Holy Week American 'Christian' terrorists (militia)

The Holy Week arrest of the nine Hutaree Christians, for plotting to kill police officers and related crimes [.pdf], dismays evangelical author Brian McLaren. He wrote:

This is the week we recall that Jesus was willing to be killed, but not to kill ... to be tortured, but not to torture. This is the week he told Peter to put away his sword, saying, "Those who live by the sword will die by the sword" (Matthew 26:52). This is the week he contrasted his kingdom in this world with the kingdoms of this world by their opposite responses to the violence question (John 18:36 ff). (The prepositions in and not of are important.) Many of us believe that Jesus embodies the image of a nonviolent God, an image intended to transcend and correct violent images.

Even Juan Cole sees their behavior as of one piece with the bizarre view that Obama is the Anti-Christ. A flawed Harris Poll last week found that 14% of Americans believe President Obama "may be the anti-Christ" And one quarter of Republicans hold that view.

The Christian Science Monitor reports:

There is “no question” the catalyst was President Obama’s election, says Heidi Beirich, the [Southern Poverty Law Center’s] director of research. A similar upswing took place after President Clinton’s election in 1993. Militias and the antigovernment groups that spawn them often become more active when the federal government turns more liberal.

“A major shift to the left certainly helped” in both cases, Ms. Beirich says.

The economic meltdown and the growth of minorities such as Latinos are also a factor, she adds.

The Irregular Times makes a valiant attempt to make sense of Hutaree views and values mishmash. They are explicitly Christians. They seem to have given a twist to millennial expectation of the end times and they clearly see God as expecting them and other believers to use deadly violence on unbelievers. And practice of their theology resulted in being charged, TalkingPointsMemo reports, "with seditious conspiracy, attempted use of weapons of mass destruction, teaching the use of explosive materials, and possessing a firearm during a crime of violence."

You can certainly try to sort through their Web site yourself.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, whose expertise in this field is well-recognized, reported this month:

The SPLC documented a 244 percent increase in the number of active Patriot groups in 2009. Their numbers grew from 149 groups in 2008 to 512 groups in 2009, an astonishing addition of 363 new groups in a single year. Militias - the paramilitary arm of the Patriot movement - were a major part of the increase, growing from 42 militias in 2008 to 127 in 2009.

. . .

"This extraordinary growth is a cause for grave concern," said Intelligence Report editor Mark Potok. "The people associated with the Patriot movement during its 1990s heyday produced an enormous amount of violence, most dramatically the Oklahoma City bombing that left 168 people dead."

Do the Covenant for Civility and the Democratic effort to ink a civility pledge with the Republicans seem at least a little more urgent, now?

Nonpartisan call to civility II

Key parties are absent from the interfaith Christian Covenant for Civility. Like vociferous HCR opponent Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention. Yet with more than 100 signatories of varied background, that's not enough to rob it of effectiveness. And more will sign.

Whereas Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele declined to join DNC Chairman Tim Kaine in signing a straightforward call for civility that Kaine proposed. Thus killing a worthwhile joint effort.

Talking Points Memo reports that the draft statement said:

As leaders of our respective national parties, we want to speak to all Americans about the importance of conducting our political debates in a manner and tone that respects our political system and demonstrates to the world the strength of our democracy.

We have a system of government that allows the great issues of our day to be resolved peacefully and civilly and that serves as a beacon of hope to those around the world who yearn for political freedom, political stability, and governing without the threat of violence.

We have a system that allows people to express approval of their government or change the party in power peaceably through the ballot box.

Our Constitution affords Americans the right to assemble and petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Clearly, we have different positions on the merits of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. However, we together call on elected officials of both parties to set an example of the civility we want to see in our citizenry. We also call on all Americans to respect differences of opinion, to refrain from inappropriate forms of intimidation, to reject violence and vandalism, and to scale back rhetoric that might reasonably be misinterpreted by those prone to such behavior.

Steele's weak rationalization for refusing to sign was, “we don’t need to do anything on their schedule or on their timetable.” There's no political percentage in looking weak, and refusing to stand up with your competitors against racist slurs and threats for civil behavior is worse than weak. Especially when you've recently been castigated by a key donor -- Civility Project founder Mark DeMoss -- for using "fear" and other incivility to raise money.

Image from an RNC presentation on donor motivation

Chairman Steele might recoup by invoking his time at the Augustinian Friars Seminary at Villanova University as qualification for signing the multi-faith Covenant for Civility. He would find good Republican company -- Chuck Colson, Harry Jackson and others. Although the covenant makes far more rigorous requirements than the written-to-be-accepted Democratic proposal.

Steele could be, in short, serious. Even if that entailed (heaven forefend) a slight adjustment in the Republican fund-raising strategies which have helped build the fire others are now trying to put out.

Nonpartisan Christian call to civility

Amid hyperventilating rhetoric, seasoned by calls for revolution and racist shouts at members of Congress, comes a Covenant for Civility:

The church in the United States can offer a message of hope and reconciliation to a nation that is deeply divided by political and cultural differences. Too often, however, we have reflected the political divisions of our culture rather than the unity we have in the body of Christ. We come together to urge those who claim the name of Christ to “put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you” (Ephesians 4:31-32).

For some of the signatories, it was perhaps a commitment to repentance. As Kyle observed, the signatories included Harry Jackson, Samuel Rodriguez, Robert George, and Chuck Colson:

Let's see, Rodriguez recently participated in the right-wing anti-health care reform "prayercase" where he declared "the same spirit of Herod who 2000 years ago attempted to exterminate the life of the Messiah today lives even America. The legislation that incorporates death and infanticide all under the canopy of reform."

Jackson has been militantly crusading against marriage equality in Washington DC , declaring that it is an effort by gays to oppress blacks and warning of "bloodletting" if the issue is not put to a vote.

And Colson, who believes that gay marriage causes terrorism, recently teamed up with George to produce The Manhattan Declaration, which they sold as Christians' last hope for preventing America from sliding into totalitarianism and Nazi-like dictatorship.

Even so, evangelical minister Jim Wallis said in explaining the motivation for the pledge:

Members of Congress have been calling me saying 'It's never been as bad as it is now, but we can't do much about it because we're not credible to a lot of Americans.' They said to the faith community, 'please help us.'

The document has 114 signatories, among them the president of the National Association of Evangelicals, the head of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, the general superintendent of the Assemblies of God and the president of the progressive Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good.

Not on the list, points out Mark Silk, "is anyone from the Southern Baptist Convention, whose prime spokesman on public policy issues, Richard Land, has been among the most vociferous opponents of HCR." (Note in the lede our "hyperventilating rhetoric" link to a comment on Land.)

Their pledge is sevenfold:

1) We commit that our dialogue with each other will reflect the spirit of the Scriptures, where our posture toward each other is to be “quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry” (James 1:19).

2) We believe that each of us, and our fellow human beings, are created in the image of God. The respect we owe to God should be reflected in the honor and respect we show to each other in our common humanity, particularly in how we speak to each other. “With the tongue we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God …. this ought not to be so” (James 3:9, 10).

3) We pledge that when we disagree, we will do so respectfully, without impugning the other’s motives, attacking the other’s character, or questioning the other’s faith, and recognizing in humility that in our limited, human opinions, “we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror” (1 Corinthians 13:12). We will therefore “be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love” (Ephesians 4:2).

4) We will ever be mindful of the language we use in expressing our disagreements, being neither arrogant nor boastful in our beliefs: “Before destruction one’s heart is haughty, but humility goes before honor” (Proverbs 18:12).

5) We recognize that we cannot function together as citizens of the same community, whether local or national, unless we are mindful of how we treat each other in pursuit of the common good in the common life we share together. Each of us must therefore “put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor, for we are all members of one body” (Ephesians 4:25).

6) We commit to pray for our political leaders—those with whom we may agree, as well as those with whom we may disagree. “I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made … for kings and all who are in high positions” (1 Timothy 2:1-2).

7) We believe that it is more difficult to hate others, even our adversaries and our enemies, when we are praying for them. We commit to pray for each other, those with whom we agree and those with whom we may disagree, so that together we may strive to be faithful witnesses to our Lord, who prayed “ that they may be one” (John 17:22).

This is the most recent in a series of similar efforts in the past year. One in October was greeted on the right as a conspiracy. More recently, before the health-reform-related race baiting, a Southern Baptist Republican balked at GOP incivility. In October, the Interfaith Alliance called for "a restoration of civility." And there have been others.

The alternative, however, is to concede the field to the proliferation of political strategies based on fear.

The civility conspiracy

Are we unconscious fellow travelers in the civility conspiracy? After all, we did write about the Interfaith Alliance civility letter, although it hit the political right and the political left alike.

The Interfaith Alliance is about religion, and former Reagan White House political director Jeffrey Lord argues at The American Spectator that there's a conspiracy of religious institutions and the FCC aimed at silencing talk radio and Fox.

Although it pretends to be about "hate speech" and its contributions to "hate crime."

Which is apparently not a concern for talk radio stars like Rush Lumbaugh, who has accumulated his own PolitiFact.com page. Not for Fox. Nor for the Southern Baptist Convention's Richard Land, who is preoccupied with finding and raising the alarum about echoes of Nazi philosophy he may contrive to find in Democratic discussion of health care reform. Nor is factual accuracy a concern for them or for Fact Free Land.

Even so, hyperventilating rhetoric and inaccuracy do concern some of the rest of us. Hence the call by the National Interfaith Coalition for Media Justice for an examination of the use of the public airwaves to foster incivility. They are [shudder] asking folks who agree with them to sign a petition [oh noes]:

As a participant, you will be asked to sign a petition to the Federal Communications Commission asking that it open a notice of inquiry into hate speech in the media. We will also urge the National Telecommunications and Information Agency to update its 1993 report, The Role of Telecommunications in Hate Crimes.

Note the last two words: "Hate Crimes."

They're not calling for censorship. They want to know whether hate speech over the public airwaves is in fact giving rise to violence.

The petition-associated letter is of necessity specific. The most specific example it cites is strained. It says:

The possible correlation between hate speech and violent crime gives us great pause. Immigrant, minority, and religious populations are often targets of hate speech before they are subsequently the target of physical hate crimes. For example, in June 2006 four teenagers posed as federal agents and asked two Mexican men [on a jetty in Rocky Point, N.Y.] for their green cards. The teenagers then beat and robbed the two men, while accusing them of stealing jobs from U.S. citizens. This incident occurred after radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh called Mexican immigrants [on March 27, 2006], regardless of legal status, “a renegade, potential crime element that is unwilling to work.” According to the most recent FBI hate crimes statistics, while hate crimes against all other groups have been holding steady or attenuating, hate crimes against Hispanics have been increasing over the last four years. Moreover, electronic media have a strong influence on children and teenagers since they are not yet fully developed cognitively.

The general issue has nonetheless attracted concern from several religious denominations, and Lord has by dent of hard work and considerable imagination spun together from their concern and the concern of others a conspiracy:

There is an organized campaign now afoot, a carefully planned, well-funded systematic assault on talk radio and Fox News that involves at least seven major liberal American religious denominations. All of whom are apparently planning to spread the gospel that talk radio and Fox News personalities are spreading hate speech. This message will be spread to their parishioners' children, in adult education materials, in sermons and through lay leaders -- people like me.

That conspiracy is very much like Richard Land's discovery of an attack on his First Amendment rights in objections to his use of Holocaust metaphors and allegations of budding Nazism to attack efforts to provide health insurance to people who need it. There was no such attack on Land's rights in this nation where some 45,000 people die a year for lack of appropriate health insurance. Censorship isn't afoot here. Allegations of censorship are being used as part of an effort to mask legitimate debate.

A prayer unanswered

The Washington Post's "On Faith" panel of 19 writers discusse the "State of our Disunion" while lamenting how Rick Warren's Inauguration Day prayer is far from being answered.

Warren prayed that Americans would "have a new birth of clarity in our aims, responsibility in our actions, humility in our approaches, and civility in our attitudes, even when we differ."

Instead, note the Post's Sally Quinn and Jon Meacham, "clarity, responsibility, humility and civility seem to have given way to self-righteousness, anger, resentment, and what columnist Kathleen Parker calls 'a political era of uninhibited belligerence' that is finding expression in sermons, at town hall meetings, on radio talk shows, even on the floor of Congress -- especially when we differ."

Susan Jacoby, whose entry has attracted about 400 comments, discusses how faith and hatred often co-exist. She says:

What we are seeing is the rage of a minority--we don't know exactly how large, but we do know that it is almost entirely white and concentrated in the South and Southwest--at an African-American president who is considered not only wrong in his policies but illegitimate as the leader of our nation.

Jacoby also tells of a college student afraid to tell her parents she supports Obama for fear they'll no longer pay her tuition and writes:

Many Americans spent a good deal of time last November patting themselves on the back for having elected an African-American president. What we are seeing now is the bitterness of an unreconciled minority that will never accept the legitimacy of that election.

Would it be that she were wrong but the full sweep of post-Civil War Southern history says she isn't.

Still, we long for the day when Warren's prayer is answered.