Amos's River of Justice

Our Season of Creation

  • Reading Time: 6 minutes

    There is an old conversation about art that took place in early twentieth century France. The important question that I derived from that conversation is What does theology have to do with life? In contrast to such questions, I find our current conversation rather depressing. 

    Theology and Art

    French cubist Albert Gleizes ventured into Christian theology to the dismay of his Catholic friends. Gleizes, a convert to the Catholic Church, unwittingly brought up an old debate pitting St. Augustine against Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas. Gleizes argued that the ascendence of Aristotle and Aquinas in the 12th century had been detrimental to Christian art. In this he was influenced by René Guénon. 1 We will see that it may not have been entirely unwitting on Gleizes’s part. 

    I don’t have a position on this debate but I’m more sympathetic to Gleize’s Catholic friends. I have my doubts about the influence of Rene Guénon, as they did. But how did the Catholic Church get involved in this debate?

    The Worker Priest Movement

    After the Second World War, many in the Catholic Church wanted to change the way the Church was presented to the world. They also desired greater openness and relevance to the conditions of modern life. The ‘worker priest’ movement in France was the most radical expression of this desire. The priests in this movement often engaged in the political struggles of the class led by the Communist Party.

    In art, they were willing to use well-known sometimes controversial artists, and these artists were given considerable freedom, regardless of their religious beliefs. Fathers Marie-Alain Courtier and Pie Raymond Régamey were the two most prominent names associated with this movement. They were both Dominicans. 

    Jacques Maritain

    Jacques Maritain had already worked out a theory of modern art based on the teachings of Thomas Aquinas. In his Art et Scolastique, he argued that in the Middle Ages the artist and the theologian worked together. The artist had represented beauty and the theologian had represented truth. However, the Renaissance set the artist free from the theologian. This sent him out on his own to search after beauty in its own right, independent of theological truth. 

    According to Maritain, there is a clear distinction between beauty and truth. Beauty is still a ‘transcendental’ and belongs to the divine order. However, under the utilitarian mindset, the artist longs for beauty as an absolute end in itself. In this way, he has become as superfluous and ridiculous as the theologian or saint.

     Baudelaire

    In the nineteenth century Baudelaire tried to reassert the transcendental nature of his art. In Maritain’s telling, Baudelaire shared common ground with a wide range of artists, especially those interested in religious art. A painted figure should look like a painted figure and not like a real figure. It is deceitful for a painting to give the illusion of nature. 

    This view was shared by many schools of art in Europe and Britain in Baudelaire’s time. It could even have been written by Albert Gleizes, especially before 1920. However, Maritain continued with what was probably a criticism of Gleizes’s and Metzinger’s du ‘Cubisme’. 

    Does Cubism in our day, despite its tremendous deficiencies, represent the still stumbling, screaming childhood of an art once more pure? The barbarous dogmatism of its theorists compels the strongest doubts and an apprehension that the new school may be endeavouring to set itself absolutely free from naturalist imitation only to become immoveably fixed in stultae quaestiones…(as quoted by Brooke p, 246)

    Thomas took ‘Stultae quaestiones’ from Paul’s Epistle to Titus 3:9. They are questions that ‘if raised in any science or discipline, would run contrary to the first conditions implied by that very same discipline.’ 

    The Dominicans would raise the same objection against Gleizes in the late 1940s. They would say he was bothering his head with questions that did not concern him and should be left to professional philosophers and theologians. 

    For Gleizes’s part the mistrust was mutual. In his view, the Dominicans would take the easy road of the urban university, ‘where Aristotle’s philosophy rules supreme’. The ‘real door’ will open on the order of St Benedict, exclusively theological. 

    Gleizes believed that Thomas was of the thirteenth century, the period when the theological view of the world associated with the Benedictines was giving way to a more intellectual and philosophical view of the world, associated with the Dominicans. 

    What Does Theology Have to do With Life?

    How are we to understand the relationship between theology and the physical world? Traditionalists such as Guenon believe the physical world should be organized according to the theology of a past historical era. Guenon, his disciple Albert Gleizes, and their followers, believed the modern age had caused a deviation that can be seen in art and architecture, and that the world must return to that past way of thinking. However, there were disagreements even among the Traditionalists.

    Rene Guenon dated the modern deviation from the beginning of the fourteenth century while Albert Gleizes traced it back a century earlier. According to Peter Brooke this indicates a ‘profound difference in approach’. 

    Between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries a play of lines and colours that put the eye in movement had given way to a play of lines and colours that evoke the appearances of the natural world. The folds of the garments in the paintings and sculptures which had been organised in such a way as to contribute to the unifying rythm of the whole painted or sculpted area became an imitation of the folds of the garments agitated by the wind or evoking the shape of the body underneath. For Geizes this change was much more fundamental than any change in intellectual ideas. (But) For Guenon, the intellectual idea, the metaphysical structure, was the foundation stone of all the rest. Thus it is sufficient that a correct understanding of his traditional doctrine is conveyed in the symbols and numerical proportions used by the artists. For Gleizes by contrast, it is the ‘cast of mind’ that counts, and this is expressed at a much more fundamental level in the act of the artist than in anything – symbolism, metaphysical argument or whatever – that can be expressed in words. (Brooke p. 254)

    There had previously been a rupture between Gleize and his friends Dom Angelico Surchamp and Robert Pouyaud over the question of the similarities or lack thereof between Gleizes and Guenon. There had also been a post-war disagreement between Gleizes and Père Raymond Régamey. These arguments are quite complex, but a brief mention is necessary in order to have some idea of the schools of thought.

    The Art Journal, Art Sacré

    Régamey and Couturier ran the art journal, Art Sacré. (It had been founded in 1935 as Cahiers de l’ art sacré.) In June 1945, Gleizes submitted an article to the journal, L’arc en ciel,cle de l’art Chretien Medieval.

    Régamey answered politely but declined to publish it. He specifically objected to one of Gleizes’s ideas. He said he agreed with Gleizes’s statement that experience is an intimate participation with the living object, and observation is a distant, subjective appreciation. However, he disagreed that everything produced with the combination proposed by observation is damned.

    In a lecture in Brussels in 1947, Régamey was more critical, and he included Gleizes, Bazaine, and Manessier in his critique.

    A Doctrine of Two Kingdoms

    Subsequently Gleizes wrote what seemed to be a challenge to Régamey’s program. He spoke of a ‘doctrine of two kingdoms–the kingdom of this world and the kingdom that is not of this world.

    Brooke interprets this to mean that Gleizes has abandoned all hope in the establishment of a spiritual authority on earth.

    For Gleizes, the kingdom of this world is the kingdom of space and time. The kingdom that is not of this world is the kingdom of eternity. The ambition of the Christian is supposedly to bring the two into harmony. But Gleizes believes the disharmony between them is total. Harmony can only be achieved with the reestablishment of a religious state of mind.

    Furthermore, Gleizes’s piece in Art Sacré implied that the Church is implicated in the general deviation. The Church’s own idea of itself is wrong according to Gleizes, and it must die to be reborn.

    This comment reminded Brooke of the annoyance of Père Jérôme when Gleizes told him ‘the whole of theology has to be taken up again’.

    Régamey Started to Question Whether Gleizes Was a Christian

    One reason for Régamey’s hostility to Gleizes was his suspicion that Gleizes was not a Christian (Brooke p. 253). He had begun to think the ‘tradition’ which Gleizes hoped to renew was the ‘tradition’ of Rene Guenon.

    Guenon’s tradition was a metaphysical system of thought which was the real foundation behind all the major religions. In this view, the system is transmitted from one generation to the next through a secret process of initiation. The question of Gleizes’s allegiance to Guenon led to a ‘serious rupture’ among Gleizes’s followers.

    Gleizes’s Ideas of Society and Culture Were Typically Right-Wing

    Gleizes appreciated Guenon’s critique of modern civilization in his Crise du monde moderne, and Orient et occident. They both believed society was at the end of a short period of religious chaos and heading for destruction. The task of those who were aware of the situation was to rediscover and reaffirm the principles on which a new religious culture could evolve.

    Gleizes Knew What He Was Doing

    Gleizes knew he was renewing the old case made by the Augustinians against Aquinas. Over time, his friends and Church allies were shut out. Some of the themes that came up repeatedly in the debates with Père Jérôme and others were Gleizes’s distrust of Thomism, his insistence on a cyclical view of history, his sympathy for Guenon, and a tendency to emphasize the universal reality of Christ rather than the historical individual (p. 223).

  • Reading Time: < 1 minuteMy criticism of Christianity has nothing to do with the beliefs or the theology. It has to do with its economic effects on communities. Of course these effects didn’t originate with Christianity. They originated with the Greek philosophers who remain influential in Christianity. Recently the Pope has made it clear that the Greeks are staying. I assume this is due to their importance in the Church’s theological structure. Greek philosophy has influenced the way Christians think about God and so it’s possible that their contribution can’t be removed without dire consequences. In any case theology is a touchy business and I’m happy to leave it to the theologians.

    But the Pope has also called for a new theology of the woman. If you were an optimist, you could interpret this as a willingness to reject Greek misogyny. Since Greek misogyny has been the justification for the West’s political and economic organization, rejecting it would be consistent with the Pope’s call for a new economy. My objection is to the premise that the place of women in society can be defined through theology.

    The definition of theology is:

    1 the study of the nature of God and religious belief.
    1.1 religious beliefs and theory when systematically developed. http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/theology

    With the Church’s focus on Mary the mother of Jesus the ‘woman’ is being presented as synonymous with women. This is a problem because women are merely human. ‘The woman’ on the other hand is the archetypal mother. The archetypal mother is not the same thing as the personal mother. Economically, the archetypal mother is the rival of the personal mother.

     

  • Reading Time: 2 minutesI have argued that Catholic women should be free to make a plan for community reform without asking for permission. However, I’m not Catholic, so I don’t know if there would be resistance from the Church on this. But instead, the strategy of women’s groups is to demand female ordination.

    The Church Speaks With a Masculine Voice

    The Church speaks with a masculine voice. A masculine voice is a good thing. It’s needed in the world. But it’s not a feminine voice. It never was a feminine voice and it never will be a feminine voice. I don’t know why women in the Church insist on fighting for position in a male hierarchy. It seems to me their happiness might just be a matter of achieving a little distance. And it’s not as if they are not needed elsewhere.

    Women Need Help From Other Women in Matters of Child Custody

    For example, the influence of fatherhood initiatives on family courts in the United States has to be addressed by women. I don’t know if this influence is from the Knights of Columbus or Roland Warren’s National Fatherhood Initiative, but I do know it’s a serious matter. Custody is being awarded to abusers, resulting in the deaths of children. (The Knights of Columbus is a Catholic organization. Warren’s Initiative is not.)

    When I suggested some time ago that people should be organized into smaller political units and that they should own property in common I was trying to answer questions about community cohesiveness and reliable representation. I assumed that real solutions would have to start in communities that solve their own problems. That’s my reasoning on the importance of women’s organizations as well. And for all I know, the Church would not object.

    The Joy of the Gospel

    When I discovered in The Joy of the Gospel  that the Church has developed a whole theology around the discovery and encouragement of new cultural manifestations I knew right away that the Church depends on lay people to create culture. However, I believe the issue of female ordination is a dead end.

    I’d appreciate a discussion from Catholics about what they hope to accomplish by this strategy.

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    I know there are Christian Churches that ordain women. At this time, the most I can say about them is that they represent a fundamental change in thinking. However, I believe female ordination as strategy is based on a dangerous misunderstanding of the reality behind male hierarchies. 

    Female Ordination is a Vanity Project

    Unfortunately, gender inequality is pervasive all over the world. It is merely echoed in the Christian creation story. Therefore, as  a church-by-church strategy it will never be anything more than a vanity project. 

    I know women who are devoted to their church. Many of them would say they consider their church to be their own, that the church belongs to them as much as it does to the male hierarchy. Although many of them recognize the injustices, they don’t support female ordination.

    Because the world’s gender inequality is merely echoed in the Christian creation story, as  a strategy female ordination can only be superficial. 

    A Misguided Confrontation

    Nevertheless, we suddenly have this agenda, which is not even held by all women, threatening to turn the conversation into a confrontation. In my opinion, it would make more sense to talk about why the problem exists in the Church in the first place. For example, no one asks why gender inequality contradicts the general thrust of the new Testament. 

    The Real Question is Whether Women are Capable of Participating in This Conversation

    At this time we’re talking to a specific person—Pope Francis. We don’t know yet what his vision is and so we’re exploring the possibilities—given reality as we know it. But we do know that he has come down on the side of progressives. This is a gift. What will we do with it?

    I’m not saying that we have to accept everything that the Church tells us, but there is reason to hope that the Church can address our political and economic problems. Francis’s entry into the conversation requires a decision on our part. 

    Complicating Factors

    Women rarely agree with one another. In my experience, their loyalties are to their families, religion, children, political party, their immediate social circle, and perhaps their sports team. Notice that allegiance to women outside of their social circle is not included in this list. Still, the loyalties of women are a priceless tendency when it comes to community building. 

    Unfortunately, female relationships in the wider community, while they have good points, represent a shaky foundation for community building. There is always potential for rivalry and disagreement. If you also consider the influence of Washington’s elite feminists, you will see that the disharmony is complete.

    The Feminist Agenda Ignores the Importance of the Maternal Family

    There is one specific kind of loyalty that has the potential to correct the world’s social ills, and that is loyalty to the maternal family. But Washington feminism knows nothing about this. That’s because it belongs to Washington. Furthermore, notwithstanding a few female stars, Washington belongs to the masculine hierarchy. I believe we can build on this principle.

    I Propose That There is Only One Non-Negotiable Principle

    If we find that our attempts to remedy these factors meet resistance from the Church, we would be justified in reconsidering our participation in the conversation. But assuming we are able to agree on this principle, discovering the factors that work against strong maternal bonds would be the next step. 

    Some Factors that Work Against Strong Maternal Bonds

    I’ll list two factors the work against strong maternal bonds. One is the tendency of family courts to take children from their mothers in the case of divorce. Another is the policy of turning single girls who become pregnant into pariahs. This leads directly to the loss of social support and often to the loss of their children.

    Throughout history, the legal system gave these policies teeth. This led to the incarceration of so many young women in Ireland’s Magdalene laundries. However, this isn’t unique to the Catholic Church. The Poor Laws were in effect in England during the reign of Queen Victoria, resulting in the phenomenon of ‘baby farming’.

    Baby Farming

    For more than a hundred years, single women in England who became pregnant were systematically deprived of the support of their families. Because a girl’s family members would share in her punishment unless they disowned her, she and her baby were alone.

    Employment opportunities for single mothers were limited, pay was low, and there was no one to care for a new baby while its mother worked. Enter the diabolical institution of the baby farm. Single mothers would pay other people to house and feed their babies, not realizing that the children would be systematically starved. Meanwhile, the mother provided the baby farmer with a tidy sum.

    John Wesley

    It’s damning that Victoria and her consort Albert, the real power behind the throne, failed to address this travesty for so long. However, the poor laws actually went into effect before Victoria became queen. It’s been argued that the responsible party was the Methodist, John Wesley.

    If there is any validity behind my theory of the central importance to society of the maternal bond, we would have to conclude that these kinds of policies destroy the very thing they claim to protect—the community.

    The Maternal Bond is Square One

    That said, we seem to be back where we started, trying to convince our all-powerful leaders to change their policies. The important place to begin is our ability to interpret policies in terms of the danger they pose to our community. This would depend on our ability to agree among ourselves. This implies that we have to be able to define what defines the good of the community. I’ve argued here that the maternal bond should take precedence over legalistic or ideological priorities. In other words, the maternal bond must take precedence over appearances.

  • Reading Time: < 1 minute
    The birth control debate has focused on single women. However married couples depend on birth control more consistently than single people. I’d like to invite the legislators to include married women in the discussion.

    There is a disconnect in our understanding of sexual relations in marriage. We laugh about old television shows that depict married couples sleeping in twin beds because we think we know better. The implications of twin beds are lost to us because the control of fertility no longer depends on the control of sex.

    Many people are not aware that married couples once slept in separate bedrooms. They also may not be aware that there used to be biological and seasonal prohibitions on marital sex. Apparently, ancient people understood the importance of population control. Or was it that they still saw women as people?

    A decrease in marital sex is not what our legislators have in mind when they limit access to birth control. Their goal is a higher birthrate. These men may pose as defenders of tradition, but there is nothing traditional about what they are doing.

  • Reading Time: 4 minutesNeoclassical ideology is capitalist mind control. It was created to support the aims of dominant capital.  Capitalist mind control is a smokescreen for the abuses of capitalist economics.

    Dominant Capital and Tax Money Financed Neoclassical Economics

    This development was financed by two sources, dominant capital and tax money. It is shored up by countless apologists and repairmen and implemented by state organs. And finally, the media sells it to the public.

    Most outsiders have trouble understanding it. This is because it’s deliberately made to look difficult. This is only one of the reasons the public doesn’t discuss it.  There is also the problem of treating the economy like a natural phenomenon subject to scientific study. It’s either above our heads, or it’s an inevitable phenomenon unaffected by humans, and therefore discussion is not necessary.  Laws of nature can be discovered but they can’t be changed. Capitalist mind control is one of its greatest powers.

    Denial of the Problem

    The most troubling thing about the current crisis of capitalism is the large number of people who deny that a problem exists. One example is Catholics who object to Pope Francis’s condemnation of the economy. We should question who they represent. This kind of objection is standard practice for those whose job it is to head off criticism about the economy.

    The phenomenon of murky, inexplicable economic manipulation is explained by Jonathan Nitzan and Shimshon Bichler in The Global Political Economy of Israel, published in 2002 . 2

    What the Ruling class must hide

    The book deals mainly with Israel, but the critique of economic theory isn’t specific to Israel. The United States has a similar economic story. 3

    Between 1865 and 1920, in order for the U.S. to become the world’s leading industrial capitalist nation, dominant capitalists had to find a way to overcome two major factors: the demands of the working class; and competition among existing firms. They accomplished this through monopoly in manufacturing, and this produced a system of corporate capitalism.

    The process was driven by a ruling class with designs on power. Control of the financial system was the basic mechanism and the merger movement was the result. The process was managed by financial experts who commanded either capital itself or the avenues for gathering it.

    The Bankers’ Master Plan

    During the first years of the 20th century, ‘higher financial circles’ decided that the banking system should be the headquarters of an investment system based on cooperation among large firms. According to Thorstein Veblen, the essentials of the system were as follows: ‘The banking community took over the strategic regulation of the key industries, and…also the control of the industrial system at large.’ Key industries were controlled by the investment bankers who made up a sort of General Staff of financial strategy and who commanded the country’s credit resources.

    Their relation with insurance companies is one example.

    “In the years 1885 and 1905, the annual income of life insurance companies in the United States was $525 million and 2.9 billion, respectively. These funds were derived from premiums paid by holders of the insurance policies, and needed to be invested promptly so as to yield in income for the companies to pay for the deaths of their insured persons. Five firms owned two-thirds of the assets of all life insurance companies: Metropolitan, Prudential, Mutual, Equitable, and New York Life. The last three owned fully one-half the assets of all life insurance companies.

    In 1870 less than three percent of these assets were stocks and bonds; by 1900, that figure had risen to nearly 38 percent. Five years later, securities held by New York Life constituted 74 percent of its total assets; of Equitable 57 percent; and of Mutual, 54 percent. Which securities did the insurance companies buy? Primarily, those sold (i.e., underwritten) by six dominant New York investment banks, led by J.P. Morgan and Company. Such securities were issued by industrial corporations and others which had close relations with the dominant investment banks. According to Douglass North, ‘It was clearly a one-sided arrangement in which the great bulk of the advantages accrued to the investment banker rather than to the insurance company.’

    “Crucial to this entire arrangement was the requirement that the insurance companies control their own back yard. This was accomplished by deep company involvement in political and governmental affairs. ‘The three big insurance companies occupied key positions in financing the [New York State] Republican machine (and to some extent the Democratic one also) and guaranteed not only friendly legislators but cooperative [state] insurance departments as well.’ Between 1895 and 1905, a New York Life lobbyist was paid at least $1,312,197.18 to guard against passage of hostile legislation. The New York State Department of Insurance functioned as a subdivision of the industry…”

    The New York Department of Insurance Ruled Their Industry Like US Steel

    The New York Department of Insurance was a creature of the dominant capital machine. Its ‘regulations’ enabled the large companies to evade regulations when necessary, and to insure continuous dominance by the large companies. The Big Three insurance companies ruled their industry very much like US Steel, a Morgan firm.

    Neoclassical Ideology: the Organic Super-Government of Mankind

    Historians refer to the late 19th and early 20th centuries are frequently referred to as the age of Big Business. But according to W.E.B. Du Bois, this is misleading. It wasn’t so much about the size of the firms as it was about an ‘organic super-government of mankind in matters of work and wages. This super-government was directed with science and skill for the private profit of individuals.’

    “When Woodrow Wilson first ran for president in 1912, he declared that ‘the masters of the government of the United States are the combined capitalists and manufacturers of the United States.’ At the center of this process lay control of the principal political parties and the political machines, organized under the direction of party bosses. ‘Living to a great extent on the corporations, bossism burst into full bloom in the States where big capitalist interests were concentrated, where [railroad] companies were most numerous, such as New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania…’”

    The bosses didn’t run everything however. Often company officials sat in on important party committees and pulled the strings for them, equipped and kept up political organization for their own use, and ran them as they pleased.

    The Sherman Anti-Trust Act Was Ignored by Dominant Capital

    When the Sherman Anti-Trust Act was finally passed in 1890, an amendment was offered to assure it would not be applied against the unions. Senator Sherman led a successful fight against the amendment arguing it was not necessary. Within 5 years it was indeed used against the unions. The entire Anti-Trust Act was soon judged to be a charade because so much of it was ignored whenever it suited dominant capital.

  • Reading Time: 4 minutesIf we limit the conversation to what we can realistically do, our choices are limited. But if we’re talking theory, anything is possible. Since I’m in charge of my own theoretical world, I’ll offer some solutions. I’ll start with solutions to environmental problems. Any changes in politics and economics will be limited to what is necessary to the particular environmental goal. Finally, everything will be done with an eye to social effects.

    It’s been said we have 50 years to do something about the oceans. Every continent contributes to the problem of pollution, much of it from industrial farming, so ideally every country would have to participate. I propose dividing industrial farms, which also contribute to global warming, into smaller, sustainable operations. Start with the farms that drain into major river systems. This would decrease the amount of chemical fertilizers flowing into the ocean and begin to address the problem of dead zones.

    It would also create the potential for using these sustainable farms as the nucleus of a different kind of community. Such communities would have to develop over time as the underlying political theory is discovered, but they should be conceived as centers of a vibrant life—not oppressive sloughs of despair that the youth can’t wait to escape. They would have to offer opportunity; they would have to inspire and challenge all members.

    In the United States, we could consider creating another governing center in the middle of the country, specifically to serve this new type of grassroots community organization. This is not as a replacement for Washington—it could interact with Washington D.C. For example, it could facilitate the development of candidates for national office, as well as local delegates.

    The critics might say that if one country breaks up commercial farms it would cease to be competitive with other countries. Or if everyone does, we couldn’t feed the world. First, we don’t feed the world now. Second, this isn’t necessarily true. However, the first objection is important as an example of something that might work, but that can’t be tried because of outside pressure. The same thing happened in pre-war France. In a time of political and military turmoil, the French suddenly discovered that their birth rate was much lower than Germany and Great Britain. Then a series of European furniture exhibitions made them realize they were falling behind their neighbors in the decorative arts by limiting themselves to traditional French designs and methods.

    I think this illustrates that we have to develop criteria for healthy versus unhealthy competition. For example, it may have been healthy for the furniture makers to be challenged, while the manipulation of the birth rate for ideological, political, economic, or military reasons is unethical, undemocratic, and hazardous to the environment.

    What if we put limits on unhealthy competition? I’m not talking isolationism. I’m talking about the kind of limits that make it possible to solve domestic problems like dead zones in the ocean. Because of its social and environmental implications, we could start by eliminating the pro-natalist nonsense, followed by trade agreements—at least the worst aspects of them. The medieval guilds limited competition among their own members and it was effective until some hotshot broke the rules and ruined it for everyone else. This is the same idea only on a global scale.

    If you are screaming ‘Nooo!’ then maybe you don’t understand the seriousness of the world’s problems, or maybe you sense that your own privilege is being threatened. On the contrary, what we’re doing now is stupid and it threatens all of us. We are on a precipice and those responsible for it—ideologues who tell other people what to do and who have no intention of doing it themselves—look down their noses and demand to be told where all these needy people came from. In this way they prove they are unfit to wield authority of any kind, and yet there they remain.

    Iran has drained its lakes through climate change, dams, drought, and inefficient irrigation. ((Iran in Race to Save Largest Lake From Drying Up, Ali Akbar Dareini, Feb 20, 2014. The National World. Avaliable: http://www.thenational.ae/world/middle-east/iran-in-a-race-to-save-largest-lake-from-drying-up)) In parts of India, half the population is homeless. Half of India’s population defecates on the ground. Worse, even the feces that ends up in the sewage system is untreated. India is awash in antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Babies are born with these germs and they often can’t be cured. Further, the crowded conditions make it more likely they’ll pass on their infections. It should be no surprise that some of those germs are coming here. ((Harris Gardiner, Superbugs Kill India’s Babies and Pose Overseas threat, Dec. 3, 2014, New York Times. Available: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/04/world/asia/superbugs-kill-indias-babies-and-pose-an-overseas-threat.html?src=me&module=Ribbon&version=origin&region=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Most%20Emailed&pgtype=article&_r=0)) And of course, there is evidence of America’s contribution to the problem, both from oil spills and farming, in the Gulf of Mexico.

    Women should be able to control their own fertility. In fact, the relationship between mother and child should be understood as the essential human relationship, and therefore as the basis of all other relationships. This would guard against artificiality and indifference in a community’s social relations.

    I’m aware that my solutions are radical but in my opinion, they don’t have much competition at this time. First, we have the Democrats who can’t seem to come to terms with the demise of Marxism. It’s not clear what they’re doing in this election cycle—maybe pretending to be different from the Republicans for the sake of appearances. As for the Republicans, they are becoming famous for serving shady interest rather than the interests of their own people. Incredibly, they don’t even try to hide it any more. But it’s probably remarkable that either party can still come up with a coherent platform at all. Both are operating on old ideas that were never established on firm ground in the first place so it shouldn’t be surprising that they function more like political religions than rational approaches to the world’s problems.

  • Reading Time: 4 minutesA recent article about the Pope’s address to the European parliament poses questions that I think many of us have been asking ourselves. For example, secularists might be asking why it is important for them to move toward dialogue with the Church.

    “The Pontiff wasn’t the most obvious person to deliver hard truths to elected politicians about the rising threats to the democracies they serve, or, as head of the Catholic Church, to convey a blast against global corporations that undermine the democratic process by co-opting institutions, as he resonantly expressed it, to ‘the service of unseen empires.’ Yet standing at the lectern at the center of the plenary chamber, peering through wire-rimmed reading glasses at his script, he did these things and more. The leader of a religion that has created its share of fractures made an eloquent plea for the European Union to rediscover its founding principles of “bridging divisions and fostering peace and fellowship.’” 4

    This attempt is important because questions can’t be answered until they are asked. Some might wonder what is required of them as a participant in this dialogue. I think I’ve answered some of these questions for myself, although there’s much I don’t know about the church, so any errors are unintentional. We each need to find an answer by paying attention to what the Pope is saying.

    Why is the Church Defending Democracy?

    First, the church’s defense of democracy is not a new innovation. The supporting theology has been developed over the last century. The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church was published fairly recently but it was preceded by documents dealing with similar issues. The first was Rerum Novarum, the Papal Encyclical of Leo XIII on Capital and Labor, published in 1891.5.

    What Level of Commitment is Required From Us?

    Next you might be wondering about the level of religious commitment required for participation in this dialogue. The Evangelii Gaudium clarifies the part the church is willing to play in the conversation and it also deals with what it requires of other participants. If you are concerned about what is required of you, you would have to read it for yourself, but for what it’s worth I have a few thoughts.

    It’s possible that the requirements are different for the dominant class than for bloggers like me. With the doctrine of solidarity, the Pope addresses society’s leaders. Solidarity urges justice for the working classes in the service of social peace. It’s true that in the past it’s also been a defense against socialist solutions, but in past times of turmoil the political left, which is part of the dominant class, has participated in solidarity. So, from the Church’s point of view this is not a cynical maneuver:

    “The precepts of the sabbatical and jubilee years constitute a kind of social doctrine in miniature[28]. They show how the principles of justice and social solidarity are inspired by the gratuitousness of the salvific event wrought by God, and that they do not have a merely corrective value for practices dominated by selfish interests and objectives, but must rather become, as a prophecy of the future, the normative points of reference to which every generation in Israel must conform if it wishes to be faithful to its God.”((Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium)).

    Being Realistic About Working Class Alternatives

    There are fewer alternatives available to the working class today, and immediate dangers threaten our ability to agree on them.  So in the short-term I think it’s important to at least understand what is being offered by the other participants in the conversation. This brings me to another set of questions unique to women.

    Being Realistic About the Place of Women in Dialogue with the Church

    In view of the importance to women of the reproductive rights issue, I think it’s necessary to offer a rationale for those who are otherwise inclined to consider the church’s proposals as a way forward. (I don’t think it’s likely that the church will change its position on abortion, but more on that later.) The rationale for female participation begins with the Pope’s statement that women should have a greater voice in the church. Critics have said the place of women in the church will not change all that much, but I don’t think this opening should be taken lightly. From what I can tell, the church continues to build on the statements of previous encyclicals. According to Catholic writer and historian Hilaire Belloc, change happens slowly with actual practice following a change in attitude.

    “First comes in every great revolution of European affairs, a spiritual change; next, bred by this, a change in social philosophy and therefore in political arrangement; lastly, the economic change which political rearrangement has rendered possible.”((Belloc, Hilaire. The Crisis of Civilization. New York: Fordham University Press, 1937))

    The Church is Honoring Its Social Responsibilities

    Claims to religious and political authority are always predicated on the ability to fulfill social responsibilities. The church is honoring its responsibilities at this time, while our politicians are doing their best to prove themselves illegitimate.

    I’ve based many of my previous articles on the assumption that the system is not working. I’ve even considered the possibility that it’s unworkable. There’s one way to prove me wrong and that is to make it work. If politicians can’t immediately solve the problems, they can at least begin to move in that direction.

  • Reading Time: 4 minutesA recent article tells of a woman in Uganda whose husband beat her regularly until she finally left him and went back to her parents’ house. It is assumed that her husband’s behavior was caused by the custom of ‘bride price or dowry’ supposedly enshrined in Ugandan law. The article refers to a survey done by Mifumi (a Ugandan NGO) which found that 84% of Ugandans believe there is a connection between bride price and domestic violence, and ends by calling for the abolition of this custom. ((Wives not cows: Uganda Dowry fuels domestic violence. Fallon, Amy, Yahoo News. Oct. 24, 2014. Available: http://news.yahoo.com/wives-not-cows-uganda-dowry-fuels-domestic-violence-041333421.html))

    “A 2007 Constitutional Court petition launched by the charity (Mifumi) and 12 individuals argued that the dowry portrayed women “as an article in a market for sale” amounting to ‘degrading treatment’…In 2010, the court upheld the payment, ruling while the bride price played a role in some domestic abuse cases and women being treated as “inferiors”, this was no justification for a “blanket prohibition”…But the petitioners then appealed in the Supreme Court, and say if it does not rule in their favour, they will explore other legal avenues. The court is currently considering its judgement.”

    I’ve suggested [intlink id=”1113″ type=”post”]here[/intlink] that bride wealth implies status and relative independence for women. The situation in Uganda seems to contradict my view, doesn’t it? I don’t think so. I’ll begin with the article’s confusion of terms. In the second paragraph we read:

    “But the dowry she would bring — cows, goats and cash — soured the marriage and brought dark clouds over the partnership, a story repeated by many others in Uganda.”

    After reading this, one wonders if the court was amused by the petition. We are told the ‘dowry’ refers to the gifts of goats, cows and cash the bride’s family received from the groom. First, this is not the definition of a dowry; second, dowry is not the same thing as bride price; third, bride price is not the same thing as bride wealth, which is not even mentioned in this article.

    Dowry is a payment of cash or goods by the bride’s family. It does not refer to gifts from the groom or his family to the bride’s family. The subject of dowry can get really complicated. Its purpose differs according to the culture and time period. In some accounts it remains the bride’s property although she may use it to set up a household for her new family. At the other extreme a dowry is considered the groom’s property to use as he sees fit. Or it is considered the property of his family. In the most onerous manifestation of dowry, the bride suffers the wrath of the grooms family if the dowry is insufficient.

    On the other hand, bride wealth is cash or goods paid by the groom’s family to the bride’s family. Again, it’s complicated. Ideally bride wealth is held in trust for the bride even though her family is allowed to use the income it generates. But in current practice it might be counted as her father’s property. Today, it is often used to pay for a brother’s marriage.

    On the other hand, bride price is just that—cash or goods paid by the groom’s family for the services of the bride.
    This article also demonstrates a confusion of cause and effect. The bride’s father paid nine cows to her mother’s family when he married, and his marriage is still in tact. If this payment is the cause of domestic violence, why didn’t it lead to domestic violence in his case? In fact, the bride’s mother remains in favor of the custom.

    Furthermore, domestic violence exists in societies that don’t practice this custom. In the United States for example, the righteous indignation expressed in this article might be a little disorienting. Americans see violence against women, even though American laws support ‘community property’. They even hear violence encouraged by their own legislators who speak cavalierly of rape. Here is an important fact to keep in mind whenever you read about efforts to end payments associated with marriage—especially when they are promoted by NGOs: Usually it is to the advantage of a certain class of people to end them, and this class of people includes colonizers as well as Christians and Muslims. Why?  About some of the reasons we can only speculate. There is the matter of the family connections and the wealth the custom helps to protect. In addition, and this reason has been noted by others, because these payments have the effect of delaying marriage they have a tendency to decrease birth rates.

    But if this custom is so beneficial, how do you explain the abuse? To be fair, the cultural context can make the causes easy to misinterpret. You would have to start by looking at cultural changes wrought in these societies by turmoil and invasion. While bride wealth used to be premised on pleasing the ancestors, various factors have given it a more individual nature. For example, in one African society a colonizing ruling class levied taxes on the population to cover the costs of the colonial government. This made it necessary for the young men to work in a distant mine in order to earn enough money to marry. The result was a subtle change in the attitude of the men. Some of them began to feel that since they had paid for their wives they were entitled to rule over them.

    Meanwhile, back in the community property West, women often exit marriage financially destitute and can consider themselves fortunate if they are not deprived of their own children as well. I’m not suggesting that Americans should implement the practice of bride wealth, even if it were possible, which it isn’t, and not only because of cultural differences. Typically by the time society has been organized into states, the inhabitants don’t have enough wealth for such things. But on the level of principle this custom has much to teach us about human nature, about hidden and seemingly innocuous factors behind the world’s problems, and about how tangled these problems have become during the course of history.

    The confusion of terms in this article combined with the blanket assurance that this NGO knows what is right for this culture indicates that we haven’t even begun to talk about this custom rationally.

  • Reading Time: 11 minutesGeneral Martin Dempsey stated recently that because the Islamic State group is motivated by an ‘apocalyptic, end of days strategic vision’ the United States and a coalition of partners must confront it ‘head on’ in Syria.6 This has helped me to focus on a subject I’ve been wanting to talk about but didn’t know where to begin. The subject of apocalpytic beliefs is probably the best illustration we will ever find for the importance of dialogue. What, if anything should the United States do about the Islamic State’s Apocalyptic Vision?

    In this article I will cite similar beliefs among Americans, Britons, and Jews and argue for the importance of dialogue.

    I think Dempsey is correct in despairing that IS will never engage in dialogue. The general’s assessment of the danger of the Islamic State’s apocalyptic vision also seems correct. I just don’t agree that this vision can be wiped out by military action. After all, Jihadism is only only one version of this phenomenon. Americans have their own ‘end of days’ beliefs, and apparently, so do Britons. The Jihadist who beheaded American Journalist, James Foley is believed to be a British born militant from London who calls himself John.7

    The Blood Moon Influence and the Christian Answer

    There are other influences that add to the concerns of believers. When I asked myself why so many Americans and Britons would be drawn to fight with the IS at this time, it led me in an interesting direction. It’s possible that at least part of the problem is an astronomical phenomenon, the ‘blood moon’. With the help of a growing industry that promotes end of days hysteria, apocalyptic beliefs in the West may be coinciding with IS’s apocalyptic jihadism.  Consider this article written in the UK in April of this year. 8.

    What is the blood moon? Sometimes during a lunar eclipse, the earth’s shadow on the moon takes on a red hue. Lunar eclipses aren’t unusual—there are about two per year. What is unusual this time is that there will be four blood moons within eighteen months. Certain parties have been whipping religious believers into a frenzy.

    Several books written for a Christian audience have been published about this event. They refer to an Old Testament verse in Joel 2:31 and its echo in Acts 2:20: “The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and notable day of the Lord.”

    One author who is getting a large share of the attention is Texas megachurch pastor John Hagee. The book in question is “Four Blood Moons: Something is About to Change”.

    Calming Voices Among Christians

    Lest I add to the hysteria, I’ll begin with a discussion of dissenting views in the Christian community. A pastor of Woodland Hills Church in St. Paul, Minn., Greg Boyd, has called this whole thing a waste of time—a very dangerous waste of time–and he warns that no congregation is immune to it.

    Sam Storms, pastor of Bridgeway Church in Oklahoma City says, “We need to stop giving into some of these sensationalist speculations. Maybe Christians are more gullible. One has to twist the data to make it appear as if these are the fulfillment of some biblical prophecy. I thought in 2011 we all said we weren’t going to fall for this again, when Harold Camping twice missed the date of the Second Coming?” 9.

    A Call for Dialogue

    Even though IS seems more determined than ever to provoke an immediate reaction, I’m going to argue that this is really the time for intensive dialogue.

    Characteristics and Tendencies of Apocalyptic Thinking

    To begin with, it’s important that we understand the general characteristics and tendencies of apocalyptic thinking. I’ll begin with a discussion of Muslim apocalyptic beliefs and end with Christian and secular beliefs in the West.

    Apocalyptic Jihadism

    Richard Landes discussed Apocalyptic jihadism in a 2004 article: Jihad, Apocalypse and Anti-Semitism. I’m aware Landes is controversial, however the value of this article is the perspective it offers on Islamic apocryphal thinking. In hindsight, we should be so lucky to be dealing with the PLO and Hamas instead of IS. However, Landes says they both used apocalyptic rhetoric. The majority of Muslims are not yet apocalyptic, but Landes worries that both Arabs and Muslims worldwide could get swept up in ‘a fever of apocalyptic hope and violence’. All things considered, it’s hard to find fault with him on that point.

    According to Landes, modern jihadism is a ‘cataclysmic, apocalyptic movement’. Its goal is Islam’s dominance over the world. Its promises have a millennial character, such as the claim that once Islam rules everywhere there will be world peace. Jihad’s millennial war operates on two major levels: The first is outright violence; the second is the invocation of civil society’s values to undermine that system from within.

    Apocalyptic Thinking

    In more general terms, apocalyptic thinking is a belief that a cosmic transformation is imminent. The transformation can take two forms. Either it will end entirely (eschatology), or the Messianic Age will begin. The second form is often called millennialism. Moderate millennialism exists everywhere in the hope that the world is going to improve.

    Passive and Active Forms

    Again, there are two alternative beliefs as to how this improvement will come to pass. The passive one says God will cause it. The activist approach says we are God’s agents. Therefore we have to bring it about. If activists believe cataclysmic destruction is necessary, it follows that they can save the world by destroying it. According to Landes, the Holocaust was an ‘apocalyptic deed’.

    Landes returns us to the West’s participation in this chain of events when he talks about ‘Philo-Judaism’. There has been a change in Anglo-Christians’ millennial scenario to a view which says that the Jews have to return to Zion in order for the apocalypse to occur. Balfour was a believer in pre-millennial dispensationalism and held views similar to today’s Protestant Zionists. According to Landes, the present degree of Christian millennial theology has never before been seen among Christians at so popular a level. (Pre-millennialists believe Christ must return before the Millennium can begin while post-millennialists believe we must create the millennium here and now.)

    The Mujaddid

    Landes cites a book by David Cook, Studies in Muslim Apocalyptic. According to Cook, there are a variety of apocalyptic traditions in Islam. One is called the Mujaddid. This tradition holds that every hundred years, a religious ‘renewer’ is expected. The Mujaddid is a Messianic figure. In 1300 of the Hajj (1881/2) the renewer was the Mahdi, who took over Khartoum and started a war against English imperialism. in 1400 (1979/80), Khomeini inspired apocalyptic thinking. That year there was a violent messianic outbreak in Muslim Nigeria, while the Shiites in Lebanon had a candidate for the renewer in the Imam Musa al Sadr of Lebanon.

    Khomeini had the support of a large number of secular, as well as religious, supporters. Both fundamentalist and progressive millennialists shared a common hope.  Unfortunately, Khomeini’s program didn’t work, but it did legitimize Islamic extremism.

    “Khomeini did for Muslims—even Sunnis—what Lenin did for Communists. No matter how bad the Sharia state, it served as a model of the possible. After Khomeini, apocalyptic Muslims could begin to imagine that Islam would eventually take over the whole world. The Taliban represented the first anti-modern Sunni millennial experiment.”

    The Apocalyptic Rhetoric of War with Israel

    The 1948 and 1967 Arab wars with Israel were accompanied by apocalyptic rhetoric. In the 1960s, the failure of Nasser’s ‘final war’ with Israel discredited secular Arab nationalism for many, leading back to religious fundamentalism and eventually to cataclysmic millennialism.”  (Of course, the Jews have millennialist beliefs as well, but Landes says these are passive.)  Islamic extremism has increased since that time.

    “In the 1980s, Muslim apocalyptic discourse took a new turn. Whereas previously it had been very conservative, only compiling traditional hadiths on the subject, it now borrowed ideas and techniques from the Western world—especially Protestant millennialism—including more sophisticated use of means of communication, such as glossy pamphlets and cassettes of sermons. It even picked up Western themes, such as flying saucers or Biblical texts, and quoted these in addition to the Koran and the hadith.

    “The approach of the end of the Christian era’s second millennium also influenced the Muslim world. It expected the classic Muslim version of the Anti-Christ, the Dajjal, to arrive in 2000. He would be a Jew and control most of the world according to the procedures outlined in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. (According to Landes, the Protocols remain influential with Arab intellectuals and elites.)

    “The most depressing aspect of current Islamic apocalyptic thought is that all its variants of cataclysmic events will bring immense destruction and death. This is why so much apocalyptic thought in the Arab world—secular and religious—focuses on death and martyrdom that kills indiscriminately. They think that God wants them to visit the destruction on the Jews that the Hebrew prophets warned about. Current Muslim apocalyptic thinking gives no support to the notion that Islam is a religion of peace.”

    Was the year 2000 a turning point?

    Since 2000 the 12-year-old boy, Mohammed Al Dura has become a martyr and patron saint for both the intifada and global Jihad. (Unfortunately, this article is unnecessarily inflammatory when it claims the Al Dura affair was staged.) 10.

    Christopher Columbus and The Western Contribution

    According to an article on the TeacherServe website, apocalyptic thinking in the Americas began with Christopher Columbus who invested the discovery of the new world with millennial meaning. He thought he had found the new heaven and the new earth that God spoke ‘through the mouth of Isaiah’ and again in the Apocalypse of St. John.

    That said, it is more common for apocalyptic views to express the expectation that history will come to a complete halt. Protestant conservatives have been susceptible to this belief, especially evangelicals, because of their literal reading of the Bible. They focus on the book of Revelation in the new Testament, as well as the book of Daniel in the Hebrew Bible.

    Evangelicals

    Throughout American history, evangelicals have vacillated between pre and postmillennialism. The Puritans were premillennial. In other words, they knew Christ’s return could take place at any moment. Jonathan Edwards believed the millennium would begin in America.

    The Shakers and John Humphrey Noyes

    The Shakers thought Christ had already returned in the person of Mother Ann Lee and they were busy establishing the millennial kingdom. They forbade all private union between the sexes. On the other hand, John Humphrey Noyes, founder of the Oneida Community in western New York, believed Christ had returned in A.D. 70. For him the millennium provided sexual license.

    The American Revolution

    Many patriots in the eighteenth century fused millennial expectations with radical Whig ideology and thought the American Revolution was ‘the sacred cause of liberty’.

    The Second Great Awakening and the Reform Movements it Inspired

    During the Second Great Awakening there was optimism in the perfectibility of humanity and society. This complemented the Enlightenment’s appraisal of human potential and inspired many reform efforts such as temperance, abolitionism, prison and educational reform, and Christian missions, in other words, postmillennialism.

    At the same time, some evangelicals had lost their optimism about human potential after the excesses of the French Revolution and they reverted to premillennialism. William Miller believed Jesus would return sometime between March 1843 and March 1844.

    Joseph Smith

    Joseph Smith thought the New Jerusalem would center in Jackson County, Missouri. His assassination interrupted the preparations, but in recent years a small band of Mormons has returned to resume the task.

    Nat Turner

    There was a conviction among antebellum blacks that God sanctioned rebellion against white slaveholders. On May 12, 1828, God appeared to Nat Turner, a slave preacher in Southampton County, Virginia. “I heard a loud noise in the Heavens,” he said, “and the Spirit instantly appeared to me and said the Serpent was loosened, and Christ had laid down the yoke he had borne for the sins of men, and that I should take it on and fight against the Serpent, for the time was fast approaching when the first should be last and the last should be first.” The rebellion he unleashed claimed the lives of fifty-five whites and two hundred blacks.

    Reform Judaism

    Even some Reform Jews caught the spirit and recognized America as the New Zion and Washington as the New Jerusalem.

    From Postmillennialism to Premillennialism

    After the Civil War, optimism about human perfectibility continued to dissipate. In addition, the evangelicals had lost their dominance due to European immigration. This caused an inward turn and eventual contempt for the culture that had spurned them. An alternative to postmillennialism was found in John Nelson Darby’s dispensational premillennialism. Believers saw a society careening toward judgment. Enter the influential Dwight Moody. Subsequently, the Scofield Bible provided a dispensational template for their reading of the scriptures.11.

    Apocalypticism, the Right Wing, and Popular Culture

    According to another article on oldpubliceye.org (cited below) Apocalypticism and millennialism have influenced a variety of right-wing political and social movements, especially in the United States. Tim LaHaye in his 1980 book, The Battle for the Mind, stated: “tribulation is predestined and will surely come to pass.” But LaHay also teaches that there will be a pre-tribulation tribulation if the liberal, secular humanists are permitted to take control of our government. He says this not predestined, but it will happen if Christians fail to assert themselves in defense of morality and decency!

    The Book of Revelation and Popular Films

    In the United States the apocalyptic worldview is influenced by religious and secular interpretations of the prophecies in the Biblical book of Revelation about the coming of a new millennium. Fundamentalist Christians believe the end of time will be preceded by a cataclysmic battle between the forces of good and the forces of evil. The period of peace and harmony begins when evil is vanquished. This period marks the return of Christ. Popular films like Rambo, Mad Max, the Terminator series, and Red Dawn reinterpret the vision without making its origins clear. The film Apocalypse Now and theTV series Millennium name the myth while secularizing and mainstreaming it as a paradigm.

    Heaven’s Gate

    The Heaven’s Gate group merged prophetic themes with the dynamic of manipulative demagoguery in the setting of a totalitarian group with a charismatic leader. Three roots of key prophetic visions in the Heaven’s Gate group came from:

    The Christian Bible
    The prophecies of Nostradamus
    Science Fiction

    Science Fiction

    The science fiction theme often proposes that more advanced life forms and beings with higher consciousness from space will visit Earth and select humans for travel or transformation. A typical example is the book Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke. These ideas are also embraced by people in the UFO movement.

    The New Testament Book of Revelation has inspired a large number of myths, metaphors, images, symbols, phrases and icons for mass movements. It is the influence behind current right-wing movements such as the new Christian electoral right, Protestant and Catholic theocratic groups, survivalism, the patriot and armed militia movement, Christian patriot constitutionalists, and the Christian Identity religion. Some, but not all, Christian Identity members such as Aryan Nations, are racists.

    The Book of Revelation’s Influence on Popular Culture

    This article lists six key ways the predictions of Revelations influence popular culture: Omens and Signs of the Times; Apocalyptic Doomsday Cataclysm; Subversion and Countersubversion; Armageddon and Holy War; Reign and Rule; and Transcendent Ascension and Rapture.

    The Branch Davidians believed the end times were approaching and were studying the meaning of the seven wax seals on a scroll mentioned in Revelation. Law enforcement abuse of power against the Branch Davidian’s in Waco, Texas and other dissidents creates cascading echoes of apocalypse throughout the society. (Italics mine)

    The survivalist movement, and in particular the Weaver family and the Montana Freemen, are influenced by a belief in apocalyptic doomsday cataclysm.

    Those who take the subversion and counter-subversion route believe that humankind will be betrayed by a world leader who will eventually be exposed as Satan’s agent. In addition to this leader there will be a false prophet and global religion that supports him. They especially mistrust those who call for world cooperation and international intervention, like the United Nations. They thought at one time that the antichrist was based in the Soviet Union. This was the evil empire of the Star Wars trilogy. It is also partly the basis for the Montana Freeman rejecting government authority. It influences some, but not all, armed militia groups.

    Believers of the Reign and Rule dogma think they must clean up secular society to prepare for the return of the Lord. Much of the violence against reproductive rights clinics and attacks on gay rights is based on this interpretation. This is called dominion theology. Its most theocratic and authoritarian version is Christian Reconstructionism.

    Dialogue is the Only Way Out

    “The millennium provides an opportunity for society to engage in a process of renewal and reconciliation, as well as an opportunity for demagogues, bigots, paranoids, and charlatans to spread messages of division and destruction.

    If a totalitarian group turns outward its members can engage in scapegoating with the most extreme outcome being homicide. If a totalitarian group turns inward its members can engage in scapegoating with the most extreme outcome being suicide. In a society where inequality and injustice is creating deep divisions and tensions, we need constructive ways to channel anger and alienation toward demands for social change rather than apocalyptic withdrawal or aggression.

    In societies suffering from economic and social stress, backlash movements take several forms: racial or ethnic nationalism; religious fundamentalism or spiritual alternative; and right-wing populism and conspiracist scapegoating. These forms can blend and interact.

    “The more we all discuss the issues of millennial expectation, apocalyptic thinking, and scapegoating, the more likely the outcome will be positive rather than negative.”

    Definitions

    Apocalypticism: the belief in an approaching confrontation, cataclysmic event, or transformation of epochal proportion, about which a select few have forewarning so they can make appropriate preparations. From a Greek root word suggesting unveiling hidden information or revealing secret knowledge about unfolding human events. The dualist or demonized version involves a final showdown struggle between absolute good and absolute evil. In Christianity there are competing apocalyptic prophetic traditions based on demonization or liberation. Central to Christianity, the tradition also exists in Judaism, Islam, and other religions and secular belief structures. Believers can be passive or active in anticipation; and optimistic or pessimistic about the outcome. Sometimes used similarly to the term millenarianism.

    Millennialism: A sense of expectation that a significant epochal transformation is imminent, marking either the end of a thousand year period, or signal its beginning, or both. Two major forms of millennialist response are passive waiting versus activist intervention. Can involve varying degrees of apocalypticism. In Christianity, the idea that the Second Coming of Christ marks a thousand year period.

    Aggressive apocalypticism: the merger of conspiracism with apocalypticism often generates aggressive forms of dualism. Apocalyptic aggression occurs when demonized scapegoats are targeted as enemies of the ‘common good’, a dynamic that can lead to discrimination and attacks.((Apocalyptic Millennialism, Political Research Associates. Available: http://www.publiceye.org/tooclose/apoc.html))

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