Tag Archives: religion

Frederick Douglass on authentic Christianity

A few months back the twitters and blogosphere erupted over a song by hip-hop artist, Propaganda. I wrote about it as well.

The song is entitled “Precious Puritans” and is, in a Grand Canyon of understatement, thought provoking. Concerning well beloved puritan theologians, he raps:

How come the things the Holy Spirit showed them in the valley of vision didn’t compel them to knock on they neighbors door and say, “You can’t own people!”?

Your precious puritans were not perfect.

You romanticize them as if they were inerrant. As if the skeletons in they closet was pardoned due to the they hard work and tobacco growth.

As if abolitionists weren’t racist and just pro-union.

As if God only spoke to white boys with epic beards.

You know Jesus didn’t really look like them paintings. That was just Michaelangelo’s boyfriend.
Your precious puritans.

Dr. Anthony Bradley, addressing the response to the song (too often White and negative), tweeted this:

The link is to a scholary paper from Cambridge University Press entitled, “Language, Discourse and Power in African American Culture.”

One African-American who used language, discourse and power to rip the church the proverbial “new one,” was Frederick Douglass. Douglass (1818-95), a prominent American abolitionist, author and orator, launched a critique at the American Christianity of his day the comprehensiveness of which has scarcely been equaled. The intensity, analysis and truth shames many an attempt that have followed.

My friend Alan Cross, who blogs at Downshore Drift, recently made me aware of an excerpt from Douglass’ autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. In it the former slave writes:

I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ: I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of the land. Indeed, I can see no reason, but the most deceitful one, for calling the religion of this land Christianity. I look upon

frederick douglass

Frederick Douglass

as the climax of all misnomers, the boldest of all frauds, and the grossest of all libels. Never was there a clearer case of ‘stealing the livery of the court of heaven to serve the devil in.’ I am filled with unutterable loathing when I contemplate the religious pomp and show, together with the horrible inconsistencies, which everywhere surround me. We have men-stealers for ministers, women-whippers for missionaries, and cradle-plunderers for church members. The man who wields the blood-clotted cowskin during the week fills the pulpit on Sunday, and claims to be a minister of the meek and lowly Jesus. . . . The slave auctioneer’s bell and the church-going bell chime in with each other, and the bitter cries of the heart-broken slave are drowned in the religious shouts of his pious master. Revivals of religion and revivals in the slave-trade go hand in hand together. The slave prison and the church stand near each other. The clanking of fetters and the rattling of chains in the prison, and the pious psalm and solemn prayer in the church, may be heard at the same time. The dealers in the bodies and souls of men erect their stand in the presence of the pulpit, and they mutually help each other. The dealer gives his blood-stained gold to support the pulpit, and the pulpit, in return, covers his infernal business with the garb of Christianity. Here we have religion and robbery the allies of each other—devils dressed in angels’ robes, and hell presenting the semblance of paradise.

Thoughts?

The Kindle version of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is available free below. Just click the Amazon link.

One Christ follower thinks about Gaza, Israel and Palestinians

Anyone within 500 miles of a television or the Internet last week could scarcely have missed the near warlike conditions between Israel and Hamas in the Middle East. Following a continuous storm of unguided missiles from inside the Gaza strip, primarily into southern Israel, the lone democracy in the Middle East fired back with tanks, gunships, artillery and guided munitions. A ground invasion was a very real possibility before a cease fire was reached

One count (subject to change if more wounded Palestinians die) is 130 Palestinians killed and five Israelis dead. Many additional Palestinians were injured, while a handful of Israelis were also hurt.

This serves not to minimize the damage of either side, but the simple facts are more Palestinians than Israelis were both killed and injured. This includes damage and loss of life from the many, many rockets fired leading up to this conflict.

The narrative in the West is almost always the same. Indeed, there is virtually no deviation: Palestinians elected Hamas to govern them, Hamas conducts random attacks on Israel using rockets smuggled into Gaza (usually) procured from an enemy of Israel such as Iran, Israel shows great restraint in not answering every attack, Israel is forced to finally defend herself with force. This force is always overwhelming and disproportional in type of weapons used, amount of damage caused, amount of combatant lives lost, and amount of civilian life lost.

Among some conservative Evangelicals the narrative is even more pronounced as it is founded on a specific biblical interpretation. Books and sermons by Joel LaHagee have all but instilled this view as a test of orthodoxy this amongst many of them. Consequently it is held, based on specific interpretations of biblical prophecy, that Israel has a God given right to all of the land of Palestine including Gaza and the West Bank. (More on this in Part 3.)

wall between gaza and israel gaza wall

A portion of the Israeli constructed wall confining Gaza. [Image credit]

(Another fantastic image of the Gaza wall is here. )

Through my years in church, which are more by far than my years in the Kingdom, I was taught the year 1948 saw the fig tree bud which was an answer–in our day–to Bible prophecy. The date was May 14 the exact date Israel’s fledgling government declared independence. The land was theirs and they were back in it.

While told of Israel’s “miraculous” victories in the 1948 War and the Six Day War, rarely, if ever, were the former inhabitants of the land we call Palestine mentioned in any way other than haters of Israel. The story of Abraham, Isaac and Ishmael was constantly called to mind. “We can expect nothing but warfare because that is what the Bible promised, but we most surely should pray for the peace of Jerusalem.”

Left to our own research efforts was understanding the carving up of the Ottoman Empire after World War 1 which led to the geographic creations of Syria, Lebanon, Transjordan, Iraq and Palestine, as mandates of England or France. Barely mentioned were the divisions–often conflicting–within the movement known as Zionism which led the political charge for a Jewish homeland. Left unmentioned was the dispossession that took place as tens of thousands of Jewish families immigrated to Palestine. As British historian Peter Mansfield notes regarding the findings of the King-Crane commission,

the Zionist programmes would have to be greatly modified if the promises of the Balfour Declaration to protect the rights of the non-Jews in Palestine were to be upheld. After discussion with Zionist leaders in Jerusalem, they had no doubt that the Zionists looked forward ‘to a practically complete dispossession of the present non-Jewish inhabitants of Palestine. [Emphasis added] “A History of the Middle East,” p. 180-181

A number of years ago a very pro-Israel acquaintance recommended a book by Elias Chacour entitled, Blood Brothers. It chronicles Chacour’s years growing up in Palestine, living through the dispossession mentioned above. As a youth he was witness to Palestinian land owners, orchard and grove owners, whose houses, lands and agricultural products were taken from them by force. This often happened at the point of a gun by Zionists intent of removing Palestinians by force or “asking” them to leave. Orchards owned by Chacour’s family were occupied by military forces then sold to an investor.

The dispossession–over a space of years–of some 700,000 Palestinians created a humanitarian crisis that continues nearly unabated until this day. Thousands and thousands of the early refugees were either absorbed into surrounding countries, or fitted into camps in those countries. Tens of thousands were gathered into Gaza (the biblical home of the Philistines) to endure restrictions they have now faced to varying degrees for many decades.

Little known to American evangelicals is the Zionist leadership never intended for a two state solution even though both Jews and non-Jews had lived peacefully in Palestine. Even before May 14, 1948, future prime minister David Ben-Gurion and others planned to drive the non-Jewish residents completely out of Palestine. United States diplomat and future ambassador to Lebanon, Robert McClintock, underscored president Truman’s concern when Israel refused to accept a truce in early 1948.

The Jewish Agency refusal exposes its aim to set up its separate state by force of arms–the military action after May 15 will be conducted by the Haganah [the unofficial Jewish army] with the help of the [Jewish] terrorist organizations, the Irgun and LEHI, [and] the UN will face a distorted situation. The Jews will be the real aggressors against the Arabs, but will claim they are only defending the borders of the state, decided upon [by the UN]. “How Israel Was Won,” Baylis Thomas, p. 69, 70. [Emphasis added]

Another future prime minister, Golda Meir, secretively secured a non-agression pact with Transjordan that Israel never intended to keep and, as night follows day, they violated. In 1976 the Koenig Memorandum reiterated the goal to “examine the possibility of diluting existing Arab population concentrations.” During the conflagration last week Gilad Sharon wrote in the Jerusalem Post:

There is no justification for the State of Gaza being able to shoot at our towns with impunity. We need to flatten entire neighborhoods in Gaza. Flatten all of Gaza. The Americans didn’t stop with Hiroshima – the Japanese weren’t surrendering fast enough, so they hit Nagasaki, too.

It does not take much history to see Israel began with a plan of territorial expansion, implemented it and have always kept it in mind.

This is not in any way to insinuate that terroristic activity should be without account. The Palestinian Liberation Organization, Fatah, and Hamas have done all within their power to wreak havoc on Israel. There has been a significant amount of push and push-back throughout this uneasy existence. However, Yasir Arafat was only a schoolboy when the dispossession began. His Fatah movement (which merged with the PLO) was not formed until years after Israel declared statehood. Hamas, in its nascent form, was shepherded along by Israel. From the WSJ in 2009 (“How Israel Helped to Spawn Hamas”):

Surveying the wreckage of a neighbor’s bungalow hit by a Palestinian rocket, retired Israeli official Avner Cohen traces the missile’s trajectory back to an “enormous, stupid mistake” made 30 years ago.

“Hamas, to my great regret, is Israel’s creation,” says Mr. Cohen, a Tunisian-born Jew who worked in Gaza for more than two decades. Responsible for religious affairs in the region until 1994, Mr. Cohen watched the Islamist movement take shape, muscle aside secular Palestinian rivals and then morph into what is today Hamas, a militant group that is sworn to Israel’s destruction.

Instead of trying to curb Gaza’s Islamists from the outset, says Mr. Cohen, Israel for years tolerated and, in some cases, encouraged them as a counterweight to the secular nationalists of the Palestine Liberation Organization and its dominant faction, Yasser Arafat’s Fatah. Israel cooperated with a crippled, half-blind cleric named Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, even as he was laying the foundations for what would become Hamas. Sheikh Yassin continues to inspire militants today; during the recent war in Gaza, Hamas fighters confronted Israeli troops with “Yassins,” primitive rocket-propelled grenades named in honor of the cleric.

Hamas, then, is to Israel what Al Queda is to the United States. And, like our son has turned against the father–complete with retaliation–the same thing has been played out between Israel and Hamas over and over in Gaza.

It bears asserting my purpose in this series is not to absolve Hamas from guilt or blame the government of Israel for every death in the region. Hamas, Fatah and the Palestinian Authority have had their own problems. My hope is to provide, perhaps, some balance to how the situation is viewed especially as it relates to some Christians in America who think all actions of national Israel are beyond any and all criticism. In the Middle East, as in all cases, we need to look for the truth with eyes wide open.

Part two will cover the ongoing situation in Gaza, while part three will suggest how Christ followers might react to the situation there.

The drone war and the kingdom of God

A week or so ago results from a recent in-depth investigative report on America’s drone war were released. Despite horrid reviews for President Obama’s involvement in it, several “mainstream” news outlets reported the findings.

A CNN report entitled Drone strikes kill, maim and traumatize too many civilians, U.S. study says states

The report accuses Washington of misrepresenting drone strikes as “a surgically precise and effective tool that makes the U.S. safer,” saying that in reality, “there is significant evidence that U.S. drone strikes have injured and killed civilians.”

It also casts doubts on Washington’s claims that drone strikes produce zero to few civilian casualties and alleges that the United States makes “efforts to shield the drone program from democratic accountability.”

When I wrote about drones in September (“One former British soldier talks about drone warfare”) a linked Washington Post story revealed 92 U.S. drone attacks from January 2011-June 2012 resulted in only five Al Queda leaders being killed. That is 87 misses out of 92 tries.

“Misses” being qualified by saying many people have been killed or injured, just not so much the actual enemy. The surgical precision about which our government likes to brag is akin to using a chainsaw to take out an appendix. The scars being about equal.

In the second of his two broadsides on why he will not vote for either major party candidate, Atlantic staff writer, Conor Friedersdorf, notes this about drone warfare:

Obama terrorizes innocent Pakistanis on an almost daily basis. The drone war he is waging in North Waziristan isn’t “precise” or “surgical” as he would have Americans believe. It kills hundreds of innocents, including children. And for thousands of more innocents who live in the targeted communities, the drone war makes their lives into a nightmare worthy of dystopian novels.

Forgive me, but the word “terrorizes” is tellingly ironic.

Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee, can be expected to dial up the hubris meter during the election approach. He may even hit 11. To fire up his base he must demonstrate he is even tougher on terrorism than Obama, which, following the most recent 9/11, should not be difficult. But Romney has offered no indication he would scale back the targeted killing program Predators provides.

Just yesterday, October 1, 2012, a Washington, DC, CBC affiliate reported drones will soon be able to seek and destroy on the battlefield without human input.

Ronald Arkin, a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, believes that drones will soon be able to kill enemies on their own independently.

“It is not my belief that an unmanned system will be able to be perfectly ethical in the battlefield, but I am convinced that they can perform more ethically than human soldiers are capable of,” Arkin told AFP.

Arkin added that robotic weapons should be designed as “ethical” warriors and that these type of robots could wage war in a more “humane” way.

And we thought Skynet was so far in the future.

drone firing hellfire missiles

A Predator drone fires two Hellfire missiles


Dutifully the military asserts humans will remain involved in drone manipulation, that they will not be autonomous. And we are expected to to believe the military without question. Because the military never lies and the government never participates in cover-ups.

Right.

This post, however, is not primarily concerned with the politics involved with the drone war. My concern is the relationship of its effects to the kingdom of God.

We have been told that drone warfare provides safety to American troops and provides for less collateral damage than other types bombing. Drones are able to provide visuals clearer than a set of latitude and longitude coordinates, I suppose. A Hellfire missile launched from a drone should cause fewer casualties than a Tomahawk fired from a ship. Cleaner shots, better identification, direct hits. All of this adds up to more dead terrorists and a better protected homeland.

Except it doesn’t.

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism in London, reports,

from June 2004 through mid-September 2012, available data indicate that drone strikes killed 2,562-3,325 people in Pakistan, of whom 474-881 were civilians, including 176 children. TBIJ reports that these strikes also injured an additional 1,228-1,362 individuals. Where media accounts do report civilian casualties, rarely is any information provided about the victims or the communities they leave behind. This report includes the harrowing narratives of many survivors, witnesses, and family members who provided evidence of civilian injuries and deaths in drone strikes to our research team. It also presents detailed accounts of three separate strikes, for which there is evidence of civilian deaths and injuries, including a March 2011 strike on a meeting of tribal elders that killed some 40 individuals.

Also noted in the report is whenever men of fighting age are killed, even if they are completely unknown, and even if their activity is undefined, they are classified as combatants. That is, if a Hellfire missile lands in the middle of 20 sixteen to eighteen year olds playing soccer, they are classified as enemy combatants. Why? Because we killed them in the course of prosecuting a war. Not because they have been or are in a training camp or have plans to join Al Queda.

A quick review: How do we know they were enemy combatants? Because the government said so. How does the government know they were enemy combatants? Because we killed them.

They might as well be since, as the NYT reports, “some in the Obama administration joke that when the CIA sees ‘three guys doing jumping jacks,’ they think it is a terrorist training camp.” Very funny.

The drone war in Asia and the Middle East has become the “War on Terror” equivalent of the bombing of Laos and Cambodia during the Vietnam War.

As if this were not enough our drone strategy includes the very behaviors for which we would condemn terrorists: double strikes.

Drones hover twenty-four hours a day over communities in northwest Pakistan, striking homes, vehicles, and public spaces without warning. Their presence terrorizes men, women, and children, giving rise to anxiety and psychological trauma among civilian communities. Those living under drones have to face the constant worry that a deadly strike may be fired at any moment, and the knowledge that they are powerless to protect themselves. These fears have affected behavior. The US practice of striking one area multiple times, and evidence that it has killed rescuers, makes both community members and humanitarian workers afraid or unwilling to assist injured victims. Some community members shy away from gathering in groups, including important tribal dispute-resolution bodies, out of fear that they may attract the attention of drone operators. Some parents choose to keep their children home, and children injured or traumatized by strikes have dropped out of school. Waziris told our researchers that the strikes have undermined cultural and religious practices related to burial, and made family members afraid to attend funerals. In addition, families who lost loved ones or their homes in drone strikes now struggle to support themselves. Emphasis mine

One report has a drone striking a funeral where mourners had gathered to remember the victims of a previous drone strike.

Additionally the

FATA [Federally Administered Tribal Area] suffers from one of highest poverty rates in the world. The per capita income is approximately US$250 per year, with 60 percent of the population living below the national poverty line. Undeveloped infrastructure and low per capita public development expenditure have resulted in an overall literacy rate of only 17 percent. Most of the population depends on subsistence agriculture, manual labor, small-scale local business, or remittances from relatives working abroad or in other regions of Pakistan for survival. In North Waziristan, chromite mining operations also provide limited contract jobs near the Afghan border. There are only 41 hospitals in the region, and an estimated one doctor for every 6,762 residents.

Who lives there?

FATA is inhabited almost entirely by Pashtuns, a group of tribes that first settled in the area more than 1,000 years ago. The various Pashtun tribes live not only in FATA, but also in large parts of south and east Afghanistan. Altogether, there are some 25 million Pashtuns worldwide, making it one of the largest tribal groups in the world.

Who are the Pashtuns? They are virtually all Muslims who span the border between Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan. This means they are not followers of Christ. This means they are being bombed into a Christless eternity.

As a follower of Christ it disturbs me to know my government is randomly, regularly, inefficiently, deceptively, and erroneously killing people with whom we are not at war; targeting first responders and mourners for missile strikes; creating an ongoing situation where bearers of the gospel cannot enter with eternal good news. Why do we who give money for missions, pray for the fulfillment of the Great Commission, long for the day when some from every nation tribe and tongue sing praises to our great God seem so content to have one of those tribes bombed into oblivion? Have we bought so thoroughly into a kingdom of this world it has priority over the kingdom of God? Are we so fearful of what might happen to us we are willing to overlook anything that is happening to people around the world?

My friend Emily said today in a Facebook conversation, “I think we should do our best not to have these conversations in a theoretical moral and ethical sphere that is separate from the Christian narrative. The crucifixion and resurrection of Christ should be the basis for thinking through all of these things, IMHO.” If we are to call ourselves “followers of the Way,” then, I believe, it must thus be.

You can read or download the entire report pdf from Stanford-NYU here.