Why Focus On The Family is of the Devil: A Christian perspective - By Elroy: "Focus On The Family damages more souls than they save. The Colorado Springs-based religious organization is responsible for destroying the faith of countless believers through their radio programs, videos and books. What's worse, they do it ever so subtly by holding themselves up as defenders of all things good and decent. This gives them the perfect shield behind which to carry on their faith-killing activities unnoticed.
The subtle nature of their crime blinds even themselves. They leave their offices each evening, patting themselves on the back for the great 'good' they are doing and never realizing how many souls they have pushed out of the Kingdom of God that day. Through Focus On The Family, the Devil has created the perfect spy, the perfect mole for destroying faith from the inside out.
An in-depth look at how this subversive activity takes place will reveal the evil in the system.
Focus On The Family damages more souls than they save. The Colorado Springs-based religious organization is responsible for destroying the faith of countless believers through their radio programs, videos and books. What's worse, they do it ever so subtly by holding themselves up as defenders of all things good and decent. This gives them the perfect shield behind which to carry on their faith-killing activities unnoticed.
The subtle nature of their crime blinds even themselves. They leave their offices each evening, patting themselves on the back for the great "good" they are doing and never realizing how many souls they have pushed out of the Kingdom of God that day. Through Focus On The Family, the Devil has created the perfect spy, the perfect mole for destroying faith from the inside out.
An in-depth look at how this subversive activity takes place will reveal the evil in the system.
A young man decides to be a Christian. His intentions are good, and he agrees to say the right words to join the Faith. He begins to pray. He attends church. If he didn't know it before, he begins to realize he is flawed and full of sinful thoughts. Where once he didn't care about his own evils, now he is becoming aware of them. He hears it from the pulpit. He hears it from his friends. He hears it from Christian radio. There are many things the rest of the world does that good Christians should avoid, and early in his journey, he becomes painfully aware of what they are.
Our new Christian wants to do the right things however. He tries to change his behavior. Some changes come easily. Some, however, are very difficult. There are some sins, our new Christian finds out, that are nearly impossible to avoid, especially sins that involve thoughts.
Nonetheless, our young man goes to all the right meeting and prays all the right words and wears all the right clothes, and he quickly becomes accepted as a part of the "family." He is accepted into the culture that surrounds American Christians. But this acceptance comes with a price; our new believer won't want to appear weak in his faith for fear he might be rejected. He begins to hide his sinful struggles from his Christian brothers and sisters. He smiles the smiles and sings the songs, but inside he is alone in his fight to avoid his own sinfulness.
Along comes Focus On The Family, an organization dedicated to creating and sustaining strong families based on what they call "traditional" values. They also say the right words and sing the right songs and produce many right books about how to be a better Christian. They are readily accepted among most Christians because of their appearance of doing good and their perception of being Godly.
Our young believer listens, and two subtle evils begin to work in his life. Focus On The Family first admonishes our believer to keep listening, because their programs will help heal the damage in his soul. They don't just come out and say it, but the message is clear. If he wants to learn how to be a better Christian, he need look no further. In other words, they set themselves up as the authority on moral living. This little device hooks our young believer. If he rejects what's being broadcast by Focus On The Family, he is rejecting the information God obviously wants him to hear.
He keeps listening, and over time the second evil takes root and does its damage.
Focus On The Family tells our young Christian what good Christians do. They talk about how to love correctly. They talk about how to talk correctly. They talk about how to believe correctly. They talk about all the evil sins our Christian should avoid. But unfortunately, they inadvertently use themselves, their speakers and their leaders, as examples of what good Christians do. They do this by holding up their own interpretations of Scripture as God's will for our young believer's life. They ask our new believer to join their causes. They ask our new believer to boycott businesses they find questionable. They ask our new believer to accept their positions on issues ranging from women's rights to abortion (which is not mentioned in the Bible) to homosexuality as being directly from God even though many Bible scholars and many Christians do not agree. Rather than hold up the life of Christ as the sole example of good and present themselves as fellow travelers who also struggle and fight and interpret their way through the Faith, they present themselves, and their one-sided personal biblical interpretations, as examples of true faith.
This is inherently dishonest, and it creates a false role model for our new Christian. Rather than idolizing Christ and his ideals of grace and forgiveness, Focus On The Family makes an idol of their personal ideologies and holds it up for all to follow. Of course, their ideals are perceived as good ideals. They stand for righteousness and traditional values. For this reason, our young Christian would never think to question the evil of this kind of idolatry. Instead, he will strive to think like the guest speakers, writers, or Christian leaders that pontificate through the programs. He will listen, and he will mimic.
This is where our Christian's faith begins to falter. He will try to change his behavior and his beliefs to match those of the role models he sees at Focus On The Family. As he begins to act like them, he will "claim" victory over sins that have been plaguing his thoughts. Meanwhile, he will begin espousing the interpretations and political aspirations he's heard on the radio. He will start publicly criticizing those involved in immoral behaviors just like he hears those at Focus on the Family do.
But then he will fail. He will still struggle with his sin and his failure to change. He will feel he is not as good a Christian as he should be. And what will he do to overcome his failures? He will listen to even more Focus On The Family programs and adopt more of their positions. And after being pumped up with more great programming, our young believer will again set out to change his thoughts and the "evil" ways of the world around him.
He will sit in the pews each Sunday and pray with fervor for God to help him. He will do his daily devotions, reading, of course, from Focus On The Family's devotional guides, and he will work hard to stop his sinful nature. And he will proclaim even louder his distaste for the "moral decline" of the nation and the evil in this world, just as he hears the people at Focus on the Family do.
But he will still fail. He will fail, and he will confirm to himself that he is not the good Christian he should be. He can't change himself the way the Christians at Focus On The Family can. With this realization, he will heap great scorn upon himself because of his failure.
Sadly, he cannot go to his fellow Christians about his sins. After making all his proclamations against all the evils he's heard about on Focus on the Family, he does not want others to know of his weakness. Around them he will keep up the facade of the good Christian. But deep in his heart he will begin to despise himself for being a fake.
This can continue for a long time. It's hard to admit defeat. And it's even harder to give up when there is this righteous group out there that claims we can live a great Christian life if only we have enough faith.
So our young Christian will continue to push himself, trying again and again to be the good Christian he is expected to be. And he will continue to publicly condemn those who practice what Focus on the Family proclaims as being evil, as if by saying it he can convince himself to stop his own evil thoughts. And everyday he will continue to fail and be less than perfect. And everyday the struggles in his heart will take him further away from the phony outside appearance he is projecting.
Ultimately our young believer can never become the ideal Christian he hears about from Focus On The Family. He cannot become it, because no such Christian exists.
Focus On The Family, in its zeal to promote righteous living, exacerbates the struggles of being a believer by presenting an unreal and sometimes unbiblical ideal of what it is to be a Christian. Everyone who works at Focus On The Family has some struggle of his or her own, including James Dobson, its founder. But our young Christian won't hear about those on the radio. He may hear speakers say they have struggled with certain sins that Christ helped them overcome, and he may hear them talk about "generic" sins such as getting angry at their kids, but he won't hear them come out and confess that they still have doubts or that they are still fighting with the very sins Focus on the Family is publicly condemning. He won't hear Focus on the Family's speakers confess the kinds of internal struggles that he has in his heart. And he will never hear James Dobson confess those kinds of sins publicly, or in his books, or on his radio programs. What's worse, our new believer won't hear Focus on the Family admit that Dobson's interpretations of what God thinks is evil are not universally accepted by Bible scholars and other Christians. What our Christian will get from Focus On The Family is that he does not measure up to being a good Christian.
His self-worth will be devalued. His self-respect with be destroyed. And, ultimately, his belief that God can save him will falter. He will doubt that God loves him as much as other Christians. In fact, if God has chosen not to rescue him from his sins, perhaps God doesn't love him at all. And this, more than any pornography, or violent TV shows, or even the "liberal media," will destroy his faith. It will destroy his belief faster than any temptation the "Devil" can produce.
So while the staff of Focus On The Family pat themselves on the back for preserving good Christian values, while they so proudly take visitors on tours of their five-star-hotel quality facilities and tout themselves as a voice of help in a world of problems, they are really killing off the souls of needy people. They are deluded by their own image as defenders of family values and shielded from criticism by the "righteousness" of their cause. They are the perfect Trojan Horse for evil to do its damage in the lives of Christian believers. Truly, then, we can see how Focus On The Family is of the Devil.
1 John 3:8
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Sunday, July 20, 2008
Women in the Bible
Women in the Bible: "WOMEN IN THE BIBLE
by Voula Papas
WOMEN IN THE BIBLE
by Voula Papas
The vast majority of people are bible illiterates. They only hear the palatable verses from the pulpit and blindly accept that the bible emanates goodness and is the word of God.
Any honest, thinking person reading through the bible cannot ignore the blatant misogyny and barbarity towards women. The eminent 'men of God" who wrote the bible were the product of patriarchal, tribal, violent, intolerant, monotheistic society. They reflect the ignorance and brutality of that society and at the dawn of a new millennium, fundamentalists insist that we should all abide by biblical law.
It is no accident that from the very beginning the bible cements women's inferior status. In 1Timothy 2:11-15 we are told that women are not permitted to have authority over men and that they must be silent because Adam was formed first then Eve.
Consider this: when God created all the animals he made male and female together. Then he created Adam. Adam was alone in the Garden of Eden, so God puts Adam to sleep, extracts one of his ribs and out of that single rib creates Eve. Even before the fall woman is accorded inferior status by deliberately being created after Adam instead of being created together. Why would an all-knowing God create man first then woman, shouldn't he have known that Adam would need a partner?
Anyway, God places Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and permits them to eat the fruit from all the trees but one - the tree of "knowledge"! The serpent, a wise and knowing creature approached Eve and suggested that she eat from the forbidden tree. When Eve saw that the fruit was desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it - it is no surprise that Abrahamic religions value ignorance as a virtue for women. Adam is exonerated from sin since it was the woman who led him astray. Perhaps Adam would have been better off with an inflatable doll rather than a real, thinking woman!
Calvin declared:
"Woman is more guilty than man, because she was seduced by Satan, and so diverted her husband from obedience to God that she was an instrument of death leading to all perdition. It is necessary that woman recognize this, and that she learn to what she is subjected; and not only against her husband. This is reason enough why today she is placed below and that she bears within her ignominy and shame."
Eve was punished severely for her attempt to gain knowledge, for disobedience and for exerting independence from her husband. I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing... Your desire will be for your husband and he will rule over you." Genesis 3:16. In accordance with God's command, some fundamentalist sects forbid painkillers during childbirth.
Some years ago I had a heated discussion with a Greek Orthodox woman regarding the subject of women priests. She claimed that women should not and could not become priests because of their monthly unclean state - they would defile the altar. Her view summed up the biblical contempt for women's bodies and natural functions (also shared by Islam and Judaism) There are several verses in the bible that emphasise women's uncleanness.
"A woman who becomes pregnant and gives birth to a son will be ceremonially unclean for seven days, just as she is unclean during her monthly period. On the eighth day the boy is to be circumcised. Then the woman must wait thirty-three days to be purified from her bleeding. She must not touch anything sacred or go to the sanctuary until the days of her purification are over. If she gives birth to a daughter, for two weeks the woman will be unclean, as during her period. Then she must wait sixty-six days to be purified from her bleeding. These are the regulations for the woman who gives birth to a boy or a girl. She is to bring two doves or two pigeons, one for a burnt offering and the other for a sin offering. In this way the priest will make atonement for her, and she will be clean." Leviticus 12: 1-8
If a woman gives birth to a girl she is unclean for twice as long.
"When a woman has her regular flow of blood, the impurity of her monthly period will last seven days, and anyone who touches her will be unclean till evening. … If a man lies with her and her monthly flow touches him, he will be unclean for seven days..." Leviticus 15:19-32.
“Man born of woman…Who can bring what is pure from the impure? No one!” Job 14:1-4
In some denominations women are still considered unclean during their menses. E.g. in the Greek Orthodox church women who have given birth attend church forty days after the birth to make amends for their uncleanness and be declared clean by the priest. Young women are still exhorted by their mothers and mothers in law to bow to this insulting and demeaning ritual.
The words whore and harlot are used frequently in the bible to describe women who deviated from the double standards sexual moral code. Women's bodies were not their own but the property of fathers and husbands. Virginity and chastity were mandatory for women and any woman breaking the double standard moral code was put to death. Under Mosaic Law men were permitted many wives while women were permitted only one and were subject to a test for unfaithfulness - Numbers 5:11-31. Men could divorce their wives on a whim - Deuteronomy 24:1-4. Women's main role was to bear male children and infertile women were scorned. In the bible it was always the women who were sterile, never the men.
“…If however the charge is true and no proof of the girl’s virginity can be found, she shall be brought to the door of her father's house and there the men of her town shall stone her to death..." Deuteronomy 22:13-21.
Cultures, which demand virginity and chastity in women, have as their bedrock the double standard morality code. If men are encouraged to view women as depreciative chattels they will never regard them as human. And if women are not regarded as human, then all kinds of atrocities and injustices are permissible against them!
"For man did not come from woman, but woman from man; neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. For this reason, and because of the angels, the woman ought to have a sign of authority on her head;" 1 Corinthians 11:9, 10.
“…women should remain silent in churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission...” 1 Corinthians 14:34
“Wives submit to your husbands, as is fitting to the Lord.” Colossians 3:18
Polygamy still exists amongst fundamentalist Mormons and certain sects. A fundamentalist group in America instructs women to call their husbands MASTER and to practice the art of being a SLAVE. Various fundamentalists exhort wives to submit and obey and have embarked on a chastity crusade targeting young women.
Today the religious right still uses the bible as a manual for the enslavement of women and persecution of homosexuals. Not only is the bible infested with sexism, but violence and obscenity also abound. Under the guise of "family values", the religious right is fighting to reverse all the gains made by women: the right to own property, the right to tertiary education, the right to work, the right to childcare, the right to vote, the right to plan their families, the right to equal wages, the right to enter politics and above all the right to sexual autonomy.
In the Roman Catholic tradition the Virgin Mary is held up as a role model for women. She symbolizes female "virtues" such as obedience, submission, chastity and silence. In fervent Catholic countries, Catholic women are encouraged to emulate her. In fact the more women submit and self-efface themselves the more they are praised for being “good” Christian women. The Roman Catholic Church glorifies one woman while it rubbishes all the rest.
The "glory" of motherhood is constantly drummed into women with the intent of preventing them from doing anything else. At the same time the bible emphasises women's uncleanness after childbirth, and states that we are all born sinful. Even Mary had to make a sin offering after the birth of Jesus.
Women should beware of campaigns to enshrine "God's Law" and "family values" into secular law. Whenever "family values" and "god's law" are mentioned, the little alarm bells inside my head start ringing loudly!
It is time women saw the bible for what it is: a man-made, primitive "revelation"! No woman with a shred of self-esteem would want to demean herself by bowing to such tyrannical and self-effacing absolutes. Every time a woman submits to such demotion she throws away her sell-worth. Women's self-worth is anathema to fundamentalists who accuse women of being selfish and ungiving.
Some Christian apologists claim that sexist biblical verses are a reflection of Hebrew society of that time and that Jesus Christ was a reformer who endeavoured to improve the status of women. They point to Proverbs 31:10-31 describing the virtues of a good wife - hard working, intelligent while implying that such women are so rare that their price is more than the price of rubies. On the other hand, fundamentalists invoke sexist verses in order to deny women their rights. In the US, Reconstructionists dream of doing away with the constitution and enforcing their own version of "God's law" based on the Old Testament. They advocate the death penalty for adultery, homosexuality, witchcraft, blasphemy, unchastity and sacrificing to "false gods".
Despite apologists attempts to "white-wash" the bible with a litany of excuses, it does not change the fact that the bible is anti women.
I urge you not to take my word for it but to check it out yourself. Here are some more biblical "gems" to look up:
GENESIS
2:22 Eve created from Adam's rib.
3:16 Cursed with painful childbirth and domination by husband.
4:17 Cain marries sister?
4:19 Man marries two wives.
12:13-19 Abraham prostitutes wife.
19:1-8 Rape virgin daughters instead of male angels.
19:26 Lot's wife turned into pillar of salt for disobeying god.
19:30-38 Lot impregnates his two daughters while drunk. (So much for "family values"!)
20:2-12 Abraham prostitutes wife - again.
25:1-6 Keeping many concubines is OK.
EXODUS
20:17 Wife as property.
21:4 Wife and children belong to master.
21:7-11 OK to sell daughters. Female slaves can be used for sex.
Polygamy permitted. Unwanted female slaves can be set "free" without payment of money.
22:18 Kill witches.
LEVITICUS
12:1 Childbirth a sin, Women unclean after childbirth.
15:19-32 Menstruating women are unclean.
20:10-16 Death penalty for homosexuality and various sexual transgressions.
21:7 Priests must not marry prostitutes or divorcees.
21:9 Burn daughters.
21:13-14 Priest must marry virgin, not "used" woman.
NUMBERS
1:2 Census lists only men - women do not count.
5:11-31 Fidelity test for women only.
30:1-16 Woman's vow invalid unless approved by her father or husband.
31:17-18 Kill all except virgins. Keep virgins for yourselves.
CH 12 Miriam punished for rebuking Moses.
DEUTERONOMY
20:14 Take women, livestock as plunder.
22:13-21 Stone non-virgin bride.
22:23-24 Stone rapist and rape victim.
22:28 Rape victim must marry rapist; rape victim's father compensated for depreciation of his property.
25:11-12 Cut woman's hand for touching foe's penis.
24:1-5 Man can "send" wife from HIS house. Man must not marry "used" woman.
28:18 The FRUIT of your womb will be cursed - eclectic "pro-life" verse!
JUDGES
5:30 Women are spoils of war.
14:20 Samson gives wife to another man.
16:1 Samson visits prostitute.
CH 19 Concubine pack-raped and butchered.
21:10-12 Slaughtered all inc. women and children. Saved virgins for wives.
21:21 Abducted girls for wives.
RUTH
Ruth shags Boaz.
1 SAMUEL
15:2-3 Attack Amalekites, kill men, women, children and livestock.
22:19 Kill all inc. infants and livestock.
21:4-5 Men avoid defilement with women.
2 SAMUEL
5:13 David took many wives and concubines.
CH 13 Ammon rapes his own sister.
16:21-22 Absalom sleeps with his father's concubines.
6:20-23 Mischal punished with bareness.
1 KINGS
11:3 Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines.
2 KINGS
9:30-37 Brutal murder of Jezebel.
2 CHRONICLES
15:13 Put to death unbelievers.
11:21 Hoards of wives and concubines.
ESTHER
CH 1-2 Queen Vashti dethroned for disobedience; setting "bad" example to all other women.
PSALMS
51:5 Sinful since conception.
127:3 Sons are heritage from god.
137:9 Seizes infants and dashes them against rocks.
PROVERBS
CH 5 Beware of wicked women!
CH 7 More of the above.
6:24 As above.
31:3 Do not waste strength on women.
ISAIAH
3:16-26 Lord punishes haughty women.
4:4 Filthy women.
13:16 Ravish wives, dash infants.
19:16 Will be like women! (insult to Egyptians)
EZEKIEL
9:6-7 Slaughter all including children.
CH 16 Prostitutes, stoning, promiscuity...
CH 23 Tale of two adulterous sisters - reads like the script of a pornographic film. I bet you weren't told this story at Sunday school!
HOSEA
13:16 Rip pregnant women, dash little ones. (Another "pro-life" verse!)
NAHUM
3:4... wanton lust of a harlot... prostitution... witchcraft.
3:5 I will lift your skirts over your face!
3:13... Your troops are all women. (insult to Nineveh)
MATTHEW
5:32 Husband can divorce wife for adultery. Can wife divorce husband for the same?
CH 25 Sexist tale of ten virgins.
LUKE
2:22 Mary must be purified after birth of Jesus.
2:49 Jesus rebukes his mother.
I CORINTHIANS
11:2-10... Woman created for man.
14:34 Women must be silent in churches.
EPHESIANS
5:22-24 Wives must submit to husbands in everything.
COLOSSIANS
3:18 Wives submit to husbands.
3:22 Slaves must obey masters in everything.
I TIMOTHY
2:11-15 Woman must not have authority…she must be silent. Women can be saved with childbearing.
5:9-10 Widows should be faithful to husband and must wash saints' feet.
1 PETER
2:18 Slaves submit to masters, even masters who are harsh.
3:1 Wives submit.
3:5-6 Sarah calls husband master.
REVELATION
CH 17 Destroy great prostitute.
14:4...they did not DEFILE themselves with women but kept themselves pure.
by Voula Papas
WOMEN IN THE BIBLE
by Voula Papas
The vast majority of people are bible illiterates. They only hear the palatable verses from the pulpit and blindly accept that the bible emanates goodness and is the word of God.
Any honest, thinking person reading through the bible cannot ignore the blatant misogyny and barbarity towards women. The eminent 'men of God" who wrote the bible were the product of patriarchal, tribal, violent, intolerant, monotheistic society. They reflect the ignorance and brutality of that society and at the dawn of a new millennium, fundamentalists insist that we should all abide by biblical law.
It is no accident that from the very beginning the bible cements women's inferior status. In 1Timothy 2:11-15 we are told that women are not permitted to have authority over men and that they must be silent because Adam was formed first then Eve.
Consider this: when God created all the animals he made male and female together. Then he created Adam. Adam was alone in the Garden of Eden, so God puts Adam to sleep, extracts one of his ribs and out of that single rib creates Eve. Even before the fall woman is accorded inferior status by deliberately being created after Adam instead of being created together. Why would an all-knowing God create man first then woman, shouldn't he have known that Adam would need a partner?
Anyway, God places Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and permits them to eat the fruit from all the trees but one - the tree of "knowledge"! The serpent, a wise and knowing creature approached Eve and suggested that she eat from the forbidden tree. When Eve saw that the fruit was desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it - it is no surprise that Abrahamic religions value ignorance as a virtue for women. Adam is exonerated from sin since it was the woman who led him astray. Perhaps Adam would have been better off with an inflatable doll rather than a real, thinking woman!
Calvin declared:
"Woman is more guilty than man, because she was seduced by Satan, and so diverted her husband from obedience to God that she was an instrument of death leading to all perdition. It is necessary that woman recognize this, and that she learn to what she is subjected; and not only against her husband. This is reason enough why today she is placed below and that she bears within her ignominy and shame."
Eve was punished severely for her attempt to gain knowledge, for disobedience and for exerting independence from her husband. I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing... Your desire will be for your husband and he will rule over you." Genesis 3:16. In accordance with God's command, some fundamentalist sects forbid painkillers during childbirth.
Some years ago I had a heated discussion with a Greek Orthodox woman regarding the subject of women priests. She claimed that women should not and could not become priests because of their monthly unclean state - they would defile the altar. Her view summed up the biblical contempt for women's bodies and natural functions (also shared by Islam and Judaism) There are several verses in the bible that emphasise women's uncleanness.
"A woman who becomes pregnant and gives birth to a son will be ceremonially unclean for seven days, just as she is unclean during her monthly period. On the eighth day the boy is to be circumcised. Then the woman must wait thirty-three days to be purified from her bleeding. She must not touch anything sacred or go to the sanctuary until the days of her purification are over. If she gives birth to a daughter, for two weeks the woman will be unclean, as during her period. Then she must wait sixty-six days to be purified from her bleeding. These are the regulations for the woman who gives birth to a boy or a girl. She is to bring two doves or two pigeons, one for a burnt offering and the other for a sin offering. In this way the priest will make atonement for her, and she will be clean." Leviticus 12: 1-8
If a woman gives birth to a girl she is unclean for twice as long.
"When a woman has her regular flow of blood, the impurity of her monthly period will last seven days, and anyone who touches her will be unclean till evening. … If a man lies with her and her monthly flow touches him, he will be unclean for seven days..." Leviticus 15:19-32.
“Man born of woman…Who can bring what is pure from the impure? No one!” Job 14:1-4
In some denominations women are still considered unclean during their menses. E.g. in the Greek Orthodox church women who have given birth attend church forty days after the birth to make amends for their uncleanness and be declared clean by the priest. Young women are still exhorted by their mothers and mothers in law to bow to this insulting and demeaning ritual.
The words whore and harlot are used frequently in the bible to describe women who deviated from the double standards sexual moral code. Women's bodies were not their own but the property of fathers and husbands. Virginity and chastity were mandatory for women and any woman breaking the double standard moral code was put to death. Under Mosaic Law men were permitted many wives while women were permitted only one and were subject to a test for unfaithfulness - Numbers 5:11-31. Men could divorce their wives on a whim - Deuteronomy 24:1-4. Women's main role was to bear male children and infertile women were scorned. In the bible it was always the women who were sterile, never the men.
“…If however the charge is true and no proof of the girl’s virginity can be found, she shall be brought to the door of her father's house and there the men of her town shall stone her to death..." Deuteronomy 22:13-21.
Cultures, which demand virginity and chastity in women, have as their bedrock the double standard morality code. If men are encouraged to view women as depreciative chattels they will never regard them as human. And if women are not regarded as human, then all kinds of atrocities and injustices are permissible against them!
"For man did not come from woman, but woman from man; neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. For this reason, and because of the angels, the woman ought to have a sign of authority on her head;" 1 Corinthians 11:9, 10.
“…women should remain silent in churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission...” 1 Corinthians 14:34
“Wives submit to your husbands, as is fitting to the Lord.” Colossians 3:18
Polygamy still exists amongst fundamentalist Mormons and certain sects. A fundamentalist group in America instructs women to call their husbands MASTER and to practice the art of being a SLAVE. Various fundamentalists exhort wives to submit and obey and have embarked on a chastity crusade targeting young women.
Today the religious right still uses the bible as a manual for the enslavement of women and persecution of homosexuals. Not only is the bible infested with sexism, but violence and obscenity also abound. Under the guise of "family values", the religious right is fighting to reverse all the gains made by women: the right to own property, the right to tertiary education, the right to work, the right to childcare, the right to vote, the right to plan their families, the right to equal wages, the right to enter politics and above all the right to sexual autonomy.
In the Roman Catholic tradition the Virgin Mary is held up as a role model for women. She symbolizes female "virtues" such as obedience, submission, chastity and silence. In fervent Catholic countries, Catholic women are encouraged to emulate her. In fact the more women submit and self-efface themselves the more they are praised for being “good” Christian women. The Roman Catholic Church glorifies one woman while it rubbishes all the rest.
The "glory" of motherhood is constantly drummed into women with the intent of preventing them from doing anything else. At the same time the bible emphasises women's uncleanness after childbirth, and states that we are all born sinful. Even Mary had to make a sin offering after the birth of Jesus.
Women should beware of campaigns to enshrine "God's Law" and "family values" into secular law. Whenever "family values" and "god's law" are mentioned, the little alarm bells inside my head start ringing loudly!
It is time women saw the bible for what it is: a man-made, primitive "revelation"! No woman with a shred of self-esteem would want to demean herself by bowing to such tyrannical and self-effacing absolutes. Every time a woman submits to such demotion she throws away her sell-worth. Women's self-worth is anathema to fundamentalists who accuse women of being selfish and ungiving.
Some Christian apologists claim that sexist biblical verses are a reflection of Hebrew society of that time and that Jesus Christ was a reformer who endeavoured to improve the status of women. They point to Proverbs 31:10-31 describing the virtues of a good wife - hard working, intelligent while implying that such women are so rare that their price is more than the price of rubies. On the other hand, fundamentalists invoke sexist verses in order to deny women their rights. In the US, Reconstructionists dream of doing away with the constitution and enforcing their own version of "God's law" based on the Old Testament. They advocate the death penalty for adultery, homosexuality, witchcraft, blasphemy, unchastity and sacrificing to "false gods".
Despite apologists attempts to "white-wash" the bible with a litany of excuses, it does not change the fact that the bible is anti women.
I urge you not to take my word for it but to check it out yourself. Here are some more biblical "gems" to look up:
GENESIS
2:22 Eve created from Adam's rib.
3:16 Cursed with painful childbirth and domination by husband.
4:17 Cain marries sister?
4:19 Man marries two wives.
12:13-19 Abraham prostitutes wife.
19:1-8 Rape virgin daughters instead of male angels.
19:26 Lot's wife turned into pillar of salt for disobeying god.
19:30-38 Lot impregnates his two daughters while drunk. (So much for "family values"!)
20:2-12 Abraham prostitutes wife - again.
25:1-6 Keeping many concubines is OK.
EXODUS
20:17 Wife as property.
21:4 Wife and children belong to master.
21:7-11 OK to sell daughters. Female slaves can be used for sex.
Polygamy permitted. Unwanted female slaves can be set "free" without payment of money.
22:18 Kill witches.
LEVITICUS
12:1 Childbirth a sin, Women unclean after childbirth.
15:19-32 Menstruating women are unclean.
20:10-16 Death penalty for homosexuality and various sexual transgressions.
21:7 Priests must not marry prostitutes or divorcees.
21:9 Burn daughters.
21:13-14 Priest must marry virgin, not "used" woman.
NUMBERS
1:2 Census lists only men - women do not count.
5:11-31 Fidelity test for women only.
30:1-16 Woman's vow invalid unless approved by her father or husband.
31:17-18 Kill all except virgins. Keep virgins for yourselves.
CH 12 Miriam punished for rebuking Moses.
DEUTERONOMY
20:14 Take women, livestock as plunder.
22:13-21 Stone non-virgin bride.
22:23-24 Stone rapist and rape victim.
22:28 Rape victim must marry rapist; rape victim's father compensated for depreciation of his property.
25:11-12 Cut woman's hand for touching foe's penis.
24:1-5 Man can "send" wife from HIS house. Man must not marry "used" woman.
28:18 The FRUIT of your womb will be cursed - eclectic "pro-life" verse!
JUDGES
5:30 Women are spoils of war.
14:20 Samson gives wife to another man.
16:1 Samson visits prostitute.
CH 19 Concubine pack-raped and butchered.
21:10-12 Slaughtered all inc. women and children. Saved virgins for wives.
21:21 Abducted girls for wives.
RUTH
Ruth shags Boaz.
1 SAMUEL
15:2-3 Attack Amalekites, kill men, women, children and livestock.
22:19 Kill all inc. infants and livestock.
21:4-5 Men avoid defilement with women.
2 SAMUEL
5:13 David took many wives and concubines.
CH 13 Ammon rapes his own sister.
16:21-22 Absalom sleeps with his father's concubines.
6:20-23 Mischal punished with bareness.
1 KINGS
11:3 Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines.
2 KINGS
9:30-37 Brutal murder of Jezebel.
2 CHRONICLES
15:13 Put to death unbelievers.
11:21 Hoards of wives and concubines.
ESTHER
CH 1-2 Queen Vashti dethroned for disobedience; setting "bad" example to all other women.
PSALMS
51:5 Sinful since conception.
127:3 Sons are heritage from god.
137:9 Seizes infants and dashes them against rocks.
PROVERBS
CH 5 Beware of wicked women!
CH 7 More of the above.
6:24 As above.
31:3 Do not waste strength on women.
ISAIAH
3:16-26 Lord punishes haughty women.
4:4 Filthy women.
13:16 Ravish wives, dash infants.
19:16 Will be like women! (insult to Egyptians)
EZEKIEL
9:6-7 Slaughter all including children.
CH 16 Prostitutes, stoning, promiscuity...
CH 23 Tale of two adulterous sisters - reads like the script of a pornographic film. I bet you weren't told this story at Sunday school!
HOSEA
13:16 Rip pregnant women, dash little ones. (Another "pro-life" verse!)
NAHUM
3:4... wanton lust of a harlot... prostitution... witchcraft.
3:5 I will lift your skirts over your face!
3:13... Your troops are all women. (insult to Nineveh)
MATTHEW
5:32 Husband can divorce wife for adultery. Can wife divorce husband for the same?
CH 25 Sexist tale of ten virgins.
LUKE
2:22 Mary must be purified after birth of Jesus.
2:49 Jesus rebukes his mother.
I CORINTHIANS
11:2-10... Woman created for man.
14:34 Women must be silent in churches.
EPHESIANS
5:22-24 Wives must submit to husbands in everything.
COLOSSIANS
3:18 Wives submit to husbands.
3:22 Slaves must obey masters in everything.
I TIMOTHY
2:11-15 Woman must not have authority…she must be silent. Women can be saved with childbearing.
5:9-10 Widows should be faithful to husband and must wash saints' feet.
1 PETER
2:18 Slaves submit to masters, even masters who are harsh.
3:1 Wives submit.
3:5-6 Sarah calls husband master.
REVELATION
CH 17 Destroy great prostitute.
14:4...they did not DEFILE themselves with women but kept themselves pure.
The Dark Bible: Women's Inferior Status
The Dark Bible: Women's Inferior Status: "The Dark Bible
Women's Inferior Status
Back To Table Of Contents
* Burn the daughter!
* Cut off her hand!
* Expose her breasts!
* Female births get penalty
* Female inferiority
* God's OK on abortion
* Jesus will kill children
* Kill the witches!
* Moses' mass murder
* Rape my daughter
* Raping and killing
* Silence the woman!
* Stone the woman
* 'Virgin' mistranslation
* Virgin's worth
* Wives, submit yourselves!
* Women shall not speak
* Women's sorrow
* Rip up pregnant women
* The wicked woman
The Dark Bible
Women's Inferior Status
Back To Table Of Contents
* Burn the daughter!
* Cut off her hand!
* Expose her breasts!
* Female births get penalty
* Female inferiority
* God's OK on abortion
* Jesus will kill children
* Kill the witches!
* Moses' mass murder
* Rape my daughter
* Raping and killing
* Silence the woman!
* Stone the woman
* "Virgin" mistranslation
* Virgin's worth
* Wives, submit yourselves!
* Women shall not speak
* Women's sorrow
* Rip up pregnant women
* The wicked woman
The Biblical view of women
The God of the Bible decrees that woman must submit to the dominance of man.
"The social and legal position of an Israelite wife was inferior to the position a wife occupied in the great countries round about... all the texts show that Israelites wanted mainly sons to perpetuate the family line and fortune, and to preserve the ancestral inheritance... A husband could divorce his wife; women on the other hand could not ask for divorce... the wife called her husband Ba'al or master; she also called him adon or lord; she addressed him, in fact, as a slave addressed his master or subject, his king. The Decalogue includes a man's wife among his possessions... all her life she remains a minor. The wife does not inherit from her husband, nor daughters from their father, except when there is no male heir. A vow made by a girl or married woman needs, to be valid, the consent of the father or husband and if this consent is withheld, the vow is null and void. A man had a right to sell his daughter. Women were excluded from the succession."
-Roland de Vaux, archaeologist and priest
Blue words represent Bible quotes
Burn The Daughter!
"And the daughter of any priest, if she profane herself by playing the whore, she profaneth her father: she shall be burnt with fire." (Leviticus 21:9)
Comment
A priest's daughter, if found to have lost her virginity without marriage, can receive the death penalty, but in the form of incineration.
How many fundamentalist priests who so easily condemn others would carry out the burning of their daughters if they found them "whoring"?
(See also Genesis 38:24)
Cut Off Her Hand!
"When men strive together one with another, and the wife of the one draweth near for to deliver her husband out of the hand of him that smiteth him, and putteth forth her hand, and taketh him by the secrets: then thou shalt cut off her hand, thine eye shall not pity her." (Deuteronomy 25:11-12)
Comment
A wife would naturally wish to come to the aid of her husband in any way she could if he desperately struggled with an opponent, but the Hebrew law specifically forbade a wife to help her husband in distress if that support consisted of her grabbing the enemy's genitals in an effort to stifle his onslaught. The penalty? Amputation of the hand that fondled the genitals!
Only in an overly obsessive male dominated culture could men create such atrocious laws. As such, the penis ranked sacrosanct in the minds of men (as it still stands today). If a male lost his penis for any reason, he would lose the right to enter a congregation of God. (See Deuteronomy 23:1)
Female Births Get Penalty
"Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If a woman have conceived seed, and born a man child: then she shall be unclean seven days; according to the days of the separation for her infirmity shall she be unclean." (Leviticus 12:2)
"But if she bear a maid child, then she shall be unclean two weeks, as in her separation: and she shall continue in the blood of her purifying threescore and six days." (Leviticus 12:5)
Comment
A woman who gives birth to a child must undergo a purification ritual lest her "uncleanness" contaminate others. This not only entails her isolation, but also payments to priests for the ritual acts. Thus the male dominators had even made birth dirty.
Notice here that if a woman bears a female child, her isolation must last twice as long as that if she gives birth to a male child!
(See also Psalms 51:3-5)
"The Bible and the church have been the greatest stumbling blocks in the way of woman's emancipation."
--Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Female Inferiority
"But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God." (I Corinthians 11:3)
"For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man." (I Corinthians 11:8-9)
Comment
The Bible's decree of male supremacy has kept woman inferior to men for centuries. For the religious, it comes as a sad fact that a human must have a penis to receive any respect or power within the Church.
All woman should realize that such phrases in the Bible has justified for many Christian men, not only their supremacy but a reason to sexually abuse women.
(See also I Cor. 14:34-36, I Timothy 2:8-15, I Peter 3:1-7, Ephesians 5:22-24, Col. 3:18-19)
Jesus Will Kill Children
"Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds. And I will kill her children with death; and all the churches shall know that I am he which searcheth the reins and hearts: and I will give unto every one of you according to your works." (Revelation 2:22-23)
Comment
If anyone thinks Jesus represents only a peaceful loving soul, then think again. For an act of adultery, Jesus would kill innocent children for the adultery of others; hardly fair justice, love, or the concern for human beings.
Some apologists claim that "children" refers to the followers of a cult of Jezebel and not to children birthed from Jezebel. However, if this proved the case, the situation would appear even more horrific, for a cult of believers could number in the dozens, hundreds, thousands, or more. The deaths of these multitude of cult believers (which would include children within its membership) would only make the moralistic problem far more atrocious.
"It's interesting to speculate how it developed that in two of the most anti-feminist institutions, the church and the law court, the men are wearing the dresses."
--Flo Kennedy
Kill The Witches!
"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. Whoever lieth with a beast shall surely be put to death. He that sacrificeth unto any god, save to the LORD only, he shall be utterly destroyed." (Exodus 22:18-20)
Comment
These verses attest to the power of belief as they led to the slaughter of thousands of defenseless people throughout Europe and the rest of the world.
Understand that these verses not only authorize the executions but they explicitly command them.
Verse 18 justified the burning of women in Europe judged as witches. In early America, the Salem witch trials resulted in the deaths of women and men.
Verse 19 refers to bestiality, a sin considered worthy of death. Christians used verse 20 to justify religious wars, Crusades and the slaughter of unbelievers throughout Europe. And the condemnation of heretics still goes on.
Rape My Daughter
"Behold, here is my daughter a maiden, and his concubine; them I will bring out now, and humble ye them, and do with them what seemeth good unto you: but unto this man do not so vile a thing. But the men would not hearken to him: so the man took his concubine, and brought her forth unto them; and they knew her, and abused her all the night until the morning: and when the day began to spring, they let her go." (Judges 19:24-25)
Comment
Judges 19 describe a father who offers his virgin daughter to a drunken mob. When the father says "unto this man do not so vile a thing," he makes clear that sexual abuse should never befall a man (meaning him), yet a woman, even his own flesh and blood, or a concubine belonging to a perfect stranger, can receive punishment from men to do what they wish. This attitude against women still persists to this day and we have the Bible, in large part, to thank for this attitude against women.
Verse 25 describes the hours long gang rape of the poor concubine. The Bible gives not one hint of passion or concern for the raped girl. Considering that many people believe that every word in the Bible comes from God, it should not surprise anyone why people still use these verses to justify such atrocities.
Silence The Woman!
"Let the women learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression." (I Timothy 2:11-14)
Comment
Another case where the Bible makes it quite clear that women live for man and must submit to them.
"Man enjoys the great advantage of having a god endorse the code he writes; and since man exercises a sovereign authority over women it is especially fortunate that this authority has been vested in him by the Supreme Being. For the Jews, Mohammedans and Christians among others, man is master by divine right; the fear of God will therefore repress any impulse towards revolt in the downtrodden female."
--Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex 1949
(See also I Cor. 11:3-12, I Cor. 14:34-36, I Peter 3:1-7, Ephesians 5:22-24, Col. 3:18-19.)
Stone The Woman!
"If a man be found lying with a woman married to an husband, and a man find her in the city, and lie with her;" (Deuteronomy 22:22)
"Then ye shall bring them both out unto the gate of that city, and ye shall stone them with stones that they die; the damsel, because she cried not, being in the city; and the man, because he hath humbled his neighbour's wife: so thou shalt put away evil from among you." (Deuteronomy 22:24)
Comment
(Read also Deuteronomy 22:13-21)
The discovery of a bride lying with another man can yield disastrous results.
If the wife's parents can produce tokens of the damsel's virginity and spread the cloth before the elders of the city, the husband has to pay the bride's father one hundred silver shekels and he may not send his wife back to her parents as long as she lives. But if the bride's virginity does not satisfy the requirements, the husband can get rid of her by letting the men of the city stone her to death.
From a practical level, these designed laws regulating women's virginity protected economic transactions between men rather than for the sake of morality. (See Virgin's Worth below)
"Virgin" Mistranslation
"Therefore the LORD himself shall give you a sign: Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel." (Isaiah 7:14)
Comment
Perhaps the most famous mistranslation of the Bible, the word virgin here comes from a mistranslated Greek word for virgin.
The original Hebrew version uses the word "almah" which means "young woman" which may or may not refer to a virgin. Of course the context of the original Hebrew Isaiah does not refer to a virgin at all, as scholars the world over agree, but only refers to a young woman.
Later, the author of Matthew 1:22-23, quoted from the mistranslated Isaiah version, and thus the error turned into a world-wide belief.
Today a few of the modern bibles such as the Revised Standard Version, have corrected this mistranslation and have replaced the word virgin with "young woman." (Isaiah 7:14, RSV)
Apparently either God makes errors or the Bible does not come from god, but rather from fallible men.
Virgin's Worth
"If a man find a damsel that is a virgin, which is not betrothed, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found; Then the man that lay with her shall give unto the damsel's father fifty shekels of silvers, and she shall be his wife; because he hath humbled her, he may not put her away all his days." (Deuteronomy 22:28-29)
Comment
The belief some get about the Biblical law leads them to think that it represented a great advancement in morality. However, if we look at this law in the social and economic context, it becomes evident that it did not come from any moral ground, but rather to protect men's property rights of their wives and daughters.
This law says that since an unmarried girl, a non-virgin, no longer serves as an economically valuable asset, her father must receive compensation. As for the legal requirement of the man that caused the economic problem, his marriage in that society gave him practically unlimited power over their wives. Such forced marriage can hardly serve as a concern for the poor girl's welfare.
Wives, Submit Yourselves!
"Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything." (Ephesians 5:22-24)
Comment
These words of Paul describe another instance for the calling of the submission of women to their husbands. Note that the all inclusive "everything" could allow husbands to submit their wives to anything, including rape, beatings, slavery, etc.
(See also I Cor. 11:3-12, I Cor. 14:34-36, I Timothy 2:8-15, I Peter 3:1-7, Col. 3:18-19.)
Women Shall Not Speak
"Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law. And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church." (I Corinthians 14:34-35)
Comment
If one ever wishes to find an explanation of woman's inferiority to men, one only has to look in the Bible. Paul makes clear and delineates the importance of woman recognizing her place, "ad nauseam."
(See also I Cor. 11:3-12, I Timothy 2:8-15, I Peter 3:1-7, Ephesians 5:22-24, Col. 3:18-19.)
"The bible teaches that women brought sin and death into the world, that she precipitated the fall of the race, that she was arraigned before the judgment seat of Heaven, tried, condemned and sentenced. Marriage for her was to be a condition of bondage, maternity a period suffering and anguish, and in silence and subjection, she was to play the role of a dependent on man's bounty for all her material wants, and for all the information she might desire... Here is the Bible position of woman briefly summed up."
--Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Women's Sorrow
"Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee." (Genesis 3:16)
Comment
Not only does the Woman get blamed for the Fall, but God decides to multiply her sorrow, plus, she must submit to her husband like a slave.
Religionists have used this verse as justification and "reason" for the pain and punishment (sin) of childbirth and the sin of mankind. And to this day many Christians, Jews and Islamics place women lower then men in the ranking of Godly order. If ever there existed a more cruel justification against women, it could not have done as much damage as from belief in Genesis 3:16. Because of the belief in the Fall, countless Christians have branded the entire human race as depraved.
Before the advent of male dominated religions, cultures around the world respected women and worshipped goddesses. The Old Testament records the brutal slaughter of surrounding cultures and slowly throughout the centuries, the goddess religions faded away in place of the belief-system of a jealous, scatological, male war god.
"Christianity teaches that the human race is depraved, fallen, and sinful."
--D. James Kennedy (Why I Believe, World Publishing, 1980)
Rip Up Pregnant Women
"Samaria shall become desolate; for she hath rebelled against her God: they shall fall by the sword: their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with child shall be ripped up." (Hosea 13:16)
Comment
Throughout the Bible, God smites those who do not believe in him or those who do not follow his commands. Here we have the grotesque description of infants dashed to pieces and pregnant women ripped up. Whatever rebellious nature an infant's father or mother may have had, it bears no justice to an innocent child or to an unborn fetus who could not possibly have rebelled against God, much less understood him.
Anyone who claims to love such a God, must accept infanticide as one of God's ugly revenges.
(See also Psalms 137:9)
The Wicked Woman
"Give me any plague, but the plague of the heart: and any wickedness, but the wickedness of a woman." (Eccles. 25:13)
"Of the woman came the beginning of sin, and through her we all die." (Eccles. 25:22)
"If she go not as thou wouldest have her, cut her off from thy flesh, and give her a bill of divorce, and let her go." (Eccles. 25: 26)
"The whoredom of a woman may be known in her haughty looks and eyelids. If thy daughter be shameless, keep her in straitly, lest she abuse herself through overmuch liberty." (Eccles. 26:9-10)
"A silent and loving woman is a gift of the Lord: and there is nothing so much worth as a mind well instructed. A shamefaced and faithful woman is a double grace, and her continent mind cannot be valued." (Eccles. 26:14-15)
"A shameless woman shall be counted as a dog; but she that is shamefaced will fear the Lord." (Eccles.26:25)
"For from garments cometh a moth, and from women wickedness. Better is the churlishness of a man than a courteous woman, a woman, I say, which bringeth shame and reproach." (Eccles. 42:13-14)
Comment
Ecclesiasticus of the Apocrypha does not appear in most Bibles. However, in Catholic Bibles, the inferiority of woman still appears in the verses of Ecclesiasticus. These verses give only a sampling from this book that lowers the status of women.divorce... the wife called her husband Ba'al or master; she also called him adon or lord; she addressed him, in fact, as a slave a"
Women's Inferior Status
Back To Table Of Contents
* Burn the daughter!
* Cut off her hand!
* Expose her breasts!
* Female births get penalty
* Female inferiority
* God's OK on abortion
* Jesus will kill children
* Kill the witches!
* Moses' mass murder
* Rape my daughter
* Raping and killing
* Silence the woman!
* Stone the woman
* 'Virgin' mistranslation
* Virgin's worth
* Wives, submit yourselves!
* Women shall not speak
* Women's sorrow
* Rip up pregnant women
* The wicked woman
The Dark Bible
Women's Inferior Status
Back To Table Of Contents
* Burn the daughter!
* Cut off her hand!
* Expose her breasts!
* Female births get penalty
* Female inferiority
* God's OK on abortion
* Jesus will kill children
* Kill the witches!
* Moses' mass murder
* Rape my daughter
* Raping and killing
* Silence the woman!
* Stone the woman
* "Virgin" mistranslation
* Virgin's worth
* Wives, submit yourselves!
* Women shall not speak
* Women's sorrow
* Rip up pregnant women
* The wicked woman
The Biblical view of women
The God of the Bible decrees that woman must submit to the dominance of man.
"The social and legal position of an Israelite wife was inferior to the position a wife occupied in the great countries round about... all the texts show that Israelites wanted mainly sons to perpetuate the family line and fortune, and to preserve the ancestral inheritance... A husband could divorce his wife; women on the other hand could not ask for divorce... the wife called her husband Ba'al or master; she also called him adon or lord; she addressed him, in fact, as a slave addressed his master or subject, his king. The Decalogue includes a man's wife among his possessions... all her life she remains a minor. The wife does not inherit from her husband, nor daughters from their father, except when there is no male heir. A vow made by a girl or married woman needs, to be valid, the consent of the father or husband and if this consent is withheld, the vow is null and void. A man had a right to sell his daughter. Women were excluded from the succession."
-Roland de Vaux, archaeologist and priest
Blue words represent Bible quotes
Burn The Daughter!
"And the daughter of any priest, if she profane herself by playing the whore, she profaneth her father: she shall be burnt with fire." (Leviticus 21:9)
Comment
A priest's daughter, if found to have lost her virginity without marriage, can receive the death penalty, but in the form of incineration.
How many fundamentalist priests who so easily condemn others would carry out the burning of their daughters if they found them "whoring"?
(See also Genesis 38:24)
Cut Off Her Hand!
"When men strive together one with another, and the wife of the one draweth near for to deliver her husband out of the hand of him that smiteth him, and putteth forth her hand, and taketh him by the secrets: then thou shalt cut off her hand, thine eye shall not pity her." (Deuteronomy 25:11-12)
Comment
A wife would naturally wish to come to the aid of her husband in any way she could if he desperately struggled with an opponent, but the Hebrew law specifically forbade a wife to help her husband in distress if that support consisted of her grabbing the enemy's genitals in an effort to stifle his onslaught. The penalty? Amputation of the hand that fondled the genitals!
Only in an overly obsessive male dominated culture could men create such atrocious laws. As such, the penis ranked sacrosanct in the minds of men (as it still stands today). If a male lost his penis for any reason, he would lose the right to enter a congregation of God. (See Deuteronomy 23:1)
Female Births Get Penalty
"Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If a woman have conceived seed, and born a man child: then she shall be unclean seven days; according to the days of the separation for her infirmity shall she be unclean." (Leviticus 12:2)
"But if she bear a maid child, then she shall be unclean two weeks, as in her separation: and she shall continue in the blood of her purifying threescore and six days." (Leviticus 12:5)
Comment
A woman who gives birth to a child must undergo a purification ritual lest her "uncleanness" contaminate others. This not only entails her isolation, but also payments to priests for the ritual acts. Thus the male dominators had even made birth dirty.
Notice here that if a woman bears a female child, her isolation must last twice as long as that if she gives birth to a male child!
(See also Psalms 51:3-5)
"The Bible and the church have been the greatest stumbling blocks in the way of woman's emancipation."
--Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Female Inferiority
"But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God." (I Corinthians 11:3)
"For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man." (I Corinthians 11:8-9)
Comment
The Bible's decree of male supremacy has kept woman inferior to men for centuries. For the religious, it comes as a sad fact that a human must have a penis to receive any respect or power within the Church.
All woman should realize that such phrases in the Bible has justified for many Christian men, not only their supremacy but a reason to sexually abuse women.
(See also I Cor. 14:34-36, I Timothy 2:8-15, I Peter 3:1-7, Ephesians 5:22-24, Col. 3:18-19)
Jesus Will Kill Children
"Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds. And I will kill her children with death; and all the churches shall know that I am he which searcheth the reins and hearts: and I will give unto every one of you according to your works." (Revelation 2:22-23)
Comment
If anyone thinks Jesus represents only a peaceful loving soul, then think again. For an act of adultery, Jesus would kill innocent children for the adultery of others; hardly fair justice, love, or the concern for human beings.
Some apologists claim that "children" refers to the followers of a cult of Jezebel and not to children birthed from Jezebel. However, if this proved the case, the situation would appear even more horrific, for a cult of believers could number in the dozens, hundreds, thousands, or more. The deaths of these multitude of cult believers (which would include children within its membership) would only make the moralistic problem far more atrocious.
"It's interesting to speculate how it developed that in two of the most anti-feminist institutions, the church and the law court, the men are wearing the dresses."
--Flo Kennedy
Kill The Witches!
"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. Whoever lieth with a beast shall surely be put to death. He that sacrificeth unto any god, save to the LORD only, he shall be utterly destroyed." (Exodus 22:18-20)
Comment
These verses attest to the power of belief as they led to the slaughter of thousands of defenseless people throughout Europe and the rest of the world.
Understand that these verses not only authorize the executions but they explicitly command them.
Verse 18 justified the burning of women in Europe judged as witches. In early America, the Salem witch trials resulted in the deaths of women and men.
Verse 19 refers to bestiality, a sin considered worthy of death. Christians used verse 20 to justify religious wars, Crusades and the slaughter of unbelievers throughout Europe. And the condemnation of heretics still goes on.
Rape My Daughter
"Behold, here is my daughter a maiden, and his concubine; them I will bring out now, and humble ye them, and do with them what seemeth good unto you: but unto this man do not so vile a thing. But the men would not hearken to him: so the man took his concubine, and brought her forth unto them; and they knew her, and abused her all the night until the morning: and when the day began to spring, they let her go." (Judges 19:24-25)
Comment
Judges 19 describe a father who offers his virgin daughter to a drunken mob. When the father says "unto this man do not so vile a thing," he makes clear that sexual abuse should never befall a man (meaning him), yet a woman, even his own flesh and blood, or a concubine belonging to a perfect stranger, can receive punishment from men to do what they wish. This attitude against women still persists to this day and we have the Bible, in large part, to thank for this attitude against women.
Verse 25 describes the hours long gang rape of the poor concubine. The Bible gives not one hint of passion or concern for the raped girl. Considering that many people believe that every word in the Bible comes from God, it should not surprise anyone why people still use these verses to justify such atrocities.
Silence The Woman!
"Let the women learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression." (I Timothy 2:11-14)
Comment
Another case where the Bible makes it quite clear that women live for man and must submit to them.
"Man enjoys the great advantage of having a god endorse the code he writes; and since man exercises a sovereign authority over women it is especially fortunate that this authority has been vested in him by the Supreme Being. For the Jews, Mohammedans and Christians among others, man is master by divine right; the fear of God will therefore repress any impulse towards revolt in the downtrodden female."
--Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex 1949
(See also I Cor. 11:3-12, I Cor. 14:34-36, I Peter 3:1-7, Ephesians 5:22-24, Col. 3:18-19.)
Stone The Woman!
"If a man be found lying with a woman married to an husband, and a man find her in the city, and lie with her;" (Deuteronomy 22:22)
"Then ye shall bring them both out unto the gate of that city, and ye shall stone them with stones that they die; the damsel, because she cried not, being in the city; and the man, because he hath humbled his neighbour's wife: so thou shalt put away evil from among you." (Deuteronomy 22:24)
Comment
(Read also Deuteronomy 22:13-21)
The discovery of a bride lying with another man can yield disastrous results.
If the wife's parents can produce tokens of the damsel's virginity and spread the cloth before the elders of the city, the husband has to pay the bride's father one hundred silver shekels and he may not send his wife back to her parents as long as she lives. But if the bride's virginity does not satisfy the requirements, the husband can get rid of her by letting the men of the city stone her to death.
From a practical level, these designed laws regulating women's virginity protected economic transactions between men rather than for the sake of morality. (See Virgin's Worth below)
"Virgin" Mistranslation
"Therefore the LORD himself shall give you a sign: Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel." (Isaiah 7:14)
Comment
Perhaps the most famous mistranslation of the Bible, the word virgin here comes from a mistranslated Greek word for virgin.
The original Hebrew version uses the word "almah" which means "young woman" which may or may not refer to a virgin. Of course the context of the original Hebrew Isaiah does not refer to a virgin at all, as scholars the world over agree, but only refers to a young woman.
Later, the author of Matthew 1:22-23, quoted from the mistranslated Isaiah version, and thus the error turned into a world-wide belief.
Today a few of the modern bibles such as the Revised Standard Version, have corrected this mistranslation and have replaced the word virgin with "young woman." (Isaiah 7:14, RSV)
Apparently either God makes errors or the Bible does not come from god, but rather from fallible men.
Virgin's Worth
"If a man find a damsel that is a virgin, which is not betrothed, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found; Then the man that lay with her shall give unto the damsel's father fifty shekels of silvers, and she shall be his wife; because he hath humbled her, he may not put her away all his days." (Deuteronomy 22:28-29)
Comment
The belief some get about the Biblical law leads them to think that it represented a great advancement in morality. However, if we look at this law in the social and economic context, it becomes evident that it did not come from any moral ground, but rather to protect men's property rights of their wives and daughters.
This law says that since an unmarried girl, a non-virgin, no longer serves as an economically valuable asset, her father must receive compensation. As for the legal requirement of the man that caused the economic problem, his marriage in that society gave him practically unlimited power over their wives. Such forced marriage can hardly serve as a concern for the poor girl's welfare.
Wives, Submit Yourselves!
"Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything." (Ephesians 5:22-24)
Comment
These words of Paul describe another instance for the calling of the submission of women to their husbands. Note that the all inclusive "everything" could allow husbands to submit their wives to anything, including rape, beatings, slavery, etc.
(See also I Cor. 11:3-12, I Cor. 14:34-36, I Timothy 2:8-15, I Peter 3:1-7, Col. 3:18-19.)
Women Shall Not Speak
"Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law. And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church." (I Corinthians 14:34-35)
Comment
If one ever wishes to find an explanation of woman's inferiority to men, one only has to look in the Bible. Paul makes clear and delineates the importance of woman recognizing her place, "ad nauseam."
(See also I Cor. 11:3-12, I Timothy 2:8-15, I Peter 3:1-7, Ephesians 5:22-24, Col. 3:18-19.)
"The bible teaches that women brought sin and death into the world, that she precipitated the fall of the race, that she was arraigned before the judgment seat of Heaven, tried, condemned and sentenced. Marriage for her was to be a condition of bondage, maternity a period suffering and anguish, and in silence and subjection, she was to play the role of a dependent on man's bounty for all her material wants, and for all the information she might desire... Here is the Bible position of woman briefly summed up."
--Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Women's Sorrow
"Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee." (Genesis 3:16)
Comment
Not only does the Woman get blamed for the Fall, but God decides to multiply her sorrow, plus, she must submit to her husband like a slave.
Religionists have used this verse as justification and "reason" for the pain and punishment (sin) of childbirth and the sin of mankind. And to this day many Christians, Jews and Islamics place women lower then men in the ranking of Godly order. If ever there existed a more cruel justification against women, it could not have done as much damage as from belief in Genesis 3:16. Because of the belief in the Fall, countless Christians have branded the entire human race as depraved.
Before the advent of male dominated religions, cultures around the world respected women and worshipped goddesses. The Old Testament records the brutal slaughter of surrounding cultures and slowly throughout the centuries, the goddess religions faded away in place of the belief-system of a jealous, scatological, male war god.
"Christianity teaches that the human race is depraved, fallen, and sinful."
--D. James Kennedy (Why I Believe, World Publishing, 1980)
Rip Up Pregnant Women
"Samaria shall become desolate; for she hath rebelled against her God: they shall fall by the sword: their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with child shall be ripped up." (Hosea 13:16)
Comment
Throughout the Bible, God smites those who do not believe in him or those who do not follow his commands. Here we have the grotesque description of infants dashed to pieces and pregnant women ripped up. Whatever rebellious nature an infant's father or mother may have had, it bears no justice to an innocent child or to an unborn fetus who could not possibly have rebelled against God, much less understood him.
Anyone who claims to love such a God, must accept infanticide as one of God's ugly revenges.
(See also Psalms 137:9)
The Wicked Woman
"Give me any plague, but the plague of the heart: and any wickedness, but the wickedness of a woman." (Eccles. 25:13)
"Of the woman came the beginning of sin, and through her we all die." (Eccles. 25:22)
"If she go not as thou wouldest have her, cut her off from thy flesh, and give her a bill of divorce, and let her go." (Eccles. 25: 26)
"The whoredom of a woman may be known in her haughty looks and eyelids. If thy daughter be shameless, keep her in straitly, lest she abuse herself through overmuch liberty." (Eccles. 26:9-10)
"A silent and loving woman is a gift of the Lord: and there is nothing so much worth as a mind well instructed. A shamefaced and faithful woman is a double grace, and her continent mind cannot be valued." (Eccles. 26:14-15)
"A shameless woman shall be counted as a dog; but she that is shamefaced will fear the Lord." (Eccles.26:25)
"For from garments cometh a moth, and from women wickedness. Better is the churlishness of a man than a courteous woman, a woman, I say, which bringeth shame and reproach." (Eccles. 42:13-14)
Comment
Ecclesiasticus of the Apocrypha does not appear in most Bibles. However, in Catholic Bibles, the inferiority of woman still appears in the verses of Ecclesiasticus. These verses give only a sampling from this book that lowers the status of women.divorce... the wife called her husband Ba'al or master; she also called him adon or lord; she addressed him, in fact, as a slave a"
Welcome to The Barna Group!
Welcome to The Barna Group!: "Born Again Christians Just As Likely to Divorce As Are Non-Christians
September 8, 2004
Born Again Christians Just As Likely to Divorce As Are Non-Christians
September 8, 2004
(Ventura, CA) - Recent legislation, lawsuits and public demonstrations over the legality of gay marriage are just one battlefront regarding the institution of marriage. A new study released by The Barna Group, of Ventura, California, shows that the likelihood of married adults getting divorced is identical among born again Christians and those who are not born again. The study also cited attitudinal data showing that most Americans reject the notion that divorce is a sin.
Based on interviews with a nationally representative sample of 3614 adults, the Barna survey focused on the three-quarters of adults 18 years of age or older who have been married at least once. The study identified those who had been divorced; the age at which they were divorced; how many divorces they have experienced; and the age at which the born again Christians had accepted Jesus Christ as their savior. Comparing the ages when divorced adults had accepted Christ and when they underwent their divorce, the researchers were able to determine both the impact of one’s faith commitment on the resilience of the marriage and whether the divorce occurred before or after their born again commitment. The survey also examined whether people believe that divorce is a sin in situations where adultery is not involved.
More Than One-Third Call It Quits
Among all adults 18 and older, three out of four (73%) have been married and half (51%) are currently married. (That does not include the 3% who are presently separated from their marriage partner.) Among those who have been married, more than one out of every three (35%) have also been divorced. One out of every five adults (18%) who has ever been divorced has been divorced multiple times. That represents 7% of all Americans who have been married.
The average age at which people first dissolve their initial marriage tends to be in the early thirties. Among people in their mid-fifties or older, the median age of their first divorce was 34. Among Baby Boomers, millions more of whom are expected to get a divorce within the coming decade, the median age of the first divorce is currently 31. The Barna Group expects the average age of a first divorce among Boomers to be similar to that of the preceding generations by 2015, as the aging members of that generation sustain divorces later in life.
The research revealed that Boomers continue to push the limits regarding the prevalence of divorce. Whereas just one-third (33%) of the married adults from the preceding two generations had experienced a divorce, almost half of all married Boomers (46%) have already undergone a marital split. This means Boomers are virtually certain to become the first generation for which a majority experienced a divorce.
It appears that the generation following the Boomers will reach similar heights, since more than one-quarter of the married Baby Busters (27%) have already undergone a divorce, despite the fact that the youngest one-fifth of that generation has not even reached the average age of a first marriage.
Christians Have Same Incidence of Divorce
Although many Christian churches attempt to dissuade congregants from getting a divorce, the research confirmed a finding identified by Barna a decade ago (and further confirmed through tracking studies conducted each year since): born again Christians have the same likelihood of divorce as do non-Christians.
Among married born again Christians, 35% have experienced a divorce. That figure is identical to the outcome among married adults who are not born again: 35%.
George Barna noted that one reason why the divorce statistic among non-Born again adults is not higher is that a larger proportion of that group cohabits, effectively side-stepping marriage - and divorce - altogether. "Among born again adults, 80% have been married, compared to just 69% among the non-born again segment. If the non-born again population were to marry at the same rate as the born again group, it is likely that their divorce statistic would be roughly 38% - marginally higher than that among the born again group, but still surprisingly similar in magnitude."
Barna also noted that he analyzed the data according to the ages at which survey respondents were divorced and the age at which those who were Christian accepted Jesus Christ as their savior. "The data suggest that relatively few divorced Christians experienced their divorce before accepting Christ as their savior," he explained. "If we eliminate those who became Christians after their divorce, the divorce figure among born again adults drops to 34% - statistically identical to the figure among non-Christians." The researcher also indicated that a surprising number of Christians experienced divorces both before and after their conversion.
Multiple divorces are also unexpectedly common among born again Christians. Barna’s figures show that nearly one-quarter of the married born agains (23%) get divorced two or more times.
The survey showed that divorce varied somewhat by a person’s denominational affiliation. Catholics were substantially less likely than Protestants to get divorced (25% versus 39%, respectively). Among the largest Protestant groups, those most likely to get divorced were Pentecostals (44%) while Presbyterians had the fewest divorces (28%).
Is Divorce A Sin?
Although Bible scholars and teachers point out that Jesus taught that divorce was a sin unless adultery was involved, few Americans buy that notion. Only one out of every seven adults (15%) strongly agreed with the statement "when a couple gets divorced without one of them having committed adultery, they are committing a sin." A similar percentage (16%) moderately agreed with the statement. The vast majority - 66% - disagreed with the statement, most of them strongly dismissing the notion.
Faith perspectives made a difference in people’s views on this matter - but not as much as might have expected. Born again adults were twice as likely as non-born agains (24% vs. 10%) to strongly affirm this statement. However, a majority of the born again group (52%) disagreed that divorce without adultery is sin. Three-quarters of all non-born again adults (74%) disagreed with the statement.
A majority of both Protestants (58%) and Catholics (69%) disagreed that divorce without adultery involved in the commission of sin.
There was no difference in point-of-view on this matter across the generational groups. The largest difference among subgroups of the population was between blacks and whites. Just half of the black segment (49%) disagreed with the survey statement compared to seven out of ten white adults (70%). Hispanics were in-between those extremes (64% disagreed.)
No End In Sight
Barna stated that there is no end in sight regarding divorce. "You can understand why atheists and agnostics might have a high rate of divorce, since they are less likely to believe in concepts such as sin, absolute moral truth and judgment. Yet the survey found that the percentage of atheists and agnostics who have been married and divorced is 37% - very similar to the numbers for the born again population. Given the current growth in the number of atheists and agnostics, and that the younger two generations are predisposed to divorce, we do not anticipate a reversal of the present pattern within the next decade."
Research Methods
The data described in this report are based on nationwide telephone interviews conducted by The Barna Group with a random sample of 3614 adults, age 18 or older, between January and August 2004. The maximum margin of sampling error associated with the aggregate sample of adults is ±1.9 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. The maximum sampling error associated with the 1468 born again Christians interviewed is ±2.6 percentage points; with the 2147 non-born again adults, ±2.2 percentage points; with the 1246 Baby Busters, born between 1965 and 1983, ±2.9 percentage points; with the 1275 Baby Boomers, born between 1946 and 1964, ±2.9 percentage points; and with the 829 elder adults, born 1945 or earlier, ±3.5 percentage points.
People in the 48 continental states were eligible to be interviewed and the distribution of those individuals coincided with the geographic dispersion of the U.S. population. The data were subjected to minimal statistical weighting to calibrate the survey base to national demographic proportions. Households selected for inclusion in the telephone sample received multiple callbacks to increase the probability of including a reliable distribution of qualified individuals.
“Born again Christians" were defined in these surveys as people who said they have made "a personal commitment to Jesus Christ that is still important in their life today" and who also indicated they believe that when they die they will go to Heaven because they had confessed their sins and had accepted Jesus Christ as their savior. Respondents were not asked to describe themselves as "born again." Being classified as "born again" is not dependent upon church or denominational affiliation or involvement.
The Barna Group, Ltd., and its research division (The Barna Research Group), is an independent cultural analysis and strategic consulting firm located in Ventura, California. Since 1984, it has been conducting and analyzing primary research to understand cultural trends related to values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors. If you would like to receive free e-mail notification of the release of each new, bi-weekly update on the latest research findings from The Barna Group, you may subscribe to this free service at the Barna web site (www.barna.org).
September 8, 2004
Born Again Christians Just As Likely to Divorce As Are Non-Christians
September 8, 2004
(Ventura, CA) - Recent legislation, lawsuits and public demonstrations over the legality of gay marriage are just one battlefront regarding the institution of marriage. A new study released by The Barna Group, of Ventura, California, shows that the likelihood of married adults getting divorced is identical among born again Christians and those who are not born again. The study also cited attitudinal data showing that most Americans reject the notion that divorce is a sin.
Based on interviews with a nationally representative sample of 3614 adults, the Barna survey focused on the three-quarters of adults 18 years of age or older who have been married at least once. The study identified those who had been divorced; the age at which they were divorced; how many divorces they have experienced; and the age at which the born again Christians had accepted Jesus Christ as their savior. Comparing the ages when divorced adults had accepted Christ and when they underwent their divorce, the researchers were able to determine both the impact of one’s faith commitment on the resilience of the marriage and whether the divorce occurred before or after their born again commitment. The survey also examined whether people believe that divorce is a sin in situations where adultery is not involved.
More Than One-Third Call It Quits
Among all adults 18 and older, three out of four (73%) have been married and half (51%) are currently married. (That does not include the 3% who are presently separated from their marriage partner.) Among those who have been married, more than one out of every three (35%) have also been divorced. One out of every five adults (18%) who has ever been divorced has been divorced multiple times. That represents 7% of all Americans who have been married.
The average age at which people first dissolve their initial marriage tends to be in the early thirties. Among people in their mid-fifties or older, the median age of their first divorce was 34. Among Baby Boomers, millions more of whom are expected to get a divorce within the coming decade, the median age of the first divorce is currently 31. The Barna Group expects the average age of a first divorce among Boomers to be similar to that of the preceding generations by 2015, as the aging members of that generation sustain divorces later in life.
The research revealed that Boomers continue to push the limits regarding the prevalence of divorce. Whereas just one-third (33%) of the married adults from the preceding two generations had experienced a divorce, almost half of all married Boomers (46%) have already undergone a marital split. This means Boomers are virtually certain to become the first generation for which a majority experienced a divorce.
It appears that the generation following the Boomers will reach similar heights, since more than one-quarter of the married Baby Busters (27%) have already undergone a divorce, despite the fact that the youngest one-fifth of that generation has not even reached the average age of a first marriage.
Christians Have Same Incidence of Divorce
Although many Christian churches attempt to dissuade congregants from getting a divorce, the research confirmed a finding identified by Barna a decade ago (and further confirmed through tracking studies conducted each year since): born again Christians have the same likelihood of divorce as do non-Christians.
Among married born again Christians, 35% have experienced a divorce. That figure is identical to the outcome among married adults who are not born again: 35%.
George Barna noted that one reason why the divorce statistic among non-Born again adults is not higher is that a larger proportion of that group cohabits, effectively side-stepping marriage - and divorce - altogether. "Among born again adults, 80% have been married, compared to just 69% among the non-born again segment. If the non-born again population were to marry at the same rate as the born again group, it is likely that their divorce statistic would be roughly 38% - marginally higher than that among the born again group, but still surprisingly similar in magnitude."
Barna also noted that he analyzed the data according to the ages at which survey respondents were divorced and the age at which those who were Christian accepted Jesus Christ as their savior. "The data suggest that relatively few divorced Christians experienced their divorce before accepting Christ as their savior," he explained. "If we eliminate those who became Christians after their divorce, the divorce figure among born again adults drops to 34% - statistically identical to the figure among non-Christians." The researcher also indicated that a surprising number of Christians experienced divorces both before and after their conversion.
Multiple divorces are also unexpectedly common among born again Christians. Barna’s figures show that nearly one-quarter of the married born agains (23%) get divorced two or more times.
The survey showed that divorce varied somewhat by a person’s denominational affiliation. Catholics were substantially less likely than Protestants to get divorced (25% versus 39%, respectively). Among the largest Protestant groups, those most likely to get divorced were Pentecostals (44%) while Presbyterians had the fewest divorces (28%).
Is Divorce A Sin?
Although Bible scholars and teachers point out that Jesus taught that divorce was a sin unless adultery was involved, few Americans buy that notion. Only one out of every seven adults (15%) strongly agreed with the statement "when a couple gets divorced without one of them having committed adultery, they are committing a sin." A similar percentage (16%) moderately agreed with the statement. The vast majority - 66% - disagreed with the statement, most of them strongly dismissing the notion.
Faith perspectives made a difference in people’s views on this matter - but not as much as might have expected. Born again adults were twice as likely as non-born agains (24% vs. 10%) to strongly affirm this statement. However, a majority of the born again group (52%) disagreed that divorce without adultery is sin. Three-quarters of all non-born again adults (74%) disagreed with the statement.
A majority of both Protestants (58%) and Catholics (69%) disagreed that divorce without adultery involved in the commission of sin.
There was no difference in point-of-view on this matter across the generational groups. The largest difference among subgroups of the population was between blacks and whites. Just half of the black segment (49%) disagreed with the survey statement compared to seven out of ten white adults (70%). Hispanics were in-between those extremes (64% disagreed.)
No End In Sight
Barna stated that there is no end in sight regarding divorce. "You can understand why atheists and agnostics might have a high rate of divorce, since they are less likely to believe in concepts such as sin, absolute moral truth and judgment. Yet the survey found that the percentage of atheists and agnostics who have been married and divorced is 37% - very similar to the numbers for the born again population. Given the current growth in the number of atheists and agnostics, and that the younger two generations are predisposed to divorce, we do not anticipate a reversal of the present pattern within the next decade."
Research Methods
The data described in this report are based on nationwide telephone interviews conducted by The Barna Group with a random sample of 3614 adults, age 18 or older, between January and August 2004. The maximum margin of sampling error associated with the aggregate sample of adults is ±1.9 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. The maximum sampling error associated with the 1468 born again Christians interviewed is ±2.6 percentage points; with the 2147 non-born again adults, ±2.2 percentage points; with the 1246 Baby Busters, born between 1965 and 1983, ±2.9 percentage points; with the 1275 Baby Boomers, born between 1946 and 1964, ±2.9 percentage points; and with the 829 elder adults, born 1945 or earlier, ±3.5 percentage points.
People in the 48 continental states were eligible to be interviewed and the distribution of those individuals coincided with the geographic dispersion of the U.S. population. The data were subjected to minimal statistical weighting to calibrate the survey base to national demographic proportions. Households selected for inclusion in the telephone sample received multiple callbacks to increase the probability of including a reliable distribution of qualified individuals.
“Born again Christians" were defined in these surveys as people who said they have made "a personal commitment to Jesus Christ that is still important in their life today" and who also indicated they believe that when they die they will go to Heaven because they had confessed their sins and had accepted Jesus Christ as their savior. Respondents were not asked to describe themselves as "born again." Being classified as "born again" is not dependent upon church or denominational affiliation or involvement.
The Barna Group, Ltd., and its research division (The Barna Research Group), is an independent cultural analysis and strategic consulting firm located in Ventura, California. Since 1984, it has been conducting and analyzing primary research to understand cultural trends related to values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors. If you would like to receive free e-mail notification of the release of each new, bi-weekly update on the latest research findings from The Barna Group, you may subscribe to this free service at the Barna web site (www.barna.org).
The Five Faces of False Religion -- By Elroy
The Five Faces of False Religion -- By Elroy: "Without assuming there is an actual 'true' religion, it's safe to argue that all false religions will exhibit one or more of these five manifestations:
Without assuming there is an actual 'true' religion, it's safe to argue that all false religions will exhibit one or more of these five manifestations:
1. The requirement to proselytize
Any God who is too powerless to reach his or her creation directly must not be a true God worthy of being followed. Humans are the worst vehicles for broadcasting knowledge when you consider two people who see the same exact event will tell two different stories about it, not to mention when they're asked to tell second and third-hand stories told them by others. False religions are easily exposed when they send out their members to make more followers for their impotent deity.
2. The requirement to pay a tithe
Any God who cannot afford to support his or her believers in their chosen doctrines must not be a true God worthy of being followed. If God created everything, then God certainly doesn't need his followers to pay his way. Why would God ask us on a date and then make us pick up the tab? False religions can be deftly divined when they start asking you for money.
3. Being founded by a human prophet
Any God who relies on fallible human beings to speak on his or her behalf is not worthy of being followed. Using a human only leads to different interpretations and understandings, which is why there are no major religions that have not splintered into contradicting congregations. False religions can be quickly culled from the pack when you find out they were created by a human prophet.
4. Fear-based decisions
Any God who uses the threat of violence against humans if they don't follow his or her word is not worthy of being followed. The threat of violence removes free choice and creates an inability to know if a follower really loves the God or merely feigns love out of fear of the afterlife. False religions can be immediately identified when they threaten you with eternal torture for ignoring their message.
5. Reward-based incentives
Any God who must bribe people to follow him or her is not worthy of being followed. What kind of God needs to rely on the selfish motivations of humans to get them as his or her followers? What kind of God needs to use payoffs to get people to show their adoration? False religions can be overtly outed when they try to entice you to follow their beliefs with promises of rewards and prizes.
In summary, if your religion or faith-based system of beliefs exhibits one or more of these characteristics, you can be sure it is man-made dogma and most certainly is a false religion.
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# Send Comments to: el@elroy.com
Without assuming there is an actual 'true' religion, it's safe to argue that all false religions will exhibit one or more of these five manifestations:
1. The requirement to proselytize
Any God who is too powerless to reach his or her creation directly must not be a true God worthy of being followed. Humans are the worst vehicles for broadcasting knowledge when you consider two people who see the same exact event will tell two different stories about it, not to mention when they're asked to tell second and third-hand stories told them by others. False religions are easily exposed when they send out their members to make more followers for their impotent deity.
2. The requirement to pay a tithe
Any God who cannot afford to support his or her believers in their chosen doctrines must not be a true God worthy of being followed. If God created everything, then God certainly doesn't need his followers to pay his way. Why would God ask us on a date and then make us pick up the tab? False religions can be deftly divined when they start asking you for money.
3. Being founded by a human prophet
Any God who relies on fallible human beings to speak on his or her behalf is not worthy of being followed. Using a human only leads to different interpretations and understandings, which is why there are no major religions that have not splintered into contradicting congregations. False religions can be quickly culled from the pack when you find out they were created by a human prophet.
4. Fear-based decisions
Any God who uses the threat of violence against humans if they don't follow his or her word is not worthy of being followed. The threat of violence removes free choice and creates an inability to know if a follower really loves the God or merely feigns love out of fear of the afterlife. False religions can be immediately identified when they threaten you with eternal torture for ignoring their message.
5. Reward-based incentives
Any God who must bribe people to follow him or her is not worthy of being followed. What kind of God needs to rely on the selfish motivations of humans to get them as his or her followers? What kind of God needs to use payoffs to get people to show their adoration? False religions can be overtly outed when they try to entice you to follow their beliefs with promises of rewards and prizes.
In summary, if your religion or faith-based system of beliefs exhibits one or more of these characteristics, you can be sure it is man-made dogma and most certainly is a false religion.
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Iraq, US soldiers - Accustomed to Their Own Atrocities in Iraq, U.S. Soldiers Have Become Murderers by Chris Hedges, Adbusters
Iraq, US soldiers - Accustomed to Their Own Atrocities in Iraq, U.S. Soldiers Have Become Murderers by Chris Hedges, Adbusters: "Accustomed to Their Own Atrocities in Iraq, U.S. Soldiers Have Become Murderers
by Chris Hedges, Adbusters
www.alternet.org, July 27, 2007
Accustomed to Their Own Atrocities in Iraq, U.S. Soldiers Have Become Murderers
by Chris Hedges, Adbusters
www.alternet.org, July 27, 2007
After four years of war, American Marines and soldiers have become socialized to atrocity. The war in Iraq is now primarily about murder. There is very little killing.
All troops, when they occupy and battle insurgent forces, as in Iraq, or Gaza or Vietnam, are placed in "atrocity producing situations."
In this environment, surrounded by a hostile population, simple acts such as going to a store to buy a can of Coke means you can be killed. This constant fear and stress pushes troops to view everyone around them as the enemy. This hostility is compounded when the enemy, as in Iraq, is elusive, shadowy and hard to find.
The rage soldiers feel after a roadside bomb explodes, killing or maiming their comrades, is one that is easily directed over time to innocent civilians who are seen to support the insurgents. It is a short psychological leap, but a massive moral leap. It is a leap from killing -- the shooting of someone who has the capacity to do you harm -- to murder -- the deadly assault against someone who cannot harm you. The war in Iraq is now primarily about murder. There is very little killing.
After four years of war, American Marines and soldiers have become socialized to atrocity. The American killing project is not described in these terms to a distant public. The politicians still speak in the abstract terms of glory, honor, and heroism, in the necessity of improving the world, in lofty phrases of political and spiritual renewal. Those who kill large numbers of people always claim it as a virtue. The campaign to rid the world of terror is expressed with this rhetoric, as if once all terrorists are destroyed evil itself will vanish.
The reality behind the myth, however, is very different. The reality and the ideal clash when soldiers and Marines return home, alienating these combat veterans from the world around them, a world that still dines out on the myth of war and the virtues of the nation. But slowly returning veterans are giving us a new narrative of the war -- one that exposes the vast enterprise of industrial slaughter unleashed in Iraq for a lie and sustained because of wounded national pride and willful ignorance. "This unit sets up this traffic control point and this 18 year old kid is on top of an armored Humvee with a .50 caliber machine gun," remembered Geoffrey Millard who served in Tikrit with the 42nd Infantry Division. "And this car speeds at him pretty quick and he makes a split second decision that that's a suicide bomber, and he presses the butterfly trigger and puts 200 rounds in less than a minute into this vehicle. It killed the mother, a father and two kids. The boy was aged four and the daughter was aged three."
"And they briefed this to the general," Millard said, "and they briefed it gruesome. I mean, they had pictures. They briefed it to him. And this colonel turns around to this full division staff and says, 'if these fucking Hadjis learned to drive, this shit wouldn't happen.'"
Those who come back from war, like Millard and tens of thousands of other veterans, suffer not only delayed reactions to stress, but a crisis of faith. The God they knew, or thought they knew, failed them. The church or the synagogue or the mosque, which promised redemption by serving God and country, did not prepare them for the betrayal of this civic religion, for the capacity we all have for human atrocity, for the lies and myths used to mask the reality of war. War is always about betrayal, betrayal of the young by the old, of idealists by cynics and of troops by politicians. This bitter knowledge of betrayal has seeped into the ranks of American troops.
It has unleashed a new wave of embittered veterans not seen since the Vietnam War. It has made it possible for us to begin, again, to see war's death mask.
"And then, you know, my sort of sentiment of what the fuck are we doing, that I felt that way in Iraq," said Sergeant Ben Flanders, who estimated that he ran hundreds of convoys in Iraq. "It's the sort of insanity of it and the fact that it reduces it. Well, I think war does anyway, but I felt like there was this enormous reduction in my compassion for people, the only thing that wound up mattering is myself and the guys that I was with. And everybody else be damned, whether you are an Iraqi, I'm sorry, I'm sorry you live here, I'm sorry this is a terrible situation, and I'm sorry that you have to deal with all of, you know, army vehicles running around and shooting, and these insurgents and all this stuff.
"The first briefing you get when you get off the plane in Kuwait, and you get off the plane and you're holding a duffle bag in each hand," Millard remembered. "You've got your weapon slung. You've got a web sack on your back. You're dying of heat. You're tired. You're jet-lagged. Your mind is just full of goop. And then, you're scared on top of that, because, you know, you're in Kuwait, you're not in the States anymore so fear sets in, too. And they sit you into this little briefing room and you get this briefing about how, you know, you can't trust any of these fucking Hadjis, because all these fucking Hadjis are going to kill you. And Hadji is always used as a term of disrespect and usually, with the 'f' word in front of it."
War is also the pornography of violence. It has a dark beauty, filled with the monstrous and the grotesque. The Bible calls it "the lust of the eye" and warns believers against it. War allows us to engage in lusts and passions we keep hidden in the deepest, most private interiors of our fantasy life. It allows us to destroy not only things but human beings. In that moment of wholesale destruction, we wield the power to the divine, the power to revoke another person's charter to live on this earth. The frenzy of this destruction -- and when unit discipline breaks down, or there was no unit discipline to begin with, frenzy is the right word -- sees armed bands crazed by the poisonous elixir our power to bring about the obliteration of others delivers. All things, including human beings, become objects -- objects to either gratify or destroy or both. Almost no one is immune. The contagion of the crowd sees to that.
Human beings are machine gunned and bombed from the air, automatic grenade launchers pepper hovels and neighbors with high-powered explosive devices and convoys race through Iraq like freight trains of death. These soldiers and Marines have at their fingertips the heady ability to call in air strikes and firepower that obliterate landscapes and villages in fiery infernos. They can instantly give or deprive human life, and with this power they became sick and demented. The moral universe is turned upside down. All human beings are used as objects. And no one walks away uninfected. War thrusts us into a vortex of pain and fleeting ecstasy. It thrusts us into a world where law is of little consequence, human life is cheap and the gratification of the moment becomes the overriding desire that must be satiated, even at the cost of another's dignity or life.
"A lot of guys really supported that whole concept that, you know, if they don't speak English and they have darker skin, they're not as human as us, so we can do what we want," said Josh Middleton, who served in the 82nd Airborne in Iraq. "And you know, when 20 year old kids are yelled at back and forth at Bragg and we're picking up cigarette butts and getting yelled at every day to find a dirty weapon. But over here, it's like life and death. And 40-year-old Iraqi men look at us with fear and we can -- do you know what I mean? -- we have this power that you can't have. That's really liberating. Life is just knocked down to this primal level of, you know, you worry about where the next food's going to come from, the next sleep or the next patrol and to stay alive."
"It's like you feel like, I don't know, if you're a caveman," he added. "Do you know what I mean? Just, you know, I mean, this is how life is supposed to be. Life and death, essentially. No TV. None of that bullshit."
It takes little in wartime to turn ordinary men into killers. Most give themselves willingly to the seduction of unlimited power to destroy, and all feel the peer pressure to conform. Few, once in battle, find the strength to resist. Physical courage is common on a battlefield. Moral courage is not.
Military machines and state bureaucracies, who seek to make us obey, seek also to silence those who return from war to speak the truth, to hide from a public eager for stories of war that fit the mythic narrative the essence of war which is death.
Camilo Mejia, who eventually applied while still on active duty to become a conscientious objector, said the ugly side of American racism and chauvinism appeared the moment his unit arrived in the Middle East. Fellow soldiers instantly ridiculed Arab-style toilets because they would be "shitting like dogs." The troops around him treated Iraqis, whose language they did not speak and whose culture was alien, little better than animals. The word "Hadji" swiftly became a slur to refer to Iraqis, in much the same way "gook" was used to debase the Vietnamese or "rag head" is used to belittle those in Afghanistan.
Soon those around him ridiculed "Hadji food," "Hadji homes," and "Hadji music." Bewildered prisoners, who were rounded up in useless and indiscriminate raids, were stripped naked, and left to stand terrified and bewildered for hours in the baking sun. They were subjected to a steady torrent of verbal and physical abuse. "I experienced horrible confusion," Mejia remembers, "not knowing whether I was more afraid for the detainees or for what would happen to me if I did anything to help them."
These scenes of abuse, which began immediately after the American invasion, were little more than collective acts of sadism. Mejia watched, not daring to intervene, yet increasingly disgusted at the treatment of Iraqi civilians. He saw how the callous and unchecked abuse of power first led to alienation among Iraqis and spawned a raw hatred of the occupation forces. When army units raided homes, the soldiers burst in on frightened families, forced them to huddle in the corners at gun point, and helped themselves to food and items in the house.
"After we arrested drivers," he recalled, "we would choose whichever vehicles we liked, fuel them from confiscated jerry cans, and conduct undercover presence patrols in the impounded cars.
"But to this day I cannot find a single good answer as to why I stood by idly during the abuse of those prisoners except, of course, my own cowardice," he also notes.
Iraqi families were routinely fired upon for getting too close to check points, including an incident where an unarmed father driving a car was decapitated by a 50-caliber machine gun in front of his small son, although by then, Mejia notes, "this sort of killing of civilians had long ceased to arouse much interest or even comment." Soldiers shot holes into cans of gasoline being sold alongside the road and then tossed incendiary grenades into the pools to set them ablaze. "It's fun to shoot shit up," a soldier said. Some open fire on small children throwing rocks. And when improvised explosive devices go off the troops fire wildly into densely populated neighborhoods, leaving behind innocent victims who become, in the callous language of war, "collateral damage."
"We would drive on the wrong side of the highway to reduce the risk of being hit by an IED," Mejia said of the deadly roadside bombs. "This forced oncoming vehicles to move to one side of the road, and considerably slowed down the flow of traffic. In order to avoid being held up in traffic jams, where someone could roll a grenade under our trucks, we would simply drive up on sidewalks, running over garbage cans and even hitting civilian vehicles to push them out of the way. Many of the soldiers would laugh and shriek at these tactics."
At one point the unit was surrounded by an angry crowd protesting the occupation. Mejia and his squad opened fire on an Iraqi holding a grenade, riddling the man's body with bullets. Mejia checked his clip afterwards and determined that he fired 11 rounds into the young man. Units, he said, nonchalantly opened fire in crowded neighborhoods with heavy M-240 Bravo machine guns, AT-4 launchers and Mark 19s, a machine gun that spits out grenades.
"The frustration that resulted from our inability to get back at those who were attacking us," Mejia writes, "led to tactics that seemed designed simply to punish the local population that was supporting them."
He watched soldiers from his unit abuse the corpses of Iraqi dead. Mejia related how, in one incident, soldiers laughed as an Iraqi corpse fell from the back of a truck.
"Take a picture of me and this motherfucker," one of the soldiers who had been in Mejia's squad in third platoon said, putting his arm around the corpse.
The shroud fell away from the body revealing a young man wearing only his pants. There was a bullet hole in his chest.
"Damn, they really fucked you up, didn't they!?" the soldier laughed.
The scene, Mejia noted, was witnessed by the dead man's brothers and cousins. Senior officers, protected in heavily fortified compounds, rarely saw combat. They sent their troops on futile missions in the quest to be awarded Combat Infantry Badges. This recognition, Mejia notes, "was essential to their further progress up the officer ranks." This pattern meant that "very few high-ranking officers actually got out into the action, and lower-ranking officers were afraid to contradict them when they were wrong." When the badges, bearing an emblem of a musket with the hammer dropped, resting on top of an oak wreath, were finally awarded, the commanders immediately brought in Iraqi tailors to sew the badges on the left breast pockets of their desert combat uniforms.
"This was one occasion when our leaders led from the front," Mejia noted bitterly. "They were among the first to visit the tailors to get their little patches of glory sewn next to their hearts."
The war breeds gratuitous and constant acts of violence.
"I mean, if someone has a fan, they're a white collar family," said Phillip Chrystal, who carried out raids on Iraqi homes in Kirkuk. "So we get started on this day, this one, in particular. And it starts with the psy ops [psychological operations] vehicles out there, you know, with the big speakers playing a message in Arabic or Farsi or Kurdish or whatever they happen to be saying, basically, saying put your weapons, if you have them, next to the front door in your house. Please come outside, blah, blah, blah, blah. And we had Apaches flying over for security, if they're needed, and it's also a good show of force. And we were running around, and we'd done a few houses by this point, and I was with my platoon leader, my squad leader and maybe a couple other people, but I don't really remember.
"And we were approaching this one house, and this farming area, they're, like, built up into little courtyards," he said. "So they have like the main house, common area. They have like a kitchen and then, they have like a storage shed-type deal. And we were approaching, and they had a family dog. And it was barking ferociously, because it was doing its job. And my squad leader, just out of nowhere, just shoots it. And he didn't -- mother fucker -- he shot it and it went in the jaw and exited out. So I see this dog -- and I'm a huge animal lover. I love animals -- and this dog has like these eyes on it and he's running around spraying blood all over the place. And like, you know, the family is sitting right there with three little children and a mom and a dad horrified. And I'm at a loss for words. And so, I yell at him. I'm like what the fuck are you doing.
"And so, the dog's yelping. It's crying out without a jaw. And I'm looking at the family, and they're just scared. And so, I told them I was like fucking shoot it, you know. At least, kill it, because that can't be fixed. It's suffering. And I actually get tears from just saying this right now, but -- and I had tears then, too, -- and I'm looking at the kids and they are so scared. So I got the interpreter over with me and, you know, I get my wallet out and I gave them 20 bucks, because that's what I had. And, you know, I had him give it to them and told them that I'm so sorry that asshole did that. Which was very common. I don't know if it's rednecks or what, but they feel that shooting dogs is something that adds to one's manliness traits. I don't know. I had a big problem with that.
"Was a report ever filed about it?" he asked. "Was anything ever done? Any punishment ever dished out? No, absolutely not. He was a sycophant down to the T."
We make our heroes out of clay. We laud their gallant deeds and give them uniforms with colored ribbons on their chest for the acts of violence they committed or endured. They are our false repositories of glory and honor, of power, of self-righteousness, of patriotism and self-worship, all that we want to believe about ourselves. They are our plaster saints of war, the icons we cheer to defend us and make us and our nation great. They are the props of our civic religion, our love of power and force, our belief in our right as a chosen nation to wield this force against the weak and rule. This is our nation's idolatry of itself. And this idolatry has corrupted religious institutions, not only here but in most nations, making it impossible for us to separate the will of God from the will of the state.
Prophets are not those who speak of piety and duty from pulpits -- few people in pulpits have much worth listening to -- but it is the battered wrecks of men and women who return from Iraq and speak the halting words we do not want to hear, words that we must listen to and heed to know ourselves. They tell us war is a soulless void. They have seen and tasted how war plunges us to barbarity, perversion, pain and an unchecked orgy of death. And it is their testimonies alone that have the redemptive power to save us from ourselves.
by Chris Hedges, Adbusters
www.alternet.org, July 27, 2007
Accustomed to Their Own Atrocities in Iraq, U.S. Soldiers Have Become Murderers
by Chris Hedges, Adbusters
www.alternet.org, July 27, 2007
After four years of war, American Marines and soldiers have become socialized to atrocity. The war in Iraq is now primarily about murder. There is very little killing.
All troops, when they occupy and battle insurgent forces, as in Iraq, or Gaza or Vietnam, are placed in "atrocity producing situations."
In this environment, surrounded by a hostile population, simple acts such as going to a store to buy a can of Coke means you can be killed. This constant fear and stress pushes troops to view everyone around them as the enemy. This hostility is compounded when the enemy, as in Iraq, is elusive, shadowy and hard to find.
The rage soldiers feel after a roadside bomb explodes, killing or maiming their comrades, is one that is easily directed over time to innocent civilians who are seen to support the insurgents. It is a short psychological leap, but a massive moral leap. It is a leap from killing -- the shooting of someone who has the capacity to do you harm -- to murder -- the deadly assault against someone who cannot harm you. The war in Iraq is now primarily about murder. There is very little killing.
After four years of war, American Marines and soldiers have become socialized to atrocity. The American killing project is not described in these terms to a distant public. The politicians still speak in the abstract terms of glory, honor, and heroism, in the necessity of improving the world, in lofty phrases of political and spiritual renewal. Those who kill large numbers of people always claim it as a virtue. The campaign to rid the world of terror is expressed with this rhetoric, as if once all terrorists are destroyed evil itself will vanish.
The reality behind the myth, however, is very different. The reality and the ideal clash when soldiers and Marines return home, alienating these combat veterans from the world around them, a world that still dines out on the myth of war and the virtues of the nation. But slowly returning veterans are giving us a new narrative of the war -- one that exposes the vast enterprise of industrial slaughter unleashed in Iraq for a lie and sustained because of wounded national pride and willful ignorance. "This unit sets up this traffic control point and this 18 year old kid is on top of an armored Humvee with a .50 caliber machine gun," remembered Geoffrey Millard who served in Tikrit with the 42nd Infantry Division. "And this car speeds at him pretty quick and he makes a split second decision that that's a suicide bomber, and he presses the butterfly trigger and puts 200 rounds in less than a minute into this vehicle. It killed the mother, a father and two kids. The boy was aged four and the daughter was aged three."
"And they briefed this to the general," Millard said, "and they briefed it gruesome. I mean, they had pictures. They briefed it to him. And this colonel turns around to this full division staff and says, 'if these fucking Hadjis learned to drive, this shit wouldn't happen.'"
Those who come back from war, like Millard and tens of thousands of other veterans, suffer not only delayed reactions to stress, but a crisis of faith. The God they knew, or thought they knew, failed them. The church or the synagogue or the mosque, which promised redemption by serving God and country, did not prepare them for the betrayal of this civic religion, for the capacity we all have for human atrocity, for the lies and myths used to mask the reality of war. War is always about betrayal, betrayal of the young by the old, of idealists by cynics and of troops by politicians. This bitter knowledge of betrayal has seeped into the ranks of American troops.
It has unleashed a new wave of embittered veterans not seen since the Vietnam War. It has made it possible for us to begin, again, to see war's death mask.
"And then, you know, my sort of sentiment of what the fuck are we doing, that I felt that way in Iraq," said Sergeant Ben Flanders, who estimated that he ran hundreds of convoys in Iraq. "It's the sort of insanity of it and the fact that it reduces it. Well, I think war does anyway, but I felt like there was this enormous reduction in my compassion for people, the only thing that wound up mattering is myself and the guys that I was with. And everybody else be damned, whether you are an Iraqi, I'm sorry, I'm sorry you live here, I'm sorry this is a terrible situation, and I'm sorry that you have to deal with all of, you know, army vehicles running around and shooting, and these insurgents and all this stuff.
"The first briefing you get when you get off the plane in Kuwait, and you get off the plane and you're holding a duffle bag in each hand," Millard remembered. "You've got your weapon slung. You've got a web sack on your back. You're dying of heat. You're tired. You're jet-lagged. Your mind is just full of goop. And then, you're scared on top of that, because, you know, you're in Kuwait, you're not in the States anymore so fear sets in, too. And they sit you into this little briefing room and you get this briefing about how, you know, you can't trust any of these fucking Hadjis, because all these fucking Hadjis are going to kill you. And Hadji is always used as a term of disrespect and usually, with the 'f' word in front of it."
War is also the pornography of violence. It has a dark beauty, filled with the monstrous and the grotesque. The Bible calls it "the lust of the eye" and warns believers against it. War allows us to engage in lusts and passions we keep hidden in the deepest, most private interiors of our fantasy life. It allows us to destroy not only things but human beings. In that moment of wholesale destruction, we wield the power to the divine, the power to revoke another person's charter to live on this earth. The frenzy of this destruction -- and when unit discipline breaks down, or there was no unit discipline to begin with, frenzy is the right word -- sees armed bands crazed by the poisonous elixir our power to bring about the obliteration of others delivers. All things, including human beings, become objects -- objects to either gratify or destroy or both. Almost no one is immune. The contagion of the crowd sees to that.
Human beings are machine gunned and bombed from the air, automatic grenade launchers pepper hovels and neighbors with high-powered explosive devices and convoys race through Iraq like freight trains of death. These soldiers and Marines have at their fingertips the heady ability to call in air strikes and firepower that obliterate landscapes and villages in fiery infernos. They can instantly give or deprive human life, and with this power they became sick and demented. The moral universe is turned upside down. All human beings are used as objects. And no one walks away uninfected. War thrusts us into a vortex of pain and fleeting ecstasy. It thrusts us into a world where law is of little consequence, human life is cheap and the gratification of the moment becomes the overriding desire that must be satiated, even at the cost of another's dignity or life.
"A lot of guys really supported that whole concept that, you know, if they don't speak English and they have darker skin, they're not as human as us, so we can do what we want," said Josh Middleton, who served in the 82nd Airborne in Iraq. "And you know, when 20 year old kids are yelled at back and forth at Bragg and we're picking up cigarette butts and getting yelled at every day to find a dirty weapon. But over here, it's like life and death. And 40-year-old Iraqi men look at us with fear and we can -- do you know what I mean? -- we have this power that you can't have. That's really liberating. Life is just knocked down to this primal level of, you know, you worry about where the next food's going to come from, the next sleep or the next patrol and to stay alive."
"It's like you feel like, I don't know, if you're a caveman," he added. "Do you know what I mean? Just, you know, I mean, this is how life is supposed to be. Life and death, essentially. No TV. None of that bullshit."
It takes little in wartime to turn ordinary men into killers. Most give themselves willingly to the seduction of unlimited power to destroy, and all feel the peer pressure to conform. Few, once in battle, find the strength to resist. Physical courage is common on a battlefield. Moral courage is not.
Military machines and state bureaucracies, who seek to make us obey, seek also to silence those who return from war to speak the truth, to hide from a public eager for stories of war that fit the mythic narrative the essence of war which is death.
Camilo Mejia, who eventually applied while still on active duty to become a conscientious objector, said the ugly side of American racism and chauvinism appeared the moment his unit arrived in the Middle East. Fellow soldiers instantly ridiculed Arab-style toilets because they would be "shitting like dogs." The troops around him treated Iraqis, whose language they did not speak and whose culture was alien, little better than animals. The word "Hadji" swiftly became a slur to refer to Iraqis, in much the same way "gook" was used to debase the Vietnamese or "rag head" is used to belittle those in Afghanistan.
Soon those around him ridiculed "Hadji food," "Hadji homes," and "Hadji music." Bewildered prisoners, who were rounded up in useless and indiscriminate raids, were stripped naked, and left to stand terrified and bewildered for hours in the baking sun. They were subjected to a steady torrent of verbal and physical abuse. "I experienced horrible confusion," Mejia remembers, "not knowing whether I was more afraid for the detainees or for what would happen to me if I did anything to help them."
These scenes of abuse, which began immediately after the American invasion, were little more than collective acts of sadism. Mejia watched, not daring to intervene, yet increasingly disgusted at the treatment of Iraqi civilians. He saw how the callous and unchecked abuse of power first led to alienation among Iraqis and spawned a raw hatred of the occupation forces. When army units raided homes, the soldiers burst in on frightened families, forced them to huddle in the corners at gun point, and helped themselves to food and items in the house.
"After we arrested drivers," he recalled, "we would choose whichever vehicles we liked, fuel them from confiscated jerry cans, and conduct undercover presence patrols in the impounded cars.
"But to this day I cannot find a single good answer as to why I stood by idly during the abuse of those prisoners except, of course, my own cowardice," he also notes.
Iraqi families were routinely fired upon for getting too close to check points, including an incident where an unarmed father driving a car was decapitated by a 50-caliber machine gun in front of his small son, although by then, Mejia notes, "this sort of killing of civilians had long ceased to arouse much interest or even comment." Soldiers shot holes into cans of gasoline being sold alongside the road and then tossed incendiary grenades into the pools to set them ablaze. "It's fun to shoot shit up," a soldier said. Some open fire on small children throwing rocks. And when improvised explosive devices go off the troops fire wildly into densely populated neighborhoods, leaving behind innocent victims who become, in the callous language of war, "collateral damage."
"We would drive on the wrong side of the highway to reduce the risk of being hit by an IED," Mejia said of the deadly roadside bombs. "This forced oncoming vehicles to move to one side of the road, and considerably slowed down the flow of traffic. In order to avoid being held up in traffic jams, where someone could roll a grenade under our trucks, we would simply drive up on sidewalks, running over garbage cans and even hitting civilian vehicles to push them out of the way. Many of the soldiers would laugh and shriek at these tactics."
At one point the unit was surrounded by an angry crowd protesting the occupation. Mejia and his squad opened fire on an Iraqi holding a grenade, riddling the man's body with bullets. Mejia checked his clip afterwards and determined that he fired 11 rounds into the young man. Units, he said, nonchalantly opened fire in crowded neighborhoods with heavy M-240 Bravo machine guns, AT-4 launchers and Mark 19s, a machine gun that spits out grenades.
"The frustration that resulted from our inability to get back at those who were attacking us," Mejia writes, "led to tactics that seemed designed simply to punish the local population that was supporting them."
He watched soldiers from his unit abuse the corpses of Iraqi dead. Mejia related how, in one incident, soldiers laughed as an Iraqi corpse fell from the back of a truck.
"Take a picture of me and this motherfucker," one of the soldiers who had been in Mejia's squad in third platoon said, putting his arm around the corpse.
The shroud fell away from the body revealing a young man wearing only his pants. There was a bullet hole in his chest.
"Damn, they really fucked you up, didn't they!?" the soldier laughed.
The scene, Mejia noted, was witnessed by the dead man's brothers and cousins. Senior officers, protected in heavily fortified compounds, rarely saw combat. They sent their troops on futile missions in the quest to be awarded Combat Infantry Badges. This recognition, Mejia notes, "was essential to their further progress up the officer ranks." This pattern meant that "very few high-ranking officers actually got out into the action, and lower-ranking officers were afraid to contradict them when they were wrong." When the badges, bearing an emblem of a musket with the hammer dropped, resting on top of an oak wreath, were finally awarded, the commanders immediately brought in Iraqi tailors to sew the badges on the left breast pockets of their desert combat uniforms.
"This was one occasion when our leaders led from the front," Mejia noted bitterly. "They were among the first to visit the tailors to get their little patches of glory sewn next to their hearts."
The war breeds gratuitous and constant acts of violence.
"I mean, if someone has a fan, they're a white collar family," said Phillip Chrystal, who carried out raids on Iraqi homes in Kirkuk. "So we get started on this day, this one, in particular. And it starts with the psy ops [psychological operations] vehicles out there, you know, with the big speakers playing a message in Arabic or Farsi or Kurdish or whatever they happen to be saying, basically, saying put your weapons, if you have them, next to the front door in your house. Please come outside, blah, blah, blah, blah. And we had Apaches flying over for security, if they're needed, and it's also a good show of force. And we were running around, and we'd done a few houses by this point, and I was with my platoon leader, my squad leader and maybe a couple other people, but I don't really remember.
"And we were approaching this one house, and this farming area, they're, like, built up into little courtyards," he said. "So they have like the main house, common area. They have like a kitchen and then, they have like a storage shed-type deal. And we were approaching, and they had a family dog. And it was barking ferociously, because it was doing its job. And my squad leader, just out of nowhere, just shoots it. And he didn't -- mother fucker -- he shot it and it went in the jaw and exited out. So I see this dog -- and I'm a huge animal lover. I love animals -- and this dog has like these eyes on it and he's running around spraying blood all over the place. And like, you know, the family is sitting right there with three little children and a mom and a dad horrified. And I'm at a loss for words. And so, I yell at him. I'm like what the fuck are you doing.
"And so, the dog's yelping. It's crying out without a jaw. And I'm looking at the family, and they're just scared. And so, I told them I was like fucking shoot it, you know. At least, kill it, because that can't be fixed. It's suffering. And I actually get tears from just saying this right now, but -- and I had tears then, too, -- and I'm looking at the kids and they are so scared. So I got the interpreter over with me and, you know, I get my wallet out and I gave them 20 bucks, because that's what I had. And, you know, I had him give it to them and told them that I'm so sorry that asshole did that. Which was very common. I don't know if it's rednecks or what, but they feel that shooting dogs is something that adds to one's manliness traits. I don't know. I had a big problem with that.
"Was a report ever filed about it?" he asked. "Was anything ever done? Any punishment ever dished out? No, absolutely not. He was a sycophant down to the T."
We make our heroes out of clay. We laud their gallant deeds and give them uniforms with colored ribbons on their chest for the acts of violence they committed or endured. They are our false repositories of glory and honor, of power, of self-righteousness, of patriotism and self-worship, all that we want to believe about ourselves. They are our plaster saints of war, the icons we cheer to defend us and make us and our nation great. They are the props of our civic religion, our love of power and force, our belief in our right as a chosen nation to wield this force against the weak and rule. This is our nation's idolatry of itself. And this idolatry has corrupted religious institutions, not only here but in most nations, making it impossible for us to separate the will of God from the will of the state.
Prophets are not those who speak of piety and duty from pulpits -- few people in pulpits have much worth listening to -- but it is the battered wrecks of men and women who return from Iraq and speak the halting words we do not want to hear, words that we must listen to and heed to know ourselves. They tell us war is a soulless void. They have seen and tasted how war plunges us to barbarity, perversion, pain and an unchecked orgy of death. And it is their testimonies alone that have the redemptive power to save us from ourselves.
News Article - Soldiers of Christ II -- Feeling the hate with the National Religious Broadcasters
News Article - Soldiers of Christ II -- Feeling the hate with the National Religious Broadcasters: "Jun 03, 2005
Soldiers of Christ II -- Feeling the hate with the National Religious Broadcasters
Publisher: Harper's
By: Chris Hedges. (Hedges was a foreign correspondent for the New York Times and is currently a senior fellow at the Nation Institute)
Jun 03, 2005
Soldiers of Christ II -- Feeling the hate with the National Religious Broadcasters
Publisher: Harper's
By: Chris Hedges. (Hedges was a foreign correspondent for the New York Times and is currently a senior fellow at the Nation Institute)
Since the reelection of George W. Bush in November, the rhetoric on the Christian right has grown triumphal and proud; rumors of spiritual war are abroad in the heartland, and fervent whispers of revolution echo among the pews and folding chairs of the nation's megachurches. I have traveled to Anaheim, California, to observe the rising power of the evangelical political movement at first hand. Orange County, along with Colorado Springs, is a center of the new militant Christianity, and it is here, among friends, that the National Religious Broadcasters association -- which brings together some 1,600 Christian radio and television broadcasters, who claim to reach up to 141 million listeners and viewers -- is holding its annual convention.
I am standing in line at the Starbucks in the Anaheim Hilton with Dee Simmons and her friend Samantha Landy. Around her neck Simmons wears a cross of gold studded with diamonds, and her face, which betrays neither line nor crease, is carefully highlighted with heavy makeup. Scores of men and women, all conservatively dressed in coats and ties or skirts, stand expectantly, waiting for a sign to beckon them next door to the Anaheim Convention Center, where speeches, booths, and seminars await.
We've known each other just a few minutes, but already I can tell you that Simmons once led a life of constant sorrow, that in 1987 she was diagnosed with breast cancer and before long underwent a modified radical mastectomy. That tragedy led her, she says, to turn her focus away from the designer-clothes boutiques she owned in Dallas and New York. "When God gave me my life back," she says, "I decided to make a difference in people's lives." And so she embraced nutrition.
Simmons reaches into her purse and draws out several pamphlets from her company, Ultimate Living. She tells me about her books, which include It's a Miracle! It's a Green Miracle & It Saved My Life!, and mentions the numerous Christian talk shows she regularly appears on, including Pat Robertson's The 700 Club, Hope Today, Praise, Something Good Tonight, and The Armstrong Williams Show.
"I was saved and found Christ when I was three," she says. "I'm sixty-four. My daughter is thirty-six." She waits for the effect of her age, which she will repeat more than once, to sink in. I can't take my eyes off her smooth face and sculpted cheekbones.
Landy is also active in the life of faith. She tells me that she runs "Christian Celebrity Luncheons" in Palm Springs as part of her "salvation outreach for snowbirds." Her ministry focuses on country clubs and golf courses, she says, because that's where people feel comfortable. Landy, a redhead, never stops smiling.
"I bring in celebrity speakers," she says, "like Gavin MacLeod, he was the Captain on Love Boat, and Ronda Fleming, she was in over forty films and starred with Bing Crosby."
Landy, like Simmons, appears on Christian television shows. She has published books with titles such as A Shalom Morning and God's Creatures. Her list of celebrities includes Donna Douglas from The Beverly Hillbillies, Ann B. Davis, who was Alice on The Brady Bunch, and Lauren Chapin, who played Kathy on Father Knows Best.
My new friends, evidently minor celebrities themselves in the world of Christian broadcasting, have come to Anaheim for the yearly convention because it is the only time they can see all the major Christian broadcasters in one place. They are picture-perfect members of a new Christian elite, showy, proud of how God has blessed them with material wealth and privilege, and hooked into the culture of celebrity and power.
I carry my coffee across the stone courtyard to the curved glass and gleaming towers of the convention center, the largest in California. Within the exhibition hall on the first floor, 320 display booths -- and, at the far end of the hall, the twisted remains of an Israeli bus blown up by Palestinian suicide bombers in Jerusalem -- float on an enormous sea of soft blue carpeting. The Israeli tourism ministry has one of the largest display spaces in the hall. People from the Christian Law Association hand out yardsticks filled with gum. A Virginia web-design company offers "church websites the way God intended." A bearded man dressed as a biblical prophet is pushing tours of the Holy Land. I see anti-abortion booths and evidence of fringe groups such as Jews for Jesus and Accuracy in Media, one of whose representatives hands me a report with the title "American Troops Cheer Attacks on U.S. Media."
All the seminars and workshops are taking place on the upper floors. One seminar is entitled "Finding God in Hollywood." Another is called "Invading Cities for Christ: The Thousand-Day Plan."
In the parking lot outside the center, I come across a pickup truck with large hand-painted panels bearing anti-gay slogans and a round red circle with a line through the center superimposed on the faces of two men kissing. STOP THE INSANITY, it says across the top. I pick up one of the pamphlets in a metal box on the side of the truck: "Protect Your Family & Friends from the Dangers of . . . Homosexuality: The Truth!" It lists "the facts about homosexuality they refuse to teach in Public Schools or report on the Evening News!" including: "homosexuals average 500 sexual partners in their short lifetime" and "because of unsanitary sexual practices homosexuals carry the bulk of all bowel disease in America."
The opening session is held on the third floor, in an enormous room with a round stage surrounded on three sides by row upon row of folding chairs. The dimly lit room holds thousands of true believers. Large television screens hang from the ceilings; a grand piano sits unused on the stage near the podium. Bob Lepine, the round-faced co-host of FamilyLife Today, a radio show broadcast from Little Rock, Arkansas, tells us that this session has been sponsored by the Family Research Council, a Washington think tank dedicated to promoting "the Judeo-Christian worldview as the basis for a just, free, and stable society." We watch a video in which Lepine wanders the godforsaken beaches near Anaheim asking surfers and other lost Californians what the letters NRB mean to them. No one knows, but the guesses evoke laughter from the hall.
Lepine talks about the old days, when the convention was held in Washington, D.C., in February. He seems pleased to be in California, where "it's warm and you can go to the beach and see weird people."
Lepine then shows us another video, this one featuring the current president of the Family Research Council, former Louisiana state representative Tony Perkins, a telegenic man who authored the American History Preservation Act, a law intended to prevent "censorship of America's Christian heritage in Louisiana public schools," and who also wrote the first Covenant Marriage Law.
"Deep in the nation's capital," a baritone voice booms as the camera pans across the Washington mall, "America's culture was hijacked by a secular movement determined to redefine society from religious freedom to the right to life. These radicals were doing their best to destroy two centuries of traditional values, and no one seemed to be able to stop them -- until now.
"Will Congress undo 200 years of tradition?" the video asks ominously. "Not on our watch."
The mood of the convention is set. All Christians, everywhere, are under attack. Perkins, dressed in a dark suit and white shirt, climbs the stairs onto the stage. He promises to halt "the cultural decline" and to end "misguided" judicial decisions. Before long, Frank Wright, the new president of NRB, takes the stage. Wright, who has white hair and a cold demeanor, lauds the recent transformation in Washington and says that 130 members of the House of Representatives are now "born-again." He tells a story about a late-night private tour of the Capitol in which he and a group of other pastors stopped and prayed over Hillary Clinton's Senate floor desk. The crowd roars its approval.
"Today, the calls for diversity and multiculturalism are nothing more than thinly veiled attacks on anyone willing, desirous, or compelled to proclaim Christian truths," he says. "Today, calls for tolerance are often a subterfuge, because they will tolerate just about anything except Christian truth. Today, we live in a time when the message entrusted to you is more important than ever before to reach a world desperate to know Christ.
"Does it strike you," he asks, "that we are the first generation in the history of the world that might see every nation, tongue, and tribe reached with the Gospel?"
Wright promises the audience that as the new president of NRB he will fight to block the passage of hate-crime legislation, something many Christian broadcasters fear might be used to halt their attacks on gays and lesbians.
"For the first time in history, representatives and senators may pass hate-crime legislation," he says, "which is one step to oppose what you do as against the law.
"If we had to give equal time to every opposing viewpoint, there would be no time to proclaim the truth that we have been commanded to proclaim," he says. "We will fight the Fairness Doctrine, tooth and nail. It could be the end of Christian broadcasting as we know it if we do not."
The preachers that follow, including Illinois evangelist and radio host James MacDonald, pound home the theme of persecution by "secular humanists" who want to destroy the values and faith of "Bible-believing Christians." MacDonald runs a church in Arlington Heights, Illinois, and is heard regularly on more than 650 Christian radio outlets.
"How many of you out there think it's unpopular to preach the Word?" he asks. Hundreds of hands shoot up into the air.
MacDonald quotes liberally from the Book of Revelation, the only place in the New Testament where Jesus (arguably) endorses violence and calls for vengeance against nonbelievers. It is, along with the apocalyptic visions of St. Paul, the movement's go-to text. Rarely mentioned these days is the Jesus of the four Gospels, the Jesus who speaks of the poor and the marginalized, who taught followers to turn the other cheek and love their enemies, the Jesus who rejected the mantle of secular power.
"His eyes are like a flame of fire," MacDonald tells us. "Out of his mouth goes a sharp sword, and with it he can strike the nations. He treads the wine press of the fierceness and wrath of the Almighty God, and on his robe and on his thigh a name is written, King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Jesus commands all men everywhere to come to the knowledge of Him."
He reminds us, quoting theologian Peter Berger, that "ages of faith are not marked by dialogue but by proclamation" and that "there is power in the unapologetic proclamation of truth. There is power in it. This is a kingdom of power." When he says the word "power," he draws it out for emphasis. He tells the crowd to shun the "persuasive words of human wisdom." Truth, he says, does "not rest in the wisdom of men but the power of God." Then, in a lisping, limp-wristed imitation of liberals, he mocks, to laughter and applause, those who want to "share" and be sensitive to the needs of others.
MacDonald leaves little doubt that the convention is meant to serve as a rallying cry for a new and particularly militant movement in Christian politics, one that is sometimes mistaken for another outbreak of mere revivalism. In fact, this movement is a curious hybrid of fundamentalists, Pentecostals, Southern Baptists, conservative Catholics, Charismatics, and other evangelicals, all of whom are at war doctrinally but who nonetheless share a belief that America is destined to become a Christian nation, led by Christian men who are in turn directed by God. For someone like me, who grew up in the church and was keenly aware of the rigid lines imposed by warring sects and denominations, the new alliances are startling. I notice uniformed officers from the Salvation Army at the convention, something that would have been unthinkable in the past. Lately, the leaders of the movement have even begun to reach out to the Mormons.
What the disparate sects of this movement, known as Dominionism, share is an obsession with political power. A decades-long refusal to engage in politics at all following the Scopes trial has been replaced by a call for Christian "dominion" over the nation and, eventually, over the earth itself. Dominionists preach that Jesus has called them to build the kingdom of God in the here and now, whereas previously it was thought that we would have to wait for it. America becomes, in this militant biblicism, an agent of God, and all political and intellectual opponents of America's Christian leaders are viewed, quite simply, as agents of Satan. Under Christian dominion, America will no longer be a sinful and fallen nation but one in which the Ten Commandments form the basis of our legal system, Creationism and "Christian values" form the basis of our educational system, and the media and the government proclaim the Good News to one and all. Aside from its proselytizing mandate, the federal government will be reduced to the protection of property rights and "homeland" security.[1] Some Dominionists (not all of whom accept the label, at least not publicly) would further require all citizens to pay "tithes" to church organizations empowered by the government to run our social-welfare agencies, and a number of influential figures advocate the death penalty for a host of "moral crimes," including apostasy, blasphemy, sodomy, and witchcraft. The only legitimate voices in this state will be Christian. All others will be silenced.
The traditional evangelicals, those who come out of Billy Graham's mold, are not necessarily comfortable with the direction taken by the Dominionists, who now control most of America's major evangelical organizations, from the NRB to the Southern Baptist Convention, and may already claim dominion over the Christian media outlets. But Christians who challenge Dominionists, even if they are fundamentalist or conservative or born-again, tend to be ruthlessly thrust aside.
I have lunch with Luis Palau, a well-known evangelical preacher who is close to Billy Graham. He is an affable older man, an Argentine, who has a worldliness refreshing after even a short time among Dominionists. His focus is on personal salvation, not the achievement of political power. He refused to become involved in the referendum in Oregon, where his organization is based, to ban gay marriage. Like Graham, Palau is no supporter of gay rights, but he bristles at the coarseness of calls for absolute power by Christian leaders and at the anti-intellectualism that characterizes the new movement. He avoids the caustic humor used by many Dominionists to belittle homosexuals, "effete" intellectuals, and all those whom they lump into the category of "secular humanists." The use of abortion and gay marriage as rallying points worries him.
"There are some Christians who have gone overboard," Palau says, choosing his words carefully. "The message has become a little distorted in states where they talk about change yet focus on only one issue. We need a fuller transformation. The great thing Billy Graham did was to bring intellectualism back to fundamentalism.
"I don't think it is wrong to want to see political change, especially in places like Latin America," he says. "Something has to happen in politics. But it has to be based on convictions. We have to overcome the sense of despair. I worked in Latin America in the days when almost every country had a dictator. I dreamed, especially as a kid, of change, of freedom and justice. But I believe that change comes from personal conviction, from leading a more biblical lifestyle, not by Christianizing a nation. If we become called to Christ, we will build an effective nation through personal ethics. When you lead a life of purity, when you respect your wife and are good to your family, when you don't waste money gambling and womanizing, you begin to work for better schools, for more protection and safety from your community. All change, historically, comes from the bottom up."
Early Sunday morning, in a ballroom on the second floor of the Hilton Hotel, the Israeli Ministry of Tourism is hosting a breakfast. Several hundred people, all dressed in the appropriate skirts and business suits of American churchgoing people, are seated at round tables with baskets of bread, fruit plates, and silver pitchers of coffee. Waiters serve plates of scrambled eggs and creamed spinach. I count no more than half a dozen people who are not white. On the platform is a huge picture of the Dome of the Rock, the spot in Jerusalem where the third Temple will be rebuilt to herald, at least according to the Christians in the room, the second coming of Christ. Some 400,000 Christian tourists visit Israel each year, and, what with the precipitous decline in Israel's tourism industry in recent years, these people have become a valued source of revenue.
The strange alliance in this case is premised upon the Dominionist belief that Israel must rule the biblical land in order for Christ to return, though when he does, all Jews who do not convert to Christianity supposedly will be incinerated as the believers are lifted into heaven; all this is courteously left unmentioned at the breakfast. The featured speakers include Avraham Hirschsohn, who is the new Israeli minister of tourism, and Michael Medved, a cultural conservative and a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host. Medved is also one of the most prominent Jewish defenders of Mel Gibson's biopic The Passion of the Christ.
Hirschsohn praises the audience for standing "with us for the last four years when nobody else would. Thank you." He then announces, to grateful applause, that the tourism ministry plans to build a "Pilgrim Center" near Galilee.
"A more Christian America is good for the Jews," Medved says. "This is obvious. Take a look at this support for Israel. A more Christian America is good for America, something Jewish people need to be more cognizant about and acknowledge. A more Jewish community is good for the Christians, not just because of the existence of allies but because a more Jewish community is less seduced by secularism."
The cast of characters that takes the stage next is illuminating. Glenn Plummer, a black minister from Detroit who is active in the Republican Party, assures us that he knows all about Muslims because "I come from Detroit, where the biggest mosque in America is."
"It didn't take 9/11 to show me there is a global battle going on for the souls of men," he says. "When Islam comes into a place, it is intent on taking over everything, not only government but the business, the neighborhoods, everything."
The Christian writer Kay Arthur, who can barely contain her tears when speaking of Israel, professes that although she loves America, if she had to choose between America and Israel, "I would stand with Israel, stand with Israel as a daughter of the King of Kings, stand according to the word of God." She goes on to quote at length from Revelation, speaking of Jesus seated on a throne floating about Jerusalem as believers are raptured up toward him in the sky.
After breakfast I have a look at the charred remains of public bus #19 in the convention hall. Its sides are scorched black, and the doors in the center of the bus are twisted hideously. Within, the bus's steel frame is bent outward and shattered. The exterior has been adorned with banners bearing biblical quotations: "I will plant Israel in their own land, never again to be uprooted from the land I have given them" (Amos 9:15); "And I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse" (Genesis 12:3).
The bus, owned by a Christian Zionist group calling itself The Jerusalem Connection International, was destroyed by Palestinian suicide bombers in January 2004, killing eleven people. According to information from the group, its president, retired U.S. Brigadier General James Hutchens, looks at "issues related to Israel from a Biblical perspective." The bus has been displayed at The Hague and in numerous rallies throughout the United States. At a table next to the bus, a Jerusalem Connection official hands out pamphlets encouraging the reader to "Bring Bus #19 to Your Community!"
At a nearby booth that advertises Christian broadcasts to the Arab world, an Egyptian woman, a Christian, tells me that she has been reduced to tears on several occasions by enraged conventioneers who, after visiting the bus, tell her that all Arabs are "terrorists." I speak as well with an Israeli woman, who introduces herself as Marina. She has long blonde hair and is wearing knee-high leather boots. Marina, who emigrated to Israel from Holland and lives on a cooperative mango farm near the Sea of Galilee, says she is "embarrassed" to be at the convention. "These people are anti-Semitic," she says, speaking softly as conventioneers move past the large Israeli display space. The demonization of Muslims and Palestinians by the speakers makes her especially uneasy. I ask her why the tourism ministry is here in the first place. "Money," she says. "It is all about money. No one else visits Israel."
On Monday night James Dobson, the founder and chairman of Focus on the Family, holds an informal reception and talk with his son, Ryan. The walls are decorated with red, white, and blue bunting, and people are eating popcorn, hot dogs, and pizza. There are Ping-Pong tables set up in the corners, and in the center of the room are three bar-stool chairs and another Ping-Pong table, this one bathed in light. Several men are wearing umpire uniforms.
Dobson is perhaps the most powerful figure in the Dominionist movement. He was instrumental three years ago in purging the moderate chairman of the NRB from his post and speaks frequently with the White House. He was a crucial player in getting out the Christian vote for George W. Bush. Dobson says he was born again at the age of three during a church service conducted by his father, a Nazarene minister. He attended Pasadena College and received a Ph.D. in child development from the University of Southern California. While teaching at USC, he wrote his book Dare to Discipline, which encourages parents to spank their children with "sufficient magnitude to cause the child to cry genuinely." (The book has sold more than 3.5 million copies since its release in 1970.) Dobson now works out of an eighty-one-acre campus in Colorado Springs that has its own zip code. He employs 1,300 people, sends out 4 million pieces of mail each month, and is heard on radio broadcasts in ninety-nine countries. His estimated listening audience is more than 200 million worldwide; in the United States alone, he appears on 100 television stations each day. He calls for a constitutional amendment to permit prayer in the public schools. He sponsors a group called "Love Won Out," which holds monthly conferences around the country for those "suffering" from same-sex attraction. He likens the proponents of gay marriage to the Nazis, has backed political candidates who called for the execution of abortion providers, defines embryonic stem-cell research as "state-funded cannibalism," and urges Christian parents to pull their children out of public-school systems. He has issued warnings to the Bush Administration that his extremist agenda must begin to be implemented in Washington and by the federal courts if the Republican Party wants his continued support. Dobson apparently believes that he is without sin.
The evening is billed as a tournament, with competing teams of Ping-Pong players battling their way up the ladder until the big winners play Dobson and his son, Ryan, whom the announcer calls "the double Ds." Before the final match, father and son take questions from the audience. Seated near Dobson is his wife, Shirley, whose only public role seems to be to whisper reminders in her husband's ear. All speakers at the event make much of their marriage and fidelity. Not far away is Ryan's fiancée, and Ryan makes a point of telling the crowd that he and Laura are "remaining pure" and will not have sex for the next 120 days until they are married. At first, the questions focus on how Dobson has raised such an exemplary Christian family. One woman, who says she runs a Christian home, asks Dobson the secret to getting her own children to have the enthusiasm for Christ she sees in Ryan.
"Shirley and I began fasting and praying for the kids when they were born," Dobson says. "We asked the Lord a number of things, but especially that the Lord burn within them."
But this is Ryan's night. Dobson himself is often silent, allowing his son to answer most of the questions with a rambling self-importance. He sits slightly hunched on his stool in a dark sweater, his reddish hair combed in long strands over his balding pate, listening to the boy. He does, though, speak up at one point to clarify his position on SpongeBob SquarePants, which received wide media attention.
"I did not say SpongeBob was gay," Dobson says. "All I said was he was part of a video produced by a group with strong linkages to the homosexual community that's teaching things like tolerance and diversity. And you can see where they're going with that. They're teaching kids to think different about homosexuality."
Ryan, with closely cropped blond hair and a drooping Fu Manchu mustache, exhorts the audience to find a cause "worth fighting for" and "worth dying for." He says he has learned how to reach young people. He knows their culture. He talks about his passion for surfing and skateboarding. Then he says, "People keep saying we need to change the discussion on abortion before we can ban it. We don't need to change the discussion. Like, 80 percent of the country is against abortion. What kind of a country fines people $25,000 for killing a bald eagle but doesn't do anything when unborn babies get thrown in the trash?"
The older Dobson speaks in support of his son's talents and commitment to Christ. Ryan worked for a year at the Family Research Council, founded by his father, which is perhaps the most influential radical Christian-right lobbying group in Washington. He has published two books, Be Intolerant Because Some Things Are Just Stupid and 2Die4, and is clearly being groomed by his father to inherit the Dobson empire.
When it comes time for the Ping-Pong final, the Dobsons easily demolish their opponents.
I leave the convention early Tuesday morning on a shuttle van to LAX. I am wondering whether I shouldn't stay in California a few more days, in order to attend a funeral. Chris Marquis, a close friend and colleague of mine at the New York Times, died while I was out here from complications brought on by AIDS. I learned of his death on the first day of the convention, and even a few days of the Dominionists' bigotry against homosexuals has been more than I could stomach.
I can't help but recall the words of my ethics professor at Harvard Divinity School, Dr. James Luther Adams, who told us that when we were his age, and he was then close to eighty, we would all be fighting the "Christian fascists."
He gave us that warning twenty-five years ago, when Pat Robertson and other prominent evangelists began speaking of a new political religion that would direct its efforts at taking control of all major American institutions, including mainstream denominations and the government, so as to transform the United States into a global Christian empire. At the time, it was hard to take such fantastic rhetoric seriously. But fascism, Adams warned, would not return wearing swastikas and brown shirts. Its ideological inheritors would cloak themselves in the language of the Bible; they would come carrying crosses and chanting the Pledge of Allegiance.
Adams had watched American intellectuals and industrialists flirt with fascism in the 1930s. Mussolini's "Corporatism," which created an unchecked industrial and business aristocracy, had appealed to many at the time as an effective counterweight to the New Deal. In 1934, Fortune magazine lavished praise on the Italian dictator for his defanging of labor unions and his empowerment of industrialists at the expense of workers. Then as now, Adams said, too many liberals failed to understand the power and allure of evil, and when the radical Christians came, these people would undoubtedly play by the old, polite rules of democracy long after those in power had begun to dismantle the democratic state. Adams had watched German academics fall silent or conform. He knew how desperately people want to believe the comfortable lies told by totalitarian movements, how easily those lies lull moderates into passivity.
Adams told us to watch closely the Christian right's persecution of homosexuals and lesbians. Hitler, he reminded us, promised to restore moral values not long after he took power in 1933, then imposed a ban on all homosexual and lesbian organizations and publications. Then came raids on the places where homosexuals gathered, culminating on May 6, 1933, with the ransacking of the Institute for Sexual Science in Berlin. Twelve thousand volumes from the institute's library were tossed into a public bonfire. Homosexuals and lesbians, Adams said, would be the first "deviants" singled out by the Christian right. We would be the next.
Notes
1. When George W. Bush was first elected, Pat Robertson resigned as head of the Christian Coalition, a sign to many that Bush was the first in an expected line of regents that will herald the coming of the Messiah.
Soldiers of Christ II -- Feeling the hate with the National Religious Broadcasters
Publisher: Harper's
By: Chris Hedges. (Hedges was a foreign correspondent for the New York Times and is currently a senior fellow at the Nation Institute)
Jun 03, 2005
Soldiers of Christ II -- Feeling the hate with the National Religious Broadcasters
Publisher: Harper's
By: Chris Hedges. (Hedges was a foreign correspondent for the New York Times and is currently a senior fellow at the Nation Institute)
Since the reelection of George W. Bush in November, the rhetoric on the Christian right has grown triumphal and proud; rumors of spiritual war are abroad in the heartland, and fervent whispers of revolution echo among the pews and folding chairs of the nation's megachurches. I have traveled to Anaheim, California, to observe the rising power of the evangelical political movement at first hand. Orange County, along with Colorado Springs, is a center of the new militant Christianity, and it is here, among friends, that the National Religious Broadcasters association -- which brings together some 1,600 Christian radio and television broadcasters, who claim to reach up to 141 million listeners and viewers -- is holding its annual convention.
I am standing in line at the Starbucks in the Anaheim Hilton with Dee Simmons and her friend Samantha Landy. Around her neck Simmons wears a cross of gold studded with diamonds, and her face, which betrays neither line nor crease, is carefully highlighted with heavy makeup. Scores of men and women, all conservatively dressed in coats and ties or skirts, stand expectantly, waiting for a sign to beckon them next door to the Anaheim Convention Center, where speeches, booths, and seminars await.
We've known each other just a few minutes, but already I can tell you that Simmons once led a life of constant sorrow, that in 1987 she was diagnosed with breast cancer and before long underwent a modified radical mastectomy. That tragedy led her, she says, to turn her focus away from the designer-clothes boutiques she owned in Dallas and New York. "When God gave me my life back," she says, "I decided to make a difference in people's lives." And so she embraced nutrition.
Simmons reaches into her purse and draws out several pamphlets from her company, Ultimate Living. She tells me about her books, which include It's a Miracle! It's a Green Miracle & It Saved My Life!, and mentions the numerous Christian talk shows she regularly appears on, including Pat Robertson's The 700 Club, Hope Today, Praise, Something Good Tonight, and The Armstrong Williams Show.
"I was saved and found Christ when I was three," she says. "I'm sixty-four. My daughter is thirty-six." She waits for the effect of her age, which she will repeat more than once, to sink in. I can't take my eyes off her smooth face and sculpted cheekbones.
Landy is also active in the life of faith. She tells me that she runs "Christian Celebrity Luncheons" in Palm Springs as part of her "salvation outreach for snowbirds." Her ministry focuses on country clubs and golf courses, she says, because that's where people feel comfortable. Landy, a redhead, never stops smiling.
"I bring in celebrity speakers," she says, "like Gavin MacLeod, he was the Captain on Love Boat, and Ronda Fleming, she was in over forty films and starred with Bing Crosby."
Landy, like Simmons, appears on Christian television shows. She has published books with titles such as A Shalom Morning and God's Creatures. Her list of celebrities includes Donna Douglas from The Beverly Hillbillies, Ann B. Davis, who was Alice on The Brady Bunch, and Lauren Chapin, who played Kathy on Father Knows Best.
My new friends, evidently minor celebrities themselves in the world of Christian broadcasting, have come to Anaheim for the yearly convention because it is the only time they can see all the major Christian broadcasters in one place. They are picture-perfect members of a new Christian elite, showy, proud of how God has blessed them with material wealth and privilege, and hooked into the culture of celebrity and power.
I carry my coffee across the stone courtyard to the curved glass and gleaming towers of the convention center, the largest in California. Within the exhibition hall on the first floor, 320 display booths -- and, at the far end of the hall, the twisted remains of an Israeli bus blown up by Palestinian suicide bombers in Jerusalem -- float on an enormous sea of soft blue carpeting. The Israeli tourism ministry has one of the largest display spaces in the hall. People from the Christian Law Association hand out yardsticks filled with gum. A Virginia web-design company offers "church websites the way God intended." A bearded man dressed as a biblical prophet is pushing tours of the Holy Land. I see anti-abortion booths and evidence of fringe groups such as Jews for Jesus and Accuracy in Media, one of whose representatives hands me a report with the title "American Troops Cheer Attacks on U.S. Media."
All the seminars and workshops are taking place on the upper floors. One seminar is entitled "Finding God in Hollywood." Another is called "Invading Cities for Christ: The Thousand-Day Plan."
In the parking lot outside the center, I come across a pickup truck with large hand-painted panels bearing anti-gay slogans and a round red circle with a line through the center superimposed on the faces of two men kissing. STOP THE INSANITY, it says across the top. I pick up one of the pamphlets in a metal box on the side of the truck: "Protect Your Family & Friends from the Dangers of . . . Homosexuality: The Truth!" It lists "the facts about homosexuality they refuse to teach in Public Schools or report on the Evening News!" including: "homosexuals average 500 sexual partners in their short lifetime" and "because of unsanitary sexual practices homosexuals carry the bulk of all bowel disease in America."
The opening session is held on the third floor, in an enormous room with a round stage surrounded on three sides by row upon row of folding chairs. The dimly lit room holds thousands of true believers. Large television screens hang from the ceilings; a grand piano sits unused on the stage near the podium. Bob Lepine, the round-faced co-host of FamilyLife Today, a radio show broadcast from Little Rock, Arkansas, tells us that this session has been sponsored by the Family Research Council, a Washington think tank dedicated to promoting "the Judeo-Christian worldview as the basis for a just, free, and stable society." We watch a video in which Lepine wanders the godforsaken beaches near Anaheim asking surfers and other lost Californians what the letters NRB mean to them. No one knows, but the guesses evoke laughter from the hall.
Lepine talks about the old days, when the convention was held in Washington, D.C., in February. He seems pleased to be in California, where "it's warm and you can go to the beach and see weird people."
Lepine then shows us another video, this one featuring the current president of the Family Research Council, former Louisiana state representative Tony Perkins, a telegenic man who authored the American History Preservation Act, a law intended to prevent "censorship of America's Christian heritage in Louisiana public schools," and who also wrote the first Covenant Marriage Law.
"Deep in the nation's capital," a baritone voice booms as the camera pans across the Washington mall, "America's culture was hijacked by a secular movement determined to redefine society from religious freedom to the right to life. These radicals were doing their best to destroy two centuries of traditional values, and no one seemed to be able to stop them -- until now.
"Will Congress undo 200 years of tradition?" the video asks ominously. "Not on our watch."
The mood of the convention is set. All Christians, everywhere, are under attack. Perkins, dressed in a dark suit and white shirt, climbs the stairs onto the stage. He promises to halt "the cultural decline" and to end "misguided" judicial decisions. Before long, Frank Wright, the new president of NRB, takes the stage. Wright, who has white hair and a cold demeanor, lauds the recent transformation in Washington and says that 130 members of the House of Representatives are now "born-again." He tells a story about a late-night private tour of the Capitol in which he and a group of other pastors stopped and prayed over Hillary Clinton's Senate floor desk. The crowd roars its approval.
"Today, the calls for diversity and multiculturalism are nothing more than thinly veiled attacks on anyone willing, desirous, or compelled to proclaim Christian truths," he says. "Today, calls for tolerance are often a subterfuge, because they will tolerate just about anything except Christian truth. Today, we live in a time when the message entrusted to you is more important than ever before to reach a world desperate to know Christ.
"Does it strike you," he asks, "that we are the first generation in the history of the world that might see every nation, tongue, and tribe reached with the Gospel?"
Wright promises the audience that as the new president of NRB he will fight to block the passage of hate-crime legislation, something many Christian broadcasters fear might be used to halt their attacks on gays and lesbians.
"For the first time in history, representatives and senators may pass hate-crime legislation," he says, "which is one step to oppose what you do as against the law.
"If we had to give equal time to every opposing viewpoint, there would be no time to proclaim the truth that we have been commanded to proclaim," he says. "We will fight the Fairness Doctrine, tooth and nail. It could be the end of Christian broadcasting as we know it if we do not."
The preachers that follow, including Illinois evangelist and radio host James MacDonald, pound home the theme of persecution by "secular humanists" who want to destroy the values and faith of "Bible-believing Christians." MacDonald runs a church in Arlington Heights, Illinois, and is heard regularly on more than 650 Christian radio outlets.
"How many of you out there think it's unpopular to preach the Word?" he asks. Hundreds of hands shoot up into the air.
MacDonald quotes liberally from the Book of Revelation, the only place in the New Testament where Jesus (arguably) endorses violence and calls for vengeance against nonbelievers. It is, along with the apocalyptic visions of St. Paul, the movement's go-to text. Rarely mentioned these days is the Jesus of the four Gospels, the Jesus who speaks of the poor and the marginalized, who taught followers to turn the other cheek and love their enemies, the Jesus who rejected the mantle of secular power.
"His eyes are like a flame of fire," MacDonald tells us. "Out of his mouth goes a sharp sword, and with it he can strike the nations. He treads the wine press of the fierceness and wrath of the Almighty God, and on his robe and on his thigh a name is written, King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Jesus commands all men everywhere to come to the knowledge of Him."
He reminds us, quoting theologian Peter Berger, that "ages of faith are not marked by dialogue but by proclamation" and that "there is power in the unapologetic proclamation of truth. There is power in it. This is a kingdom of power." When he says the word "power," he draws it out for emphasis. He tells the crowd to shun the "persuasive words of human wisdom." Truth, he says, does "not rest in the wisdom of men but the power of God." Then, in a lisping, limp-wristed imitation of liberals, he mocks, to laughter and applause, those who want to "share" and be sensitive to the needs of others.
MacDonald leaves little doubt that the convention is meant to serve as a rallying cry for a new and particularly militant movement in Christian politics, one that is sometimes mistaken for another outbreak of mere revivalism. In fact, this movement is a curious hybrid of fundamentalists, Pentecostals, Southern Baptists, conservative Catholics, Charismatics, and other evangelicals, all of whom are at war doctrinally but who nonetheless share a belief that America is destined to become a Christian nation, led by Christian men who are in turn directed by God. For someone like me, who grew up in the church and was keenly aware of the rigid lines imposed by warring sects and denominations, the new alliances are startling. I notice uniformed officers from the Salvation Army at the convention, something that would have been unthinkable in the past. Lately, the leaders of the movement have even begun to reach out to the Mormons.
What the disparate sects of this movement, known as Dominionism, share is an obsession with political power. A decades-long refusal to engage in politics at all following the Scopes trial has been replaced by a call for Christian "dominion" over the nation and, eventually, over the earth itself. Dominionists preach that Jesus has called them to build the kingdom of God in the here and now, whereas previously it was thought that we would have to wait for it. America becomes, in this militant biblicism, an agent of God, and all political and intellectual opponents of America's Christian leaders are viewed, quite simply, as agents of Satan. Under Christian dominion, America will no longer be a sinful and fallen nation but one in which the Ten Commandments form the basis of our legal system, Creationism and "Christian values" form the basis of our educational system, and the media and the government proclaim the Good News to one and all. Aside from its proselytizing mandate, the federal government will be reduced to the protection of property rights and "homeland" security.[1] Some Dominionists (not all of whom accept the label, at least not publicly) would further require all citizens to pay "tithes" to church organizations empowered by the government to run our social-welfare agencies, and a number of influential figures advocate the death penalty for a host of "moral crimes," including apostasy, blasphemy, sodomy, and witchcraft. The only legitimate voices in this state will be Christian. All others will be silenced.
The traditional evangelicals, those who come out of Billy Graham's mold, are not necessarily comfortable with the direction taken by the Dominionists, who now control most of America's major evangelical organizations, from the NRB to the Southern Baptist Convention, and may already claim dominion over the Christian media outlets. But Christians who challenge Dominionists, even if they are fundamentalist or conservative or born-again, tend to be ruthlessly thrust aside.
I have lunch with Luis Palau, a well-known evangelical preacher who is close to Billy Graham. He is an affable older man, an Argentine, who has a worldliness refreshing after even a short time among Dominionists. His focus is on personal salvation, not the achievement of political power. He refused to become involved in the referendum in Oregon, where his organization is based, to ban gay marriage. Like Graham, Palau is no supporter of gay rights, but he bristles at the coarseness of calls for absolute power by Christian leaders and at the anti-intellectualism that characterizes the new movement. He avoids the caustic humor used by many Dominionists to belittle homosexuals, "effete" intellectuals, and all those whom they lump into the category of "secular humanists." The use of abortion and gay marriage as rallying points worries him.
"There are some Christians who have gone overboard," Palau says, choosing his words carefully. "The message has become a little distorted in states where they talk about change yet focus on only one issue. We need a fuller transformation. The great thing Billy Graham did was to bring intellectualism back to fundamentalism.
"I don't think it is wrong to want to see political change, especially in places like Latin America," he says. "Something has to happen in politics. But it has to be based on convictions. We have to overcome the sense of despair. I worked in Latin America in the days when almost every country had a dictator. I dreamed, especially as a kid, of change, of freedom and justice. But I believe that change comes from personal conviction, from leading a more biblical lifestyle, not by Christianizing a nation. If we become called to Christ, we will build an effective nation through personal ethics. When you lead a life of purity, when you respect your wife and are good to your family, when you don't waste money gambling and womanizing, you begin to work for better schools, for more protection and safety from your community. All change, historically, comes from the bottom up."
Early Sunday morning, in a ballroom on the second floor of the Hilton Hotel, the Israeli Ministry of Tourism is hosting a breakfast. Several hundred people, all dressed in the appropriate skirts and business suits of American churchgoing people, are seated at round tables with baskets of bread, fruit plates, and silver pitchers of coffee. Waiters serve plates of scrambled eggs and creamed spinach. I count no more than half a dozen people who are not white. On the platform is a huge picture of the Dome of the Rock, the spot in Jerusalem where the third Temple will be rebuilt to herald, at least according to the Christians in the room, the second coming of Christ. Some 400,000 Christian tourists visit Israel each year, and, what with the precipitous decline in Israel's tourism industry in recent years, these people have become a valued source of revenue.
The strange alliance in this case is premised upon the Dominionist belief that Israel must rule the biblical land in order for Christ to return, though when he does, all Jews who do not convert to Christianity supposedly will be incinerated as the believers are lifted into heaven; all this is courteously left unmentioned at the breakfast. The featured speakers include Avraham Hirschsohn, who is the new Israeli minister of tourism, and Michael Medved, a cultural conservative and a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host. Medved is also one of the most prominent Jewish defenders of Mel Gibson's biopic The Passion of the Christ.
Hirschsohn praises the audience for standing "with us for the last four years when nobody else would. Thank you." He then announces, to grateful applause, that the tourism ministry plans to build a "Pilgrim Center" near Galilee.
"A more Christian America is good for the Jews," Medved says. "This is obvious. Take a look at this support for Israel. A more Christian America is good for America, something Jewish people need to be more cognizant about and acknowledge. A more Jewish community is good for the Christians, not just because of the existence of allies but because a more Jewish community is less seduced by secularism."
The cast of characters that takes the stage next is illuminating. Glenn Plummer, a black minister from Detroit who is active in the Republican Party, assures us that he knows all about Muslims because "I come from Detroit, where the biggest mosque in America is."
"It didn't take 9/11 to show me there is a global battle going on for the souls of men," he says. "When Islam comes into a place, it is intent on taking over everything, not only government but the business, the neighborhoods, everything."
The Christian writer Kay Arthur, who can barely contain her tears when speaking of Israel, professes that although she loves America, if she had to choose between America and Israel, "I would stand with Israel, stand with Israel as a daughter of the King of Kings, stand according to the word of God." She goes on to quote at length from Revelation, speaking of Jesus seated on a throne floating about Jerusalem as believers are raptured up toward him in the sky.
After breakfast I have a look at the charred remains of public bus #19 in the convention hall. Its sides are scorched black, and the doors in the center of the bus are twisted hideously. Within, the bus's steel frame is bent outward and shattered. The exterior has been adorned with banners bearing biblical quotations: "I will plant Israel in their own land, never again to be uprooted from the land I have given them" (Amos 9:15); "And I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse" (Genesis 12:3).
The bus, owned by a Christian Zionist group calling itself The Jerusalem Connection International, was destroyed by Palestinian suicide bombers in January 2004, killing eleven people. According to information from the group, its president, retired U.S. Brigadier General James Hutchens, looks at "issues related to Israel from a Biblical perspective." The bus has been displayed at The Hague and in numerous rallies throughout the United States. At a table next to the bus, a Jerusalem Connection official hands out pamphlets encouraging the reader to "Bring Bus #19 to Your Community!"
At a nearby booth that advertises Christian broadcasts to the Arab world, an Egyptian woman, a Christian, tells me that she has been reduced to tears on several occasions by enraged conventioneers who, after visiting the bus, tell her that all Arabs are "terrorists." I speak as well with an Israeli woman, who introduces herself as Marina. She has long blonde hair and is wearing knee-high leather boots. Marina, who emigrated to Israel from Holland and lives on a cooperative mango farm near the Sea of Galilee, says she is "embarrassed" to be at the convention. "These people are anti-Semitic," she says, speaking softly as conventioneers move past the large Israeli display space. The demonization of Muslims and Palestinians by the speakers makes her especially uneasy. I ask her why the tourism ministry is here in the first place. "Money," she says. "It is all about money. No one else visits Israel."
On Monday night James Dobson, the founder and chairman of Focus on the Family, holds an informal reception and talk with his son, Ryan. The walls are decorated with red, white, and blue bunting, and people are eating popcorn, hot dogs, and pizza. There are Ping-Pong tables set up in the corners, and in the center of the room are three bar-stool chairs and another Ping-Pong table, this one bathed in light. Several men are wearing umpire uniforms.
Dobson is perhaps the most powerful figure in the Dominionist movement. He was instrumental three years ago in purging the moderate chairman of the NRB from his post and speaks frequently with the White House. He was a crucial player in getting out the Christian vote for George W. Bush. Dobson says he was born again at the age of three during a church service conducted by his father, a Nazarene minister. He attended Pasadena College and received a Ph.D. in child development from the University of Southern California. While teaching at USC, he wrote his book Dare to Discipline, which encourages parents to spank their children with "sufficient magnitude to cause the child to cry genuinely." (The book has sold more than 3.5 million copies since its release in 1970.) Dobson now works out of an eighty-one-acre campus in Colorado Springs that has its own zip code. He employs 1,300 people, sends out 4 million pieces of mail each month, and is heard on radio broadcasts in ninety-nine countries. His estimated listening audience is more than 200 million worldwide; in the United States alone, he appears on 100 television stations each day. He calls for a constitutional amendment to permit prayer in the public schools. He sponsors a group called "Love Won Out," which holds monthly conferences around the country for those "suffering" from same-sex attraction. He likens the proponents of gay marriage to the Nazis, has backed political candidates who called for the execution of abortion providers, defines embryonic stem-cell research as "state-funded cannibalism," and urges Christian parents to pull their children out of public-school systems. He has issued warnings to the Bush Administration that his extremist agenda must begin to be implemented in Washington and by the federal courts if the Republican Party wants his continued support. Dobson apparently believes that he is without sin.
The evening is billed as a tournament, with competing teams of Ping-Pong players battling their way up the ladder until the big winners play Dobson and his son, Ryan, whom the announcer calls "the double Ds." Before the final match, father and son take questions from the audience. Seated near Dobson is his wife, Shirley, whose only public role seems to be to whisper reminders in her husband's ear. All speakers at the event make much of their marriage and fidelity. Not far away is Ryan's fiancée, and Ryan makes a point of telling the crowd that he and Laura are "remaining pure" and will not have sex for the next 120 days until they are married. At first, the questions focus on how Dobson has raised such an exemplary Christian family. One woman, who says she runs a Christian home, asks Dobson the secret to getting her own children to have the enthusiasm for Christ she sees in Ryan.
"Shirley and I began fasting and praying for the kids when they were born," Dobson says. "We asked the Lord a number of things, but especially that the Lord burn within them."
But this is Ryan's night. Dobson himself is often silent, allowing his son to answer most of the questions with a rambling self-importance. He sits slightly hunched on his stool in a dark sweater, his reddish hair combed in long strands over his balding pate, listening to the boy. He does, though, speak up at one point to clarify his position on SpongeBob SquarePants, which received wide media attention.
"I did not say SpongeBob was gay," Dobson says. "All I said was he was part of a video produced by a group with strong linkages to the homosexual community that's teaching things like tolerance and diversity. And you can see where they're going with that. They're teaching kids to think different about homosexuality."
Ryan, with closely cropped blond hair and a drooping Fu Manchu mustache, exhorts the audience to find a cause "worth fighting for" and "worth dying for." He says he has learned how to reach young people. He knows their culture. He talks about his passion for surfing and skateboarding. Then he says, "People keep saying we need to change the discussion on abortion before we can ban it. We don't need to change the discussion. Like, 80 percent of the country is against abortion. What kind of a country fines people $25,000 for killing a bald eagle but doesn't do anything when unborn babies get thrown in the trash?"
The older Dobson speaks in support of his son's talents and commitment to Christ. Ryan worked for a year at the Family Research Council, founded by his father, which is perhaps the most influential radical Christian-right lobbying group in Washington. He has published two books, Be Intolerant Because Some Things Are Just Stupid and 2Die4, and is clearly being groomed by his father to inherit the Dobson empire.
When it comes time for the Ping-Pong final, the Dobsons easily demolish their opponents.
I leave the convention early Tuesday morning on a shuttle van to LAX. I am wondering whether I shouldn't stay in California a few more days, in order to attend a funeral. Chris Marquis, a close friend and colleague of mine at the New York Times, died while I was out here from complications brought on by AIDS. I learned of his death on the first day of the convention, and even a few days of the Dominionists' bigotry against homosexuals has been more than I could stomach.
I can't help but recall the words of my ethics professor at Harvard Divinity School, Dr. James Luther Adams, who told us that when we were his age, and he was then close to eighty, we would all be fighting the "Christian fascists."
He gave us that warning twenty-five years ago, when Pat Robertson and other prominent evangelists began speaking of a new political religion that would direct its efforts at taking control of all major American institutions, including mainstream denominations and the government, so as to transform the United States into a global Christian empire. At the time, it was hard to take such fantastic rhetoric seriously. But fascism, Adams warned, would not return wearing swastikas and brown shirts. Its ideological inheritors would cloak themselves in the language of the Bible; they would come carrying crosses and chanting the Pledge of Allegiance.
Adams had watched American intellectuals and industrialists flirt with fascism in the 1930s. Mussolini's "Corporatism," which created an unchecked industrial and business aristocracy, had appealed to many at the time as an effective counterweight to the New Deal. In 1934, Fortune magazine lavished praise on the Italian dictator for his defanging of labor unions and his empowerment of industrialists at the expense of workers. Then as now, Adams said, too many liberals failed to understand the power and allure of evil, and when the radical Christians came, these people would undoubtedly play by the old, polite rules of democracy long after those in power had begun to dismantle the democratic state. Adams had watched German academics fall silent or conform. He knew how desperately people want to believe the comfortable lies told by totalitarian movements, how easily those lies lull moderates into passivity.
Adams told us to watch closely the Christian right's persecution of homosexuals and lesbians. Hitler, he reminded us, promised to restore moral values not long after he took power in 1933, then imposed a ban on all homosexual and lesbian organizations and publications. Then came raids on the places where homosexuals gathered, culminating on May 6, 1933, with the ransacking of the Institute for Sexual Science in Berlin. Twelve thousand volumes from the institute's library were tossed into a public bonfire. Homosexuals and lesbians, Adams said, would be the first "deviants" singled out by the Christian right. We would be the next.
Notes
1. When George W. Bush was first elected, Pat Robertson resigned as head of the Christian Coalition, a sign to many that Bush was the first in an expected line of regents that will herald the coming of the Messiah.
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