fabricating hidden evangelical agendas without recognizing the way they continue to fabricate hidden liberal agendas (and vice versa). If we are going to get anywhere in these political debates, we need to assume first and foremost that the “other side” has no hidden agenda. We need to assume that each side seeks the best possible life for others. We need to begin with the assumption that each side means well and has the best of intentions. Without this basic starting-point, we will inevitably end up in dead-end arguments.