Religion & Beliefs
Murders in the Cathedral
By Arthur Waskow / June 11, 2009
The Holocaust Museum murder and the murder of Dr. George Tiller at his church in Wichita share several characteristics: Both men who have been accused of the murders have long histories of involvement with ultra-right-wing political-religious groups like the Christian Identity movement. Both might, therefore, have been labeled "Christian terrorists" by the media as various other murderers have been labeled "Muslim terrorists or "jihadis." So far as I know, this has not happened. I would add, "Thank God" for this restraint, if I thought the media would abandon that kind of labeling for every such incident. I must admit, however reluctantly, that the media won’t abandon religious labels because there is a seed of truth in them. Something about the mysterium tremendum that is at the heart of religious experience is somehow engaged in murders like these. Not only did the alleged perpetrators base some claim to legitimacy in their religious beliefs, but both attacks were aimed at sacred places: the Lutheran church in Wichita, one formally designated "sacred" by our customs; the other, the Holocaust Museum, treated essentially as a place of pilgrimage and awe even more than as a place of education. The fact is that all our religious traditions (even Buddhism: see under "Sri Lanka") have streaks and strands of blood woven in their fabrics. Even though most of us experience a special twinge of horror when religion is invoked as the justification for murder and when a "sacred" place is the scene for murder, every tradition has been guilty of "playing God," taking the name of God in vain in order to commit acts of violence. How can both these impulses – the impulse to celebrate our own "god" through murder and our impulse to be horrified by violence in God’s Name or in God’s Place — co-exist within us? It is because each tradition passionately teaches community in celebration of the One. Then proponents of each tradition meet other folks who claim also to be honoring The One but have a totally different set of words, symbols, metaphors, practices. THEY must not only be wrong about their connection with the One; they must be lying about it. Demonic falsehood! It is clear that we need to strengthen that twinge of horror at "religious" violence" into a torrent. Every one of our traditions needs first to unpeel the truth of its own bloody streaks, — in bloody texts and bloody actions — and do penance for them. We must not only apologize, but publicly mourn the deaths that have been committed in our name, as well as the deaths we have suffered. Lutherans horrified by the murder of a Lutheran in a church on Pentecost Sunday need to grieve the deaths of Jews who were demonized by Luther and murdered by Lutherans. Jews outraged by a murderous attack on the Holocaust Museum and by murderous attacks on civilians in Sderot need to mourn the deaths of hundreds of Palestinian civilians killed by Jewish bombs. After looking our selves in the mirror, each of our traditions, our communities, needs to make much clearer its prohibition on violence, not only within the circle of its family but toward us all, each other. No more chaplains should be hired by the military-instead, but independent clergy should instead challenge each soldier to stop killing. Congregations that observe Memorial Days and Armistice Days should mourn not only the dead but the system that killed them. May the One Who makes harmony in the ultimate reaches of the universe teach us to make some harmony within ourselves, among ourselves, for our own tribe and for all the unique and glorious tribes that You have shaped upon our planet. Rabbi Arthur Waskow is director, The Shalom Center http://www.shalomctr.org; co-author, The Tent of Abraham; author  of  Godwrestling – Round 2, Down-to-Earth Judaism,  and a dozen other books on Jewish thought and practice, as well as books on US public policy.  The Shalom Center voices a new prophetic agenda in Jewish, multireligious, and American life. To receive the weekly on-line Shalom Report, click on http://www.shalomctr.org/subscribe
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"You’re also ignoring the actual economic and social programs enacted by fascist regimes."
You mean "Corporatism", the socialist and consolodation of industry and unions? Mussolini, FDR, Hitler, and Obama actually have similay anti-free market economic policies.
"Fascism" is admittedly much harder to pin down with a definition, but I
find the most instructive attempt is "feudalism for the modern world"
in that it usually calls for a reintroduction of many of the
traditional hierarchies of the old, pre-modern order: religion as an
instrument of the state, women as subservient to men, and Jews
contained in ghettos."
That’s odd, considering the Nazis banned teaching Christianity to children. They did have a religion, which was a mix of neo-paganism and aryan-worship at odds with Christianity. But let’s look at the left’s push of Environmentalism as a Religion and Secular Humanism as belief systems. Are they now conservative, or is your defination ahistorical.
" It is only "socialist" in the sense that fascists want their working
class aware of themselves of a class, but fascists see class (and
usually race and gender) as part of a natural order of things (while
leftists generally want to overthrow that order.)Â "
Please stop embarassing yourself, Ian. Please look up the economic policies of Facist Italy and retract this drivle.
"Fascists are perfectly happy to see the rich become richer, so long as the rich are seen as patriotic."Â
Wage controls and taking of property from reactionary groups is oh so conservative.
"Fascism also celebrates mysticism, and explicit anti-intellectualism,
or as fascists choose, "intuition, and instinct," Â by contrast,
leftists, even when making grand intellectual errors, celebrate theory
and science. "
Good God, take a look at the Hiedegger supporting Hippies, Greens, and Feminists.
"Even the modern conservative movement has its share of prominent
anti-Semites: Â Pat Buchanan, Ann Coulter, and Ron Paul for instance."
 Ann Coulter is not an anti-semite. You just are anti-Christian and cannot bear their belief that we are not saved. Go read Maimonedes to see what we think of Christians and Muslims.
These two men had no common connection, and no common enemy (one was against abortion, the other Jews). By contrast, the Riverdale syngagogue bomb plot and the murder of Private Long were committed by Muslims, with a common enemy (the USA). Yet not only will Paul Krugman not blame Muslim leaders for creating a "climate of hate," but the NYT will not even describe the offender as a Muslim–rather, an indivdual with greivances against America.
It recalls the Washington sniper, whom the media insisted on descrbing as a right-wing white before there was any proof. When actually discovered, he was not a "Muslim" but a formerly "military" member, as if that was what motivated him.
Broad brush conclusions?
I’m not the one who tagged Buchanan, Coulter & Dr, Paul "for instance" as anti-Semites! LOL!
Neither of those 3 conservatives are anti-Semites, Ian.
In response to both Adam H and Alcove-One about whether Naziism and Fascism are left-wing or right-wing phenomena:
Your confusion is that you are defining "right" exclusively in terms of the "conservative" pro-capitalist participants in democratic nation states. Â You’re also ignoring the actual economic and social programs enacted by fascist regimes.
"Fascism" is admittedly much harder to pin down with a definition, but I find the most instructive attempt is "feudalism for the modern world" in that it usually calls for a reintroduction of many of the traditional hierarchies of the old, pre-modern order: religion as an instrument of the state, women as subservient to men, and Jews contained in ghettos. Â It is only "socialist" in the sense that fascists want their working class aware of themselves of a class, but fascists see class (and usually race and gender) as part of a natural order of things (while leftists generally want to overthrow that order.) Â Fascists are perfectly happy to see the rich become richer, so long as the rich are seen as patriotic. Fascism also celebrates mysticism, and explicit anti-intellectualism, or as fascists choose, "intuition, and instinct," Â by contrast, leftists, even when making grand intellectual errors, celebrate theory and science.Â
If Hitler and Stalin were both anti-Semites, it was not because they shared the same political philosophy, it is because both were nurtured by an anti-Semitic civilization (Stalin’s views on Jews were well-formed before he became a communist– likely while he was in seminary.)
* * *Â
Even the modern conservative movement has its share of prominent anti-Semites: Â Pat Buchanan, Ann Coulter, and Ron Paul for instance.
Ian, I mean you no offense, but it took me decades to unlearn the myth they fed us in high school that Nazism is a right-wing political pholisophy. National Socialism is a bedfellow of Communism. Stalin and Hitler both did a whole lotta Jew killin’.
Actually von Brunn’s belief that Christianity was a Jewish plot to destroy the Roman Empire, while a minority opinion, was certainly held by some European right-wingers in the 19th and 20th centuries. Â There may be some leftists who agree with that position, but it doesn’t have socialist pedigree.
In fact, it appears in the first section of Friedrich Nietzsche’s <i>Towards A Genealogy of Morals</i>, which to be fair, Nietzsche probably wrote tongue-in-cheek, because he tended to detest anti-Semites and German nationalists (and socialists, for that matter) and seemed to be insinuating (at least from my reading) that the anti-Semitic stereotype was really a compilation of everything the European hated about himself.
Von Brunn was anti-Semitic, a racist, and possibly also an anti-Christian. He certainly wasn’t a leftist though.Â
That said, antisemitism is its own entity, not affixed to either side of the political spectrum.  It comes in leftist, rightist, centrist, Christian, Islamic, and atheistic varieties. Ahmedinejad entertains David Duke as a guest, and has an alliance with Hugo Chavez– its the antisemitism that unifies the three of them.
In his effort to find similarities between these 2 murderers, Waskow reveals his utter lack of research.Â
The shooter at the Holocaust, while initially labeled by the mainstream media as a "right-wing extremist" is actually a left-wing extremist.
And there are 2 clear differences between the shooting victims: The museum guard never killed anybody, while Dr. Tiller was singlehandedly responsible for ending the lives of thousands of viable fetuses. This is a fact regardless of any abortion moral opinions.
I’d be hesitant to call the bombing of Palestinians a result of "Jewish bombs". This does not constitute religious violence. I’d almost be hesitant to call even the persecution of Jews by the Lutherans religious violence, although that might be because I’m just so used to the concept of persecution all I could label it as would be "normal, everyday life for Jews in Europe." And I’d be very hesitant to call what Von Brunn did "religious violence". From all accounts, he was not a particularly religious man, nor drew his bloody inspiration from anything spiritual. Tiller’s murder, I can believe is religious. This, however, not so much.
 I don’t know if the urge to commit violence based on G-d’s will exists in all of us. I have enemies, opponents, but rarely do I feel violent towards them and never would I assume that it was the voice of G-d pushing me to commit violence.Â
 It’s an interesting question, though. All Jews, it’s said, were present at Moses’s presentation of the commandments to the people of Israel. It’s nice to think all Jews are present at our triumphs. Are all Jews present at our low points as well, at our shameful points? I agree that every people, every religion has these points, and all of us must face them together, understand them, and improve ourselves so that they are not repeated. But to look at this event and say "We should think about what we did" almost feels like an excuse for it.Â
Dear "Rabbi",
As someone who has actually argued with von Brunn and read his website the Holy Western Empire, I can tell you catagorically that JW von Brunn was no Christian. He considered it a Jewish plot carried out by Saul/Paul to destroy Rome.
PS. When you show a sign of actually being a Jew, rather than a reverse Maranno for Leftism (pretends to be Jewish while bing a leftists), I’ll call you a Rabbi.
The author states that all religions must ""make much clearer its prohibition on violence." Alas, most religions don’t prohibit violence. All it takes is a quick perusal of Prophets or Exodus to see that our G-d is a vengeful and bloody G-d that encourages violence against the stranger. I’m no expert on the Second Testament or Koran, but I’m sure those books have equally barbaric passages.Â
Of course, you can point to other passages in all these books–peaceful, inspriing, uplifting passages. But once you decide you’ll follow The Book (whichever book it might be), there’s really no logical reason to reject the ugly passages and embrace the pretty ones. Thus, if religion is to have any argument against terror, it can’t just renounce violence and pretend that’s what religion is all about. Religion must also abandon the notion that it actually follows a great Book, and instead challenge followers to seek goodness and truth using their own hearts and mind. In reality, that’s what everyone does anyway, but today violent people are supported by institutions preaching that the Bible/Torah/Koran is the word of God. So their violent instincts are excused and justified by religion.Â
–Z
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