I thought there was nothing that would get me out of my new state of perpetual lurkdom until today.
I have thought about this all day from the moment it was posted, all through work, all through aerobics and yoga, all through dinner and time with friends.
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
What's so special about humanity that we're not allowed to condemn human beings out of hand?I would consider that one of the most hateful and astounding statements that I have ever read I (and the last place I expected it was in the JMDL) until I got to:
What overwhelming arrogance and hate. It recalls nothing so much as Nazi hate literature speaking of "degenerate Judaism." To oppose another's religion, or to attempt to divide persons or a people from their faith and religion. I am not Islamic. I am not Islamic because I know God through Christ. Other people may know God ways that work for them. That is not a matter of my concern. But to "oppose" another religion - astounding in arrogance and hate. Anyone who knows me knows I could say much, much more but I will not.THIS is why I oppose Islam (not Arabs) -
that is a slightly more or less fair statement, lot of things I don't like about Christianity, but it is bordering on the same arrogance that judges another religion, another faith - it is at the root of all bigotry and evil to judge the faith of other people - to like or not like the faith that is real to others. The religious faith of some people is not for others to like or dislike.I don't like Christianity either,
but at least it's now virtually powerless, at least in the West, with even many of its priests admitting they don't believe in god."Many..." And when Colin called the poster on this line, we got the name of one minister in response, someone who I have never heard of, no doubt they exist, but to make such an astounding generalization based on one example - and go ahead, name a few more, it is still a handful - is overpreening disrespect and arrogance for the faith of other people, the height of judgmentalism, hate speech.
I suspect that I know more Christian clergy than most people on this forum. Nothing of note; many of you know a lot more musicians than I do, because you are musicians. I am clergy. After the words posted about condemning people out of hand, opposition to a faith and the attempt to divide a people from their faith, this particular type of slam on Christianity, I cannot be shocked to see another slam on clergy. Simply put - and I speak as a bishop within my own church body - this is incredibly off base. But minor compared to the rest of the post.
I am going to mention one other poster, for a reason, bear with me. Laurent and I have disagreed on things political. Laurent also knows that I base all of my theology and indeed my entire perspective on life on the Holocaust. Laurent did me the great honor of reading a paper that I wrote on theological perspective, made some very helpful to me comments, and supplied a valuable critique. And Laurent, I am getting to redo the paper and I am incorporating your criticisms in my revision. Laurent and I may yet continue to disagree on particular political matters - although I have no desire to dispute with him because, as much as we differ, I totally respect where he is coming from and know that if I were in his place, I might feel as he does. However, I am in my place, and feel as I do.
Yet I trust and pray that Laurent would state that as misguided politically he thinks I am, that he knows that my life, my entire theology, is based on response to Holocaust. I take Shoah more seriously than I take anything else. Frankly, the death of one Jew does not occupy my mind as much as the death of the 6 million. And in my own way - right or wrong as the policies that I espouse stemming from my reaction to the Holocaust - my life is about never, ever letting hate prevail again and doing everything that I can to oppose Holocaust, and the hate the leads to Holocaust. I mention this because those who do not know me do not know how central, how utterly at the center, is the Holocaust in my thinking and theology, not respective of how one may agree or disagree with my politics that stem from that, at least give me credit for taking Holocaust at its ultimate seriousness. And through the years, I have discussed Holocaust in this forum as some may do me the honor of remembering.
I have read the German and the English translations of the German where my theological German was weak, of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, of the attacks on the faith of a people as published in the Nazi papers, the hate that was presented as enlightened thinking by learned scholars (unfortunately, Christian) who debased and demeaned the faith and the religion of others. It all led to Holocaust. What paced the way for the actual Holocaust was the attack on the religion of the other, in case, the religion of the Jew. First within the German Church, it was the faith of the Jews that was opposed as a prelude to what was to follow, because if people follow a depraved faith then... you can see what comes next. What comes next is condemning people out of hand.
What comes next is condemning people out of hand.
And that was what was espoused in this post, incredibly.
The condemnation of a people's faith and the defense of condemning people out of hand - and I merely quote the post - is hate. And hate leads to the the single most grievous crime humanity has ever seen - its ability to kill others because "war brings peace" and "we must destroy the village in order to save it" and "they are just Jews-gooks-sand niggers-Moselms" anyway.
Condemn people out of hand.
Oppose a religion of others.
Dislike the religion of others.
Condemn the clergy of a faith for not believing something, based on the interpretation of what one person said.
Condemning people out of hand.
I may want to lurk forever but when I see the precursors of Holocaust, I will speak out. The deaths of the 6 million, and the deaths of the others in the gas chambers and at Babi Yar and the deaths of the all too few Christian clergy who died at the hands of the Nazis for the opposition to Holocaust, for Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer who was hung with piano wire to make his death more painful because Bonhoeffer was involved in the plot to assassinate Hitler to try and stop Holocaust, the deaths of the 6 million will not let me be silent.
There are reasons to support the Bush policy. (I think the reasons and the policy are wrong, but that is my value judgment; there are legitimate reasons to support the Bush policy.) There are legitimate reasons to oppose the Bush policy. There are a realm of options that may be chosen for a response to terrorism, and to Saddam Hussein, and there are reasons to suspect a link between Al Queda and Saddam, as well as reasons to say there is no link. These are all equally legitimate. Our task is to select from the myriad of reasons and policy options and choose with rationality and with deliberate concern for what is the reality which we must discern and the most realistic response to that reality. Those things MUST be discussed, and the JMDL is perhaps the best place of all to do so given the various perspectives of this generally erudite and intelligent and reflective community of people with many experiences that all shed light on the whole.
But I suggest, with all the passion that is within me that:
Condemn people out of hand.
Oppose a religion of others.
Dislike the religion of others.
Condemn the clergy of a faith for not believing something, based on the interpretation of what one person said.
Condemning people out of hand.
(Never did I think I read these sentiments in the JMDL. I am saddened.)
These options are unacceptable and are, in deed, hate, the same hate that led to Shoah. Will this hate lead to a new holocaust of a different people? At this time I would say no, not likely, but it is the first step. The first steps the Nazis and their apologists took in 1932-33 didn't indicate where it would end.
Thank you for your time, those who have read this. Long time posters know I am capable of saying much, much more, and it is hard for me to limit my observations to this overly long post. I will not be available for disputation on this because I return to lurkdom, not because I do not relish a debate, which I don't actually, but because the continual posting of things that cause turmoil are not solutions and the reflective discussion that need to take place. Others can do that without me. I pray they do. My continuation in this discussion will polarize the discussion, in reality or in the arrogance of my own mind.
I have said what I will say and I close in this way:
I claim my faith which is rooted in the faith of Abraham and Sarah and their son Isaac and their descendants forever, and my kinship in faith with Abraham and Hagar and their son Ishmael and their descendants forever. (And might we see the strife in the world as not between peoples who are enemies, but between people who are literally in Abraham brothers and sisters - those are the worst fights after all, and resolved not in hate but in finding a way to return to the kinship.) I embrace all people as God's children out of hand, but not of God's love, and thus, my calling.
And I sign my name in this way in an old way that I don't use much anymore, with addendum, but seems ever the way to do it this night:
(the Rev) Vince
Bishop
American Apostolic Catholic Church
and a member of the JMDL
