Thinking Out Loud

2007-07-05T19:35:00.000-07:00

Christian Zealotry and the Occupation of Iraq

Faith-Based Imperialism

The very nature of Christianity is imperialistic. A resurrected Christ reportedly told his disciples, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore," he ordered them, "and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey [italics added] everything I have commanded you" (Matthew 28:18-20). Jesus' assumed resurrection is believed to be proof of his own unique divinity as the only Son of God and savior of the world. "I am the way, and the truth, and the life," he is recorded as asserting. "No one comes to the Father except through me." (John 14:6) It is about authority and obedience far more than about individuality and equality. Thus Christianity is embraced by most adherents as "the highest revelation of God." In the words of The Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church: "We believe the Christian Church is the community of all true believers under the Lordship of Christ. . . . the redemptive fellowship in which the Word of God is preached by men divinely called . . . {It} exists for the . . . edification of believers and the redemption of the world" [italics added]. ("Article V The Church," pages 67, 68) Jesus' death on the cross is also central to many Christians imperialistic claim of possessing the global religious truth for all human beings. A favorite authoritative verse is John 3: 16: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life." [italics added] As the passion of the Christ-makers dictates: Jesus died on the cross "for the sins of the whole world," and whoever believes in his sacrificial act of atonement, as the only pure Son of God, will not perish but inherit eternal life. Thus may an otherwise theologically damned hell-bent humanity escape the eternal punishment of an otherwise loving god.

"The sins of the whole world?" It all started innocently enough, if one believes in the literal truth of the Bible. "In the beginning God created" Adam and Eve and a womb-like Garden of Eden for them. Unfortunately, they committed the "first" or "original" sin: they disobeyed their god by eating from "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil;" and their "eyes [were] opened" and they became "wise . . . like God, knowing good and evil," which evidently was taboo. So an obedience-demanding, apparently jealous god banished them from the Garden of Eden. (Genesis 3) Thus much of hierarchical and "bibliarchical" Christianity would have us believe that Adam and Eve actually existed, or represent mythical truth, and that their disobedience marks or symbolizes "the fall" of the human race: i.e. all human beings thereafter inherited Adam and Eve's disobedient, sinful nature. The only saving grace for all people is prayed often in many Christian churches: "Almighty God, our heavenly Father, who of they tender mercy didst give thine only Son

Jesus Christ to suffer death on the cross for our redemption, who made there, by the offering of himself, a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice for the sins of the whole world." [italics added] ("The Great Thanksgiving," Holy Communion ritual, The United Methodist Hymnal, 1989, p.28)

"Original sin" of a real or mythical Adam and Eve? Or taking a bite to see the light, and cutting the "umbiblical" cord of patriarchy and moral obliviousness? Disobedience? Or individuation? Religion as power over people? Or as empowerment of people? Mindless? Or mindful of right and wrong?

On any given Sunday in almost any given Christian church one may hear professions of an ingrained imperialistic faith. It may be heard in a call to worship: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. . . . The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. . . . And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, . . . full of grace and truth. . . . No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known [italics added] (John 1).

A similar affirmation of an imperialistic faith, often said in unison in Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox churches, is the Apostles' Creed: "I believe in God the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ his only Son our lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried; . . . rose again; he ascended into heaven, he is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty and he will come to judge the living and the dead" [italics added]. ("Apostles' Creed," Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia).

Faith-based imperialism may be reflected in the Scripture lesson read at a given Sunday service: "Therefore God has exalted him and bestowed on him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." [italics added] (Philippians 2:9-11) Then may follow "the Word of God . . . preached by men divinely called" to lead "the community of all true believers." Here again the emphasis is far more on believing than on being. Far more on submission and domination than on liberation and equality.

Faith-based imperialism is oblivious to its own self-contradictions. On any given Sunday one may hear the following prayer "For Peace": "Eternal God, in whose perfect kingdom no sword is drawn but the sword of righteousness, no strength known but the strength of love: So mightily spread abroad your Spirit, that all peoples may be gathered under the banner of the Prince of Peace [italics added] as children of one Father; to whom be dominion and glory, now and forever, Amen. (The Book of Common Prayer, The Episcopal Church, 1979 p. 815) Here is unawareness of the "banners" under which people of other faiths may "glory."

At any given Sunday service, the closing hymn may sound an imperialistic note: "We've a story to tell to the nations, that shall turn their hearts to the right, a story of truth and mercy, a story of peace and light . . . For the darkness shall turn to the dawning, and the dawning to noon-day bright; and Christ's great kingdom shall come on earth, the kingdom of love and light." (Words and Music by Ernest Nichol, 1896, The United Methodist Hymnal, p. 569) And following the hymn, this benediction may be said: "Now to him who is able to keep you from falling and present you without blemish before the presence of his glory with rejoicing, to the only God, our Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority before all time now and forever. Amen" [italics added] (Jude 1: 24, 25)

Faith-based imperialism is especially seen in claims regarding which Christians represent "the one true church." Catholicism teaches it alone possesses "the keys to the Kingdom," since disciple Simon Peter, who became the first apostle, is recorded as recognizing Jesus' unique divinity: "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God," and Jesus rewarded him with, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church and the powers of death shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven . . ." [italics added] (Matthew 16: 16-19)

Citing the above Scripture as its authority, the Catechism of the Catholic Church stakes Catholicism's claim as the one true church: "This is the sole [italics added] Church of Christ, which in the Creed we profess to be one, holy, catholic and apostolic." (811, p. 232). The Catechism continues, "The sole Church of Christ [is that] which our Savior, after his Resurrection, entrusted to Peter's pastoral care, commissioning him and the other apostles to extend and rule it. . . . This Church . . . subsists in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the bishops in commune with him." (816, p. 234) The Catechism then reinforces its imperialistic authority: "The Second Vatican Council's Decree on Ecumenism explains: 'For it is through Christ's Catholic Church alone, which is the universal help toward salvation, that the fullness of the means of salvation can be obtained.'" [italics added] (Ibid) The Catholic Church's bottom line: "God can lead those who, through no fault of their own, are ignorant of the Gospel, to that faith without which it is impossible to please him, the Church still has the obligation and also the sacred right to evangelize all men." (848, p.244) Faith-based imperialism, in Germany, in other European countries, and in America, made it easier for Hitler's fascist Nazi ideology to murder some six million Jews in the 1930's and 1940's.

If Catholics find their imperialistic authority in their Church, evangelical and other Christians find it in their Bible. Many evangelical Christian websites declare that salvation is not through any "church but through Jesus Christ alone." Christian Resources Net, for example, states Catholicism's position: "The Second Vatican Council Decree on Ecumenism explains: 'For it is through Christ's Catholic Church alone which is the universal help toward salvation, that the fullness of the means of salvation can be obtained. Vertification: pg. 215, #816" But Catholicism is wrong because, "When checking God's Word on this subject, two critical facts leap out: 1. The Bible never remotely indicates that one must go through a church to obtain salvation. 2. Literally hundreds of Scriptures proclaim that salvation is a free gift from God, readily available to anyone, but only through Jesus Christ" [italics added). Christian Resources Net then proceeds to list at least 20 Scriptures, including, "Neither is there salvation in any other (except Jesus): for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved. Acts 4: 10,12" ("Catholic Beliefs vs. the Beliefs of God")

The historic pervasiveness of faith-based imperialism is seen in United Methodism's invitation to church membership: "The Church is of God, and will be preserved to the end of time, for the conduct of worship and the due administration of God's Word and Sacraments, the maintenance of Christian fellowship and discipline, the edification of believers and the conversion of the world. All of every age and station, stand in need of the means of grace which it alone supplies." [italics added] (The United Methodist Book of Worship, 1992, page 106) These words are in keeping with the mission of The United Methodist Church, which "affirms that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the Savior of the world, and Lord of all." And, "as we make disciples, we respect persons of all religious faiths and we defend religious freedom for all persons. . . . We embrace Jesus' mandates to love God and to love our neighbor and to make disciples of all peoples." [italics added] (The Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church, 2004, pp.87,88)

United Methodists, and other evangelical Christians, appear to want their "cake of superiority" and eat at the table of equality, too. How can one "respect persons of all religious faiths" and "love our neighbor" if the intent is to convert and "make disciples" of them? Such "respect" and "love" for "persons of all faiths" appear to be code words needed to rationalize the very opposite. Such evangelism reveals a subtle, inherent disrespect for "persons of all [other] religious faiths." It represents another example of the obliviousness of an imperialistic faith to its own self-contradiction.

Evangelical Christianity is imperialistic. It presupposes that one's religious belief is better than another's. That one's faith is superior and another's inferior. That one's religion is true and another's false. Here there is not respect but religiously code-worded disrespect and inequality, with ingrained paternalism and arrogance that assume, "My faith is best for you." Here another's reality is unconsciously interpreted rather than consciously experienced. Here there is the negating of another's identity and inherent worth and right to believe as he or she chooses and to be who she or he is.

Faith-based imperialism encourages obliviousness to the rights and well-being of people of other religions. It is believed to restrict an evangelical Christian's capacity to identify with and perceive the reality of people of differing beliefs. It discourages walking in the shoes of different believers or non-believers. It violates the Golden Rule of doing unto others as you would have them do unto you (Luke 6:31) It sets limits on empathy for and caring about what happens to persons beyond one's own "true believers." Where there is caring, it is often with proselytizing strings attached. It encourages an ethnocentric, "our kind" only interpretation of Jesus' commandment to "love your neighbor as yourself" (Matthew 22:39) Faith-based imperialism puts people of other faiths out of mind and out of sight, which obliviousness is subtle and pervasive and has deadly consequences.

Here there are prayers by ministers and priests at various public gatherings that often end with, "In the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ"-as if only Christians were in attendance. Here there is an unsigned note placed on the altar of the interfaith chapel in a big metropolitan hospital: "A chapel without a cross? Is this what has happened to Christianity in our country? Sad" (underlined three times). Here there is President Bush's United Methodist minister, Rev. Kirbyson Caldwell, ending his Benediction at Bush's January 2001 Inauguration with, "We respectfully submit this humble prayer in the name that's above all other names [italics added], Jesus, the Christ. Let all who agree say amen." Here there is evangelical Christian-professing Bush himself justifying a criminal war against Iraq with, "Freedom is not America's gift to the world, it is God's gift to every man and woman in the world." ("Acceptance Speech to Republican Convention Delegates," The New York Times, Sept. 3, 2004) A "gift" wrapped in "shock and awe" bombs and brutal occupation. And here Bush's faith-based initiatives also serve to numb Christian consciences and buy support for a criminal war.

Christians, whose faith-based imperialism prevents them from being aware of the Jews and Muslims in their midst, are far more likely to be oblivious to the Jews and Muslims being oppressed around them-or beyond them by their government in their name. Thus can an unchallenged self-professing evangelical Christian President Bush say at a news conference, "I pray daily. I pray for guidance and wisdom and strength. . . . I pray for peace. I pray for peace." (The New York Times, Mar. 7, 2003) And two weeks later unleash 21,000 pound "shock and awe" bombs on the people of Iraq-a war of choice planned by his administration long before the horrific 9/11/2001 attack against America which then served as a pretext for his criminal war.

The faith-based imperialism of many Christians apparently prevents them from perceiving the fear-mongering lies on which this "Jesus changed my heart"-president based his administration's unnecessary war. Belief in a superior faith and country may be preventing them from imagining and feeling the overwhelming death and destruction this falsely-based war is causing.

The facts should be shockingly clear by now. Saddam Hussein did not possess imminent "mushroom-cloud"-threatening weapons of mass destruction nor ties to the terrible 9/11/2001 attack against America. The person practicing a "game of deception" regarding weapons of mass destruction was not Hussein, as President Bush repeatedly charged, but Bush himself. War crimes against humanity, disguised as "Operation Iraqi Freedom," are being committed: hundreds of thousands of Iraqi men, women and children dead; the country's life-sustaining infrastructure devastated; some four million civilians forced to become refugees inside and outside their country; a deadly massive civil war raging, triggered by the US-led invasion and occupation; and thus far over 3400 American soldiers killed and tens of thousands wounded in body and mind, along with the terrible waste of our nation's resources.

The faith-based imperialism of Christians is assumed to well serve the Bush administration. A Christian evangelical-professing President Bush can attend an Easter service, where he again "prayed for peace at an Army post that has sent thousands of soldiers to Iraq." ("Prayer for Peace," The Boston Globe, Apr. 9, 2007) A public Easter "prayer for peace" for the ears of his god or for the eyes of Christians? The contradiction between his "prayer for peace" and his insistence that Congress continue to fund his war, with no timetable for withdrawal of troops attached, appears to still fall on many imperialistically conditioned minds and hearts.

The obliviousness of faith-based imperialism to its own self-contradiction was on display in President and Mrs. Bush's visit to Virginia Tech, after the shocking killing of thirty-one students and a professor by another student who then killed himself. A tragic heart-rending massacre in Virginia, leading to memorial scrvices throughout America. People readily identified with the victims and wept with their families, as did Bush and his wife, who hugged and shed tears with families and students. And Bush was quoted as saying, "Those whose lives were taken did nothing to deserve their fate. . . . They were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Now they're gone," he continued, "and they leave behind grieving families, and grieving classmates, and a grieving nation." ("Bush offers condolences at Virginia Tech," Forbes.com, Apr. 17, 2007) Reported also was "first lady Laura Bush [who] said she met with two families that had lost their only child." She was then quoted, " ' The idea of that for any parent [italics added] is so devastating that it's hard for us to imagine what they are going through,' she told CBS News." (Ibid)

It is evidently "hard" for many Christians with an imperialistic mind-set to "imagine . . . any parent" in Iraq, never mind "what they are going through" in our name.

Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi mothers and fathers and sons and daughters "leaving behind grieving families, and grieving classmates, and a grieving nation."-because of Bush himself and his neo-conservative advisors. All one had to do was read the headlines before and after the horrible killings at Virginia Tech: "Dozens killed in violence across Iraq" ( The Boston Globe, April 11, 2007); "85 people found dead across Iraq," (The Boston Globe, Apr. 18, 2007); "Bombs Rip Through Baghdad in Wave of Attacks, Killing 171," (The New York Times, Apr. 19, 2007); "Suicide car bomb kills 9 US soldiers," (The Boston Globe, Apr. 24, 2007); "Dozens killed in bomb attack in Shiite Shrine," (The New York Times, Apr. 29, 2007). Tragically, faith-based imperialism fails to make the connection between Blacksburg and Baghdad. "Those who lives were taken, did nothing to deserve their fate." "The idea of that for any parent is so devastating that it's hard for us to imagine."

The failure of faith-based imperialism to recognize its own self-contradiction is especially seen in another response of President Bush to the horrible killings at Virginia Tech. When asked what lesson might be drawn from it, he responded, " 'Make sure when you see somebody, know somebody exhibiting abnormal behavior,' do something about it." ("Bush seeks war support in small Ohio town," Los Angeles Times, Apr. 19, 2007).

When you see somebody . . . exhibiting abnormal behavior?" The person "exhibiting" the most dangerous "abnormal behavior" is President Bush himself:

Saddam Hussein is harboring terrorists and the instruments of mass deaths and destruction. Facing the evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof-and the smoking gun that would come in the form of a 'mushroom cloud.' ("President Bush Outlines Iraqi Threat," Cincinnati Ohio, The White House, Oct. 7, 2002);

I pray daily, I pray for wisdom and guidance and strength. . . . I pray for peace. I pray for peace. (The New York Times, Mar. 7, 2003);

Tomorrow is a moment of truth [italics added] for the world. ("President Bush: March 'Moment of Truth' for World in Iraq," The White House, Mar. 17, 2003);

I pray for peace. I pray for peace.

Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed. . . . Operation Iraqi Freedom was carried out with a combination of precision, and speed, and boldness the world has never seen before. . . . You have shown the world the skill and the might of the American Armed Forces. This nation thanks all of the members of our coalition who joined in a noble cause. ("Test of Bush Speech: President declares end to major combat in Iraq," CBS NEWS, May 1, 2003) "Mission accomplished."

I pray daily . . . for wisdom and guidance and strength. . . . I pray for peace.

There are some that feel like if they attack us that we may decide to leave prematurely. They don't understand what they are talking about if that is the case. Let me finish. There are some who feel like the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is, bring 'em on.' ("Bush warns militants who attack U.S. troops in Iraq," by Sean Loughlin, CNN.com/inside politics, July 3, 2003)

I pray daily. . . . I pray for peace. I pray for peace.

I'm a war president. I make decisions here in the Oval Office in foreign policy matters with war on my mind. . . . I see dangers that exist and its important for us to deal with them. ("Bush sets case as 'war president,'" BBC NEWS, Feb. 8, 2004)

I pray for peace. I pray for peace.

Islamic fascists. Evil doers. All they can think about is evil. Flat evil. Killers. Murderers of women and children. Terrorists. Lenin and Hitler [types]. [A never-ending] global war on terrorism. They want to create a unified totalitarian Islamic state and destroy the free world. A struggle for civilization. The war on terror . . . is the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st Century and the calling of our generation.

I pray for peace. I pray for peace.

Four years after this war began, the fight is difficult, but it can be won. . . . It will be won if we have the courage and resolve to see it through. . . . Congress can do its part by passing the war-spending bill without strings [a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq] and without delay. ("Bush Pleads for Patience in Iraq on War's Anniversary," by David Stout, The New York Times, Mar. 19, 2007)

I pray for peace. I pray for peace.

The faith-based imperialism of many Christians is believed to have enabled and accommodated the "I pray for peace" psychopathic insanity of the most dangerous man on the face of the earth. The "I pray for wisdom and guidance and strength" evangelical Christian President who uses "God" and "freedom" and bended knee to murder and maim and displace millions of children of "any parent" in Iraq, who "were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time." The pious President who brings not the biblical "oil of gladness" to Iraq but who seeks to oil America's military-industrial-complex there and to control the oil under its ground. The "war president" whose intent is not to liberate but occupy Iraq and use its land as a military base for his administration's aim to dominate "the darkest corners of our [Muslim] world . . . [with] this untamed fire of freedom." ("Transcript of President Bush's Inaugural Address," (The New York Times, Jan. 21, 2005)

Many Christians have allowed President Bush to get away with mass murder. Their faith-based imperialism is short-sighted and narrow-minded: it apparently cannot see or feel beyond its own kind-unless there are evangelistic strings attached.

Faith-based imperialism is self-deceptive because it is unreflective. An insecure person's overriding need for authority and certainty can lead him or her to give up the inalienable right to think for herself or himself. Here Adam and Eve's eating of "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" is interpreted as evil rather than as good. Their "sin" was opening their "eyes" and knowing the difference between good and evil. Here obedience is the cardinal virtue and critical thinking for oneself the cardinal sin. Here religion is about authority not authenticity. Here is where a deluded political or religious leader gets much of his and her power. Here one is told which neighbor to love and which to hate. Here the Jesus of history is kept in the shadows of a resurrected Christ. Here salvation is re-interpreted as an individual matter apart from institutionalized political and economic realities that greatly determine who, in the gospel words of Jesus, may actually "have life, and have it abundantly." (John 10:10)

Faith-based imperialism does violence to the reality of oppressed people-Jewish and Muslim-and obscures what Jesus was really about. He was not about dying for the sins of the world so that believers everywhere could inherit eternal life, but about setting at liberty the oppressed Jews in his country from Roman occupation. (Luke 4:18) The great conspiracy of the early Christian Church was turning Jesus' model of liberation from an oppressive state into one of accommodation to the state. Why? It is safer today, as in the past, to believe that Jesus died for the sins of the world than to join in seeking, as he did, to rid the world of political, corporate and military sins that deny other people their birthright of freedom and fulfillment to be who they are.

It is safer to worship a liberator than to follow in his liberation footsteps. Tellingly, the imperialistic command of a resurrected Christ to his disciples, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit," was a Christological formulation of the early Christian Church created long after Jesus and his disciples lived.

The early Christians apparently stood history on its head in order to put a resurrected Jesus on his feet-and give him legs and wings. They transported him from a political to a theological realm in order to survive, evangelize and flourish in the Roman world. (See Alberts, "Decoding the Coders of Christ," Counterpunch, June 14, 2006)

Religion is doing what the prophets worshiped not worshiping what they did. Jesus was recorded as emphasizing an often overlooked way to eternal life: by behavior, not be belief. When a lawyer tested him by asking, "Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus answered that the greatest commandments were the way: love of one's god and one's neighbor as oneself. "Do this [italics added] he said, and you will live." (Luke 10:25-28)

Jesus did not say which neighbor to love. Nor specify the neighbor's race, religion, nationality or sexual orientation. Which evidently led the lawyer to test Jesus further by asking, "And who is my neighbor?" And Jesus said any person robbed of life and in need of a Good Samaritan. And there were no proselytizing strings attached. (Ibid, 10:29-37) Jesus is quoted as saying, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God." (Matthew 5:9) He warned about "hypocrites [who] love to stand and pray . . . so that they may be seen by others." (Matthew 6:5) "Hypocrites," in our day, who publicly "pray for peace" and really have the power to make peace but use it to make war. "Hypocrites" whose deception is based on their belief that Americans are in awe of authority and stupid.

The Bible says Jesus transcended faith-based imperialism with, "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, love your enemies . . . so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun shine on the evil and the good, and send his rain on the just and on the unjust." And his anti-imperialistic bottom line: "If you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing then others? [italics added] (Matthew 5:43-47)

Many Christians do more than love only those who love them. The Jesus of history has inspired people of faith to cross sectarian, nationalistic, and racial borders and embrace people everywhere as sisters and brothers. Such Christians believe that their god's steeple is the aspirations of all people. His alter the common ground on which everyone walks. And Jesus' cross the oppression from which any individual or group is seeking to liberate himself or herself or itself. They are "peacemakers," and oppose our country's criminal invasion and occupation of Iraq. They sing another hymn: "O young and fearless Prophet of ancient Galilee, thy life is still a summons to serve humanity; to make our thoughts and actions less prone to please the crowd, to stand with humble courage for truth with hearts uncowed." ("O Young and Fearless Prophet," words by S. Ralph Harlow; Music by John B Dykes) Hymnal of The United Methodist Church, 1989, p.444) These Christians have moved beyond faith-based imperialism to faith-based "humanity." And more movement by people of faith is especially needed now.

Just as state and local governments are passing resolutions calling for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice-President Cheney, people of faith should censure them in their own local, regional and general bodies. And The United Methodist Church should be out in front of such a movement as Bush and Cheney are Methodists. People of faith should also urge Congress to impeach them for their war crimes and to really "support the troops" by ending this criminal war now and bringing them home to their loved ones and communities. Religion is about "knowing good and evil" and being "peacemakers."

Rev. William E. Alberts, Ph.D. is a hospital chaplain, and a diplomate in the College of Pastoral Supervision and Psychotherapy. Both a Unitarian Universalist and a United Methodist minister, he has written research reports, essays and articles on racism, war, politics and religion. This article is being presented as an address on May 27, 2007 at The Community Church of Boston where Rev. Alberts was minister from 1978 to 1991. He can be reached at william.alberts @bmc.org.

2006-09-27T18:28:00.000-07:00

"Specks" and "Logs" and 9/11
America's War on Terrorism Should Begin at Home
By Rev. WILLIAM ALBERTS

The horrific attack against America on September 11, 2001 offered us citizens an opportunity to engage in serious national self-examination about our government's foreign policy in our name, and whether it contributed to such violent aggression. But the Bush administration was not about to engage in or encourage any soul-searching. Instead of introspection, we got projection. We got knee-jerk, flag-waving, distraction-inducing unreflective patriotism. "No threat, no threat," President Bush immediately reacted, "will prevent freedom-loving people from defending freedom. And make no mistake about it," he emphasized, "this is good versus evil. These are evil doers. They have no justification for their actions [italics added]. There's no religious justification, there's no political justification. The only motivation is evil." ("International Campaign Against Terror Grows," Remarks by President Bush and Prime Minister Koisumi of Japan in Photo Opportunity," The White House, Sept. 25, 2001)

Self-examination is fundamental to our individual and national security. A healthy response to any personal or nation-wide tragedy or loss includes asking how our own behavior may have contributed to it. Self-examination is one of life's first and most essential lessons: learning from our mistakes and misfortunes and misconduct by being open to our own possible involvement in helping to bring them about. Being guided by cause-and-effect is critical to assuming responsibility for our behavior and becoming responsible, democratic social beings. Self-examination leads to self-understanding and thus helps prepare us to understand, respect and live with other persons in our society and in the world. Conversely, anti-introspective tendencies, i.e. resistance to examining one's own behavior in conflict and crisis, may lead to self-justification with its denial of any personal responsibility and projection of blame on others, dooming a person or nation to repeat and intensify destructive self-defeating behavior.

The fifth anniversary of the violent 9/11 attack on our country is an especially important time for us Americans to engage in self-examination. It can lead us to identify and thus protect ourselves from the "evil doers" close to home.

Since religion stresses soul-searching, one assumes it would be an integral part of the behavior of a self-professed man of prayer and piety like President Bush. When asked during a 2000 presidential campaign debate, "what philosopher or thinker" he most identified with and why, he replied, "Christ, because he changed my heart." ("George W. Bush," Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) Bush's "change of heart" involved recognizing that he was a "sinner." In a 2000 campaign interview, he stated that awareness of himself as a "sinner" influenced how he approached government. "I treat people with respect. I don't feel I'm better than anyone else . . . I respect other people, and that's what's needed in Washington, D.C. right now." (Beliefnet.com, editor-in-chief Steven Waldman's interview with Bush, Oct. 2000)

During the 2000 presidential campaign, President Bush stressed the importance of soul-searching in his "walk" with his god. "I've got a lot of imperfections like anyone else," he told Beliefnet editor-in-chief Steven Waldman. "And the more I get into the Bible, the more the admonition 'Don't try to take a speck out of your neighbor's eye when you've got a log in your own' [Jesus' admonition] becomes more and more true, particularly for those of us in public life. . . . You see," Bush explained, "if you believe that we're all sinners, as opposed to you're a sinner and I'm not, then I think it helps you. . . bring people together, and that's what is needed on some very practical issues that the country faces." (Ibid)

President Bush repeated the same teaching of Jesus on self-examination in another 2000 campaign interview. "A Bible verse that is important to me," he said, "is one that says I shouldn't try to take a speck out of someone else's eye if I have a log in my own. I like that verse," Bush continued, "because it reminds me that we're all sinners. When you admit you're a sinner, it is recognition that there is a need. And that need, for me, was met through Christ." ("God and the Governor," Charisma Magazine interview, Aug. 29, 2000)

President Bush's religious soul-searching was apparently motivated by political vote-getting. Winning the presidency in 2000 evidently proved to be a far more "transforming" experience than his self-professed "we're all sinners," "I don't feel like I'm better than anyone else," humble, "walking the walk with Christ"-on the campaign trail. With the violent wake-up call of 9/11, national soul-searching was thrown overboard and self-justification took over to "stay the course" of the ship of state. Bush became so blinded by the "logs" in many "neighbors" eyes that he declared an unending "global war on terrorism," rather than lead us Americans in examining any "log" in US foreign policy. Evidently the understanding of others he gained from his own "Christ"-inspired conversion as a "sinner" applied only to [voting] neighbors across the street not to neighbors around the world.

The president diverted attention from soul-searching even any national "speck" of our own by telling us Americans how great we are. On September 11, 2001 he said, "America was targeted for attack because we're the brightest beacon of freedom and opportunity in the world." ("Test of Bush's address," CNN.com/US, Sept. 11, 2001) In his September 22, 2001 radio address, Bush continued to turn our attention away from any national soul-searching with, "I want to remind the people of America, we're still the greatest nation on the face of the earth, and no terrorist will ever decide our fate."

President Bush repeatedly reminded us Americans how great and thus how "speck"-free our nation is. In September of 2002, he continued to take our minds off any self-examination with, "We differ from our enemy because we love. We not only love our freedoms and love our values, we love life, itself. . . . I believe we can cross any hurdle, climb any mountain because this is the greatest nation on the face of the earth, full of the most decent, hard-working, honorable citizens." ("President Bush Calls on Congress to Act on Nation's Priorities," The White House, Army National Guard Aviation Support Facility, Trenton, New Jersey, Sept. 23, 2002) Similarly, in an address to the staff of the newly created Homeland Security Department, resistance to any national introspection continued to be reinforced by Bush: "There is no doubt in my mind that this nation will prevail in this war against terror, because we're the greatest nation, full of the finest people on the face of this Earth." ("President Bush Addresses New Homeland Security Workers," CNN.com, Feb. 28, 2003) Not even a "speck" here. If we citizens are this great, obviously our political leaders must be great, too.

President Bush saw only "logs" in his apparent attempt to prevent us Americans from becoming aware of the oppressive foreign policy his administration continued to do unto far-away "neighbors" in our name. He quickly discouraged any discussion of what may have motivated the 19 Muslim men to hijack the four passenger jets and use them as missiles to kill nearly 3000 people. In his September 20, 2001 address to a joint session of Congress, he said "Americans are asking 'why do they hate us?'" Bush knew why, without identifying who "the terrorists" and their supporters were or ever talking with any of "them," nor presumably talking to anyone else who has talked to them. "They hate our freedoms," he answered rhetorically, "our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other." ("Transcript of President Bush's address," Sept. 20, 2001)

The importance of us American people asking, "Why do they hate us," and entering into a real national discussion was immediately shot down, and still remains in the ruins of 9/11, a victim of stereotyping and demonizing and mindless patriotism. Throwing any cause-and-effect out the window, President Bush declared, "The people who did this act on America, and who may be planning further acts are evil people. . . . They are flat evil. That's all they can think about, is evil." He then further discourage any national soul-searching: "And as a nation of good folks, we're going to hunt them down, and we're going to find them, and we will bring them to justice." ("President: FBI Needs Tools to Track Down Terrorists," Remarks by the President to Employees at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, FBI Headquarters, The White House, Sept. 25, 2001)

President Bush stifled any effort to really entertain the question, "Why do they hate us?" He warned, "Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists." ("Address to a joint session of Congress and the American people," The White House, Sept. 20, 2001) He cautioned, "If you harbor a terrorist, if you aid a terrorist, if you hide a terrorist, you're just as guilty as the terrorists." ( "International Campaign Against Terrorism Grows," Remarks of President Bush and Prime Minister Koisumi of Japan, The White House, Sept. 25, 2001)

The president's threatening "either . . . or" rhetoric appears to have intimidated many in American mainstream media from investigative studies and reporting on who the so-called "terrorists" really are and the reasons they give for hating us that may have contributed to 9/11. The fact that US government-identified enemies often show up as "terrorists" in newspapers and on the airwaves of mainstream media has helped the Bush administration to use the tragedy of 9/11 to gain support for a "global war on terrorism," which precludes any real national soul-searching and thus prevents us Americans from seeing any "specks" and "logs" in our government's foreign policy in our name, the knowledge of which provides the necessary basis for justice and peace-making. President Bush's constant stereotyping and demonizing of other human beings, and ensuing fear-and-war-mongering in the name of "freedom" and "peace," are believed to indicate that he is the one who "hates our freedoms."

"Why do they hate us?" A reality check is contained in the 2004 report of the Pentagon's own advisory panel, the Defense Science Board on Strategic Communications. The report states that "Muslims do not 'hate our freedom,' but rather they hate our policies" including America's "one-sided support in favor of Israel and against Palestinian rights, and the long-standing, even increasing support for what Muslims collectively see as tyrannies, most notably Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan and the Gulf States." Thus "when American public diplomacy talks about bringing democracy to Islamic societies, this is seen as no more than self-serving hypocrisy." The report cautions about seeing only "logs" in the "eyes" of these "neighbors": "In the eyes of the Muslim world, . . . American occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq has not led to democracy there, but only more chaos and suffering." (The New York Times, Nov. 24, 2004; "They hate our policies, not our freedom," Canadian Content, Aug. 19, 2006)

Columnist Helen Thomas picked up on the Pentagon's advisory panel's report, revealing its invitation to national soul searching which apparently threatened President Bush's 2004 re-election campaign. Thomas noted that former President Clinton's advisor Sidney Blumenthal was quoted in The Guardian as saying "the 102-page report was not made public in the presidential campaign but instead was 'silently slipped on to a Pentagon web site on Thanksgiving eve.'" ("Insurgents Hate Our Policies, Not Our Freedoms," WCVB-TV Boston 5 ABC, Dec. 17, 2004)

Helen Thomas pointed out the "log" in President Bush's eye, represented by the Pentagon's advisory panel's report: "The administration got it all wrong, the report indicated, since the Arabs were not yearning to be liberated except from the authoritarian regimes that the United States is supporting." She continued, "It's silly for Bush to keep saying 'they hate freedom,' referring to the insurgents in Iraq. It makes me think he's looking for a new rationale for the war, his earlier reasons having been discredited." She said that "Bush has played into the hands of the radical jihadists by trying to tie the attacks on the World Trade Center to Iraq." And she ends by encouraging soul-searching: "The reality is that the Iraqis hate the conquest and occupation of their country, just as any people with pride in the world would [italics added]. (Ibid)

"Why do they hate us?" Another "log"-revealing response is presented by Michael Scheuer, a 22-year CIA official who, from 1996 to 1999, headed the bin Laden unit at the Counterterrorist Center, and authored "Through Our Enemies' Eyes: Osama bin Laden, Radical Islam, and the Future of America." Interviewed by Ken Silverstein, Scheuer was asked if the US were "safer or more vulnerable" as "the five-year anniversary of 9/11 attacks" approaches. Scheuer answered, "In the long run, we're not safer because we're still operating on the assumption that we're hated because of our freedoms, when in fact we're hated because of our actions in the Islamic world."

Michael Scheuer revealed the need for national self-examination: "There's our military presence in Islamic countries, the perception that we control the Muslim world's oil production, our support for Israel and for countries that oppress Muslims such as China, Russia, and India, and our support for Arab tyrannies." He stressed, "Publicly promoting democracy while supporting tyranny may be the most damaging thing we do. . . . We use the term 'Islamofacism'-but we're supporting it in Saudi Arabia, with Mubarak in Egypt, and even Jordan is a police state." He concluded by emphasizing the importance of introspection: "We don't have a strategy because we don't have a clue about what motivates our enemies." ("Six Questions for Michael Scheuer on National Security," by Ken Silverstein, Harper's Magazine, Aug. 23, 2006)

"Why do they hate us?" President Bush would have us Americans believe that "we are different from our enemy because we love . . . life, itself." He seems so oblivious to the 12 years of US-controlled UN economic sanctions imposed on Iraq, until the invasion, that resulted in the deaths of some 500,000 Iraq children under the age of 5 between 1991 and 1998 alone. (UNICEF report on the devastation caused by the sanctions, Aug. 12, 1999) Then there is the unprovoked, lies-based invasion and report of ensuing deaths of at least 100,000 Iraqi civilians, mostly women and children, in the first 18 months of the war. ("Mortality before and after the 2003 invasion of Iraq: cluster sample survey," by Les Roberts, Riyadh Lafta, Richard Garfield, Jamal Khudhairi, Gilbert Burnham, The Lancet, Oct. 30, 2004) And the US occupation and resulting widespread sectarian violence bordering on civil war, which was recently verified by a Pentagon report and denied by Bush. ("Warning issued on sectarian violence: Pentagon says threat is growing," by Robert Burns, Associated Press, The Boston Globe, Sept. 2, 2006) And Bush recently allowing Israel's air force to devastate Lebanon, even speeding up delivery of precision-guided bombs to Israel, under the guise of holding out for a "sustainable peace."

"A Bible verse that is important to me is one that says I shouldn't try to take a speck out of someone else's eye if I have a log in my own. I like that verse because it reminds me that we're all sinners." These are the words of a president who resists admitting making a mistake never mind being a "sinner."

"Islamic fascists." Evil doers." "All they can think about is evil." "Flat evil." "Killers." "Murderers of women and children." "Terrorists." Lenin and Hitler" types. A never-ending "global war on terrorism." "They want to create a unified totalitarian Islamic state and destroy the free world." "A struggle for civilization." These are the words of a man driven by projection not guided by introspection.

Similar judgments may be made about President Bush and his administration's policies. In his Hitler-like case, "the big lies" are sanctions-weakened, defenseless, non-threatening Iraq's "mushroom cloud"-threatening weapons of mass destruction and ties to the 9/11 attacks against America. In his case, it is the use of the invaders' "shock and awe" bombs which led to the resistance's use of roadside improvised explosive devices. In the case of many of his evangelical fundamentalist supporters, it is their Christocentric fascism that led them to support the invasion, seeing it as an opportunity to convert Muslims to "Christ." And in his case, it is the use of "freedom" and "democracy" as code words to disguise, for public consumption, spreading American imperialism "to the darkest corners of the world." In his case, we may well be fighting "enemies in the streets of our own cities" precisely because his administration committed state terrorism in invading and occupying "the streets of Baghdad."

In President Bush's case, it is appealing to "a higher Father." As he planned his administration's pre-emptive war against Iraq, he prayerfully said, "We go forward with confidence because this call of history has come to the right country [italics added]." He proclaimed that "the liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world, it is God's gift to humanity." (The New York Times, Jan. 29, 2003) The war-mongering calling of "a higher Father." Bush continued to declare, "Freedom is not America's gift to the world, it is God's gift to every man and woman in the world" to justify his administration's war of choice against and occupation of Iraq. (Acceptance Speech to Republican Convention Delegates, The New York Times, Sept. 3, 2004) Bush used his god for self-justification and not for soul-searching. And we Americans are far less safe because of the enemies our government continues to create in our name.

President Bush is "walking the walk" with "Christ"? Jesus said, "Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called children of God." ( Matthew 5:9) Tragically, Bush is waging war in the name of peace. Jesus said, "Love your enemies . . . so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good; and sends his rain on the just and the unjust." (Matthew 5:44, 45, RSV and NRSV). Bush has so demonized our country's enemies that it is almost impossible for many Americans to see them as human beings who, as columnist Helen Thomas wrote, "hate the conquest and occupation of their country, just as any people with pride in the world would." [italics added]

The fifth anniversary of the horrible national wound of 9/11, and our own security, call for examining the "logs" in our government's foreign policy in our name. The greater struggle we Americans face is not about "good versus evil" but about "overcoming evil with good." (Romans 12:21) America's war on terrorism should begin at home. The most dangerous enemies we face are those who would have us sell the soul of our humanity for a mess of "national security" potage. It is time to see the "logs" in the eyes of our country's own fear-and-war-mongerers and remove them from office-for the sake of our children and grandchildren and all children and grandchildren everywhere.

Rev. William E. Alberts, Ph.D. is a hospital chaplain. Both a Unitarian Universalist and a United Methodist minister, he has written research reports, essays and articles on racism, war, politics and religion. He can be reached at william.alberts@bmc.org.

2006-07-14T10:40:00.000-07:00

The Bush administration is adept at saying the obvious to hide the devious. This tactic reveals a deep disrespect for the intelligence of the American people. It assumes that Americans are gullible and, in their patriotic fervor, will believe anything their leaders tell them-no matter how false, criminal, or harmful to them and their children-if it is draped in the American flag or presented in the name of "God." A glaring example is President Bush's recent "surprise" visit to Baghad.

President Bush said "he had come 'to look at [new Iraqi] Prime Minister [Nuri Kamal] al-Maliki in the eyes and determine whether or not he is as dedicated to a free Iraq as you are. . . . And I believe he is,'" he told US troops. Bush also had "'a message to the Iraqi people: that when America gives a commitment, America will keep its commitment,' he said to wild cheers from the 300 American soldiers and civilians gathered in the palace hall." (The New York Times, June 14, 2006)

The palace hall is inside the Green Zone. A four square mile fortress in the heart of Baghdad. Surrounded by high massive concrete blast-proof walls, barbed wire, and military checkpoints. And defended by tanks and armored vehicles on the ground, 50 caliber machine guns above, and attack helicopters patrolling overhead.

The Iraqi people might have had difficulty hearing President Bush's message to them about "America's commitment" to "a free Iraq" even if he had wanted them to. They did not even know he was there until after he had left. So he could not have looked them "in the eyes" either-nor could have Prime Minister Maliki-to see if they were as "dedicated" to the kind of "free Iraq" as he and the "wildly cheering" American soldiers and civilians were. And he did not stay long enough to find out.

After six hours, President Bush was gone. Sneaking away under the same extraordinary secrecy and heavy security that brought him to Baghdad. Most "liberated" Iraqis, who live outside the Green Zone, missed his fleeting and fleeing presence. Many might have seen him as "cutting and running." Many might have wanted to see him "dead or alive."

The apparent purpose of President Bush's secretive visit to Iraq was not to give a message to the Iraqi people, but to use them as a safe PR backdrop for the message he wanted to take home to the American people. Hours after Bush returned to Washington, he quickly called a press conference. A newspaper headline revealed to whom his Baghdad-delivered message was really intended: "AFTER IRAQ VISIT, AN UPBEAT BUSH URGES PATIENCE." And a news story told the rest: The president "blasted Democrats who are proposing to pull US troops out of Iraq, saying it would undermine a mission making steady progress."
(The New York Times, June 15, 2006; The Boston Globe, June 15, 2006)

The apparent aim of President Bush's visit to Iraq was not to win the hearts and minds-and consciences-of the Iraqi people but of American voters once again. The aim is to continue justifying the criminal invasion and occupation of Iraq, and thus keep Republicans in power come the midterm November elections. The aim it to make sure Republicans "stay the course."
The "surprise" visits to Iraq of US political leaders, and allies, offer a unique opportunity to see just how criminal our government is acting in our name. Such "unannounced" visits show the glaring disconnect between the US-led occupation symbolized by the walled-in Green Zone and the reality of "a free Iraq" beyond it. The continuing "secretive" visits provide blatant examples of saying the obvious to hide the devious, and of the deep disrespect for and disregard of the patriotically-ensnared Americans who are paying the price. And the visits reveal the deviousness of those who are actually doing the "cutting and running."

At Thanksgiving in 2003, President Bush made his first "surprise" visit with American troops in Iraq. He said the obvious to hide the devious in telling the "enthralled" troops:
We are proud of you. . . . by helping to build a peaceful and democratic Iraq in the heart of the Middle East, you are defending the American people from danger and we are grateful. . . . We did not charge hundreds of miles into the heart of Iraq, pay a bitter cost in casualties, defeat a brutal dictator and liberate 25 million people only to retreat before a band of thugs and assassins." (The New York Times, Nov. 28, 2003) "Liberate 25 million people." Then why President Bush's clandestine act of sneaking into and out of Iraq under cover of darkness? If Bush had showed his face and looked "liberated" Iraqis "in the eyes," he probably would have been shot dead on sight. "A band of thugs and assassins." Does starting a horribly destructive, criminal war based on fear-mongering lies (Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction nor ties to 9/11, as President Bush and other administration officials knowingly and repeatedly claimed to justify their war of choice), violating Iraq's national sovereignty, and killing well over 100,000 Iraqi civilians with "precision" and "smart" bombs from a great distance make one less a "thug"?
"[You are] helping to build a peaceful and democratic country in the heart of the Middle East . . . " Saying the right, and then followed the wrong: Abu Ghraib. The apparent Haditha massacre.

The reported rape and murder of a teenage girl and the killing of her mother and father and younger sister in Mahmoudiya. Iraqi security forces dominated by Shiite militias and death squads carrying out sectarian killing sprees, pushing Iraq closer to civil war. The escalating sectarian violence making people prisoners in their own homes or forced to flee and become refugees.

The wrong continues. Lack of US-promised electrical power, sanitary facilities and health clinics. Even President Bush feeling the heat: after returning from his recent "surprise" 6-hour visit to Iraq, he said of the 115 degree temperature, " 'The answer to electricity is, sooner the better. . . . I mean, it's hot over there.'" (The New York Times, June 15, 2006)

Over there, more than 2500 US troops are now dead, and the toll climbing. And tens of thousands are returning home wounded in body, mind and spirit.

A New York Times story by Sabrina Tavernise goes behind the obvious to the devious: "While politics has fallen into place inside the fortified walls of the Green Zone," she writes, "Iraqis outside have faced rising death tolls and even more brutal killings, which in recent weeks have included heads in banana boxes and executions of students." She cautions, "It remains to be seen whether Iraq's new government will be capable of restoring security, particularly in the capitol, where some areas are close to anarchy." (June 15, 2006)

America's criminal war and occupation are especially seen in the reports of US political leaders' "surprise" and greatly protected visits to "a free Iraq." Last Christmas Eve Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, "escorted by Apache helicopters to the US regional headquarters in Mosul . . . lent a hand serving troops a dinner of lobster tails and steak," and told them "You folks have helped to liberate some 25 million people for whom hope was never there before."
( 'Freedom prevails,' Rumsfeld tells U.S. troops," Reuters, MSNBC, Dec. 24, 2005; The Boston Globe, Dec. 25, 2005) Rumsfeld left under the same heavy cover of secrecy and security as he entered. "Amid great secrecy" Vice President Dick Cheney "paid a surprise," well-publicized pre-Christmas and Chanukah visit to United States troops in Iraq, telling them, "The only way to lose this fight is to quit-and that is not an option. . . . These colors don't run."

Evidently in Cheney's case, they do hide: his reported "trip was arranged and carried out with an aim toward keeping the news from becoming public before he was on his way out of Iraq." (The New York Times, Dec. 19, 2005) A far cry from his pre-war statement to NBC's Tim Russet.: "I really do believe that we will be greeted as liberators." Like President Bush, Vice President Cheney and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld would not have dared to show their faces in public.

The "surprise" visits to "a free Iraq" of other American politicians also speak volumes: about saying the obvious to hide the devious. About real "cutting and running": from the reality of an immoral and criminal war and occupation.

"Surprise" visits to "a free Iraq." What a contradiction! What a commentary! Yet American political leaders keep making such visits. Often accompanied by all the news that's print to fit. With many Americans remaining oblivious to the contradiction between the rhetoric of political leaders and the reality on the ground.

Considerable media coverage accompanied "Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's . . . unannounced [italics added] visit to Baghdad April 26 [2006] to consult with Iraq's newly chosen government officials." Rice said the obvious: "We understand the concerns of the Iraqi people, indeed the impatience of the Iraqi people to deal with the security situation, to provide economic opportunities and to make certain that Iraq is on the right road to democracy and prosperity, and we pledge our partnership to do that."("Rice Visits Baghdad To Consult New Iraqi Leaders," by David Shelby, USINFO.STATE.GOV)

Secretary "Rice's trip," reportedly, "was timed to coincide with a surprise [italics added] visit by U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld." She "said it was important for both she and Rumsfeld to be in Iraq in order to coordinate political and military efforts in support of the new government" (Ibid)-- with which they obviously met in the Green Zone.

Three weeks earlier, Secretary of State Rice and British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw made "an unannounced visit" [italics added] to Baghdad, arriving "in the middle of an overnight thunderstorm." ("Rice and Straw Visit Baghdad, Prod Negotiations," by Jamie Tarabay, NPR, June 18, 2006). The contradiction pervading their "unannounced visit" to "a free Iraq" is seen in the coverage by Newsweek's Michael Hirsh who wrote, "There's nothing like roaring into Baghdad aboard a Rhino. A Rhino is a giant heavily-armored bus that can withstand IED's (small ones), and it is now the favored means of keeping Western visitors from getting blown to bits by these homemade bombs on the dangerous road between Baghdad International Airport and the secure Green Zone at the city's center."

Michael Hirsh then refers to "the surreal feeling one gets in moving from the howling chaos outside the Green Zone into the theme-park-like confines within. You drive through several checkpoints," he says, "leaving behind tracts of litter and rubble and the desperate, dark faces of ordinary Iraqis trying to earn a few dinars." ("Real and Surreal," April 6, 2006)

British Prime Minister Tony Blair made a "surprise visit" to Iraq, stated to be "the first world leader to visit Baghdad since the national unity government took office two days ago." He "was flown into Baghdad by a Hercules military aircraft," a news story said, "and then a Chinook military helicopter that flew low across the city executing evasive manoeuvres," landing in the "heavily fortified green zone," where he met with new Iraqi Prime Minister, Nuri al-Maliki. ("Blair visits Iraq, backs new government," Associated Press, MSNBC, May 22, 2006; "Blair visits Baghdad to sketch out timetable for withdrawal," From Greg Hurst and Ned Parker in Baghdad and Michael Evans, TIMES ON LINE, May 23, 2006)

In the midst of reported "car bombs and drive-by shootings kill[ing] 17 people" that "trumpeted" his arrival, Prime Minister Blair said the obvious: "It has been longer and harder than any of us would have wanted it to be, but this is a new beginning and we want to see what you want to see, which is Iraq and the Iraqi people to be able to take charge of their own destiny and write the next chapter of Iraqi history themselves." (Associated Press, Ibid)

The path to the White House seems to be by way of "surprise" visits to "a free Iraq." Along with Senators Hillary Clinton, John Kerry and Joseph Biden, there is President Bush's brother, Governor Jeb Bush. He made headlines: "Gov. Bush stealthily [italics added] visits Iraq for Easter." And the St. Petersburg Times headlines continue: "He makes the surprise [italics added] trip with three other governors, and shakes hands among Florida Army National Guards."

The story begins, "Under top security, Gov. Jeb Bush is spending Easter in Iraq with troops from Florida. Wearing an armored vest and helmet while flying in a U.S. Army Blackhawk helicopter," it states, "Bush visited seven military bases in Iraq and Kuwait."

The St. Petersburg Times story reports Gov. Bush as saying the obvious: "The most impressive part of the trip is the great enthusiasm and morale of the troops. . . . These young men and women are pretty fired up." Bush then reveals the extent of his own callousness and immorality: "We have a great state. But if people could just spend a day here, they wouldn't complain about the things they complain about." (By Steve Bousquet, April 16, 2006)

A final classic example of saying the obvious to hide the devious is Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney's recent "surprise" visit to Iraq. The headline for his trip is suggestive: "Romney makes surprise stop in Baghdad: says visit to region wasn't about politics." The beginning of the story contains its own commentary: "Traveling under tight security [italics added], Governor Mitt Romney yesterday wrapped up an unannounced one day [italics added] trip to Iraq to visit troops from Massachusetts, and warned against a 'cut and run' pullout from the war-torn country." (Frank Phillips, The Boston Globe, May 25, 2006)

It is not about "cutting and running," but about redefining an international war crime as an issue of courage or cowardice. It is about "cutting and running" from the truth and world judgment of an immoral war based on lies.

It is about political and military leaders using patriotism to manipulate mothers and fathers into allowing their sons and daughters to be sacrificed on the altar of American imperialism and corporate greed. It is about a country in which the military is the only place many economically disadvantaged young persons can be all they can be.

It is about United Methodist and numerous other Christian leaders "cutting and running" from their own commitment to "object with boldness when governing powers offer solutions of war that conflict with the gospel message of self-emptying love." (Statement of Conscience," adopted by 95 United Methodist bishops in November 2005). It is about President Bush and Vice President Cheney professing to be United Methodists and Christians.

Rationalizing War Crimes

Saying the Obvious to Conceal the Devious

By Rev. WILLIAM ALBERTS

Instead of leading the country to national self-examination, it is about the Bush administration seizing the tragedy of 9/11 to justify manufacturing an endless war of terrorism to keep Republicans in power and advance US global domination. It is not about President Bush delivering "a message to the Iraqi people" that "America will keep its commitment," but about playing politics with the lives of American troops and Iraqi people to make sure Republicans retain control of the the House and Senate in the November elections.

It is about saying the obvious to hide the devious. It is about "surprise" visits to "a free Iraq." It is about "cutting and running" from the truth of a criminal war against the people of Iraq-and of America.

Rev. William E. Alberts, Ph.D. is a hospital chaplain. Both a Unitarian Universalist and a United Methodist minister, he has written research reports, essays and articles on racism, war, politics and religion. He can be reached at william.alberts@bmc.org.

2006-06-22T08:51:00.000-07:00

Jesus, the Political Insurgent?
Decoding the Coders of Christ
By Rev. WILLIAM E. ALBERTS

The real conspiracy surrounding Jesus is not the cover-up of his marriage to Mary Magdalene, but his theological transformation into the "bridegroom" of the Christian Church (Mark 2: 18-22). Jesus was a Jew not a Christian. He was not about dying so that believers everywhere could inherit eternal life, but about liberating the Jews in his land from Roman occupation. His crucifixion was not about resurrecting the dead but about reviving the living. His sacrifice was not about heaven or hell for all people in the future, but about release and renewal for the Jewish people in this life. The great conspiracy is the early Christian Church turning his model of liberation from an oppressive state into one of accommodation to the state.

It is safer today, as in the past, to believe that Jesus died for the sins of the world than to join in seeking to rid the world of political, corporate and military sins that deny other people their birthright of freedom and fulfillment. Safer because many Christian denominations have allowed themselves to be integrated into and "blessed" and co-opted by the ruling status quo. The real deception of traditional Christianity is its reinterpretation of salvation as an individual matter, apart from institutionalized political and economic realities that greatly determine who, in the gospel words of Jesus, may actually "have life, and have it in its fullest." (John 10:10)

Ironically, Jesus himself seems to be the greatest threat to Christian Churches: his risky model of intervention-of speaking truth to power structures and acting it out-on behalf of oppressed persons. This risk appears to partly underlie institutionalized Christianity's most deceptive conspiracy: that of immortalizing Jesus in order to immobilize his dangerous model of liberation. The threat his cross poses as a model is removed by turning it into a monument and worshipping it. Vicarious identification with his struggle may be substituted for involvement in similar, hazardous ethical struggles today. Here the power is in the prayer. The stature is in the statue. The right is in the rite.

The personal appeal of saving one's own soul for all eternity replaces the more caring and challenging commandment to love one's neighbor as oneself. A gospel of personal redemption may also protect one from seeing how one's own institutionalized blessings may be another's curse-gained at another's expense.

A further risk for one's neighbor is that a one true and only saviour of the world appeals to insecure persons. Their need for absolute certainty and rightness, and intolerance of ambiguity, differences and complexity, invite and rationalize power over and domination of others. And another conspiracy is born: oppressing one's neighbor in the name of the very person whose mission was to set people free. Such conspiracies depend on rewriting history.

The early Christians' need to transcend the reality of the cross evidently led them to bury history. The historical reality was that the Jews suffered brutal oppression under Roman occupation, and that Jesus was merely one of many messianic prophets crucified Roman-style for political sedition. He was not about dying for the sins of the world so that believers could inherit eternal life, but about seeking to liberate the Jewish people from the sins of the Roman Empire-which had violated their national sovereignty, occupied their country, and crucified thousands of Jewish "insurgents" and bystanders. Belief in the Messiah was grounded not in heaven but on earth: national sovereignty, freedom and peace.

Jesus reportedly saw his mission as having a key political dimension. He was "anointed . . . to preach good news to the poor . . . [and] to set at liberty those who are oppressed." (Luke 4:18) As New Testament historian Paula Fredriksen writes in From Jesus to Christ, Jesus shared a first century Jewish consensus "on what was religiously important: the people, the Land, Jerusalem, the Temple, and Torah. . . . The political situation was of religious concern because," as Fredriksen has "repeatedly noted, Judaism did not draw a distinction between the two spheres: an idolatrous occupying force posed a religious problem."
(Second Edition, page 93, Yale University Press)

The occupying power of Rome, in turn, saw Jesus as a political problem, and swiftly crucified him on a cross after his "triumphant" messianic-like entry into Jerusalem at Passover. A foreboding inscription also was posted above his head: "This is the King of the Jews" (Luke 23:38). Jesus' mission was to empower people not gain power over them-another ethical aspect of his model turned upside down through the ages by evangelistic Christian kingdom builders. They and their descendents have claimed to heed the call of a resurrected Christ: a risen Jesus appeared to the eleven disciples and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you." (Matthew 28: 16-20) Never mind that The Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit was a Christological formulation of the early Christian Church created long after Jesus and his disciples had lived.

The early Christians seemed to stand history on its head in order to put a resurrected Jesus on his feet-and give him legs. They transported him from a political to a theological realm in order to survive and flourish in the Roman world.

The Jews believed in a living not a resurrected messiah. The real messiah would deliver them from Roman domination and restore their national sovereignty and freedom. Thus for most Jews, any belief in Jesus as the messiah faded as their oppression continued in the years following his crucifixion. Their ongoing struggle against Roman occupation culminated in a violent insurrection between 61-73, which saw Rome destroy Jerusalem, murder over a million Jews, and made tens of thousands of them slaves and captives.
(Christians and Anti-Semitism: A Calendar of Jewish Persecution)

The early followers of Jesus found it safer to dissociate themselves from the Roman-despised and persecuted Jews. Safer to reinterpret Jesus' messiahship in theological and evangelical rather than political and institutional terms. Safer to appeal to the Gentiles because the survival of the early followers lay in spreading a Christian gospel to the Romans. The gospel of a resurrected Messiah and saviour of the world. Whose miraculous resurrection proves, rather than negates, his being the Messiah and also the only Son of God. Therefore, his followers hold the one true religion in the palm of their faith.

The conversion of Jesus from Jew to Christian is seen in his dissociation from Judaism and accommodating appeal to the Romans. This distortion of historical reality involves the shifting of blame for Jesus' crucifixion from Romans to Jews. The anti-Semitism in the New Testament is seen in reputedly cruel Roman prefect Pontius Pilate agonizingly sympathetic to a would-be liberator of Jews from Roman domination; in Pilate dramatically washing his hands of responsibility for Jesus' death, even though he alone had the power of life and death over Jesus. (John 19:10)

The distortion of historical reality is also seen in Jews being set up as "Christ killers." A "whole battalion-backed, yet uneasy, Pilate giving in to the "will" of subjugated, powerless priests, elders of the people, and other Jews who repeatedly cried out, "Crucify him!" (Mark 15: 12-16) Portraying the Roman Empire in such a favorable light in New Testament books written 50 to 100 years after the fact, may have advanced the evangelizing of Romans by the early followers of Jesus, but it cast a horrible curse on the Jewish people by putting into the mouths of their oppressed descendents, "His [Jesus'] blood be on us and on our children." (Matthew 27:25)

Around 300 years later the apparent conversion of Roman Emperor Constantine led Christianity to not only be recognized, but favored by the state. Finally, the persecution and martyrdom of Christians ended. But not so that of Jews. Their continuing oppression is suggested in Constantine's support for separating the observance of Easter from the date of the Jewish Passover. Calling the Jews "utterly depraved" and "murderers of our Lord," he also wrote, "It appeared an unworthy thing that in the celebration of this most holy feast we should follow the practice of the Jews, who have impiously defiled their hands with enormous sin and are, therefore, deservedly afflicted with blindness of soul. . . . let us then have nothing in common with the detestable Jewish crowd; for we have received from our Saviour a different way. (Eusebius, Life of Constantine, Vol. III Ch.XVIII [1]) (Constantine 1 (emperor)-Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

"We have received from our Saviour a different way?" From Jewish liberator to Christian Saviour. The oppressed Christians were legitimized and accepted by the state, and, in Jesus' name, joined the state in oppressing the very descendents of those he sought to liberate from the state. A similar conspiracy operates in the present.

The counterpart today is readily seen in the self-professed "Christian" who manipulated his way into the White House. President Bush has used religion to disguise and justify America's criminal invasion and occupation of Iraq. "Freedom is not America's gift to the world, it is God's gift to every man and woman in the world," he told cheering Republican delegates at their 2004 national convention. (The New York Times, Sept. 3, 2004)

The Bush administration's pre-emptive war against Iraq is not about "God" and "freedom" but about lies: Iraq's threatening mushroom cloud-like weapons of mass destruction that did not exist; Saddam Hussein's ties to the horrible 9/11 attacks against America that did not exist; "fighting the terrorists in Iraq so that we do not have to fight them here"-so-called "terrorists" who did not exist but do now because of the Bush administration's military aggression against Iraq..

The Bush administration is not about spreading "freedom" but American imperialism, not about "God" "anointing the Iraqi people with "the oil of gladness" (Hebrews 1:96), but about gaining control of the oil under the soil of Iraq, not about rebuilding Iraq but about refilling the coffers of administration friendly Halliburton types. The great conspiracy against the American people is the Bush administration reinterpreting its war crimes against the Iraqi people as an act of "God."

The conspiracy underlying the Bush administration's criminal war against and occupation of Iraq has reached an even more deceptive level. Now unraveling is the cover-up of last November 19's deliberate killing of 24 Iraqi men, women and children civilians in Haditha by US Marines. The apparent Haditha massacre is evidently one of a number of atrocities committed against Iraqi civilians by US troops. These growing horrible disclosures apparently led Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Kamal el-Maliki to "lash out at the American military" in reaction, "denouncing what he characterized as habitual attacks by troops against Iraqi civilians." He was quoted as saying the "violence against civilians has become a 'daily phenomenon' by many troops in the American-led coalition who do not respect the Iraqi people.'" (The New York Times, June 2, 2006) The fact that el-Maliki's government is dependent upon United States military for its existence suggests the severity with which he perceives the "daily phenomenon" of violence committed by American troops against Iraqi civilians

The Bush administration's response to the perceived " 'daily' attacks against [Iraqi] civilians" (Ibid) contains its own deceptive irony. The response became headline news: "US orders ethics training for all its troops in Iraq". The "ethics training" consists of "troops be[ing] taught about military values, Iraqi cultural expectations, and disciplined professional conduct," which includes "the importance of adhering to legal, moral and ethical standards on the battlefield." (The Boston Globe, June 2, 2006)

If it were about ethics, US troops would not be in Iraq in the first place. This conspiratorial masquerade is not meant to win the minds and hearts of the Iraqi people, but to bolster the flagging support of the American people for a criminal war and occupation that is unraveling. "Ethics training" or window dressing for a corrupt-and corrupting-conspiracy?

The real conspiracy is not the cover-up of Jesus' marriage to Mary Magdalene but his marriage to the Christian Church-and Christian Churches marriages to the state. It is the corrupting "bond" between church and state that needs to be decoded.

Many Christian clergy often tend not to rock the boat, by speaking truth to power, fearing their own ship won't come in. In institutionalized Christianity, clergy usually get ahead by getting along-which often means going along. Hierarchical structures determine their advancements and thus tend to keep their conscience. You can't have a hierarchy without a lowerarchy.
Similarly, many bishops and other such church executives often tend not to rock the boat, by speaking truth to power, fearing constituents will abandon ship-and not merely Republican church members. The primary emphasis is on evangelism not ethics, on making all people "disciples of Jesus Christ" not doing justice for all people. It is the politics of religion that often keeps religion out of politics-out of risky political issues.

The apparent conspiracy here is turning a prophet into a profit. In other words, a primary characteristic of the successful Christian church leader appears to be the ability to maintain and enhance the institution as it is. Here again the gravest threat to institutionalized Christianity is believed to be Jesus himself-his model of setting the oppressed free rather than evangelizing and oppressing them in his name-or in the name of "freedom."

There are exceptions. One is Jim Winkler, head of United Methodism's General Board of Church and Society, the social action agency of The Church. He recently called on Congress to impeach President Bush, also a United Methodist, for initiating an "illegal war of aggression" against Iraq "based on lies," and contrary to The Church's Social Principles that declare, "War is incompatible with the teaching and example of Christ."

Not surprisingly, Mark Tooley, director of the United Methodist Committee at the Institute of Religion and Democracy, reportedly said Jim Winkler was a front for the "Religious Left," and would make a better "spokesman for a left-wing political action organization like MoveOn.org," as he "does not represent the mainstream opinion in the denomination for which he purports to speak." ("Blow-back for Methodist attack on Bush," UPI Religion and Spirituality Forum, June 1, 2006) Tooley himself seems to presume to represent the denomination's "mainstream opinion." Jesus' model of liberation is not about "left" and "right" but right and wrong.

It is time for the bishops of The United Methodist Church especially to follow Jim Winkler's example and speak truth to power more forcefully. Last November, 95 of the bishops signed a "Statement of Conscience" in which they "repent[ed] of complicity in what we believe to be an unjust and immoral invasion and occupation of Iraq." They lamented "being silent in the face of the United States Administration's rush toward military action based on misleading information." They confessed "preoccupation with institutional enhancement [italics added] and limited agendas while American men and women are sent to Iraq to kill and be killed, while thousands of Iraqi people needlessly suffer and die." And their concluding commitment was to "object with boldness when governing powers offer solutions of war that conflict with the gospel message of self-emptying love."

The latest "solution" of the "governing powers" is to offer "ethics training" for troops, whose very invasion and occupying presence in Iraq are violations of international law-and that of any "gospel message of self-emptying love." It is time for the 95 United Methodist bishops to present a resolution to their own Council of Bishops, calling for the censure of their two most prestigious and criminal church members: President Bush and Vice President Cheney. The grounds for their censure are contained in the 95 bishops' own "Statement of Conscience."

Jesus is recorded as teaching that eternal life is not something one inherits but does. It is not primarily about belief but about behavior, just as the truth is reflected in what one does. When a lawyer tested him by asking, "Teacher, what should I do to inherit eternal life?," Jesus confirmed that the two greatest commandments were the way: love of one's god and one's neighbor as oneself. "Do this [italics added], and you will live." (Luke 10:25-28)

Jesus did not say which neighbor to love. Nor specify the neighbor's race, religion, nationality or sexual orientation. Which evidently led the lawyer to test Jesus further by asking, "And who is my neighbor?" And Jesus said any person robbed of life and in need of a Good Samaritan. And there were no proselytizing strings attached. (Luke 10:29-37)

Religion is about seeing through and overcoming conspiracies. It is about setting people free, not imposing sectarian or political beliefs on them. It is about empowering people, not gaining power over them. It is about honoring people in calling them by their own names, and experiencing their reality not interpreting it. It is about loving one's neighbor as oneself. And one's neighbor is anyone-anywhere. Religion is not worshiping what the prophets did but doing what the prophets worshiped.

Rev. William E. Alberts, Ph.D. is a hospital chaplain. Both a Unitarian Universalist and a United Methodist minister, he has written research reports, essays and articles on racism, war, politics and religion. He can be reached at william.alberts@bmc.org.

2006-03-24T13:30:00.000-08:00

2006-02-17T11:26:00.001-08:00

Spirituality: Wellspring and Wastebasket by

William E. Alberts and Amy E. Alberts*

Spirituality reveals not only the infiniteness of divinity but the infinite varieties of humanity. Type “spirituality” in an Internet search service and over 6 ½ million references appear. Follow that with “Christian spirituality,” and you could spend another eternity studying almost 2 ½ million sources. Spirituality may tell us far more about humanity than about divinity. In fact, this brief examination of spirituality is not about tracing the “mysterious ways” in which “God moves. . . His wonders to perform,” as the hymn declares, but about identifying the many and various ways in which the human spirit moves to perform its wonders. Nor do we presume to cover the manifold meanings of spirituality. Still, our study of the human spirit is believed to contain hints of the nature of any divinity.

Our focus is on two human “wonders” of spirituality. Spirituality may be a way to affirm, nourish, renew and empower the human mind, body and spirit. A wellspring of comfort and strength, enabling coping and wellness, and reflection and direction and connectedness with other human beings. A wellspring that overflows into love of one’s neighbor as oneself.

On the other hand, spirituality can be a wastebasket into which an individual or group may dump cause-and-effect understanding of the behavioral and societal and natural-event determinants of health and illness. A wastebasket that may accommodate ignorance and an excessive self-centered need for authority and absolutes that promise a “cure-all,” alleviate feelings of powerlessness, and legitimize anti-democratic beliefs and tendencies and behavior. First, spirituality as a wellspring of self-empowerment and connectedness with other human beings.

Foremost, spirituality is personal. It may be defined by, but not confined to, creed or ritual. It may be explained but not contained, described but not proscribed. It may be entertained but not solely institutionalized. For example, in a discussion about religion, a hospital patient was asked if he were “Baptist, Methodist, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, or of another religion,” and he replied, “None of the above. I’m spiritual.” Like many persons, his spirituality did not fit traditional classifications. He voiced a private faith in a personal god which apparently helps him deal with his medical and other realities. He evidently is one of the 6 ½ million representations of spirituality on the Internet search service.

The assumed empowering personal nature of spirituality is seen in the prayer of a woman who has been blind and suffering from a chronic illness for 40 years: “God, I’m sick and thank you anyhow [italics added]. You have helped me through it for 40 years, and given me a loving husband and two wonderful children. I praise You not just for the good times but for the bad times too, which You have led me through.” She was not thanking her god for curing her blindness but for seeing her through it—though she may well have prayed often for a miracle earlier on.

In the face of illness, injury and death, many hospital patients and their families and friends find comfort and empowerment in the prayerful words, “Thank you, Jesus”—not for what has befallen them but for whom they believe is beholding them in love.

“Thank you anyhow” may exemplify studies showing that people with spiritual resources especially appear to possess resiliency in coping with illness and injury, and still enjoy a quality of life in the midst of stress, discomfort and limitations. Spirituality seems to foster a positive, accepting, empowering attitude, enabling people to proactively realize that they help to determine the possibilities of their limitations and the limitations of their possibilities. The connection between spirituality and attitude is perceptively expressed in Lamentations 3:19-23; “Remember my affliction and bitterness, the wormwood and the gall! My soul continually thinks of it and is bowed down within me. But this I call to mind [italics added], and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end, they are new every morning.” (Lamentations 3:19-23)

Not that attitude is dependent on spirituality for will power and quality of life. One may call to mind inner emotional resources, loving human relationships, and positive experiences and therefore have hope and thrive in the face of adversity. Affirmation, inspiration, love, reinforcement come from a human spirit as well as from a “Holy Spirit.”. Spirituality is believed to be a source of inner strength not the source.

While spirituality is personal and usually perceived as heaven sent, it also moves in horizontal ways. Spirituality has a “human touch.” The wondrous horizontal “ways” of spirituality are seen in a woman who underwent two additional unexpected surgeries, and, when finally ready, and eager, to be discharged developed a complication which continued to hospitalize and depress her. “I had had it,” she said. “I just stopped trying, stopped fighting to get better, gave in and just left it all in God’s hands. I had given up. But later, when I heard my roommate start to hum ‘Love lifted me,’ my body surged upward; and then she began to sing the words. . .”

Spirituality may involve more of a human touch than is readily understood and appreciated. It may be impossible to know where an individual’s emotional and physical make-up end and spirituality begins. For example, an attractive older female pastoral care volunteer visited a very sick-appearing, listless, prone male hospital patient. As she stood next to his bed and engaged him in conversation, his body began to stir. Their exchanges grew more spontaneous, personal, familiar, and even light-hearted joshing, leading him to literally rise up in his bed, his body animated, his full smile reflecting an uplifted spirit. Her presence and their exchange seem to have not only made his day but his hospital stay. Her prayer appeared to be anti-climactic. He had already caught the spirit. Was it agape or eros? Or both?

Spirituality can be empowering. Individual religious experience can alleviate guilt, give peace of mind, certainty and inner strength. It can turn an individual around, lead one to be “born again,” to become sober, clean, responsible, focused, creative. A patient suddenly stopped abusing his body with alcohol and cigarettes when he discovered that someone else loved it and him—and revealed it was a temple of spirituality. That someone was Jesus, whom he accepted as his savior, which acceptance not only helped to save him from years of self-abuse but also inspired him to write songs and sing them for others in churches and on radio broadcasts.

In the face of imprisonment, “the prayer of a righteous man availeth much,” a Black man newly converted to the Muslim faith. Even in confinement, self-empowerment is obtained in solidarity with people of like-minded realities and beliefs, affirming and liberating the spirit in the face of an oppressive environment and society. The spiritual power of solidarity even in solitary confinement.

While many studies claim to show that spirituality promotes health, Dr. Richard P. Sloan and associates provide their own cautionary research. “Even in the best studies,” they write, “the evidence of association between religion, spirituality and health is weak and inconsistent.” They also cite ethical issues implied by belief in a god who seems to favor the faithful, one issue of which is, “Are the more devout adherents ‘better’ people, more deserving of health than others?” They assume that such a belief suggests “illness is due to [patients’] own moral failure,” and produces an “additional burden of guilt.” (“Religion, spirituality, and medicine,” by R. P. Sloan, E. Bagiella and T. Powell,

The Lancet, Feb. 20, 1999, Pages 664-667, Vol. 353, Issue 9153) It is as if their god plays favorites, which seems contrary to Jesus’ teaching that “your Father who is in heaven . . . makes his sun rise on the evil and the good, and sends his rain on the just and the unjust . . . and is kind to the ungrateful and the selfish.” (Matthew 5: 46; Luke 6: 35, 36)

Not that Dr. Sloan and his colleagues disregard the power of prayer. They write, “No one can object to respectful support for patients who draw upon religious faith in times of illness.” But they conclude that “it is premature to promote faith and religion as adjunctive medical treatments.” They say that until related “ethical issues are resolved, suggestions that religious activity will promote health, that illness is the result of insufficient faith, are unwarranted.” (Ibid.)

Dr. Sloan also states that “attempts to make religious activities adjunctive medical treatments . . . come dangerously close to efforts to validate religion by its effects on health.” He says, “Religion does not need science to justify its existence or appeal.” (“Should Physicians Prescribe Religious Activities,” The New England Journal of Medicine, June 22, 2000, Vol. 342: 1913-1916, No. 25)

Mayo Clinic internal medicine specialist and researcher Paul S. Mueller, while more positive than Dr. Sloan and associates about the relationship between religion and health, grounds spirituality this way: “Although the relationship between religious
involvement and spirituality and health outcomes seems valid, it is difficult to establish causality. . . . The benefits of religious and spiritual involvement are likely conveyed
through complex psychosocial, behavioral and biological processes that are incompletely understood.” (www.science-spirit.org)

The intrinsically personal and individual nature of spirituality reveals the difficulty involved in trying to determine common denominators. The “spirit” moves one group of worshippers to stand, sway, clap their uplifted hands and say “Hallelujah!” “Amen!” “Thank you, Jesus!”—to the beat of gospel music and preaching. Another congregation may sit quietly, attuned to orderly measures of an anthem and sermon that accommodate and inform their meditative mood. A third group may find their spirits quickened and renewed in chanting, ritual and sacrament. While a fourth may find their spirituality uplifted and community reinforced and empowered in bowing together and facing Northeast toward Ka’bah, the holy shrine in Mecca, and kneeling and praying in unison as equals. And a fifth may find the light of spirituality in silence. Each group might not “get” the other’s access to and expression of spirituality. Yet the legitimacy of each would seem to be obvious. But too often it is not.

Spirituality can be a wastebasket into which an individual or group may dump, deny and even deify insecurities, lack of knowledge and the need for certainty reflected in self-centered, submissive or dominating tendencies. A person who has spent years abusing his or her lungs, liver and/or heart may pray for miraculous healing when confronted with reaping what she or he has sown. Here spirituality may be resorted to in an attempt to hurdle the reality of cause and effect—a very human, but usually futile and despairing tendency. However, it may not just be about choices and self-abuse but also about the health- or illness-disposed genetic makeup one inherits. And lest one fails to appreciate another’s reality: illness naturally makes one physically, emotionally and spiritually centered on oneself.

Certain biblically-guided Christians believe that their “God is able” to perform the miraculous healing of a dying or physically paralyzed loved one (or another) in the face of cause-and-effect scientific medical reality. They believe what is needed, as Jesus said, is enough faith: “And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith.” (Matthew 21: 22) When death ensues, or the physical impairment remains, those who “pray without ceasing” may blame themselves, believing their faith was not strong enough to elicit their god’s favor. Such Bible-inspired belief is understandably propelled by love and hope and fear—and denial. But in the end there may be a spiritual Catch-22 of guilt—with a letdown of faith caused by a seemingly narcissistic, reality-denying diety who professes to favor those who favor him. It would appear that spirituality should help one to deal with reality not short cut or deny it.

While people inevitably reap the cause-and-effect they sow, certain people reap what others have sown for them. There remains in America an historic, institutionalized White-controlled hierarchy of access to political and economic power. This hierarchy has enabled White persons to sow far more educational and economic opportunities than people of color—and thus reap far greater health and health care. At the heart of America’s “lingering racial divide” is a job gap that creates a health gap. Black persons continue to reap an unhealthy, discriminatory, White-favored political and economic order sown for those at the bottom of the hierarchy. Those who suffer from lack of adequate paying jobs, insufficient diet, polluted air, an indifferent and often hostile environment, and a tokenistic power structure are more likely to reap hypertension, anxiety, high blood pressure, diabetes, kidney failure, asthma, stroke, cancer, heart disease, mental illness, HIV/AIDS, implosive physical violence, and lower life expectancy. (“Patients With H.I.V. Seen as Separated By a Racial Divide,” The New York Times, August 7, 2004; “Disparities found in health care for blacks,” The Boston Globe, August 5, 2004; “Report finds minorities get poorer healthcare,” by Ron Blakey, March 20, 2002, http://www.cnn.com/; “Mental Health Problems Among Minorities,” by Richard A. Sherer, http://www.healthyplace.com/.)

In a report, the Northwest Federation of Community Organizations in Seattle concluded, “Unconscious racism is so entrenched in the US medical system that the only way to eliminate disparities is to change the rules . . .” Will Pittz, lead author of the report, said, “The healthcare system as a whole provides vastly unequal access and treatment based on race, language, and ethnicity. . . . Racism within the health system is literally making people of color sick.”
The Boston Globe news story on the report also cited former US Surgeon General Dr. David Satcher, who “found that more than 80,000 black Americans die every year because of continuing disparities in healthcare.” The news story, called “Racism blamed for health disparities,” also cited another study: “Last September, the Sullivan
Commission on Diversity in the Health Workforce found that while Black, Hispanics, and Native Americans make up more than 25 percent of the US population, they represent only 9 percent of the nation’s nurses, 6 percent of doctors, and 5 percent of dentists.” (July 20, 2005)

The health care disparity was used by President Bush, to sell his plan to privatize Social Security, in a meeting with 24 selective African American religious and community leaders. Bush reportedly “told black leaders yesterday that his plan to add private accounts to Social Security would benefit blacks because they tend to have shorter lives than some other Americans and end up paying more than they get out.” (The Boston Globe, Jan. 26, 2005) Why Black people do not live as long as “some other Americans” [italics added] evidently was not discussed.

A recent New York Times editorial called diabetes an “epidemic,… a disease defined by economic disparity,” with “blacks and Hispanics… disproportionately stricken.” Entitled “Declare War on Diabetes,” the editorial warned, “Ignore it, and it can lead to heart disease, strokes, amputations and shortened lives.” (Feb 5, 2006)

Economically speaking, one group’s wellspring may be another group’s wastebasket. Spiritually speaking, one person’s blessing may be another person’s curse. A healthy expression of spirituality would seem to include addressing what in society is unhealthy.

Matters of the spirit can also be recreated in the image of an individual’s or group’s need for certainty, security, rightness, power over others and domination. Spirituality can be a vehicle to authenticate and dictate “correct” theological belief rather than just, ethical behavior. Here spirituality is a means by which to obtain the right experience and belief, not do the right thing—as if that which is perceived as spiritual can be contained, controlled, claimed, patented. Here also spirituality is often about a personal, other-worldly destination, more than about an interpersonal journey with others—unless they are, or become, like-minded.

To claim absoluteness in matters of the spirit is to reveal ignorance of the spirit that matters to other kinds of people. To claim one’s religion has, or religious experience is, the key to the “spiritual kingdom” is to unknowingly confess one’s own spiritual serfdom. Such confinement of spirit may be acted out in an interfaith or community observance or national event at which a Christian minister or priest gives an invocation or benediction “in the name of Your only Son, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” Classic examples are the closing words of Baptist evangelist Rev. Franklin Graham’s Invocation at President George W. Bush’s January 2001 Inauguration: “. . . We pray this in the name of the Father, and of the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen;” and the conclusion of United Methodist minister Kirbyson Caldwell’s Benediction at the same Inaugural: “We respectfully submit this humble prayer in the name that’s above all other names, Jesus, the Christ. Let all who agree say amen.”

A Christian minister or priest who is unaware of or disregards, for example, the Jews or Muslims in an audience before him (or her) is far more likely to be oblivious to the Muslims or Jews being oppressed around him—or beyond him by his government in his name. “Christocentrism,” like egocentrism and ethnocentrism, is threatened by, oblivious to and wars against diversity. Only “in Jesus name” can become like a box one cannot think or relate outside of. Such spirituality may not only accommodate imperialistic political policies but foster them.

Charles Marsh, religion professor at the University of Virginia, writes about “Wayward
Christian Soldiers,” his own brother and sister American evangelicals, whose pre-Iraq invasion “war sermons” had a common theme: “Our president is a real brother in Christ, and because he has discerned that God’s will is for our nation to be at war with Iraq, we shall gloriously comply.” Marsh quotes a Christian missionary who expressed a sentiment shared by certain evangelicals: “American foreign policy and military might have opened an opportunity for the Gospel in the land of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” Marsh says that “both Franklin Graham, the evangelist son of Billy Graham, and Marvin Olasky, . . . a former advisor to President Bush on faith-based policy, echoed these sentiments, claiming that the American invasion of Iraq would create exciting new prospects for proselytizing Muslims.”

Marsh states that “an astonishing 87 percent of all white evangelical Christians in the United States supported the president’s decision in April 2003 [to invade Iraq],” and “recent polls indicate that 68 percent of white evangelicals continue to support the war.” He writes that their support was not based on “Christian moral doctrine” of pursuing peace and loving enemies, but on “our Faustian bargain for access and power,” which “has undermined the credibility of our evangelistic witness in the world.”

Marsh’s concluding sentence reveals the apparent imperialistic bent of many evangelical Christians: “The Hebrew prophets might call us to repentance, but repentance is a tough demand for a people utterly convinced of their righteousness.” (“Wayward Christian Soldiers,” The Boston Globe, Jan. 20, 2006) Fascism parading as faith “Marching as to war, With the cross of Jesus Going on before!”

With spirituality, the danger to one’s neighbor comes when one moves from simply doing “good works” to a theological group identity that feels superior and then to domination over those seen as “inferior.” Where does spirituality end and personality, culture, and patriotic national identity begin?

Where does faith end and cause-and-effect begin? Certain religious leaders and their followers need to protect their god—and themselves—from knowledge. The more mysterious their god’s ways, the more they can actually control his movement—with an infallible compass, the Bible. They need to believe that their god’s ways are “unsearchable.” Therein lies these religious leaders’ authority and power over people—and their people’s need to remain dependent and powerless. Such religious leaders can turn to their divinely revealed Bible to interpret their god’s ways and will. Thus a prominent Southern Baptist author reportedly told pastors at a workshop, “The tsunamis that hit South Asia were God’s punishment of a [Muslim] area where Christians have experienced particularly intense persecution.” (“Blackaby says tsunamis God’s judgement; missions experts question theology,” by Ken Camp, Associated Baptist Press-News, 1/27/2005)

Thus “some religious conservatives (Rev. Pat Robertson, Hal Lindsey, and Charles Colson) have speculated that . . . Hurricane Katrina was sent by God as an omen or as a punishment for America’s alleged sins,” especially “legalized abortion.” (“Religious conservatives claim Katrina was God . . . ,” Media Matters for America, Sept. 13, 2005)

Thus “an organization of Christian fundamentalists claims the destruction brought on by Hurricane Katrina is God’s judgement against New Orleans for holiday festivals like the annual gay Southern Decadence party. ‘Although the loss of life is deeply saddening, this act of God destroyed a wicked city,’ said Repent America director Michael Marcavage on the organization’s website.” (“Religious groups link Hurricane to gay event,” Christopher Curtis.gay.com/Planet Ont.com Network)

Thus such divine judgement appears to be shared by Rev. Franklin Graham who said, “There’s been a black spiritual cloud [italics added] over New Orleans for years.” Appearing at Liberty University, a Christian college, “Graham spoke about how some believed God was using the hurricane to spark a religious revival there,” because “New Orleans is a city known for Satan worship, orgies and widespread drinking and drug use.” (“Some US Christians say Katrina was God’s handiwork,” by Paul Simao, Reuters Alert Net, Oct. 16, 2005) What would a white spiritual cloud represent? Goodness? Showers of blessings? The revelation of Rev. Franklin Graham’s own unconscious feelings of racial superiority? To what degree are spirituality and one’s god colored by one’s own racial conditioning and identity?

Thus Rev. Jerry Falwell interpreted the 9/11/2001 attacks as “God’s judgement on America.” “I really believe,” Falwell said, “that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actually trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say ‘you helped this happen.’”
Rev. Pat Robertson reportedly said “Amen!” to Falwell’s prophetic judgement-- which “revelation” Falwell later retracted. (“Falwell apologizes to gays, feminists, lesbians,” CNN.com/U.S., Sept. 14, 2001)

Civilized society punishes people severely for committing a fraction of the wanton and destructive behavior certain Christian fundamentalist and other religious leaders attribute to their god. It would seem that such leaders are projecting onto their god their own unconscious hatred and aggression. Such a destructive god should be restricted to history, or banished to the heavens, or confined to a book, or studied in a laboratory to understand his terroristic nature -- and not allowed to return and “move in mysterious ways” upon the earth and among human beings until his worshippers enjoy the therapeutic touch of a Golden Retriever, or unexpectedly discover the humanizing love of a gay or lesbian son or daughter, or experience unconditional love themselves from another human being.

The attempt to protect one’s god from empirical knowledge (the need to dumb-down one’s god) is seen in the change in the training of ministers in pastoral care and counseling at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. The seminary has dropped “secular psychology” from its curriculum and “is taking its Christian counseling department in a new direction, one built upon the sufficiency of Scripture and designed to train pastors to deal biblically with the needs of hurting people.” This “wholesale change in emphasis [is] built upon the view that Scripture is sufficient to answer comprehensively the deepest needs of the human heart” [italics added]. The very psychological knowledge and supervised clinical training, through which ministers gain self-understanding and are thus better able to love themselves and hence, their neighbor, are dumped into a wastebasket. Replaced by “true ‘pastoral care’ as defined by the Scriptures.” (“Southern Seminary Launches new vision for biblical counseling,” by Jeff Robinson, (BP) news, Feb. 15, 2005)

A concerned pastoral psychotherapist, Rev. Dr. Perry Miller, writes that he and other psychotherapists and clinical supervisors of ministers-in-training “have had to pick up the pieces of people’s lives, who have been counseled or supervised by such a limited model.” Miller stresses the importance of clergy gaining insight into themselves and other persons through integrating knowledge of the social sciences under the guidance of a clinically trained supervisor. (“A Threat to Clinical Pastoral Training,” by Perry Miller, Pastoral Report.com, The Newsletter of the College of Pastoral Supervision and Psychotherapy, Feb. 23, 2005). The spiritual health of worshippers depends in part on the emotional health of their religious leaders.

Religious leaders and their followers who need to protect their god from cause-and-effect, from knowledge are projecting on to their god their own need to protect themselves from self-knowledge. They tend to be anti-introspective persons, not wanting to look at and understand their own feelings and motivations. Paul the Apostle said, “Faith without works is dead.” (James 2:26) One might add, faith and works without self-knowledge can be deadly.

Jesus seemed to ground spirituality in self-knowledge and human relationships. When asked which was the greatest commandment in the law,” he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart . . . [And] the second is like it: “You shall love you neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:25-30) It is assumed that love of one’s neighbor depends on love of oneself: one’s ability to experience one’s own humanness and to embrace one’s own worth and rights.

Self-knowledge is believed to be a fundamental qualification of any clergy person—and of anyone committed to democratic values. One has to know where he or she is coming from in order to know where other persons are at. Self-knowledge helps one to avoid getting in one’s own way in living and working with and serving people. The more one is in touch with and accepting of oneself, the better prepared one is to experience and accept other persons as themselves – better able to experience rather than interpret their reality.

Each person seems to have his/her own unique “spiritual fingerprints”—as does each group have its own individual ways of performing its spiritual wonders. The spiritual lives of individuals seem to be as varied as their emotional make-up, physical identities, and cultural orientations and conditioning. The influence of personality, culture and spirituality on each other is believed to determine the various ways in which the human spirit moves to perform its wonders.

If the individual and personal nature of spirituality reveals (inadvertently) anything about divinity, it appears to be the diversity of divinity--and thus the divinity of diversity. Spirituality seems to disclose that any divinity is evidently comfortable with, affirms and embraces humanity’s diversity and connectedness, individuality and commonality, uniqueness and oneness. An apparently spiritually inspired Paul the Apostle declared, “If I have all faith, so as to remove mountains but have not love, I am nothing.” (I Corinthians 13:26).

Whether the source of one’s spirituality is the “Holy Spirit” or a human spirit, spirituality would appear to include what one does with what one feels and believes. It would seem that one’s spiritual experiences and beliefs would lead to identification and connectedness with all living beings. The bottom line of spirituality, therefore, would seem to be behavior and not simply belief, action and not just awe, outreach and not merely uplift, introspection and not only inspiration, justice as well as joy. The morality of spirituality.

*Rev. William E. Alberts, Ph.D. is a hospital chaplain, and a Diplomate in the College of Pastoral Supervision and Psychotherapy. Both a Unitarian Universalist and United Methodist minister, he has written research reports, essays and articles on religion, racism, war and politics. He can be reached at aea121@hotmail.com.

Amy E. Alberts, M.A. is a Ph.D. student at Tufts University in the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Development. She is co-editor, with Dr. Jacqueline Lerner, of Current Directions in Developmental Psychology, a Pearson Prentice Hall book of readings from the American Psychological Society (2004). She can be reached at aea121@hotmail.com.

2006-02-17T11:26:00.000-08:00

2005-12-13T13:51:00.000-08:00

The Forgotten Christmas Story

Rev. WILLIAM E. ALBERTS

There is a forgotten Christmas story. A story rarely dwelled on in Christian churches. A story often drowned out by a "multitude of the heavenly hosts" singing Christmas carols. It is not the story of Jesus' birth. It is the related story of a "troubled" King Herod ordering the slaughter of all the male Jewish children "two years old or under" in the region of Bethlehem, to kill off any threat to his power prophesied by the birth of a messiah. It is the story of "wailing and loud lamentation," of "Rachel weeping [inconsolably] for her children, because they were no more." (Matthew 2:1-18) I believe it is the real story of Christmas. Thus honoring Jesus' birth includes responding to today's Rachels and their children because that is what Jesus was about.

Who are today's Rachels and their children? Inconsolable weeping continues to be heard throughout Iraq, where, between 1990-98 alone, US-controlled UN economic sanctions contributed to the deaths of some 500,000 Iraqi children under five years of age. And Rachel's "bitter weeping" has intensified with the March 19, 2003 Bush administration-led invasion and ensuing occupation of Iraq_"wailing and loud lamentation" that have helped to fuel a powerful insurgency. And it is here that we see today's King Herod.

President Bush has followed in King Herod's footsteps, using secrecy and deception to pursue US global domination. The story of Jesus' birth states, "King Herod called the visitors from the East to a secret meeting, and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. Then," the story continues, " he sent them to Bethlehem with these instructions: 'Go and make a careful search for the child; and when you find him, let me know so that I too may go and worship him.'" But the wise men later knowingly avoided Herod, whose anger led him to order the massacre of "all the children in [and around] Bethlehem . . . " (Ibid)

How many secret meetings did President Bush have early on with his "wise neoconservative men" in an attempt to use the tragedy of 9/11 to justify the travesty of pre-emptive war against Iraq? How many concealed meetings did it take to "fix" intelligence and mislead Congress and the American people into falsely believing Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and ties to Al-Qaeda and the 9/11 attacks against America? ("The secret Downing Street memo," by David Manning, From: Matthew Rycroft, The Sunday Times - Britain, May 1, 2005)

How many secluded meetings did Vice President Cheney have with Lewis Libby, his chief of staff, to plan the leaking of Valerie Plame's secret CIA identity, to punish her husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson, for exposing "fixed" intelligence? How many private "telephone calls" did this now indicted "former Hill staffer" [italics added] then have with reporters to "out" Plame and punish her husband_and thus warn other potential whistle blowers of a similar fate? How many similarly focused secretive meetings might President Bush have had with Karl Rove, his chief of staff, who remains under investigation by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's office?

The similarity between President Bush and King Herod may also be seen in their use of deception to mask imperialistic designs. Both used worship of life to hide opposite intentions. The one wanted to destroy a threat to his power under the pretense of, "When you find him, let me know, so that I too may go and worship him." The other saw 9/11 as an opportunity to advance American global domination, which he also wrapped in worship: "Freedom is not America's gift to the world, it is God's gift to every man and woman in the world." ("Acceptance Speech to Republican Convention Delegates," The New York Times, Sept. 9, 2004) Rachel's continued "wailing and loud lamentation" reveal that the Bush administration's war of choice is not about "freedom" and "democracy" but about occupation and oil and empire.

Rachels's ungoing inconsolable weeping for her dead and dying Iraqi children is extensively documented. Over a year ago, the well respected British medical journal, The Lancet published "the first reliable study" of Iraq's civilian deaths since the invasion: "about 100,000 . . . most were women and children . . . violent deaths were widespread . . . and air strikes from coalition forces accounted for most violent deaths." ("100,000 Iraqi civilians dead says study," Sarah Boseley, health editor, The Guardian, Oct. 29, 2004; "Mortality before and after the 2003 invasion of Iraq: cluster sample survey," by Les Roberts, Riyadh Lafta, Richard Garfield, Jamal Khudhairi, Gilbert Burnham, The Lancet, Oct. 30, 2004) The Lancet-published study assumes the Iraqi civilian death toll would be "far more" if it included those killed in the US forces November 2004 assault on Fallujah. (Ibid)

In fact, Rachel's cries for her Fallujah children are apparently finally beginning to be heard. The Independent recently reported, "Powerful new evidence emerged yesterday that the United States dropped massive quantities of white phosphorus on the Iraqi city of Fallujah during the attack on the city in November 2004, killing insurgents and civilians with the appalling burns that are the signature of this weapon." The evidence includes "hideous photographs and videos and interviews with American soldiers who took part in the Fallujah attack." ("US forces 'used chemical weapons' during assault on city of Fallujah," by Peter Popham, Nov. 8, 2005)

The use of chemical weapons is a violation of the Geneva Conventions_as is the failure of an occupying power to count the deaths of Rachel's children. Sadly, the Pentagon turns a deaf ear to Rachel's cries: it does not count civilian deaths and, for seemingly obvious reasons, discounts those of human rights and public health groups.

Rachel's intense and growing inconsolable weeping in Iraq is being picked up in various reports. Her sobbing is heard in an Associated Press story on UN hunger expert Jean Ziegler's March 2005 presentation to the UN Human Rights Commission. Ziegler summarized previously reported studies of Iraqi children by other specialists: "Malnutrition among the youngest Iraqis has almost doubled since the U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein." Thus, "By last fall [2004], 7.7 percent of Iraqi children under 5 suffered acute malnutrition, compared to 4 percent after Saddam's ouster in April 2003," Ziegler said. "Overall more than a quarter of Iraqi children don't get enough to eat." And, "malnutrition, . . . exacerbated by a lack of clean water and adequate sanitation, is a major killer of children in poor countries." Ziegler also stated that "the situation facing Iraqi youngsters is 'a result of the war led by coalition forces.'" ("Expert: Malnutrition Affects Iraq Kids," Jonathan Fowler, UN Security Council-Global Policy Forum, Mar. 30, 2005)

Ironically, the major nutrition issue facing Iraqi children before the "Washington-championed" UN sanctions and the Bush administration's pre-emptive war was "obesity." ("Children Pay Cost of Iraq's Chaos," by Karl Vick, washington.post.com, Nov. 21, 2004)

Rachel's continuing cries are recorded by Medact, a global conflict-studying health charity, which produced three reports on the health of Iraqi people, one before and two after the Bush administration's invasion and occupation. Medact's 2004 report summarized "the enduring effects of war: . . . Iraq already had high child and adult mortality and there is an alarming reoccurrence of previously well-controlled communicable diseases including diarrhoeal diseases, acute respiratory infections and typhoid, particularly among children. Medact concludes that "the 2003 war exacerbated the threats to health already created by previous wars, tyranny and sanctions." ("Enduring effects of health in Iraq 2004, Executive Summary," Medact)

Deputy Director Gill Reeve, who released the report, also was quoted: "The health of the Iraqi people has deteriorated since the 2003 invasion . . . The 2003 war not only created the conditions for further health decline, but also damaged the ability of Iraqi society to reverse it." ("Iraq's Health Care Under the Occupation," by Ghali Hassan, counterpunch.com, Dec. 1, 2004)

Journalist John Pilger testified early on about Rachel and her children being "squeezed to death" by US-controlled UN sanctions. He reported a conversation with "Anupama Rao Singh, UNICEF's senior representative in Iraq, who told him:

In 1989, the literacy rate was 95%; and 93% of the population had free access to modern health facilities. Parents were fined for failing to send their children to school. . . . Iraq had reached a stage where the basic indicators we use to measure the overall well-being of human beings, including children, were some of the best in the world. Now it is among the bottom 20%. In 10 years, child mortality has gone from one of the lowest in the world, to the highest. ("Squeezed to death," The Guardian, March 4, 2000)

Rachel is also despairing for the education of her children. While the Bush administration's "Operation Iraqi Freedom" rhetoric claimed to have the Iraqi people's best interests at heart, the reality on the ground has proven otherwise. The first, UNICEF-supported and Iraqi-government directed, comprehensive study of Iraqi schools, following the US-led invasion and occupation, "shows that one-third of all primary schools in Iraq lack any water supply and almost half are without any sanitation facilities." In addition, "Since March 2003, over 700 primary schools had been damaged by bombing_a third of those in Baghdad_with more than 200 burned and over 3,000 looted. ("Iraq's school suffering from neglect and war," UN Children's Fund, Oct. 15, 2004)Said Roger Wright, UNICEF Iraq Representative, "Today millions of children in Iraq are attending schools that lack even basic water and sanitation facilities, have crumbling walls, broken windows, and leaking roofs.

The system is overwhelmed." Wright said that "the decay is the result of over a decade of neglect and underfunding during the sanctions era, as well as the impact of three wars. . . ." (Ibid) Ironically, President Bush ended his 2002 war drums-beating UN speech with, "Honest government, and respect for women, and the great Islamic tradition of learning can triumph in the Middle East and beyond." ("Remarks by the President in Address to United Nations General Assembly," The White House Office of the Press Secretary, Sept. 12, 2002)

The Bush administration's "Operation Iraqi freedom"-- bearing "gifts" of violent death and injury, malnutrition, contaminated water, unsanitary conditions, deteriorating education, constant threats to public and personal safety, civil war-like strife, and diminishing medical supplies, equipment and personnel-- has turned much of Rachel's country into a disease- and death-ridden nightmare.

There is even more irony here. Before the first Gulf war, most of Rachel's children had free access to health care and education paid for by Iraqi oil. Jesse, editor of TVNewsLies.org, suggests the irony in stating, "A college education [for women] was free," and then asking, "Where do American oil profits go?" ("Bill Maher and Tony Snow Continue the Saddam Lies," www.uruknet.info. Nov. 4, 2005)

Where do the huge American oil profits go? Evidently into the pockets of the oil barons and the campaign coffers of their political guardians. Politicians who cut taxes for the rich and social programs for Rachel and her children. Politicians who ignore those weeping inconsolably from hurricanes with, "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job"--the expedient, self-serving words of President Bush to Michael Brown, then director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), as dikes were giving way and water from Hurricane Katrina drowning their deception. Politicians like Republican presidential hopeful Governor Mitt Romney, who sent Rachel's Massachusetts National Guard sons and daughters off to kill and die in an immoral war against Iraq with words like, "We love you and pray for your safe return." Politicians who waste the country's human and material resources of "gold, frankincense and myrrh" on a criminal war, with Rachel "weeping [inconsolably] for her children"_in Iraq and in America.

I believe Christmas would lead us to Rachel and her children. Jesus was much more than a sweet, little, innocent, non-threatening baby in a manger calling for a seasonal adoration. His birth is not a once-a-year sentimental flight into fantasy (however precious fantasy is) but the thrusting into our society's midst every human being's right to his and her space, identity, belief, fulfillment. He came to set his oppressed Jewish people free from Roman occupation, which is why he was crucified.

He does not lead us to worship an infant in a manger, but to work for Rachel and her children's right to be and to belong and to become. He came "to set at liberty those who are oppressed (Luke 4:18b), not use their oppression as a pretext for coveting their oil and their land for military bases to control the Middle East.

Jesus was about empowering people not gaining power over them in pursuit of dominating "all the kingdoms of the world." (Luke 4:5-8, 18-21) "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God." (Matthew 5:9) "Love your enemies . . . [and] your neighbor as yourself." (Matthew 5: 44; 22:39) "The Sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the Sabbath." (Mark 2: 27) "Let the children come to me, do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God . . . .And he took them up in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands upon them." (Mark 10: 13-16)

Christmas does not mean worshipping what Jesus did but doing what he worshipped. Christmas comes whenever and wherever anyone joins in saying no! to the King Herods of our day and yes! to Rachel and her children.

This article appeared in Counterpunch Weekend EditionDecember 3/4, 2005

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2005-10-13T20:25:00.001-07:00

Mainstream Religious Leaders in Bushtime

Guardians of the Status Quo
By Rev. WILLIAM E. ALBERTS

Many mainstream religious leaders appear to be guardians of the status quo more than agents of peace and justice. Instead of fulfilling their prophetic calling of speaking truth to power, they tend to mutter truth to power- equate truth with power, or defer truth to power. They often serve as echoes of, not ethicists for, American political policy--or they become its silent partners. They use code words--expressions of prayerful and democratic caring--to rationalize and hide the contradiction between profession and practice. Their real priorities are especially seen when the political is in obvious violation of the prophetic: their response is often prudent, prayerful, measured, muted, safe. Their leadership is a far cry from 19th century minister/reformer Theodore Parker's call for "the coming church" to "lead public opinion, not follow it." Their bottom line: not rocking the boat for fear their own ship won't come in- or that members of their denomination will abandon ship. Faith-based initiatives call for faith-based accommodation.

Mainstream religious leaders of the status quo betray a double standard, which is seen in their differing levels of moral outrage in response to injustice and terrorism. Their double standard, which protects them from risk, makes it easier for the Bush administration to continue "staying the course" of treasonous imperialistic policies that betray our country's democracy, waste its resources and threaten our security and that of our allies. The tragic bombings of London on 7/7 offer an important example of their double standard at work, and how it unwittingly helps to undermine our nation's security and bring the so-called "war on terrorism" closer to our shores.

The suicide bombings of London, which killed 52 persons and wounded over 700, elicited from prominent religious leaders swift and strong condemnation and great sympathy for the victims. An Associated Press story in The Washington Post was headlined, "Pope Deplores 'Barbaric' London Attacks," and began, "Pope Benedict XVI said Thursday he deplored the 'terrorist attacks' in London, calling them 'barbaric acts against humanity,' and said he was praying for the families of the victims." (July 7, 2005)

Chief executive of the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries Rev. R. Randy Day "wrote a letter of sympathy and concern to the Rev. David Deaks, top staff executive of the Methodist Church of Britain." Rev. Day also pronounced loud and clear judgment: "Terrorists are cowards in that they attack the most vulnerable- in the London case, men and women, young and old, on the way to work on a Thursday morning. Such action is senseless and cannot foster any cause." (United Methodist News Service Report, by Tim Tanton, managing editor, July 7, 2005)

A "horrified" and "grieved" Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, was quoted as saying, "The appalling events in London this morning have shocked us all." He just happened to be spending "this morning with Muslim Colleagues and friends in West Yorkshire, and we were all as one in our condemnation of this evil, and in our shared sense of care and compassion for those affected in whatever way." ("Muslim, Christian and Jewish leaders condemn attacks," by Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent, www.timesonline.co.uk, July 7, 2005)

The BBC News reported mainstream religious leaders' quick and firm denunciation of the London bombers with the caption, "UK religious leaders have issued a rare joint statement condemning Thursday's 'evil terrorist' attacks on London." Christian, Muslim, and Jewish leaders each read part of a statement that called the bombings "an evil that cannot be justified and that we utterly condemn and reject." The story seemed toned down when it came to Iraq, possibly inadvertently suggesting a double standard at work: "It is the third time the religious leaders have shown such a united front. They condemned the 11 September 2001 attacks, and in 2003 they expressed their shared concerns [italics added] over the war in Iraq." ("UK faith leaders condemn attacks, " UK Edition, July 10, 2005)

The forceful condemnation of the London attackers by the National Council of Churches offers another way by which to measure the double standard of mainstream religious leaders. The NCC's statement, released by General Secretary Bob Edgar, includes these words: "The National Council of Churches joins in prayer for those who were injured and offers sympathy to those who lost loved ones in the mass transit bombings in London today. Such violence reminds us not only of our need to be ever vigilant and to bring the perpetrators to justice [italics added]; it also reminds us of our need to strenuously pursue peace with justice." ("News from the National Council of Churches," July 7, 2005, New York).

The double standard of various mainstream religious leaders is seen in comparing their strong public condemnation of the "barbaric," "evil," "cowardly" bombings in London with their "shared concern over the war in Iraq." It is seen in who especially they decide are "the perpetrators" that they "need to bring to justice." Religious leaders could have included the same exact language- with far greater moral outrage--to publicly condemn President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair for their pre-emptive war against Iraq. But did they? While not exhaustive, the following comparison of the differing levels of moral outrage of religious leaders in response to Baghdad and London is believed to be revealing and instructive.

The strongest public, i.e., mainstream media-covered, religious opposition to the Bush administration's looming pre-emptive war came from Pope John Paul II, the world's most prominent Christian leader. Two weeks before the invasion of Iraq, Pope

John Paul sent an emissary to meet with President Bush in a final effort to avert the war. The emissary, Cardinal Pio Laghi, was described as "a friend of the president's father and the Vatican's first ambassador to Washington," and "brought to the White House the moral authority of the Roman Catholic Church." Laghi and Bush met privately for 40 minutes on Ash Wednesday; while back in Rome the Pope "called on Roman Catholics worldwide to fast and pray for peace" ("Pope's Emissary Meets with Bush, Calls War 'Unjust,'" by Johanna Neuman, the Los Angeles Times, Mar 6, 2003; "Bush meets with Vatican envoy," Associated Press, cnn.com, Mar. 5, 2003).

Before the meeting, Cardinal Laghi was quoted as saying "that the two most important things to the Vatican were 'avoiding a war and finding a peaceful solution to the problem of Iraq's disarmament.'" ("Bush meets with Vatican envoy," Ibid) After the meeting, Laghi said "that a war would be 'illegal and unjust,' but stopped short of calling it immoral." He said that "a decision regarding the use of military force can only be taken within the framework of the United Nations," adding "but always taking into account the grave consequences of such an armed conflict: the suffering of the people of Iraq and those involved in the military operations, a further instability in the region and a new gulf between Islam and Christianity." And Laghi "also called on Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to show more good faith in dismantling his weapons of mass destruction." ("Pope's Emissary meets with Bush," by Johanna Neuman, the Los Angeles Times, Mar. 6, 2003)

The closed-door meeting itself was reported- and thus what was said controlled- by senior White House officials. President Bush evidently disagreed with Pope John Paul II's belief that "a war would be a 'defeat for humanity' and would be neither morally nor legally justified." ("Bush meets with Vatican envoy," Associated Press, cnn.com, Mar. 5, 2003). "A White House spokeswoman" reported that "Bush explained to Laghi, as he has in recent speeches, that he feels a special obligation to protect the American people and that he believes the world will be safer if Hussein is disarmed." Furthermore, "he disputed the idea of a gulf between religions, citing success in rebuilding Afghanistan." (Pope's Emissary Meets with Bush, Calls War 'Unjust,'" by Johanna Neuman, the Los Angeles Times, Mar. 6, 2003)

The administration-reported meeting included Cardinal Laghi "deliver[ing] a letter in which the pope urged Bush to listen carefully to the Vatican envoy. Neither the letter nor the envoy specifically urged Bush to avoid war, the U.S. official said." ("Bush meets with Vatican envoy," Associated Press, cnn.com, Mar. 5, 2003) The Los Angeles Times provided a complementary diplomatic touch: "Laghi delivered a personal letter, but neither he nor the White House would disclose its contents." The story continued, "The cardinal said the president told him he appreciated the pope's effort to find a peaceful way out of the conflict," which evidently pleased Laghi. "We are not at the end yet," Laghi added. "I'm going away with hope." ("Pope's Emissary Meets With Bush, Calls War 'Unjust,'" by Johanna Neuman, Mar. 6, 2003)

The "end" came 15 days later. President Bush gave the order for 21,000-pound "mother of all bombs" and hundreds of cruise missiles to reign "shock and awe" on Baghdad and other Iraqi cities. Briefed on the planned first strike, a Pentagon official had told CBS News two months earlier, "There will not be a safe place in Baghdad." ("Iraq Faces Massive U.S. Missile Barrage," CBS Evening News, Jan. 24, 2003).

The following year President Bush visited Pope John Paul II at the Vatican and presented him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. (America's highest civilian award) During the White House-initiated occasion, the pope reportedly "firmly reminded the president of the Vatican's opposition to the invasion of Iraq last year," and said the country's "sovereignty" needs to be restored and its "situation normalized" quickly , with active U.N. involvement, "in conditions of security for all its people." ("Pope Expresses Concern about Continuing Unrest in Iraq," by John Thavis, Catholic News Service, www.catholicherald.com, 6/3/04)

At this time, the pope made a general statement about recent "deplorable events [which] have come to light [and] have troubled the civic and religious conscience of all." ("Bush Meets with Pope at Vatican," Associate Press, FOX News.com, June 4, 2004) He did not elaborate. And no one seemed able or willing to say exactly whether he meant the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by American troops at Abu Ghraib prison or the kidnapping and beheading of foreign civilians by Islamic militants. (Ibid)

Another most "deplorable event" may well become Pope John Paul II's acceptance of the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Bush. The accommodating media coverage of the seemingly scripted event appears to reveal that both the pope and the president were more concerned about appearances than reality. The Associated Press reported, "Seated next to the pope, Bush promised his nation would work for 'human liberty and human dignity,' without making any references to Iraq." (Ibid) A Catholic News Service story stated, "At the end of his talk, the pope assured the president of his prayers and invoked upon him God's blessings of wisdom, strength and peace." ("Pope Expresses Concern about Continuing Unrest in Iraq," by John Thavis, 6/3/2004)

The Vatican visit, the Presidential Medal of Freedom award, and the pope's blessing apparently contributed considerably to President Bush's gaining "prized swing votes" of Catholics and retaining his "sovereignty" as president in the election five months later. ("Bush, Pope to Meet Today at the Vatican," by Dan Balz and Alan Cooperman, The Washington Post, June 4, 2004) But the US-occupied Iraq people regaining their "sovereignty" and "security" as quickly as possible seems more remote than ever.

History may not be kind to Pope John Paul II. To whom much moral authority is given, much moral authority is expected. A timely papal-called global Christian peace pilgrimage to Iraq might have led President Bush to pray twice as hard about starting his war. Morally powerful also might have been a papal edict denying Communion to any Catholic supporting or participating in the life-aborting war against Iraq. Nor will history be kind to mainstream American Christian leaders who serve as custodians of the status quo more than as its conscience.

Not that other prominent Christian leaders did not try to meet with President Bush before he began his war of choice. Unlike Pope John Paul II, certain other Christian leaders could not get their foot in the White House door. A United Methodist, the president would not even meet with the bishops of his own denomination. The Los Angeles Times reported that "Methodist bishops, who say they have met with every president since George Washington, are upset that Bush has declined to see them." The story quotes Jim Winkler, General Secretary of United Methodism's Board of Church and Society: "There is disappointment because he's one of us. . . . We don't want to berate him or give him a hard time," Winkler added, "We want to pray with him, and we are bewildered that he has not been willing." ("Pope's Emissary Meets with Bush, Calls War 'Unjust,'" by Johanna Neuman, Mar 6, 2003)

Perhaps well-insulated President Bush already knew what his denominational leaders wanted to pray with him about. Six months earlier an Observer/UK story entitled "Iraq War 'Unjustifiable,' says Bush's Church Head," began, "President Bush's own Methodist Church has launched a scathing attack on his preparations for war against Iraq, saying they are 'without any justification according to the teaching of Christ.'" The story continued, "Jim Winkler, head of special policy for United Methodists, added that all attempts at a 'dialogue' between the President and his own church over the war had fallen on deaf ears at the White House." The story ends with Winkler saying "his church was 'keenly aware' that it counted the President and his deputy among its members, and that he was therefore 'frequently encouraged by others to be very careful about how I say things.'" (Guardian Newspapers United, Oct. 20, 2002)

Those "deaf ears" at the White House can definitely read--or be read to. Rev. Winkler also had been quoted as saying, "Methodist scriptural doctrine . . . specifies war as a last resort, primarily a defensive thing. And as far as I know," he pointed out, "Saddam Hussein has not mobilized military forces along the borders of the United States, nor along his own border to invade a neighboring country, nor have any of those countries pleaded for our assistance, nor does he have weapons of mass destruction targeted at the United States." (Ibid)Rev. Winkler and other United Methodist leaders apparently were not "very careful" about how "they voiced their opposition to the president's pre-emptive war preparations." They had "launched a scathing attack."

In an October 4, 2002 letter to the entire 10 million United Methodists, endorsed by the Council of Bishops, then Council President Sharon A Brown Christopher wrote, "A pre-emptive war by the United States against a nation like Iraq goes against the very grain of our understanding of the Gospel, our church's teachings, and our consciences." She also wrote that "a pre-emptive strike . . . does not allow for the adequate pursuit of peaceful means for resolving conflict." ("Council of Bishops' president joins call for restraint on Iraq" News Desk @ UMCOM.ORG, 7 Oct. 2002)

Rev. Winkler himself issued a strong statement: "United Methodists have a particular duty [italics added] to speak out against an unprovoked attack. President Bush and Vice President Cheney are members of our denomination. Our silence now could be interpreted as tacit approval of war." Nor was he "very careful" in also saying, "It is inconceivable that Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior and the Prince of Peace, would support this proposed attack." ("Bush Urged to Turn Back From War," Mark Harrison, contact person, General Board of Church and Society, The United Methodist Church, Aug. 30, 2002).

Bishop Peter Weaver, current President of United Methodism's Council of Bishops, had also prophetically warned, "'War will not end terror. It will simply seed terror. It will come back on the United States like a boomerang,' he said, 'and make U.S. personnel into recruiters for al Qaeda'" ("Eight United Methodist bishops, other leaders, speak against war with Iraq," www.umc.org.) The July 7 London bombing attacks against the US's principal coalition partner seem to indicate that the "boomerang" may be coming full circle. And citizens of some neighboring Muslim and Arab countries help to swell a strong and resourceful Iraqi insurgency.

Numerous religious leaders joined Pope John Paul II and United Methodist officials with similarly strong public declarations, challenging the justification for a pre-emptive war against Iraq and warning of its disastrous consequences. And like Pope John Paul II and United Methodists officials, the statements of these faith-based leaders reveal the extent to which they also believed the Bush administration's repeated argument for a first strike war: American-hating Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction and his links to the 9/11 attack against America and "harboring of terrorists." Their anti-war declarations would also seem to set the stage for, and fuel, far greater public moral outrage than that triggered by the July 7 suicide bombing attacks against London.

The run-up to the war was filled with prophetic concerns and warnings. Bishop Wilton D. Gregory, spokesperson for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, wrote a penetrating letter to President Bush, asking "troubling questions," including, "Is there clear and adequate evidence of a direct connection between Iraq and the attacks of September 11th or clear and adequate evidence of an imminent attack of a grave nature?" Gregory's letter ended by calling on "the Iraqi government to live up to its international obligations," and "urge[d}" Bush "to pursue actively alternatives to war," including "diplomatic efforts aimed, in part, at resuming rigorous, meaningful inspections." ("Letter to President Bush on Iraq," United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Sept. 13, 2002)

Another letter to President Bush from 50 prominent Christian religious leaders contained a similar prophetic warning: that a pre-emptive war would result in the widespread deaths and suffering of Iraqi civilians, and that it would incite greater hatred of America and its allies throughout the Arab world. The letter also repeated a key concern of Bishop Gregory's: "It is detrimental to U.S. interests to take unilateral military action where there continues to be strong multilateral support for a new weapons inspection regime and when most governments in Europe and the Middle East resist supporting military action. It is important for the U.S. to cooperate with international efforts to control Iraq's weapons of mass destruction." ("Letter to President Bush on Iraq," Churches for Middle East Peace," Sept. 12, 2002)

The United Church of Christ leaders presented a powerful statement "opposing U.S. war in Iraq." These leaders repeated the commonly expressed prophetic predictions that "the human cost of a war would be enormous, both to the United States and to Iraq."

They also said "The case for a pre-emptive attack against Iraq has not been made," and called "on our leaders to step back from the brink of war [and] engage in honest and open consultation with parties around the world and especially in the Middle East to seek a non-military solution to the threat that Iraq may pose." They also joined the World Council of Churches in "calling for the Government of Iraq to respect the resolutions of the UN Security Council . . . to cooperate fully with UN inspections deployed to oversee compliance." ("Statement of United Church of Christ leaders opposing U.S. war against Iraq," Justice and Peace, not dated)

The Anglican Journal reported that Christian leaders have criticized the impetus towards a U.S.-led war against Iraq. It then stated the principal argument constantly used to justify a pre-emptive war against Iraq: "In recent weeks, the United States, noting that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had expelled United Nations weapons inspectors and is building biological and nuclear weapons, has urged the U.N. to lead an attack aimed at deposing Saddam." The story continued, "U.S. President George Bush has said he will act alone, if necessary. British Prime Minister Tony Blair supports him." ("Church leaders condemn rush to war with Iraq." (Staff News Service, Anglican Journal, The Anglican Church of Canada, Nov. 2002)

Other mainstream religious leaders and groups who went on record as opposing unilateral military action against Iraq included: the Presbyterian Church (USA), American Baptists, Unitarian Universalists, and the executive committee of the Union for Reformed Judaism. Presbyterian leaders reflect the widespread pre-war belief of mainstream religious leaders in urging Presbyterians to contact the President: "Remind President Bush that only the United Nations Security Council as a whole is capable of determining what qualifies as a breach of Security Council Resolution 1441 that provides for the return of weapons inspector to Iraq." ("What to Do about the Possibility of Military Action against Iraq." [PC-USA]- Presbyterian Peacemaking Program Iraq-Resources, Dec. 1, 2002)

It is time for mainstream religious leaders to remind themselves of the treasonous lies President Bush used to deceive and mislead them and other Americans into a criminal war. Lies resulting in the senseless deaths and disablement of tens of thousands of America's sons and daughters and hundred of thousands of Iraqi civilians. Lies that have made Bush administration-favored corporations like Halliburton richer, while squandering our country's resources and making Americans poorer. Lies that are undermining America's security while pretending to protect it. Lies that should fuel intense moral outrage. Lies that should lead religious leaders to shout their moral outrage from their steeple tops! There is a long trail of reminders!

The Bush administration constantly declared that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and, if not stopped, planned use them against America and her allies, or give them to his 9/11 al Qaeda "terrorist" connections to inflict grave harm. President Bush repeatedly warned, "Saddam Hussein is harboring terrorists and the instruments of terror, the instruments of mass deaths and destruction. . . . Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof-and the smoking gun-that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud." ("President Bush Outlines Iraqi Threat," Cincinnati, Ohio, The White House, Oct. 7, 2002)

In his 2003 State of the Union Address, President Bush warned again, "The dictator of Iraq is not disarming. To the contrary, he is deceiving. From intelligence sources we know, for instance, that thousands of Iraqi security personnel are at work hiding documents and materials from the U.N. inspectors . . . If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge," Bush continued, "all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late. And for good measure, he added, "The dictator who is assembling the world's most dangerous weapons has already used them on whole villages-leaving thousands of his own citizens dead, blind or disfigured." ("President Delivers 'State of the Union,'" The White House, Jan. 28, 2003)

More reminders! Three days before President Bush launched his pre-emptive war against Iraq, he met on an American air base in the Azores with his two key "coalition of the willing" partners, British and Spanish Prime Ministers Tony Blair and Jose Maria Aznar. He again warned, "The dictator of Iraq and his weapons of mass destruction are a threat to the security of free nations. He is a danger to his neighbors . . . a sponsor of terrorism . . . possesses the weapons of mass murder." ("President Bush: Monday 'Moment of Truth' for World on Iraq," The White House, Mar. 17, 2003) Bush preceded this warning with words that should come back to haunt him: "Tomorrow is a moment of truth for the world," he declared in trying unsuccessfully "to extract a resolution from the U.N. Security Council that would give Iraq an ultimatum to disarm immediately or be disarmed by force" (Ibid.); "Bush: Monday is a 'moment of truth' on Iraq," (cnn.com/world, Mar. 17, 2003)

George W. Bush's "moment of truth for the world" was propelled by a lie, which should become the defining moment of his treasonous behavior as president of the United States. He lied repeatedly in sending America's sons and daughters to kill and die in an immoral war with, "Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised. . . . This regime . . . has a deep hatred of America and our friends. And it has aided, trained and harbored terrorists, including operatives of al Qaeda."

President Bush poured it on. "The danger is clear," he warned, "Using chemical, biological or, one day, nuclear weapons, obtained with the help of Iraq, the terrorists could fulfill their stated ambition and kill thousands or hundreds of thousands of innocent people in our country or any other." ("President Bush Presents 48 Hour Ultimatum," Address to the Nation, The White House, Mar. 17, 2003)

Morally enraging reminders! President Bush's "moment of truth for the world" came. The final report on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, prepared by Charles A. Duelfer, America's chief weapons inspector for Iraq, stated, "Iraq had destroyed its illicit weapons stockpile within months after the Persian Gulf War of 1991, and its ability to produce such weapons has significantly eroded by the time of the American invasion in 2003." (The New York Times, Oct. 7, 2004) Similarly, the bi-partisan 9/11 Commission found "no credible evidence" of a "collaborative relationship" between Iraq and Al-Qaeda. ("No Evidence Connecting Iraq to Al Qaeda, 9/11 Panel Says," by Dan Eggen, washingtonpost.com, June 16, 2004)

President Clinton was impeached for lying about sexual misconduct with an individual. President Bush remains at large after "fixing" intelligence to justify the rape of a country. ("The secret Downing Street memo," by David Manning, from: Matthew Rycroft, The Sunday Times-Britain, May 1, 2005)

Reminder of deception after deception! A morally illusive President Bush has continued to repackage his "moment of truth" to the world. The less the evidence for weapons of mass destruction, the more he wrapped himself in the lofty motive of removing a brutal dictator from power and bringing "freedom" to the oppressed Iraqi people.

History hides a contradictory truth. The United States aided and abetted Saddam Hussein during his brutal regime. At the very time he was killing his own people with poisonous gas, Bush's own father's administration reportedly sold him American farm products that could be used to produce chemical and biological weapons. And those weapons were used, with the help of satellite photographs provided by US intelligence agencies, to target Iranian troops during the decisive battles of the 1981-88 Iraqi-Iranian war. The US believed it was "imperative" to prevent Iran from overrunning "the important oil-producing countries in the Persian Gulf." Reported also is that, during the Reagan administration the decision was made "to remove the regime of Saddam Hussein-who was known in those days as the 'Butcher of Baghdad'-from the list of sponsors of terror!" ("What the U.S. President wants us to forget," by Robert Fisk, The Independent, Oct. 9, 2002; The New York Times, Aug. 18, 2002; "Justice in Iraq" by Kevin McKiernan, The Boston Globe, Feb 9, 2005). The trial of Saddam Hussein, if it is fair, may hold a "moment of truth" for American foreign policy, which has planted many seeds of hatred toward America.

When one lie does not take hold enough to justify the sacrifice of American lives, President Bush wraps himself in another. "Our men and women in uniform are fighting terrorists in Iraq, so we do not have to fight them here at home." ("State of the Union Address," The New York Times, Feb. 3, 2005) Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, no connection to al Qaeda or 9/11. The country was greatly weakened by 12 years of US-enforced UN economic sanctions, and defenseless against the world's greatest super power and its coalition allies. The so-called "terrorists" in Iraq are Iraqis whose patriotism is every bit as strong as America's. Bush created a hornet's nest of resistance to America's invasion and occupation of Iraq. Now he is saying that Iraq is "filled with foreign fighters who have come from places like Saudi Arabia and Syria and Iran and Egypt and Sudan and Yemen and Libya." ("President Addresses Military Families, Discusses War on Terror," The White House, Nampa Idaho, Aug. 25, 2005)

The only really "foreign fighters" in Iraq are Americans and their coalition partners-just as the only weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq were unleashed by the American military. A Syrian stated that he was fighting Americans in Iraq so that he would not have to fight them in Syria. How many other Arab and Muslim people from neighboring countries are saying the same thing with their presence in Iraq?

One thing seems sure: We may be fighting so-called "terrorists" in America precisely because President Bush chose to invade Iraq. He also tries to justify his war of choice by saying, "See, they're coming into Iraq because they fear the march of freedom," (Ibid) It is not about a "march" but about an invasion, not about "freedom" but about occupation and global domination. It is about oil and empire.

A final reminder! President Bush reveals much about himself when he talks about Saddam Hussein. His projections seem obvious: "The dictator of Iraq is not disarming," Bush said. "To the contrary, he is deceiving." ("Text: Bush's 2003 State of the Union Address, The Washington Post, Jan. 28, 2005) That was his constant theme in the run-up to the war, in an attempt to depreciate the work of the UN weapons inspectors.

Most telling was the President's reaction to the UN inspectors' pre-war search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. His resistance to the inspectors led him to repeatedly say, "I'm sick and tired of games and deceptions." (The New York Times, Jan. 15, 2003) "How much time do we need to see clearly that he is not disarming." (The New York Times, Jan. 22, 2003) "No doubt he will play a last-minute game of deception. The game is over." (The New York Times, Feb. 7, 2003)

Saddam Hussein had stated, "As I told you and have said on many occasions before, that there are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq whatsoever." ("60 Minutes II," CBS, Feb. 5, 2003) And the very day President Bush declared his "moment of truth for the world," Hussein "also repeated his denial of U.S. and British allegations that his country has weapons of mass destruction, dubbing the accusation 'a great lie'" ("Bush: Monday is 'a moment of truth' in Iraq," cnn.com./world, Mar. 17, 2003).

Whom is one to believe? "The dictator of Iraq and his weapons of mass destruction?" Or, the God-fearing, freedom-loving President of the United States? Bush repeatedly accused Hussein of the very deception he was practicing against the American people-and continues to practice.

The pre-war statements of mainstream religious leaders indicated they believed the Bush administration's pre-emptive, war-justifying falsehoods about Saddam Hussein's threatening weapons of mass destruction and ties to 9/11 and to "terrorists." The growing body of evidence, revealing that President Bush had deceived them and the American people, and had brought to pass with his war the very destructive consequences they had warned about, would seem to elicit from these religious leaders intense and sustained condemnation. One would expect to hear shouts of moral outrage against Bush and his administration, similar to, but far louder than, the spontaneous eruption of religious leaders in reaction to the bombings of London. Prophetic denunciations, such as: "Liars!" "Deceivers!" "Fear-mongerers!" "War-mongerers!" "State-organized terrorists!" "Killers!" "Barbaric!" "Imperialist conspirators!" "Treasonous!"

Leaders of the National Council of Churches and member denominations have presented a delayed, but relatively clear prophetic reaction. A brief Associated Press-written Washington Post story reported that they chose last July 4th to issue "a petition stating vehement opposition to United States policy in Iraq." Sending their statement to President Bush, they "charged, it has become clear that the rationale for invasion was at best a tragic mistake, at worst, a clever deception." They "denounced the national leaders who sent Americans 'to fight a dishonorable war' and 'the abuse of prisoners that has shamed our nation.'" They "advocated 'an early fixed timetable for the withdrawal of United States troops,'" and stated that "the nation must restore 'truth telling' and abolish 'first strikes' justifications for warfare." ("Religion News in Brief," The Associated Press, July 7, 2005)

Those Christian leaders joining the National Council of Churches-sponsored statement included "executives of the United Methodist Church, to which Bush belongs," The Washington Post-printed story stated. These executives' support for such a comparatively forceful statement is a positive sign.

Last May five United Methodist bishops paid President Bush a "pastoral visit," during which they presented him "with a Bible signed by the Council of Bishops, . . . shared a moment of prayer with him," and told him that "they are praying for him," and "that they share his commitment to building a better world." Their leader, Council of Bishops President Peter Weaver, also reported that Bush told them he was "proud to be a Methodist." ("United Methodist bishops meet with president, 'open door to future,' by Tom Tanton, Managing Editor, The United Methodist News Service, May 3, 2005)

Rather than paying him a "pastoral visit" in the White House, moral outrage should seem to lead them to join Cindy Sheehan in prayer and protest vigils outside the White House-and wherever Bush "stays the course."

The short Washington Post-carried story, on the National Council of Churches-sponsored strong anti-war statement, seemed to strive for "balance." It quoted a critic of the church leaders' statement: "Alan Wisdom of the conservative Institute for Religion and Democracy, responded that the statement shows the National Council is divorced 'from the church members it claims to represent' and seeks Christian unity through narrow '1960s era protest politics' on which Christians may disagree rather than pursuing matters of faith." It is as if "matters of faith" can be separated from works that matter.

Many evangelical Christians appear to be "divorced" from the reality of President Bush's lies, and from the tragic human toll in Iraqi and American lives caused by his continuing deceit. The Pew Research Center for the People surveyed the religious views of a potential war, and found that "80% of evangelical white Protestants support the war, the highest tally of any group measured." ("Pope's Emissary Meets with Bush, Calls war 'Unjust,'" by Johanna Neuman, the Los Angeles Times, Mar. 6, 2003) This finding may explain why the "matters of faith" of many evangelical Christians have not yet caught up with the moral outrage on the ground.

One such staunch white Christian evangelical supporter of President Bush, Rev. Pat Robertson, has recently called for the assassination of President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. Chavez is Latin America's strongest critic of Bush's war of terrorism in Iraq, and Venezuela has the largest oil reserves after the Middle East. Robertson said, on his Christian television program, The 700 Club, viewed by around one million people, "If he thinks we're [italics added] trying to assassinate him, I think we [italics added] really ought to go ahead and do it. It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war," Robertson continued. "And I don't think any oil shipments will stop."

The Christian evangelist accused President Chavez of turning Venezuela "into 'a launching pad for communist infiltration and Muslim extremism.'" An empowered Robertson said, "We [italics added] have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we [italics added] exercise that ability." ("Robertson Suggests U.S. Kill Venezuela's Leader," by Laurie Goodstein, The New York Times, Aug. 24, 2005)

The strong negative reaction in certain religious and government circles first led Pat Robertson to deny that he called for the assassination of President Chavez. "I didn't say 'assassination,' I said our special forces should 'take him out,' . . . 'Take him out' could be a number of things, including kidnapping." He later admitted using the word "assassination," said it was wrong and apologized, explaining, "I spoke in frustration that we [italics added] should accommodate the man who thinks the US is out to kill him." ("Robertson apologizes for Chavez assassination remarks," Associated Press, The Boston Globe, Aug. 25, 2005)

Pat Robertson's criminal suggestion would seem to be an easy target for the moral outrage of mainstream religious leaders and for certain influential evangelical Christian leaders. President Bush's reaction to Robertson's suggestion, and that of other evangelical leaders, may be a different story. The strongest criticism from the State Department thus far has been to call Robertson's comments "inappropriate." (Ibid) Robertson represents the violent extreme of true believers, which violence drives the Bush administration's goal of US global domination-wrapped, of course, in palatable slogans of "freedom" and "democracy." Such true believers may be called "Christian extremists."

Pat Robertson is not different from President Bush. More obvious? Yes! Less powerful? Of course! But Robertson probably received the inspiration and emboldenment for his verbal terrorist violence from Bush. All Robertson suggested was what Bush has done repeatedly.

The President's "moment of truth for the world" was about "taking out" Saddam Hussein. And in his 2003 State of the Union address, Bush flashed a look of triumphant pleasure in saying, "All told, more than 3,000 suspected terrorists have been arrested in many countries. Many others have met with a different fate." And then he paused, gloating-like, and said, "Let's put it this way-they are no longer a problem to the United States and our friends and allies." These words elicited "applause."

Power breeds arrogance. And arrogance breeds the abuse of power. It is easy to direct moral outrage at an obvious Pat Robertson. But President Bush is the one to whom mainstream religious leaders need to speak truth to power.

Pat Robertson represents the violent extreme to which "the one true Christian belief" can lead persons to inflict their will on other human beings. President Bush's behavior is so outrageous, and obviously far more dangerous than Robertson's. Bush's use of religion to mask his administration's pursuit of political/corporate world domination would seem to lead America's religious leaders to scream with moral outrage.

President Bush repeatedly told Americans he was praying for peace while hell-bent for war. At his March 6, 2003 news conference, two weeks before invading Iraq, Bush said, "I pray daily. I pray for wisdom and guidance and strength. . . . I pray for peace. I pray for peace." (The New York Time, Mar. 7, 2003) Two weeks later American military began bombing and invading Iraq.

One might wonder to whom President Bush was praying daily "for guidance and wisdom . . . [and] peace." His prayers evidently were not informed by intelligence showing no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and no Iraqi ties to the 9/11 attacks against America-his administration's two key arguments to justify invading Iraq. Charges that were knowingly false. Had he talked with UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix, before praying, he would have obtained "guidance and wisdom," as Blix would have told him that his team "found no evidence of Iraq possessing weapons of mass destruction." But a prayerful Bush apparently did not want to hear that. And his "moment of truth for the world" effectively ended the search for any weapons of mass destruction, which led Blix to respond, "I don't think it is reasonable to close the door to inspections after 3 _ months." (The Boston Globe, Mar. 19, 2003).

"I pray daily . . . for peace." President Bush's former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill said that removing Saddam Hussein from power "was topic 'A' 10 days after the inauguration-eight months before Sept. 11." ("Bush Sought 'Way' to Invade Iraq," www.cbsnews.com, Jan. 11, 2004)

"I pray daily . . . for peace." Richard Clarke, President Bush's former chief advisor on terrorism, reported that Bush seemed determined to use the 9/11 attack against America as a pretext to invade Iraq. According to Clarke, Bush told him "to find whether Iraq did this." And when he replied, "We looked at it . . . [and] there's no connection," Bush insisted that he "come back with a report that said Iraq did this." ("Clarke's Take on Terror," www.cbsnews.com, Mar. 21, 2004)

When no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq and no connection to 9/11, President Bush's "moment of truth for the world" began catching up with him. These realities must have led him again to prayer, where he evidently found another justification for military aggression against Iraq: "Freedom is not America's gift to the world, it is God's gift to every man and woman in the world." ("Acceptance Speech to Republican Convention Delegates," The New York Times, Sept. 3, 2004) The only difference between the Christianity of Pat Robertson and George Bush is that Bush is president and has the power to kill those who resist his understanding of "the ways of Providence." (The New York Times, Jan. 29, 2003).

Cloaking military violence, conquest, occupation, and exploitation in the name of "God" and "freedom" and "democracy" and "protecting America" should have mainstream Christian religious leaders proclaiming biblically-inspired moral outrage from their church-tops: "Hypocrites!" "Whitewashed tombs!" "False prophets!" "Defilers!" "Desecrators!" "Evildoers!" "Mercenaries!" "Murderers of the innocent!" "Devourers of the poor!" "Oppressors of the helpless!"

President Bush's hypocrisy is readily seen in his prostitution of freedom and democracy as well as of God to disguise and serve his administration's imperialistic crusade. Here again he does not practice what he preaches.

The president constantly preaches about spreading "freedom" and "democracy" throughout the world-especially after no war-justifying weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq, and no links to 9/11 or al Qaeda. However, he continues to remind his audiences of 9/11, and to repeat, "I understand freedom is not America's gift to the world; freedom is Almighty God's gift to each man and woman in this world." ("President Addresses Military Families, Discusses War on Terror," Nampa, Idaho, The White House, Aug. 25, 2005)

President Bush gives a predictably "democratic" spin to the U.S.-installed puppet Iraqi leaders' struggle to create a "democratic constitution," one acceptable to his administration: "Iraqis are now at the beginning of a long process; and like our founders, they're grappling with difficult issues . . . They're arguing about the proper place of religion in the life of their nation. . . . minority rights . . . the rights of women . . . But what's important is that the Iraqis are resolving these issues through debate and discussion [italics added], not at the barrel of a gun." (Ibid) The Bush administration has provided the barrel of the gun!

A freedom-loving, evangelistic President Bush declares, "The road to Providence is uneven and unpredictable. Yet we know where it leads. It leads to freedom. . . freedom's power to change the world. We are part of a great venture . . . to spread the peace that freedom brings." (Transcript of State of the Union Address and cleared by the White House, The New York Times, Feb. 3, 2005)

President Bush continually tells his audiences, "Our enemies murder because they despise our freedom and our way of life . . . We believe in human rights. . . They'll kill women and children. . ." (President Addresses Military Families, Discusses War on Terror," Ibid.) It is as if America did not violate Iraq's national sovereignty, nor that merciless "shock and awe" bombs did not blow Iraqi women and children to bits-never mind the 12 years of US-controlled UN sanctions that contributed to the deaths of some 500,000 Iraqi children under 5 years of age.

President Bush preaches "freedom" and "democracy" all over the country and the world, but seems unable to practice it with anyone. "See, you can't talk sense to the terrorists. You can't negotiate with them. You cannot hope for the best. You must bring them to justice," he tells his screened audiences. He himself is protected from the very "debate and discussion" for which he is now lauding American-chosen Iraqi constitution-makers.

Tragically, it is not just "the terrorists" President Bush "can't talk sense to." It is also Hans Blix, who would have told him that "recent inspections proved far-ranging and more effective than any previously in Iraq," and that "while inspectors followed up leads from US intelligence, I must regret we have not found . . . any smoking guns." (The Boston Globe, Mar. 19, 2003) Nor could Bush evidently "talk sense to" his former anti-terrorism advisor Richard Clarke about "Iraq! Saddam!" when Clarke told him "there's no connection" between Iraq and the 9/11 attack on America.

Nor could President Bush "talk sense to" the United Nations Security Council. The deity to whom he prays "for guidance and wisdom and strength" evidently has a unilateral bent, that led Bush not into the United Nations, but delivered him from the French, the Germans, the Russians, the Chinese and the leaders of other countries. And he would not even open the White House door nor pray with any of his own religious leaders-or any other Christian "peacemakers"-until after his war was safely launched, so that he could use "support the troops" to drum up support for his war and drown out opposition.

Perhaps, most revealing of all is that President Bush cannot "talk sense" with Cindy Sheehan, the grief-stricken mother whose 24-year old son Casey died in Iraq in 2004 for Bush's "noble cause." A more informed Mrs. Sheehan continued to hold a vigil near Bush's ranch during his recent five-week vacation, asking him to meet on the road-side with her and explain the "noble cause" for which he said her son died. Having lost her son forever "through the barrel of a gun," she understandably felt entitled to resolve "issues through debate and discussion" with the "freedom"-espousing president-as the admirable Iraqi constitution-creators are doing. Bush's response to her request and presence near his ranch reveals the disconnect between what he says and what he does: "I sympathize with Mrs. Sheehan," he said. "She feels strongly about her position, and she has every right in the world to say what she believes. This is America." [italics added] ("Bush says he hears families' cries but pull out is wrong," by Deb Riechmann, Associated Press writer, Williamsport Sun-Gazette, Aug. 12, 2005) Bush will meet with grieving families of dead American troops. They just have to be screened first.

President Bush's treasonous behavior is especially seen in his response to Mrs. Sheehan's demand to know from him the "noble cause" that took her son's life. "We mourn the loss of every life," Bush said. "We pray for their loved ones. These brave men and women," he continued, "gave their lives for a cause that is just and necessary for the security of our country and now we will honor their sacrifice by completing their mission." (Ibid) His punch line also: "We owe them something. We will finish the task that they gave their lives for. We will honor their sacrifice by staying in the offensive against the terrorists." ("President Honors Veterans of Foreign Wars at National Convention," Salt Lake City, Utah, The White House, Aug. 23, 2005)

First, President Bush's "noble cause" was removing Iraq's threatening weapons of mass destruction and connection to al Qaeda, which "cause" proved to be neither just nor necessary for the security of our country. Then the "noble cause" became spreading "freedom" and "democracy" to "the darkest corners of the world"-for America's own protection and security as well. Now, with the growing cost in American lives and limbs, Bush's "noble cause" has become honoring the sacrifice of those who died in a dishonorable war by continuing "the fight" for which they died. America's sons and daughters are honorable. The war in which they were manipulated into fighting and killing and dying is not! How cruelly cynical to justify the lies for which Americans have died by saying that "honoring their sacrifice" requires other Americans to continue to die.

Today President Bush's "noble cause" even includes protecting Iraq's oil fields from "fall[ing] under the control of terrorist extremists," who would use them to fund their "terrorist attacks" ("Bush: U.S. Must Protect Iraq From Terror," by Jennifer Loven, The Associated Press, Aug 30, 2005) Never mind that the so-called "terrorists" are mostly Iraqis and the oil is theirs. The 'noble cause" is to be found in America not Iraq. Rather than being sent to "protect" Iraq's oil from Iraqis, those National Guard troops and resources are desperately needed to protect Americans from water. But since most of these Americans are black and/or poor, it probably was easier for Bush to remain oblivious to the water of Hurricane Katrina-until it began swamping the White House with a public relations disaster.

An editorial in the Sun Herald of Biloxi, Mississippi criticized Hurricane Katrina relief efforts, stating, "Our reporters have yet to find evidence of a coordinated approach to relieve pain and hunger or to secure property and maintain order." The editorial then asked, "Where is the National Guard, [italics added] why hasn't every able-bodied member of the armed forces in south Mississippi been pressed into service?" ("Biloxi Newspaper Raps Relief Effort, Begs for Help," by Greg Mitchell, Editor and Publisher, Sept. 1, 2005) Evidently the deity to whom President Bush prays "daily . . . for guidance and wisdom and strength" forgot to warn him about natural disasters that would demand the immediate and massive response of the National Guard's presence and resources.

Predictably, President Bush could not "talk sense to" very many victims of Hurricane Katrina. The New York Times reported that his first trip "to Louisiana and Mississippi . . .left Republicans cringing, in part because the president had little contact with residents left homeless." (Sept. 5, 2005). He avoided large crowds of stranded pleading, angry, desperate people in the Superdome and the New Orleans convention center and elsewhere-- probably because they could not be screened. He and his choreographers-- and television cameras-- found controllable settings and individuals easier to hug and console with words. (The New York Times, Sept. 3, 2005 and Sept. 6, 2005)

President Bush uses religion to demonize other human beings and dismiss their grievances against US foreign policy, by calling them "terrorists" and enemies in a "war of good vs. evil." And the way he says, "See, you can't talk sense to the terrorists" indicates he has no intention of trying to resolve hostilities by talking with America's enemies. It should be obvious by now that you can't talk sense to President Bush.

A greatly needed response to the President's tragic intransigence is found in a Boston Globe guest column by Mohammad-Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou, who raises a critical question: "Time to talk to Al Qaeda?" He asks, "How can the war be brought to an end,?" and answers, "Though dismissed widely, the best strategy may well be to acknowledge and address the collective reasons in which Al Qaeda anchors its acts of force." Those reasons: "The United States must end its military presence in the Middle East, its uncritical political support and military aid of Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories, and its support of corrupt and coercive regimes in the Arab and Muslim world." Mohamedou believes that "talking sense" with Al Qaeda could "bring an end to the war it declared in 1996 and in 1998, in return for some degree of satisfaction regarding its grievances." He offers his own concluding reminder: "In 2002, bin Laden declared: "Whether America escalates or deescalates this conflict, we will reply in kind.'" (Sept. 14, 2005)

What "we owe" those honorable Americans who were sacrificed for lies, and those continuing to be sent to be sacrificed, is to stop the dishonorable war now-and to put President Bush and certain members of his administration on trial for treason. Would that those honorable National Guard and Army troops, whose lives have been wrongfully sacrificed, were here to continue living their lives--and to join in the truly honorable work of rescuing and protecting the desperate victims of Hurricane Katrina.

What a horrible hoax and crime to commit against America's sons and daughters and their families and friends. What a horrible transgression to commit against another country: killing and wounding and occupying its people, controlling and exploiting its land and resources and provoking civil war-all in the name of "Operation Iraqi Freedom." What a tragic abdication of moral authority and responsibility by those mainstream religious leaders, and mainstream editors and columnists, and political officials who continue to call this international crime a "mistake."

President Bush's remaining at large is believed to have serious moral implications for mainstream religious leaders and mainstream media and political officials. His repeated treasonous lies and disastrous policies, which threaten America with far greater harm than the attack of 9/11, have yet to elicit effective moral, editorial and political outrage and accountability. History will try America's "freedom of religion" and "free press" and may find both morally wanting. We will cast a stigma of shame on future generations of citizens if we continue to be "good Americans."

More forceful prophetic outrage by religious leaders may have been made than appears in this brief study. If so, their voices and writings may not have been loud and visible enough to be newsworthy-though part of their problem could be a complicit mainstream media, which also often serve as guardians of the status quo. One also wonders what price Rev. Winkler, Rev. Edgar, and certain other religious leaders are now paying for not being "very careful about how" they have been speaking truth to power.

The Prophet Muhammed said, "The pinnacle of faith is to speak the truth in the face of the tyrant." (Bukhari) When Jesus was taken prisoner and faced the tyrant Pilate, he said his mission was "to testify to the truth," and "Pilate asked him, 'What is truth?'" (John 18:36-38) Jesus had already said it from the pinnacle of a mountaintop, which is why he was taken prisoner: "Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called children of God. . . . Love your enemies. . . " (Matthew 5:9, 43) There is Jewish prophecy as well: "When all the prisoners of the land are crushed under foot, when human rights are perverted in the presence of the Most High, when one's case is subverted-does the Lord not see it?" (Lamentations 3:34-36). It is time for more mainstream religious leaders and their peoples of faith to see it clearly, and to demand that President Bush be held accountable for his treasonous behavior and crimes against humanity.

Rev. William E. Alberts, Ph.D. is a hospital chaplain. Both a Unitarian Universalist and a United Methodist minister, he has written research reports, essays and articles on racism, war, politics and religion. He can be reached at william.alberts@bmc.org.

2005-10-13T20:25:00.000-07:00

2005-05-16T18:32:00.000-07:00

Clarifying and Claiming Progressive Values
or
Religion isn’t worshiping what the prophets did,
but doing what the prophets worshiped

Rev. William E. Alberts, Ph.D.*

Presented at Retreat of

New England Chapter of the Methodist Federation for Social Action

Deaconess Home
Concord, MA

March 12, 2005

I. INTRODUCTION

I’m delighted to be here with you Methodists again after all these years. It was in 1973, as some of you recall, when the Southern New England Conference forcibly retired me after I performed the marriage of dear Harry Freeman and Bob Jones at Old West Church in Boston. Certain of my precious roots are here with you—roots that continue to affirm and nourish who I am as a human being and a minister. You remain an important part of my life.

As all of you know, key social justice and action issues are controversial, and, if really addressed, can lead to conflict in a congregation—and to complaints to a minister’s "superiors in office." The result can be a minister developing a reputation for being "controversial" or a "trouble-maker," and possibly being sentenced, I believe you still call it appointed, elsewhere—certainly not to an affluent and influential church.

I believe, for ministers, it is your hierarchical structure, with its power over your appointments and advancements, that helps to keep your conscience and determines your social action agenda—and I will address that in more detail later. A similar fate can befall an activist layperson, who may become disenchanted by a congregation’s need to "keep the peace at any price," and go where the social action is.

I’m fascinated by the power structures in local churches; how certain men and women are attracted to positions of authority in the local church, and use them to create their own little fiefdom. It often is not about caring but about control. Not about empowering people but about power.

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This is not to overlook a minister or layperson using social action concerns to act out his or her own unresolved issues. We have to know where we are coming from, so that we don’t get in our own way in knowing where other people are at. We need to understand
our own inner reality if we are going to experience rather than interpret the reality of other persons. Here is the need to see people as we are not as they are.

Similarly, one may select safe non-threatening social justice issues to address. One may not rock the boat for fear one’s own ship won’t come in. It is the politics of religion that keeps religion out of politics—out of controversial political issues. We social justice persons appear to face a key reality: social action issues often create tension and controversy in a congregation, and in a community, and in a Conference and thus may be discouraged, or those involved advised to "tone it down."

The dynamic of "peace at any price," of keeping it "toned down" would appear to help explain why out of over 500 churches in the New England Conference only a ½ dozen or so have a social action committee; whereas I bet you need more than two hands and two feet to count the number of churches that have membership and evangelism committees. And it would seem that this emphasis is being reinforced by your new bishop.

An Oct. 9, 2004 Boston Globe profile of Bishop Peter Weaver states, "At a time when his and other mainline denominations are losing members and wrestling with tight finances, Weaver is banking on PDF’s, public displays of faith, through vibrant congregations and their service to communities to help him open more churches. . . . Weaver . . . believes that if the church excites its members by living its faith, the problem of declining membership, and its attendant financial squeeze, will right itself. The story doesn’t explain what "living its faith" means.

The profile’s story line is actually about membership and evangelism; it continues: the bishop’s "former assignment, the Philadelphia area conference, added 30 new congregations in recent years. . . . He also cited the Pittsburgh-area churches he served—one poor, one affluent—where membership and budget grew after the congregations joined together for prayer and fellowship. He is quoted as saying, "All the polls say there’s tremendous spiritual hunger in this society." The "spiritual hunger" appears to be about membership not morality, about evangelism not equality, about building Methodism not human community.

Earlier in the Boston Globe profile, Bishop Weaver "proudly cites" another poll: the Gallup poll, which found "George W. Bush and U.S. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton were the most admired man and woman in America last year. Both Methodists, they talk about how their religious faith molds their lives and politics." Bishop Weaver "proudly cites Gallup’s findings to honor the president and the former first lady for their testimony of faith. That faith, he says, can put people ‘in touch with the presence of God through Jesus Christ, which in my own personal experience is transforming.’" "Transforming" is not defined here.

At the very time Bishop Weaver was saying that, in October, President Bush’s "testimony of faith"—"Freedom is God’s gift to every man and woman in the world"—

was "transforming" Fallujah into rubble. Bush’s "testimony of faith" was putting the residents of Fallujah—women and children and other civilians—not in "touch with the presence of God through Jesus Christ," but in touch with the presence of death through American bombs and missiles and napalm—a violation of Geneva Conventions that is already judged by much of the world to be a war crime—as, I believe, will "the Methodist and the most admired man in America" be judged an international war criminal in time, for his administration’s falsely motivated, unnecessary, costly, preemptive war against Iraq.

I’m seeking to lay the groundwork for today’s focus: I believe that clarifying and claiming progressive values involve being aware of the forces that influence our selection of the values we develop clarity about and address. My aim is not to list specific social justice issues; though my own priorities are obvious. My aim is to help us think through why we choose certain issues to claim and proclaim, and why we avoid other issues. This process would seem to put the horse in front of the cart where she should be.

What then influences the values we choose and how we claim and address them? I believe a number of influences may help to determine our social action. Some influences we may be oblivious to, and some we may be aware of but the risk involved could lead to settling for "peace at any price" or for "toning it down." I want to share three influences that, I believe, help to determine the nature and extent of our social action.

II. PERSONAL RELIGIOUS BELIEFS

The social justice issues we choose to address are determined partly by our personal religious beliefs. I would like us first to examine our own beliefs and how they help to influence the social justice issues we embrace and don’t embrace. To help in our thinking through here I am going to share some of my analysis and findings contained in my Jan. 1/2 CounterPunch article, "On Moral Values: Code Words for Emerging Authoritarian Tendencies in Americans." This article evidently helped lead your MFSA planning committee to invite me here today. As you know, the Biblically-based, so-called "moral values" of Evangelical Christians helped to elect President Bush to a second term, and have provoked much thinking about the meaning and importance of "moral values."

Suddenly, everybody wants a piece of the "moral values" action—as if they were "moral." For example, the belief that President Bush’s "moral values" helped him to win re-election has led certain political and theological pundits to conclude that the Democrats must "get religion" and bridge the "God gap" if they are to regain the

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presidency. The Democrats have been told to get a grip on God and morality and, like the Republicans, let their light of faith shine for all religiously-motivated voters to see if
they are ever to achieve a political resurrection. Those who interpret the presidential election in these terms appear to miss a critical point: we may not be witnessing the ascendancy of "moral values" in America but the rise of authoritarian tendencies in Americans.

An e-mail from a man in New Hampshire in response to my CounterPunch article gets at the point: "I’m petrified," he writes, "that our country is being unduly influenced by evangelical Christian dogma as exemplified by George W. Bush. As you point out, it is readily apparent that much of organized religion is determined to disenfranchise large numbers of our citizens that belong to so-called ‘out-groups.’ I wish that the Democratic Party in this country would not be so afraid of being labeled liberal. In my opinion, they need to move farther to the left and re-establish themselves as a counter-option to the Republicans, not republican light . . . It is counter-productive for Democrats to try to project the image of out warring the war party. They need to get back to being the party of helping other people. A party of compassion. I truly believe that there are still a lot of Americans who would welcome a move away from a perpetual war footing."

I want us to examine our personal religious beliefs because of how they influence our perception of and response to other persons and related social action or inaction.

Following World War II, social scientists conducted a landmark study of how great masses of supposedly enlightened, Christian people willingly tolerated the systematic oppression and extermination of millions of their fellow citizens and others (Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Black persons, mentally and physically-impaired people, and political dissenters). A related concern was how masses of other people, who profess freedom as a God-given birthright, could stand by for so long and allow such religious, ethnic, ideological, and homophobic hatred to continue. The aim of the study was to employ the scientific method to understand what in an individual causes him and her to be prejudiced, and to use the findings to help in seeking solutions to inter-group prejudice and hatred. The study revealed that authoritarian tendencies in an individual’s personality make him and her receptive to anti-democratic propaganda and policies that target out-groups for discrimination and destruction. (The Authoritarian Personality, Adorno, et al, pp v-viii, Harper and Brothers, New York, 1950).

The personality tendencies of the authoritarian-disposed individual were found to include:
--"Desire for a strong leader" [italics added] resulting in "submissive, uncritical attitude toward idealized moral authorities of the in-group" (Ibid,. pp 231, 228);

--"Cultural narrowness" [italics added] seen in rigid acceptance of the conventional middle-class values of "the culturally ‘alike’" and the tendency to

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reject and punish "the culturally ‘unlike’ . . . who violate conventional values. Ibid, pp 102, 228);
--Unreflective ethnocentric patriotic conformity, rooted in the belief that one’s own nation is superior and should rightly dominate and that other nations are inferior and threatening out-groups (Ibid, pp 107-109);

--Negative stereotyped perceptions of the members of the "unlike" out-groups (Ibid, pp 228, 235, 236) rather than seeing them as individuals who also laugh and cry and love and hate; or the Holocaust victims, who, in the words of Joseph Berger, "lived, laughed, cursed, fought, who did the things human beings do." ("At Holocaust Museum, Turning a Number into a Name," The New York Times, Nov. 21, 2004);

--Anti-introspection, i.e. resistance to self-understanding, to soul-searching, to cause-and-effect analysis of individual and group behavior, unable to tolerate ambiguity, belief in mystical, unexplainable phenomenon, disparaging intellectual attempts to perceive life’s nuances and complexities (Ibid, pp 236, 235); and

--Aggression, involving "the ethnocentric need for an out-group" who represents "the intrinsic evil (aggressiveness, laziness, power-seeking, etc.) of human nature . . . [that] is unchangeable [and] must be attacked, stamped out, or segregated, wherever it is found, lest I contaminate the good." (Ibid, pages 232-234, 148).

If these characteristics of the individual with authoritarian personality tendencies sound familiar, there is more.

The post-World War II social scientists found that churchgoers especially tended to agree with authoritarian-laden statements: those calling for uncritical acceptance of conventional values and submission to representative moral authorities, deep faith in a supernatural power whose dictates are obeyed without question, and those asserting that much of life is beyond human understanding and to be taken at faith. These social scientists discovered that "belonging to a religious body in America today certainly does not mean that one thereby takes over the traditional Christian values of tolerance, brotherhood and equality. On the contrary," they state, "it appears that those values are more firmly held by people who do not affiliate with any religious group." Their measurement of anti-democratic tendencies in the group studies led them to conclude, "People who reject organized religion are less prejudiced than those who accept it" [italics added]. (Ibid, pp. 219,220)

Fast forward to a nationwide study of attitudes toward Muslim Americans conducted by Cornell University and publicized last December. The study revealed that "nearly half of all Americans surveyed said they think the US government should restrict the civil liberties of Muslim Americans." The survey "also found that Republicans and people
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who describe themselves as highly religious were more apt to support curtailing liberties than Democrats or people who are less religious" [italics added]—similar to the finding of the authoritarian personality study over 50 years ago.

The Cornell University "researchers also found that respondents who paid more attention to television news were likely to fear terrorist attacks and support limiting the rights of Muslim Americans." The researchers were "startled by the correlation [of curtailing civil liberties] with religion and exposure to television news." Said James Shanahan,
communications professor and organizer of the survey, "We need to explore why these two important channels of discourse may nurture fear rather than understanding." ("44% in poll OK limits on rights of Muslims," by William Kates, Associated Press, The Boston Globe, Dec. 18, 2004)

These studies reveal the very opposite findings of what one would expect, and would seem to have challenging implications for social action. They may help explain why out of 500 Conference churches only 1/2 dozen or so have social action committees. Here social action is heavy on "services to humanity" and light on addressing the causes of problems that create the need for "services to humanity."

Why is it that churchgoing believers are found to be more prejudiced that nonbelievers? Less accepting? Less democratic than nonreligious people? I think it is in the nature of the belief of many Christian churchgoers. I believe that the central belief of many Christians is inherently authoritarian: the belief that Jesus Christ is the only Son and highest revelation of God and the one and only saviour of the world. "I am the way , and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, except through me." (John 14:6) "The true light that enlightens every man . . ." (John 1:19) etc., etc., etc.—which I call "Christocentrism." "The mission of the Church . . . to make disciples of Jesus Christ" with the affirmation "that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the Saviour of the world and the Lord of all," so states The Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church-- which seems to want it both ways in then stating, "As we make disciples, we respect persons of all religious faiths and we defend religious freedom for all persons." (p. 87) Code words to cushion the "Christocentrism."

Such one true "Christocentric" belief attracts those seeking power over others, and those also who are insecure and who desperately need the certainty and authority of a one true, Biblically-based faith in Jesus Christ alone. Such Christianity is saddled with authoritarianism, whose "moral values" then are not about loving one’s neighbor as one’s self but about requiring one’s neighbor to be like oneself. I believe that for Jesus, social action was about empowering people not gaining power over them—and I will say more about that later. But "Christocentric"-believing persons apparently are not content to be saved in themselves, and to allow other individuals the right to a different pathway or lifestyle. Their salvation depends on the damnation, or lesser legitimacy, of those who are not saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone. Their one true faith automatically divides people into superior and inferior in-groups and out-groups—and
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sets the psychic stage for evangelizing and domination "in Jesus name," or in the name of "freedom." A super religion displaying tendencies similar to Hitler’s super race with its fascist ideology of superiority.

A faith-based President Bush says "Freedom is not America’s gift to the world, it is God’s gift to every man and woman in the world"—a new "crusade" except disguised by acceptable words. Substitute "Christ" for "freedom" and you see the underlying missionary zeal and evangelizing dynamic of domination at work—you see John 3:16:
"For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life."

Ethnocentrism is the belief that "one’s own ethnic group, nation or culture is superior." (Webster’s New World College Dictionary, fourth edition, Macmillan, 1999)—and thus should dominate and that other groups are inferior and threatening out-groups. "Christocentrism" is similar: here, too, is belief in one’s superiority and the ensuing right to impose God-given "moral values" on others. The social action of "Christocentric" believers seems to be paternalistic at best, with evangelizing strings attached. At worst, the tsunami is God’s punishment for people’s sins (i.e. for the persecution of Christians in the region, for abortions, for loose sexual behavior, especially homosexuality. Repressed sexuality is a "divine" force to be reckoned with). And, "My God is bigger than his God. I know my God was a real God and his was an idol, " General Boykin said regarding a Somali warlord who supposedly bragged Allah would protect him from the Americans—Boykin’s God has a lot of military back-up. (beliefnet, "The Same General Boykin?" by Deborah Caldwell).

Scott Campbell refers to a bigger, more unconditionally loving God in his March/April 2005 Zion’s Herald piece on the tsunami relief work of Christians:

This is not a time to seek the conversion of victims. This is simply a time to respond from the depths of our hearts to those whose lives have been devastated. The God we worship will be far better served by those who minister in love and integrity than by attempts to win converts in an hour of desperate need. Sometimes God calls us to simple Christian decency.

Ironically, the "moral values" that helped to re-elect President Bush were directed against people’s rights not for them. They deny the constitutional right of "the pursuit of happiness" to gay and lesbian persons. They intend also to impose their pro-life will on other people that would deny their freedom to determine their own reproductive health. They are not really pro-life, but pro-heterosexual life. Or pro-heterosexual-American- life. Or pro-heterosexual-white-American life.

Many evangelical, fundamentalist and "born again" Christians who voted their faith-based" "moral values" seem to be really saying they cannot tolerate democracy: they hate

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it because it guarantees not only their freedom of belief and practice, but presupposes the legitimacy of the independent thought and belief and values others live by. So they seek
to use the freedom guaranteed by democracy to deny freedom to members of a perceived morally unfit out-group. The political process provides them with a "democratic" way to gain power over gay and pro-choice persons, and not to respect their beliefs and equal right to access and empowerment.

"Moral Values," therefore, did not propel President Bush to victory but hatred of other human beings—"the culturally unlike" gay and lesbian persons especially who defy conventional values. The Republicans made sure constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage were on the ballot in 11 states; and all easily passed, with Bush winning 9 of the 11 states. Afterwards, Karl Rove, Bush’s chief political advisor, reportedly said "that opposition to gay marriage was one of the most powerful forces in American politics today and that politicians ignored it at their peril." (" ‘Moral Values’ Carried Bush, Rove Says," by Adam Najourney, The New York Times, Nov. 16, 2004).

The issue here is power. Therein lies the peril. If such predominantly White, correct-belief-centered Christians and their "self-avowed practicing heterosexual partners" acquire enough political power, what is now a "sin," to be checked by religious decree, may become a civil crime to be punished by imprisonment or by a more severe measure—lest this "evil" contaminate the traditional institution of marriage and family life. I believe the real crime is the spiritual violence being committed against gay and lesbian persons: for example against the Rev. Irene Elizabeth Stroud who was defrocked by The United Methodist Church in December for "living in a lesbian relationship"—for living in a loving relationship. (The New York Times, Dec. 3, 2004)

I believe the social action issue here is not about the protection of traditional marriage and "the preservation of the family" but about the inclusion and honoring of all members of the family born in those traditional marriages. It is not an issue involving a majority’s right to be heard and to vote but a minority’s full right to be seen: the "self-evident truth" of a minority’s constitutional and divinely "endowed right" to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

Nor is the issue of homosexuality about Christian theology regarding "loving the sinner and hating the sin"—as if who one is can be separated from what one does. The issue is about introspection: overcoming culturally ingrained, unconscious homophobic fear that harms another person’s identity, development and fulfillment as a human being. "Loving the sinner and hating the sin" are actually code words used to inflict spiritual violence on gay and lesbian persons with a "straight" face.

Reacting with dismay to the flurry of amendments banning same-sex marriage, an Episcopal mother of a married lesbian daughter emphasized matter-of-factly, "It’s (same-sex marriage) about love!" When a minister or politician or another person with "moral values" discovers his or her son or daughter is gay or lesbian, there is often the painful
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but deepening discovery that "it’s about love." It would seem that more personalizing and less theologizing about homosexuality is needed.

What would certain Christians do without their code words to cover their anti-democratic tendencies? The Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church offers some classic code words: "Homosexual persons no less than heterosexual persons are individuals of sacred worth. All persons need the ministry and guidance of the church in their struggles for human fulfillment [italics added], as well as the spiritual and emotional care of a fellowship that enables reconciling relationships with God, with others and with self." And without a but, the passage continues, "The United Methodist Church does not condone the practice of homosexuality and considers this practice incompatible with Christian teaching." (p. 101)

"All persons need the ministry and guidance of the church in their struggles for human fulfillment"?—tell that to Rev. Irene Stroud and all the people who love her. How many United Methodist ministers and members are finding their own denomination the biggest obstacle in "their struggles for human fulfillment"?

The Book of Discipline continues: "The practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching. Therefore, self-avowed practicing homosexuals are not to be certified as candidates, ordained as ministers, or appointed to serve in The United Methodist Church. . . . We implore families and churches not to reject [italics added] or condemn lesbian and gay members and friends" (p. 197). However "Ceremonies that celebrate homosexual unions shall not be conducted by our ministers and shall not be conducted in our churches." (p.241) How rejecting can you be? Don’t do as we do; do as we say. Any religion worth its salt should not be about maintaining closets but opening doors and creating equal space.

Still United Methodism’s "Social Creed" contains much of value for social action, like: "We dedicate ourselves to peace throughout the world, to the rule of justice and law among nations, and to individual freedom to all people in the world." (p. 127) This is heavy social action stuff; so watch out for the code words.

Code words are the way by which leaders in religion and government camouflage the contradiction between what they profess and what they practice. Code words provide an important service for all concerned: they allow people to rationalize the contradictions between belief and practice—and thereby avoid dealing with the issues that allow the contradictions to exist and continue. Code words may be called forked tongue theology.

Such spiritual rejection, masquerading as "Christ’s ministry of outreaching love" (Book of Discipline, p.89) contributes to society’s continuing rejection of gay and lesbian and bisexual and transgender persons. A month ago I received an e-mail regarding the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) notifying the Suicide Prevention Resource Center (SPRC) that the Administration’s director, "Charles

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Curie, would not be allowed to attend a Suicide Prevention Resource Center conference on suicide prevention if conference organizers went forward with a workshop title that included the words ‘gay,’ ‘lesbian,’ ‘bisexual,’ and ‘transgender.’ The conference [was] scheduled to take place in Portland, Oregon, Feb. 28-March 2."

The original title of the workshop was "Suicide Prevention Among Gays, Lesbians, Bisexuals and Transgender Individuals." Those planning the workshop were required to come up with "alternative wording for" it "so that the words ‘gay,’ ‘lesbian,’ ‘bisexual,’ or ‘transgender’ did not appear in the workshop title or descriptor." The planners created "alternative wording so that the workshop could continue to be offered" but they expressed deep concern about government intrusion to remove any reference to gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people in the workshop title and descriptor. They came up with a title that was agreeable to the Bush Administration’s Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration: "Suicide Prevention in Vulnerable Populations".

The title changed but the workshop went on as planned; as the planners refused to allow the Bush Administration’s Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration to render gay, lesbian, bisexual, and/or transgender people invisible. They said, "The action of our government in this regard is the very reason a workshop on suicide prevention with gay, lesbian, bisexual and/or transgender individuals is needed. . . . These discriminatory and intimidation actions . . . should . . . be of concern to all Americans."

The person who sent me this information was outraged, and e-mailed this accompanying statement: "They want to replace gay, bisexual, lesbian and transgender in the title of the conference with ‘vulnerable groups’? I’ll give you a vulnerable group, the Republican party! The only reason gay, bisexual, lesbian and transgender groups may be vulnerable is because of society’s rejection of them, that is propelled and affirmed by its government’s discriminatory action! Last time I checked, vulnerability does NOT stem from being in touch with who you love and expressing it freely. I believe they call that self-awareness, strength, resilience and the like. Watch out First Amendment and scientific freedom! Thought I’d just share. Love, Amy"
That’s my daughter. A chip off the old block. She takes after me too.

What would Jesus do? When it comes to social action? I believe that what Jesus actually believed in—and died for—is effectively, if not intentionally, obscured by the passion of the "Christocentric" Christ-makers. He did not die for a theological abstraction, i.e. for "the sins of the world," but because of the sins being committed against his Jewish world. He died to liberate the Jewish people from the Roman Empire, which had violated their national sovereignty, occupied their country, and crucified thousands of Jewish "insurgents" and bystanders—for whom belief in a Messiah was grounded in the political realities of Jewish nationalism, freedom, justice and peace. The interpretation of history
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by the passion of the Christ-makers does violence to the reality of oppressed people—Jewish and Iraqi—and I believe, obscures what Jesus was really about.

The argument that The Passion of the Christ movie is true to the gospels’ account of Jesus’ crucifixion does not make it any less anti-Semitic. The anti-Semitism of the film is seen in its distortion of historical reality: in its portrayal of brutal Roman administrator Pontius Pilate as agonizingly sympathetic to a would-be liberator of Jews from Roman domination; in Pilate washing his hands of responsibility for Jesus’ death, even though he had the power of life and death over Jesus (John19:10). The ahistorical violence the film does to Jewish reality is also seen in a "whole battalion"-backed, yet uneasy, Pilate giving in to the "will" of subjugated, powerless priests, elders of the people, and other Jews who repeatedly cried out, "Crucify him" (Mark 15:12-16). Portraying the Roman empire is such a favorable light in New Testament books written 50 to 100 years after the fact, may have advanced the evangelizing of Romans by the early followers of Jesus; but it cast a horrible curse on the Jewish people by putting into the mouths of their oppressed descendents, "His (Jesus’) blood be on us and on our children" (Matthew 27:25).

The New Testament has been used not only to justify anti-Semitism, but also the enslavement of Black people (Ephesians 6:5ff), patriarchy’s subjugation of women (Ephesians 5:22ff), physical and spiritual violence against gay and lesbian persons (Romans 1:26,27), and world domination in Jesus’ name. Enter President Bush and "Christocentrism"!

I do not believe Jesus was about dying for the sins of the world so that believers could inherit eternal life, but about setting at liberty the Jews, who were oppressed in his world. (Luke 4:18) In fact, Jesus emphasized an often overlooked way to eternal life: by behavior, not by belief. When a lawyer tested him by asking, "Teacher, what should I do to inherit eternal life?," Jesus confirmed that the greatest commandments were the way: love of God and one’s neighbor as oneself. (Luke 10:25-28) When tested further to define who one’s neighbor was, Jesus said any person robbed of life and in need of a Good Samaritan. (Luke 10:29-37) I believe that in teaching love of one’s neighbor as oneself and in intervening on behalf of his oppressed Jewish neighbors, Jesus set an example for those who would follow his pathway to eternal life.
It is here that the dynamic of "Christocentric" belief may come into play. It is much easier to worship what Jesus did than to do what he worshipped. It is safer to believe that Jesus died for the sins of the world than to join in seeking to rid the world of political, corporate and military sins that deny neighbors their birthright of freedom and fulfillment.

Institutionalized religion often immortalizes its saints in order to immobilize them. A way to neutralize the threat posed by the example of prophets and patriots is to turn their liberation movement into a monument and worship it. Vicarious identification with their struggles may be substituted for involvement in similar ethical struggles today. The
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stature is found in the statue. The right is remembered in the rite. The power is in the prayer. The radical footstep is encased in a freedom trail. The ethic is observed as a memory and avoided as a model.

Religion isn’t worshiping what the prophets did, but doing what the prophets worshiped.
Belief in Christ as one’s personal saviour can also invite a narcissism that encourages self-centeredness rather than identification with one’s neighbors. Such narcissism may
even reinforce obliviousness to the neglect or unjust treatment of neighbors by the government, for example, in our name.

The aim of belief is certainly to affirm, comfort and empower. I am a partner in that, a witness to that every day as a hospital chaplain. People’s beliefs in Jesus and in God are
so important in affirming and sustaining and empowering them in the midst of illness and injury and death. Our beliefs are precious, and I do not want to minimize their importance to our lives. But their affirmation should not negate our neighbor’s life. My belief should not diminish whoever my neighbor is, but rather affirm my neighbor as well. If having the right belief means that my neighbor has the wrong belief, the seeds of authoritarianism are being planted—and can be harvested by a faith-based evangelical-professing preacher or president.

Why is it that certain Christians take to their heart Jesus’ commandment, "Love your neighbor as yourself" (Luke 10:25-37), and other Christians take to their head his saying, "I am the way, the truth and the life: no one comes to the Father except through me." (John 14:6)? I believe that love of one’s neighbor depends on love of oneself: one’s ability to experience one’s own humanness and to embrace one’s own worth and rights. I also believe that the need for one’s "way" and "truth" and "life" to be authoritatively spelled out for everyone reveals a personal insecurity born not of self-love but of self-doubt—rendering one vulnerable to the "moral clarity" of "Christocentric" evangelistic preachers.

I believe that social action is about respecting people’s right to be who they are, not about imposing "moral values" on them. It is about empowering people not gaining power over them. About calling people by their own name. About experiencing their reality not interpreting it. Social action is about loving one’s neighbor as oneself. The more one is in touch with and accepting of oneself, the better prepared one is to experience and accept other persons as themselves—and to work for their common good and to work with them for the common good of others. Social action is informed by self-awareness.
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III. HIERARCHICAL AND OTHER STRUCTURES

Another influence on our social action behavior is the structure we are in. According to The United Methodist Book of Discipline, "Elders in Full Connection" are to "offer themselves without reserve [italics added] to be appointed and to serve, after consultation, as the appointive authorities may determine." (p. 230) The "appointive authorities" are your District Superintendents and Bishop. It is here that controversial
social action could run into resistance, if there is an outcry of protest from local church members or other ministers.

I remember when Bill Ziegler and I hosted an anti-Vietnam war service at Old West Church in 1967; and young men burned their draft cards inside the sanctuary and a mini riot ensued outside. The trustees of Old West Church threatened to resign en masse, and a contingent of conference ministers were outraged as well—all of which led Bill and me to write a carefully written response that appeared in Zion’s Herald.

My assumption is that the hierarchy keeps a lot of consciences because ministers get ahead by getting along; and those most effective in getting along in the structure and maintaining it as it is become superintendents and bishops—with important exceptions. This is my perception of your reality, because it was my reality as an active
Methodist minister. But it’s been 32 years, so if I’m globalizing my experience, then I’m the one in error and stand to be corrected. I do believe that "offer[ing]" oneself "without reserve to be appointed and to serve . . . as the appointive authorities may determine" helps to influence the social action behavior of ministers especially. Others may be kept in line by punishing those who get out of line. Promotion depends on not making a "commotion".

It would seem that any Methodist minister and lay group involved in meaningful, controversial social action should receive the support and solidarity of other ministers and lay persons—in and beyond the denomination. Support is so important here: it helps to influence the behavior of "superiors in office," who may be barraged by laypersons threatening to withhold their gifts and their service—and by certain other ministers who may be feeling pressured to become more engaged in social action themselves.

The aim of those who want "peace at any price" is to silence, make invisible, those who create controversy by their social action involvements. The issue is our prophetic role, the enemy of which is sometimes the structure itself. Our freedom of conscience to speak and act is at issue here.

None of what I’m saying here excuses social action propelled by arrogance and judgementalism and a refusal to prepare people and bring them along. Not that the importance of bringing people along be used to hold social action back.
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The attempt to use the structure one is in to deter or silence social action is not limited to religious institutions. This critical issue is being played out in academic circles across the country. Arab and Muslim and other professors are being attacked by right-wing media organizations such as Fox News and Campus Watch, and by reactionary websites. In Boston these attacks are increasing.

For example, Professor M. Shahid Alam, a well-respected teacher at Northeastern University for 16 years, is a most recent target. In late December, he and the University began receiving numerous e-mails calling for his firing, threatening to withhold donations, and some containing death threats against him and his family. Why? Because Professor Alam exercised his right of free speech. In December and January, CounterPunch published two articles written by Professor Alam: "America and Islam: Seeking Parallels" (Dec. 29, 2004) and ‘Testing Free Speech in America" (Jan. 1/2, 2005). His evidently unpardonable critique of America’s rhetoric of "freedom" in the air and reality of oppression on the ground included this penetrating statement: "Americans have been trained to see only their greatness, not the human costs that others have been made to pay, and continue to pay for their successes." (Jan. 1/2, 2005)

Sadly, the 9/11 atrocities committed against America elicited knee-jerk patriotism rather than national soul searching. Instead of self-examination about our country’s foreign policy and whether it contributed to such violent aggression, our president, who himself cannot admit mistakes, declared a global "war on terrorism," and in a September 22, 2001 radio address said, "I want to remind the people of America, we’re still the greatest nation on the face of the Earth, and no terrorist will ever be able to decide our fate."

It was as if those airplanes on 9/11 came from out of the blue. Never mind a foreign policy in our name that controlled UN sanctions against Iraq leading to the deaths of over 500,000 Iraqi children under 5 years of age between 1991-1998 alone; and US support of oppressive governments in Arab countries; and US military bases in the Middle East; and its arming Israel with the military might that has allowed it to brutally subjugate the Palestinian people. Professor Alam’s articles provide a truth that Americans need to hear: global justice and peace depend on us experiencing other people’s reality on the ground not interpreting it with unreflective patriotism.

Professor Alam reveals something of the reality on the ground in saying "For three years now, ever since I entered public discourse, various organized right-wing groups have been trying to silence me with threats. Unless more Americans become aware of the growing erosion of free speech, I am afraid that our voices may be silenced." One way to continue hearing Professor Alam’s voice is to write a letter supporting his academic freedom to Northeastern University President, Richard Freeland. (r.freeland@neu.edu)

Another professor under attack is Ward Churchill, Professor of Ethnic Studies and Coordinator of American Indian Studies at the University of Colorado, outspoken critic of US foreign policy and a leading analyst and critic of indigenous issues. His books
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include On the Justice of Roosting Chickens: Reflections on the Consequences of U.S. Imperial Arrogance and Criminality; Agents of Repression: The FBI’s Secret Wars Against the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement; and Holocaust and Denial in the Americans: 1492 to Present.

Professor Churchill’s tenured position and academic freedom are threatened because he wrote that certain people killed in the World Trade Center Towers were not "innocent civilians" but "formed a technocratic corps at the very heart of America’s global financial empire—the ‘mighty empire of profit’ to which the military dimension of U.S. policy has always been enslaved—and they did so both willingly and knowingly." (" ‘Some People Push Back’: On the Justice of Roosting Chickens")

Churchill contends that certain employees in the towers ran organizations that kept the US military running smoothly in the work of global domination—often using military force and in violation of international law. Churchill called these people "little Eichmanns"—after Adolf Eichmann who, Churchill says, "was this nondescript little man, a bureaucrat, a technocrat, a guy who arranged train schedules, who, as it turned out, ultimately didn’t even agree with the policy that he was implementing, but performed the technical functions that made the holocaust possible, at least in the efficient manner that it occurred, in a totally amoral and soulless way, purely on the basis of excelling at the function and getting ahead within the system that he found himself . . . A good family man . . . Loved by his children. . . In essence the good German. . . The actuality of Eichmann was that anyone in this sort of mindless, faceless, bureaucratic
capacity could be the Nazi" (Democracy Now! "The Justice of Roosting Chickens: Ward Churchill Speaks," interview with Amy Goodman, Feb. 18, 2005)

Ward Churchill issued a press release (on Jan. 31. 2005) in which he states: "In the last few days there has been widespread and grossly inaccurate media coverage concerning my analysis of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, coverage that has resulted in defamation of my character and threats against my life. What I actually said has been lost, indeed turned into the opposite of itself, and I hope the following facts will be reported at least to the same extent that the fabrications have been.

"The piece circulating on the internet was developed into a book, ‘On the Justice of Roosting Chickens.’ Most of the book is a detailed chronology of U.S. military interventions since 1776 and U.S. violations of international law since World War II. My point is that we cannot allow the U.S. government, acting in our name, to engage in massive violations of international law and fundamental human rights and not expect to reap the consequences.

"I am not a ‘defender’ of the Sept. 11 attacks, but simply pointing out that if U.S. foreign policy results in massive death and destruction abroad, we cannot feign innocence when some of that destruction is returned. I have never said that people ‘should’ engage in armed attacks on the United States, but that such attacks are a natural and unavoidable
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consequence of unlawful U.S. policy . . . If we want an end to violence, especially that perpetrated against civilians, we must take the responsibility for halting the slaughter perpetrated by the United States around the world.

"In 1996, Madeleine Albright, then ambassador to the UN and soon to be U.S. Secretary of State, did not dispute that 500,000 Iraqi children had died as a result of economic sanctions, but stated on national television that ‘we’ had decided it was ‘worth the cost.’

. . . Finally, I have never characterized all the Sept. 11 victims as ‘Nazis.’ What I said was that the ‘technocrats of empire’ working in the World Trade Center were the equivalent of ‘little Eichmanns.’ Adolf Eichmann was not charged with direct killing but with ensuring the smooth running of the infrastructure that enabled the Nazi genocide. Similarly, German industrialists were legitimately targeted by the Allies.

"It is not disputed that the Pentagon was a military target, or that a CIA office was situated in the World Trade Center. Following the logic by which U.S. Defense Department spokespersons have consistently sought to justify target selection in places like Baghdad, this placement of an element of the American ‘command and control infrastructure’ in an ostensibly civilian facility converted the Trade Center itself into a ‘legitimate’ target. Again following U.S. military doctrine, as announced in briefing after briefing, those who did not work for the CIA but were nonetheless killed in the attack amounted to no more than ‘collateral damage.’ If the U.S. public is prepared to accept these ‘standards’ when they are routinely applied to other people, they should not be surprised when the same standards are applied to them.

"It should be emphasized that I applied the ‘little Eichmanns’ characterization only to those described as ‘technicians.’ Thus, it was obviously not directed to the children,
janitors, food service workers, firemen and random passers-by killed in the 9/11 attack. According to Pentagon logic, they were simply part of the collateral damage. Ugly? Yes. Hurtful? Yes. And that’s my point. It’s no less ugly, painful or dehumanizing a description when applied to Iraqis, Palestinians or anyone else. If we ourselves do not want to be treated in this fashion, we must refuse to allow others to be similarly devalued and dehumanized in our name.

"The bottom line of my argument is that the best and perhaps only way to prevent 9/11- style attacks on the U.S. is for American citizens to compel their government to comply with the rule of law. The lesson of Nuremberg is that this is not only our right, but our obligation. To the extent we shirk this responsibility, we, like the ‘Good Germans’ of the 1930s and ‘40s, are complicit in its action and have no legitimate basis for complaint when we suffer the consequences. This, of course, includes me, personally, as well as my family, no less than anyone else. (sfbayview.com, National Black Newspaper, 3/9/05)

Those wanting to support Ward Churchill and academic freedom in America may do so by signing an online petition of support for him
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(http://www.coloradoaim.org/wardpetition.htm) sponsored by the Denver/Boulder Chapter of the American Indian Movement of Colorado.

In his essay called " ‘Some People Push Back’: On the Justice of Roosting Chickens," Professor Churchill states "On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, a few more chickens—along with some half-million dead Iraqi children—came home to roost in a very big way at the twin towers of New York’s World Trade Center . . . [and] a few . . . at the Pentagon as well." I recommend his article on "Some People Push Back": you can access it through Google by typing in his name. Churchill will tell you how our government "pushes" other people "in our name" that leads "some people to push back." The aim of his critics is to revoke his tenure and silence him, and thus to intimidate others from exercising their academic freedom, so that our social action will not be informed by what our government does to other people in our name.

But this is not just about Ward Churchill. The Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights in Boston is under attack for giving an Honorable Mention award to Ward Churchill’s book, On the Justice of Roosting Chickens: Reflections on the Consequences of U.S. Imperial Arrogance and Criminality. Dr. Loretta Williams, director of the Myers Center, is also under attack. Our friend Horace Seldon, former director of Community Change, Inc. was one of the reviewers of Churchill’s book and recommended the award. Now Horace is asking people to contribute financially to the Myers Center and to provide spiritual support for Loretta Williams, who at one time was director of the Unitarian Universalist Association Social Justice Department.

Loretta has issued a statement, in which she says, "The Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights confirms its honorable mention award, December 2004, to On the Justice of Roosting Chickens: Reflections on the Consequences of U.S. Imperial Arrogance and Criminality, AK Press 2003, written by Ward Churchill, for its documented chronology and its challenge to readers to deconstruct for themselves the myth of the United States as a ‘peace-loving nation.’

"The TV, radio, print and web media attacks on Ward Churchill, University of Colorado professor, author and activist, bear all the markings of a McCarthy-style disinformation campaign against a person whose criticism of U.S. government policies have hit home. The dishonest attack, begun in January 2005, seems to have no end. The O’Reilly Factor continues to push for Churchill’s removal from his tenured university position.

"If you do a Google search on ‘Ward Churchill’ you will quickly see the tactics being used. As Chip Berlet, Political Research Associates (www.publiceye.org), has written:
Today, there are still political and social networks that seek to undermine full equality for all Americans. Their messages are spread using the standard tools: prejudice, fear, disdain, misinformation, trivialization, patronizing stereotypes, demonization and even scare-mongering conspiracy theories. While many of the
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groups within these networks describe themselves as mainstream—and many disagree with one another—they all have helped spread bigoted ideas into American life. (See www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp).

"We stand by the honorable mention given to the book, and by the right of people to freely dissent from the ‘mainstream’. For that the Myers Center is under attack: ad hominem attacks in incoming e-mails, articles on the web full of distortions, and outright lies passed on as if they were factual."

Loretta writes regularly for Response Magazine, published by the Women’s Division, General Board of Global Ministries, United Methodist Church. The Women’s Division also has been a supporter of the Myers Center. Those desiring to aid the Myers Center may contact Dr. Loretta Williams at myerscenter.org.

IV. MAINSTREAM MEDIA

A third influence on our social action is mainstream media. I have conducted three research reports on mainstream media published by the William Monroe Trotter Institute at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. They are: The Role of Mainstream Media in Discrediting Black Candidates: The Boston Mayoral Campaigns of 1983 and 1993; Mainstream Media as Guardian of Racial Hierarchy: A Study of the Threat Posed by Minister Louis Farrakhan and the Million Man March; and Taking the "ism" Out of Racism in the 21st Century: A Study of the Print Media’s Coverage of President Clinton’s National Dialogue on Race. For information regarding obtaining them (anne.gathuo@umb.edu).

There continues to be in America an historic, institutionalized White-controlled hierarchy of access to political and economic power, and mainstream media is its guardian. The word "racism" seems to be disappearing from mainstream media’s printed page, and its continuing use is selective. The subject is often "race," "Black-White relations," "this whole subject," "the racial climate," "questions of race". The problem has become "the country’s racial dilemma," "the race issue," "the racial struggle," "highly contentious issues that surround race," "the explosive issue of race." Thus the solution in the 21st century is individual and interpersonal rather than institutional and governmental: and the code words are "racial reconciliation," "foster[ing] better understanding among the nation’s various racial and ethnic groups," "bring[ing] the races together," "bring[ing] about better race relations," "improving race relations." The emphasis is on "bringing the races together" rather than on bringing equal access to political and economic power to the races.

Not that the word "racism" has disappeared from the printed page. It is still found in headlines, news stories, columns and editorials. When it does appear, however, it is more
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likely to be used by an African-American writer like Derrick Jackson of The Boston Globe or by a guest columnist who is Black, or, even more often, by a person of color being quoted. The racism that permeates America’s White-founded, institutionalized and perpetuated hierarchy of access and power is stated far more often and clearly by African Americans and other people of color than by mainstream print media’s own staff reporters, columnists and editorial writers.
Mainstream print media have no difficulty identifying obvious racist behavior: flagrant behavior that is difficult to deny, individual in nature, easy to condemn and from which to be readily dissociated.

The term "racism" also is generalized by print media: while it may be applied generally to Black as well as White individuals, it often remains undefined, lacking reference to origin, history, structure, context, dynamics or cause and effect. Here, then, are ways mainstream media help to take the ism out of "race" in the 21st century.

President Clinton’s 15-month-long "national dialogue on race," from June of 1997 to September of 1998, was about redefining the nation’s "lingering racial divide" as an individual and interpersonal matter rather than institutional and policy issue. The introduction and stressing of an "honest dialogue" on "race" automatically assumes an equality between White and Black persons and other people of color that does not exist—an equality of responsibility for "the nation’s lingering racial divide" and of the power to resolve it. This dynamic may be called the racism of equality.

There is another dynamic here to be addressed because I think it also helps us to see mainstream media as guardian of the racial hierarchy. Black leaders who accommodate the racial hierarchy are rewarded with acceptance, recognition, advancement and support for their causes. Mainstream media usually features them. They are White-approved Black leaders. This dynamic may be called "Black Gloves/White Hands". Those Black leaders—and organizations—who "get out of hand" and challenge the inequities of the racial order are ignored, portrayed as controversial and, if they become too powerful, run the risk of being discredited and marginalized—even editorially lynched—like Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr., Jessie Jackson, Mel King, Minister Louis Farrakhan.

White-approved Black leaders make excellent spokespersons—and camouflage—for the racial hierarchy—even when they are not speaking. They allow the hierarchy to give the appearance of equality while continuing to maintain itself—its inequities. Thus we have former and current Secretaries of State Colin Powell and Condolezza Rice, giving the Bush administration the appearance of being committed to equality, while continuing to push anti-affirmative action policies and individual responsibility for opportunity and poverty that deny and perpetuate a White-favored hierarchy of access to political and economic power in America.

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A current example of "Black Gloves/White Hands" involves President Bush: he began his second term in office promising healing but exploiting division. His Inaugural Address rhetoric was lofty: "And our country must abandon all the habits of racism, because we cannot carry the message of freedom and the baggage of bigotry at the same time." Bush himself carries both quite well.

Five days after the Inauguration, the reality on the ground saw the President open his "baggage of bigotry" at a meeting with a group of 24 African American religious and community leaders. Bush reportedly "told black leaders yesterday that his plan to add private accounts to Social Security would benefit blacks because they tend to have shorter lives than some other Americans and end up paying more than they get out." (The Boston Globe, Jan. 26, 2005)
Why Black people do not live as long as White people evidently was not discussed--an apparently glaring commentary on all who were present at that meeting.

Why do White persons live longer than Black persons? There remains in America an historic, institutionalized, White-controlled hierarchy of access to political and economic power, with George W. Bush as it CEO. This hierarchy has enabled White persons to sow far more educational and economic opportunities than people of color—and thus reap far greater health and healthcare—and longer life.

At the heart of America’s "lingering racial divide" is a job gap that creates a health gap. Black people especially continue to reap an unhealthy discriminatory, White-favored political and economic order sown for them at the bottom of the racial hierarchy.

Those who suffer from lack of adequate paying jobs, insufficient diet, polluted air, an indifferent and often hostile environment, and a tokenistic power structure are more likely to reap hypertension, anxiety, high blood pressure, diabetes, kidney failure, asthma,
stroke, cancer, heart disease, mental illness, HIV/AIDS, implosive physical violence, and lower life expectancy. ("Patients With H.I.V. Seen as Separated by a Racial Divide," The New York Times, Aug. 7, 2004; "Disparities found in health care for blacks," The Boston Globe, Aug. 5, 2004; "Report finds minorities get poorer healthcare," by Ron Blakely, Mar. 20, 2002, www.cnn.com; "Mental Health Problems Among Minorities," by Richard Sherer, www.healthyplaces.com).

President Bush’s own "soft bigotry of low expectations" [italics added] is obviously at work here. At the moment, his administration’s "baggage of bigotry" is carrying over a $300 billion price tag and counting for his administration’s "wars on terrorism" at the expense of healthcare for some 43 million Black and White persons alike. Wars being fought by a disproportionate number of Black Americans because the Army is actually the only place they can "be all you can be."

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The meeting between President Bush and these selective Black leaders evidently was not about an inequitable, life-shortening, White-favored hierarchical structure over which President Bush presides, but how to get from him a little piece of the pie. "Many people at the meeting with Bush yesterday were the president’s political supporters," it was reported. They stated, "Bush promised more trade with Africa and support for home and business ownership by blacks." And his supporters were said to have "praised Bush for opening federal dollars to churches and religious organizations and encouraged him to push for a constitutional ban on gay marriage." (The Boston Globe, Jan. 26, 2005) There is a similarity between paying off columnists to write stories favoring Bush administration policies and buying loyalty with faith-based initiatives.

Jasmyne Connick, a member of the National Association of Black Journalists, wrote that "Recently a group of Black pastors under the name of the Hi Impact Coalition, held a press conference and summit in Los Angeles to announce the kickoff for the ‘Black Contract with America on Moral Values.’ Led by Bishop Harry Jackson of Washington and white Christian evangelical Reverend Lou Sheldon and his Traditional Values Coalition," Connick says, "the press conference and summit gave new meaning to the phrase ‘Sleeping with the enemy.’ Topping the list of issues that Black Americans need to focus on is the protection of marriage. Never mind the war, access to healthcare, HIV/AIDS, education, housing and social security, the number one problem facing Black America is same sex marriage." Connick states, "Standing before the press in their Sunday best and eager to get their fifteen minutes of fame and achievable share of President Bush’s Faith Based Initiative, these Black pastors seemingly allowed their pulpits to be purchased by the GOP and Lou Sheldon, who is to gay people what Strom Thurmond was to Blacks." (The Black Communicator, Mar. 4, 2005)

The role of mainstream media as guardian of America’s White-favored racial hierarchy, of the status quo, is seen in their coverage of the run up to the Bush Administration’s pre-emptive war against Iraq. I won’t go into much detail here: I refer you to my article in The Witness on "All the News That’s Print to Fit" (www.thewitness.org, Nov. 12, 2003) —The Witness is a progressive Episcopal/Anglican publication. That article documents ways in which mainstream media bought into the Bush administration’s pre-emptive war-justifying lies about Iraq possessing Weapons of Mass Destruction and having ties to 9/11.

Typical of Boston Globe editorials were: "In reality, Saddam already has large quantities of chemical and biological weapons" (Mar. 15, 2002); "mass murderers," like Saddam Hussein, "have many collaborators," such as Arab leaders if they "keep their shameful silence about Saddam’s genocidal regime" (Mar. 25, 2002); "if U.S. action in coming months leads to Saddam Hussein’s overthrow, there will be jubilation in Iraq that the monster who murdered and tortured so many people and ruined the life of entire generations is finally gone." (Oct. 21, 2002) Boston Globe editorials "kept their shameful silence" about the U.S. government being one of the "collaborators" of "Saddam’s genocidal regime."

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Emerging authoritarian tendencies in Americans are being accommodated by mainstream media that provide much news that’s print to fit. That determine the limits of public debate with a weekly round of mostly "official Washington" guests on news programs. That engage their own network "experts" who usually validate rather than challenge administration assertions and policies. A media apparently influenced by government control of licensing and of access to key newsmakers and news stories, and by the threat of advertising and readership boycotts.

A media whose own corporate values may be represented by the administration in power.
A media which need to fulfill their vital role of providing objective news coverage, a wide range of views on issues, and factually-based, rather than predisposed, programming and editorializing, so that an informed citizenry can participate in the democratic process. Here patriotism is nourished and tempered by truth so that accountability and justice may prevail.

A useful social action project might be developing and circulating a list of alternative newspaper, magazine and website publications on social action issues. And also developing and circulating a list of organizations and movements involved in social action itself. The intent here is not to discourage keeping up with mainstream media. That is imperative for obvious reasons.

The Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church speaks clearly about the importance of media in the clarifying and claiming of progressive values. The Political Community: D. Freedom of Information states, "Citizens of all countries should have access to all essential information regarding their government and its policies. Illegal and unconscionable activities directed against persons or groups by their own governments must not be justified or kept secret, even under the guise of national security." (p. 120).

V. CONCLUSION

What goes to the heart of clarifying and claiming progressive values? Jesus said it: "Love your neighbor as yourself." "It’s about love!"

* Rev. William E. Alberts, Ph.D. is Hospital Chaplain at Boston Medical Center, Newton Pavilion, a Unitarian Universalist minister, and a retired United Methodist minister in the New England Conference. His current published articles and essays include:

"On Moral Values: Code Words for Emerging Authoritarian Tendencies in Americans" (www.counterpunch.org/alberts01012005.htm)

"On Bended Knee . . . Faith-Based Deceptions" (www.counterpunch.org/alberts10222004.html), and

"Rhetoric in the Air; Reality on the Ground" CounterPunch (Weekend Edition, Feb. 26/27, 2005). Other published articles include:

"The Passion of the Christ-Makers" (Z Magazine, July/August, 2004);

"All the News That’s Print to Fit" and

"The Holiday Hoax" (The Witness, Nov 12, 2003 and Dec. 17, 2003).

His research reports on mainstream print media’s coverage of issues of race and racism have been published by the William Monroe Trotter Institute at the University of Massachusetts-Boston, and by Sage race relations abstracts, London, UK. His e-mail address is william.alberts@bmc.org.

2005-03-16T21:20:00.000-08:00

Rhetoric in the Air; Reality on the Ground

President Bush inaugurated his second term with these words: "By our efforts, we have lit a fire . . . and one day this untamed fire of freedom will reach the darkest corners of our world." (Transcript of President Bush's Inaugural Address, The New York Times, Jan. 21, 2005). Bush's "fire of freedom" could not even reach the brightest corners of Washington, D.C., never mind "the darkest corners our world."

The Inauguration was marked by unprecedented security in the nation's capital. The New York Times reported, "As the capital prepared to celebrate President Bush's inauguration, the city appeared on Tuesday more like a place under siege." (Jan. 19, 2005) It was not about "freedom" and "liberty" but about controlling and monitoring the movements of celebrants and protesters. It was about security fences; concrete barriers; street-closings; security check points; metal detectors; pat-down searches; designated zones for protesters; a no-fly zone for private aircraft; bomb-sniffing dogs; sharpshooters on rooftops; surveillance aircraft overhead; Coast Guard cutters on the Potomac River; security teams sweeping hotels and office buildings fronting the parade route; some 10,000 law enforcement personnel surrounding the White House and Capital, and, at points, four deep lining the 1.7-mile parade route; secret service agents trotting alongside the President's armored limousine with its "darkly tinted windows . . . within which his and Mrs. Bush's hands could be seen waving languidly." (The Boston Globe, Jan 21, 2005) The contradiction between President Bush's rhetoric (uttering "freedom" 27 times and "liberty" 15 times) and the reality on the ground provides its own commentary.

Iraq contains a similar commentary. President Bush hailed the January 30 election there as a " 'resounding success'," and "saw the vote as a victory for his larger vision of bringing democracy to the Arab world." He declared, "Today, the people of Iraq have spoken to the world, and the world is hearing the voice of freedom from the center of the Middle East" (The Boston Globe, Jan. 31, 2005).

"The people of Iraq have spoken to the world"? Not all of them. What the world did not hear-or see-were the cries of Iraqi people on the ground being "softened" up for "election day" by a campaign of increased deadly American air strikes against assumed "terrorist targets"-Fallujah-like flattening "campaigning." Never mind the earlier screaming and moaning voices of some 100,000 dead Iraqi civilians, mostly women and children, who happened to be in the way of President Bush's "larger vision of bringing democracy to the Arab world."

Like the Inauguration in Washington, D.C., security was the order of the day for the election in Iraq. The military power of 150,000 American soldiers was on the ground and Apache choppers in the air, with about 15,000 more US troops deployed during the run-up to the election. If a fraction of such security had been provided in Florida to insure fairness during the 2000 presidential election, thousands of voters, especially Black Americans, would not have been disenfranchised. George Bush would not have been installed president by a Republican-favored U.S. Supreme Court. And there would not have been a manufactured need for a pre-emptive war against Iraq.

It did not matter that armed Iraqi resistance to the American occupation and its arranged election prevented many voters from knowing the names of the candidates and their policies before entering the voting booth. Nor did it matter that the Sunni Arabs, over 30% of the population, planned to boycott the election. What evidently mattered was getting large numbers of the Shias majority to the election booth-and of having television and other cameras film and photograph their long lines and voting for American consumption.

Journalist Robert Fisk, writing from Baghdad, called this occupation-imposed and orchestrated "election" a "bloody charade." He writes, "The big television networks have been given a list of five polling stations where they will be 'allowed' to film . . . four of the five are in Shiite Muslim areas where the polling will probably be high." How will it play out? Fisk says, "Iraqis bravely vote despite the bloodcurdling threats of the enemies of democracy. At last, the US and British policies have reached fruition," with "a real functioning democracy in place . . . so the occupiers can leave soon. Or next year. Or in a decade or so." A "democracy" dependent on US force not Iraqi freedom.

The "bloody charade," Robert Fisk states, is that the courageous Iraqis who participated in the election will form a parliament and write a constitution, but they "will have no power," i.e., "no control over their own oil . . . over the streets of Baghdad, let alone the rest of the country, no workable army or loyal police force. Their only power," Fisk writes of the reality on the ground, "is that of a American military and its 150,000 soldiers whom we could see on the main intersections of Baghdad yesterday." (The Sunday Independent, Jan. 31, 2005)

President Bush began his State of the Union address before Congress with rhetoric that filled the air and elicited sustained, enthusiastic applause: "Members of Congress, fellow citizens. As the new Congress gathers, all of us in the elected branches of government share a great privilege. We've been placed in office by the votes of the people we serve. And tonight that is a privilege we share with newly elected leaders of Afghanistan, the Palestinian territories, Ukraine and a free and sovereign Iraq." (Transcript of State of the Union Address and cleared by the White House, The New York Times, Feb. 3, 2005; tape of Address)

Hidden was the reality on the ground: US control of the reality under the ground-oil! And new military bases to dominate the energy resources and alliances in the whole Middle East region to speed the advance of Bush's "larger vision of bringing democracy to the Arab world."

President Bush ended his State of the Union address with the same rhetoric with which he began: "The road of Providence is uneven and unpredictable. Yet we know where it leads. It leads to freedom. . . . freedom's power to change the world. We are part of a great venture: . . . to spread the peace that freedom brings." (Ibid) Bush

repeatedly says, "Freedom is not America's gift to the world, it is God's gift to every man and woman in the world." Substitute Christ for "freedom" and one sees the underlying missionary zeal and evangelizing dynamic of domination at work. What better way to disguise domination than by doing it in the name of the very opposite of motives, "freedom."

"In the name of Exxon" or "Halliburton" obviously would not summon working class mothers and fathers to offer up their sons and daughters for global corporate domination and profit. Nor would they readily sacrifice precious loved ones "in the name of Christ" as "god's gift to the world." "Freedom," a revered, universal value, and fear provide the necessary patriotic and providential appeal to seduce Christian people especially into killing rather than loving their neighbor as themselves as Jesus commanded.

The Bush administration is believed to have made the reality on the ground disappear with a hug. In his State of the Union address, the President introduced, to enthusiastic applause, a member of the audience: "one of Iraq's leading democracy and human rights advocates . . . Sofia Taleb al-Suhail" who "says of her country, 'we were occupied for 35 years by Saddam Hussein. That was the real occupation. Thank you to the American people who paid the cost, but most of all to the soldiers.'" (Ibid)

Sofia Taleb al-Suhail was seated beside Mrs. Bush, right above the mother and father of a slain US soldier to whom President Bush shortly thereafter paid tribute: "One name we honor is Marine Corps Sergeant Byron Norwood of Pflugerville, Tex., who was killed during the assault on Fallujah. His mother, Janet," Bush continued, "sent me a letter and told me . . . how proud he was to be on the front line against terror. She wrote,

'. . . He just hugged me and said: You've done your job, Mom. Now it's my turn to protect you.'" With that, Bush said, "Ladies and gentlemen, with grateful hearts, we honor freedom's defenders, and our military families represented here this evening by Sgt. Norwood's mom and dad, Janet and Bill Norwood." (Ibid)

Mr. and Mrs. Norwood stood to enthusiastic and sustained applause. The applause became thunderous when Sofia Taleb al-Suhail reached over and hugged

Mrs. Norwood. The proximity of the two being seated directly above and below each other created Sofia Taleb's unique opportunity to publicly hug and "thank" a grieving American mother "who paid the cost" along with her dead Marine son and his father.

The Boston Globe reported that "Sofia Taleb al-Suhail . . . seated in Laura Bush's box . . . hugged the mother of a slain US Marine who clutched her late son's dog tags, punctuating the close of Bush's speech with an emotional and apparently spontaneous embrace." (Feb. 3, 2005)

Much was made of that hug by the ABC television network's commentators. Cokie Roberts said, "The Iraqi woman turning around and completely, spontaneously hugging the mother of the marine. It was such a moment. And it really, in a lot of ways, it spoke of what the president is trying to say: that the Iraqi people want us there and that we have liberated them." Roberts continued, "And to have that just completely spontaneous . . . something [that] gives us goosebumps, and I think will have more resonance than any words he said." (Transcript) An accommodating corporate and state-controlled mainstream media at work.

Cokie Roberts evidently knows little of "the assault on Fallujah," where Sergeant Norwood was killed, or she would not have allowed that hug to make her gush with, "The people of Iraq want us there . . . and we have liberated them." "The assault on Fallujah" was an atrocity: the US military dropped 2000 pound bombs on the homes of civilians, attacking them also with air-to-surface missiles, cluster bombs, deadly bursts of tank fire, and UN-banned napalm. This city of approximately 300,000 Iraqi civilians was literally wasted, with countless families crushed under the rubble of their roofs. Those fleeing were forced back into the attack zone by US soldiers. ("The siege of Fallujah: America on a killing spree," by Bill Van Auken, Nov. 18, 2004, wsws.org; "Fallujah Napalmed," by Paul Gilfeather, Political Editor, Nov. 28, 2004, SundayMirror.co.uk)

Numerous eyewitness horror stories of the siege of Fallujah produce a different kind of "goosebumps": children and women being shot in their homes and on sight in the streets. Anything that moved was an "insurgent" and fair game. The attacks also against medical facilities and staff and patients and ambulances-all in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Tens of thousands made refugees. ("Human Rights Day 2004: Women's Organization Accuses U.S. of War Crimes in Iraq," Dec. 10, 2004, commondreams.org; "US Military Obstructing Medical Care in Iraq," by Dahr Jamail, Dec. 14, 2004, antiwar.com; "Stories from Fallujah," by Dahr Jamail, Feb. 9, 2005, zmag.org). But Cokie Roberts and many of her "embedded" media colleagues probably remain oblivious to "the assault on Fallujah" because it would expose the obscenity of the Bush administration behind the hug. "The voice of freedom" in Fallujah cannot be heard because of a US military blackout.

The deeply moving embrace of two emotionally involved women helped to hide and smother the reality on the ground. Saddam Hussein had no "mushroom cloud,"-threatening weapons of mass destruction and no ties to Al Qaeda and the 9/11 attack against America. Those knowingly false premises to justify invading Iraq were later contradicted by the reality on the ground. Thus the rhetoric changed to the lofty motive of removing a brutal dictator from power and bringing "freedom" to the oppressed Iraqi people.

The rhetoric ignored the reality on the ground. As the Bush administration was laying the rhetorical groundwork for war by demonizing Saddam Hussein, Robert Fisk wrote a column in The Independent called "what the U.S. President wants us to forget." Fisk stated, "In 1988, as Saddam Hussein destroyed the people of Halabja with gas, along with tens of thousands of other Kurds . . . President Bush senior provided him with $500m in U.S. government subsidies to buy American farm products. . . We must forget," Fisk continued, "that the following year, after Saddam's genocide was complete, President Bush senior doubled this subsidy to $1bn, along with germ seed for anthrax, helicopters, and the notorious 'dual-use' material that could be used for chemical and biological weapons." (Oct. 9, 2002)

As the Bush administration was paving the pathway to war with "good intentions," a front-page New York Times story reported that during the 1981-88 Iraqi-Iranian war, U.S. intelligence agencies provided Iraq with satellite photographs of the positions of Iranian forces, aware that Iraqi commanders would use chemical weapons in the decisive battles of the war. The story said, "The United States decided it was imperative that Iran be thwarted so it could not overrun the important oil-producing states in the Persian Gulf." (Aug. 18, 2002)

America's "aiding and abetting" of Saddam Hussein's atrocities against Iraqi Kurds and the Iranians is detailed in a current Boston Globe guest column piece by Kevin McKiernan. Having studied the Kurds and covered the war in Iraq for ABC News, McKiernan not only substantiates the reporting of Robert Fisk and the New York Times, he digs even deeper into the reality on the ground: "When Hussein and his henchmen finally appear in an Iraqi courtroom to answer for their war crimes," he writes, "the Halabja massacre will be Exhibit A for the prosecution. . . . The question," McKiernan continues, "is whether the long-awaited trials will also expose key American and European officials who played a role in arming the Iraqi regime with industrial insecticides and a variety of other deadly components that the West knew were being used against the Kurds. . . . It appears," McKiernan says, "that Iraq's use of weapons of mass destruction was known at the highest levels in Washington."

McKiernan reminds us of what President Bush junior evidently needed to forget about his father's administration in the run-up to his own war of choice. "Some of the broad outlines of Hussein's US support are known," McKiernan states: "the courting of the Iraqi regime by the Reagan-Bush administration in the early 1980's as a foil against the Islamic Republic of Iran; Reagan's handwritten letter to Saddam Hussein soliciting better relations; multiple visits by special White House envoy Donald Rumsfeld, who also represented the Bechtel corporate efforts to build an oil pipeline across Iraq; the administration's decision to remove the regime of Saddam Hussein-who was known in these days as the 'Butcher of Baghdad'-from the list of sponsors of terror. . ." (Feb. 9, 2005)

During the run-up to the Bush administration's falsely-based and costly pre-emptive war, we actually read little in mainstream media of our own government's complicity in Saddam Hussein's brutal rule. Instead, these media mostly "aided and abetted" the Bush administration's interpretation of the reality on the ground.

Typical of Boston Globe editorials were: "In reality, Saddam already has large quantities of chemical and biological weapons" (Mar. 15, 2002); "mass murderers," like

Saddam Hussein, "have many collaborators," such as Arab leaders if they "keep their shameful silence about Saddam's genocidal regime" (Mar. 25, 2002); "if U.S. action in coming months leads to Saddam Hussein's overthrow, there will be jubilation in Iraq that the monster who murdered and tortured so many people and ruined the life of entire generations is finally gone." (Oct. 21, 2002) Boston Globe editorials "kept their shameful silence" about the U.S. government being one of the "collaborators" of "Saddam's genocidal regime."

Lip service is required for discrimination and domination to flourish in a democracy. In his Inaugural speech, President Bush touched all of the bases of America's diversity: "In America's ideal of freedom, the public interest depends on private character . . . on integrity and tolerance toward others . . . That edifice of character is. . . sustained in our national life by the truths of Sinai, the Sermon on the Mount, the word of the Koran and the varied faiths of our people." (The New York Times, Jan. 21, 2005)

The reality on the ground is that President Bush won re-election by cultivating an evangelical Christian base that is not about respecting "the varied faiths of our people," but about imposing their one true faith in Christ-and biblically-based "moral values"-on other people. Bush did not appeal for tolerance, understanding and love of one's neighbor as oneself, but to people's fears and phobias and hatred of those who are different. He fanned the homophobic vote and the pro-heterosexual life vote and the so-called "war on terror" vote. The very nature of evangelical Christians' assumed superior belief prevents them from acknowledging "the truths of Sinai" and "the words of the Koran."

As missionaries past followed in the wake of conquering armies, the reality on the ground will apparently see fundamentalist Christians attempting to evangelize "false-God" believing Muslims in "the dark corners" of "the Arab world." Their own salvation demands it, depends on it. Evangelical and fundamentalist Christians especially are driven by the belief that Jesus is "the true light" that "shines in the darkness" and "enlightens every man." (John 1:1-14) Their insecurity and related need for certitude drives them to possess the one true superior belief, which automatically prevents them from recognizing "the truths" of differing Christian beliefs-let alone "the truths of . . . the varied faiths of our people."

President Bush's "larger vision of bringing [italics added] democracy to the Arab world"-by pre-emptive war and threat of military force-is breeding a growing intolerance toward Arab and Muslim Americans. He says the obvious for public consumption: "American's ideal of freedom . . . depends on integrity and tolerance toward others." ("The Inaugural Address," The New York Times, Jan. 21, 2005) But his lumping of God and country and military aggression and threat together in a providential and patriotic mission of spreading freedom to "the darkest corners of our world," blessed and colored by his own underlying unspoken "Christocentric" belief, is eliciting nationalistic and sectarian feelings of superiority-and related fear, hatred and intolerance of those from "the darkest corners of our world."

Arab and Muslim professors, businesses and community leaders are regularly attacked by right wing media organizations such as Fox News, groups like Campus Watch, and reactionary websites. In Boston, those attacks are increasing. For example, Professor M. Shahid Alam, a well-respected teacher at Northeastern University for 16 years, is a most recent target. In late December, he and the University began receiving numerous e-mails calling for his firing, threatening to withhold donations, and some containing death threats against him and his family. Why? Because Professor Alam exercised his right of free speech.

In December and January, Counterpunch published two articles written by Professor Alam: "America and Islam: Seeking Parallels" (Dec. 29, 2004) and "Testing Free Speech in America" (Jan. 1/2, 2005) His evidently unpardonable critique of America's rhetoric and the reality on the ground included this penetrating statement:

"Americans have been trained to see only their greatness, not the human costs that others have been made to pay, and continue to pay, for their successes." (Jan. 1/2, 2005)

Sadly, the 9/11 atrocities committed against America elicited knee-jerk patriotism rather than national soul searching. Instead of self-examination about our country's foreign policy and whether it may have contributed to such violent aggression, our president, who himself cannot admit mistakes, declared a global "war on terror," and in a September 22, 2001 radio address said, "I want to remind the people of America, we're still the greatest nation on the face of the Earth, and no terrorist will ever be able to decide our fate." With "God" on his side and "freedom" in his heart, his administration is turning America into a super nation similar to Hitler's super race with its fascist ideology of superiority. Professor Alam's articles reveal a truth that Americans need to hear: global justice and peace depend on us experiencing other people's reality on the ground not interpreting it with unreflective patriotism.

The Northeastern professor reveals something of the reality on the ground in saying, "For three years now, ever since I entered the public discourse, various organized right-wing groups have been trying to silence me with threats. Unless more Americans become aware of the growing erosion of free speech, I am afraid that our voices may be silenced." (personal communication, Feb. 8, 2005) One way to continue hearing Professor Alam's voice is to write a letter supporting his academic freedom to Northeastern University President, Richard Freeland (r.freeland@neu.edu).

The issue of "tolerance" toward "the truths" of others extends beyond "the varied faiths of our people." President Bush began his second term in office promising healing but exploiting division. His inaugural rhetoric was lofty: "And our country must abandon all the habits of racism, because we cannot carry the message of freedom and the baggage of bigotry at the same time." Bush himself carries both quite well.

Five days after the Inauguration, the reality on the ground saw the President open his "baggage of bigotry" at a meeting with a group of 24 African American religious and community leaders. Bush reportedly "told black leaders yesterday that his plan to add private accounts to Social Security would benefit blacks because they tend to have shorter lives than some other Americans and end up paying more than they get out." (The Boston Globe, Jan. 26, 2005)

Why Black people do not live as long as White people evidently was not discussed. What an apparently glaring commentary on all who were present at that meeting.

Why do White persons live longer than Black persons? There remains in America an historic, institutionalized White-controlled hierarchy of access to political and economic power, with George W. Bush as its CEO. This hierarchy has enabled White persons to sow far more educational and economic opportunities than people of color-and thus reap far greater health and healthcare-and longer life.

At the heart of America's "lingering racial divide" is a job gap that creates a health gap. Black people especially continue to reap an unhealthy, discriminatory,

White-favored political and economic order sown for them at the bottom of the racial hierarchy. Those who suffer from lack of adequate paying jobs, insufficient diet, polluted air, an indifferent and often hostile environment, and a tokenistic power structure are more likely to reap hypertension, anxiety, high blood pressure, diabetes, kidney failure, asthma, stroke, cancer, heart disease, mental illness, HIV/AIDS, implosive physical violence, and lower life expectancy. ("Patients With H.I.V. Seen as Separated by a Racial Divide," The New York Times. Aug. 7, 2004; "Disparities found in health care for blacks," The Boston Globe, Aug. 5, 2004; "Report finds minorities get poorer healthcare," by Ron Blakely, Mar. 20, 2002, 222.cnn.com; "Mental Health Problems Among Minorities," by Richard A. Sherer, www.healthy places.com.)

President Bush's own "soft bigotry of low expectations" [italics added] is obviously at work here. At the moment, his administration's "baggage of bigotry" is carrying over a $300 billion price tag and counting for his administration's "wars on terrorism" at the expense of adequate healthcare for some 43 million Black and White persons alike. Wars being fought by a disproportionate number of Black Americans because the Army is actually the only place they can "be all you can be."

The meeting between President Bush and these selective Black leaders evidently was not about an inequitable, life-shortening, White-favored hierarchical structure over which President Bush presides, but how to get from him a little piece of the pie. "Many people at the meeting with Bush yesterday were the president's political supporters," it was reported. They stated, "Bush promised more trade with Africa and support for home and business ownership by blacks." And his supporters were said to have "praised Bush for opening federal dollars to churches and religious organizations and encouraged him to push for a constitutional ban on gay marriage." (The Boston Globe, Jan. 26, 2005) There is a similarity between paying off columnists to write stories favoring Bush administration policies and buying loyalty with faith-based initiatives.

A divisive dynamic is assumed to be at work here. Black leaders who accommodate the racial hierarchy are rewarded with acceptance, recognition, advancement and support for their causes. Here are White-approved Black leaders. The

dynamic is believed to be "Black Gloves/White Hands." Those Black leaders-and organizations-- who "get out of hand" and challenge the inequities of the racial order are ignored, portrayed as controversial and, if they become too powerful, run the risk of being discredited and marginalized-even editorially lynched. White-approved Black leaders make excellent spokespersons-and camouflage-for the racial hierarchy-even when they are not speaking.

The Bush administration is assumed to use rhetoric to disguise rather than disclose reality. The administration has perfected the art of doing "evil" and calling it "good." "Liberation" actually means occupation. "Operation Iraqi Freedom" means creating a puppet regime to exploit Iraq's vast energy resources, and use its strategic location to militarily fan "this untamed fire of freedom [to] the darkest corners of our world." Bringing "democracy to the Arab world" is about domination. "The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world"? (The Inaugural

Address," The New York Times, Jan. 21, 2005) Translation: that is the best hope for all the Bill and Janet Norwoods of our country to offer up their sons and daughters for the expansion of American imperialism. When President Bush says, "My job is to protect

the American people from the terrorists," he really means his aim is to provoke fear of the "terrorists" in the American people so that he can keep his job.

One of President Bush's repeated fear-mongering statements is, "Our men and women in uniform are fighting terrorists in Iraq, so we do not have to fight them here at home." ("State of the Union Address," The New York Times, Feb. 3, 2005) Will "our men and women in uniform [be] fighting terrorists in" Iran next, "so we do not have to fight them here at home"? The "terrorists" in North Korea? In Syria? In Libya? How many "terrorists" around the world will "our men and women in uniform [be] fighting" until they "have to fight them here at home"? It is not about "fighting terrorists in Iraq, so we don't have to fight them here at home," but about a brutalizing war of choice that has created enemies in Iraq and beyond who may well have to be fought here at home.

The reality on the ground is seen in a global poll showing "anti-Bush feelings." Conducted by the British Broadcasting Company, the poll found that "a majority of people [58% of 122,000] surveyed . . . think that the re-election of George W. Bush as US president has made the world more dangerous; and many view Americans negatively as well." The survey revealed that "residents in only three countries . . . out of 21 polled thought the world was safer following Bush's election. And 47% of those questioned now see US influence in the world as largely negative." (The Boston Globe, Jan. 20, 2005)

As if in denial of the divisions he has sown on the ground in America and globally, President Bush began his second term with, "We have known divisions which must be healed to move forward in great purposes, and I will strive in good faith to heal them." ("The Inaugural Address," The New York Times, Jan. 21, 2005). Words have no real meaning to Bush. They come easy and often to deny, distort and do violence to reality.

President Bush "will strive in good faith to heal [our] divisions"? "Physician, heal thyself." (Luke 4:23) Since Bush prides himself on being a president of prayer and piety, religious leaders seem to be especially suited to speak truth to power: about Bush understanding and overcoming his and America's own "evil," so that the humanness and good in so-called "terrorists" may be seen and revered not demonized and destroyed. Any steeple worth its salt points downward to the reality of all people on the ground. "The best hope for peace in our world" is experiencing other people's reality, not burning beyond recognition their grievances and aspirations in an "untamed fire of freedom reach[ing] the darkest corners of our world."

2005-01-30T17:57:00.000-08:00

Praying for Peace Hell-Bent for War
by William E. Alberts*
April 4, 2003

In his recent news conference, President Bush said, “I pray daily. I pray for guidance and wisdom and strength. . . . I pray for peace.” I pray for peace (The New York Times, Mar. 7, 2003). In his State of the Union address, he said, “Once again we are called to defend the safety of our people and the hopes of all mankind. And we accept this responsibility.” He stated, “We go forward with confidence, because this call of history has come to the right country.” He made clear that “the liberty we prize is not America’s gift to the world, it is God’s gift to humanity.” He concluded, “We Americans . . . do not claim to know all the ways of Providence, yet we can trust them, placing ourconfidence in the loving God behind all of life and all of history. May he guide us now.” (The New York Times, Jan. 29, 2003)

To whom is President Bush praying? His administration held the power to decide whether there would be peace, or him leading “a coalition of the willing” into a pre-emptive war against Iraq. Contrary to the will of the majority of the UN Security Council’s 15-member nations, Bush and his two “willing” coalition partners “concluded that tomorrow is a moment of truth for the world,” and that “many nations [whose leaders evidently pray to a different deity than Bush “for guidance and wisdom and strength”] . . . now . . . must demonstrate that commitment to peace and security in the only effective way [italics added]: by supporting the immediate disarmament of Saddam Hussein.” (The New York Times, Mar. 17, 2003). The “moment of truth for the world” came: Bush gave Saddam Hussein and his two sons “48 hours” to get out of “Dodge” or Iraq would face “military conflict.” (The New York Times, Mar. 17, 2003)—i.e. “the full force and might of the United States military and we will prevail,” Bush had said earlier. (The New York Times, Jan. 29, 2003). The president of a foreign nation telling the president of another nation to leave his own country. Hussein would not bow to such a demeaning demand, and Bush obviously knew that.

Like the leaders of most UN Security Council nations, chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix evidently has a different understanding than President Bush of “the ways of Providence.” Blix was reported to have “lamented” Bush’s “moment of truth for the world” that abruptly ended the UN inspectors’ mission to disarm Iraq of any weapons of mass destruction. A Boston Globe story quoted Blix as saying, “I don’t think it is reasonable to close the door to inspections after 3 * months.” He “would have welcomed some months more.” He stated that “recent inspections proved far-ranging and more effective than any previously in Iraq.” The story disclosed that “specialists with the UN’s Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection Commission found no evidence that Iraq possesses weaponsof mass destruction despite leads from US intelligence. . . . While inspectors followed up leads from US intelligence,” the story continued, “Blix said, ‘I must regret we have not found the results in so many cases. We certainly have not found any smoking guns.’” ( Mar. 19, 2003)

President Bush’s daily prayers “for guidance, wisdom and strength” apparently led him to smell “smoking guns” throughout the UN inspectors’ disarmament work in Iraq: “I’m sick and tired of games and deceptions, and that is my view of timetables.” (The New York Times, Jan. 15, 2003) “You know, how much time do we need to see clearly that he’s not disarming. . . . As I’ve said, this looks like a rerun of a bad movie, and I’m not interested in watching it.” (The New York Times, Jan. 22, 2003) “The game is over.” “Tomorrow is a moment of truth for the world.”

President Bush repeated, “I pray for peace”-- all the while hell-bent for war. His behavior more likely indicates that he preys on peace. A similar mind-boggling assault on reality is his administration’s concerted attempt now to divert attention from its unprovoked and criminal war against Iraq by charging that “Iraq is not conducting warfare by the rules.” This US superpower aggression wrapped in “humanitarian aid.”

To whom does President Bush pray? His transparent attempt to hijack God to serve his administration’s military aggression against Iraq suggests a King George version of The Lord’s Prayer:

- My father who art in Kennebunkport,- Hallowed be our “burning Bush” name.- Our American global empire come;- Our oil-controlling will be done,- In Iraq as it is deep in the heart of Texas.- Give us this war, our enemy Saddam Hussein’s head.- And forgive us our 12 years of economic sanctions and our 21,000pound “Mother of All Bombs,” as we are already implicated in thedeaths of over 500,000 Iraqi children and plan to “shock and awe” thelife out of anyone who would even dare to think of doing unto us as we are doing unto them.- And lead us not into the United Nations,- But deliver us from the French—and the Germans, and the Russians,and the Chinese, and the Turks, and the Canadians, and the Mexicans,and the North Koreans, and the Palestinians, and Nelson Mandela, andall others who do not believe in our White-favored, imperialistic,John 3:16 God.- For ours is the kingdom and the power and the glory of “the greatestnation on the face of the earth,” forever and unilaterally ever! Amen!

The so-called threat Saddam Hussein poses to our nation’s security and peace in the world appears to be a pretext for waging war on Iraq for other reasons. Perhaps we need a new commandment: Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s oil. And another: Thou shalt not sacrifice the lives of American and Iraqi people to settle a family feud. And a third: Thou shalt not use “the loving God behind all of life and all of history” to pursue global domination.
Praying for peace always has involved unfolding one’s hands and also praying with one’s feet!—that includes nonviolent acts of civil disobedience to demonstrate love and power in the service of justice and the inalienable rights of all people.

*Dr. William E. Alberts is hospital chaplain at Boston Medical Center. Both a Unitarian Universalist minister and a United Methodist minister, he received his Ph.D. from Boston University in the field of Psychology and Pastoral Counseling. His numerous essays and articles on racism, politics and religion have appeared in newspapers, magazines and journals, with research reports on mainstream print media’s coverage of issues on race and racism published by the William Monroe Trotter Institute at the University of Massachusetts, Boston and by Sage race relations abstracts, London, UK. Dr. Alberts’ e-mail address is: william.alberts@bmc.org

2005-01-02T15:47:00.000-08:00

On "Moral Values"
Code Words for Emerging Authoritarian Tendencies in Americans
By Rev. WILLIAM E. ALBERTS

President Bush knowingly lied to the American people to gain their support for his administration's unnecessary pre-emptive war against Iraq: by falsely accusing Saddam Hussein of possessing "mushroom cloud" threatening weapons of mass destruction, and of being involved with Al Qaeda in the 9/11 attack against America. In spite of all the evidence refuting his basis for war, a majority of Americans voted to re-elect him president particularly because of his faith-based "moral values."

During the presidential campaign, President Bush repeatedly tortured the truth in stump speeches to pre-screened, applauding, laughing and booing on cue Republican audiences: about his administration's having shared the same pre-war "intelligence" regarding Iraq's assumed weapons of mass destruction with Congress and his opponent, who also saw the "threat," about his then going "to the United Nations, and I did so because force is the last resort for America," and about Saddam Hussein continuing "to deceive the weapons inspectors" ("In West Virginia, President Bush Advocates for Education and Health Care Reform and Results," Aug. 17, 2004, www.georgewbush.com); "Raw Data: Bush Speech in Springfield," July 30, 2004, www.fox.com.) The emerging contradictory facts caught up with Bush's lies but evidently not with enough of the electorate: he was rewarded with "four more years" in office especially for his evangelical Christian "moral values."

A pre-election study revealed that, since the American-led March 2003 invasion, the lives of 100,000 Iraqi civilians, most women and children, have been violently aborted, mainly by US-led air strikes and artillery ("Iraqi Coalition Deaths Increase Dramatically After Invasion," Oct. 28, 2004, www.hgph.edu). A week later Americans voted to return President Bush to the White House notably because of his opposition to abortion, i.e. his religiously based "moral values."

The belief that President Bush's "moral values" helped him to win re-election has led certain political and theological pundits to conclude that the Democrats must "get religion" and bridge the "God gap" if they are to regain the presidency. They are being told to get a grip on God and morality and, like the Republicans, let their light of faith shine for all religiously-motivated voters to see if they are ever to achieve a political resurrection. Those who interpret the presidential election in these terms appear to miss a critical point: rather than faith-based "moral values," the election appears to reveal a growing morality gap in America. We may not be witnessing the ascendancy of "moral values" but the rise of authoritarian tendencies in Americans. It is this apparent phenomenon, and the moral and spiritual crisis it represents, that need to be examined and addressed.

Following World War II, social scientists conducted a landmark study of how great masses of supposedly enlightened, Christian people willingly tolerated the systematic oppression and extermination of millions of their fellow citizens and others (Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, Black persons, mentally and physically-impaired people, and political dissenters). A related concern was how masses of other people, who profess freedom as a God-given birthright, could stand by for so long and allow such religious, racial, ethnic, ideological and homophobic hatred to continue. The aim of the study was to employ the scientific method to understand what in an individual causes him to be prejudiced, and to use the findings to help in seeking solutions to inter-group prejudice and hatred. The study revealed that authoritarian tendencies in an individual's personality make him receptive to anti-democratic propaganda and policies that target out-groups for discrimination and destruction. (The Authoritarian Personality, Adorno, et al, pp v-viii, Harper and Brothers, New York, 1950).

The personality tendencies of the authoritarian-disposed individual were found to include:
--"Desire for a strong leader" [italics added] resulting in "submissive, uncritical attitude toward idealized moral authorities of the in-group" (Ibid, pp 231, 228);

--"Cultural narrowness" [italics added] seen in rigid acceptance of the conventional middle-class values of "the culturally 'alike'" and the tendency to reject and punish "the culturally 'unlike' . . . who violate conventional values." (Ibid, pp 102, 228);

--Unreflective ethnocentric patriotic conformity, rooted in the belief that one's own nation is superior and should rightly dominate and that other nations are inferior and threatening out-groups (Ibid, pp 107-109);

--Negative stereotyped perceptions of the members of "unlike" out-groups (Ibid, pp 228, 235, 236), rather than seeing them as individuals who also laugh and cry and love and hate, or who, in the words of Joseph Berger, "lived, laughed, cursed, fought, who did the things human beings do" ("At Holocaust Museum, Turning a Number into a Name," The New York Times, Nov. 21, 2004);

--Anti-introspection, i.e. resistance to self-understanding, to soul- searching, to cause-and-effect analysis of individual and group behavior, unable to tolerate ambiguity, belief in mystical, unexplainable phenomenon, disparaging intellectual attempts to perceive life's nuances and complexities (Ibid, pp 236, 235); and

--Aggression, involving "the ethnocentric need for an out-group" who represents "the intrinsic evil (aggressiveness, laziness, power-seeking, etc.) of human nature . . . [that] is unchangeable [and] must be attacked, stamped out, or segregated, wherever it is found, lest it contaminate the good." (Ibid, pages 232-234, 148).

If these characteristics of the individual with authoritarian personality tendencies sound familiar, there is more.

The post-World War II scientists found a positive relationship between individuals with authoritarian personality tendencies and religious practice. For example, they discovered that churchgoers especially tended to agree with authoritarian-laden statements: those calling for uncritical acceptance of conventional values and submission to their representative moral authorities, deep faith in a supernatural power whose dictates are to be obeyed without question, and those asserting that much of life is beyond human understanding and part of a spiritual realm to be revered and not reviewed. (The Authoritarian Personality, pp 218ff).

The findings of the above social scientists indicated that "belonging to a religious body in America today certainly does not mean that one thereby takes over the traditional Christian values of tolerance, brotherhood and equality. On the contrary," they state, "it appears that these values are more firmly held by people who do not affiliate with any religious group." Their measurement of anti-democratic tendencies in the groups studied led them to conclude, "People who reject organized religion are less prejudiced than those who accept it." (Ibid, pages 219, 220) That finding is believed to help make the critical point that after-election pundits miss in advising Democrats to become more "spiritually-minded" and "active" if they are to save their political souls.

The presidential election did not signal the growth of "moral values" in American life, but the widening of a morality gap. The parallels between authoritarian tendencies and "moral values" are readily seen.

"Moral values" did not propel President Bush to victory but hatred of other human beings-"the culturally unlike" gay and lesbian persons especially who defy conventional values. The Republicans made sure constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage were on the ballot in 11 states; and all easily passed, with Bush winning 9 of the 11 states. Afterwards, Karl Rove, his chief political advisor, reportedly said "that opposition to gay marriage was one of the most powerful forces in American politics today and that politicians ignored it at their peril." (" 'Moral Values' Carried Bush, Rove Says," by Adam Nagourney, The New York Times, Nov. 16, 2004)

Gay and lesbian persons and other Americans ignore Karl Rove's observation and sentiment at their peril. Those, mostly White, church-going Americans who voted to deny another group of Americans their indivisible constitutional rights actually reveal their own hatred of democracy itself. So they seek to use the freedom guaranteed by democracy to deny freedom to members of a perceived morally unfit out-group. The political process provides them with a "democratic" way to gain power over gay-and pro-choice-persons, and not to respect their beliefs and equal right to access and empowerment.

The issue here is power! Therein lies the peril. If such, predominantly White, correct-belief-centered Christians and their "self-avowed practicing heterosexual partners" acquire enough political power, what is now a "sin," to be checked by religious decree, may become a civil crime to be punished by imprisonment, or by a more severe measure-lest this "evil" contaminate the traditional institution of marriage and family life. It is the spiritual violence of many Christian denominations, with their institutionalized exclusionary policies, that not only sanctioned legal discrimination against gay and lesbian persons but also encourages physical violence against them as well.

What is perilous is the inability of a growing number of "moral values" voters to realize what should be obvious: the issue of same-sex marriage is not about the protection of traditional marriage and "the preservation of the family," but about the inclusion and honoring of all members of the family born in those traditional marriages. It is not an issue involving a majority's right to be heard and to vote but a minority's full right to be seen the "self-evident truth" of a minority's constitutional and divinely "endowed right" to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

Nor is the issue of homosexuality about Christian theology regarding "loving the sinner and hating the sin." The issue is about introspection: overcoming culturally ingrained, unconscious homophobic fear that harms another person's identity, development, and fulfillment as a human being. "Loving the sinner and hating the sin" are actually code words used to inflict spiritual violence on gay and lesbian persons with a "straight" face.

Reacting with dismay to the flurry of amendments banning same-sex marriage, an Episcopal mother of a married lesbian daughter emphasized matter-of-factly, "It's (same-sex marriage) about love!" When a minister or politician or another person with "moral values" discovers his or her son or daughter is gay or lesbian, there is often the painful but deepening discovery that "it's about love!" It would seem that more personalizing and less theologizing about homosexuality is needed.

Jesus said it plainly: "Love your neighbor as yourself." He did not specify one's straight neighbor only. Yet, according to Karl Rove, 22% of "moral values" voters believe that is obviously what Jesus meant.

That which is obvious to many Christians, who voted their "moral values," is to be ignored at one's own peril. Karl Rove is quoted as summing up the perceived electoral victory for "moral values": "I think people would be well advised to pay attention to what the American people are saying" (Ibid) "The American people?"[italics added] Or those predominantly White, evangelical Christians for whom "moral values" were their homophobic call to arms to the voting booth? What are they really saying? Something believed to be far different from what a generalizing Karl Rove meant.

As indicated above, many evangelical, fundamentalist and "born again" Christians who voted for so-called "moral values" seem to be really saying that they cannot tolerate democracy: because it not only guarantees their freedom of belief and practice, but presupposes the legitimacy of the independent thought and belief and values others live by. The Christian beliefs of these churchgoers are actually authoritarian. They entertain, if not take for granted, the aspect of democracy that offers them the right to believe and worship and live as they choose, but they hate the fact that it offers the same freedom and rights to those with contrary beliefs and values. Thus, their commitment is not to respect the democratic rights of others but to use the democratic process to gain political power over them, to impose their superior, divinely-revealed "moral values" on others and society. They think of democracy in terms of the will of the majority, not also the rights of the minority.

Ironically, the "moral values" that helped to re-elect President Bush president were directed against people's rights not for them. They deny the constitutional right of "the pursuit of happiness" to gay and lesbian persons. Their intent also is to impose a "pro-life" will on other people that would deny their freedom to determine their own reproductive health. Or more specifically, impose their pro-heterosexual-life will.

These "moral values" seem not to be about correcting historic, institutionalized discrimination against Black persons, for example, and other people of color. These religiously-directed "values" appear to be oblivious to an ingrained White-controlled hierarchy of access to political and economic power that has perpetuated a job gap-and thus an education and a health gap. Nor do such "moral values" appear to apply their "culture of life" to a recent survey "by Norwegian researchers, the United Nations and the Iraqi government," which "discovered the rate of acute malnutrition in Iraqi children under five years old shot up to 7.7 per cent from four per cent since the March 2003 invasion of Iraq." ("Iraq: children suffer most under US occupation: report," CBC News, Nov. 28, 2004, www.cbc.ca). Never mind the 12-year long US-controlled UN sanctions imposed against Iraq until the invasion that resulted in the deaths of some 500,000 Iraqi children under age 5. (UNICEF report on the devastation caused by the sanctions, Aug. 12, 1999).

An underlying critical need for security is believed to drive such "moral values"-possessed Christians. Their emphasis on "moral values"-that, in reality, discriminate against other Americans-is rooted in insecurity. For whatever reasons, they have a strong need for security, driving a search for certainty, which is met by their holding the right belief and belonging with other true Christians to the assumed superior faith in-group.

The very word "evangelical" means to spread the Christian gospel and convert nonbelievers. And the word "convert" implies that one's own faith is superior to all others and to be accepted. Here there is no recognition of another's right to live by his and her own truth because there is only one truth-the evangelizer's God-revealed, biblically-or church-based truth. Others are not seen as equal. The aim is to gain power over them "in Jesus name" and to punish those who refuse to conform to the religiously sanctioned conventional values of the in-group.

Those who have a need to impose their will on others and convert them are driven by correct theological belief not motivated by ethical behavior. Theirs is a personal, other-worldly destination, not an interpersonal journey with others-unless they are, or become like-minded. And it is here that faith-based "moral values"--crusading churchgoers actually reveal ethnocentric-like tendencies: in their uncritical submission to the absolute belief handed down through/by their religious leaders, in their interpreting (with negative stereotypes) rather than experiencing the reality of perceived "unlike" out-groups, and in their hierarchical view of relationships wherein their faith in-group possesses the true revelation of God and good and is therefore superior and should rightly impose their "moral values" on and dominate out-groups (The Authoritarian Personality, p 150)

Many White, evangelical churchgoers who were moved by "moral values" to vote for George W. Bush may actually be seen as "Christocentric." Since ethnocentrism is the belief that "one's own ethnic group, nation or culture is superior" (Webster's New World College Dictionary, fourth edition, Macmillan, 1999), these churchgoers appear to be "Christocentric" in their belief in Jesus as the only Son of God and savior of the world.

A favorite authoritative Bible passage is John 3:16: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life." The "world" means everybody, not just those Christians who hold this belief but all Christians, and not just all Christians but Jews as well as Muslims, Hindus, et al, everyone. "Only Son" means Jesus is the greatest revelation of God: born of a virgin, " 'his name shall be called Emmanuel' (which means God with us)" (Matthew 1:23). "Shall not perish but have eternal life" is the bottom line of this belief: God sent Jesus to die on the cross for the sins of the inherently evil whole world and whoever believes in his sacrificial act of atonement as the only Son of God, will not perish in hell but inherit eternal life. Confessing one's inherently sinful nature and accepting Jesus as one's personal savior is the only way hell-bent humanity can be transformed and escape the eternal damnation of an otherwise loving God.

"Christocentric" persons are not content to be saved in themselves, and to allow other individuals the right to a different pathway. Their salvation depends on the damnation of those who are not saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone. Their one true faith automatically divides people into superior and inferior in-groups and out-groups-and sets the psychic stage for evangelizing and domination "in Jesus name," or in the name of "freedom." A super religion displaying tendencies similar to Hitler's super race with its fascist ideology of superiority.

This is the "Christocentric" belief that led George W. Bush, in 1993, to tell a Jewish reporter, when preparing to run for governor of Texas, "Heaven is open only to those who accept Jesus Christ." ("Go to Hell: The Gospel according to George W." by Michael Kinsley, July 24, 1999, www.slatemsn.com). At a 2000 presidential campaign debate, it also was a "Christocentric" Bush who reacted when pressed to explain how his ideal "political philosopher" Jesus changed his life: "Well, if they don't know, it's going to be hard to explain."

The same rigid "Christocentric" mentality led Baptist evangelist Rev. Franklin Graham to give the following Invocation at President Bush's January 2001 Inauguration: ". . . We pray this in the name of the Father, and of the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. Amen." This is the same pre-emptive war-supporting, Bible-waving evangelizing carpetbagger who later called Islam "a very evil and a very wicked religion" ("Anti-Islam," Religion and Ethics, Dec. 20, 2002, www.pbs.org) and whose intent is converting Muslims to Christ. The very same Christian evangelist who was invited to lead the Good Friday services at the Pentagon on April 18, 2003.

"Christocentric" fervor also inspired United Methodist minister Kirbyson Caldwell's Benediction at the same January 2001 Inauguration of President Bush: "We respectfully submit this humble prayer in the name that's above all other names [italics added], Jesus, the Christ. Let all who agree say amen." How many Jews, Muslims and other citizens of different religions and of no religion, attending and watching the inauguration of the President of the United States, said "amen"? Access to power emboldens and blinds "Christocentric" believers, who may succumb to arrogance.

A Christian minister or priest, who is unaware, for example, of the Muslims and Jews in an audience before him (or her) is far more likely to be oblivious to the Muslims or Jews being oppressed around him-or beyond him by his government in his name.

Thus can an unquestioned President Bush say, "I pray daily . . . for peace," and two weeks later launch an unprovoked, costly war against non-threatening Iraq under false pretenses. And when no weapons of mass destruction are found in Iraq and no ties between Iraq and 9/11, this idealized moral Christian in-group leader in the White House can change his battle cry: by repeatedly challenging anyone to disagree that "the world is better off without [a brutal] Saddam Hussein in power," and then win reelection by cloaking his administration's crime against the Iraqi and American people as an act of God: "Freedom is not America's gift to the world, it is God's gift to every man and woman in the world." (Acceptance Speech to Republican Convention Delegates, The New York Times, Sept. 3, 2004) And thousands of 2004, mostly White, churchgoing Republican Convention delegates stood and gave their "strong leader" with clear "moral values" a standing ovation. "Let all who agree say amen," the United Methodist preacher had prayed.

Christian denominations are not only guardians of conventional values but sanctifiers of patriotism. In most churches, the Christian flag drapes one side of the altar and the American flag the other. A good Christian is believed to be a good citizen. God and country call forth strong allegiances and share a strong alliance. One provides freedom of faith and the other faith in freedom. And both are being exploited by an administration committed to empire and domination not to reverence for life and democracy.

The "ethnocentric" and "Christocentric" converge in the person of President Bush. He works both sides of the authoritarian personality. He reinforces the authoritarian need for certainty and supremacy over other groups by saying, "I want to remind the people of America, we're still the greatest nation on the face of the Earth." (weekly radio address, Sept. 22, 2001) He refuses to examine how United States' foreign policy contributes to the creation of enemies-as if the planes used in the horrific attack against America came from out of the blue. He stereotypes all who resist United States' military aggression, occupation and domination as "evildoers," "the evil ones," "killers," and "terrorists" who "hate our success [and] our liberty" ("George W. Bush's Insights on evil," Oct. 5, 2004, www.irregulartimes.com) and whom "you can't talk sense to." ("President's Remarks in Canton, Ohio," July 21, 2004, www.whitehouse.gov). He thinks in rigid terms about in-groups and out-groups: "This is a war between good and evil," and he made it clear to every nation, "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists." ("George W. Bush's Insights on evil," Oct. 5, 2004, www.irregulartimes.com; "You're with us or against us, Bush says," by Scott Fornek, Staff Reporter, Sept. 21, 2001, www.suntimes.com).

President Bush constantly reminds the American people of the threat of terrorism and that "it's my job as president to protect the American people." And many "moral values"- professing Christians responded by voting for him because of his "strong leadership" and "clarity" and his sharing of their values of "Marriage. Life. Faith." (Moral Values Propelled Bush to Re-election, Nov. 4, 2004, www.newsmax.com; " 'Values' Helped Shape Bush Re-Election," by Kelley Beauear Viahes, Nov. 4, 2004, www.foxnews.com; "GOP Won With Accent On Rural and Traditional," by Paul Farhi and James V. Grymefdi, Nov. 4, 2004, www.washingtonpost.com).

Idealizing one's in-group as the truest and greatest, requiring uncritical submission to in-group authorities, stereotyping out-groups as "evil" and to be destroyed so they cannot "contaminate" the good, resistance to introspection regarding one's own behavior (i.e. inability to admit mistakes, relying on instinct not information, faith not facts, inspiration not insights) and willed obliviousness to the reality of out-groups-those are qualities of the current president of the United States. A president with an American flag always on his lapel and a custom-made "Commander in Chief" military jacket at the ready for appearances with his favorite audience.

A certain amount of deception and lip service are required to be authoritarian in a democratic society-especially as president. George W. Bush learned that, even in Texas, he could not get elected governor on a "Jesus only saves" platform no matter how big an evangelical base that may build-never mind becoming president of the most religiously diverse country in the world. Thus he evidently never publicly repeated his statement made to the Jewish reporter that only born again Christians and not Jews go to heaven. His belief obviously excluded not only Jews but everyone else as well, including liberal-minded Christians.

The political reality of diversity in America evidently led President Bush to undergo another kind of conversion. In his "journey to the White House," he describes a 1998 visit to Israel with an interfaith delegation, during which a critical "point was driven home" to him: "America is a great country because of our religious freedoms.

It is important for any leader to respect the faith of others." (Autobiography, A Charge to Keep, p. 138) Such code words allow him and his constituency to hide the very opposite tendencies-from each other, if not from themselves. And spreading "freedom" and "democracy" in the Middle East can be added to that vocabulary. A classic example of ritualizing code words is President Bush awarding the Presidential Medal of Freedom to three men who played instrumental roles in the invasion and occupation of Iraq: "General Tommy R. Franks, the overall commander of the invasion of Iraq; L. Paul Bremer III, the chief civilian administrator of the American occupation of the country; and George J. Tenet, the longtime director of central intelligence who built the case for going to war." Bush said, "Today this honor goes to three men who have played pivotal roles in great events. . . . and whose efforts have made our country more secure and have advanced the cause of human liberty." (The New York Times, Dec. 15, 2004) The interpretation of reality is in the eyes of the beholders of power. "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED."

Disguising reality with code words is seen in the militarizing of the 2005 Presidential Inauguration. The theme is "Celebrating Freedom. Honoring Service." And "this year's event will have one brand new addition, the Commander-in-Chief Ball," free to 2000 members of the military and their families, and featuring those just back from Iraq and Afghanistan, or about to be deployed there. ("Bush's inauguration to reflect nation at war," by Nina Bradley, Dec. 15, 2004, www.msnbc.msn.com).

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan evidently will not be invited to the Inaugural's Commander-in-Chief Ball. He has condemned the Bush administration's pre-emptive war against Iraq as "illegal," a violation of international law because it lacks UN Security Council approval. Rather than "celebrating freedom" and "honoring service," Annan says about President Bush's "advance of liberty" in Iraq, "Those who seek to bestow legitimacy must themselves embody it, and those who invoke international law must themselves submit to it." (The New York Times, Sept. 22, 2004). The Bush administration's unprovoked, widely condemned military aggression against Iraq is believed to underlie its deeply invested "staying the course" of determining reality.

A reality check is contained in the report of a Pentagon advisory panel on how America is viewed by the Islamic world. The report states that "Muslims do not 'hate our freedom,' but rather they hate our policies," that "when American public diplomacy talks about bringing democracy to Islamic societies, this is seen as no more than self-serving hypocrisy;" ant that "in the eyes of the Muslim world, . . . 'American occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq has not led to democracy there, but only more chaos and suffering.'" (The New York Times, Nov. 24, 2004).

Code words take different forms. Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Advisor Condolezza Rice are believed to serve as unspoken code words. Their being Black gives the Bush administration the appearance of being committed to equality while continuing to push anti-affirmative action policies and individual responsibility for opportunity and poverty that deny and perpetuate a White-favored hierarchy of access to economic and political power in America.

The need to keep up the appearance of being democratic could lead President Bush to make sure that a Muslim Imam, Jewish Rabbi, or Catholic priest gives the Invocation or Benediction at his 2005 Inauguration. And if a Christian minister is chosen, any words about "the name that's above all other names, Jesus, the Christ" may be screened. At the very least, one may expect representatives of "the liberated" to be visible in the audience. Authoritarian tendencies in a democracy thrive in disguise; and what better disguise than appearances of freedom and inclusiveness and piety and so-called "moral values" that serve to camouflage contrary tendencies being acted out. The name of the game seems to be appearances and perception not authenticity and substance.

The presidential election was not about the rise of "moral values" in America but the emergence of authoritarian tendencies in Americans:

--A political opportunist who gained presidential power by courting a "Christocentric" religious base that is receptive to imposing "moral values" on all citizens here, and "freedom"-and Christ-as "God's gift to every man and woman in the world."

--"Strong leadership" creating a 9/11-like climate of fear of "terrorists," to control us and stay in power under the pretext of providing security to protect us.

--Unquestioning patriotism that offers up its sons and daughters on an ethnocentric altar of domination, to kill and maim and brutalize state-chosen enemies and to be killed and maimed and brutalized in return.

--An accommodating mainstream media that provide much news that's print to fit. That determine the limits of public debate with a weekly round of mostly "official Washington" guests on news programs. And that engage their own networks' "experts" who usually validate rather than challenge administration assertions and policies. A media apparently influenced by government control of licensing and of access to key newsmakers and news stories, and by the threat of advertising and readership boycotts. A media whose own corporate values may be represented by the administration in power. A media which need to fulfil their vital role of providing objective news coverage, a wide range of views on issues, and factually-based, rather than predisposed, programming and editorializing, so that an informed citizenry can participate effectively in the democratic process.

--The politics of religion that keep religion out of politics-unless it is for a faith-based government handout that requires no prophetic administration-boat rocking and a kickback of loyalty at election time.

The Bush administration's faith-based initiative actually appears to be an attempt to redefine poverty, addictions, and other social problems as individual matters calling for self-help groups, rather than ingrained institutional issues demanding more effective government intervention to correct unequal access to educational and economic empowerment and inadequate social services. The discriminatory societal structures that hold people down are believed to be what is evil, not human nature.

Dr. Richard Lerner, professor of Applied Developmental Science at Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts writes of the "peril" represented by the emerging state-legitimized authoritarianism masked as "moral values": "I believe we are entering into an era of state-based definition of 'true' religion and of patriotism, one that admits of no legitimate dissension and that promises to be the only perspective framing public and political discourse." He continues, "Conformity, rigidity of thinking, intolerance, prejudice and ethnocentrism-the elements that Adorno, et al identified more than a half century ago as the defining features of the 'authoritarian personality'-are being embraced as the only truly American approach to our nation and the world. . . . the forces of pre-modernism and destruction of social justice and progress that, apparently, the majority of voting Americans have embraced" (personal communication, Nov. 7, 2004).

The apparently growing authoritarian tendencies in Americans are seen in a recently published nationwide poll of attitudes toward Muslim Americans. The study revealed that "nearly half of all Americans surveyed said they think the US government should restrict the civil liberties of Muslim Americans." Conducted by Cornell University, the survey "also found that Republicans and people who describe themselves as highly religious were more apt to support curtailing liberties than Democrats or people who are less religious [italics added]-a finding similar to that reported by the social scientists in their major study of prejudice and "the authoritarian personality" over 50 years ago.

An administration-accommodating mainstream media is cited as well in the Cornell University survey: "Researchers also found that respondents who paid more attention to television news were more likely to fear terrorist attacks and support limiting the rights of Muslim Americans. The researchers were "startled by the correlation [of curtailing civil liberties] with religion and exposure to television news." Said James Shanahan, communications professor and an organizer of the survey, " We need to explore why these two very important channels of discourse may nurture fear rather than understanding." ("44% in poll OK limits on rights of Muslims", by William Kates, Associated Press, The Boston Globe, Dec. 18, 2004)

It is believed that Americans and the world would benefit from another major study: the apparent emerging authoritarian tendencies in America. Such a study could focus on the kind of developmental family relationships and economic, political and religious forces in society that make the individual receptive to antidemocratic propaganda and discriminatory policies. A similar focus would be on the kind of family life and institutional forces that prepare the individual to respond positively to democratic appeals that encourage diversity, equality, and mutuality. A key concern would be to understand what in an individual attracts him or her to a religion of "moral values" that seeks to control and gain power over people, or one committed to their freedom and self-empowerment and the common good.

Those who urge Democrats to learn from the election and let their own light of faith shine on the electorate appear to have learned little from the vote themselves. Jesus did not just say, "Let your light so shine before men." He continued, "that they may see your good works [italics added] (Matthew 5:16). Letting one's light shine is about "good works" not "moral values" that discriminate against and deny freedom to those who are different or live by other values. To Jesus, "good works" were about being "merciful" and thereby obtaining mercy, about being "peacemakers" and thereby becoming "sons of God" (Matthew 5: 7,9).

Why is it that certain Christians take to their heart Jesus' commandment, "Love your neighbor as yourself" (Luke 10:25-37), and other Christians take to their head his saying, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6)? It is assumed that love of one's neighbor depends on love of oneself: one's ability to experience one's own humanness and to embrace one's own worth and rights. It is also assumed that the need for one's "way" and "truth" and "life" to be authoritatively spelled out for everyone reveals a personal insecurity born not of self-love but of self-doubt-rendering one vulnerable to the "moral clarity" of "Christocentric" authority. It seems obvious, therefore, that our nation and other nations would benefit from another study of what in our traditional family relationships and in our society contributes to the emotional security provided by self-love and, conversely, to the insecurity of self-doubt.

The bottom line of religion is behavior not belief-just as the truth is reflected in what one does. Religion is about respecting people's right to be who they are, not about imposing "moral values" on them. It is about empowering people not gaining power over them. About calling them by their own names. About experiencing their reality not interpreting it. It is about loving one's neighbor as oneself. The more one is in touch with and accepting of oneself, the better prepared one is to experience and accept other persons as themselves. "It's about love!"

This article is dedicated with gratitude to the memory of Dr. Daniel J. Levinson, a co-author of The Authoritarian Personality, who was the consultant for Rev. Alberts' doctoral dissertation on authoritarian and supportive attitudes of ministers toward juvenile delinquency and youth offenders, and for his post-doctoral research on the problem areas of the work of Methodist ministers.

Rev. William E. Alberts, Ph.D. is a hospital chaplain. Both a Unitarian Universalist and a United Methodist minister, he has written research reports, essays and articles on racism, war, politics and religion. He can be reached at: william.alberts@bmc.org.

2004-12-18T19:10:00.000-08:00

On Bended Knee
Faith-Based Deceptions
By Rev. WILLIAM E. ALBERTS
President Bush seems to be engaged in a messianic, Jesus-like calling "to set at liberty those who are oppressed." (Luke 4: 19b) He continues to justify his Administration's war of choice against non-threatening Iraq by repeatedly playing both the democracy and the religion cards: "Freedom is not America's gift to the world, it is God's gift to every man and woman in the world." (Acceptance Speech to Republican Convention Delegates, The New York Times, Sept. 3, 2004) "Freedom" is the preferred code word as it represents a palatable universal ideal. Substitute "Christ" for "freedom" as "God's gift to the world" and the same intent to dominate, rather than liberate, seems obvious. However, unlike Jesus who chose to ride on a donkey to set people free, Bush resorts to overwhelming military force that kills and maims all who resist or happen to be in the path of "the advance of liberty".
Like "freedom," "God" is also big here. Power over others, whether for their oil or to anoint them with "the oil of gladness" (Hebrews 1:9b) is best hidden behind a posture of piety. And what better place to also hide other deceptions than behind the appearance of purity, honesty, humility, devotion. President Bush's faith-based deception is readily seen. His Administrations's pre-emptive war began on bended knee.
At his March 6, 2003 news conference, President Bush said, "I pray daily. I pray for guidance and wisdom and strength. . . . I pray for peace. I pray for peace." (The New York Times, Mar. 7, 2003). Two weeks later American military unleashed 21,000 pound "shock and awe" bombs on the people of Iraq. Bush's daily prayers evidently discredited US intelligence showing no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and no Iraqi ties to the 9/11 attacks-the two key arguments to justify invading Iraq, charges that were not only wrong but knowingly false. Nor were Bush's prayers informed by UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix, whose team "found no evidence of Iraq possessing weapons of mass destruction," and who said when Bush's war-starting "moment of truth for the world" ended the search, "I don't think it is reasonable to close the door to inspections after 3 _ months." (The Boston Globe, Mar. 19, 2003)
To whom did President Bush pray daily for peace? His former Treasury Secretary, Paul O'Neill, said that removing Saddam Hussein from power "was topic 'A' 10 days after the inauguration-eight months before Sept. 11." ("Bush Sought 'Way' To Invade Iraq" www.cbsnews.com, Jan. 11, 2004) And Richard Clarke, Bush's former chief advisor on terrorism, reported that Bush seemed determined to use the 9/11 attack against America as a pretext to invade Iraq. According to Clarke, Bush told him "to find whether Iraq did this." And when he replied, "We looked at it . . . [and] there's no connection," Bush insisted that he "come back with a report that said Iraq did this." (Clarke's Take on Terror," www.cbsnews.com, Mar. 21, 2004)
In spite of all the evidence, including the bi-partisan 9/11 Commission finding "no credible evidence" of a "collaborative relationship" between Iraq and Al-Qaeda in the attack on America, President Bush continues to use that discredited argument to justify his administration's selective, costly war. During the first presidential debate, when Senator Kerry told him that he "made a mistake in invading Iraq," Bush replied, "But the enemy attacked us . . . and I have a solemn duty to protect the American people." Kerry responded by pointing out the obvious: "Saddam Hussein didn't attack us. Osama bin Laden attacked us. Al-Qaeda attacked us." Here may be seen one reason why Bush initially resisted the creation of the 9/11 Commission.
To whom does President Bush pray "for wisdom and guidance and strength"? His repeated campaign stump speeches-to uncritical, by-invitation-only audiences-lacks truth-telling: he saw a "threat," shared it and "the intelligence" with Congress, whose members came to the same conclusion. He then "went to the United Nations because this country must always try diplomacy first. . . . We sent inspectors into his country" whom "he systematically deceived" (www.lesun-news.com, "Text of President Bush's Speech in Las Cruces", Aug. 26, 2004)
A recent New York Times special report reveals that senior Bush Administration officials withheld key intelligence from Congress: that seized aluminum tubes destined for Iraq "were likely intended for small artillery rockets," and not "irrefutable evidence," as Vice-President Cheney said, of Saddam Hussein rebuilding his "mushroom cloud"-threatening nuclear weapons program. (Oct. 3, 2004)
Whatever deity President Bush prays to appears neither to inspire "wisdom" or love-especially regarding perceived enemies. He repeatedly tells his selective campaign stump speech audiences, "See, you can't talk sense to the terrorists. You cannot negotiate with them. You cannot hope for the best. You must bring them to justice." (Ibid; www.whitehouse.gov, "President's Remarks in Canton, Ohio," July 31, 2004)
Ironically, President Bush could not talk to Hans Blix about the assumed weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. If he had during the run-up to the war, Blix would have told him that "recent inspections proved far-ranging and more effective than any previously in Iraq," that "while inspectors followed up leads from US intelligence, I must regret we have not found . . . any smoking guns." (The Boston Globe, Mar. 19, 2003) Bush evidently also had difficulty "talking sense to" Richard Clarke about "Iraq! Saddam!" when Clarke told him "there's no connection" between Iraq and the 9/11 attack on America.
Most telling was President Bush's reaction to the UN inspectors' pre-war search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. His resistance to the inspections led him to repeatedly say, "I'm sick and tired of games and deceptions." (The New York Times, Jan. 15, 2003). "How much time do we need to see clearly that he is not disarming." (The New York Times, Jan. 22, 2003) "No doubt he will play a last-minute game of deception. The game is over." (The New York Times, Feb. 7, 2003). Saddam Hussein had stated, "As I tell you, and have said on many occasions before, that there are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, whatsoever." ("60 Minutes II," CBS, Feb. 5, 2003) The final report on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction prepared by Charles A. Duelfer, America's chief weapons inspector for Iraq, is now in: "Iraq had destroyed its illicit weapons stockpile within months after the Persian Gulf War of 1991, and its ability to produce such weapons had significantly eroded by the time of the American invasion in 2003." (The New York Times, Oct. 7, 2004). Bush constantly accused Hussein of the very deception he was practicing-and continues to practice with his faith-based posturing.
So-called "terrorists," Hans Blix, and Richard Clarke are not the only persons President Bush evidently "can't talk sense to." The deity to whom he prays apparently led him not into the United Nations, but delivered him from the French, the Germans, the Russians, the Chinese and the leaders of other countries. He turned off many by the unilateralism underlying his call to arms in the fight of good against evil: "You're either with us or with the terrorists."
There seems to be a whole host of people President Bush has difficulty "talking sense to." During a 2000 presidential campaign debate, when asked to name the political philosopher or thinker with whom he most identified, he answered, "Christ, because he changed my heart." When the moderator followed up with, "I think the viewer would like to know more on how he changed your life," Bush replied, "Well, if they don't know, it's going to be hard to explain." It was. Bush repeated, "Ah, when you turn your heart and your life over to Christ, when you accept Christ as a saviour, it changes your heart, it changes your life. And that's what happened to me." Bush's inability or refusal to "talk sense" to people extends far beyond so-called "terrorists."
A basic threat to our security is President Bush repeatedly telling us Americans that "you can't talk sense to the terrorists." In declaring his global war "to rid this world of evil and terror," he repeatedly demonizes his administration's selected enemies, who are stripped of their humanity by being constantly called "evildoers," "the evil ones," "killers," "terrorists." ("George W. Bush's insights on evil," www.irregulartimes.com Oct. 5, 2004) Here a child, woman, older man, or another civilian caught in the onslaught of "liberation" is able to be counted as a dead "insurgent." Here there is Abu Ghraib Prison. Here there is fostered a dehumanizing culture of death which prizes the presidential candidate who can best "hunt down and kill the terrorists." Here there is no need for "the greatest nation on the face of the earth" to engage in soul-searching about its foreign policy, no need to take the log out of its own eye, as Jesus taught, so that its people may see clearly enough to experience, rather than interpret, the reality of another country.
To whom does President Bush pray? It is not believed to be about prayer but about global domination masked as divine intervention. It is about conquest and exploitation in the name of "freedom." It is about the "transfer of power" to selective Iraqis secretly completed, with the "gift" of "freedom" now in Iraq-wrapped in US occupation. It is about resisting "insurgents" being ground under to pave the way for an election-at the point of a gun. It is about resistance to occupation driven by nationalistic love of country and not about "terrorists" who "hate our success [and] our liberty." (Ibid.)
It is not assumed to be about "the ways of Providence" but about arrogance disguised as "moral clarity." It is about instilling fear to control us and stay in power under the pretext of providing security to protect us. It is about conformity parading as patriotism. If "the world is better off without Saddam Hussein in power," does that mean the world is better off without Kenneth A. Milton? Without Jose A. Perez? Without Samuel R. Bowen? And is the world better off without all those other American sons and daughters being killed--and maimed-- in Iraq?
Faith-based deception is believed to be about George W. Bush and his administration and not about "the loving God behind all of life and all of history." (The New York Times, Jan. 21, 2003). A loving God talks to everyone, wants his sun to shine "on the evil and on the good," rather than setting them warring against each other. A loving God desires the rain to descend on and refresh "the just and the unjust," not have them imposing irreconcilable, demonizing differences between each other. A loving God "is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked," not only inspires love of one's neighbor as oneself, but love of one's enemies as well. (Matthew 5: 43-48; 22:35-40; Luke 6:31-36) Peace is not just about "bringing terrorists to justice" but about bringing justice to those terrorized by poverty and domination.
Rev. William E. Alberts, Ph.D. is a hospital chaplain. Both a Unitarian Universalist and a United Methodist minister, he has written research reports, essays and articles on racism, war, politics and religion. He can be reached at: william.alberts@bmc.org

2004-12-18T19:02:00.000-08:00

2003-12-15T12:35:00.000-08:00

“Terrorism: The Greater Threat Lies Within”
by
Rev. William E. Alberts

The greatest threat to the security of the United States is not terrorism from without but an attitude of superiority from within. Our country is in danger of becoming a super nation. God is being replaced by—or serving as an accomplice to—a global “war on terrorism,” begun as a “crusade” and heralded as “Operation Infinite Justice,” “a war,” we are told, “to save the world” by ridding it of “evildoers.” This attitude of superiority was expressed by President Bush in his weekly radio address on September 22, 2001 in response to the horrific atrocities of September 11: “I want to remind the people of America, we’re still the greatest nation on the face of the Earth, and no terrorist will ever be able to decide our fate. May God bless you all.” The President reveals an attitude that itself could “decide our fate.”
The atrocities of September 11 offered us citizens the opportunity to engage in serious self-examination about our country’s foreign policy and whether it may have contributed to such violent aggression. But “the greatest nation on the face of the Earth” has defended against any national soul searching. Instead of introspection, we got knee-jerk, flag-waving, distraction-inducing patriotism—with periodic observances of the
carnage of September 11 that keep our attention fixed on “ground zero,” wherein there is
*Dr. William E. Alberts is hospital chaplain at Boston Medical Center. Both a Unitarian Universalist minister and United Methodist minister, he received his Ph.D. from Boston University in the field of psychology and pastoral counseling. His numerous essays and articles on racism and politics and religion have appeared in newspapers, magazines and journals, with research reports on mainstream print media’s coverage of issues of race and racism published by the William Monroe Trotter Institute at the University of Massachusetts Boston and by Sage race relations abstracts, London, UK.

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no room for scrutiny of our government’s foreign policy in our name. Perhaps underlying any resistance to national self-examination in the wake of September 11 is a fear of discovering far greater atrocities committed in our name.
Such an atrocity is our country’s ongoing genocidal policy against Iraq, which apparently is the next target of America’s so-called “war on terrorism.” A Boston Globe editorial reports President Bush as stating, “the ‘one thing I will not allow is a nation such as Iraq to threaten our very future by developing weapons of mass destruction.’” (Mar. 15, 2002). The editorial itself adds, “In reality [italics added], Saddam already has large quantities of chemical and biological weapons.”
The Boston Globe assumes to know Iraq’s “reality”: A more recent editorial repeatedly cites “Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction,” emphasizes the threat he poses with them, also warns that he “is closer than ever to developing nuclear weapons after nearly four years without UN weapons inspectors working in Iraq,” and states that “Bush is justified in authorizing covert action to topple Saddam as reported by Bob Woodward in The Washington Post”—the justification for which is “to help liberate Iraq from Saddam’s republic of fear” and establish “a decent democratic government.” (June 19, 2002) Evidently Republican and Democratic leaders alike also know Iraq’s “reality,” as they “voiced support yesterday for expanded administration plans to topple Saddam Hussein,” which includes preemptive military action against Iraq—or any other regime perceived as “a threat to the United States.” (The Boston Globe, June 17, 2002)
“In reality?” In a May 21, 2002 speech at The Community Church of Boston, Scott Ritter, a former senior UN weapons inspector for Iraq, from 1991 to 1998, stated
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there is no credible evidence that Iraq has any chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction. In an October 12, 2001 Los Angeles Times op ed page piece, Ritter wrote that the “legitimate concern about the status of the United Nations’ efforts to account for all Iraq’s weapons programs … must be tempered by the reality [italics added] that most of Iraq’s biological agents, along with its production facilities, have been destroyed.” Ritter concludes, “With its military poorly trained and equipped, its economy in tatters and once-vaunted weapons of mass destruction largely dismantled by UN weapons inspectors, Iraq today represents a threat to no one.”
“In reality?” The United States-controlled UN Security Council imposed complete economic sanctions against Iraq in August of 1990, supposedly in response to Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait. The United States then took only 42 days to bomb Iraq into submission—intentionally destroying and damaging the country’s life-support systems (dams, water-pumping stations, municipal water and sewage facilities, food processing plants and warehouses, farm herds, municipal buildings and so much more), which served to intensify the hardship imposed by the sanctions. On August 12, 1999, UNICEF reported on the devastation caused by the sanctions: “If the substantial reduction in child mortality throughout Iraq during the 1980s had continued through the 1990s, there would have been half a million fewer deaths of children under five in the country as a whole during the eight year period 1991 to 1998.” (For a penetrating analysis of “the devastation of Iraq by war and sanctions,” see Ramsey Clark’s essay
called “Fire and Ice” in Challenge to Genocide: Let Iraq Live, International Action Center, New York, 1998.)
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“In reality?” On May 12, 1996, when “60 Minutes” correspondent Leslie Stahl told then United States Ambassador to the UN Madeleine Albright, “We have heard that a half million children have died” and asked, “Is this price worth it?,” Albright replied, “We think the price is worth it” [italics added]. Albright added that “the UN will say the sanctions have been successful. He [Saddam Hussein] is not going to invade another country.”
“In reality?” Now, twelve sanction-imposed years later, the death toll of Iraqi children and adults continues to mount and Saddam Hussein has not invaded another country. Nor has he relented and disclosed any hidden chemical and biological weapons, or unleashed them on any country or American city—if he has any stockpile and the capability to unleash them, which, if he did, would be to commit national suicide, given America’s own nuclear arsenal is far bigger than all the other countries put together. Nor have the suffering Iraqi people risen up and toppled his government if that were the purpose of the sanctions. The “60 Minutes” program, called “Punishing Saddam,” reported that the Iraqi people blame the United States and not Saddam Hussein for the sanctions and the genocide-like suffering and deaths they are causing. In reality, the United States-controlled sanctions themselves are a continuing, silent, insidious weapon of mass destruction. They are a perversion of the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you fear they will do unto you—because of what you have done unto them. It is the roots of the fear that need to be examined and addressed. The sanctions are a source of rage to
seethe and grow and turn into a powder-keg of hatred and explode in the faces of Americans.
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The demonizing of Saddam Hussein appears to be in full swing, serving to gain public support for a war against the people of Iraq, to divert attention from the genocide in Iraq caused by the sanctions, and to justify the violation of Iraq’s national sovereignty. A Boston Globe editorial, entitled “SADDAM’S IRAQI VICTIMS,” recalls Saddam Hussein’s “genocidal campaign against the Iraqi Kurds in the late 1980s” that resulted in the deaths of “50,000 to 180,000” Kurds. The editorial states that “mass murderers,” like Saddam Hussein, “have many collaborators,” such as Arab leaders if they “keep their shameful silence about Saddam’s genocidal regime.” (Mar. 25, 2002) Omitted from the editorial are two apparent “collaborators” close to home: the United States and the United Kingdom who were friends and allies of Saddam Hussein throughout the time of his atrocities against the Kurds.
It would appear that the responsibility to assess United States foreign policy on our behalf is not being adequately fulfilled by mainstream print media. A Washington Post editorial called “A Coalition for Iraq” asserts that “the United States can, and should, create a consensus [among Arab governments in the Middle East] over the course of the next few months for freeing Iraqis [italics added] from the Saddam Hussein
dictatorship” (Mar. 24, 2002). Similarly, A Boston Globe editorial entitled “ONE AT A TIME” ends with, “The administration should finish dismantling Al Qaeda before turning to Saddam, but it should also continue to prepare for the day when US power will be used
to keep America’s tragically unfulfilled promise to liberate Iraqis [italics added] from their despised dictator” (Jan. 8, 2002).

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In reality Iraq needs to be liberated from United States foreign policy. What the children of Iraq and their families have needed for years is not cluster bombs but sanction-denying parts for incubators to work, not air raids but ambulances, not guns but gauze, not anti-ballistic missiles but antibiotics, not military force but medical help, not sanctions but Americans who are “fair” and “compassionate” and “generous,” not an attitude of superiority but of commonality.
America’s fate is in danger of being decided not by “terrorists” but by an attitude of superiority. This is an attitude that repeatedly proclaims the value of and America’s friendship for Muslim people, while paying $1,000 compensation to families for each innocent Afghanistan civilian proved to be “mistakenly” killed by United States bombing. While naturally denied often by the Bush Administration, it is easier for “the greatest nation on the face of the earth” to wage war against persons who don’t look like people sampled in public opinion polls or believe as they do.
This attitude of superiority imposes an equality between tanks and slingshots: thus it finances and supports Israel’s brutal military occupation of Palestinians’ land, and puts the onus on the oppressed to reduce the escalating violence. It then tells the oppressed to
get rid of their democratically-elected leader and elect “new and different Palestinian leadership . . . not compromised by terror,” and “build a practicing democracy based on tolerance and liberty” [italics added] for “America and the world” to “actively support their efforts” for “independence.” [from transcript of President Bush’s speech on his
Middle East proposals, The New York Times, June 25, 2002]. These are the words of the so-called “leader of the free world,” who lost the popular vote and was installed as
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president by a Republican-favored US Supreme Court—in collusion with highly partisan Florida election authorities, whose manipulation of the outcome included disfranchising thousands of voters, especially Black Americans. The Palestinians already have a democratically-elected leader. We do not. The arrogance and obliviousness of unreflective power. This attitude’s subtle reinterpretation of reality is seen in a New York Times editorial, on President Bush’s latest Middle East proposals, which refers to “the strain of Palestinian terror and Israeli military retaliation.” (June 25, 2002)
This attitude of superiority has virtue and rightness built-in to protect against the invasion of any conflicting outside reality that might prove it wrong and liable. We are constantly told “the terrorists hate us for our freedom and democracy,” and not for any conceivable transgression of United States foreign policy. The very use of the words “terrorists,” “evildoers” and “axis of evil” deifies the user and demonizes those so labeled, discredits the opposition and diverts attention from any injustices of those in power. Thus “a war between good and evil,” led by a president who has “made it clear to the world that we will stand strong on the side of good [italics added], and we expect other nations to join us” (The Boston Globe, Oct. 5, 2001).
America’s fate will be decided by the extent to which we allow the horror of September 11 to engage us in self-examination not self-righteousness. Our country’s security will not be safeguarded by denial but by the demand for truth, not by national arrogance but a foreign policy that recognizes the inalienable rights of all people. In
reality, America’s fate depends on our capacity to experience other people’s reality not interpret it.

2003-12-12T10:36:00.000-08:00

The Holiday Hoax
by
William E. Alberts*

In the name of our most cherished beliefs, leaders can dupe us into supporting policies that are the very opposite of those beliefs.
President Bush visited surprised and enthralled American troops in Iraq at Thanksgiving, telling them, “We’re proud of you. . . . And this year we are especially thankful for the courage and sacrifice of those who defend us. . . . You are defeating the terrorists here in Iraq, so that we don’t have to face them in our own country. . . . By helping to build a peaceful and democratic country in the heart of the Middle East, you are defending the American people from danger and we are grateful. . . . Those who attack our coalition forces and innocent Iraqis are testing our will. They hope we will run. We did not charge hundreds of miles into the heart of Iraq, pay a bitter cost in casualties, defeat a brutal dictator and liberate 25 million people only to retreat before a band of thugs and assassins.” (The New York Times, Nov. 28, 2003)
 “A brutal dictator.” Were not the United States and the United Kingdom friends and allies of Saddam Hussein when he was committing atrocities against his own people? Did not U.S. intelligence agencies provide Iraq
________________________________________________________________________
*Dr. William E. Alberts is hospital chaplain at Boston Medical Center. Both a Unitarian Universalist and a United Methodist minister, he received his Ph.D. from Boston University in the field of Psychology and Pastoral Counseling. His numerous essays and articles on racism, politics and religion have appeared in newspapers, magazines and journals, with research reports on mainstream print media’s coverage of issue of race and racism published by the William Monroe Trotter Institute at the University of Massachusetts, Boston and by Sage race relations abstracts, London, UK. Dr. Alberts’
e-mail address is: william.alberts@bmc.org.

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with satellite photographs of the positions of Iranian forces, knowing that Iraqi commanders would use chemical weapons in the decisive battles of their 1981-88 war? Was not the aim of that support to prevent Iran from
overrunning Persian Gulf countries and gaining control of their oil?
 “A band of thugs and assassins.” What do you think the British occupiers
called the American colonists during the Revolutionary War? What do you
think the invading colonists called the Native Americans? Do killing and
injuring people with “precision” and “smart” bombs fired from a great
distance make one less a “thug”? In his last State of the Union address, did
not President Bush himself boast of assassinating people when referring to the
“fate” of many “terrorists”: “Let’s put it this way, they are no longer a
problem to the United States and our friends and allies?”
 “Those who attack our coalition forces and kill innocent Iraqis are testing our will.” How many tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis have been killed and injured by American and British 21,000 pound “shock and awe” bombs—and in their “charge hundreds of miles into the heart of Iraq?” How many hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children under the age of five died in the last 12 years as a result of the United States-controlled UN Security Council-imposed economic sanctions against Iraq?
 “We did not . . . pay a bitter cost in casualties . . . and liberate 25 million people only to retreat . . .” If “25 million people” were liberated, why did President Bush need to sneak into and out of Iraq under cover of darkness? Why could he not show his face to the “liberated” Iraqi people? And why is this clandestine act perceived as brave?
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 “You are defeating the terrorists here in Iraq so that we don’t have to face them in our own country.” Whatever happened to Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, which were the Bush administration’s urgent justification for pre-emptive war, and about which the President continually warned, “We cannot wait for the final proof that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud?” Are American troops “defeating the terrorists in Iraq” to keep them from coming here? Or has a country that had no known connection with the
atrocities of 9/11, and was no threat to our nation, now become the rallying
cry for anti-American sentiment, recruitment and resistance—with the
widespread goodwill of Muslim people toward Americans after 9/11 gone,
and the “liberators” now perceived as their number one enemy by many in the
Arab world?
 “By helping to build a peaceful and democratic country in the heart of the Middle East, you are defending the American people from danger.” Is the Bush administration’s pre-emptive war against Iraq about “peace” and “democracy”? Or about lucrative, no-bid Iraqi contracts for politically
connected Halliburton and Bechtel and the like? About controlling the
world’s resources of energy for power and profit? About domination in the
name of “the loving God behind all of life and all of history”? (The New York
Times, Jan. 29, 2003) About waging predatory war in the name of “peace on
earth?”
The Christmas story of “peace on earth” is about a prophet who came “to set at
liberty those who are oppressed” not use their oppression as a pretext for coveting their
oil. A prophet who saw his mission as empowering people not gaining power over them
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in the pursuit of global domination. A prophet who taught that the Sabbath was made for
people not people for the Sabbath, that love of God and of one’s neighbor as oneself are
the greatest commandments. A prophet whose birth thrust into our midst every human
being’s inalienable right to his and her space, identity, belief, fulfillment.
If President Bush really supported the troops, he would have brought them home
with him at Thanksgiving, instead of using a holiday hoax to boost their morale so they
would continue killing and maiming and being maimed and killed-- and dehumanized,
leading a number to commit suicide which is rarely publicized. If they had returned home with him, there would be no more body bags unloaded from public view at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. And the President, who flew all the way to Baghdad for a
2 ½ hour visit with the troops, would not have to continue distancing himself from the
funerals here of those killed and their grieving loved ones. That kind of unwanted
publicity would put a flesh and blood “spin” on his being “especially thankful for the
courage and sacrifice of those who defend us.” Real support for our troops also calls for
his administration to turn over control of the restoration of Iraq to the United Nations, so
that an authentic, truly free Iraqi body of, by and for its people can be formed and govern.
This holiday season may we see through the hoax and oppose the waging of war
in the name of “peace on earth.” When his disciples asked, “Who is the greatest in the
kingdom of heaven?,” Jesus did not pick up a sword but a child, and put him in their
midst and said, “Whoever humbles himself like this child, he is the greatest in the
kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 18:1-4). “There’s no place like home for the holidays”--
for everyone.
Happy, hoax-free holidays!