michelle malkin calls christianity "the original religion of peace." of course the wars, persecutions, and tortures committed in its name are innumerable. malkin herself is perhaps not the most placid and humble person who ever rose to modestly declare an opinion. anyway, i thought on this lovely christmas eve i'd post a piece i wrote in 2001 for the la times.
Prophets of Rage
By Crispin Sartwell
The administration of George W. Bush has been marked by the ascension of two men - House majority whip Tom DeLay and Attorney General John Ashcroft - who have much in common. Both are grim-visaged and perfectly sure in every situation that they are right. In each, one perceives a deep reservoir of rage that partly motivates his involvement with politics.
And both, above all, are evangelical Christians, given to staff prayer meetings, public assertions of faith, and political positions on such issues as abortion, homosexuality, and prayer in public schools that reflect both their religious orientation and their position on the far right of American mainstream politics.
Many people who think of themselves as Christian, including many members of the clergy, regard both the evangelical movement and the personal politics of DeLay and Ashcroft as deeply incompatible with the teachings of Jesus. Where Jesus taught "Judge not, that ye be not judged" and "love your neighbor as yourself," the evangelical right is only too happy to condemn their opponents in imagination to the fiery pit of hell, and to play hardball politics that reflects the absoluteness of their convictions.
But the evangelicals have read their Bibles, and they have very good reasons to regard Jesus as a prophet of rage.
The interpretation of Jesus's teachings is, of course, extremely controversial: so much so, in fact, that it sometimes seems as though there are two different Christs.
One Christ is a kind of proto-hippie, travelling around the Middle East in long hair and sandals preaching love of everyone, including his own enemies. This Jesus is the mild lamb of God.
Certain passages, especially the Sermon on the Mount, support such an interpretation. But others give us an apparently very different Christ, one who condemns utterly and eternally anyone who does not immediately accept his teachings and divine status. At the judgment, he says, "The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth" (Matthew 13: 41).
Jesus as portrayed in the gospels was concerned to sort the elect from the damned, and to punish the latter with torture for all eternity: "You are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels" (Matthew: 25: 41). "The one who believes and is baptized will be saved; but the one who does not believe will be condemned" (Mark 15:16). "Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire" (Matthew 7: 19). There is much else in this vein.
Scholars such as Stephen Mitchell (in his book *The Gospel According to Jesus*) have been concerned to separate the prophet of love, who Mitchell regards as the authentic Jesus, from the prophet of rage, which he regards as a later misinterpretation of Jesus's teachings. But though Mitchell's arguments are elaborate, I think it is fair to say that they amount finally to wishful thinking, that Mitchell simply condemns as inauthentic those passages he doesn't like.
The Christian right's vengeful God who operates by sorting the elect from the damned is reflected in their politics of polarization, and by their barely concealed contempt for what they regard as the deepest moral failings of their opponents.
In fact, the Christian right's interpretation of love as being compatible with the condemnation of sin is also well-supported by the Bible. Preventing a woman from having an abortion is for them an expression of love because it may save her from eternal torment. Impeaching Bill Clinton for adultery was a mission from God that also happened to serve DeLay's political purposes. "Converting" homosexuals to heterosexuality becomes an act of charity.
Indeed, many of what are sometimes considered the excesses of historical Christianity, such as the Crusades and the Inquisition and the conversion by the sword of people all over the world have been richly justified as expressions of love by the New Testament. Being burned at the stake is a trivial punishment when compared to being burned for eternity, as Jesus promised his opponents.
George W, Bush once said that his favorite political philosopher was Jesus Christ. Unfortunately, the New Testament is an intensely difficult text to interpret, much less to use as a political guide. But one thing is clear: while you can easily condemn the politics or even the personalities of DeLay and Ashcroft, what you cannot do is condemn them simply as unchristian.
