I write this letter to you in the spirit of supreme annoyance sir, for your recent comments in the Religion section of the Huffington Post have driven me to take actions I find personally revolting:  Come to the defense of Mitt Romney.  You see Mr. Hendricks, unlike Governor Romney, I am both a liberal and a Democrat, who would like nothing better to see President Obama be reelected this year.  That said, Brother Romney and I have one thing in common, that I cannot, under any circumstances, overlook:  We are both committed members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a religion whose beliefs you have attacked in your article.  Thus your actions have put me in a most distasteful position.

You open your piece with a statement that, when read in light of the article of the rest of the article, is most disingenuous.  You state “I’m pretty much a live-and-let-live guy.  In fact, I don’t believe in religious litmus tests of any kind.  Frankly I think they are self-righteous and insulting.”  Such statements are ironic in the extreme as you follow this up with an assessment of my faith that could not be characterized as anything but self-righteous and insulting.

For the sake of brevity I will limit my criticisms to your attacks on our book of scripture, the Book of Mormon.  Utilizing a method of scriptural interpretation that I believe is called “cherry picking”  you pull out four verses from a book that is over 500 pages in length (in English) as indisputable proof that the core doctrine of Mormonism asserts that dark-skinned people are stupid, lazy, ugly and evil.  Of all of these verses, I find your utilization of Jacob 3:8 to be the most contextually egregious.  Taken out of context, as you did, the scripture reads as follows:

“O my brethren, I fear that unless ye shall repent of your sins that their skins will be ^awhiter than yours, when ye shall be brought with them before the throne of God.”(Jacob 3:8)

From a casual reading of this scripture in isolation, one could be drawn to the conclusion that the Book of Mormon teaches that dark skin is a punishment for sin, and that therefore, non-whites are inherently sinful.  But if we place this scripture into context, a very different picture appears.  In this chapter, the Prophet Jacob was calling the lighter-skinned Nephites to repentance, for a number of sins, particularly adultery, using the fidelity of the darker-skinned Lamanites as an example:

“5 Behold, the Lamanites your brethren, whom ye hate because of their filthiness and the cursing which hath come upon their skins, are more righteous than you; for they have not ^aforgotten the commandment of the Lord, which was given unto our father—that they should have save it were ^bone wife, and ^cconcubines they should have none, and there should not be ^dwhoredoms committed among them.

6 And now, this commandment they observe to keep; wherefore, because of this observance, in keeping this commandment, the Lord God will not destroy them, but will be ^amerciful unto them; and one day they shall ^bbecome a blessed people.

7 Behold, their ^ahusbands ^blove their ^cwives, and their wives love their husbands; and their husbands and their wives love their children; and their ^dunbelief and their hatred towards you is because of the iniquity of their fathers; wherefore, how much better are you than they, in the sight of your great Creator?

8 O my brethren, I fear that unless ye shall repent of your sins that their skins will be ^awhiter than yours, when ye shall be brought with them before the throne of God.

9 Wherefore, a commandment I give unto you, which is the word of God, that ye ^arevile no more against them because of the darkness of their skins; neither shall ye revile against them because of their filthiness; but ye shall remember your own filthiness, and remember that their filthiness came because of their fathers.”(Jacob 3:5-9)

What a difference a little context makes.  I would draw your attention in particular to the beginning of verse 9 where Jacob issues the commandment “… that ye revile no more against them [the Lamanites] because of the darkness of their skins; neither shall ye revile against them because of their filthiness;”  in essence, Jacob has just issued a commandment against racial prejudice, a commandment far more direct, I might add, than any you would find in either the Old or the New Testaments.  Beyond that, the Book of Mormon is replete with tales of righteous Lamanites contrasted with wicked Nephites.  Off the top of my head I could mention the examples of the Anti-Nephi Lehites, (See Alma Chapters 17-27) the 2,000 Stripling Warriors (See Alma Chapters 57 and 58) and Samuel the Lamanite, a dark-skinned prophet who alone revealed the sign of Christ’s birth to the peoples of Ancient America (See Helaman Chapters 13-15).  Hence, if the Book of Mormon is holds its fair share of uncomfortable passages, it’s hardly the Mein Kampf you’re making it out to be.

Which brings me to my major issue with your article, after a lengthy, if somewhat cynical interpretation of my faith’s admittedly checkered history on race relations, you close your supposedly “not a “gotcha” political ploy” of an article with the following demand:

“That is why, Mr. Romney, as an American citizen whose president you seek to become, I must insist that you honestly and forthrightly attest to me and all Americans of goodwill that you can be my president, too, fully and completely.  You can accomplish this by publicly disavowing the portions of your holy book that so sorely denigrate the humanity of me, my loved ones and all people of black African descent.” (emphasis mine)

So to be clear, while you find religious litmus tests self-righteous and insulting in general, in this particular case you feel you can demand one, requiring a public disavowal of those scriptures that you find personally unacceptable.  I might ask you, Dr. Hendricks, how much of the Bible would you feel comfortable, as a Christian, publicly disavowing in order to be an acceptable president for an Atheist?  Or how much of the Qur’an ought Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MI) have to publicly repudiate in order to placate the religious right?  Or how much of the Torah should Senator Lieberman disavow in order to make himself acceptable in a majority Christian nation?  Clearly you see the problem here, right?

Having been born after the 1978 revelation on the Priesthood Dr. Hendricks, I can attest to you that I grew up in a very different church than the one you refer to in your article.  I served my mission in central Brazil, serving with, and under the direction of members of African-descent and baptizing them too.  The regions of greatest and fastest growth for my faith are in Brazil and Sub-Saharan Africa, among the very ethnic groups once discriminated against by us.  While our views on African-Americans were once prejudiced and backward, they have grown and evolved.  As your Brother in Christ, and a fellow child of an all-loving God, who is no respecter of persons, nations, creeds or colors, I would invite you to allow your views of us to similarly evolve.

In disagreement,

Sidney Carton

“Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Considering the current atmosphere of anti-immigrant hysteria, in light of our nation’s history of less-than-welcoming behavior toward the newly arrived other (No Irish Need Apply, anyone?) I wonder some times if Ms. Lazarus penned these words to shame us collectively into better behavior, as if we might compare our personal pettiness with the ideals outlined in those words and find ourselves wanting.  If so, I fear the lesson remains lost on us over a century after the fact, a fear sadly illustrated by the recent scandal regarding the TLC reality show “All-American Muslim.”

The show, which purports to follow the daily life of 5 Muslim families in Dearborn, Michigan is an attempt to show American Muslims in a somewhat different light than viewers of American television may be used to:  As relatively normal, mainstream people, working out a life for themselves and their families.  No car bombings, no jihad, no burning of American flags, just football, weddings, and humdrum suburban life.

Such a depiction, according to the Florida Family Association (FFA), is absolutely horrifying.  Finding nothing in this program that reduces American Muslims to their stereotypical vision of homicidal hordes of fanatics determined to destroy all we hold dear, they have done the only thing any rational individual could be expected to do, realize their preconceptions of Islam to be incorrect and reconsider their intolerant and hateful views…

Just kidding.  No, faced with a reality that conflicted directly with their vision of an imminent existential threat from mobs of hijab-wearing, bomb-throwing, sharia-advocating fanatics, they immediately declared the show to be a work of propaganda, stating that the show is:  ”…clearly designed to counter legitimate and present-day concerns about many Muslims who are advancing Islamic fundamentalism and Sharia law.”  Mobilizing their legions of dedicated followers with this new source of outrage and hysteria, the FFA set them loose on the show’s advertisers, a number of which promptly withdrew their funding, most notably Lowe’s hardware.

While I have no doubt that a number of individuals in the FFA actually believe the paranoid pap that is daily churned out from an infinite number of sources both online and on the air, which would have them believe that there are jihadis under every rock and behind every tree, the truth behind this outburst is far more sinister.  Islamophobia after all is an excellent tool for mobilization and fundraising and with the ongoing and ever-increasing union of politics and religion in this country, fearing and hating Muslims has made a lot of money for a select group of people, and kept a lot of people in political power.

Alas, fear and hatred are high maintenance tools, particularly when the group you have chosen to fear suddenly have faces, names, and friday night football games.  How much harder is it to hate your Muslim neighbors when you see that, much like you, they spend their evenings watching the same moronic TV shows, that, instead of spending time brainwashing their children into becoming suicide bombers, they love them, play catch, or hide and seek with them and basically are nothing like the monsters you have been led to believe…  and if you don’t believe that any more, why would you donate money to the people who led you to believe your neighbors were monsters, or vote for the politicians who claimed to be protecting you from them?

And thus the whole mess becomes clear, despite the FFA’s protestations of its role in protecting the traditional family and biblical values, it’s all about money and power.  It’s all about whipping people into a froth so that they’ll open their wallets, and vote for the “right people” who will, (surprise, surprise) advocate policies in the legislatures and statehouses that allow groups like the FFA to make even more money.  Hence the need for monsters among us.  Hence the lingering stereotypes, the crazed, sinister militant, Muslim waiting to plunge you into Sharia-based dhimmihood; the depraved, quasi-pedophiliac homosexual seeking to convert your children, the dangerous, vicious, immigrant, creeping across the border to drop their “anchor babies” and undermine our way of life.  It’s all a lie.  A lie designed to keep you afraid, to keep you paying, voting, and acting in such a way to let them keep feeding at the trough, because they know the moment you stop being afraid, they lose their meal ticket.

I am a Library Assistant with the University of California.

I have worked without a contract for the past three years.

When upper level UC administrators were getting raises for “taking on the responsibilities of 2 or 3 administrators” I got a 4% pay cut to help cover our budget cuts.

I have worked full-time while holding down at least 6 (and often as much as 14) credits a quarter/semester, since 2006.

Due to the ever-rising costs of higher education, I currently carry enough student debt to buy two new cars.

The newest vehicle I own is 11 years old, and has over 180,000 miles on it.

If I’m lucky, I might afford to put a down payment on a home by the time I’m 40.

Were it not for “Obamacare” my wife would, due to pre-existing conditions, not be able to get health coverage on her own.

I have two children, pay my taxes, obey the laws and do my bit for the country that my forefathers bled to defend.

I don’t want the wealth of others, their money doesn’t interest me, their houses are too big and their stuff is ultimately just stuff.  All I want is a fair shake, for my voice and my vote to matter as much in the halls of my so-called “representatives” as the millionaires and billionaires whose interests they currently defend.

I’m not a Marxist, Socialist, Communist, Fascist, or any other kind of -ist, thank you very much.  (If anything, my current political position is cynicism.)  But I’ve read enough history to know that when the privileged few reap obscene benefit from the misery of the many while turning a deaf ear to their cries, catastrophe results, and everyone ultimately suffers.  What you are hearing from Zuccotti Park, from the streets of every major American city, and from the multitude of digital soap boxes across the internet are those very cries.  They are harbingers of troubles to come.

As a father and husband, who sees the fate of those I hold most dear caught up in an uncertain future, I urge those who stand in the positions to shape policy at this time, to give heed, and not merely lip service to these cries and to act accordingly.  For just a moment, lay aside the campaign rhetoric and bickering and do what we have sent you to our various capitals to do:  Govern this land.  If you will not do this, then you will answer for the neglect of your collective stewardship, and history will hold you responsible for our nation’s unhappy fate.

My name is Sidney Carton and I am a part of the 99%.  Join us and we will move forward together.

There are days in which I look up from the still-smoking ruins of the latest drama to unfold in my insignificant life and stare into the heavens to interrogate the God in whom I claim to believe.  I look up to him and ask him a question that is all-too-familiar in both its bitter disappointment and momentary despair:

“Why Lord?  Why did you have me clear this piece of ground?  Why did you have me dig out the brush and break the soil?  Why did you have me plant the precious seeds of hope and expectation into this ground, dig the canals to irrigate the field, weed it, dung it, worry over it during the day and pray for it during the night?  Why did you have me go to all that work, and learn to love that which I labored over, if you knew that, despite my best efforts, the Adversary was going to overrun the whole of my works, burn my crops and seed my field with salt?  If it was all for naught Lord, why did you have me do it in the first place?”

Now in reality I am not a farmer.  Indeed, if the strawberry bushes and pepper plant in my backyard are any indication, my family will have much to fear for should their ability to eat ever be solely dependent on my agricultural skills.  I do labor in a vineyard, but one that is metaphysical in nature.  Instead of plants I help care for those of the Lord’s children that he places under my stewardship.  Sometimes the field is fruitful and flourishes with little effort on my part, sometimes great effort is required to help encourage even the slightest growth.  And sometimes, for all the best intentions, efforts and desires, the field is trampled under the iron heels of the Adversary, whose only delight is in laying waste the hopes and faith of men and women so that they “may be miserable, even as he is” (2 Nephi 2:27).

It is on those terrible days, in the aftermath of lost faith, ruined hopes and fresh despair that the sadly familiar “why” issues forth from the bile in my lacerated soul.  Why is it that the things we put the greatest effort into seem, inevitably, to be the things that are destroyed with the greatest nonchalance by the Adversary?  How does he know what will hurt the most?  How does a loving God allow this to happen and not become a callous monster?  And finally, why, after we have mourned our mourning and shed our tears, will we gather up the spent embers, clear away the debris, and start again?

I am not as naive as I might seem and my questions are rhetorical.  Yet the pain evinced in them is quite real.  In my three short decades of life I have seen many wonderful, blessed souls (a great number of whom are personally dear to me) who have been degraded, despised and even destroyed by the spiritual abattoir we refer to as life.  While I bear my own spiritual scars, they are nothing in comparison to the maiming I have seen dealt out to others, often the tenderest and fairest among us.  And for no other reason than that it pleased the depraved author of our sorrows to see them suffer.

Do I blame God for this?  No.  I know that many would say that I ought to.  That the presence of such blatant injustice and viciousness among his creations stand as stark testimony against his supposed justice and mercy.  Yet I cannot fully agree with such an assertion.  For while spiritual shrapnel has left me bleeding from a thousand gaping wounds, I am reminded that I understand (at least in the academic sense) that “it must needs be that there is an opposition in all things” (2 Nephi 2: 11).  Or, rendered more simply, that without adversity, life has no meaning whatsoever.  I may have a cursory understanding of the doctrine of moral agency, but I doubt I’ll learn to love it on this side of the veil.

In the end I know why we were asked to (metaphorically) plant the field.  It is in the experience of the planting and the nourishing and the laboring and the striving that we grow and are enriched.  Even the experience of loss, of seeing our works laid waste, is ultimately to our benefit.  In losing that which we labored so dearly for, we gain the slightest understanding of our Father in Heaven’s sorrow at the loss of his own wayward children.  Finally, in taking up the debris of past failures, we are both enriched, as our new attempt will benefit from all that we learned in our prior plantings and we are strengthened as we assert through our persistence a faith that the work going on in our fields is eternal in nature and will eventually outlast those who periodically lay them waste.

So in a moment I will take up my shovel again.  I will clear the smoking embers from my fields and start again, come what may.  But give me a short moment, just a moment, to mourn the young plants trampled down before their harvest time.

That is as far as I will indulge myself, or afflict you, dear readers, with my personal reminiscences of September 11^th, 2001.  In comparison to the experiences of so many others, they were irrelevant and ultimately inconsequential.  I lost no loved ones that day, but like so many others I felt the awful sense of hurt and horror that washed over us and hung like the acrid pall that covered New York during the days to come.  I recognize the need we feel as a nation to share “our stories” from that terrible day.  Much like Southern Californians in the aftermath of an earthquake suddenly have a common event on which we can all relate 9/11 is an awful touchstone of experience for every American old enough to remember it.  This year in particular, we seem to have remembered it to excess.

It was bound to happen, I admit it.  This was the tenth anniversary of the tragedy, providing us with an opportunity to look back, to take stock of losses, to measure progress, to “see how far we have come.”  In a more cynical sense, it has provided the purveyors of the 24-hour news cycle with almost endless content , which they have run in an almost continuous loop for the past month.  Yet, while I will admit that this whole spectacle was probably inescapable, it all seems sadly hollow to me.  We will have the processions, the somber speeches, the presentations of wreathes, the readings of names and the obligatory vows never to forget, which frankly put are lies, for we’ve long since forgotten many of the key lessons of that day.  A forgetfulness that is all-too cruelly illustrated by the many souls who rushed to the pile on those first awful days and now languish with insufficient healthcare from the illnesses brought on by their selfless acts of sacrifice amidst the poisonous ruins.

We are a forgetful nation.  We are forgetful of those who selflessly gave themselves for their fellowmen in an hour of terror.  We forget the sentiments of duty and love of fellow man that drove the men of the FDNY and NYPD into those burning buildings when every impulse of human nature would have had them turn in the other direction.  Instead of emulating those sacrifices, we have, in our political and social discourses, spent the better part of the last few years declaring who was “undeserving” in these difficult times.  I wonder whether the firefighters who charged up those stairwells even as the towers were coming down around them stopped to ask themselves if the people they were trying to help deserved it.  Some how, I doubt the thought ever crossed their minds.  Could the same be said of us today?  Shame on us.

The attacks of September 11^th, 2001 were born of hatred and were intended as a monument to death.  If we truly want to hold the victims of that terrible day in remembrance we must live our lives in defiance of those values.  We must live every day, seeking to love one another and take care of one another.  We must embrace the devotion to our fellow men that drove those firefighters and policemen into those burning buildings “that others might live.”  We must remember, in the words of one of our many national mottoes: E pluribus Unum, that while we are indeed many, we will only be great when we are one. It is only when we bear the burdens of the future together, instead of pointing fingers at one another with accusations of shirking, only when we can look across the ideological divide and see brothers and sisters instead of heretics and monsters, only when we can stand together in the face of adversity instead of disputing who should take its brunt alone, that we will be able to truly say that we remember 9/11.  Until then, we deceive ourselves and mock the dead with our hollow tributes.

So tomorrow, amidst the grandiosity and spectacle of official “remembrance,” go out of your way to be kind to your neighbor, whoever they may be.  In doing so you will do more to serve the legacy of those who gave their lives ten long years ago than all the monuments we could possibly hope to build.

He drowsed and was aware of silence heaped
Round him, unshaken as the steadfast walls;
Aqueous like floating rays of amber light,
Soaring and quivering in the wings of sleep.
Silence and safety; and his mortal shore
Lipped by the inward, moonless waves of death.

Someone was holding water to his mouth.
He swallowed, unresisting; moaned and dropped
Through crimson gloom to darkness; and forgot
The opiate throb and ache that was his wound.
Water-calm, sliding green above the weir.
Water-a sky-lit alley for his boat,
Bird- voiced, and bordered with reflected flowers
And shaken hues of summer; drifting down,
He dipped contented oars, and sighed, and slept.

Night, with a gust of wind, was in the ward,
Blowing the curtain to a glimmering curve.
Night. He was blind; he could not see the stars
Glinting among the wraiths of wandering cloud;
Queer blots of colour, purple, scarlet, green,
Flickered and faded in his drowning eyes.

Rain-he could hear it rustling through the dark;
Fragrance and passionless music woven as one;
Warm rain on drooping roses; pattering showers
That soak the woods; not the harsh rain that sweeps
Behind the thunder, but a trickling peace,
Gently and slowly washing life away.

He stirred, shifting his body; then the pain
Leapt like a prowling beast, and gripped and tore
His groping dreams with grinding claws and fangs.
But someone was beside him; soon he lay
Shuddering because that evil thing had passed.
And death, who’d stepped toward him, paused and stared.

Light many lamps and gather round his bed.
Lend him your eyes, warm blood, and will to live.
Speak to him; rouse him; you may save him yet.
He’s young; he hated War; how should he die
When cruel old campaigners win safe through?

But death replied: ‘I choose him.’ So he went,
And there was silence in the summer night;
Silence and safety; and the veils of sleep.
Then, far away, the thudding of the guns.

Into our town the Hangman came,
Smelling of gold and blood and flame.
And he paced our bricks with a diffident air,
And built his frame in the courthouse square.

The scaffold stood by the courthouse side,
Only as wide as the door was wide;
A frame as tall, or little more,
Than the capping sill of the courthouse door.

And we wondered, whenever we had the time,
Who the criminal, what the crime
That the Hangman judged with the yellow twist
of knotted hemp in his busy fist.

And innocent though we were, with dread,
We passed those eyes of buckshot lead –
Till one cried: “Hangman, who is he
For whom you raised the gallows-tree?”

Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
And he gave us a riddle instead of reply:
“He who serves me best,” said he,
“Shall earn the rope of the gallows-tree.”

And he stepped down, and laid his hand
On a man who came from another land.
And we breathed again, for another’s grief
At the Hangman’s hand was our relief

And the gallows-frame on the courthouse lawn
By tomorrow’s sun would be struck and gone.
So we gave him way, and no one spoke,
Out of respect for his Hangman’s cloak.

The next day’s sun looked mildly down
On roof and street in our quiet town,
And stark and black in the morning air
Was the gallows-tree in the courthouse square.

And the Hangman stood at his usual stand
With the yellow hemp in his busy hand;
With his buckshot eye and his jaw like a pike
And his air so knowing and business-like.

And we cried, “Hangman, have you not done
Yesterday, with the foreign one?”
Then we fell silent, and stood amazed,
“Oh, not for him was the gallows raised.”

He laughed a laugh as he looked at us:
“Did you think I’d gone to all this fuss
To hang one man? That’s a thing I do
To stretch a rope when the rope is new.”

Then one cried “Murder!” and one cried “Shame!”
And into our midst the Hangman came
To that man’s place. “Do you hold,” said he,
“with him that was meant for the gallows-tree?”

And he laid his hand on that one’s arm.
And we shrank back in quick alarm!
And we gave him way, and no one spoke
Out of fear of his Hangman’s cloak.

That night we saw with dread surprise
The Hangman’s scaffold had grown in size.
Fed by the blood beneath the chute,
The gallows-tree had taken root;

Now as wide, or a little more,
Than the steps that led to the courthouse door,
As tall as the writing, or nearly as tall,
Halfway up on the courthouse wall.

The third he took — we had all heard tell –
Was a usurer, and an infidel.
“What,” said the Hangman “have you to do
With the gallows-bound, and he a Jew?”

And we cried out, “Is this one he
Who has served you well and faithfully?”
The Hangman smiled: “It’s a clever scheme
to try the strength of the gallows-beam.”

The fourth man’s dark, accusing song
Had scratched our comfort hard and long;
“And what concern,” he gave us back.
“Have you for the doomed — the doomed and Black?”

The fifth. The sixth. And we cried again,
“Hangman, Hangman, is this the man?”
“It’s a trick,” he said. “that we hangmen know
For easing the trap when the trap springs slow.”

And so we ceased, and asked no more,
As the Hangman tallied his bloody score.
And sun by sun, and night by night,
The gallows grew to monstrous height.

The wings of the scaffold opened wide
Till they covered the square from side to side;
And the monster cross-beam, looking down,
Cast its shadow across the town.

Then through the town the Hangman came,
Through the empty streets, and called my name –
And I looked at the gallows soaring tall,
And thought, “There is no one left at all

For hanging, and so he calls to me
To help pull down the gallows-tree.”
So I went out with right good hope
To the Hangman’s tree and the Hangman’s rope.

He smiled at me as I came down
To the courthouse square through the silent town.
And supple and stretched in his busy hand
Was the yellow twist of the hempen strand.

And he whistled his tune as he tried the trap,
And it sprang down with a ready snap –
And then with a smile of awful command
He laid his hand upon my hand.

“You tricked me. Hangman!,” I shouted then,
“That your scaffold was built for other men…
And I no henchman of yours,” I cried,
“You lied to me, Hangman. Foully lied!”

Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
“Lied to you? Tricked you?” he said. “Not I.
For I answered straight and I told you true –
The scaffold was raised for none but you.

For who has served me more faithfully
Then you with your coward’s hope?” said he,
“And where are the others who might have stood
Side by your side in the common good?”

“Dead,” I whispered. And amiably
“Murdered,” the Hangman corrected me:
“First the foreigner, then the Jew…
I did no more than you let me do.”

Beneath the beam that blocked the sky
None had stood so alone as I.
The Hangman noosed me, and no voice there
Cried “Stop!” for me in the empty square.

Image courtesy of Seattle Weekly

Filed under: Poetry Tagged: Gallows, Hangman, Poetry ]]> http://loadstonerock.wordpress.com/2011/08/11/poetry-the-hangman-by-maurice-ogden/feed/ 0 Sidney Carton http://loadstonerock.wordpress.com/2011/08/10/is-anders-breivik-a-christian-the-answer-is-surprisingly-simple-and-should-give-us-all-some-pause/ http://loadstonerock.wordpress.com/2011/08/10/is-anders-breivik-a-christian-the-answer-is-surprisingly-simple-and-should-give-us-all-some-pause/#comments Wed, 10 Aug 2011 19:10:13 +0000 Sidney Carton http://loadstonerock.wordpress.com/?p=1724 ]]> Last month, violent extremism struck Norway in the form of one Anders Behring Breivik.  A self-described “Cultural Christian” seeking the liberation of Europe from the supposed threats of Marxism, Islam and Feminism, Mr. Breivik unleashed the most destructive rampage that Norwegians had seen since the invasion and occupation of their nation by the Wehrmacht during the Second World War.  In a few short hours, Breivik detonated a car bomb in the capital city of Oslo, killing eight people, after which he traveled to youth camp on nearby Utøya island, where he shot some sixty-nine other young people to death.  His justification for this massacre was that in killing these young leftists, he hoped to spur Europeans to see the threats that left-wing governance and Islamic immigration posed toward the traditional homelands of Christendom.  Essentially he saw himself as a modern-day Crusader striking a blow for the preservation of the West.

I will not dignify the ravings of Mr. Breivik with an attempt at serious disputation at this time.  Suffice it to say that the fact that the Copts, Armenians and Ethiopians all accepted Christianity some six to ten centuries before his own people converted suggests to me that his definition of “Christendom” is somewhat narrow and ahistorical at best.  Instead, I found the impressively vehement debate about the validity of Mr. Breivik’s Christianity far more interesting.

Following the media’s jumping to conclusions that the Norway attacks were somehow clearly the handiwork of Muslim extremists, the unpleasant revelation of Mr. Breivik’s nationality, political and cultural proclivities brought on a firestorm of accusations and counter-accusations from across the political and religious landscape.  On the conservative edge of the spectrum, the disavowals of both Mr. Breivik’s politics and his religious identification were swift in coming, while from the left there was a split between those who grudgingly admitted Breivik’s identification as Christian (as proof of the ongoing problem within the faith of extremism) and those who did so gleefully (as proof of the inherent bankruptcy of Christianity and all faiths, by extension.)

Usually the question of religious identity is a problematic one.  Both FLDS Leader (and convicted rapist) Warren Jeffs and I claim the identity of Mormons.  Both of us would consider the other to be an apostate from the true faith.  However to the outsider, our justifications for the non-inclusion of the other would seem rather obscure and esoteric, boiling-down to questions of authority, Apostolic succession, and internal questions of Mormon theology.  Thus making such a conflict largely a question of perception.  However, such is not the case with Mr. Breivik’s claims to identify as Christian.

To be a Christian is to identify one’s self with faith in Jesus Christ and adherence to his teachings.  While the various sects and denominations of Christianity differ considerably as to the details of those teachings, the overwhelming majority of “Christendom” (to use Mr. Breivik’s word in a more universal sense) accept that the authoritative record of Christ’s teachings may be found in the four Gospels of the New Testament.  It is here that the founder of the faith,  who Christians acknowledge as the Savior of the world and the ultimate judge of all humanity, lays out the following guidelines for his disciple’s behavior:

“Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment: But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.” (Matthew 5:21-22)

And furthermore:

“Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth:  But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.  And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloke also.  And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away.

Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.  But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.” (Matthew 5:38-45)

And finally:

“Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.  Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels?” (Matthew 26:52-53)

Hence, Christ specifically instructs his disciples against violence.  Not only murder, which he states is already forbidden under the Mosaic law, but against hatred of any sort, from which flows all manner of violent acts.  Instead of seeking revenge and retribution, Christians are instructed to nourish within themselves a spirit of forgiveness, love and charity, understanding that it is committed unto Christ alone, and not his followers, to deliver the ultimate condemnation to the wicked, a right he earned through the awesome suffering and sacrifice of his own life for the collective sins of all mankind.  Indeed, his rebuke to Peter, about putting up his sword, argues strongly that the Savior has more than enough tools to fight his battles, without our sword-arms to “steady the Ark.”

Finally, lest we have any lingering doubts about the character of a Christian, the Savior offers the following clarification:

“Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.  Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?  Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.  A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.  Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.  Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.” (Matthew 7:16-20)

Thus a disciple is known by their “fruits” i.e. their acts.  Christianity is not defined by solely by the profession thereof, or the adoption of its paraphernalia, symbolism and specific language.  To do so, without adopting the behavior expected of a Christian, is to earn the Savior’s most severe condemnation, it is to become a hypocrite.  Anders Breivik slaughtered innocent men and women to aggrandize himself and his own view of Christian doctrine.  He sought not to glorify God but rather to re-impose a form of  Christianity that has long been the cynical tool of European cultural imperialism.  The faith Mr. Breivik claims to represent is a Potemkin faith, having the form of faith with none of its vital substance.  In the end, Mr. Breivik was an idolator seeking to impose his God upon his fellow-man, a God created in his own twisted image.

Yet before the Christian world turns its collective backs on the sad figure of Mr. Breivik, we ought to consider for a moment how much his condemnation is applicable to any one of us.  If judged by our “fruits” would the Savior consider us to be his disciples?  Do we walk peaceably among our neighbors?  Do we love our enemies?  Do we care for the poor and the needy, and not suffer the petitions of the widows and orphans to come up to us in vain?  Do we live our religion, seeking to pattern our lives after the one whom we proclaim as Master and Savior?  Or are our professions of faith hollow and hypocritical as well.  By his acts Anders Breivik proves himself to be a Christian by profession only, and thereby to be no follower of the Christ.  Sadly the same could likely be said of much of the “Christendom” he claimed to be protecting through his atrocity.

Image courtesy of the Boston Globe

As someone who grew up in the greater Los Angeles area during the 1990’s, the current rioting in London seems strangely familiar.  Police brutality against an ethnic minority provides the spark which touches off longstanding social grievances between the haves and have-nots, and the situation promptly explodes into a series of riots for which the police response is either insufficient, or ineffective.  But, much like the L.A. riots, once the looting and burning starts, the whole mess goes off script.

Have a look at these images of the rioters.  Sure, a lot of them are masked, but even then, it’s clear that there are a surprising number of white people participating in a riot that was at least initially sparked out of outrage for a racial injustice.  While the optimist in me would love to declare that this is clear evidence of a blossoming (at last!) of a post-racial society where all races, creeds and colors stand together to oppose tyranny, the cynic in me quickly responds that those pallid rioters are probably there for the far more straightforward reasons of getting their share in the “five finger discounts” and not missing out on the fun of “watching it all burn.”

And then there are the anarchists.  You have to love the anarchists; they have this most amusing ability to transform acts of adolescent idiocy into grand world-historical movements, even when the “revolution” essentially boils down to knocking over the corner liquor store and lighting it on fire.  Consider the words of this Trotsky-in-the-making, interviewed in the midst of looting a local store, “This is the uprising of the working class. We’re redistributing the wealth…”  Sure, in the most basic sense possible, he’s right.  The material wealth embodied in the consumer goods being looted from the various stores in the riot zones are indeed being “redistributed” (i.e. stolen) by people who did not originally own them (though how many of these “redistributors” actually belong to the working class, as opposed to individuals seeking a 100% discount are open to question) but apart from a short term gain of stuff, there has been no real redistribution of wealth.  The “means of production” remain firmly in the hands of corporations and capital, so the long-term prospects for the working class do not improve at all.  If this is the “revolution” count me out, I was looking for something more durable than an iPod and a new pair of shoes.

The real tragedy of these riots is that when this mess finally dies down, and inevitably it will, life for those most directly affected by this disaster (those who live in these neighborhoods) will be considerably more wretched than they already were.  On top of those already unemployed, you will now add the current shopkeepers and employees whose businesses have been put to the torch.  Necessary services to the community will have been lost, and the investment crucial to both the rebuilding and revitalization of these areas will be slow in coming as most investors who are of a mind to have their capital lit on fire prefer to do it themselves.  Like all forms of catharsis, benefits of the London riots to their participants will be fleeting, while the consequences will be long-term and costly.

I don’t want to act wholly dismissive of the atmosphere of frustration in London (or indeed across the industrialized world) that has lead to activity like this.  Many of the youths in the streets across London, have a good deal in common with their peers who rioted in Paris a few years back, and the ones who torched considerable sections of Los Angeles in the 1990’s.  They’re poor and unemployed, facing a bleak present and (courtesy of Tory austerity measures) a bleaker future.  The present outbreak of mass klepto and pyromania on the streets of London, Bristol, Manchester and Liverpool reflect this mixture of frustration and despair, boiling over into an orgy of destructive rage.  People with a stable present and a future worth working for don’t tend to burn down their own neighborhoods; they have better things to do with their time.  If Mr. Cameron, or indeed Mr. Obama prefer to avoid repeat performances of this sort of grass-roots-urban-redevelopment-courtesy-of-petrol-bombs-and-loose-bricks, their focus needs to shift away from soothing the coddled financial sector, and reconsider the people who have been largely ignored in the midst of this worldwide recession.

I’m done.  No literally I give up.  After years of resisting, arguing and attempting to advocate for a seemingly better way, I’m surrendering to the cold, unyielding grasp of reality.  That’s right, I’m converting to Social Darwinism.  As a gesture of good faith to my fellow brothers in the creed of “I deserve more because I’m better than you” I would like to offer the following “modest proposal” for the future of our nation.  It is my considered opinion that should the following recommendations be followed to the letter, life will be a lot simpler for all Americans, and considerably more comfortable for the deserving few.

1.  Abolish all entitlement programs.  Folks these days like to think they’re so revolutionary, I’ll see their slashing of entitlements, and raise them the immediate and universal abolition of all entitlements, including Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.  That’s right, no more assistance for anyone, anymore.  If you are too old to be productive, your family needs to take care of you. If you have no family, well I’m sorry, I really am, but it’s a whole “circle of life” kind of thing, and it’s your turn to be a wildebeest.  Can’t afford healthcare, then take care of yourself, because under the new system, there will be no handouts.  Your insurance and ability to pay will be checked prior to your admittance to the emergency room.  Failure to meet the standards of payment will result in rejection from care.  For those of you decrying the barbarism of the system I’m proposing here, just remember our pioneer ancestors. They stood or fell by their own ability to take care of themselves, yes a lot of them died, some horribly, but in general the harsh conditions of existence that they faced produced a strong, robust nation capable of subduing a wilderness and building a mighty nation.  The strong and capable (i.e. the naturally deserving) will survive, and the weak will return to the position that nature has decreed for them.
2. Privatize everything.  Yes I mean everything.  Utilities, roads, emergency services, law enforcement, and the military.  Totally impracticable you say?  Hardly.  Professional armies are a relatively recent creation in world history. Prior to that development nations made due with volunteer or conscript militias assisted by professional mercenaries. Considering the recent example of Xe (formerly Blackwater) I imagine we could get by with a small standing volunteer force of young men, who provide their own arms (that is what the 2^nd amendment is for, is it not?) and the nation need provide little more than the liquid refreshment and feminine entertainment necessary to keep them happy while they are being directed against the enemy du jour, should more specialized operations be necessary, we can always allow the free market to provide us with the more experienced forces we require.  As for police, the developing world provides us with many excellent models of how to function without a professional police force. Those who can afford professional security, pay for it.  All one really needs police for is to knock the rabble back into line when they forget their place.  But the firefighters, what of them?  Public fire abatement is highly overrated folks.  If you can afford your own fire brigade, by all means, pay for them, you probably actually own stuff worth saving.  But seriously, we need to reconsider the great fires (as well as other major disasters) of the past.  Instead of seeing these events as some sort of melodramatic tragedy, we should see them as the opportunities for urban and social redevelopment that they so clearly are.  Yes, hundreds may die, and thousands more will be deprived of shelter, but disasters are the great levelers.  They take a complacent society and shake it up. Once again the weak are weeded out, and the truly fit rise to the top.  Furthermore, problems such as unemployment are solved by major disasters as major rebuilding projects are now possible, and the surplus labor force has been dispensed with through attrition.  Hence, instead of fruitlessly attempting to prevent these situations, we need to learn to embrace them, allowing nature to take its course and select the most fit to go on.
3. Re-enthrone property as the guiding principle of society.  This will involve two primary shifts in policy.  First, all income or dividend-based taxation must end immediately.  This will allow each individual to profit to the maximum amount their individual abilities allow. As mass privatization and the abolition of all entitlement programs will drastically lower the Government’s expenditures,  the budget can likely be balanced with a simple flat sales tax, preferably placed on food, to ensure that only the productive (and thereby fit) will be able to eat.   Secondly, our criminal justice system needs to be retooled away from the current coddling of offenders against property.  To be sure murder should remain a capital crime, but it ought to be joined by virtually all categories of theft of personal property.  This will reinforce that what each individual gains for themselves is inviolate, and that those who have not, must either strive to achieve, or content themselves with their proper state in life.
4. Repeal all regulation on trade and innovation, and forbid future obstructions on the path to progress.  Up until the mid-20^th century the path of human progress was basically wide open.  Yes, this progress came at a considerable cost to the natural world, but such has always been the case.  The wildebeest almost certainly does not appreciate his sacrifice for the further development of the lion or crocodile, but such is the nature of evolution. All of these regulations and restrictions on progress merely obstruct us as a society from enjoying future developments like unto those enjoyed by our ancestors who went from a backward, agrarian society a half-millennia ago, to the urban, post-industrial society we enjoy now.  Surely, a little pollution, some extinctions and a few herd-culling disasters are a small price to pay for the future?

Now, as I stated above, these proposals likely seem barbaric to those who have not yet reached my level of enlightenment, but I promise you, under such a system life would inevitably be better.  We would be rid of the parasites who currently drain our society of the precious bodily fluids necessary for its continued vitality.  Certainly, this will make life harder for the many at the expense of the few, but as has always been the case in a truly free market, once the surplus population has been balanced out, life will be better for those who remain at the bottom of the social ladder.  And if not, such changes will certainly cut their life expectancy in at least half, so at the very least, they will suffer for much less time.  Either way, the correct order of things, so exemplified in the natural world will have been restored and once again, the fittest of humanity may go forth to exercise dominion over the earth.