The marketing reflex in our media that calls the ignorant religious fanatics who just gunned down workers supporting the disabled in California “Bonnie and Clyde”, like John Hockenberry on NPR, is irresponsible and plays directly into the terrorists’ hands.
Terrorism is nothing new. Studying terrorism with the then 90-year-old Ernst Halperin in 1985, we observed the very same methods used by anarchists and Balkan nationalists in the 1910’s and 1920’s as used by Daesh/ISIS terrorists today: create public moral outrage to lead the public to your political ends. Key to their mission continuing is the belief of future adherents that their attacks will produce mass attention and a political result. It is this mass attention that inspires future attackers.
Yes, we have a right to the basic information including the technical details as to their persona – but do we really need to see their pictures incessantly, hear their name endlessly, and listen to the people who knew them preen for the cameras ad nauseum?
I agree with Anderson Cooper and Ezra Klein’s admonition to the rest of the media: stop glamorizing them. We are not FBI agents. Yes, in certain cases it can be helpful to understand their profile. But in these cases, we have to accept that we will not always be able to know who is privately radicalized.
These individuals are not that interesting. They are just ignorant religious fanatics who have let their fundamentalist anger replace common decency. Call the media and complain. Pass this on if you agree. Let’s join Anderson Cooper.
are manipulated by the evil and the greedy. ”
Fred Rich LaRiccia
Your last paragraph is marvelous.
I’d like to build on it a bit, specifically your sentence about “ignorant religious fanatics” who “let their fundamentalist anger replace common decency”. That is true, and is only the beginning.
The mindset of the religious fanatic (even those who are not “ignorant”) does many more replacements than the one you describe. Deeply embedded in the philosophical DNA of the religious fanatic is the belief that “faith” is more important than reality, coupled with several other “religious genes” that when fully expressed produce a toxic and dangerous brew. Here some others:
1. The will of God/YHWH/Allah is more important than ANY other consideration
2. I was created to be the agent of God/YHWH/Allah in the world
3. God/YHWH/Allah demands that I spread His “word” in the world
In this mindset, ANY dissonance between reality and “faith” is interpreted by the believer as a test of faith. The effect of this is to erect a closed positive feedback loop that disconnects the sufferer from reality while spiraling the sufferer ever more deeply into and amplifying whatever neuroses or psychoses (each and every one of us has at least the former) already afflict the sufferer.
This brand of religious fundamentalism, whether it be Christian, Jewish, or Muslim (few of the faith traditions outside these three Abrahamic variants emphasize these), inevitably leads its most extreme followers to perform sociopathic acts like this.
Terrorist behavior like this is built into the DNA of all three fundamentalist Abrahamic faith traditions. Our refusal to admit this, in the name of “religious tolerance”, guarantees that these acts will continue and become more frequent.
…to say, “Terrorist behavior like this is built into the DNA of the fundamentalist branches of all three Abrahamic faith traditions.” Your wording makes it sound like the faith traditions are by definition fundamentalist and therefore a problem, discounting the broad swaths of all of them which are themselves religiously tolerant or even embracing. Even with my wording I can easily imagine plenty of fundamentalist adherents saying, “Hey – not even the vast majority of us condone terrorist acts to accomplish our goals!” Specifically as a Christian I would argue that scripture leads us very much AWAY from such means.
I disagree that there is some separate “fundamentalist” branch. The four key elements that produce extremist acts including terrorism are these:
1. Faith is more important than reality
2. The will of God/YHWH/Allah is more important than ANY other consideration
3. I was created to be the agent of God/YHWH/Allah in the world
4. God/YHWH/Allah demands that I spread His “word” in the world
These four elements are, in fact, part of the dogma of each the Abrahamic traditions. They are, of course, interpreted and acted out differently, but the four memes remain.
To choose an example from the Christian tradition (because I am most familiar with it), here are some assertions that fall into my item 1:
a) Mary was a virgin when Jesus was born
b) Jesus literally rose from the dead and walked among his disciples
c) Jesus literally ascended into heaven.
Each of those three examples is part of core Christian belief. I agree that many Christians assert these as metaphorical, rather than actual events. If, however, you choose to describe any Christian who professes that any one of these is literally true as “fundamentalist”, then the resulting “fundamentalist” branch comprises the overwhelming majority of self-described Christians.
In the interest of brevity, I’ll leave the analogous exercise for each of the other three memes to the reader. I suggest, however, that it is equally straightforward.
The “vast majority” of each faith tradition do, of course, condemn these terrorist acts. That’s what “extremist” and “extremist fringe” means.
What we do NOT see is acts of terror perpetrated by even the most extreme Zen Buddhist. That is because Zen Buddhism is not contain these four memes. The same is true for, example, the “pagan” Celtic traditions or the Native American faith traditions.
I agree that “scripture” leads YOU very much away from such means. Nevertheless, it most certainly does lead too many Roman Catholics to murder people in Planned Parenthood clinics.
I would caution painting with the broad brushes you are large swaths of believers. The majority of abortion attackers aren’t Catholic, and the ones who were have been excommunicated. One of my best friends is a Methodist pastor and the man I want to marry me to my fiancée. He would meet all your tenants of fundamentalism but they have taken him into a totally different direction. He has joined his fellow Yalies in racial justice protests, is leading the grad school unionization effort, has protested in Occupy Wall Street camps when he was at Duke and participated in the Moral Monday movement in North Carolina.
And yes he has politely protested outside of abortion clinics, not shouting at anyone, just offering to pray with them. That’s his right as an American, I disagree with it, but I would argue when you decide that every religious person is a terrorist and a threat to peace, as Bill Maher clumsily has, you feed into our enemies hands. That this is a war against Islam overseas or that common sense gun laws and protections for clinics are part of a war on Christianity. It’s just not a way to have a healthy conversation to encourage moderation in religion or a useful definition of fundamentalism.
…there is no reason that you automatically insist that everyone else does, certainly not at the point of a gun.
…I’m not convinced of the accuracy of your assertion that the overwhelming majority of Christians take those tenets literally.
Here are some things I did not say:
– All Christians are terrorists
– All fundamentalists are terrorists
– We should make ANY legal changes
– The majority of abortion attackers are Roman Catholic
I said NONE of those things. The fact that each of you jumps to these mis-statements exemplifies what I mean.
When geneticists demonstrate that a certain combination of genes is needed to cause a serious and rare disorder, it DOES NOT mean that any person with those combination of genes will get the disorder. It means, instead, that those who do not have the genes are very unlikely to have the disorder. The overwhelming majority of those who have the required genes will NOT have the disorder, because it is very rare.
The value of knowing the genetic cause is that those who are susceptible because of their genetics can take extra steps to recognize the symptoms of the disorder. Many such disorders can be treated when the genetic susceptibility is known, and treatment strategies can be far more effective given knowledge of the genetic susceptibility.
I’m saying something similar about my four memes.
1. Those who do not have these beliefs are very unlikely to be terrorists. Zen Buddhists are very unlikely to become terrorists.
2. The overwhelming majority of those who do have these beliefs do not become terrorists. The overwhelming majority of Christian, Jews, and Muslims are not terrorists.
3. Those who have this combination of beliefs, the faith communities that they are part of, and the larger society that provides a context for them, can be alert for signs of radicalization and can have effective pastoral and other interventions ready to deploy when symptoms of radicalization are demonstrated.
The steadfast and outright refusal to even admit that this predisposition towards radicalization even exists— never mind discuss appropriate ways to recognize and treat it — is a major barrier to managing this disorder among those who meet the four criteria.
For Christopher, I hate to break your bubble, but an OVERWHELMING majority of Americans believe that the biblical account of the Virgin Birth is literally true. For example, this December 2014 Pew Institute poll found that 69% of men and 78% of women believe that “Jesus was born to a virgin”. Unless you want to argue that non-Christian Americans are dramatically more likely to be believe this basic tenet of Christianity than Christians, the virgin birth criteria alone satisfies my 1st condition for 73% of Americans. That’s three out of four Americans who meet the first criteria.
Christians who essentially disown their extremist fringe remind me of families who lock their teenagers with Schizophrenia or Turette’s in an upstairs bedroom or ship them off to an institution. Christians, Jews, and Muslims should not do the same with their extremist fringes.
….I am quite surprised by the stats regarding belief in the Virgin Birth. I must spend too much time in the United Church of Christ (or at least Mainline Protestant) bubble:) Of course if the word “almah” from Isaiah’s prophecy were interpreted as “young woman” as it probably should have been rather than “virgin” we wouldn’t have to have this discussion. Matthew’s and Luke’s birth accounts were almost certainly grafted onto the Jesus story later to fit a preconceived narrative. Then again, a greater number of Americans than I’m comfortable with in what is supposedly the Post-Enlightenment scientific era dispute evolution too so maybe I shouldn’t be that surprised:(
I actually do think the faiths and especially their leadership should disown their extremists and shout from the rooftops of every church and mosque that they aren’t us. To be clear I mean this as a general matter as demonstrated by how we speak and act regularly, not that either faith should be expected to make regularly scheduled denunciations of the obviously contemptible.
religious views. Particularly, saying that terrorist behavior “is built into the DNA of all three fundamentalist Abrahamic faith traditions,” starts to sound like the right-wing meme that Islam is a religion of terrorism.
In fact, as I’ve argued before, terrorism is often done in the name of religion, but terrorists are really out to amass political power. They use religion as a diversion or foil. And there have been many groups that have practiced terror and have been fairly anti-religious, such as the Nazis and the Khmer Rouge.
I’m astonished at this reaction.
When geneticists identified several genetic markers for a predisposition to Tay-Sachs (a disorder markedly more prevalent among Ashkenazi Jews), did you claim that this is research was anti-semetic? Would you claim that this sounds like the Nazi meme that Jews are genetically inferior? I certainly hope not. Would you object to even performing the research?
I note that the Jewish community itself has been a major leader in identifying the cause of Tay-Sachs, precisely because it is a disorder that disproportionately harms Jews.
I am not “equating terrorism with religious views”. I am instead suggesting that the memes I identified create a predisposition to religiously-motivated terrorism. That is not “equating” religious views with terror, it is saying that religious terror has causes, and that those causes are likely to, in my view, include aspects of the religious beliefs of affected populations.
If there were no relationship between religious beliefs and religious terror, then we would have at least a few radical Buddhist terrorists, radical Hindu terrorists, or radical humanist terrorists. That’s not what we see. Like it or not, religious-motivated terror is real and is nearly always perpetrated by followers of one of the Abrahamic faith traditions. That fact is not going to go away, no matter how unpalatable it is.
I reject your last paragraph as itself showing profound disrespect for the religious beliefs of these extremists. I suggest that these terrorists have far more sincere and fervent religious beliefs than anyone here. They are so fervent that they are eager to die in order to obey what they believe to be the commandments of their faith. You seem to be saying that they aren’t really religious, that their self-professed faith is a “diversion” or “foil”. To me, that is another example of simply denying inconvenient facts.
The plain fact is that most religious terrorists (the ones who commit the acts, not the people who lead ISIS or AQ or US anti-abortion organizations) are fervent believers who absolutely believe that they are performing God’s will
This is basic logic, people. Red-heads drink wine. Blondes drink wine. Knowing that a blonde drinks wine says nothing about whether or not a red-head drinks wine. Similarly, Nazis and Khmer Rouge practiced terror. Theirs was not religiously-motivated terror. It is irrelevant to the question of what causes religious-motivated terror.
How can we learn how to deal with religiously-motivated terror if we can’t even discuss what may cause it, refuse to admit that it exists (which seems to be the premise of the last paragraph of the comment from dave-from-hvad) or convince ourselves that terrorists aren’t actually part of our faith?
Your first post made a series of broad assertions widely disparaging of the bulk of Abrahamic religious believers. I would be remiss to remind you that Zen Bhuddists have slaughtered thousands of Muslims in Burma, so there’s blood on every faith’s hands. You argued that scripture leads “far too many Catholics” to want to commit murder against health care providers.
In my research nearly all of the anti-abortion killers were not Catholic, John Salvi left his parish and condemned his priest for being not vocally pro-life, hard to argue he was a Catholic in good standing when he committed those acts, which were grounds for automatic excommunication.
The Pope strongly condemned fundamentalism last week in stark turns, saying Islmophobia is unjustified since the vast majority of Muslims are peaceful including the Imams he is friends with. He visited a mosque in the middle of a country torn apart by religious hatred and reminded that community that all the religions are religions of peace. He also acknowledged that Christianity has committed horrible atrocities making direct apologia for the Crusades against Islam, the inquisition against Jews, and the rape of Constantinople against our fellow Christians the Orthodox.
Nearly every major religious figure has condemned these recent acts of terrorism and fundamentalism. I applaud the bishops for strongly rejecting Islmaphobia and urging America to take in more refugees. And I strongly reject your clumsy assertion, again lifted from a tired Bill Maher bit that got his first show canceled, that somehow these assholes are the really faithful since they are willing to kill and die for their beliefs. Their beliefs, as the Pope said, elevate their faith into a false idol that clouds their ability to interact with those with whom they disagree. Christ killed no one, urged the deaths of no one, and preached peace.
I know you’ve been burned by religion, my dad feels as you do that the world would be more peaceful without it or with less of it, but I believe the world would be better if the broader principles behind all the Faith’s were followed by their adherents. And they are all, universally, committed to peace. It is the extremists that are false in their faith, not us, nor most without faith. But them. Be careful to identify the right enemy, it’s a war against extremism not religion nor any particular religion.
I’m not taking this personally, I think you paint in broad brushes that are beneath the kind nuanced analysis you usually bring to these discussions. Nobody is tired of these assholes more than I am.
They are FRAUDS who twist the tenets of great religions beyond recognition to support their need for power and oppression.
You call them “frauds”, they call you the same, and each claim is impossible to falsify or confirm because each is based on intangible claims about an invisible being who produces interior behavior changes.
I assert that a young mother, as misguided as she obviously was, who abandons her baby and is driven to commit certain suicide because of her religious beliefs sounds much more sincere in those beliefs than any of us here. She is certainly more committed in her faith than I ever was in mine.
I think when you dismiss these people as “FRAUDS”, you demonstrate great disrespect for them and for the spiritual tradition of revelation that can justify those reprehensible acts. I agree that I find their decision to act out their religious beliefs by killing “unbelievers” around them is vile and abhorrent. I disagree, profoundly, that the abhorrence of their choice makes that choice a fraud.
A passionate anti-abortion Christian who actively believes that abortion is murder also believes that abortion providers are murderers. It then follows that our amoral society does NOTHING to prevent the slaughter of these innocents, and thereby enables the murderers. This is, in fact, a perfectly logical chain of reasoning if you accept the initial premise that life begins at contraception and that terminating a pregnancy is murder. We can, and I do, strongly reject a resulting decision to commit violence against the abortion provider. Still, I think it does great harm to dismiss the beliefs of this anti-abortion Christian as “FRAUD”.
Many otherwise apparently healthy and happy young men and women through the last two millennia have chosen to interpret Christianity to mean they should choose a lifetime of celibacy. In so doing, they choose to deny themselves what is for me very nearly the most vital, most profound, and deepest spiritual experience available to human existence — a happy, intense, satisfying, and liberating intimate physical relationship with a loving companion, in my case accompanied by children who bring me great joy (and occasional heartbreak).
I find a belief system that celebrates and encourages that interpretation of Christian scriptures, tradition, and experience just as incomprehensible as a decision to become a suicide bomber. Not as reprehensible, of course. But still incomprehensible, so much so that I am inclined to view IT as a “FRAUD”.
I think you’re in deep and murky water throwing accusations like “FRAUD” around based solely on our reaction to the reprehensible acts they commit.
You say that they would call me a fraud as if there is nothing objective to judge them by. I get that religion is very subjective and I personally have a pretty broad tolerance for all types of Christian, but at some point leaders both religious and secular, both liberal and conservative, have to be able to point at the most extreme and violent acts and say in no uncertain terms that such is evil and the people behind them have to business claiming a faith-based motivation.
I have never disagreed with you that these are extreme, violent and reprehensible acts. These acts evil.
It is your last clause where we diverge. The fact that their acts are evil, in my view, does not in any way mean that “people behind them have [no] business claiming a faith-based motivation.”
Acts are different from belief. For all of its other issues, a key aspect of Pauline theology is its rejection of “works righteousness”. Paul argues, especially in Romans, that acting in accordance with law not only will not bring salvation, but in fact itself exposes the individual to even more sin.
It seems to me that we are discussing the dark side of that same approach. The fact that “mere men” or “godless government” view these acts as evil means absolutely nothing to these “true believers”, because they have internalized a belief system where their understanding of the commandments of God is absolute, their understanding of right and wrong is viewed through the lens of that belief, and they come to what is to them a quite rational and even heroic “calling” to murder an abortion provider or a busload of “infidels” in the name of Allah.
Acts are separate from belief. Good people do bad things. Bad people do good things. Immoral child molesters perform great acts of charity in their community. Loving and attentive husbands rape women in combat. Ordained priests who are great spiritual and faith leaders have sex with adolescent boys and girls.
Acts are different from belief.
That’s just deplorable hate speech, on par with anything the right has said about Muslims. You should be ashamed of yourself Tom.
John Salvi wasn’t a practicing Unitarian.
I’m sorry, my friend, Christianity — especially Protestant Christianity — is a religion of revelation. We teach children from primary school onward that God speaks to each of us individually. We define our sacraments to be “outward and visible signs of inward and invisible grace”. The premise at the core of every Christian service I’ve been to, in every Christian faith, is that God reveals his or her plan for us. That revelation is INTERIOR. It lies at the heart of Pauline theology.
It is not “hate speech” to observe that in SOME individuals, that revelation arrives as a vision to acquire a weapon and shoot up a Planned Parenthood Clinic on Beacon Street in Brookline.
Don’t lecture me about “hate speech”, I walked the gauntlet of anti-abortion protesters in Coolidge Corner for a decade. Those protesters were not Unitarians. Those rosaries they so publicly displayed are used exclusively by Roman Catholics.
I am NOT saying that all Roman Catholics are anti-abortion terrorists. Do you disagree that there are too many terrorists murdering people at Planned Parenthood clinics? Do you disagree that many of them are Roman Catholic? Do you disagree that Roman Catholic dogma teaches that abortion is murder and therefore abortion providers are murderers?
We had another recent thread here about “stochastic terrorism”. Isn’t the passionate anti-abortion language spoken by ordained clergy at Catholic Mass every week a classic example of speech that incites stochastic terrorism?
How can you characterize as “deplorable hate speech” my observation that those exhortations and teachings are effective? Who besides Roman Catholics are those sermons and teachings aimed at? If John Salvi didn’t acquire his religious beliefs from the Catholic Church, where DID he get them?
I am suggesting that each of the Abrahamic traditions could more proactively work to identify congregants and believers who are at risk to commit these terrorist acts and provide counseling and pastoral intervention before they spin totally out of control. I haven’t heard the right suggest anything similar.
Maybe informed of particular experience, but I have never heard any priest anywhere call for the killing of health care providers. Every major bishop condemns these killings as intrinsically anti-life because they are.
Asking me this is as condescending as asking a Muslim if there are too many terrorist attacks. Of course I deplore these attacks, as do all good people of faith.
Actually yes, most of them were evangelicals or affiliated with other fringe churches. Out of the 14 that have happened over the last 30 years only one of them was committed by a Catholic, who left the church before committing the crime and worked with Daniel Spitz who’s an evangelical with the fridge “Church of God/Army of God” movement. Asking Salvi to speak for all Catholics is like asking Phelps to represent all Protestants or bin laden to represent Islam. These folks are way outside of the mainstream of Catholicism.
Actually yes, as do most practicing Catholics. As did the majority of the panel that Paul VI assembled that agreed with birth control. As did Thomas Aquinas and Augustine. As do Catholics for Choice, as do the majority of Catholics in Congress and at least two of the Catholics on the Supreme Court. As does the Catholic Vice President. As does Pope Francis go has never called it murder as pope and explicitly condemned religious fundamentalist murders. The senses Fideli has long rejected humane vitae.
Old ladies praying rosaries outside of clinics aren’t terrorists, they are exercising their first amendment rights. Even if their interpretation of Scripture is disagreeable.
Does Catholicism have a problem with violent extremism? Yes, do all ideologies? Yes.
I do not claim that anti-abortion terrorists are practicing Catholics. I apologize for sounding condescending, it was not my intent.
I claim instead that the religious belief system that produces their behavior originates in the Roman Catholic faith tradition, or perhaps in the proto-church that was the progenitor of all of today’s Christian traditions.
I do not in any way suggest that John Salvi “speaks for all Catholics”. The very fact that so many of the anti-abortion terrorists are from evangelical branches is, in my view, a consequence of my item (4).
In my view, the rejection of violent extremism by Catholic, Muslim, and other faith leaders is important and meaningful. I am neither criticizing nor demeaning that. I am instead suggesting that further steps are needed.
I would like to see faith leaders in the Abrahamic traditions look more deeply into possible connections between the assertions of their respective dogma (and I use that word in its technical sense) and the emergence of this violent behavior.
These faith traditions are relatively quick to claim connections between their belief systems and the good and positive outcomes that often result. I suggest that completeness demands that these faith traditions be more willing to investigate possible connections to the bad and negative outcomes that also occasionally result.
I hope we can agree on that, and work within these faith traditions to encourage moderation and a focus on more universal rather than sectarian values. I also strongly feel that you do not share Islamophobic prejudices, but I think you wade into those waters inadvertently when you argue the moderates have less conviction than the extremists. You are essentially making the same point ISIL and its right wing critics are making-that they are the true Muslims.
I am acutely aware of your last sentence.
This, in my view, is the grave danger that religion based on “faith” and individual revelation presents to EVERY follower, even the vast majority of moderate followers.
I’m not sure that “conviction” is the same as “faith”. A great spiritual leader once wrote (I forget who and in what context) “Doubt is faith on tiptoes”.
I am not arguing that followers of ISIL are “true Muslims”. I am arguing instead that those followers of ISIL BELIEVE that they are the only true Muslims. In a similar vein, the Army Of God and its ilk are not “true Christians” in any objective sense. I do think, however, that THEY BELIEVE that they are.
In my view, it is this intensity of misguided belief that makes these fringe elements so dangerous.
As someone who has landed rather firmly in the “agnostic” camp after a lifetime of being a relatively fervent and practicing Episcopalean, I think we simply must accept that these extremists really are “true believers”.
The plain truth is that Bill Murphy really DOES believe that his Anglican Diocese in New England are the true believers in the US Episcopal religion. He absolutely rejects the ordination of gay priests, as a matter of dogma. It is too easy to dismiss his belief as a fraud or as insincere. I think we must instead admit to ourselves that the beliefs of he and his followers are very real and very sincere.
My variant of your last sentence is that I think the ISIS terrorists really do, themselves, truly believe that they are the only “true Muslims”. I similarly think that the anti-abortion terrorists really do, themselves, truly believe that they are the only “true Christians”.
I think this belief is, and always has been, a hallmark of religious cults of every persuasion. I think we make a serious mistake when disregard the impact of this belief on their actions (and therefore on the rest of us).
I enthusiastically agree that need to disarm these extremists.
I can accept most of what you wrote here.
as a Catholic, this sentence strikes me as particularly ridiculous: “Isn’t the passionate anti-abortion language spoken by ordained clergy at Catholic Mass every week a classic example of speech that incites stochastic terrorism?”
Spoken every week? It’s rarely mentioned in my experience. Once or twice a year if the priest is told to talk about it. Occasionally, I had to be careful lest I sign a petition endorsing an anti-abortion platform, but other than that, the occasion is extremely rare.
Then there’s this noted Catholic:
Where this falls apart, Tom, is the belief that violence against others is an acceptable reaction to these tests. Jesus specifically said it was not.
For some, faith IS a reality, as important and overriding as you say. For that reason, we should ceaselessly remind and attempt to persuade, but using violence is nothing more than a sabotage of that persuasion,as only a sincere and voluntary acceptance is wanted by God.
Jesus said many things. Many of those things were contradictory.
You and I may believe that Jesus specifically said that violence against others is an acceptable reaction, but several millennia of Christian history suggests that practice has been very different. Whether we talk about the Crusades, or the Spanish conquests, or the treatment of “infidels” by the Inquisition, a great DEAL of violence against other has been shed by Christians invoking Jesus.
Jesus also said some other things. The New Testament asserts that he said, for example (Matthew 5:18):
If you have a passing familiarity with “the Law or the Prophets” he referred to — the Hebrew Scriptures — then you must recognize that he is talking about violence against others, because the Hebrew Scriptures are chock full of it. Women who commit adultery are to be stoned. People who “violate the Sabbath” are to be killed. The list goes on and on. There may be ways to read metaphor and deep symbolic transformation into those words, but the most superficial first reading seems pretty obvious. If someone is going to “fulfill” every “iota” and “dot” in those laws, then a lot of women and Gentiles are going to killed.
The Bible is NOT a non-violent text. It just isn’t.
When a ritual stoning was attempted in his presence, Jesus halted it by demanding a different interpretation of the ancient law – Let him who is without sin….
As you quote, he did not come to overthrow,but refine. But you knew that.
You have a theory, and like Procrustes you are chopping and elongating to make faith fit. You seem to have an animus.
I am familiar with the parable.
It was radical and disturbing when written, and the same text ascribes the execution of Jesus to fervent Jews (although historical criticism suggests strongly that this was a later gloss obscuring the reality that crucifixion was a Roman, not Jewish, method of execution).
I am not blaming all Christians, and I share your interpretation of the New Testament. My point is that two millenia of equally fervent Christians have come to quite different interpretations of the same texts.
…fulfillment of the Law is not the same as adhering to all of it. The Law was a standby to adhere to until Jesus came along to ultimately fulfill it. Remember, he also had plenty of “You have heard…, yet I say to you…” in which overturning a particular piece of the Law is exactly what he does. This is why I sometimes refer to Old Testament Christians. They call themselves Christians while seeming to forget the New Testament. Besides, don’t forget Rabbi Hillel’s take on the Torah: “That which is hateful to you do not do unto your neighbor. That is the whole of the Torah; the rest is commentary.” The Bible is part national narrative for Israel which certainly included some violent episodes, but the general preaching and teaching is heavily biased in favor of peace. I doubt very highly Jesus would have approved the Crusades.
I agree with everything you just wrote.
The rub here is that a great many practicing Christians, especially here in America, do not. There are a GREAT MANY Christians in America who dismiss words like these as liberal rubbish or even heresy.
I suggest that one of the great strengths of the Hebrew Scriptures and New Testament is that it can be interpreted in as many ways as there are followers. It is also one of its great weaknesses, and perhaps even great dangers.
would completely disagree with you, Tom.
Martin Marty wrote the books on fundamentalism. Karen Armstrong has written about it as well. Fundamentalism is a modern response to people feeling the need to correct society by returning to a more literal version that never actually existed. This is true for all fundamentalisms.
There may not be Zen Buddhists shooting up Planned Parenthood clinics, but there were plenty of willing Zen Buddhists who supported Japan’s militarism, which led to the death of many more people.
Blaming religion for terrorism is a mistake, typically held by people who don’t like religion. People who pick and choose scripture and dogma to support claims of irrationality. Who base their arguments on the assumption that believers have nuanced views of scripture and dogma. Who consider the Bible and dogma in a fundamentalist way has little resemblance to the actual lived experience of people who actually practice religion. Anti-reiigionists also ignore the fact that non-religious ideologies killed more people in the 20th century than terrorists ever have. Moreover, little, if any, religious violence was ever caused by religion alone. There have always been political reasons for religious wars. That’s not to say that religious belief wasn’t involved, but there’s no reason to assume that violence wouldn’t have occurred without it.
The geneticist who seeks to identify genetic markers for Tay-Sach’s is not “blaming religion for disease”. The association between Jewish ancestry and Tay-Sach’s had been known for decades. The argument you and others make would chastise the geneticists for narrowing their search to those of Jewish ancestry.
I am talking about RELIGIOUS terrorism, not political terrorism. I am not talking of war, either. If we are at war today, it is with ISIS (a self-described political entity), not Muslims. I hope we all recognize that distinction.
Having said that, I want to push back on your claim about the 20th century death toll. Are you now claiming that the Nazi genocide was not directed at Jews? While they targeted other groups, the Nazi’s wiped out SIXTY-SEVEN PERCENT of the world’s Jews, a death toll of SIX MILLION Jews. I know humanity killed many people in the 20th century, but still — SIX MILLION?
My point is, in fact, that religious believers DO have nuanced views of scripture and dogma. I am asserting that religious terror is a rare disorder that afflicts a tiny portion of religious believers. Just as we look within the Jewish population for genetic markers of Tay-Sachs, I suggest that it only makes sense to look within the population of followers of the Abrahamic faith traditions to seek the markers of religious terror associated with Christian, Muslim, and Jewish terrorists. Or is it even objectionable for me to ask THAT question?
I have known several ordained theologians whose life work is to study the roots, in religious belief, that separate social from anti-social behavior in followers. Faith-based organizations have led the world in promoting suffrage for women, civil rights for minorities, workplace protections for workers, and host of others. Those theologians are eager to engage questions of what differences exist in the belief system of followers who make positive contributions like these and followers who kill, maim, torture, and abuse in the name of their religion.
I am disappointed that this BMG community is so reluctant to contemplate these questions, and is so hostile to those who even ask them. Would this community react differently if I had a DDiv from HTS and was ordained in the Swiss Reformed Church?
Are we REALLY claiming that ANY religious claim is to be “respected”, based solely on the sincere and fervent belief of the follower making the claim? What stance do the rest of you take towards Amador Medina, an apparently fervent believer in “Santeria, an Afro-Cuban cult”?
From the current NECN link above (emphasis mine):
What is it, other than the number of followers, that separates the beliefs of Mr. Medina from those of more mainstream faith traditions? Are we to assert that the religious beliefs of Mr. Medina had nothing to do with his behavior in unearthing skeletal remains from a Worcester cemetary?
I don’t see how we make constructive progress towards reducing religious terrorism if we can’t discuss its causes.
not nuanced, more specifically, incorrect:
I’m not trying to quote you out of context here, so I hope I understand your meaning. The fact is, most practicing, non-fundamentalists don’t believe these things “literally.” They believe them mythically in Karen Armstrong’s words, which doesn’t mean fictionally, it means on a particularly symbolic level. I’m no longer a practicing Catholic, but when I was, I remember the priest saying, “Let us proclaim the mystery of faith: Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.” The word “mystery” isn’t window dressing. There’s a reason this doesn’t say “Let us proclaim the literal fact…” If I take what you’re saying correctly, you ignore the “mystery.” The people who invented Christianity after the death of Jesus confuse rationality (logos) with spirituality/religion (mythos). It was fundamentalism that tried to make religion into mythos and cheapened both in the process. See Karen Armstrong Should we believe in belief?
…is the difference between pre-existing conditions and character flaws. If you tell me that based on my race I might be more predisposed to a certain disorder I’m not going to take umbrage because there’s nothing I can do about my race or my medical predisposition. It’s not my fault. If you tell me that what I believe is more likely to make me do something that I have no intention of doing and absolutely have the free will not to do, that’s different.
@Christopher:
I don’t think “fault” has a role in this exchange.
We do not choose what we believe. Each of us is given a “God package” by our parents. Some of my mentors, who I have great respect for, suggest that one of the things that mark an individual’s coming of age is when we discard the “God package” of our parents and replace it with our own, based on our own experiences.
Sadly, though, that replacement is rarely if ever complete.
In any case, I suggest that your last sentence is a tautology. You presume the truth of your assertion while making it.
@Mark: I did not say that these beliefs PRODUCE extremist acts, I said instead that introduce a vulnerability to become someone who commits those acts.
I’m familiar with Karen Armstrong, I like some of her analysis and take issue with others.
A fundamental schism between the Catholic and the Anglican traditions has been the distinction between “transubstantiation” and “consubstantiation”. The former is asserted by the Catholic tradition, the latter by the Anglican tradition. A key part of the dispute is that Catholic dogma asserts that the actual physical nature of the elements is transformed — the wine becomes the blood of Christ, the wafer becomes the body of Christ. Anglican dogma asserts, instead, that the wine remains physically the same and is imbued with the metaphorical blood of Christ (generally symbolizing the spiritual side of human existence) and the wafer is imbued with the metaphorical body of Christ (generally symbolizing the labor of human existence). I’m not claiming that Catholics believe that the chemistry of the wine and bread changes (although I have known some who do). Still, it is a more concrete (if not literal) understanding of what happens at the altar than is found in an Anglican Mass. In a traditional Catholic Mass, a bell rings to inform the congregation of the precise moment when the transition occurs. No such bell rings in an Anglican Mass.
Separate from these two traditions are the fundamentalist Protestant traditions that really do assert your (b) and (c).
Those of us baptized as infants were so baptized by their will rather than ours, but I would suggest that free will gives all of us the opportunity to determine for ourselves what we believe. You can’t change your ancestry, but you can always change what you believe and you can certainly decide how you will and will not act based on that belief.
where things we agree about are being talked about with reasoning and words we don’t agree with, I think.
My personal opinion:
Religion is a part of culture; as such, it reflects, combines with, and has out its own messages. So do political parties. Almost every religion has a justification for war, even though it may also preach peace. Religion is involved in terrorism, but so what? It’s involved in politics. Sectarianism is not a cause of strife, it is the manifestation of something deeper. Wars between Protestants and Catholics might have involved sectarian differences, but there was much more at work there. Just as Northern Ireland wasn’t about Protestant and Catholic theology, it was about what side you were on. Cherry-picking aspects of religious theology, as extremists do, and criticizing religion is pointless. It’s secular chauvinism. And I say this as a secular humanist.
I remembered arguing with an Episcopalian who insisted it wasn’t ck substantiation but that “real presence” was vaguely broad enough to accompany a reformed or catholic understanding. The Anglo Catholic parish I attended in Chicago did ring the bell, the low church happy clappy and staunchly anti-abortion RC parish I (very) briefly attended in Aurora did not. One of the things you can depend on with Episcopalians is not sweating the small stuff like homosexuality while sweating the important stuff like proper liturgical practice.
Beacon Hills’ Advent parish rang the bell too last time I was in town, though they were so high church Catholic the priest faced the altar, to my delight and my Methodist fiancées chagrin. Regardless of which denomination we attend, we are usually the only under 30 couple around sad to say. Part of the reason I find atheists insistence on how dogmatically religious the country is to be somewhat farcical, we are definitely moving away from religion not toward it, even if we aren’t as far along as Europe.
That’s part of this problem. You are looking at the death throes of the religious right, and probably religious life in mainstream America in general. Which will do much to further polarize the country I’m afraid. The moderate witness of the mainline Protestant tradition will sorely by missed, I am hopeful under Francis the RC can step in to fill the void, but our credibility may have been permanently shattered by the abuse scandal. The rise of the nones comes largely from folks like yourself or my parents, or the bulk of my friends, who are abandoning the churches they were raised in without taking up anything new. Thus leaving behind only the most extreme voices in their wake. Most healthy churches I’ve been too have a strong ideological pull one way or the other. The Advent is the rare exception, as is the average healthy RC church.
I agree with all three of you. Let me ask a contrast-and-compare question.
Perhaps we can stipulate the existence of a very real Italian Mafia, and perhaps we can stipulate that the members of that criminal organization are almost by construction Catholic. Perhaps we can agree that at least the operatives of that organization routinely commit violent and abhorrent acts in their performance of the duties assigned to them by the criminal organization. Perhaps you will join me in stipulating that this abhorrent and violent behavior does NOT originate in their religious tradition.
It seems to me that the relevance of religious beliefs to the acts of religious terrorists is so apparent that I resist a line of investigation that rules out the examination of the role played by religious beliefs before the investigation even begins.
When we compare Christian religious terrorists with the Italian Mafia, what similarities and differences do we find? Are there elements of religious belief shared between Christian religious terrorists and Muslim religious terrorists, and not found in Italian Mafia operatives?
It may be that such an investigation will show that, like the operatives in the Italian Mafia, religious beliefs do not play a causal role in the abhorrent behavior of religious terrorists. I would like that result, if it emerges, to be a product of rather than a prerequisite to the investigation I suggest is very necessary.
I would strongly encourage you to read Dying to Win to understand some of the dynamics at play when it comes to the logic behind extremist terrorists. Now, it was written pre-ISIL, and a good argument could be made that their particular brand of Islam plays a far larger role in their political and military motivations than it does for Al Qaeda, which used a religious framework to advance a far more secular set of political goals and priorities.
Pape’s thinking has been a big influence on Obama’s approach to ISIL, and why he thinks the containment strategy will pay off in the long run. To the extent than the Marathon bombing and San Bernadino tragedies were significantly less catastrophic than 9/11 actually suggests that our strategy is working, though it failed to comprehend the kind of psychological affect terror can have on a democratic society.
Now Pape didn’t have a great answer for me when I asked him why the NRA didn’t resort to suicide bombing, other than the say that the Catholic religion places a larger prohibition on suicide than the Maoist Tamil’s or Islamic examples do. But that seemed to me to be a concession that religion can play a role in affecting the strategy of political movements aligned directly or indirectly with religious movements.
Having a state and governing it according to Islamic principles are a key motivator behind ISIL, and it unclear to me if you can separate their political and religious ideology so easily. We are really dealing with a cult governing territory in a way we haven’t seen in quite some time.
Meant the IRA not the NRA…
something on which we all basically agree.
Which is just fine. I mean, look at the heat I got for saying I agree with gun control, but recognize it will never pass in the current climate, and want to support alternatives that will save lives that could pass today. Or for maintaining the opposition I had to foolish and destructive no fly lists every progressive had a week ago. I’ve been here long enough to remember when progressives liked the filibuster too.
…for the decline of even mainline Protestantism. Granted, maybe the latter could and should have been more vocal all along (though THERE’S something not “in our DNA” to use Tom’s words), but because of the beliefs of the former and insistence that only they are right, THAT is what the unchurched see as Christianity and it’s very difficult to convince them otherwise. I am very frustrated that over my years of denominational involvement I have seen a lot of managing decline and precious little effort to reverse the decline, except maybe in ways that seem to sacrifice our identity entirely.
“We do not choose what we believe”
Of course you do – because personal choice is the only way you can hold an examined belief!
A far more important difference in Protestant vs. Catholic thought than transubstantiation (despite the fact that governments used to kill people based on their opinion) is the belief in the need for an intermediary (a priest or authority) with God, and a direct and personal relationship with God which is the primary tenet of the Reformation. And that direct relationship is entirely dependent upon choice.
Anthropologists do study these matters, and they come to different answers. An accessible entry for lay readers was published by Pascal Boyer in 2001, “Religion Explained“.
His cross-cultural research about religion includes several counter-intuitive findings:
1. The idea of choosing a religion is modern (in human history) and restricted to the relatively narrow set of “literate” religions that are based on written statements of faith and provide essentially interchangeable clerics or analogous functionaries. Most religious belief systems (as measured by the number of people who have held them over history) are far more personal and individual than that.
2. Religions evolve to suit the belief systems of the culture that produces them, rather than vice-versa
3. Many of the components of a belief system that guides a choice of religion (for those who choose) are unconscious and unexamined.
Nearly all humans feel uncomfortable near the recently-deceased body of another human, especially a loved one. This discomfort is, according to Mr. Boyer, created by the way human consciousness interacts with its environment and not by any “examined belief”. Different religious cultures evolve different religious belief systems in response to this phenomena.
Very little of what happens to us when we grieve or when we encounter a recently-deceased person is a result of “examined belief”.
…and I can certainly testify on my own behalf that my belief about God and how we should approach the Bible has evolved as I have grown up.
Certainly our beliefs evolve as we grow up.
Sadly, for a handful of people, that evolution proceeds in a direction that produces behavior abhorrent to the rest of us.
who believes that only God’s irresistible grace can draw the elect to salvation and that human choice has nothing to do with it.
Indeed, often leading to the awkward implication (in a modern society that attempts to be tolerant of religious diversity) that God has decided to not select non-believers for salvation.
It is a short step indeed from that implication to the conclusion that pretty much anything can be done to those non-believers without moral consequences from “God”.
Some traditions attempt to moderate this by asserting that evangelism can help God’s will by explicitly telling them about God’s grace that awaits them. This attempt often results in even worse consequences for those who choose to decline the “invitation”.
To me, the “fundamentals” of Christianity include adhering to Jesus’s teachings, to love God and neighbor, caring for the least of these, etc. By that definition I would say that liberal social justice folks are the more truly “fundamentalist” Christians.
By rejecting the resurrection, virgin birth, and the ascension. Y’all really are Unitarians Considering Christ, ain’t ya?
There are fringe elements in almost all religions, as soon as people begin to let their affiliation to one group dictate their preconceived notions toward other groups we’re in trouble.
10,000 Muslims have been killed by Hindus in religious violence since the partition of India in 1947. Wickipedia.
There is a growing problem in Sri Lanka as the Buddhist Power Force (BBS) gains strength. google it
Evan the Amish have their enforcers, but they tend to keep their problems within their sects.
We need to curtail the power of all religions and expose their priests, immams, rabbis, etc as the witchdoctors they are.
That the media has to stop glamorizing these criminals with their sensationalist coverage and wall to wall repetition of their names and faces. Most killers are not seeking notoriety, but I still think it does a disservice to the victims. Focusing on the stories of the victims and meeting the people and communities they left behind might finally start convincing people how messed up our lax gun laws are. Prioritize their pain rather than indulging the psyche or ideology of the killers, and replaying it for the world.
job at sparking controversy with his posts. Bravo!
Today’s media glamorizes or pays too much attention to flashy issues. The info that actually informs has to be dug out of other places. Even then reliability can be suspect. The biggest error in these attacks is ascribing it to some form of Islam. It is nothing of the sort. These are violent power grabs by political cartel that has the characteristics of “murder incorporated”. There are 1.6 billion muslims in the world, and the group we’re dealing with is probably less than a few hundred thousand. What we are missing, most prominently from our GOP friends, is the need for decent governance. Instead it is us against them where the us is horribly overstated.