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Saturday, July 29, 2006

Religion, the state and war in Christian Republican America

Michael Lind of the New America Foundation writes in his Made in Texas: George W. Bush and the Southern Takeover of American Politics (2003):

The figure with the greatest influence on the Middle Eastern policy of George W. Bush, at the level of mass electoral politics rather than elite policymaking, is a long-dead English preacher, John Nelson Darby (1800-1882). It is unlikely that Bush, born-again Christian though he is, has ever heard of Darby. But the Protestant tradition that Darby founded has had a profound influence on the politics of the American South and, through George W. Bush, on American foreign policy.

John Nelson Darby was an Anglican priest in Ireland who abandoned the Church of England in the 1820s and founded his own sect, the Brethren, which spread throughout the British Isles, Germany, North America, and elsewhere. Over many years Darby worked out the elaborate theory of premillennial dispensationalism, which influences American Protestant fundamentalist belief today.

Lind gives a good description of Darby's "premillenial dispensationalist" view of the End Times. While there are many minor variations in the details among American fundamentalists and Pentecoltalists today, this framework largely shapes the way the Christian Right views Middle Eastern politics today. And they consider it a high-priority matter, one which they are more than happy to press our Republican administration to apply in practice to the hideously complicated problems of the Middle East today:

Darby's vision of history, scarcely altered by his successors, holds that in the "end times" Israel will be re-created as a nation-state. God will intervene repeatedly to save Israel. Eventually, however, the state of Israel will be destroyed in the battle of Armageddon, in which an international confederation—perhaps the United Nations, perhaps the European Union — will be led by the Antichrist, whom many fundamentalists believe will be an apostate Jew. Most Jews will be killed, but 144,000 will convert to Christianity. Jesus will physically return to earth in order to defeat the Antichrist. At that point, the Jewish Temple on the Temple Mount (where al-Aksa Mosque stands today) will be restored, along with the throne of King David. Having returned to earth, Jesus will establish a world government in the form of a theocracy and rule as a benevolent dictator for the next thousand years, whereupon Satan will escape, only to be defeated once again—this time forever. (my emphasis)

I can't stress enough that this view is rooted in a traditional, anti-Jewish interpretation of the Christian New Testament.

In this view, God chose the Jews as his people. When he sent their Messiah (christos, in the Greek), they collectively rejected him. And God has and will collectively punish the Jews for this rejection.

One of the great accomplishment of the Second Vatical Council of the early 1960s in the Catholic Church was that the Church explicitly rejected this particular Christian view of Jews. Because in the development of hatred against Jews, both the fait-based and pseudoscientific versions, this traditional Christian attitude that "the Jews" were collectively "Christ-killers" has borne nothing but poisonous fruit.

The anti-Semitic core of this particular view, Lind has summarized well in his sentence, "Most Jews will be killed, but 144,000 will convert to Christianity." That is, the 144,000 will stop being Jews and become Christians. Any theory or Biblical interpretation that says it's God's will for most of the Jews in the world to be killed and the tiny remnant to stop being Jews has something rotten at its core. Many Jews are very right to be suspicious of a kind of "philo-Semitism" or "support of Israel" that's built around such assumptions.

The Christian Zionists love Jews so much they are eager to see most of them killed off. Conservative Christians who find themselves attracted to elements of the "premillennial dispensationalist" view should take a hard look at the assumptions and implications of this theory in relation to Jews, and in relation to the experiences of Christian history and Christian treatment of Jews, especially the bloody history of the 20th century.

Lind traces the influence of Darby's apocalyptic views through Dwight Moody, a preacher and scholar who was tremedously influential for American fundis, and Cyrus Scofield. Scofield was at the Dallas Theological Seminary and he published an edition of the King James version of the Christian Bible, called the Scofield Reference Bible. Heavily footnoted with interpretive commentary of a distinctly fundamentalist cast, this has been a highly influential volume from which fundamentalist ministers could quickly draw capsule theological interpretations to frame Bible verses and explain them to their congregations.

Darby's belief and influence in the United States are discussed in this article: Prophetic Belief in the United States: Willaim Miller and the Second Great Awakening by L. Michael White, Frontline Apocalypse Website (1995?):

William Miller was the founder of what we now know as the Seventh Day Adventists. The "Millerites" were one of many religious/utopian movements in the United States at that time. Miller predicted the end of the world would come at a particular date in 1843, but events revealed that he had miscalculated. He tried again in 1844, with the same result. The latter became known as The Great Disappointment. I'll bet it was.

White writes:

After the Great Disappointment, there was a great deal of skepticism about prophecy belief. I think there was a period when it was really discredited. And it was at that point, in the mid-19th century, that John Nelson Darby, a brilliant British theologian and preacher, emerged with a new system, premillennial dispensationalism, in which he offered an interpretation of the prophecies that was really quite different from Miller's. Miller saw the prophetic scheme unfolding over historical time and ending at a certain point. Darby sees a series of dispensations, which will culminate in a dramatic moment, the moment of the Rapture, when true believers will be taken from the earth. And at that point, the prophetic clock will begin to tick again, and a series of events will then inevitably follow: the Great Tribulation, the second coming, the battle of Armageddon, and so on.

White also makes an important observation about Darby's apocalypticism. It solves the problem of date-setting for predictions of the end rooted in the Christian Scriptures:

... I think the doctrine of the Rapture is a tremendous breakthrough in the history of prophetic teaching, because with it Darby avoided the problem of the Millerites, the problem of date setting, but at the same time the doctrine of the Rapture holds believers in a state of constant readiness. They could be snatched from the earth literally at any moment. So one must always be observing one's behavior. What would happen if the Rapture occurred at this moment? ... But on the other hand, it may be far in the future. So one must live a responsible life; one must be a good citizen; one must obey the laws. It avoids the other risk of irresponsible behavior, because if the end could come at any moment, who cares about keeping my house in repair; who cares about buying life insurance, or educating my children? So it provides both that sense of readiness for a dramatic breakpoint in history, but also provides for the possibility that life may go on very much as it always has.

Baked into this scheme is the notion that, along with Satan, Jews get to be among the grand historical villains:

The Great Tribulation in Darby's scheme will be a 7-year period. Initially a figure will arise, a man of peace. ... But halfway through the Great Tribulation, this person will reveal himself as the Antichrist, the enemy of righteousness, and will bring a period of horrendous persecution and suffering to the earth. Historically, many prophecy believers have taught that the Antichrist will be a Jew. And it makes sense logically, because the Antichrist will be a mirror of Jesus. Jesus was Jewish, therefore the Antichrist will be Jewish. So we have, for example, the televangelist Jerry Falwell very recently announce[d] that he believes that the Antichrist is a young Jewish male who is probably alive today. That got a lot of attention, but in fact it was very much in the tradition of this strand of prophetic belief that the Antichrist will be a Jew, and that the end could come at any moment. (my emphasis)

As for Cyrus Scofield, here is a very recent blog post that talks about Scofield and his Bible: Fundamentally flawed Alpha Geek Observer blog 07/25/06. The pseudonymous author, Grimmthooth, employs a somewhat eccentric use of "fundamentalism", though for a particular purpose:

Many things about the current days' perceptions of Christians - on both sides of the fence - bother me a lot. I'm of a conservative Baptist upbringing, and in my youth saw nothing of the malice and sneering elitistm of today's "evangelical" congregation. I've seen people that allegedly represent the teachings of Jesus stray from every fundamental thing he taught. And they have the gall to call themselves "fundamentalists" ...

It's discouraging. The Christian faith at its fundamental levels is about kindness, forgiveness, tolerance, and - dare we say it - love. The chief rule of Jesus' teachings is commonly referred to as "the Golden Rule" and states simply "Do to others as you would have them do to you." Not "do in kind" or other reactionary interpretations, but simply to set the right example for others.

And Grimmtooth writes:

Today's headlines are full of war in the middle east, with Isreal [sic] once again playing the heavy. Many of our nation's alleged christians seem to be looking forward to a coming conflagration. They truly believe that the righteous will be snatched up just before things turn ugly, the concept of the "Rapture."

One little problem with that. It doesn't exist. Not anywhere in the Bible, unless you buy the right Bible.

The Bible in question is known as the Scofield Reference Edition, and is very popular in the evengalical [sic]circles. It is named thusly because it was invented, out of whole cloth, by one Cyrus Scofield who was, well, less than savory in character. He was a fan of a real wingnut sect of the Protestant church that believed in the Rapture, based solely off the rantings of some tart in Scotland that claimed she had seen visions. Scofield encoded it into his reference edition as a footnote, knowing that people would soon start to think that it was actually a part of the book of Revelations because they would confuse it with the actual writings of John. And thus, a fable was born.

This is minor compared to other biases introduced in his footnotes. As the Wikipedia article indicates, one of the biases brought into the Bible through his efforts was the entire concept of Christian Zionism. It is a common theme in even Sunday School for children that those that support Isreal are righteous, and those that do not are going against God's will. This of course ignores the biblical fact that God himself has punished Isreal a number of times, sending Hittites, Egyptians, Syrians, and Persians in to teach them a lesson or ten. (my emphasis)

I have some hesitation in citing sources on fundamentalism online, for several reasons. One is that I'm not always familiar with the Web sources. Another is that historical accounts of figures like Scofield or Darby in themselves have particular issues with the sources. Such men were not major figures of statecraft or diplomacy, so the actual archival records may be sparse. And their stories are often so involved with bitter religious polemics, so claims and counter-claims are not always easy to sort out. Plus, a biography of Cyrus Scofield or John Nelson Darby is hardly likely to be a commercial best-seller, or even to have high competitive value on the curriculum vitae of a secular historian. So those writing the histories are often religious polemicists or fundamentalist scholars, and the latter don't have a reputation of observing mainstream academic standards.

So, critical thinking is in order, perhaps more so with a topic like this than it normally is.

With that caution in mind, here is an 1896 article by Scofield, "Rightly Dividing the World of Truth". It's fair to say that the concluding paragraph of Chapter 1 reflects a - to use a polite world - "traditionalist" Christian understanding of the Jews:

It may safely be said that the Judaizing of the [Christian] church has done more to hinder her progress, pervert her mission, and destroy her spiritually than all other causes combined. Instead of pursuing her appointed path of separation from the world and following the Lord in her heavenly calling, she has used Jewish Scriptures to justify herself in lowering her purpose to the civilization of the world, the acquisition of wealth, the use of an imposing ritual, the erection of magnificent churches, the invocation of God's blessing upon the conflicts of armies, and the division of an equal brotherhood into "clergy" and "laity." (my emphasis)

He elaborates on the point in "The Biggest Failure of the Church Age" (undated at that link):

I believe that the failure of the Church to see that she is a separated, a called-out Body in the purposes of God, charged with a definite mission limited in its purpose and scope, and the endeavor to take from Israel [i.e., "the Jews"] her promises of earthly glory, and appropriate them over into this Church dispensation, has done more to swerve the Church from the appointed course than all other influences put together. It is not so much wealth, luxury, power, pomp, and pride that have served to deflect the Church from her appointed course, as the notion, founded upon Israelitish Old Testament promises, that the Church is of the world, and that therefore, her mission is to improve the world. Promises which were given to Israel alone are quoted as justifying what we see all about us today. (my emphasis)

Yes, you read that correctly. He's saying that the greatest problem with the Christian church is that it has become...too Jewish.

And notice that a key symptom of the evils of "Judaizing", along with such supposedly Jewish characteristics as "wealth, luxury, power, pomp, and pride", is the idea that the Christian church should concern itself in any way with "the civilization of the world" or a "mission is to improve the world".

Historians rightly point to notions like this as tending in an apolitical direction. Since the world is irredemably sinful, Christians should bother with trying to improve it. Still, I suspect this "apolitical" tendency is sometimes misread. Though fundamentalists have never before enjoyed the national political clout they do today, that doesn't mean they weren't inclined to have the goverment enforce their ideas of desirable religious standards of conduct.

But someone who believes that trying to "improve the world" is a wicked Jewish notion can simultaneously oppose government pension or medical programs (sinful Jewish attempts to promote "civilization") and cheer for the most aggressive military policies on behalf of the State of Israel (which bring closer the blessed day when most Jews will be killed off). If that seems like a grim characterization of the premillennial dispensationsist view, it's because that view really is a grim, dark, extremely pessimistic view of humanity's future.

Now, any good fundamentalist will know to brush away any suggestion that they are influenced by Christian tradition, like Scofield anti-Jewish writings of over a century ago. Because, you see, they get their inspiration directly from the Word of God, and their understanding is guided by God himself. But, in reality, today's Christian Zionism stems from this brand of thinking. And when it comes to anti-Semitism, the Christian Zionist apple hasn't fallen far from the anti-Semitic tree.

Lind points to the works of Hal Lindsay in the 1970s, such as *The Late, Great Planet Earth*, as being an important source of popularizing these ideas. More recently, the *Left Behind* series of novels and related products have done the same.

And this fundamentalist belief intersected in a particular way with history and politics in America and in the Republican Party:

The premillennialist dispensationalism of John Nelson Darby has led American Protestant fundamentalists to view the foundation of the state of Israel as a sign that the end of history was approaching. The victory of Israel in 1967, and its conquest and occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, created a wave of apocalyptic enthusiasm among Protestant fundamentalists in the United States, particularly in Texas and other Southern states. The restoration of Jews to all of the Holy Land became a priority for the Southern right a generation before the Southern right hijacked the national Republican Party. (my emphasis)

And in this account, Lind gives us not only a glimpse of how influential "Christian Zionism" is among Republicans. He also gives a classic example of how the authoritarianism of today's Republican Party can be anti-authority when the authority is one they don't recognize as legitimate:

The leading conservative members of Congress from Texas were among the most fervent supporters of the far right in Israel. In the last week of April 2002, House Majority Whip Tom DeLay said that all of the West Bank — which he followed the practice of the Jewish and Christian religious right in calling "Judea and Samaria" — belonged to Israel, presumably because God gave it to Abraham and his descendants. On May 1, 2002, on MSNBC's program "Hardball," House Republican Majority Leader Armey endorsed the call of the Israeli right for the ethnic cleansing by Israeli military of the West Bank and Gaza of native Palestinians. "I'm content to have Israel grab the entire West Bank." When Chris Matthews, the host, replied, "Well, where do you put the Palestinian state, in Norway?" Armey answered, "I happen to believe the Palestinians should leave." Stunned, Matthews said, "Well, just to repeat, you believe that the Palestinians who are now living on the West Bank should get out of there?" Armey replied, "Yes." The congressman from Texas proposed that the Israeli military expel more than three million people from their homeland — a war crime comparable to the attempted ethnic cleansing by Serbian nationalists of the Muslim majority of Kosovo that the United States and its NATO allies had gone to war a few years earlier to prevent.

I should note here that fundamentalist Christianity is prone to endless squabbles over nuances of doctrine. Although they have some notion of the universal Church, for many it is such a mystical idea - the truly "saved" individuals - the lack of a strong concept of a universal Church among many fundis leads to a high degree of sectarian thinking and polemics. So some thoroughly authoritarian and fundamentalist Christians reject "premillenial dispensationalism". See, as one example, this undated article: A History of Dispensationalism in America by Ernest Reisinger.

And the Christian Reconstructionists, a particularly hardline version of Christian-theocratic "dominionism" that is gaining greater influence in the Christian Right, reject premillenial dispensationalism in no small part because it sounds far too friendly to Jews for their taste. They prefer their hatred of Jews in an even less diluted form.

posted at 3:43:00 PM by Bruce Miller

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