Kevin Rhodes Atheism, Belief Systems and Culture, Knowledge, Conviction, and Belief, Religion

Beliefism [Part 1]: The Accidental Atheist

Seeing the Light

I didn’t mean to become an atheist. It just sort of happened until one day I checked the “none” box and made it official. No ceremony, just a realization. “Atheist” wasn’t an option for “religious preference” – “none” is less dramatic than “do you consider yourself to be one of the faithless, the godless, the terminally backslidden?” Well yes, as a matter of fact  I do, but that doesn’t mean I dash from cover to cover to evade the Heavenly Zot Finger. In fact, being an atheist isn’t at all like I once thought it would be.

Then and Now

I went to church when I was a kid because everybody went to church when I was a kid. After a year of Hippie wannabe partying my first year of college, I became a Jesus Freak, then a Pentecostal, a charismatic, an evangelical before there was such a thing, a fundamentalist although nobody would admit that’s what we were, plus I booked time in “nondenominational” churches and “parachurches,” and along the way hung out with Baptists, Catholics, Episcopals, and Lutherans. A journeyman Christian, we’ll call it.

The Redemption Story

All those versions of Christianity pretty much believed the same things, plus each had its own points of doctrinal purity that justified producing under its own label. Mostly, we preferred just “Christian” –our way of signaling don’t worry, we’re not sectarian here, we’re in the sweet spot, right down the middle, no other adjectives needed. The basic story was pretty much the same everywhere.

  • The human race enjoyed a utopian past when life was good.
  • But then we blew it. We “fell.”
  • In our defense, we had help – the Devil made us do it. But still it’s all our fault we’re so screwed up.
  • Before we get blasted by the heavenly zot finger for being terminally incompetent at life, we get a knock on the door of our “heart” (not the one that pumps blood, but the one that chokes you up when you get emotional). If we answer the knock, Jesus is standing there with an invitation back to the Garden. We’d love to go, but we can’t get there, not in our current condition.
  • So we’re going to need help. We need God to forgive us for falling, and we need a Savior to handle the necessary arrangements. That’s Jesus, too.
  • Once Jesus gets things fixed up with God, all is forgiven and we get citizenship in God’s Kingdom. People today who’ve never had a king in charge before think having a king is just the greatest thing.
  • Plus, everybody in the Kingdom is related, so we’ve got all this new family we never knew we had, with God himself presiding fatherly-like at the head of the table. There are definitely benefits to showing up for family gatherings and remembering birthdays.
  • Having a king means we’re subjects and servants – which people today who’ve never had a king also think is just the best thing – which includes being conscripted into the King’s army, which means we’re always marching off to war with the cross of Jesus going on before. Since our new King is more powerful than any human pretenders, that means we get to totally waste everybody who’s not part of us, because if you’re not with us you’re against us, and if you’re against us you lose. We have God on our side, after all.
  • So we go along through life and if things go as promised (they never seem to) life is better than it would have been if we’d never answered the knock (which by now seems a long time ago), except that part of the deal is that we need to suffer and be persecuted and if we’re lucky we might even get martyred. (You don’t get free grace for nothing.)
  • What keeps us going through all those trials and tribulations is that one great day (which is always going to happen any minute now and never does, but we need to live on the alert in case it does) we’ll have it really good forever and ever amen.
  • If you die before that day comes and you believe all the right things, you get the pre-opening move-in special to Heaven, unless you’re a Catholic, in which case you might need to wait in a giant waiting room for awhile.
  • Meanwhile the heavenly zot finger has been charging up all this time for one good last blast. Some branches of the family think we’ll get a free pass out before that happens and everybody else will be Left Behind where they’ll get a taste of what hell is like before they get there for good. Other branches aren’t really sure the world is going to blow up quite that way, even though we could do the job ourselves with nukes or climate change.
  • One way or another, when you get to your own end, it could be anything from “no worries, it’s all good” to “this is really going to hurt.”

Okay, so maybe that was a little snarky.

But it is a fair summary of what I heard and learned and personally believed for over two irretrievable decades of my life. Snarky gets old fast, and I don’t want to make it a habit, but it has its place. The pen is not always mightier than the sword, but irony and sarcasm can put things into useful relief. I go back to snarky now and then, like I did above, when I want to remember what it felt like to look around and wonder, did I really believe that? Looking at it now, it seems so complicated. convoluted, contradictory. Snarky is the voice of anger, and we need anger to tackle big challenges — like refashioning an outlook on life .that’s different from what you’ve been believing and practicing for a long time.

Snarky gains traction by fueling inner outrage. For me, that involved being willing to admit that I had some not so nice and friendly feelings about where I’d come from.

  • Regret and resentment about what my God days cost me.
  • Disgust about what the Bible actually says, and dismay that I never noticed.
  • A revulsion reflex that kicks in whenever I see Christian symbols or see Christians doing Christian things or speaking or writing Christianese. (My wife is a Jesus fan. She says I’ve developed an anaphylactic reaction.)

Regret, resentment, disgust, and revulsion keep me alert to the reality that there are consequences to what I believe. Feelings like that weren’t welcome during my Christian years. You weren’t supposed to feel that way – you needed to forgive and be forgiven, put it behind you, be grateful that you were reconciled to an angry God who had every right to punish you for that original Adam and Eve transgression.

Emerging from the Christian faith is hard.

But it’s harder to resist the dawn.

Impossible, really.

“It suddenly dawned on me,” we say. Dawn has its sudden moment when the sun finally crests the horizon, but it’s been coming long before — gradually, inexorably. From the first hints of light, it’s going to happen, and no holding it back.

“I saw the light!” Christians sing, describing lightbulb flash conversion– like the Apostle Paul getting blasted off his horse with a heavenly light and a voice from heaven. People who had “testimonies” like that had special status in the Christian groups I was part of – you were cooler if you got “saved hard,” as one Christian leader liked to say. So you would make the fish a little bigger and little harder to catch every time you told your own fish story. I did that — most of us did — like my AA friend who said his group liked to tell “I got so drunk one time that…” stories.

By contrast, getting unsaved wasn’t like that. No light bulbs, no heavenly light, no getting saved hard.

Just the dawn.

Kevin Rhodes Racism and Reparations, Socialism, The Long Reads

“I’m afraid to ask for it.”

I did an art giveaway for the holidays – 33 paintings and drawings out the door. Nice. Someone had commented about one of them – “I don’t even like orange, but I like this!” I thought she would ask for it – when she didn’t I sent her a message. “I’d really like to have it,” she replied, “but I’m afraid to ask for it.” So I sent it to her.

“I’m afraid to ask for it.”

What if you weren’t?

 “Oh, I couldn’t.”

What if you could?

Where do we get that from? What would be so bad about asking for it? What if we could?

I hear the Republicans rail against anything that might… you know, be something that would be um, nice to have…. I watch them smack the label “socialism” on things with a triumphant smirk, like, “There! That settles it! Look at me — I just won! I’m so good! None of that Commie bullshit around here! No lazy handout welfare queen get a job food stamps crap on my carpet!”

What’s with that? Would it really be all that bad to have stuff? I mean stuff like…

Free universal healthcare. Wow. What if the first thing that comes to mind when you think maybe you should get that checked out isn’t, “What’s that going to cost? Will insurance will cover it? Have I met my deductible yet?” What if you could just, you know, just kind of go get it checked out? How bad could that be?

Free education. Omigod the sky is falling! No, but seriously… what if you could get the best education in the world and didn’t have to be in debt forever and never be able to make the monthly payments on it for the rest of your life? What if you could get the degree for the job you want, and if you change your mind or something else redirects your life at some point you could go back to school and do something different? You know, make higher education free and lifetime education. And how about we cancel all existing student debt while we’re at it?

Would any of that really be all that bad?

What’s with us, in this country? We want everything to be up to us. Every individual better be rugged. Everything weget better be something we by God earned.Like it’s not good enough to just be a citizen of These United States.You gottta be able to stand on your own. Government is evil, remember?

Okay, so you’re too proud for a handout – could you live with maybe just some economic equality? A playing field that’s actually level? A return of the notion of upward mobility? The possibility of a better life?

What would be so wrong with that?

Minimum wage of $15. Fifteen dollars!!! That means somebody working full time could actually make enough to about get up to the national poverty standard. Whoop-dee-doo!  The people having problems with fifteen stinking bucks an hour have expense accounts that shell out more than that much to buy a lobbyist a drink.

And since we’re talking about wages, how about the ability to make enough so that you’re not always just barely getting by, living paycheck to paycheck, and you could actually make enough to put something in savings now and then or even – gasp!! – take a vacation more than once in a lifetime?

And speaking of vacations, what’s with the national must-have of a week off after you’ve been there a year? And then you won’t take it anyway, because we’re all too busy realizing our manifest destiny.

Don’t tell me we can’t afford it. I learned to add and subtract in grade school. So did you. It’s not that hard.

I mean, does the USA really need to spend more on defense than China, India, Russia, Saudi Arabia, France, Germany, the U.K., and Japan…  combined?[1] We spend three times more than China and ten times more than our other closest “competitor.” How safe do we need to be? And are we, actually? What about some of that money to, let’s say hire back the medical personnel who lost their jobs during a pandemic? Or to pay teachers a living wage?

And really, how much of a multi-billionaire does anyone really need to be? And what about those mega-corporations who have more invested in a square inch of world headquarters than you and I and all our friends and families will ever see in our combined lifetimes? And what if we don’t hero-worship microwave high-tech entrepreneurs, and sponsor corporate stock buy-backs that make the rich richer?

Do you suppose it might be okay to ask some of those folks to contribute?

Is there any chance hyper-competitive, privatize-everything, monetize-your-life, gig-economy-side-hustle, zero-sum capitalism could survive the stress?

Just asking….

And now that we’re getting warmed up our afraid to ask list, how about

  • Affordable housing?
  • Streets, roads, bridges, and ports that don’t look like a lot of that war glorification money got spent on target practice?
  • A really cool public transportations system that’s safe, clean, and ridiculously on time. What if we even had trains – like those crazy fast ones that run on air or magnets or whatever?
  • And how about really nice and well-maintained public toilets?

Okay, okay… we probably reached the stage of total delusion. But since we’re there, how about:

  • An end of extreme nationalism
  • The USA’s embrace of international law and accountability
  • A worldwide climate change strategy
  • Clean oceans
  • A renewed commitment to parks, public lands, and open spaces
  • Free universal internet
  • Reparations for slavery
  • Reparations to native Americans
  • And end to misogyny, homophobia, xenophobia
  • Gender identity acceptance and kindness
  • Immigrants and refugees welcomed and embraced

Let’s just go for the whole stack…

  • A return of public discourse based on intelligence, reason, science, truthfulness, ethics…
  • And how about an end to reality TV and instead we have something like style and taste and decency and…

Okay dreamer boy, sit down before you hurt yourself.

Sigh.

What if all these things were part of what it means to “establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity”?[2]

What country is this country, anyway?

What if the “public good” wasn’t a bad word? (Okay, two words….)

What if everything that would be nice to have wasn’t unAmerican and a sign of bad moral character and general wimpyness?

What if everything that would be nice to have wasn’t… wait for it… socialism?

What if we weren’t afraid to ask for it?

What if we could?

[1] Axios

[2] Preamble to the Constitution of the United States of America

Kevin Rhodes The Long Reads

The Case For Covid Accountability (Or Not)

I read an article yesterday asking why America doesn’t prosecute Trump for his handling (nonhandling) of the pandemic. We all know what he did and didn’t do, and that that the USA is the world Covid leader, with deaths stalking the half million mark.[1] We also know that Americans move on. It’s what we do — it’s the American way. But that’s not why we wouldn’t try to hold Trump accountable. The truth is, even it we wanted to, we can’t – our law prevents it.

If we were talking about you or me, what are the options for holding us accountable? You read people saying Trump meant for all those people to die, to cull vulnerable populations. If you or I did that, our intent to do that would make it murder or manslaughter.

But he didn’t have to mean it, he could have just been incompetent, like being unqualified for the job. Or he could have actually believed his own fake truth don’t worry this will take its course and be over before you know it, hey look at me I had it and it wasn’t so bad, and besides it’s all China’s fault. Or gee, I was busy golfing that day and my mind was somewhere else. In other words, he could have just been negligent instead of intentional. And again, if that were you or me, we’d be in deep doo-doo.

Here’s a sample of how the law defines criminal negligence, which is the worst kind of negligence there is and therefore is the hardest to prove:

“To be guilty of criminally negligent homicide, the defendant must fail to perceive a substantial and unjustifiable risk that a certain result will occur, and the risk must be of such a nature that the defendant’s failure to perceive it constitutes a gross deviation from a reasonable person’s standard of care.”[2]

What do you think of those key phrases?

  • “The defendant must fail to perceive a substantial and unjustifiable risk that a certain result will occur.”
  • “And the risk must be of such a nature that the defendant’s failure to perceive it constitutes a gross deviation from a reasonable person’s standard of care.”

Do you think a “reasonable person” have noticed that death was “a substantial and unjustifiable risk” of ignoring a pandemic? Would a reasonable person’s “standard of care” suggest that it might have been a good idea to try to prevent disaster if you were in a position to do so? Seems reasonable. (And BTW, “reasonable” in this context doesn’t refer to what reasonableness-impaired nutcases think is reasonable. Instead it means what a… well, um, let’s say a more um, normal person – like one who’s capable of empathy — might think.)

The standard of care that applies when people throw around the word “negligence” is for lawyers to argue about, but at the very least, does a gut-level response suggest that there might be something unreasonable and uncaring about ignoring a plague?

Sure, yeah, okay, well maybe. But “gross” negligence means something special under the law. Gross negligence is not just your everyday plain vanilla run-of-the-mill inattentiveness – not just oh-gosh-I-guess-I-wasn’t-paying-attention-I’m-so-forgetful-sometimes negligence. Gross negligence is really trying to be incompetent negligence – it’s talk to the hand, can’t you see I’m busy here negligence.

Gross negligence, normal negligence… really trying to be blind when anybody who’s breathing would have noticed things weren’t going to go well if you just ignored the whole thing and hoped it would go away… none of those kinds of negligence make any difference. Turns out that Presidents get to be as negligent as they want.

Yes, that is gross. But it’s also the law.

And something else that doesn’t  matter is whether what Trump did or didn’t do actually caused those deaths. Like standard of care, causation is something else for lawyers to argue about – that’s what law school is for, to teach lawyers how to do that. Okay fine. But for Presidents, ignoring a plague to the point where hundreds of thousands of citizens in a country you’re supposed to be in charge of die unnecessarily, well that’s just fine. And the rest of us can just go ahead and assume all the very worst things possible and Trump still gets a get out of jail free card.

Why?

Because under U.S. federal and state law, a President can do no wrong.

Let’s take a moment for that to sink in.

Now one more time with felling: Under U.S. federal and state law, a President can do no wrong.

And it’s not just the President, it’s everybody else who’s a — what’s that phrase? oh yeah, “public servant” – none of them can do wrong either. Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, Lauren Boebert… all of those public servants…  none of them can do wrong.

Seriously. That’s what our law says.

I still remember the moment when I was sitting in a law school class learning about this. “Government needs to be free to govern,” my law professor explained. Okay, got it. It’s a tough job, but somebody’s got to do it. We hold people accountable, nobody’s going to want to do it. Better give them unlimited Mulligans than not have them in Washington working hard on our behalf.

The legal doctrine is “sovereign immunity.” It’s part of American law because when we started our country we brought English common law with us, because it was easier to do that than start from scratch. And English common law said “the king can do no wrong.”

“Sovereign immunity, or crown immunity, is a legal doctrine whereby a sovereign or state cannot commit a legal wrong and is immune to civil suit or criminal prosecution.”[3]

“Sovereign immunity finds its origins in English common law and the king’s position at the ‘apex of the feudal pyramid.’ In that pyramid, lords could not be sued in their own courts, ‘not because of any formal conception or obsolete theory, but on the logical and practical ground that there can be no legal right as against the authority that makes the law on which the right depends.’ Thus, lords could only be sued in the courts of their superiors, but, for the king, ‘there was no higher court in which he could be sued.’” [4]

“The theory of the divine right of kings lent support to the proposition that the king was above the law-that he was in fact the law-giver appointed by God, and therefore could not be subjected to the indignity of suit by his subjects…. [Sir William Blackstone, author of the famous Blackstone Law Dictionary, said that] ‘Besides the attribute of sovereignty, the law also ascribes to the king in his political capacity absolute perfection… The king… is not only incapable of doing wrong, but even of thinking wrong: he can never mean to do an improper thing: in him is no folly or weakness.’”[5]

Nice to know that our legal system is doing its part to keep the feudal pyramid intact.

Nice to know that the king in his political capacity is absolutely perfect.

Nice to know the President is, too.

And can we talk for a  moment about “divine right”? The Divine Right of Kings was a favorite doctrine of the first King James of England –King James as in the King James version of the Bible.[6] It makes sense that somebody who has a Bible translation named after him would know about Divine Right. Export Divine Right to this side of the Pond, and now you’ve got Presidents and members of Congress and the whole scurvy bunch getting to act like they’re the King of England:  incapable of doing wrong, incapable of even thinking wrong or meaning to do something improper, because in them is no folly or weakness.

Hmmm, sounds just like Trump and his cronies.

And can we also talk about the Bible that says God has made “him [that, is mankind] a little lower than the angels” and “crowned him with glory and honor” and “has given him dominion over the works of your hands,” and “put all things under his feet.”  Psalm 8: 4-6 (There’s a reason why Biblical language is male-biased:  God Himself is a him – “a man of war” to be exact. Exodus 15:3) That’s the Bible that says, God has made him “A little lower than angels.” All disrespect intended, that’s a lie. The way it works is that God is way up there, the rest of use are way down here, and the ones a little lower than the angels are the people in government. Angels, when they’re not dancing on the heads of pins, get to be Death Angels and destroy people and things. The President and his enablers get to do likewise. The rest of us? Only in your dreams, pal – as the insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol are learning.

No wonder people want to be rich and powerful:  you get the adult version of a permanent hall pass. Turn a virus loose? No problem. Wage endless wars? You got it. Sic SS troops on Black Lives Matter protestors? Rock on, baby. You can get away with stuff now. Don’t like the service? Buy the place and fire the manager. No more nagging internal voice that says be careful what you say and do. God bless the child’s that’s got his own”[7] – that’s you, my friend, now get out there and sing “I did it my way”[8] all the way to the bank.

If we were honest, when the adults ask us what we want to be when we grow up, we’d all answer “I want to be God.” The more timid might wonder if they can be God without having the whole world in their hand, but they don’t need to worry, the best part of being God is nobody can put you on their naughty and nice list. You can theoretically have the whole world in your hands, but what you do or don’t do with it is all up to you.

And don’t tell me that the Man at the top of the cosmic pecking order has an internal moral compass that makes Him be nice and just and truthful, that sure He has His moments (like ordering genocide and authorizing rights of rape for his troops) but his love really is everlasting and his mercy really does endure forever.

Sorry, but I’ve read that book many times, and I know better.

True, the government can waive its own sovereign immunity,[9] and believe it or not that has actually happened before:  “The federal government did this when it passed the Federal Tort Claims Act, which waived federal immunity for numerous types of torts claims.”[10]

What do you suppose are the odds it could happen again, this time around?

Yeah, me neither.

So the reason why Americans aren’t suing Trump over Covid is not because we’re acting like Americans and letting bygones be bygones and calling for unity so we don’t slow down the march of progress that is our manifest destiny, it’s because we can’t. And we can’t because the Bible tells us so.

So the real culprit isn’t the Bible’s God, it’s the Bible, and in particular it’s the Bible’s worldview that thousands of years later still dominates our thinking about how life works, still undergirds our country, still explains why “Amazing Grace” gets sung at Inaugural festivities as a patriotic hymn like of course it belongs there, it’s part of what it means to be American.

Hey, hierarchies with God at the top are nice sometimes. They make the cosmos seem orderly, they give life meaning and purpose. They clean up the mess, make it so we don’t have to deal with being so damn… human… all the time.

I mean, screaming into the void does get old.

And just think what it would be like to actually have to think through a way to make sense of the messiness of human government in a way that would hold accountable people like former (praise be to the Autocratic God at the top of the pyramid!) President Trump – not to mention what that would mean for Republicans and the Christian Right and everyone else who might in the absence of King James Law be considered morally, ethically, and legally accountable for half a million deaths.

Yeah, that would be tough, all of that out-of-the-Bible-box creative thinking it would take to come up with something like that.  

Just like it would be tough to figure out whether a reasonable person might take a deadly plague seriously.

[1] Coronavirus Update (Live): 98,049,817 Cases and 2,098,153 Deaths from COVID-19 Virus Pandemic – Worldometer (worldometers.info). Some people think the U.S. performance isn’t so bad if you measure it per capita:  Mortality Analyses – Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center (jhu.edu). Great. Explain that to somebody’s friends and family.

[2] CO 18-3-305. Criminally negligent homicide – Law of Self Defense

[3] Wikipedia on Sovereign Immunity. See also Wikipedia on Sovereign Immunity in the United States.

[4] McCann, Miles, “State Sovereign Immunity,” National Association of Attorneys General, NAGTRI Journal Volume 2, Number 4. Although the article is technically about state – vs. federal — sovereign immunity, the quoted text applies to both.  See also the following quote from this monograph from the law firm of Debevoise & Plimpton, a New York based firm with a reputation for its commitment to diversity”  “At its core, the doctrine of sovereign immunity stands for the proposition that the government cannot be sued without its consent – that is, ‘the King can do no wrong.’ Sovereign immunity is simple in concept but nuanced in application.”.

[5] Pugh, George W., “Historical Approach to the Doctrine of Sovereign Immunity.” Louisiana Law Review Volume 13, Number 3 (March 1953).. Citations omitted.

[6] Owlcation

[7] Billie Holiday – YouTube.

[8] Frank Sinatra – YouTube.

[9] McCann, Miles, “State Sovereign Immunity” and Wikipedia on Sovereign Immunity in the United States

[10] Cornell Law School, Legal Information Institute.

Kevin Rhodes Fascism and Religion

Blueprint for Fascism Part 5

This series has been looking at fascism’s Biblical worldview and narrative. Last time, at the close of Part 4, I said we would look next at “Christianity’s claim that God and His genocidal directives don’t apply to New Testament religion.” On reflection, that topic is irrelevant to this series, so I’m going to wrap up without it.

I was showing my age. When I was part of evangelical/fundamentalist Christianity, there was an assumed theodicy that the New Testament God had somehow superseded the Old – He was kinder and gentler, and so was the gospel. (“Theodicy means vindication of God. It is to answer the question of why a good God permits the manifestation of evil, thus resolving the issue of the problem of evil.” Wikipedia) I was shown the door out of that world over 20 years ago. It took most of those years for me to get re-situated until I could say, “Hey, would you look at that – I’m an atheist now!” In the meantime, the world I left behind changed to the point where it no longer needed its kinder, gentler God and kinder, gentler gospel.

The churches I’d been associated with were only peripherally related to the rising new Christian Right, although in hindsight I can see that we were less peripheral than we wanted to think. The shift was already underway by the time I got out – it was a product of the times, moving in sync with the USA’s economic, political, and cultural shift. Under the new militant nationalist regime, the old theodicy was unnecessary.

I didn’t see this happening while it was going on around me. I think most of us didn’t. I’ve only become aware of it because about 4-5 years ago I realized that I didn’t know how life works any more, and started reading and writing to try to catch up. Because I was detached from the church, my worldview hadn’t moved with the times. I was on the outside looking in. I had become part of the new fascism’s Other and didn’t even know it.

As I tried to understand the brave new world I was now living in, I made the faulty assumption (one of many) that the Christianity I once knew was still the same, and therefore I couldn’t understand how it had suddenly rallied behind Trump and the Republicans and their new American fascism. Turns out there was nothing sudden about it, and the Christianity I’d left behind wasn’t the one that had done the rallying. But I didn’t notice, and that’s why I was about to write this Part 5 on a topic that wasn’t relevant.

Instead of doing that, I’ll end this series by referring you to an article I read just this weekend by someone I follow on Medium who has been paying attention: Dear Christians: We Need to Talk, by Manny Otiko Medium (Jan. 15, 2021). In addition, if you’re interested in generally learning more about the rise of the Christian Right, here’s a list of short histories told from a variety of viewpoints:

Christian right – Wikipedia.

The Real Origins of the Religious Right – POLITICO Magazine. 

Movements | Religious Right | Timeline | The Association of Religion Data Archives (thearda.com). 

The Christian Right, The Twentieth Century, Divining America: Religion in American History, TeacherServe, National Humanities Center. 

Religion and Right-Wing Politics: How Evangelicals Reshaped Elections – The New York Times (nytimes.com)

Kevin Rhodes Fascism and Religion, War

Blueprint for Fascism – Part 4

Fascism at War

Part 3 of this series looked at how fascism uses gaslighting, cult indoctrination, and patriotic nationalism to install the Biblical/Fascist Narrative as the country’s new normal. The narrative mandates war against Them – those fingered for the nation’s fall from grace, defined racially, ethnically, nationally, politically, and otherwise. In this Part 4, we’ll see that fascism at war is domestic and international terrorism.[1]

Legalized Crime

War is legalized crime:  it legalizes what is culturally unacceptable and morally abhorrent. It returns humanity to a state of raw survival, where life is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”[2]

“War… preys on our most primal and savage impulses. It allows us to do what peacetime society forbids or restrains us from doing:  It allows us to kill.”[3]

International Law

International law imposes limits on war’s legalized criminality.

“’We have had a system of international governance since World War II that reflects the ascendance of a set of commitments to individual rights and protections rooted in the U.N. system…,’ says [Jeremy Weinstein, a political science professor and director of the Stanford global studies division], who served as deputy to the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations from 2013 to 2015.” [4]

International law is grounded on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights[5] and is backed up by criminal enforcement in the International Criminal Court[6]. These structures were put in place in 2002 via The Rome Statute, a treaty negotiated under U.N. auspices. The Rome Statute established four types of international crimes: genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and crimes of aggression. The ink was barely dry when the United States announced its non-compliance with the treaty.

“One month after the International Criminal Court (ICC) officially came into existence on July 1, 2002, the President signed the American Servicemembers’ Protection Act (ASPA), which limits U.S. government support and assistance to the ICC; curtails certain military assistance to many countries that have ratified the Rome Statute establishing the ICC; regulates U.S. participation in United Nations (U.N.) peacekeeping missions commenced after July 1, 2003; and, most controversially among European allies, authorizes the President to use “all means necessary and appropriate to bring about the release” of certain U.S. and allied persons who may be detained or tried by the ICC.”[7]

India, Indonesia, and China have also rejected these international law standards.

“As of January 2019, 123 states are members of the Court. Other states that have not become parties to the Rome Statute include India, Indonesia, and China. On May 6th, 2002, the United States, in a position shared with Israel and Sudan, having previously signed the Rome Statute formally withdrew its signature and indicated that it did not intend to ratify the agreement.”[8]

Fascism at War

Fascism at war adheres to the Biblical-Fascist Narrative. [9]

Altered Narrative/Altered Reality. “The myth of war creates a new, artificial reality. Moral precepts — ones we have spent a lifetime learning — are jettisoned. We accept, if not condone, the maiming and killing of other as the regrettable cost of war. We operate under a new moral code…. I learned early on that war forms its own culture. The rush of battle is a potent and often lethal addiction, for war is a drug… It is peddled by mythmakers — historians, war correspondents, filmmakers, novelists, and the state — all of whom endow it with qualities it often does possess:  excitement, exoticism, power, chances to rise above our small stations in life, and a bizarre and fantastic universe that has a grotesque and dark beauty. it dominates culture, distorts memory, corrupts language, and infects everything around it, even humor, which becomes preoccupied with the grim perversities of smut and death. Fundamental questions about the meaning, or meaninglessness, of our place on the planet are laid bare when we watch those around us sink to the lowest depths. War exposes the capacity for evil that lurks not far below the surface within all of us. And this is why for many war is so hard to discuss once it is over.”

Victimhood of Us at the hands of Them.  “The cultivation of victimhood is essential fodder for any conflict. It is studiously crafted by the state. All cultural life is directed to broadcast the injustices carried out against us. Cultural life soon becomes little more that the drivel of agitprop. The message that the nation is good, the cause just, and the war noble is pounded into the heads of citizens in everything from late-night talk shows to morning news programs to films and popular novels. The nation is soon thrown into a trance from which it does not awake until the conflict ends. In parts of the world where the conflict remains unresolved, the trance can last for generations.”

They must be destroyed. “War is not a uniform experience or event … war usually demands, by its very logic, the disabling of the enemy, often broadly defined to include civilians… While we venerate and mourn our own dead we are curiously indifferent about those we kill. Thus killing is done in our name, killing that concerns us little, while those who kill our own are seen as having crawled out of the deepest recesses of the earth, lacking our own humanity and goodness. Our dead. Their dead. They are not the same. Our dead matter, theirs do not.”

Nationalism.  “Lurking beneath the surface of every society, including ours, is the passionate yearning for a nationalistic cause that exalts us, the kind that war alone is able to deliver. It reduces and at times erases the society of individual consciousness. We abandon individual responsibility for a shared, unquestioned communal enterprise, however morally dubious…. There is little that logic or fact or truth can do to alter the experience. Moreover, once this crusade is embraced by the nation, the myth predetermines how the world is perceived. It is only after the myth implodes, often as suddenly as it descended, that one can again question the motives and the actions of the state.”

Religious Sanction.  “Armed movements seek divine sanction and the messianic certitude of absolute truth. They do not need to get this from religions, as we usually think of religion, but a type of religion:  Patriotism provides the blessing. Soldiers want at least the consolation of knowing that they risk being blown up by land mines for a greater glory, for a New World. Dimensions, questioning of purpose, the exposure of war crimes carried out by those fighting on our behalf are dangerous to such beliefs. Dissidents who challenge the goodness of our cause, who question the gods of war, who pull back the curtains to expose the lie are usually silenced or ignored…. Once we sign on for war’s crusade, once we see ourselves on the side of the angels, once we embrace a theological or ideological belief system that defines itself as the embodiment of goodness and light, it is only a matter of how we will carry out murder.”

“The Lord is a man of war”

In Biblical Fascism, God is a totalitarian ruler and unaccountable sovereign, free to wage war if, when, and how He sees fit. The Bible identifies God this way:  “The Lord is a man of war.” (Exodus 15: 3) And God is not just a “man of war,” but a terrorist:

“The peoples have heard; they tremble;
pangs have seized the inhabitants of Philistia.
Now are the chiefs of Edom dismayed;
trembling seizes the leaders of Moab;
all the inhabitants of Canaan have melted away.
Terror and dread fall upon them;
because of the greatness of your arm, they are still as a stone,”
Exodus 15:  14-16

God’s “Anointed” – the one who leads his chosen nation – is similarly above human legal, moral, and ethical accountability. God backs up His Anointed and uses his chosen nation as his “hammer and weapon of war,” to impose his will on the non-chosen. He does so with derision and contempt.

“You are my hammer and weapon of war: with you I break nations in pieces; with you I destroy kingdoms; with you I break in pieces the horse and his rider; with you I break in pieces the chariot and the charioteer; with you I break in pieces man and woman; with you I break in pieces the old man and the youth; with you I break in pieces the young man and the young woman; with you I break in pieces the shepherd and his flock; with you I break in pieces the farmer and his team; with you I break in pieces governors and commanders.” Jeremiah 51:20-26 

“Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against his Anointed, saying, “Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.” He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision. Then he will speak to them in his wrath and terrify them in his fury.” Psalm 2:1-12

God expects the same ruthlessness from his nation:

“Cursed is he who does the work of the Lord with slackness, and cursed is he who keeps back his sword from bloodshed.” Jeremiah 48:10

Little wonder, then, that the best way to deal with God is to be afraid of Him. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” Proverbs 9:10.

Holy War

Israel went to war, Islam went to war, Christianity went to war — against each other and amongst themselves. They still do. For God’s people, every war is holy war — God is always on your side, your cause is always just. The Church, steeped in centuries of holy wars and pogroms, supported Mussolini in his day, just as the Christian Right supports Trump and the Republicans today. Same God, same Bible, same worldview, same cause, same justification.

Genocide

When God sends his nation to war, the object is genocide.

“Observe what I command you this day. Behold, I will drive out before you the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. Take care, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land to which you go, lest it become a snare in your midst. You shall tear down their altars and break their pillars and cut down their Asherim (for you shall worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God)”. Exodus 34:11-14

“When the Lord your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations more numerous and mightier than yourselves, and when the Lord your God gives them over to you, and you defeat them, then you must devote them to complete destruction. You shall make no covenant with them and show no mercy to them. You shall not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons, for they would turn away your sons from following me, to serve other gods. Then the anger of the Lord would be kindled against you, and he would destroy you quickly. But thus shall you deal with them: you shall break down their altars and dash in pieces their pillars and chop down their Asherim and burn their carved images with fire.” Deuteronomy 7:1-26

“And you shall consume all the peoples that the Lord your God will give over to you. Your eye shall not pity them, neither shall you serve their gods, for that would be a snare to you.” Deuteronomy 7:16 

“You shall surely put the inhabitants of that city to the sword, devoting it to destruction, all who are in it and its cattle, with the edge of the sword.” Deuteronomy 13:15 

“You shall surely destroy all the places where the nations whom you shall dispossess served their gods, on the high mountains and on the hills and under every green tree. You shall tear down their altars and dash in pieces their pillars and burn their Asherim with fire. You shall chop down the carved images of their gods and destroy their name out of that place.” Deuteronomy 12:1-32 

“But in the cities of these peoples that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes, but you shall devote them to complete destruction, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, as the Lord your God has commanded,” Deuteronomy 20:16-17 

“And we captured all his cities at that time and devoted to destruction every city, men, women, and children. We left no survivors.” Deuteronomy 2:34 

“And we took all his cities at that time—there was not a city that we did not take from them—sixty cities, the whole region of Argob, the kingdom of Og in Bashan. All these were cities fortified with high walls, gates, and bars, besides very many unwalled villages. And we devoted them to destruction, as we did to Sihon the king of Heshbon, devoting to destruction every city, men, women, and children. But all the livestock and the spoil of the cities we took as our plunder.” Deuteronomy 3:4-6

“The people went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they captured the city. Then they devoted all in the city to destruction, both men and women, young and old, oxen, sheep, and donkeys, with the edge of the sword.” Joshua 6:20-21 

“Israel struck them down, until there was left none that survived or escaped. And all who fell that day, both men and women, were 12,000, all the people of Ai.” Joshua 8:22-25

“Joshua struck the whole land, the hill country and the Negeb and the lowland and the slopes, and all their kings. He left none remaining, but devoted to destruction all that breathed, just as the Lord God of Israel commanded.” Joshua 10:40 

“Go and strike the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead with the edge of the sword; also the women and the little ones. This is what you shall do: every male and every woman that has lain with a male you shall devote to destruction.” Judges 21:10-12 

“And the men of Israel turned back against the people of Benjamin and struck them with the edge of the sword, the city, men and beasts and all that they found. And all the towns that they found they set on fire.” Judges 20:48 

“Thus says the Lord of hosts, ‘I have noted what Amalek did to Israel in opposing them on the way when they came up out of Egypt. Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.’” 1 Samuel 15:2-3 

“And that night the angel of the Lord went out and struck down 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians. And when people arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies.” 2 Kings 19:35 

“And Elijah said to them, ‘Seize the prophets of Baal; let not one of them escape.” And they seized them. And Elijah brought them down to the brook Kishon and slaughtered them there.’” 1 Kings 18:36-40 

“And they entered into a covenant to seek the Lord, the God of their fathers, with all their heart and with all their soul, but that whoever would not seek the Lord, the God of Israel, should be put to death, whether young or old, man or woman.” 2 Chronicles 15:12-13

“Go up against the land of Merathaim, and against the inhabitants of Pekod. Kill, and devote them to destruction, declares the Lord, and do all that I have commanded you. The noise of battle is in the land, and great destruction!” Jeremiah 50:21-22 

Sometimes, instead of killing everyone, Israel’s soldiers were authorized to capture and rape the women survivors.

“Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man by lying with him. But all the young girls who have not known man by lying with him keep alive for yourselves.” Numbers 31:17-18 

“This is what you shall do: every male and every woman that has lain with a male you shall devote to destruction. And they found among the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead 400 young virgins who had not known a man by lying with him, and they brought them to the camp at Shiloh, which is in the land of Canaan”. Judges 21:10-12 E

Sometimes, God’s hostility was turned against His own people.

“And he said to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God of Israel, ‘Put your sword on your side each of you, and go to and fro from gate to gate throughout the camp, and each of you kill his brother and his companion and his neighbor.’ And the sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses. And that day about three thousand men of the people fell.” Exodus 32:27-28 

“Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died.” Numbers 21:6-35 

“And the Lord said to Moses, ‘Take all the chiefs of the people and hang them in the sun before the Lord, that the fierce anger of the Lord may turn away from Israel.’” Numbers 25:4 

“Their infants will be dashed in pieces before their eyes; their houses will be plundered and their wives ravished.” Isaiah 13:16 

“And if anyone again prophesies, his father and mother who bore him will say to him, ‘You shall not live, for you speak lies in the name of the Lord.’ And his father and mother who bore him shall pierce him through when he prophesies.” Zechariah 13:3

“Ephraim’s glory shall fly away like a bird— no birth, no pregnancy, no conception! Even if they bring up children, I will bereave them till none is left. Woe to them when I depart from them! Ephraim, as I have seen, was like a young palm planted in a meadow; but Ephraim must lead his children out to slaughter. Give them, O Lord— what will you give? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts. Every evil of theirs is in Gilgal; there I began to hate them. Because of the wickedness of their deeds I will drive them out of my house. I will love them no more.” Hosea 9:11-16 

“Then the Lord said to me, Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my heart would not turn toward this people. Send them out of my sight, and let them go! And when they ask you, ‘Where shall we go?’ you shall say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord: Those who are for pestilence, to pestilence, and those who are for the sword, to the sword; those who are for famine, to famine, and those who are for captivity, to captivity.’ I will appoint over them four kinds of destroyers, declares the Lord: the sword to kill, the dogs to tear, and the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth to devour and destroy. And I will make them a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth because of what Manasseh the son of Hezekiah, king of Judah, did in Jerusalem.” Jeremiah 15:1-4 

“I will make Mount Seir a waste and a desolation, and I will cut off from it all who come and go. And I will fill its mountains with the slain. On your hills and in your valleys and in all your ravines those slain with the sword shall fall. I will make you a perpetual desolation, and your cities shall not be inhabited. Then you will know that I am the Lord.” Ezekiel 35:7-9 

“And to the others he said in my hearing, ‘Pass through the city after him, and strike. Your eye shall not spare, and you shall show no pity. Kill old men outright, young men and maidens, little children and women, but touch no one on whom is the mark. And begin at my sanctuary.’ So they began with the elders who were before the house. Then he said to them, ‘Defile the house, and fill the courts with the slain. Go out.’ So they went out and struck in the city.” Ezekiel 9:5-7

“Whoever is found will be thrust through, and whoever is caught will fall by the sword. Their infants will be dashed in pieces before their eyes; their houses will be plundered and their wives ravished. Behold, I am stirring up the Medes against them, who have no regard for silver and do not delight in gold. Their bows will slaughter the young men; they will have no mercy on the fruit of the womb; their eyes will not pity children”. Isaiah 13:15-18 

“Samaria shall bear her guilt, because she has rebelled against her God; they shall fall by the sword; their little ones shall be dashed in pieces, and their pregnant women ripped open”. Hosea 13:16 

“Prepare slaughter for his sons because of the guilt of their fathers, lest they rise and  possess the earth, and fill the face of the world with cities.” Isaiah 14:21 

This endless onslaught of holy venom represents more than an historical account of a brutal, savage, ancient nation and its brutal, savage, ancient God. They also display the state of mind fascists and theirsupporters once they are fully immersed in and indoctrinated into the Biblical-Fascist Narrative.

Next time, we’ll look at Christianity’s claim that God and His genocidal directives don’t apply to New Testament religion.

[1] The Rome Statute, Articles 6 and 8

[2] Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (1651)

[3] Hedges, Chris,War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning (2002).

[4] Patton, Jill, An Existential Moment for Democracy? As American leadership falters, scholars say, autocrats are on the rise, Stanford Magazine (December 2019)

[5]The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights – Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

[6] The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights — Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

[7] U.S. Policy Regarding the International Criminal Court (ICC), Congressional Research Service (July 9, 2002 – August 29, 2006) 

[8] Wikipedia –the United States and the International Criminal Court.

[9] All quotations in this section are from Hedges, op cit.

Kevin Rhodes Fascism and Religion

Blueprint for Fascism – Part 3

I used to wonder how the Cristian Right could so unblinkingly support Donald Trump and the Republicans – a question made more puzzling when former Secretary of State Madeline Albright labeled what we were witnessing as “fascism.”[1] Recently an answer presented itself:  the Christian Right supports Trump because they, the Republicans, and Donald Trump all share the same Biblical worldview, which is fascist in nature.

Worldview shapes individual and collective reality around a shared narrative that explains life, defines what is true and what isn’t, tells us what’s really going on, what we need to think and do in order to survive and thrive. Biblical and fascist narratives are a match, as follows:

  • A utopian past when life was good;
  • A fall from grace – a turning away instigated by the evil Them;
  • An awakened nostalgic and righteous yearning to restore lost utopia;
  • The need for a beneficent intervention – salvation – to get back to the good life;
  • The arrival of a savior whose charisma commands a following;
  • The emergence of the congregation of the faithful – a chosen population of aggrieved victims transformed into the superior Us;
  • War and final judgment meted out on Them;
  • The Golden Age of the victorious chosen ones.[2]

Politics makes the Biblical/Fascist Narrative normative in secular culture. It explains fascism as practiced 100 years ago by Mussolini and as carried on today by Trump and the Republicans. Mussolini’s version of fascism was “clerical fascism” – so-called because of its endorsement from Catholic clergy. Trump’s version of fascism is the theocratic political agenda of the Christian Right.

Parts 1 and 2 of this series looked at The Biblical/Fascist Narrative and fascism’s signature characteristics and practices for carrying it out, the circumstances in which fascism is likely to arise, and how fascism responds with extreme nationalism, totalitarian rule, the promotion of violence, and “unthinkable” assaults on law, democracy, and human rights. This Part 3 looks at how fascism carries out its first and essential task:  evangelizing its narrative to the point of cultural acceptance.

Elevating Subconscious Worldview to Conscious Narrative

Biblical worldview is deeply embedded in western thought, culture, politics, and history. Like any worldview, it operates behind the scenes, promoting its narrative through subconscious assumptions, perceptions, and biases. Fascism elevates Biblical narrative into the conscious awareness of the electorate, makes it normative for media coverage and commentary, and from there stokes it into obsession. Fascists make Biblical worldview newsworthy and sensational, invest it with power and significance until it becomes a populist rallying cry for God’s plan for the nation, including the nation’s deliverance from the threat of political infidels. The result is a default new normal that stokes survival-level fear spurred on by wildly fantastical conspiracy theories and channeled into hatred of the nation’s enemies – those most easily identified by civil rights criteria such as race, color, creed, national origin, gender, sexual preference, plus the free press, professionals, educators, the educated and intelligent, those with affinity for science and rationalism and objective reality.

The process follows the pattern of religious conversion. The nation’s citizens must be awakened to their plight and motivated to remedy it. The nation’s enemies have done this, but the government and its citizens have allowed it. They must be awakened and convicted, must believe, repent, amend their ways, and band together against their foes. They must become zealous for the Truth, arm themselves, enlist as soldiers marching off to war for the nation’s true destiny, and their own.

Fascism transports its converts to a populist and nationalist safe haven in the midst of too much change too fast, too much globalism and disruptive innovation, too much political correctness, too much of the elites telling them what they should think and do and believe and care about. They are free now. No one can tell them what to do. They see the state of the nation and their own lives for what they truly are. And now they’re part of something that is going to fix things, make their country and their lives great again. They belong. They have a new sense of meaning and a cause to live and die for. They can realize their highest calling. They can live purpose-driven lives.

The congregation of the committed organizes in service to their savior – the one who enlightens and informs them, tells them when to rally and when to stand down and stand by, the one who keeps the froth of outrage whipped to a frenzy of delusional thinking. Biblical-Fascist Narrative hones its followers to a keen edge of fear, outrage, and terror, feeds them a steady diet of righteous indignation, mobilizes them into marauding mobs.

Fascism achieves all of this through recognized, studied, predictable forms of mind control. Chief among them are “gaslighting,” cult indoctrination, and militant patriotism.

Gaslighting

The term “gaslighting” has been around for years, but the Trump years brought it into the vernacular.

“Gaslighting is a tactic in which a person or entity, in order to gain more power, makes a victim question their reality. It works much better than you may think. Anyone is susceptible to gaslighting, and it is a common technique of abusers, dictators, narcissists, and cult leaders. It is done slowly, so the victim doesn’t realize how much they’ve been brainwashed. For example, in the movie Gaslight (1944), a man manipulates his wife to the point where she thinks she is losing her mind. 

“In my book Gaslighting: Recognize Manipulative and Emotionally Abusive People – and Break Free  I detail how gaslighters typically use the following techniques:  

1. They tell blatant lies.

2. They deny they ever said something, even though you have proof. 

3. They use what is near and dear to you as ammunition. 

4. They wear you down over time.

5. Their actions do not match their words.

6. They throw in positive reinforcement to confuse you. 

7. They know confusion weakens people. 

8. They project.

9. They try to align people against you.

10. They tell you or others that you are crazy.

11. They tell you everyone else is a liar.”[3]

Cult Indoctrination

Cult indoctrination is an extreme form of religious conversion.Like gaslighting, ithas also become an active topic for psychological and psychiatric attention.[4]

“The cover of The Cult of Trump: A Leading Cult Expert Explains How the President Uses Mind Control, sets the mood with President Trump’s last name as well as the ubiquitous red baseball hat worn by his supporters, embossed with the word “cult” in the center. Some psychiatrists may wonder if this book is breaking the American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) “Goldwater Rule” (GR),[5] Rest assured, it is not.

“First, author Steven Hassan is not a psychiatrist and this ethical principle applies only to psychiatrists who are members of the APA. Secondly, and subtitle aside, the focus is on cults and how people become attached to them, with President Trump as a crucially considered example.

“The part of the book that focuses on cult followers is just what we need now. Certainly, there has been more than enough speculation on President Trump’s mental state by the public, media, some psychiatrists, and many other mental health care professionals. Less emphasis has been put on what psychologically drives people to follow President Trump, vote for him, and-for better or worse-stay so strongly attached. Whether or not there is really a ‘Cult of Trump’ is debatable, even after you read the persuasive arguments made in this book. At the very least, using the knowledge now available on cults is a helpful way to understand our national political scene and, as far as I can tell, does not violate the GR by focusing on the psychology of his followers.

“Unfortunately, psychiatrists as a whole, after a flurry of interest in cults in the 1970s and 1980s and culminating in 1992 with the Group for the Advancement (GAP) book, Leaders and Followers: A Psychiatric Perspective on Religious Cults, seem to have lost interest in the subject. But cults are still prominent. The author claims that there are at least 5000 destructive cults in the US, and they can range from two people to several thousands.

“According to the author, cults can be religious, political, sexual, educational, or psychotherapeutic in nature. If so, we have probably had members in mental health care, but it is hard to determine whether a patient is in a cult due to indoctrination. Therefore, it is crucial to look at control of thoughts and behaviors. Though the author never suggests this, the book led me to wonder if a slight case can be made that the GR holds such control. Indeed, why is an ethical principle like this a ‘rule’ rather than a guideline? In other words, why is it not called and conceived as what I would call the ‘Goldwater Guidelines,’ allowing more freedom of thought and speech for psychiatrists?

“All cults have something in common. They strip away freedom of thought and realign ideas with those of the leader. The author discusses his original way of conceptualizing cults, called the BITE model-the acronym for controlled Behavior, Information, Thought, and Emotion. Even more revelatory was his discussion of how hypnotic techniques such as repetition, subliminal messages, programming amnesia, and even guided meditation can be so effective in swaying followers.”[6]

Steven Harran, the cult specialist who wrote The Cult of Trump,[7] uses a BITE model to detail authoritarian mind control techniques.[8] His book details how Trump uses the BITE method to convert and control his followers.

Militant Nationalism

Fascism’s rise to power mirrors how nations justify war through heightened patriotism.

Biblical worldview includes the prohibition ,“Thou shalt not kill,” (Exodus 20:13, Deuteronomy 5:17). This prohibition applies generally to human society, but an exception allows God’s people to go to war. That exception derives from God Himself, whom the Bible describes as a “man of war.” (Exodus 15: 3) In that identity, God can and does kill and direct His followers to do the same. To justify the mayhem and brutality, the nation’s patriotic causes become sacred, and secular life is anointed with the requisite elements of religious culture:  dogmas and orthodox language; rites of initiation and passage; songs, symbols, metaphors, and icons; laws and customs to honor heroes, demonize foes, discipline skeptics, and punish nonbelievers. Thus fascism’s war against Them becomes holy war.

“War celebrates only power — and we come to believe in wartime that it is the only real form of power. It preys on our most primal and savage impulses. It allows us to do what peacetime society forbids or restrains us from doing:  It allows us to kill.

“Because we in modern society have walked away from institutions that stand outside the state to find moral guidance and spiritual direction, we turn to the state in times of war… We believe in the nobility and self-sacrifice demanded by war… We discover in the communal struggle, the shared sense of meaning and purpose, a cause. War fills our spiritual void.” [9]

War requires a cause to rally around, and the Biblical-Fascist Narrative provides it.

“It is hard, maybe impossible, to fight a war if the cause is viewed as bankrupt. The sanctity of the cause is crucial to the war effort.

“The cause is built on the backs of victims, portrayed always as innocent. Indeed, most conflicts are ignited with martyrs, whether real or created.”[10]

The Biblical-Fascist Narrative provides the requisite cause, plus new vocabulary, beliefs, and customs for expressing it:

“War finds its meaning in death…. The cause, sanctified by the dead, cannot be questioned without dishonoring those who gave up their lives. We become enmeshed in the imposed language.

“There is a constant act of remembering and honoring the fallen during war. These ceremonies sanctify the cause.

“The adoption of the cause means adoption of the language of the cause.

“The state spends tremendous time protecting, explaining, and promoting the cause. And some of the most important cheerleaders of the cause are the reporters. This is true in nearly every war. During the Gulf War, as in the weeks after the September attacks, communities gathered for vigils and worship services. The enterprise of the state became imbued with a religious aura. We, even those in the press, spoke in the collective.

“The official jargon obscures the game of war — the hunters and the hunted. We accept terms imposed on us by the state — for example, the “war on terror” — and these terms set the narrow parameters by which we are able to think and discuss.” [11]

Dissent has no place in the culture of war – to disagree is to join the enemy. The nation’s institutions and citizens are expected to speak the language of war, which frames and limits public discourse. Exaltation of the nation, faith in the cause, conformity to the language of war, and honoring of the dead make doubt and dissent damnable:

“When we speak within the confines of this language we give up our linguistic capacity to question and make moral choices.

“The cause is unassailable, wrapped in the mystery reserved for the divine. Those who attempt to expose the fabrications and to unwrap the contradictions of the cause are left isolated and reviled.

“The state and the institutions of state become, for many, the center of worship in wartime. To expose the holes in the myth is to court excommunication.

“When any contradiction is raised or there is a sense that the cause is not just in an absolute sense, the doubts are attacked as apostasy.” [12]

Crimes Against Humanity

Once the Biblical-Fascist Narrative has fully emerged as the nation’s new normal, fascism is empowered to pursue its agenda of purifying the nation by eliminating its enemies, which it does by means codified in international law as crimes against humanity:

1.. For the purpose of this Statute, “crime against humanity” means any of the following acts when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack:

(a) Murder;

(b) Extermination;

(c) Enslavement;

(d) Deportation or forcible transfer of population;

(e) Imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty in violation of fundamental rules of international law;

(f) Torture;

(g) Rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization, or any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity;

(h) Persecution against any identifiable group or collectivity on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender as defined in paragraph 3, or other grounds that are universally recognized as impermissible under international law, in connection with any act referred to in this paragraph or any crime within the jurisdiction of the Court;

(i) Enforced disappearance of persons;

(j) The crime of apartheid;

(k) Other inhumane acts of a similar character intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health.

2. For the purpose of paragraph 1:

(a) “Attack directed against any civilian population” means a course of conduct involving the multiple commission of acts referred to in paragraph 1 against any civilian population, pursuant to or in furtherance of a State or organizational policy to commit such attack;

(b) “Extermination” includes the intentional infliction of conditions of life, inter alia the deprivation of access to food and medicine, calculated to bring about the destruction of part of a population;

(c) “Enslavement” means the exercise of any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership over a person and includes the exercise of such power in the course of trafficking in persons, in particular women and children;

(d) “Deportation or forcible transfer of population” means forced displacement of the persons concerned by expulsion or other coercive acts from the area in which they are lawfully present, without grounds permitted under international law;

(e) “Torture” means the intentional infliction of severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, upon a person in the custody or under the control of the accused; except that torture shall not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to, lawful sanctions;

(f) “Forced pregnancy” means the unlawful confinement of a woman forcibly made pregnant, with the intent of affecting the ethnic composition of any population or carrying out other grave violations of international law. This definition shall not in any way be interpreted as affecting national laws relating to pregnancy;

(g) “Persecution” means the intentional and severe deprivation of fundamental rights contrary to international law by reason of the identity of the group or collectivity;

(h) “The crime of apartheid” means inhumane acts of a character similar to those referred to in paragraph 1, committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime;

(i) “Enforced disappearance of persons” means the arrest, detention or abduction of persons by, or with the authorization, support or acquiescence of, a State or a political organization, followed by a refusal to acknowledge that deprivation of freedom or to give information on the fate or whereabouts of those persons, with the intention of removing them from the protection of the law for a prolonged period of time.[13]

War Crimes

Fascism’s war against Them begins at home — fascist supporters pitted against their fellow citizens. Fascism’s civil war is carried out by crimes against humanity. When fascism confronts its enemies internationally, it does so in like fashion – through war crimes.

We’ll look at war crimes under the Biblical-Fascist Narrative next time.

[1] Madeleine Albright: “The things that are happening are genuinely, seriously bad,” The Guardian (July 8, 2018). See also Madeline Albright Warms of a New Fascism, The New Yorker (Apr. 24, 2018).

[2] Wikipedia – Fascism

[3] Sarkis, Stephanie, 11 Warning Signs of Gaslighting, Psychology Today (Jan. 22, 2017).

[4] See Collins, Glenn, The Psychology Of The Cult Experience, The New York Times (Mar. 15, 1982).; also Dittmann, Melissa, Cults of hatred:  Panelists at a convention session on hatred asked APA to form a task force to investigate mind control among destructive cults, American Psychological Association (November 2002, Vol 33, No. 10)

[5] Wikipedia – Goldwater Rule”  “The Goldwater rule is Section 7 in the American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) Principles of Medical Ethics,[1] which states that it is unethical for psychiatrists to give a professional opinion about public figures whom they have not examined in person, and from whom they have not obtained consent to discuss their mental health in public statements.[2] It is named after former US Senator and 1964 presidential candidate Barry Goldwater.

[6] The Cult of Trump: A Leading Cult Expert Explains How the President Uses Mind Control | Psychiatric Times Psychiatric Times book review (Jan. 9, 2020). Hassan, Steven, The Cult of Trump: A Leading Cult Expert Explains How the President Uses Mind Control (2019)

[7] Hassan, Steven, The Cult of Trump: A Leading Cult Expert Explains How the President Uses Mind Control (2019)

[8] Steven Hassan’s BITE Model of Authoritarian Control, Freedom of Mind Resource Center.

[9] Hedges, Chris, War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning (2002).

[10] Ibid.

[11] Ibid

[12] Ibid.

[13] The Rome Statute, Article 7.

Kevin Rhodes Fascism and Religion, Religion, The Long Reads

Blueprint for Fascism – Part 2

In this series, we’re looking at fascism’s Biblical roots. Last time, Part 1 distinguished worldview from ideology and began a list of fascism’s defining features. Let’s continue with the list.

Us vs. Them — Racism

Fascism thrives on identifying Us vs. Them. They look, talk, and act differently, follow different customs, traditions, and holidays, listen to different music and express themselves in different art forms. They are usually foreigners, immigrants, women, the LGBTQ[1] crowd, artists, intellectuals, and anybody else who’s not with you and is therefore against you. People of a different race are particularly easy to pick out of the not welcome crowd.

“American fascism… is a clear derivative of centuries of supremacy, slavery, and segregation. That old America never went anywhere, it seems — it was just hibernating. And now it’s back with a vengeance, seeking to reinstate something very much like the America it used to be. So where Islamic fascism is theofascism, American fascism is something subtly different: I’d call it proto-fascism.

“That means something like: ‘fascism before fascism’ or ‘the original fascism.’ I say that because the Nazis in fact both admired and studied America’s supremacist institutions — from Jim Crow to slavery to the elimination of personhood — and modeled their own new society after America’s lost one. So if America is reverting back to an older form of social organization, where whites lived above everyone else, where once they literally owned everyone else — who were the first fascists of all, the Nazis…or the Founding Fathers?

“I know that Americans won’t like to hear that. So go ahead and pick holes in it if you can. I have thought about it intently, and I have to concede, as much as I admire America, this logic appears to be immovable to me. Hence, I think what’s emerging in America is proto-fascism — the original variant, when settlers arrived on the shores of a Promised Land — and decided that it belonged only to them as masters and lords, hence everyone else already there was a subhuman, hence they needed slaves to till their fields.” [2]

Economics

Fascism thrives on economic inequality.

“America became the first rich country to collapse to the new wave of fascism. Why? Because it was the most capitalist country in the world. Capitalism implodes into fascism — inevitably. Why? Because capitalism concentrates capital among those who already own it, which starves labour of gains. That causes the middle class to crater, and inequality to spike. In their desperation and fear, the imploded middle begins to punch down, taking from the even more powerless what was promised to them — security, riches, stability, belonging, status. That sequence describes America perfectly, in hard empirical terms: the rich became ultra rich, but because they took more than 100% of the economy’s gains for decades, the middle class imploded. That fresh poverty produced a turn to a demagogue, who blamed everyone weaker for it — immigrants, refugees, foreigners, etcetera. The Trump voter isn’t the poor black — he’s the declining white.

“So the second half of America’s grim, weird collapse I’d describe as implosive fascism. Implosion of the middle, driven by economic stagnation, is a necessary feature of every fascist collapse — but it’s especially true in America.”[3]

Somebody’s got to pay for it, and rich supporters get richer through fascist cronyism. Meanwhile, the economically disadvantaged flock to fascism and support government policies that widen the inequality gap at their own expense. They do so for a lot of bizarre reasons,[4] but from a religious point of view, lifestyles of the rich and famous is their heavenly destiny — Heaven is where they’ve got a mansion waiting.[5]

Fascism’s Dismal Checklist

If we assemble the above together with the identifiers we saw in Part 1, we have guidelines for recognizing fascism.

Fascists prescribe simple fixes for complex problems.

  • It’s not an ideology, it’s a method, a system for thinking and doing.
  • Fascism feeds on grievances, identifies the enemies responsible, and sets the populace against them.
  • They take on the role of national saviors.
  • They expand their self-concept to the size of the state itself.
  • They subvert, discredit and eliminate societal and governmental institutions that defy or impair them.
  • They ascend to power through the ballot box and then undermine democracy from within.
  • They systematically eliminate opposition one small step at a time.
  • They attack the judiciary and the media.
  • They tell lies as the new truth, repeating them incessantly until they become the new truth, the new reality.
  • They denigrate science and academia.
  • They threaten political competitors and dissenters.
  • They foment bigotry and racism;
  • ,,,male dominance and misogyny;
  • …persecution of the LGBTQ community;
  • …stonewalls against immigrants and foreigners;
  • They praise autocrats and encourage worldwide drift to authoritarianism.
  • Fascism ascends in times of accelerated social and cultural upheaval.
  • …in the aftermath of demoralization and defeat;
  • …after great recessions and other forms of drastic economic displacement;
  • …during times of extreme economic inequality;
  • …in the waning stages of an economic miracle,
  • …when new artistic and creative forms are displacing the old standbys;
  • …when scientific developments offer shocking new perspective on the fabric of life and reality;
  • …when democratic institutions are unstable and the notion of “freedom” takes on new meaning;
  • …when there is widespread disorder;
  • …when a visceral, nostalgic appeal to tradition emerges.
  • Fascism promotes the heavy hand of authoritarianism, and a return to law and order.
  • Fascists promote extreme militaristic nationalism.
  • They use military marches and staged spectacles and rallies to stir up support.
  • They lionize the military and police.
  • They bully, abuse, threaten, intimidate, promote hostility, and encourage their followers to do likewise.
  • They belittle traditional heroes and societal role models of leadership.
  • They glamorize national history in ways that support their cause, and ignore national embarrassments, failures, weaknesses.
  • They adopt religious narratives and forge religious allegiances.
  • They equate national identity with divine purpose and chosen status.
  • They express contempt for electoral democracy and political and cultural liberalism.
  • They endorse a natural social hierarchy that prizes social and economic elites.
  • They purport to support the vanishing and lost middle class, but only to the extent the middle class is willing to subordinate self-interest to the good of the nation.

But of course fascism doesn’t run off a checklist. (“Let’s see, how are we doing on bigotry today?”) The list entries are embedded in fascist culture. They are socially normative. They serve as measures of allegiance and duty. They create a narrative of how life works, is and ought to be, and maintain practices that support individual and collective compliance with that narrative.

Fascism’s Religious Narrative

Fascism’s narrative is as follows:

  • A utopian past when life was better and people were better off;
  • A fall from grace – a turning away instigated by the evil Them;
  • An awakened nostalgic and righteous yearning to restore lost utopia;
  • The need for a beneficent intervention – salvation – to get back to the good life;
  • The arrival on the scene of a savior, whose charisma commands a following;
  • The emergence of the congregation of the faithful – a chosen population of aggrieved victims transformed into the superior Us;
  • War and final judgment meted out on Them.[6]
  • The Golden Age of the victorious.

The Biblical narrative is everywhere in Western culture – from Hollywood to Silicon Valley to Yankee Stadium to the Capitol Building. And it explains fascism’s religious ties and obsession with holy war.

“Old fascism didn’t abhor ‘religion’ as much as we imagine. It was a deeply mystical exercise, steeped in its own mythology of sacred blood and divine…. A homeland of the pure, strong, and faithful. Cleansed of the weak and impure — who are dirty, filthy subhumans.

“A militant message broadcast by armies of demagogues…. Jihadis who took up the call. And destabilized society after society. By bombing and shooting up places where civilized and decent values were being enacted: hospitals, schools, festivals. Minorities targeted, jailed, imprisoned, hunted, eliminated. New institutions built — justice systems, law enforcement agencies, whole new kinds of morality police. Society finally reshaped in the image of the perfect and the pure and the strong.”

“Islamic fascism we might say is something like theo-fascism. It is explicitly ‘religious’ — and faith trumps nationhood. It isn’t mere ‘nationalism’ — its goal is something like a new caliphate, in the extreme, or at least a federation of united Islamic states, proudly clean and faithful.[7]

Mussolini – Fascism Christened

Mussolini gave “fascism” its name, which he took from an ancient Roman symbol.

“Fascism [is a] political ideology and mass movement that dominated many parts of central, southern, and eastern Europe between 1919 and 1945 and that also had adherents in western Europe, the United States, South Africa, Japan, Latin America, and the Middle East.

“Europe’s first fascist leader, Benito Mussolini, took the name of his party from the Latin word fasces, which referred to a bundle of elm or birch rods (usually containing an ax) used as a symbol of penal authority in ancient Rome.

“Although fascist parties and movements differed significantly from one another, they had many characteristics in common, including extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and political and cultural liberalism, a belief in natural social hierarchy and the rule of elites, and the desire to create a Volksgemeinschaft (German: ‘people’s community’), in which individual interests would be subordinated to the good of the nation.”[8]

Mussolini’s “Clerical Fascism” and Trump’s Christian Right Fascism

Fascism seizes power by degrading legitimate government and spurring the electorate to rally in patriotic mob scenes, celebrating their own political disempowerment. And then get God on your side. Mussolini rose to power 100 years ago on the strength of “clerical fascism.”[9] “Clerical” referred to Roman Catholic clergy whose interests were propounded by the Italian People’s Party[10], which later split over whether the church should overtly support fascism. Fascist Italy recognized Catholicism as its state religion. Mussolini’s defining rally was his March on Rome.[11] A hundred years after Mussolini, Donald Trump, the Republican Party, and the Christian Right have followed the same historical blueprint.

Violence and “the Unthinkable”

What happens when fascism makes its move? As we saw last time, worldview resides with the most basic human impulses – where life is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”[12] Fascism therefore asserts itself with crassness and brutality.

“What tends to happen is violence. Of a spectacular kind. War, atrocity, barbarity. Genocide. The unthinkable…. [T]here is only room for one master race, one Promised Land, one fatherland, one people who are the strongest and purest.”[13]

Violence? Check. Think of the Proud Boys. Think of Trump’s SS troops attaching citizens on city streets.

The unthinkable? Check. Thinks of Trump and the Republicans blatant all-out assault on the defining right of democracy – the citizens’ right to vote — everything from calling votes (only those against Trump) fraudulent to appeals for suspending the Constitution and imposing martial law.

And it all begins with a Biblical worldview.

The Fascist Bible

When I say “Bible,” I mean the Christian Bible. The first part is the “Old Testament” — God’s original deal with ancient Israel. The second part is the “New Testament” — God’s new deal that includes the “Gentiles” – the non-Jews. The second part is Jesus and post-Jesus, but since he was a Jew and it was mostly written by Jews, there’s a lot of carryover. Muslims and Jews buy into the parts of the Old Testament that include Abraham, so they and Christianity are called the “Abrahamic” religions. Therefore “Abrahamic worldview” could be substituted for “Biblical worldview.” It’s the same God in all three.

Extreme Nationalism

Extreme nationalism lies at the heart of fascism. It is also the essence of Abrahamic religion. God choses a nation to be His. That nation becomes Us, which makeseverybodyelse Them. God provides detailed laws through his representatives — prophets, priests, and kings — for how We are supposed to behave.[14] Conformity is the lowest compliance standard; loyalty and zealotry are preferred. Nonconformity, disloyalty, disrespect, doubt, dissent are crushed. One of the worst things God’s favored nationcan do is act like Them – take up foreign customs, marry internationally, etc. The Old Testament is therefore several hundred pages of rewind and repeat re:  how it goes for both Us and Them, and often it’s hard to tell who’s got the worst deal.

The Totalitarian God

Abrahamic religion imposes a hierarchical structure with God at the top. God enjoys absolute sovereignty and is not accountable to anyone for anything. God’s word is Truth, His will supreme, His power absolute. Totalitarianism is authority without accountability, therefore God is a totalitarian ruler.[15] Plus, because God is… well, God… He is in charge of not just his own nation, but all nations. All national sovereignty derives from Him. On this point, the New Testament section of the Christian Bible restates and summarizes Old Testament political worldview:

“Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer.  Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience.” Romans 13:1-5[16]

National sovereignty that derives from God is similarly unaccountable. Accordingly, “the divine right of kings” protected English monarchs with its declaration that “the king can do no wrong,” and the concept was imported into the Colonies as “sovereign immunity,” which protects federal and state officials.[17] The divine right of kings and sovereign immunity, like God’s rule, are therefore ultimately totalitarian. Which means that a fascist in power is God’s man and can do no wrong unless God intervenes.

Biblically-based national sovereignty answers the question I began Part 1 of this series with:  how is it that the Christian Right can support Trump? The answer is that Trump is God’s man in the same way that Mussolini was God’s man. They are because the Bible says they are. They carry on the succession of divinely-appointed national leaders all the way back to the Old Testament kings.

Farfetched? Fantastical? We need only listen to the rationale given by one of Trump’s Men –former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions in his defense of the Trump Administration’s family separation policy, to learn that the Christian Right doesn’t find this farfetched or fantastical in the slightest. Instead, it is a validation of legitimacy.

“If you cross the border unlawfully, then we will prosecute you. If you smuggle an illegal alien across the border, then we’ll prosecute you,,,, If you’re smuggling a child, then we’re going to prosecute you, and that child will be separated from you, probably, as required by law. If you don’t want your child separated, then don’t bring them across the border illegally. It’s not our fault that somebody does that.

“I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13 to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained the government for his purposes. Orderly and lawful processes are good in themselves. Consistent, fair application of law is in itself a good and moral thing and that protects the weak, it protects the lawful. Our policies that can result in short-term separation of families are not unusual or unjustified.”[18]

Sessions invoked the Bible to substantiate the United States’ God-derived national sovereignty. The authority of God and the Bible is totalitarian, beyond accountability. Since the United States derives its national sovereignty from God and the Bible, it enjoys the same totalitarian authority, above any law other than its own. Its laws are good and moral by definition, and its government and government officials are free from fault because its laws say they are.

  • “I would cite you to the Apostle Paul.”
  • “God has ordained the government for his purposes.”
  • “Orderly and lawful processes are good in themselves.”
  • “Consistent, fair application of law is in itself a good and moral thing and that protects the weak, it protects the lawful.”
  • “It’s not our fault that somebody does that.”

Sessions’ case justifies national xenophobic indifference to the plight of the tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse. the homeless, and tempest-tossed.[19] Instead, the United States government is free to terrorize them at the border. The same concept applies to America’s national history of legal slavery and normative racism, as well as its institutionalized homophobia and misogyny.

Next Time

In sum, the Bible narrative – the story of God’s relationship with his people — illustrates the dynamics of fascist government. And the Bible’s God is a prototype of a fascist leader.

We’ll look further into these things next time.

[1] For an updated treatment of the acronym, see LGBTQIAPK: Let’s Unpack the Acronym, Harlot (Mar. 19, 2018),

[2] Hague, Umair, The (New) Fascism of the 21st Century, Medium (Aug. 7, 2019)..

[3] Ibid.

[4] Thomas, K R, Why DO the poor keep voting for the rich? Medium (Dec. 26, 2019)

[5] “In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.” John 14:2 NKJV. 

[6] Wikipedia – Fascism

[7] Hague, Umair, op cit.

[8] Fascism | Definition, Meaning, Characteristics, Examples, & History | Britannica

[9] Clerical fascism – Wikipedia

[10] Italian People’s Party (1919) – Wikipedia

[11] March on Rome | Definition, Events, & Facts | Britannica. March on Rome – Wikipedia

[12] Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (1651)

[13] Hague, Umair, op cit.

[14] See the “blessings and curses” of Deuteronomy 26-28.

[15] For a breakdown on how the CIA categorizes dictatorial forms of government, see Totalitarianism, Authoritarianism, and Fascism — What Is the Difference? ThoughtCo. (June 5, 2020).

[16] See also Daniel 2:20-21, Daniel 4:17, Jeremiah 27:5, Proverbs 21:1.

[17] Wikipedia – Sovereign Immunity. See also Wikipedia – Sovereign Immunity in the United States. McCann, Miles, “State Sovereign Immunity,” National Association of Attorneys General, NAGTRI Journal Volume 2, Number 4. Although the article is technically about state – vs. federal — sovereign immunity, the quoted text applies to both.  See also the following quote from this monograph from the law firm of Debevoise & Plimpton, a New York based firm with a reputation for its commitment to diversity”  “At its core, the doctrine of sovereign immunity stands for the proposition that the government cannot be sued without its consent – that is, ‘the King can do no wrong.’ Sovereign immunity is simple in concept but nuanced in application.”. Pugh, George W., “Historical Approach to the Doctrine of Sovereign Immunity,” Louisiana Law Review Volume 13, Number 3 (March 1953).. Citations omitted.

[18] YouTube. See Wikipedia — Trump administration family separation policy.

[19] The Story Behind the Poem on the Statue of Liberty, The Atlantic (Jan. 15, 2018)

Kevin Rhodes Atheism, Religion

Father Abraham Had Three Sons

Father Abraham had many sons,
Many sons had Father Abraham,
I am one of them, and so are you,
So let’s all praise the Lord.

We need to move past the Sunday School doggerel. They teach children that stuff – bouncy tune, fun motions. I don’t remember learning it — obviously I did, because I remembered it enough to Google it. Click on the image and listen. I lasted one verse, then reality set in:  Father Abraham’s children are killing each other; they’re killing us; they could kill the whole planet. Father Abraham’s children are on the world’s longest running international crime spree – committed in his name, on his behalf — that old story, those old promises.

The Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing; I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”

Genesis 12:  1-3

And there was more:

When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to him and said, “I am God Almighty; walk before me faithfully and be blameless.  Then I will make my covenant between me and you and will greatly increase your numbers.”

Abram fell facedown, and God said to him,  “As for me, this is my covenant with you: You will be the father of many nations. No longer will you be called Abram; your name will be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations. 

I will make you very fruitful; I will make nations of you, and kings will come from you. I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you. The whole land of Canaan, where you now reside as a foreigner, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you; and I will be their God.”

Genesis 17: 1-8

That was a long, long time ago. And now a world Father Abraham could not possibly have foreseen is living with his progeny and promises. “All peoples on earth will be blessed through you”? No. Not that. It never has been that. It is not that now. It never will be.

.  .  .

Father Abraham has three sons, actually. They are, in the order they were born, Israel, Christianity, and Islam. Like father, like son:  each son is a Patriarch presiding over his own transnational clan.

The Abraham family chronicles begin in the most ancient part of the Bible. Each clan has its own Bible with portions added later, but all include the part where the story of Abraham’s family and legacy began, so the three are called the “Abrahamic” religions. Each of Abraham’s sons believes the ancient promises are his alone, and will one day be fulfilled on his behalf. It’s a vain hope and a senseless and stupid goal:  none of them will ever prevail, and here are billions of Abraham descendants in the world, far too many for every non-believer to ever be extinguished. But the sibling rivalry never lets up, never goes away, never leaves the rest of us alone.

Their battle lines of the family feud were originally drawn around “the whole land of Canaan”– a small patch of land outsized in ruin. But Canaan was only the staging point. From there, the family’s war has spread around the world. The three sons’ jealousy, treachery, and ambition – Abraham’s legacy – are everywhere. There are other family histories in the world just as enduring and rotten — in the East, North, and South – but the Abraham family conflict has drawn them in, too.

.  .  .

I can’t imagine, Father Abraham. I really can’t. I can’t get inside your head, what it was like when…

God said, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.”

Genesis 22:2

Who was more deranged in that moment, you or your God? And what was it like to be your only son, whom you loved? Did you really? Love him I mean. Did he suspect that you were preparing yourself to slash and burn him?

The angel of the Lord called to Abraham from heaven a second time and said, “I swear by myself, declares the Lord, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son,  I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies,  and through your offspring  all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me.”

Genesis 22:16-18

A story like that cannot have a happy ending. How could it ever go well for that boy ever again – that boy bound and waiting for the father’s knife to fall? I don’t want that story to have ever been written. I don’t want stories like that to be told. You were a beast in that moment, Father Abraham, and your God was a beast maker. But I don’t think you ever came to realize that, otherwise the story would have been told differently – maybe about how you were so deluded you almost went through with it.

But your sons, they revel in it. It inflames their allegiance to you — no, not to you, but to the idea of you and the idea of those promises. And especially to the idea of themselves as those who are the only ones who have the right to inherit what was promised. They have usurped you, usurped the promises, appropriated them, made them their own and only their own. It is through them that all nations shall be blessed, and they will destroy each other until that day comes, and then they will keep the blessing for themselves. Only the one who destroys his brothers will be forever blessed, and the others will be the eternally damned. But you’re dead, Father Abraham – you don’t know they believe that, have done that, are doing that. You can’t stop them even if you would, and the way that story went, and the way your sons all love it, I’m not sure you would.

.  .  .

“I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore.” Israel is the smallest, Christianity is the largest, Islam is almost as big as Christianity. Together the three of them make up about 3 billion people on a planet approaching 8 billion. Like the stars and sand…. yes. That promise has been fulfilled.

“All nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me.” No. That promise was a lie, or has become one, by neglect or inte4nt. All nations on earth have been terrorized because of you, Father Abraham. Your obedience was wasted. Your progeny has defiled the promise. There has been no blessing.

You couldn’t have known. Nobody could have. You were a patriarch, now we have your sons as patriarchs – autocrats as sovereign and unaccountable as you and your God. You fathered the Abrahamic nation; now we have extreme nationalists – each one of them divinely sanctioned by their own Godto destroy the infidels of the other nations who stand in the way of their promised destiny.

Your nation had its own God, now each of your sons has its own God, given to them to fulfill their destiny. They are not patient for the day; they rage against it. If each could just be rid of the others, be the last one standing, the favorite son and his clan left finally and forever alone in the divine favor of their own God, themselves and their God triumphant, the other sons and their Gods banished…. It never ends. It goes on, like the teaching of doggerel. It has never ended in all these thousands of years. The world lives on in thrall to their unfulfilled destiny – the promise of blessing not kept, the promise that never will be kept.

.  .  .

What was it like, Father Abraham? How did the Lord say to you, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you”? How did God say, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love… and sacrifice him there as a burnt offering”? How did the angel of the Lord call to you from heaven a second time and tell you not to do it?

That was long ago. Too long ago for anyone to ever know. Too long for the answers to matter.

.  .  .

Abraham lived a hundred and seventy-five years. Then Abraham breathed his last and died at a good old age, an old man and full of years; and he was gathered to his people.

Genesis 25: 7-8

What might the world have been if it had been left at that – you died, were mourned and buried, the end?

It’s a stupid question to ask – as pointless as this one:  What might the world be now if we could leave it at that?

What if this time you were gathered to your people… and left there?

Kevin Rhodes Atheism, Religion

Christmas — No Christ, New Merry

I take long “walks” in my wheelchair most days – long as in 5, 6, 8. 10 miles. Yes, in a wheelchair. True story.

People seem happy to see me – inspired maybe, surprised mostly. They say hello, good morning, nod, wave, sometimes comment, offer encouragement. Guy in a wheelchair, out here doing this? Show some love! Way to go, guy! I don’t mind. I smile, greet them back. People out here, enjoying this wonderful trail through the woods along the river? Way to go, people!

A few times lately it’s been “Merry Christmas!” I’m always surprised. “Oh yeah. Christmas. Merry. Right.” Seems the Merry doesn’t still go ‘round so much for me nowadays – hasn’t for several years, actually. For me, that’s not just 2020, when the Merry didn’t go ‘round for hardly anybody except the extremely annoying, apparently excused from reality few. I’ll leave them unnamed.

Christmas for me used to be… well, Christmas. I was self-righteous about keeping the commercialism out of it and Christ in it – also seriously deluded. Back then the kids were growing up and I had a career that paid (remember those?), so I loved to pull off commercial extravaganzas. Like the year the entire American Girl Dolls assemblage – clothes, furniture, stuff, stuff, and more stuff — flooded out from under the tree and across the living room, and no one had seen it coming.

I loved the art of Christmas – especially the places that had the quality gifts and the best gift wrappers – the way they filled their beautiful shopping bags – the big ones, with the handles – with works of art in ribbons and bows. Plus the lights – nothing visible from space, just enough cheer – and the Solstice bonfires and all the greenery and goodies and the you name it. If you’ve done it yourself, you know.

And yes, we kept Christ in those Christmases. Christ was still the reason for the season – observed in everything from schmaltzy bedtime stories and movies to the annual stately Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols from Cambridge and the packed candlelight Christmas Eve service in a church thick with incense. But then the light started dimming, eventually faded and died –the way potted plants die – not tragic so much as well, that’s over. Things end, we move on.

A couple days ago, I was trying to remember when exactly the Christmas Merry started to quit going ‘round. It think it was somewhere around the time we painted the basement and bought some mountain lodge furniture and a cool rug and put up surround sound and a wall TV and it was going to be a place for friends to hang out. Nice idea but a couple poetry slams and that was about it. But the first year we had it, I thought wow, I can watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving parade, so I camped out in one of those comfy leather mountain lodge chairs and watched it, and there was plenty of Merry the whole Christmas season that year. But then a year later it was a little less oh wow, and by the third year it was, hey wait, this is just a big commercial launch – one long extended infomercial in praise of buy, buy, buy. Creeping cynicism. Peter Pan finally starting to grow up.

That would have been… what?… 2009 or so? Right after the crash of 2007-2008, which I had observed by making possibly the most badly-timed, badly-conceived, and badly-executed Go-For-It, Live Your Dreams! launch in the history of life. (But I’m giving myself way too much credit – lots of people have of course done seriously dumb things in the name of living the dream. No way I cornered that market.) My big leap into dreamland bombed, of course. I deserved it. But the good news is, it changed everything forever. Mostly it changed me, But until we all had enough space to be philosophical or resigned about it, the family became post-Crash Okies, rambling toward being poor with all our belongings piled in the back, toward me being disabled with a crappy neurodegenerative… thing… and all of us trying to figure out what happened back there. It was somewhere around then that the Merry quit going ‘round. And it was also about then Christ either fell out of the back of the truck or we didn’t wait for him at a rest stop, and either way it took a long time to notice.

It’s hard to explain how it took 20 years to go from being a Christian – not just a “nominal” one (as we used to say, arrogant as hell) but a true believer hallelujah! – to an Atheist. Or to explain how one day I just sort of noticed that’s what happened and I was just kind of well okay then, would you look at that, I guess that’s what happened, and I guess I’m good with it. The Merry was gone, and so was Christ, and then came a few years when everything church went from normal to cringeworthy to annoying to revolting. I can’t explain it, but I’d see billboards and marquees and hear conversations, and I would shudder. Not quite gag, but my whole self would cringe and tense up and shudder. Writing that, I can just hear what the faith I left would have to say about it.

Fast forward to this year, to Christmas 2020, which you would have thought would have been the most run-screaming-from-the-room Christmas ever. But then – way more surprising than hearing “Merry Christmas!” from random strangers on the bike path – it wasn’t. Christmas 2020 was the year the Merry came back. Who could have seen that coming? Not me. But it did — Christmas without the baby Jesus in a manger – God the Father’s great idea for how to introduce his son to the world by putting an infant in a cattle feed trough, so we could all celebrate the maudlin reality of our crappy lives and prepare ourselves for what signing up for that whole story was going to be like. Also no shepherds or wise men from afar, being uncanny and insightful, and especially no angels trumpeting (have you noticed how hard it is these days to use the world “t-r-u-m-p” or any word that has “t-r-u-m-p” in it?) one of the biggest lies ever told (the Bible has a lot of those in it):

“Peace on Earth, Good will to Man!”

Seriously. We still get that every year.

And since you can’t go anymore in a pandemic, almost none of that endless and endlessly wretched Christmas music everywhere you go, except for where you can’t avoid going, like the grocery store, but especially not like Starbucks, which starts its Christmas soundtrack of dismal creativity on exactly November 1st so I have to boycott it for two months every year (not like that’s so hard to do). I could rant on, but I’ll struggle to overcome.

And I thought I was over the post-Christian shudder reflex. Maybe not.

Anyway, Christmas without any of that.

This year there was just some cheese and fruit on Christmas Eve, and fresh donuts Christmas morning, simple gifts opened and shared digitally on both occasions to account for different time zones here and on the other side of the globe. And then on Christmas Eve there was Klaus, which I read in my Medium feed on Christmas morning we shouldn’t have watched because it’s racist because there’s a hangman’s noose in it. (I’m sorry, I get it, but nooses weren’t always an icon for racism. Humans have been doing horrible things like hanging each other for a long time – a lot of them in the name of Christ.)

And somehow, after choking back the tears and loving the movie and then heading for bed without visions of sugar plums exactly, more like a sense of maybe pretty lights once a year in during the dark days around the Winter Solstice might not be such a bad idea… and then waking up on Christmas morning and finding that the Merry had come back.

I never saw it coming. Any more than I saw the big Follow Your Dreams crash coming. Any more than I saw 20 years of losing my faith coming.

Today is “Boxing Day” – and if you’re non-British like me the first time you heard about it you were like, what?! — so “Merry Christmas” is over, and I’m grateful that there’s a new Merry on the scene:  Merry without the shudder. Maybe Merry like that will be okay next year – which is surely another year in another time in another life. If another Christmas manages to arrive, which these days I’d rate about 50-50.

Merry like that.

Kevin Rhodes Atheism, Belief Systems and Culture, Religion

The Religion of the Damned

You are damned. That’s the first premise.

You can be un-damned. That’s the second.

But it’s going to cost you. Third.

What it’s going it cost you is you have to live like you’re still damned.

Got that?

I’ll get to it in a minute, But first…

Welcome to the Black Parade – the congregation of “the broken, the beaten, and the damned.”[1]

How does New Jersey produce so many great bands? My Chemical Romance rode the seam between Gen X and the Millennials. Their Black Parade album and tour spanned 2006-2007. It was genius – it finally gave the Goths a place to belong. A friend of mine went to a concert. She was like, “All I could think was, where are their parents? Did they totally give up?”

It’s good to belong. Things are better when you belong. People rally, help each other out. Better to be a damned Goth and belong than to be a damned Goth and not.

“Now, come one, come all to this tragic affair
Wipe off that makeup, what’s in is despair
So throw on the black dress, mix in with the lot
You might wake up and notice you’re someone you’re not

“If you look in the mirror and don’t like what you see
You can find out first hand what it’s like to be me.”

Genius Lyrics — “The End” My Chemical Romance.

Brilliant. Tour the world, and all the kids in black sing every word with you. Which is saying a lot, because there are a lot of words, staccato fast.

Now back to the Religion of the Damned. That’s where I started, following the “Jesus Rock” signs around campus to a guy named Larry Norman doing a solo show[2]. He had blond hair down to his waist, and sang songs with lyrics like,

“Sipping whiskey from a paper cup
You drown your sorrows till you can’t stand up
Take a look at what you’ve done to yourself
Why don’t you put the bottle back on the shelf
Yellow fingers from your cigarettes
Your hands are shaking while your body sweats

“Why don’t you look into Jesus?
He’s got the answer

“Gonorrhea on Valentines Day
And you’re still looking for the perfect lay
You think rock and roll will set you free
You’ll be deaf before your thirty three
Shooting junk till your half insane
Broken needle in your purple vein

“Why don’t you look into Jesus?
He got the answer.”

Larry Norman – Why Don’t You Look Into Jesus? – [Janis Joplin Version] – 1972 – YouTube

Cool. Our version of The Black Parade. Religion for the damned.

Life was not going well. I wasted my way through freshman year, dropped out, played in the worst rock band to ever hit Denver’s church-basement-roller-rink-office-Christmas-party circuit…  Low-budget rock star debauchery wasn’t cutting it. I needed to not keep screwing up my life. I needed to get undamned.

I met my bandmates in a church basement, and in one of those you’re-making-that-up-right? moments, found myself teaching 7th grade Sunday school about Paul and Moses. I wanted to be like them. I gave our drummer some of my gear to sell and send my me the money (he didn’t), loaded up the rest and drove back to small town Minnesota. Some fellow sojourners pulled up next to me on the freeway and passed over a joint. We connected. We belonged. I didn’t think I wanted to belong anymore, so I pitched it once they were past.

Things weren’t going so well for my parents about then either, but they had found Jesus. I hung out with them and their new Jesus friends. They were Pentecostals – they got filled with Holy Spirit and spoke in tongues. Before long we became Charismatics instead – same deal, same people, but Pentecostals and Charismatics were downtown vs. uptown. Pentecostals lived in trailers. Charismatics went to college. Pentecostals had revival meetings. Charismatics had conferences in the Twin Cities. Technically everybody was equally damned, but most Charismatics were damned more respectably than in a Larry Norman kind of way.

College had Jesus Freaks by then. I went back and joined them  — 100 Christian students at war with everybody else. One day a religion prof brought up this Bible verse:

“Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock!”

Psalm 137:9

That’s in the Bible, he said, what did we think? I still remember what I thought – basically, I didn’t. The verse just wouldn’t compute – it had to be there for a reason, it couldn’t possibly say what it said, the professor was just making trouble. That’s the way it was on campus – we were persecuted – proof that we were righteous. A few weeks later I wrote a paper that said Nietzsche got syphilis, went crazy, and died because he said God was dead. The Prof was disgusted. It went on like that for three more years. – no more partying, but totally blowing a shot at what a first class college experience might have been – although to be fair, it wasn’t all the Christans’ fault — I think I was just too downtown to handle it..

Christians at war with “the world” followed me into my career. I was smart and worked hard, people hired me, liked me, but I could never quite join in. I was too busy with “come apart from them and be separate.” (2 Corinthians 6:16-18) My disgusted religious prof morphed into perplexed bosses and colleagues. I was white collar and credentialed but my place was not with the damned so much as the trying-to-get-undamned, and sooner or later I’d quit and go off on my next living by faith adventure until I ran out of money and came back for another entry in my patchwork quilt resume.

Rewind, repeat.

Thus my career degenerated into a trail of regrets and disappointments – all for the sake of a religion where you start out damned but then you get saved, but you’re still damned, only sort of conditionally saved until a big finale coming one day soon that will set everything to right and then you get to be undamned forever while everyone else gets damned for good, but if you die before that happens you get to take a shortcut to being undamned, and some people think even if you’re alive when the End Times really get rolling you’ll get a free pass out so that you get to go to Heaven early while everyone else has to live through hell on earth until the final Hell with a capital H finally opens up and gorges on everybody except maybe a few who figured out how to get undamned before everybody else gets damned for good.

Got all that?

That’s the “good news.”

In the meantime you find out that your highest and best calling is to be damned if you do and damned if you don’t. And the crazy thing is, the Bible comes right out and tells you that’s the way it’s going to be if you sign up. Here’s how it describes the highest and best of what it means to be a God Follower:

 “Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life. Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated—of whom the world was not worthy—wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.

“And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised,”[7]

Hebrews 11: 35-39.

It’s like the religion prof’s Bible verse. The Bible can’t really say that, there must be something else going on. The best you can do is suffer, and not get what you were promised?

Well now, isn’t that a hell of a deal!

We could have seen it coming if we’d thought for more than a nanosecond about our religion’s symbol:  the most horrible, cruel, depraved, savage, barbaric, sadistic, blood-lusty instrument of torture the very worst of human depravity has ever devised. You see it everywhere – molded in gold and silver and bejeweled. Earrings. Necklaces. Bumper stickers. All over the place. Often a human is included — twisting and writhing as he’s being tortured to death.

Oh, and a father did that to his child. Because he so loved the world.

Which means we’re supposed to feel good about the torture symbol. take comfort in it, welcome it, worship it, revere it as the best thing that ever happened, make art out of it, make elaborate paintings of it on the ceilings and in stained glass windows of massive centuries-old buildings all over Europe that were constructed in its shape and filled with statutes and sculptures of it. There have been countless millions (billions?) of those death by torture symbols made and displayed all around the world for a couple thousand years now, evidence of an international colonization of a death by torture cult, one that reveres the bloody sacrifice of animals and humans, has done so since antiquity and still does today -– billions of people for millennia treating that death by torture symbol as holy, something that can be desecrated — as if it’s not desecrated enough already, not already beyond despicable, not already horrible beyond any vestige of human decency.

That’s the Religion of the Damned. That’s the one I joined. That’s the one I’m no longer part of. (You might have guessed.)

Can we talk?

All this being damned and suffering and death by torture is not just a religion, it’s a worldview. A way of looking at life that’s been dominant in western culture for thousands of years. You’re lost, and it’s your fault. You were born that way, and then you proved how screwed up you were by screwing up some more.  You missed the mark from the get-go. No wonder you look in the mirror and don’t like what you see.

And on it goes. I’m so sick of it, I can’t write about it anymore.

What if we’re not that? What if we’re not a bunch of born losers, what if we’re just humans… just kind of… well, living…?

Is there any way that could be good enough?

The final Black Parade concert pronounced that it was over. (Click the photo to watch the show.) Let’s hope not. What needs to be over is the Religion of the Damned. What needs to be over is the dogma that we’re not okay, we never were okay, we never will be okay, that the only way to be okay is be the wretched and poor, beaten and damned, sat upon, spat upon, ratted on[8]… in the name of God. There’s enough Hell already, enough torture. We don’t need any more.

All those Goths, everybody who looks like their parents gave up on them, they’re all better off than that guy whose father tortured him to death. How about we all join the Black Parade, learn the lyrics, sing them together, look out for each other?

How about we all belong?

[1] YouTube — My Chemical Romance – The Black Parade Is Dead! (Full Concert Film)

[2] Larry Norman – Wikipedia

[8] Simon and Garfunkel, Blessed.