“God’s Christian Warriors” shows crazy side of religion

Anyone who thinks that Christianity is a warm, fuzzy, loving religion needs to watch, or read, God's Christian Warriors – part of a CNN special series on Muslim, Jewish, and Christian fundamentalism.

The whole idea of a religious warrior is crazy, of course. That's what made the two hours my wife and I finished watching last night especially weird.

When someone fights for something real, that's understandable even if you don't agree with their cause. But when you see people all passionately fired up to defend something imaginary, that's bizarre. It'd be diagnosed as insane if it weren't for the pervasiveness of religious mental illness in so many cultures around the world.

Now, I'm all for a decent dose of craziness, because it makes life much more interesting. Unadulterated sanity is boring. However, the caveat is that crazy people can't mess up the lives of others. Then they have to be dealt with.

Unfortunately, it's tough to medicate the 53% of Americans who, according to CNN's Christiane Amanpour (host of the series), believe that evolution is wrong and creationism is right.

Nor to treat the delusions of the now deceased Rev. Jerry Falwell while he was alive, when he responded to Ms. Amanpour's question about whether he still believed that this nation's abortion policies caused us to be attacked on 9/11.

If we in fact change all the rules on which this Judeo-Christian nation was built, we cannot expect the Lord to put his shield of protection around us as He has in the past.

Yeah, that shield sure was working well during the Civil War, when millions of Americans died. And go figure: the Supreme Court hadn't legalized abortion yet. Must have been some other national depravity that caused the Lord to lower his protective shield back then.

This way of thinking is utterly strange. Yet it was repeated over and over again during God's Christian Warriors. Most of the time by angry white men who are absolutely, completely, 100% convinced that they know what's right and how the world should behave.

If the loving touch of Jesus has made them humbler, gentler, and kinder, I can only wonder how off-the-wall they were before Christianity transformed their souls.

Jimmy Carter, a Christian president who seems to understand a more genuine message of Jesus, said:

It's impossible for a fundamentalist to admit he is ever wrong, because he would be admitting that God was wrong.

Well, that's only the case if you consider that you know all about God. Which Christian, Jewish, and Muslim fundamentalists do, because the Bible and Koran tell them so (leaving aside the not-so-small problem of the many contradictions between Old Testament, New Testament, and Koranic revelations).

It's when religious zealotry merges with political policy-making that things really get crazily scary. Pastor John Hagee is a fervent Christian Zionist. Israel can do no wrong in his eyes, which only see the world through Biblical blinders.

Amanpour asked him whether God really has a foreign policy. Indeed He does, Hagee said. In line with a "Supporting Israel" page on his web site, Hagee referred to Genesis 12:3 and told her:

Concerning the Jewish people, that's His [God's] foreign policy statement.

If you don't have that Old Testament passage memorized (and I hope to God you don't), here it is.

And I will bless them that bless thee and curse him that curseth thee; and in thee shall all nations of the earth be blessed.

Dear lord. Hagee, along with millions of other true Christian and Jewish believers, wants the 21^st century foreign policy of the United States to be guided by a vague Biblical verse written thousands of years ago. That'd be comical if it wasn't so serious in a nuclear age.

Fortunately for my teeth grinding (which otherwise would have been nearly continuous throughout God's Christian Warriors), there were a few Christians scattered throughout the program who embodied a more appealing form of Christianity.

Jimmy Carter was one. Richard Cizik, a prominent environmentalist evangelical, was another. (He says that polluters will have to answer to God, not just government.)

My favorite non-crazy Christian was pastor Greg Boyd. I've got to like an evangelical who's considered a heretic by fundamentalists. He talked about seeing a Fourth of July service at another church.

And there was patriotic music playing and a flag waving in the background. It showed a silhouette of three crosses. And four fighter jets came down over the crosses and split, with a flag waving in the background.

And there were some people who stood up. They were ecstatic. And I started crying, because I -- I wondered, how is it possible that we went from being a movement of people who follow the messiah, who taught us to love our enemies, to being a movement that celebrates fighter jets, that fuses Jesus' death on the cross with killing machines?

And that was, I guess, a -- a wakeup call to me about how serious this problem is among evangelicals in America.

The problem of unfounded righteousness always is going to be with us so long as Christians fail to recognize that they're fallible human beings, just like the rest of us.

It's fine to have personal opinions about what's right and wrong. It isn't fine to try to impose them on everybody else, using blind faith in an unknown God as your battle cry.

That happens to be the name of Ron Luce's movement: Battlecry. Luce, a forty-six year old, is out to save the youth of America. From what, I'm not sure. But whatever it is, it's dangerous. Amanpour asked him why he's declared war on the American lifestyle.

We call them terrorists, virtue terrorists, that are destroying our kids. They're raping teenage America on the sidewalk. And everybody's walking by as if it is OK, and it isn't OK.

Hmmmm. I guess Luce is upset because teenagers are having sex, smoking pot, drinking and doing other stuff that teenagers have always done.

If Luce was a decade or so older he'd have a memory of the '60s, like I do, and realize that a better term for "virtue terrorists" is "having a good time." (In fact, he admitted that he did these things himself when he was younger).

My parting piece of advice to any Christian warriors who read this post is this: it's all right to be who you really are, and allow other people the same freedom.

Observe the case of Idaho Senator Larry Craig, who came into the news today after pleading guilty to a bathroom stall incident. If you turn to Craig's senatorial web site, on his personal philosophy page you can read that one goal of his is to:

Defend and strengthen the traditional values of the American family.

That's great. And personally I've got nothing against Craig's bathroom stall behavior, so long as it is consensual. Here's what is reported to have happened after Craig went into a public rest room that was already occupied by a plain clothes police officer.

According to Roll Call, the arresting officer alleged that Craig lingered outside a rest room stall where the officer was sitting, then entered the stall next door and blocked the door with his luggage.

According to the arrest report cited by Roll Call, Craig tapped his right foot, which the officer said he recognized "as a signal used by persons wishing to engage in lewd conduct."

The report alleges Craig then touched the officer's foot with his foot and the senator "proceeded to swipe his hand under the stall divider several times," according to Roll Call.

At that point, the officer said he put his police identification down by the floor so Craig could see it and informed the senator that he was under arrest, before any sexual contact took place.

One more Christian warrior, who was rated 100% by the Christian coalition, bites the hypocritical dust. May many more follow in his footsteps until honest this-is-who-I-am-ness rules the land.

Senator Craig, it's OK if you're gay. Just be who you are. Michael Vick, just tell us that you're sorry for your dog fighting – saying you've found Jesus doesn't make your apology any more believable.

Comments

[william]

“My favorite non-crazy Christian was pastor Greg Boyd.” Me to that pastor actually had an inking about what Jesus was about. I taped it for my wife to see and to give to her pastor for him to watch.

We are the most Christian industrialized country in the world and we always seem to be fighting in a war with someone. What’s up with that? I could have sworn Jesus stated love your enemies.

But this war is worth it with all that oil at stake. Who can blame us? Jesus was a capitalist and an imperialist and taught that a country should be a superpower and carry a big stick, so I understand the desire for Christians to want that oil and have the largest military budget in the world.

I once heard a Christian scholar state: “logic has never had a very important role to play in religious beliefs” these are as true of words one can find on religion, as we know it.

“Observe the case of Idaho Senator Larry Craig, who came into the news today after pleading guilty to a bathroom stall incident.”

This is karma at its best as this is the person that headed up the drive to impeach Clinton for his fling with Monica. Payback is not always pretty but it can be very meaningful if it causes one to view the world differently and with more compassion.

As a not so famous psychiatrist once said “embarrassment is one of the greatest potential learning opportunities we have in life.”
.

[Tucson Bob]

Vick, of course, is just saying what his publicists and attorneys are telling him to say. He is sorry about his dogfighting because he got caught and it's costing him, big time. He said his actions were immature, but that's not it at all. They were callous and sadistic. I don't think he really gets that deep down, although he knows now how most people feel about it. The sadistic aspect of his personality will not be changed because of this, just derailed and suppressed for awile. Maybe in time he'll change, but mean streaks run deep.

NBA player Stephan Marbury defended Vick by saying dogfighting is just a sport. Marbury doesn't get that to most people the idea of taking pleasure in watching two animals tear each other apart, betting on the outcome, and then hanging, shooting or electrocuting the ones that lose, is abhorrent. Hey, that's entertainment folks!

Some people, like PETA, compare hunting to dogfighting saying it is the same type of bloodlust. I'm not a hunter and would not enjoy killing an animal for sport or food (I would do it if necessary to survive), but most hunters don't do it for the pleasure of watching the animal suffer and die. They do it because of the excitement of the hunt, the challenge of it, and a feeling of accomplishment at being successful. Most of them eat what they kill and make use of the hide, etc. This goes back to something genetically imprinted in many people, to a time when survival meant a successful hunt and when hunting was an important part of many cultures for many millenia.

This is different than raising animals and training them for the pleasure of watching them kill and maim and making a gambling business out of it, letting the tougher dogs survive/suffer with their wounds to heal and fight again another day while the weak are destroyed in various ways. In short, dogfighting business is torture business.

Hunters are, as a group, conservationists who have been instrumental in helping preserve natural environments and establishing protected areas. Even if you hate hunting, you would probably admit conservation is a good thing. Deer overpopulate certain areas and hunting helps maintain ecological balance where other predators are in low numbers.

I'm not saying all hunters are saints. Having lived in rural areas, I know some of them are lowlifes. But who would you rather have living next door, a hunter who has a family tradition of going out in the fall to get an elk for food for the winter, or a guy who runs a dogfighting/gambling operation in the barn?

What this has to do with churchlessness and my usual philosophical BS, I don't know, but Brian mentioned Vick and this is what happened. William, this proves I am not enlightened, as what enlightened person would concern themselves with such mundane matters, or, being in the undifferentiated state, how could an enlightened person express such dualistic concepts?

[william]

thanks for the honesty tucson bob.

being raised on a farm I hunted and we ate the hunt. Squirrels and rabbits.

the last time I killed an animal (1974) I only wounded it and I had to kill it up close. It was looking right at me wounded. Right in my eye. My heart went out to that animal and still does to this day. I shot it again to kill it and not leave it there alive for other animals to cause more suffering.

Needless to say I do not hunt animals anymore and I am a member of a group that is trying to stop factory farming.

visit a factory farm someday and it will upset you. These animals are abused their entire life.

you can judge a society by how it treats its animals. We live in a very dog eat dog society. (pun intended) it is called capitalism.

As I spent much of my professional career studying and teaching how systems and structure influenced the mentality and success (or lack of success) of an organization I now see how an economic system and structure influences a culture of a country. Fascinating to observe in action.

[Chris]

Thank you for your posts!

[Tucson Bob]

On the other hand, William, perhaps an 'awakened' person has the ability to 'slip' interchangably from an intuitive, undifferentiated state to a dualistic, split-mind state and comment on politics, etc.? Ask one if you can find one, but they might say there is no one to do it and no one has ever been enlightened/awakened.

Personally, I don't like killing animals, but I am not a vegetarian because I have found that I have better health with some animal protein in my diet. Blame this on my ancestors. As I get older and less active, the protein requirements are reduced, but I still need some animal protein to feel my best.

The vegetarian diet is a high carbohydrate diet unless you are subsisting on salad and certain nuts. Most vegetarians base their diets on grains, tubers and beans and sometimes lots of fruit which are all high carb foods. Some people do well on high carbs, but others aren't metabolically suited for this. Look at what has happened to the Inuit who were primarily a meat-eating race with little degerative disease associated with civilization. Now, on white man's food, they have high rates of diabetes and heart disease. The quick one or two generation switch from all meat to many carbs was too much for them.

This is not intended as a justification or rationalization, but more creatures are killed every year by factory crop production than factory meat farming. This is due to habitat distruction, and the killing of reptiles, rodents and insects in the process of preparing the soil and harvesting vast acreages of crops. If one doesn't want as many animals killed, he had better grow his own food or buy from small organic growers. Of course, the organic grower need not be short. It's OK if he's tall.

I don't mean to say that factory meat production is better. Obviously, animals suffer and are abused in that industry. Again, if one eats meat and wants to be as conscientious as possible. Get it yourself, or buy it from small producers who are able to control, more humanely and healthfully, the production process.

With over 6 billion people on the planet and growing, it will be less and less possible to feed humanity on anything other than a high carb, grain-bean based diet. This isn't good for many people as gluten, found in many grains, was simply not available on the evolutionary diet. Almost everybody, to some degree, reacts unfavorably to it although symptoms are not always overt, but rather subversive. Wheat is ubiquitous and is ironically one of the most pernicious foods in modern diets aside from sugar and trans fats.

Bye. Teenager insists on using this computer for homework which is BS. I think MySpace is the true destination. I'll let it slide this time.

[Robert Lindh]

If God didn't want us to eat animals, why did She make them out of meat?

[william]

Again I was unable to communicate my point.

It is not about eating animals it is about how we treat animals and the method we kill those animals. Maybe if we all had to look that animal in the eye and then kill it we would not eat so much or any meat. A person has to be pretty hungry to kill and then eat their pet that by the way is classified as an animal.

PETA folks are veggie folks and are trying to inflict their beliefs on to the world, but who knows; we may someday find out that eating animals is not a good thing. Time will tell.

[nabeel choudhry]

hello how r u ?i had raad ur mail to comment of anothersoul.wat u know about,
when u knocking open the door .
when u borrow must give u.
bcoz it,s word of INJEEL .
In that word which side indicate by this comment,s .

[tao]

Nabeel,

Your message was more or less unintelligible. We speak standard english here on this Church of the Churchless blog, NOT internet troll talk.