Monday, February 15, 2010

Crap Christianity is out there, it's evil, and I worry about "good" Christians who don't seem to notice

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TARA: So all the people who thought he could talk to their loved ones on the other side, what's to stop them from falling for the next Dalton Rand?
NATE [after thinking a moment]: Not a thing.

-- from last week's episode of Leverage, after
Nate's gang has successfully exposed a fake psychic

by Ken

This is what comes of not keeping up to date on your TV-watching. Over the weekend I finally caught up with last week's episode of Leverage (i.e., not from this past Wednesday but from the week before), a show we talked about just recently, and out pops this nugget on the ceaselessly predictable gullibility of a chunk of the public. This might have come in handy the other day when I was replying to a commenter who had, I think, misread what I wrote on a favorite subject of mine, Crap Christianity.

Here's what commenter Mikbee42 wrote:
" aided and exhorted by the colluded forces of darkness around them, starting with the fortresses of mind-controlling Crap Christianity."

wtf ken?
how about starting with the mind controlling israeli-jewish crap media, wall street and zionist politicians a la lieberman.
the real cult of ignorance.
your bigoted blanket statement about "Christianity" is not what i expected from you or dwt.
lets keep it fair and balanced!

And here's what I replied:
Sorry I was unclear, Mikbee42, but I didn't make a "blanket statement about Christianity," bigoted or otherwise. I referred specifically to Crap Christianity, which I've written about here frequently: It's the virulent, exploding version, generally but not exclusively evangelical, that has infested the U.S. in, say, the last 50 years.

If this is the first time you're encountering my reference to Crap Christianity, I can see where you might not have gotten my meaning. Still, it seems to me quite a jump to reading that as a statement that Crap Christianity = Christianity. That's not only not what I meant but not, I'm pretty sure, what I wrote -- though again I can appreciate the possibility of confusion.

(There is, of course, the larger subject of the stupendous historical wreckage wrought proudly in the name of mainstream Christianity -- and of course by most religions that have had the opportunity. But that's a subject for another time.)

I don't think anyone could complain that DWT devotes too little attention to crap media or to crappy Joe LIeberman. However, I guess it would be my opinion that neither of these has had anything like the effect of the organizers of Crap Christianity in turning some 40 percent of the population into ungoverning and ungovernable mental zombies.

I don't know that anyone particularly cares about my views on religion, but in the interest of clarity, I don't believe it's inherently good or bad. Like most creations of humans, it's both -- it reflects pretty much the exact spread of motivations and behaviors, from the best to the worst, that we find in most human endeavors and activities. Religion can be used in the service of moral and humane ends, and it can be used to justify and promote the worst impulses of mankind.

By Crap Christianity what I mean, in case it isn't obvious, is basically the Christian Right, in which small groups of people seek to control the thinking and behavior of (they hope) much larger groups of people, in the interest of the controlling group's egos or thirst for power or greed for wealth. It is fundamentally an authoritarian system, and in all its facets it's about control.

Here's how I put it in what was basically a music post last September, "Bach's faith rouses devotion, not ennui (or ridicule), in this nonbeliever -- his Jesus isn't the Right's 'macho Jesus'":

Bach's belief in Jesus as a representation of the best in us, the fullest and most meaningful humanity of which we are capable, the Prince of Peace, doesn't require much of a stretch for me. In fact, that belief, not to mention the actual teachings of Jesus, is what makes me crazy in the incessant braying of modern-day crap Christianity. Longtime DWT readers have heard both Howie and me sound this theme frequently. The ignorant, lying, bellicose, immoral crap Christians not only seem blitheringly unaware of what Jesus actually preached, but represent something very close to the forces of oppression and inhumanity that were Jesus's lifelong antagonists.

By coincidence (or is it coincidence?), in the Introduction to Max Blumenthal's book Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement that Shattered the Party, I just encountered this remarkable description of the "macho Jesus" central to "the authoritarian mindset driving the movement that has substantially taken over the modern Republican Party: the Christian Right," as he experienced it personally in five years of interviewing hundreds of its leaders, attending dozens of rallies and conferences, listening to "countless hours" of radio broadcasts, and sitting "in movement-oriented houses of worship where no journalists were permitted."
As I explored the contours of the movement, I discovered a culture of personal crisis lurking behind the histrionics and expressions of social resentment. This culture is the mortar that bonds leaders and followers together. . . .

The movement's Jesus is the opposite of the prince of peace. He is a stern, overtly masculine patriarch charging into the fray with his sword raised against secular foes; he is "the head of a dreadful company, mounted on a horse, with a double-edged sword, his robe dipped in blood," according to movement propagandist Steve Arterburn. Mark Driscoll, a pastor who operates an alternative Christian rock venue from his church, stirs the souls of twenty-something evangelical males with visions of "Ultimate Fighting Jesus." This same musclebound god-man starred in Mel Gibson's blood-drenched The Passion of the Christ, enduring bone-crushing punishment at the hands of Jews and pagans for two hours of unrelieved pornographic masochism.

A portrait of virility and violence, the movement's omnipotent macho Jesus represents the mirror inversion of the weak men who necessitated his creation. As [psychologist Erich] Fromm explained, "the lust for power is not rooted in strength but in weakness [italics in original]. It is the expression of the individual self to stand alone and live. It is the desperate attempt to gain secondary strength where genuine strength is lacking."

No indeed, Bach's Jesus has nothing in common with this macho Jesus. And I imagine Bach's deep Christian faith must be an irrelevance if not an outright outrage to the crap Christian worshippers of macho Jesus. Indeed, having come this far with Max, we need to continue on at least one more paragraph:
The movement's macho Jesus provided purpose to Tom DeLay, a dallying, alcoholic Texas legislator transformed through evangelical religion from "Hot Tub Tommy" into a dictatorial House majority leader known as "The Hammer." Macho Jesus was the god of Ted Haggard, a closet homosexual born-again and charismatic megachurch leader, risen to head of the National Association of Evangelicals, preaching the gospel of spiritual warfare and anti-gay crusades. And he was the god of Howard F. Ahmanson Jr., an eccentric millionaire whose inheritance of massive wealth literally drove him mad, prompting his institutionalization, who found relief as one of the far right's most reliable financial angels. Macho Jesus even transformed the serial killer Ted Bundy, murderer and rapist of dozens of women, who became a poster child for anti-pornography activists with his nationally televised death row confessional. . . .

Although we now have a number of excellent books exploring the seamy world of Crap Christianity, Republican Gomorrah remains an excellent basic source, with its frighteningly consistent accounts of the twisted histories of the men (yes, they're all men) who made Crap Christianity such a commanding force in American politics. Not surprisingly, Howie has also devoted quite a lot of attention to this cancer on our body politic, and has also used Republican Gomorrah as a basic resource.

Crap Christians don't believe in Jesus or his teachings, on which they basically defecate. Not only have they manufactured their own Jesus, in all essential respects their "macho" Jesus is an Antichrist, clearly intended to undercut the actual teachings of Jesus. Now, in fact, the Crap Christians have undertaken to actually rewrite the Bible to conform to their fundamentally fascist vision, as Noah reported in awarding his "Why Do You Hate the Bible? Award" (among his year-end Scorn Awards) to Ned Flanders look-alike Andy Schlafly of Conservapedia --
for their Bible Project, which aims to “translate” the Bible into a conservative world view -- "to render God's word into modern English without liberal translation distortions" -- because in the demented minds at the Conservapedia madrasa, not only does real life itself have a liberal bias, but so does the Good Book. ("Liberal bias has become the single biggest distortion in modern Bible translations.")

Translation: The Bible needs to be pounded into the service of the ultra-right-wing vision of modern American Movement Conservatism.

Does Joe Lieberman serve the interests of Israel's Likudniks in the Senate? No question about it, and Howie in particular has written about that a lot. Has Joe Lieberman engaged in activities designed to control the minds of Americans? Well, actually, yes, most notably in his efforts to impose censorship on American music -- in league, of course, with the Crap Christians. I don't doubt that his heart is with them, but he hasn't personally done much to advance the cause.

Whereas the Crap Christians have converted, at conservative estimate, tens of millions of Americans into zombielike tools of their authoritarian religious-political vision, creating an electoral force beyond the reach of truth, reason, or even reality, thereby rendering the country increasingly ungovernable, unless perhaps by some eventual mind-controlling authority that's consistent with theirs.

Widespread human gullibility is the Crap Christians' marching weapon. Just this past Saturday Glenn Greenwald wrote a post called "Religious faith in government accusations," in which he noted:
[I]f one hears only the Government's unchallenged, untested accusations about detainees and others whom it labels Terrorists and Enemy Combatants, it semes clear and obvious that the person is an Evil, Dangerous and Bad Man. But when those accusations are actually subjected to scrutiny by courts, it turns out that -- in the overwhelming majority of cases -- there is virtually no reliable evidence to support them. Even beyond those cases, Lawrence Wilkerson, former Chief of Staff to Colin Powell, had access to detainee files and revealed that a huge number of Guantanamo detainees -- constantly accused of being the Worst of the Worst -- were, in fact, completely innocent, as even the Bush administration came to acknowledge.

Glenn went on to point out: "Despite those facts, a religious-like faith in government pronouncements continues to dominate debates over Terrorism and civil liberties."

It's no accident that far-right-wing government pronouncements are greeted by this segment of the population with "religious-like faith." Their faith has been brainwashing them to do so.

I used to feel a lot more anger than I do now toward the "good" Christians who look the other way. What's changed is that I've come to understand how under siege many of them feel in the face of the onslaught of Crap Christianity, which has the show-biz pizzazz and a savvy combination of the right mix of rewards and punishments to lure their people away. But when so-called good Christians deny the existence of or danger from the Crap Christian movement in this country, I have a real problem.
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14 Comments:

At 6:48 PM, Blogger Oso said...

I still go to Mass on Christmas Eve or when visiting my oldest daughter, she has a nearby church who support peace.
Odd,Christian church supporting peace huh?
Rest of the time, I pray on my own and try to lead a good life. I have faith in Him but not in these assholes here supporting the war, supporting hate.

 
At 7:27 PM, Blogger Philip Munger said...

Ken,

"Schlummert ein..." may be my favorite low voice aria by Bach. Not only had I never heard Mattias Goerne's rendition, I'd never been able to understand that song, or that cantata on the level you explained it in the linked article that I had missed last September.

When Max Blumenthal stayed with me back in September 2008, we were both way too busy to just sit down and talk. Darn. I'm glad you've brought this aspect of his book out. His understanding of Christianity is certainly deeper than mine.

I regard the Jesus story as representative of a composite character, rather than having been directly related to the real person referred to in the Bible and elsewhere. The Romans crucified a lot of Jewish holy men. But what Bach understood was important, his belief in humanity strong, even if he did think he was underpaid for his work. There's as much Jesus for me in Bach's sacred works as there is in the Bible.

 
At 7:37 PM, Anonymous mikbee42 said...

"I used to feel a lot more anger than I do now toward the "good" Christians........but when so-called good Christians deny the existence of or danger from the Crap Christian movement in this country, I have a real problem."

the reason i replied on the " Crap Christianity" post was because of the anger in your words that you admit too. anger can cloud our respect for others individual beliefs. your blanket statement about "crap christianity" is quit different than using the term "christian right". the former term insults the individuals who might have a personal relation with their idea of jesus. the latter i think is an organized conservative movement to use their "macho" jesus to subvert millions of americans as you claim.
my view of religion is one person inspired in their own heart to self-realize themselves,
any attempt to forfeit my own common sense in order to be enslaved by any organized religion is bullshit. lets call that "Crap Religiosity" which would cover all faiths that pervert the truth.

dwt is a place i have seen the truth for the last four years of reading it.
we have NO problem between us, because i could never deny the obvious of whats going on in christianity, islam, judaism etc.
thats why i say cover everyone who belongs under blanket,and don't be angry at my indivdual self-realization.
is god love? is god music?
is god the love music lets me feel?

 
At 9:41 PM, Anonymous Ida Jurie said...

I was raised as a Christian and I know something about this. I had no moral choice but to leave my church. I know through sad experience that if there were "good Christians", they would have spoken up by now. They have had many years and many opportunities to speak up. Just as Republicans are comfortable and willing with having all those hate filled teabagger altered reality based wackjobs, KKKrs, and Fox News speak for them, Christians are in lock step agreement with their jihadists. Christianity is not a hijacked religion and the Republican party is not a hijacked party. They are both what they are and that is how they represent themselves. Perception is reality.

 
At 11:52 PM, Anonymous Cheap Cosmetics said...

of course people living in the world must pray god themselves for peace and to live a good life. I heartly salutes the Jesus story as representative of a composite character, rather than having been directly related to the real person referred to in the Bible and elsewhere. thanks.

 
At 11:52 PM, Blogger KenInNY said...

Thanks to all for a really thoughtful and stimulating batch of comments.

Just a bit of follow-up for our friend mikbee42, along with thanks for stimulating this discussion: I am ABSOLUTELY on board with the idea of "crap religiosity." But the clear and present issue in the U.S. right now seems to me without question Crap Christianity, which is working so hard to undermine the basic principles on which this country was founded, and has had such alarming success at it.

(The whole phenomenon of the Family is Crap Christianity at its most insidious and dangerous. And in the interest of space I didn't go into the whole question of alliances the Crap Christian leaders have formed with some of the older-line Christian denominations on specific issues.)

One might ask, hasn't AIPAC, the formidable American Jewish lobby on behalf of (overwhelmingly) the Israeli Right, aggressively entered the political arena? Yes, of course! But they're basically a single-issue operation, and while its single issue has had a seriously corrupting effect on American foreign policy (Glenn Greenwald has kept especially good watch on this), significant as this is, to me it's as nothing compared with the total control of people's lives sought and won by the lying, hypocritical leaders of the Crap Christian movement (who almost without exception -- and I put in the "almost" merely to cover the possibility that there's an exception I'm not aware of -- don't believe a word of the repressive, anti-democratic bullshit they inflict on the people they've enslaved), not to mention the degree of political clout they've fought for.

The Crap Christians of course deny that separation of church and state was even espoused, let alone considered fundamental, by the American Founders, but that's because they're either historical and constitutional ignoramuses or pathological liars. (Actually, I see no reason to frame that as an "either/or" issue. Crap Christian leaders are equally comfortable with ignorance and lies.) What's more, there are no Jews or Muslims or Buddhists or Hindus claiming that this is a Jewish or Muslim or Buddhist or Hindu country, whereas there are, in open defiance of the Founders' insistence that the U.S. would have no established religion, plenty of Crap Christians claiming that this is a "Christian country," almost always (again the "almost" is a precautionary qualifier for possible exceptions that I'm not personally aware of) at the expense of, if not as a direct threat to, all other religions. Talk about a travesty of what this country is supposed to be about!

Am I angry about all of this? Absolutely. And again, I wonder about anyone who isn't.

And again, I can't recommend Max Blumenthal's Republican Gomorrah highly enough for its careful documentation of how thoroughly planned the Christian Right crossover into political power was -- and by what a deeply disturbed phalanx of humans.

As an example of an exemplary Christian, though I'm sorry to have lost track of his blogging, I offer Pastor Dan Schultz, who seems to have disappeared from streetprophets.com and to be writing only occasionally on religiondispatches.org. I note, though, that the January 31 RD post by him, "Obama Missed the Hope in State of the Union Address," is presented as "adapted excerpt from his forthcoming book." I'm not saying that Pastor Dan would endorse my Crap Christian terminology, but he has been both vocal and eloquent on the widespread abuse of Christianity by powerful American Christian movements.

Jesus would undoubtedly forgive, because that's who he was, but I can't imagine that he would be anything but appalled by the wholesale perversion of his teachings.

Ken

 
At 5:15 AM, Anonymous Frank Wilhoit said...

Two additional points, if I may.

(1) Those whom you call "Crap Christians" have succeeded in redefining Christianity, due to lack of effective pushback. They are it and it is them. Inflection points in a world religion cannot occur more often than every several centuries, so we may effectively treat this transformation as permanent.

(2) "Crap Christianity", as you almost but not quite say, is purely a manifestation of sadism. If Christianity had not offered itself for cooptation, they would have found some other movement to coopt. They know nothing about the tradition or content of the Christian faith; they handle it as a collection of verbal talismans.

 
At 5:49 AM, Anonymous Mark Scarbrough said...

Ken: I'm with you. I don't get it. It's not the religion my grandparents practiced--and they were stern German Methodists on the Oklahoma prairie, people who had immigrated through Ellis Island and then actually taken part in the OK land runs. They practiced (to my mind) a rather severe Christianity--but it wasn't this strange, brain-washed, emoto-Nazi, tears-on-the-face-of-Beck stuff I see now. My grandmother was a Democrat--always and forever. My grandfather? A Republican. They always laughed that their votes canceled out each other. But that was it: they laughed about it. They always voted, took politics very seriously--my grandfather drove a truck for Continental Oil; my grandmother was a baker in a local elementary school--but they practiced a form of private, stern, but still open Christianity. Yes, they prayed every day and read their Bible--all in German--but they were otherwise open, accepting, caring people, not brain-washed by the incessant thud of feel-good, feel-Jesus-deep-inside-me (wtf?), blubbering-but-gun-toting Crap Christianity.

I've been gone from any church for over a decade now--but I have actually been rather obsessed for the past year with Bach Cantatas. And I'm sort of dumbfounded by the serene but also somehow gentle faith in them (I'm thinking right now of that opening chorus of cantata 8, "Liebster Gott, Wenn Wird Ich Sterben?"). It's a gorgeous, patient, quiet expression of a religious sentiment far beyond the blather.

But all that talk of serenity still doesn't negate my very real anger and dismay at what I see going on in this tea-soaked America. I suppose the article in the NYTimes this morning about the baggers did it to me. I just want to know: when are we going to form an honestly progressive political party? Will it be in my lifetime?

 
At 5:55 AM, Blogger KenInNY said...

Thanks, Frank and Mark, two more really fascinating comments. I'm humbled.

Ken

 
At 7:20 AM, Blogger cybermome said...

Ken,

This is a very rich post.It's something that has been front and center in my mind these days. I haven't spoken in 6 weeks to my best friend.And it's because of her religious beliefs. It's literally driving her crazy (more about that later)

Read the Empathetic Civilization and follow the posts this month on Huff Post.Fascinating about mirror neurons. Maybe that's why I see fundies/crap christianists do hurtful and mean things. Maybe they have "fewer" mirror neurons. Food for thought..Its a great read...

My friend. Raised a Jew,became severely depressed in the 70s found Jesus.Then in the 90s went back to Judiasm, even though she believes Jesus is the messiah. Has voted Republican since Reagan but voted for Obama.She ended up in a mental hospital last winter because of her "conflicts" with being in a Jewish grad school but not "preaching" about Jesus. She believes she will go to hell and won't be saved..I'm not making this up.

The reason I brought up the above, is because like my friend, when you are dealing with crappy christian people you are looking at people who see things on a really primitive level...

 
At 9:22 AM, Anonymous Celeste27 said...

As a "regular" Christian, I am angered at the way the Crap Christian movement has co-opted my religion. I am even MORE angered at the way the Christian denominations have allowed themselves to be used, and their message subverted, by these power-hungry hypocrites. They TALK about the separation of church and state, but they lobby in Washington to promote their agenda. They prey on the fears of the faithful, or, if that doesn't work, they invent new crises.

 
At 3:02 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Religion is all based on myths and lies. No more second hand Gods. It's time we take responsibility and start solving our real problems not how to get to heaven and stay out of hell. What utter nonsense. Dogs play fetch the bone to please their masters only humans play the game of masks and monuments let's bury the dead. Time to wake up and by using our great scientific knowledge get things to work for everyone and stop playing monopoly. Making money and making sense are mutually exclusive. Time to start making sense.

 
At 3:08 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Anyone who prays and says he knows god is an absolute faker.

 
At 1:54 PM, Anonymous me said...

"I worry about 'good' Christians"

There's no such thing as a good christian.

 

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