As usual, Sullivan nails it.

The blog post by Andrew Sullivan that WC points at begins,

The relationship between religion and politics is, to my mind, the central question of our time. As the false totalisms of the twentieth century – communism, fascism, Nazism – have been revealed as oppressive, murderous lies, insecure and inadequate human beings in need of totalist solutions to the human dilemma have returned to religion. But more accurately, they have returned to fundamentalism, because only fundamentalism, with its absolute certainty and literal precision and binding, unquestionable authority, can assuage the anxieties of a world dislocated from tradition, up-ended by capitalism, globalized to the point of cultural panic….

And later,

This ideology comes perilously close to arguing that something must be right because America does it, or has done it. It paradoxically removes the potential for moral improvement and reform by arguing that America was immaculately conceived, and that all that is required for its revival is what Sarah Palin calls a “fundamental restoration”. The core moral narrative of the country – its founding on slavery and its bitter brutal internal conflict to achieve racial justice over the centuries – is simply ignored. This is what we are hearing from Santorum and Romney and Palin: American fundamentalism.

All of this is routine for authoritarian nationalist movements. What distinguishes this one is a co-optation of Christianity. But, of course, Christianity cannot be co-opted by nationalism. It is opposed to all such distinctions:

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

Yes, the Messiah came from a Chosen People, but in Christianity, Jesus’s death and resurrection made the whole world that chosen people. At the Feast of the Ascension yesterday, we Catholics heard at Mass the words of Jesus from Matthew:

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.

And so the notion of America as a unique nation in the eyes of God is a Christian heresy.

But read the rest.

Here, again, is a reminder of what Christianism is.  Also known as Christian dominionism, also known as Christianity as political ideology, rather than religion. In this case, it’s a form of nationalist idolatry, or idolatrous nationalism — the stuff, in any case, that theologian Paul Tillich wrote about in in a passage of Dynamics of Faith whence comes this quote:

In true faith the ultimate concern is a concern about the truly ultimate; while in idolatrous faith faith preliminary, finite realities are elevated to the rank of ultimacy.

Among which idolatrous faiths counts the style of Christian dominionist nationalism practiced & preached by Palin & her ilk.

Related posts:

1. Christianist, defined
2. Illimitable god, & related thoughts about why I’m not a Christian
3. Good, evil, & great waves of god

… or so she would have me believe.

Her ship looks suspiciously unlike an early-1960s British blue police box. Maybe the Eleventh Doctor (or who knows, Dr. River Song, who seems to know how to operate a TARDIS better than the Doctor himself) finally was able to fix the control that was broken in the First Doctor‘s time, which makes it possible for a TARDIS to adopt the most appropriate disguise so as to be inconspicuous in its surroundings. Surely an old Alaska beatermobile of indeterminate color is more inconspicuous at my apartment complex than a 1960s-era British blue police box.

But wait! — look closer! Look at the plate! It doesn’t say TARDIS — it says TARD1S! That’s the numeral 1, not the letter I!

And look: here’s the back plate. Same problem here! “Time And Relative Dimension In Space” has become “Time And Relative Dimension —” what? — “One Space”? That doesn’t even make sense!

I think my neighbor’s messing with me. An imposter. Not a Time Lord at all.

And here it is, Rapture Eve, with a Rapture Van driving all over Anchorage warning about a “Judgment Day,” like some bizarre new form of Dalek aiming its harsh, Bible-Purple cry of exterminate, exterminate! against any who are not Dalek. From all over the world we’re hearing reports of people claiming that they will be somehow caught up into the sky, mystically teleported — apparently beginning tonight at 10:00 PM Alaska Time* — to some indefinable place called Heaven: the name, one must suppose, of an alien spaceship belonging to the powerful and xenophobic race to whom these people owe their allegiance.

And then, over a period of five months, the spaceship will rain its destruction down upon us.

And the Doctor, who could save us, is nowhere to be found.

Unless…

Do I have the wrong mythology? Yes. Yes. It’s obvious.  Like Sunnydale, California, and Cleveland, Ohio, Anchorage obviously sits on a Hellmouth, in our case centered somewhere in the vicinity of Baxter Road and Northern Lights Boulevard.

Surely Buffy will avert this apocalypse, as she has averted so many others.

But please, Buffy, please. Do not avert the Rapture. Let them go. Let all the xenophobes go.

* Note about Rapture timing: Per The Atlantic, The Rapture will begin 6 PM on March 21 in the first time zone at which that time occurs, then will proceed around the globe time zone by time zone. “So, according to these calculations, the Rapture will actually begin like a rolling brown out across the globe at 11 p.m. PST on Friday, May 20th” — i.e., 10 PM AST. But we’re in daylight savings time now, so I’m still a tad confused. In any case, those Alaskans whose loyalty to the xenophobic aliens is expected to be rewarded with Rapture will be among the last on the planet, at 6:00 PM tomorrow, to be rolling brown-outed to the alien mothership.

h/t John Aronno, Alaska Commons; Julia O’Malley, Anchorage Daily News

Related posts:

1. The Daily Tweets 2011-05-26: The sun’s gone wibbly
2. Q & A: What happens when you click "Volunteer" at the Alaskans for Parental Rights website?
3. There is more to life than Real Life

Here’s Wikipedia:

In a politico-religious context, dominionism (also called subjectionism) is the tendency among some politically-active Christians, especially in the United States, to seek influence or control over secular civil government through political action. The goal is either a nation governed by Christians, or a nation governed by a conservative Christian understanding of biblical law.¹

Lots of us Alaskans have been kinda wondering if Governor Sean Parnell — sometimes called “SP2″ since he follows in the footsteps of former governor Sarah Palin — might be one. Especially after his February 11 appointment² (currently awaiting confirmation) of Valdez  ultraconservative Don Haase of the ultraconservative Eagle Forum — an affiliation Haase neglected to include on his resume — to the Alaska Judicial Council.  As I wrote in a comment on the Anchorage Daily News story³ about the Alaska Senate Judiciary Committee’s questioning of Haase,

Putting people like Haase on the Judicial Council is part of Parnell’s participation with ChangePoint, Alaska Family Council, & related to try to overturn judicial independence in Alaska. Over the past couple years they’ve attempted to get rid of the Alaska Constitution’s provisions about the Judicial Council (via lawsuit in the case of Miller v. Carpeneti); they’ve tried to force judges up for retention to answer litmus test questions on abortion & LGBT rights; now they’re trying to stack the Judicial Council with members who will also work to keep nominees for the bench out based on those same litmus test questions.

That’s what Haase’s about, that’s what Gatto chair of House Judiciary is about, that’s what Sean Parnell is about. They don’t want _good_ judges: they want judges who will be in ideological agreement with them.³

Henkimaa readers may remember that I wrote quite a bit a couple years back  about the  Miller v. Carpeneti lawsuit, which sought to overturn provisions of the Alaska Constitution with regard to judicial selection and to undermine the checks and balances of our governmental system by placing more power into the hands of the executive branch at the expense of the judicial branch. See the post “Lawsuit asks feds to overrule Alaska Constitution” for a discussion of those issues.⁴

See also the post “Miller v. Carpeneti: The conservatives behind the attack on Alaska judicial independence and impartiality”⁵: One of the plaintiffs in that case is Carl Ekstrom who was a development director at the Anchorage megachurch ChangePoint.⁶ And guess what? — Sean Parnell also attends ChangePoint.⁷ Now, I don’t know that the church itself is attempting to promote this longterm campaign against judicial independence, but it’s where a lot of religious right activists rub shoulders, and events are frequently held there related to rightwing political issues, such as abortion.

Another plaintiff in Miller v. Carpeneti was Anchorage attorney Kenneth Kirk, an Anchorage attorney practicing in the areas of family law, estate planning, adoptions, and elder law. According to a 2009 Anchorage Press article by Scott Christiansen,

He’s also done some in-court activism on behalf of James Dobson’s Family Research Council, a major national policy arm of the conservative Christian movement. When the FRC wanted to file a friend-of-the-court brief in Alaska lawsuit over parental consent and minors choosing abortion, they called on Kirk.⁸

And so who else should show up on Sean Parnell’s February 11 appointment list but Kenneth Kirk?² — in his case, the appointment was to the Alaska Public Offices Commission (APOC), the state agency charged with administering Alaska’s laws on campaign disclosure, financial disclosure of legislative and public officials, and lobbying regulation.  What a great place for an ideologically driven Republican Party of Alaska attorney⁹ to find himself.

Kirk was questioned on March 17 in the Alaska Senate State Affairs Committee about his views. Here’s an excerpt from the committee’s minutes:

SENATOR PASKVAN noted Mr. Kirk’s writing on the merit based system for the selection of judges sets out a dichotomy between liberal and conservative, and asked how he would apply that distinction in his work with APOC.

MR. KIRK replied that is his private citizen view. As a commissioner he would need to be more careful and considered in his decisions. He noted that he writes for the Bar Rag and his writings often try to shake things up; as an APOC commissioner he would be much more cautious.¹⁰

But can he be?

Questioning went into Mr. Kirk’s use of the word weapon in a 2007 article he wrote for Americans United for Life titled “Alaska: Conservative State, Liberal Judiciary” — essentially a report on the state of the Alaska judiciary regarding the issue of abortion from a “right to life” perspective.  Here’s the quote at issue:

In the past decade, the Alaska Supreme Court has gone far beyond the United States Supreme Court (“USSC”) in making it difficult for the legislature or governor to restrict or limit abortions, using the state constitution as its weapon.¹¹

From the committee minutes:

SENATOR PASKVAN  noted the phrase  “using the  state constitution as  a   weapon”  in  Mr.   Kirk’s  writing  is  a   concern.  The constitution is more of a  standard than a weapon. That reference was made  to the Alaska  Supreme Court. The writing  was “Alaska: Conservative State, Liberal Judiciary.”

MR. KIRK said  he did that writing at the request of an advocacy organization. The  reference was to the Supreme Court trying to push a particular agenda.

SENATOR PASKVAN said he was focused  on the word “weapon” and why Mr. Kirk would use that term.

MR. KIRK said he doesn’t recall,  but his point was probably that the court  was  not  interpreting the  constitution  but  rather misusing it to push a particular agenda.¹⁰

But it could be just as easily argued that Mr. Kirk’s article was pushing an agenda and that the Alaska Supreme Court, charged with interpreting the Alaska Constitution, was doing just that.  Certainly the lawsuit in which Mr. Kirk joined in 2009, Miller v. Carpeneti, was squarely aimed at toppling the judicial independence — i.e., independence from political and ideological litmus tests — provided to the Alaska Supreme Court and the rest of the Alaska judiciary under the Alaska Constitution.

In any case, Mr. Kirk passed committee muster and his name will go forward to a joint meeting for confirmation to APOC.  Do we want him there?  If you don’t — call or write your legislators.

But Kenneth Kirk and Don Haase are Sean Parnell’s political appointees.  What about Sean Parnell himself?

As it happens, earlier today my colleague at Bent Alaska, E. Ross, posted a lengthy article about Parnell’s own activities indicating Christian dominionist leanings.  Her article, “Gov. Parnell, Choose Respect for All Alaskans,” calls Gov. Parnell out about the contradictions inherent in his “Choose Respect” campaign against sexual assault and domestic violence, in which he “calls for a cultural shift…towards honor and respect for all Alaskans” even as he shows anything but respect for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans Alaskans and our families.¹² The article is worth quoting at length:

Last week, the state senate questioned Don Haase, recent president of the anti-gay Eagle Forum and Parnell’s choice for the panel that nominates state judges. Haase kept off his resume his leadership role in the extreme conservative group, but admitted that he thought sex outside of marriage should be illegal, saying, “I think that would be up to the voters… I can see legitimate reasons to push that as a crime.”

(The judicial panel only has three members of the public, and already has one far right member: Sarah Palin appointed Kathleen Tompkins-Miller, wife of tea party Senate candidate Joe Miller, to the council in 2009.)

Let’s put the pieces together on Don Haase – the person Sean Parnell wants to pick our state judges – and LGBT Alaskans: Leader of the Eagle Forum which pushes a strong anti-gay agenda, worked against the effort to allow same sex marriages in Alaska, worked to take away domestic partnership benefits for same sex partners of state employees, worked against hate crimes protections and non-discrimination laws, and clearly does not support even civil unions. So sex outside of marriage is a crime, and gay and lesbian couples must not be allowed to get married, therefore… consensual sex between two adults of the same gender should be illegal.

This is not the way to choose respect for all Alaskans.

Last year, Parnell flew to Colorado on state money to spend the day with Focus on the Family.¹³ He told them about his Choose Respect project and other ideas for Alaska. Why? He doesn’t need their approval to start a sexual assault and child abuse prevention program in Alaska. What would a corporation that sells harmful pray-away-the-gay workshops tell the governor of another state about his domestic violence project?

The hate watch site Good As You writes:

“Focus on the Family dedicates much time to keeping same-sex couples away from adoption, foster care, and a whole host of protections that strengthen LGBT families. And of course they work every day to deny a fair shake to gay kids and/or the kids of gay parents… [They] talk only about the kind of ‘strong family environment’ that’s defined by evangelism and heterosexuality.”

This is not the way to choose respect for all Alaskans.…

OK, Gov. Parnell. Put your money where your mouth is. Tell ALL Alaskans who have been abused, including LGBT Alaskans, that you support us and we are not alone. Show all Alaskans, including LGBT Alaskans and those who abuse us, that together we can break the silence and choose respect. Walk the talk: Be a role model for how to choose respect by choosing leaders who respect all Alaskans. Call for a cultural shift towards honor and respect for all Alaskans and encourage the legislature to pass Hate Crimes and non-discrimination bills that include sexual orientation and gender identity. Or start small and proclaim June 2011 as LGBT Pride Month in Alaska. Do it.

Stand at the point of the spear and choose respect for all Alaskans. And mean it.¹²

But something tells me… he won’t. I think we’d be fairly safe to say that Parnell is a Christianist & dominionist, much like Sarah Palin — except not quite so noisy about it. Which actually makes him more effective at it.

Looking forward to a rightwing Alaska theocracy? No?  Then what will you do about it?

References

1. “Dominionism.” Article on Wikepedia.
2. 11 Feb 2011. “Governor Delivers Appointments to Legislature” (press release) (Office of Governor Sean Parnell).
3. 24 Mar 2011. “Sex outside marriage should be illegal, says Parnell nominee: Don Haase was active for years as advocate for socially conservative issues” by Richard Mauer (Anchorage Daily News). See also reader comments.
4. 8/27/09. “Lawsuit asks feds to overrule Alaska Constitution” by Melissa S. Green (Henkimaa).
5. 11 Sep 2009. “Miller v. Carpeneti: The conservatives behind the attack on Alaska judicial independence and impartiality” by Melissa S. Green (Henkimaa).
6. Google search on “changepoint” + “carl ekstrom.”
7. Google search on “changepoint” + “sean parnell.”
8. 9/2/09. “Battle for the bench – Why do conservatives want to change the way Alaska picks its judges?” by Scott Christiansen (Anchorage Press).
9. 20 Oct 2010. “Alaska Supreme Court hears arguments on write-in lists” by Joshua Saul (Alaska Dispatch).
10. 17 Mar 2011. Minutes of the Alaska Senate State Affairs Committee. (Alaska State Legislature).
11. “Alaska: Conservative State, Liberal Judiciary” by Kenneth Kirk (Americans United for Life, 2007).
12. 31 Mar 2011. “Gov. Parnell, Choose Respect for All Alaskans” by E. Ross (Bent Alaska).
13. 10 Jun 2010. “Alaska pays for Parnell’s date with Colorado homophobes” by E. Ross (Bent Alaska).

Related posts:

1. Lawsuit asks feds to overrule Alaska Constitution
2. Miller v. Carpeneti: Judge Sedwick's opinion
3. Miller v. Carpeneti: Case dismissed

A couple of days ago Andrew Sullivan highlighted a post by former Anglican priest Mark Vernon, in his blog “Philosophy and Life.”  Vernon’s post which he called “The great waves of Japan”, is worth quoting in full:

I was hearing about the famous painting, The Great Wave of Kanagawa, by Hokusai. It captures something of the horror of what’s fallen northern Japan, with its image of the fishermen dwarfed by the majestic, indifferent tower of water.

It’s a religious image, representing the very different approach that Shintoism has towards nature, compared with Christianity. In Christianity, human beings are at the centre of nature: creation is for humanity, along with other creatures, and it’s humanity’s task to care for it. Hence, in part, the offence we feel when nature turns against us.

In Shintoism, nature is recognised as infinitely more powerful than humankind — as in the wave — and that humankind is in nature with the permission of the gods but with no particular concern from the gods. Shinto rituals show respect for the gods of nature, befriending the enormity of the forces, if you like. But, apparently, there won’t be much of the moral affront at what’s happened — the problem of evil — from the Japanese perspective.

Vernon explained further in response to a commenter’s question,

The problem of evil arises from the Christian doctrine that an all-powerful and good God made the world for us, in some sense, though that world is full of horrors. How come? In the Shinto cosmology, though, the gods are not anthropocentric with their attention, so Shintoism teaches, as I understand it, that one should expect evil from nature quite as much as good.

Good and evil — that’s the question that theologians call theodicy (not to be confused with Homer’s masterpiece The Odyssey, though they’re pronounced much the same).  Theodicy comes from the Greek, theos “god” + dike “justice” (Dikē was the Greek goddess of moral justice), & has to do with trying to reconcile a benevolent all-powerful God (especially as understood in Christianity & other monotheistic religions like Judaism & Islam) with the existence of evil.  Or with, simply, the fact that bad things happen to good people — as happened, & is happening, to the people of Japan in the aftermath of last week’s devastating earthquake & tsunami.

I’ve written on this blog about theodicy before — most extensively just a little over a year ago, after Christianist lackwit Pat Robertson blamed the January 2010 Haiti earthquake on Haitians.

And sure enough, another lackwit, this time Glenn Beck of Fox News, has made a similar suggestion about the Japan quake.  So has South Korean pastor David Yonggi Cho of Yoido Full Gospel Church, the largest Christian church in the world.  Meanwhile, a longtime Internet troll who posed as an extreme Christianist pulled her YouTube account after public outrage over a video she posted last Monday praising God for killing the “atheist” victims of the quake. Her authenticity had apparently long been debated; but, strikingly, a lot of people believed she was for real.  After all, many Christianists are routinely just as offensive, even as they earnestly call upon others to worship a god whose “acts of god” they attribute to their god’s own enforcement of ideological purity.

(It sure as hell ain’t to enforce moral purity that a god would slaughter innocents by the thousands.)

(Reminder: Christian and Christianist — not the same thing.  A Christian is a follower of the Christian faith, whatever politics she or he might follow — conservative, moderate, liberal, independent.  A Christianist is one whose supposed Christianity has become, in the words of Andrew Sullivan, “ideology, politics, an ism…. It is the belief that religion dictates politics and that politics should dictate the laws for everyone, Christian and non-Christian alike.”)

But back to what Vernon said about Shintoism:

In the Shinto cosmology, though, the gods are not anthropocentric with their attention, so Shintoism teaches, as I understand it, that one should expect evil from nature quite as much as good.

(I don’t think that a natural event like an earthquake or tsunami has a moral dimension such as evil per se; but beyond that quibble) … there’s a book of the Bible that teaches much the same: the Book of Job.  As Stephen Mitchell writes in the introduction to his 1992 translation of the Book of Job regarding Job and his friends, who are  “comforting” Job after he’s lost nearly everything, including all his children:

The friends and Job all agree that God is wise and can see into the hearts of men.  He is not the kind of character who would allow a good man to be tortured because of a bet; nor is he a well-intentioned bungler.  Given this premise, they construct opposite syllogisms.  The friends: Suffering comes from God.  God is just.  Therefore Job is guilty. Job: Suffering comes from God. I am innocent. Therefore God is unjust.  A third possibility is not even thinkable: Suffering comes from God.  God is just.  Job is innocent. (No therefore.)

And later,

[Job] wants to die; he wants to prove that he is innocent; he wants to shake his fist at God for leaving the world in such a wretched shambles. God is his enemy; God has made a terrible mistake; God has forgotten him; or doesn’t care; God will surely defend him, against God. His question, the harrowing question of someone who has only heard of God, is “Why me?” There is no answer, because it is the wrong question.

The harrowing question of someone who has only heard of God.  But then the Voice from the Whirlwind comes, and Job not only hears but actually sees:

The storm rumbled and thundered.  The wind tore at my clothing
and took my breath.  I could not stand or speak,
and she had not the breath to make a curse.
Here was the justice of the Unnameable!
We would be smitten by that self-same howling wind
that had poured from the desert like a band of outlaws
to destroy my sons and murder my daughters.

And then was stillness, as death, a steep silence.
And look! we raised our eyes to the maelstrom’s clouded throat,
dizzied.  Spinning vapors formed and broke away and blew;
lightning flashed in the turbulent dark belly of the wind.
I was dust to be blown by that wind  but was not blown.
I stood under the very eye of the Unnameable.  And within me grew a stillness.

(from my poem “Job 42.13″)

It’s hard to put into words what Job’s experience of the Unnameable was, that we so often name “God” — and which I name as god with a lower case g, the very substance & being & energy of which the universe & everything in it has its being.  The poet of Job did a damn good job, nonetheless, of pointing to what that wordless and awesome and terrifying and profound experience was.

But none of it has a damn thing to do with human understandings of justice and injustice, of good and evil.  It just is what it is.  Sometimes bad things happen to good people. In hopes of being good people ourselves, let’s help those who need our help.

* * *

“Behind the Great Wave at Kanagawa” (神奈川沖波裏) by Hokusai (1760–1849) is actually not a painting, but rather a color woodcut.  It’s one of the series “36 Views of Mount Fuji.”  I come by the reproduction of it at the head of this post by way of Wikimedia Commons.  The Wikimedia contributor comments, “Although it is often used in tsunami literature, there is no reason to suspect that Hokusai intended it to be interpreted in that way. The waves in this work are sometimes mistakenly referred to as tsunami (津波), but they are more accurately called okinami (沖波), great off-shore waves.” M.J.  a commenter on Vernon’s blog post, shared the explanation given him/her by a docent at the Smithsonian Sackler Gallery during a Hokusai exhibit there:

All the diagonal lines and dots represent movement, things not always remaining the same. Some of Hokusai’s paintings, such as this one, depict scary moments like this big storm. You can see the ends of the waves looking almost like claws, which are scary but also symbolize our wishing to hang on to things the way they are, not wanting things to change. Our wish for things to remain the same makes the situation look worse than it really is.

When you look closely at this picture, the waves don’t don’t look so scary and are actually quite beautiful…. In this painting, you can see people in boats huddled together and crouching down. This is not because they’re scared but because they know how they should position themselves to take on this challenge. Actually, they seem to be in reverence of the big waves. In the midst and at the end of this picture is Mt. Fuji, representing calm at the end of the storm.

A good meaning; and also, I think, one which ties well with the peace, even joy, of Job by the end of the book that bears his name.  The end of my poem “Job 42.13″ —

There are tears now in her eyes as she watches them play —
yes, seven sons, three daughters — as before.
I rejoice in them, but also grieve for our windlost children —
the only love I gave them was to make burnt offerings
against sins I feared lay hidden in their unknown hearts.

But listen! they laugh! she laughs!  And I laugh, too.

May it be so also for the survivors of Japan.

* * *

The Book of Job is obviously important to me — my favorite of all the books of the Bible. But Hokusai’s Great Wave has also been important to me, ever since I got it engraved in my skin in December 1983.

Due to the process used by the tattoo artist — Larry Allen of Anchorage Tattoo Studio —my tatt is a mirror image of Hokusai’s original.

At the time it was done, I was still deeply enmeshed in my pre-aha period of self-hatred and almost continual despair.  But I had come across to a reference somewhere to the Chinese ideogram that we translate as crisis.  According to my source (which may or may not be correct), the Chinese character literally meant opportunity rides a dangerous wind.

Or something to that effect.  That’s, at least, how I wrote it in a poem the following year, after the aha.  And there is Hokusai as well, his Great Wave etched on my arm, linked to the meaning (putative or not) of that Chinese character —

On my arm, tattooed, is the large wave, the boats,
the mountain — my life, crisis on crisis:
opportunity rides on the dangerous wind.

It’s wonderful then to read what the commenter on Vernon’s post said about Mt. Fuji in Hokusai’s woodcut:

In the midst and at the end of this picture is Mt. Fuji, representing calm at the end of the storm.

Or the Chugach Mountains, for me —

Day followed day, the old stream of time,
just the same as before.
But each day I saw the mountains change —
one day growing gold in the afternoon sun —
one day dusted white by the season’s first snow —
one day touched by clouds as soft as white roses —
I could see them and breathe them and touch them and feel them.
Each day I saw the mountains change —

so did change find me.

Related posts:

1. Job 42.13
2. On celebrating the death of bin Laden
3. Japan’s earthquake heard from Alaska

I have a B.A. in Religion.  That was one result of looking for “the answer.”  I eventually found my answer.  And sometimes, as now, I have to talk with people very dear to me, whose answer is different.

It’s awkward to discuss matters of faith, religion, spirituality — whatever word one chooses — when there are differences in belief, even (maybe even especially) between people who care about one another.  Beliefs are deeply held, and it can be too easy too get into arguments about which belief system is right or wrong in ways that hurt each other.  But if we don’t risk the awkwardness, then instead there’s silence…which also hurts.

I’ve been having a conversation with someone dear to me about this religion stuff.  It’s been a sporadic conversation, because it’s been an awkward one.  But if argument is one way, and silence is another, there’s also a third way: to accept the awkwardness, while resisting the urge to argue.  If I love someone, then I want to listen and to know what’s in her heart, his heart —and I want that person I love to be able to know what’s in mine.  Not to argue, but simply to speak from one’s heart, in hopes that one’s interlocutor will listen, even if s/he disagrees.

This post is based upon things I’ve written on my side of the conversation.

I have been cautioned that it’s an unforgivable sin to deny Jesus Christ as the Son of God and our Savior.  I don’t believe there is such a thing as an unforgivable sin, at least not in any ultimate sense.  On a human level — just people being people, no god in the mix — some people will forgive each other for things that other people won’t.  The thing that sticks out in my mind with Jesus was when he said, of the very men who were killing him, “Forgive them father, for they know not what they do.” That’s what I believe of Jesus, whom many call Christ — that he had compassion even for his own murderers (which is what they were, even if they had the “law” of their time and place to “justify” their execution of him), because he knew how confused and limited human understanding can be.

That’s where I place myself, too, as a limited human being often confused about this or that, and knowing I have no final answers for everything I meet or see in the world.  But no other human being is any more empowered to give out final answers than I am: every one of us is limited.  And so I don’t believe in any such thing as inerrancy of, say, the Bible, because the people who wrote down its words were human beings.  So were the people who copied down the Bible’s words for later generations, so were those who translated those words into Latin or English or any other language.  So were all those who spoke or wrote down and propagated the words and ideas of Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Sikhism, and every other religion.  And being human beings, however much they strove to know and understand the mystery that we call God, they made mistakes. Unfortunately, they also often institutionalized those mistakes in ways that brought uncountable harms to other people — often even to themselves.

I’m not a Christian, nor have I been one in at least  since junior high, because I reject the notion that there is only one way to approach or to believe about god — a notion of exclusivity that is  commonly held amongst Christians, as it is also by adherents of other religions.  If I have a confession of belief, it’s the one I’ve used for years: God is the universe and everything in it.  Illimitable god, I called it in a poem I wrote a couple of years ago: incapable of being limited or bounded, measureless — that is far beyond what I or any human being can completely comprehend or contain.  As my calculus tutor in high school taught me: No system can contain a metasystem.

And so god shows it/him/herself in ways that are infinite in their variety.  Jesus was and is a son of god, but so are all of us are children of god.  And following from that, I believe that Jesus was not the savior, but was a savior: not for having died crucified for our sins but because he taught his followers (and all of us who still heed his teachings rather than only the circumstances and meaning of his death) an understanding and a compassion, even at the point of his own death, that few of us reach even on our best days.  The thing he said that I love the best is: “The Kingdom of God is within you” — and within the limits of my own understanding, I do my best to live according to the goodness, the godness, that is within all of us to live by, if only we choose to.  Righteousness is another word that some use: to live in right relationship with ourselves, with each other, and with illimitable god and the illimitable creation that is one with it.

Being limited, I may be wrong about any of the conclusions I’ve formed so far about the world and god. No “conclusion” that I can make can be final anyway.  If it turns out I’ll be judged and damned for believing as I do by some specific God of some specific ideological belief system — well, mainly that’ll mean that, much to my disappointment, the universe is run by a Big Bully of the Sky who has all the morality of a Hitler, a Stalin, a Muammar Gadaffi, or even that putative enemy of the Christianist God, Satan.

But I don’t think so.

I will meantime try to base my judgments of other people on their actions — whether they do good or cause harm — not on the name by which their faith is called.  When I have problems with some Christians, it’s when they attempt to justify behaving harmfully and hatefully towards others in the name of their religion — not because they are Christians per se. And so with Muslims, Buddhists, whoever — anyone who attempts to justify harmful behavior in the name of religion, and treat their religion as not religion, but ideology: not Muslims but Islamists, not Christians but Christianists. Religion become ideology has ceased to be religion: it’s just ideology, in all its nasty worldliness, used as a club to namecall, batter, murder, and war upon people who believe differently.

So many of the disagreements between people that lead to anger and hatred and war anyway are not really based in who and what they are fundamentally as people, but on the the names they’re called by — Republican, Democrat, Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, whatever.  Does god care more that call upon him (or her!) by one name rather than another? — or that we behave toward one another and toward the creation we have all been gifted to live within with respect, love, and the best effort of our hearts and minds?  God has as many ways to enter into people, as there are people: we all have our own language, and god knows them all.

From another poem of mine,

God cannot be enclosed in a book
or in the miser’s soul
which portions out justice in dribbles
and rations out love in crumbs,
then wonders why we starve.

God is too wide and vast and long
and knows us for what we are
as is known the sky, the river, the rocks,
as is knows each creature that breathes.

God is too wide, too vast, too long
and knows us as we are.

Since I’m still engaged in the awkward & sporadic conversation that gave rise to this post, I’ve been thinking a lot more about religion again, and will probably be writing more about it too.  Meanwhile, here are some of the other posts I’ve written about religion, religious/political ideologies, & my own personal god stuff.

• A brief spiritual history (27 Apr 2006)
• The god thing (30 Apr 2006)
• Hiisi (15 May 2006)
• Sermon (a poem) (17 May 2009; poem written in 1992)
• Religion v. belief (19 May 2009)
• Christianist, defined (23 Jun 2009)
• No Questions, Questions (poem) (24 Jun 2009)
• James Dobson’s God is a child abuser, & so is Jerry Prevo’s (22 Sep 2009)
• Job 42.13 (poem) (9 Jan 2010; poem written in 1995)
• Helping Haiti (& telling Pat Robertson to STFU) (13 Jan 2010)
• Integrity, violation, healing (21 Apr 2010)
• Metsän henki (poem) (30 Apr 2010; poem written in 2000)

Related posts:

1. Religion v. belief
2. An indictment of the Christian heresy followed by Palin & friends
3. God of Mosquitoes (poem)

Boney Courthouse, Alaska Court System (photo taken 11 Sep 2010)

Crossposted 9 Feb 2011 at The Mudflats.
Lots of comments there.

Anthony Rollins: he’s the suspended Anchorage Police Department officer  on trial right now in Anchorage Superior Court, accused of sexually assaulting multiple women, over a 3-year period, while he was on duty — in uniform, using his patrol car and police substations to effect his (alleged) crimes.  Anyone who’s been following me on Facebook or Twitter knows that I’ve been following the Twitter feed of (especially) KTVA news reporter Grace Jang, who has livetweeted four of the five days of the the trial so far.

A Facebook friend of mine asked me yesterday why I had such a strong interest in the Rollins trial.  Here’s my answer.

I’ve never been a victim of sexual assault myself, or any other sexual predation, though of course I have friends & acquaintances who have.

My particular interest in this case started in late 2009 when I read reports via the local liberal blogosphere about the massing of Rollins’ supporters — mainly from his church — at hearings taking place at the courthouse, such that (alleged) victims & their families could barely get into the courthouse. I wrote a blog post at the time called “How to be a friend to an accused serial rapist” which focused on one of my interests in cases like this: how people who really love/care about an (alleged or actual) offender should show that love/care. Should they just take the accused person’s protestations of innocence at face value? Or should they weigh the evidence & help the accused person, if actually guilty, face the guilt & its consequences? (Which is what I say they should do.)

Bigtime thorny ethical question that we see zillions of examples of all the time, & frequently (as now) attended by claims about the accused person’s religious faith. On Monday, according to Grace Jang’s tweets from the courtroom, an Internal Affair investigator testified about finding gold-wrapped condoms, Alaska Public Safety Information Network (APSIN) printouts (i.e., criminal records), a previously unknown-to-his-superiors cellphone, containers of (partly consumed) liquor, & other suspicious evidence in Rollins’ patrol car. Questioning the IA officer, Rollins’ defense attorney elicited the admission that Internal Affairs had also found a Bible in his car.

Sure. A Bible in his patrol unit, and Rollins’ profession of faith as a Christian, are just bound to establish his innocence, or to wipe away all his (alleged) crimes, just as assertion of Christian faith did (in the eyes of some) for, say, disgraced televangelist Jim Bakker — to name but one example of past use of this rubbish argument.

My undergrad degree is a B.A. in Religion, & I’m still very interested in how religious ideologies as opposed to real religion skew people’s thinking & behavior about all kinds of stuff. The religious ideology that says “he’s a Christian, that makes him innocent” or “he’s a Christian, his offenses have been washed away” is one such skew.

God’s mercy and compassion towards sinners is one thing; and indeed may Rollins receive such mercy and compassion, for the sake of his spirit & soul.  But I daresay God’s compassion is also for the victims of crimes such as those alleged here. I daresay God’s concern is not only for the individual salvation or redemption of one sinner, but also with reconciling people who have become alienated from each other through wrongs they have committed against each other.  God’s concern, as it should be our concern regardless of our individual faith, is to restore the relationships that have been damaged & sometimes even destroyed by crime.

If Rollins indeed committed these crimes against these women, it is to them he needs to make apology and from whom he must seek forgiveness; and likewise he bears responsibility towards the rest of us: the community he took an oath to protect and defend, only to violate that oath and duty and to betray the victims, the men and women with whom he served, and the whole of the Anchorage community.   Repentance and redemption come not through hiding behind Bible and cross, or whatever the signs of one’s faith might be.  Repentance and redemption come with honest and unshirking admission of one’s wrongs to the people one has wronged — not only in private confession to one’s God — and a willingness to bear the consequences for those wrongs.  Otherwise, all professions of faith are just words and posturing and spiritual vacancy.  No matter what religion Rollins claims to follow, no matter what book rode in his unit within feet or inches of his gold-wrapped condoms, his bottles of liquor, and the notebook containing the phone number of one of his victims.

Oh yeah.  Alleged victims.  Right.

Aside from that, this trial is a trial under Alaska law before a Superior Court judge of the Alaska Court System, not before the judgment seat of a Christian God as understood by a particular church or a particular believer.

Another of my interests in this case is that after 20 years as a staff member at the UAA Justice Center (though not myself a “justice professional”), I think a lot lot lot about what “justice” really is, & how we bring it about (or don’t); how we could improve the say we “do” justice, how we address (or don’t) abuses of authority, & so on. This has made its way a lot into my writing, both poetry & fiction I’m working on… & being a storymaker, its pretty instructive to watch watch particular stories unfold.

I didn’t write to my friend, but should add here, that opening arguments in Rollins’ trial took place just the day after data from the 2010 Alaska Victimization Survey were presented at a joint meeting of the Alaska Senate Judiciary Committee and the Senate Health and Social Services Committee, and on the same day that a whole lot of stories about the data appeared in the media. You can get links to media coverage in the UAA Justice Center blog post about the presentation (a blog post which, guess what, I prepared), and also watch the full briefing before the legislators on video presented by Gavel to Gavel Alaska. (See the UAA Justice Center’s website for results of other research on violence against women in Alaska.)

Summary of lifetime estimates of victimization by intimate partner violence and/or sexual violence of Alaska female respondents, from the 2010 Alaska Victimization Survey.

The upshot is this: women are victimized by intimate partner violence and sexual violence at much higher levels than anyone has really understood before — even though we’ve known for a very long time that Alaska consistently the highest rate of forcible rape reported to law enforcement in the U.S.  Why did we not understand just how truly awful the situation was (& is)?  Because most women victimized by sexual & domestic violence — & arguably most men so victimized too, though for reasons discussed in the presentation only women could be included in this survey — do not report their victimization to police.

The abuse of authority alleged in the case of former APD officer Anthony Rollins in pursuit of his alleged crimes is one reason why.  As some of the alleged victims have already testified, they felt intimidated because of his uniform and the power he held as a police officer, and didn’t trust other police to help them if they did report.

Which is all the more reason to ensure that, if Anthony Rollins is guilty of the crimes he is being tried for, that he be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.  He was a sworn officer of the law whose uniform and shield represented his oath to protect — not to abuse and violate. Unless we can trust police and the courts to bring offenders to justice, there’s little chance that we’ll be able to stem the tide of sexual and domestic violence in Alaska.

APD officers and cars at the Performing Arts Center, downtown Anchorage, Feb 2010. May the discredit Anthony Rollins has brought to them & to the Anchorage Police Department be removed. I for one believe that 99% of Anchorage police are damn fine people and a credit to the uniform.

Related posts:

1. Rollins trial, day 6: 5th & 6th alleged victims testify
2. Rollins trial, day 1: Stats on violence against women in Alaska as Rollins trial begins
3. Anthony Rollins, accused serial rapist, found guilty on 18 of 20 charges

• Conspiracy theorists: did Alaska’s HAARP research facility cause Haiti quake? (@adndot.com) http://bit.ly/4rdCYA // HAARP caused Palin. #fb #
• U.S. Supreme Court 5-4 sells out democracy to the highest corporate bidders. Democracy on its deathbed. http://bit.ly/7G4Mur #fb #
• RT: @celticdiva RT: @Greytdog: One person one vote. One Corporation – unlimited votes. Democracy in 21st century America. #democracyfail #
• More from @shannynmoore on the Supreme Court approved corporate takeover of American elections http://bit.ly/8VxIRN #fb #
• Andrew Sullivan highlights the Mormon hierarchy’s “plausible deniability” – Prop 8 a front for religious groups. http://bit.ly/8mwoD2 #fb #

Related posts:

1. Alaska Supreme Court won't block Troopergate investigation
2. Toward a 28th Amendment: Corporations are not human persons
3. Government by psychopathy

“Sismo de magnitud 7,3 sacudió a Haití” — photo taken 12 Jan 2010 by Globovision. Used in accordance with Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 Generic license.

• RT: @JanFlora49: RT @spacetrucker: Sarah Palin given a job @ Fox “News” 2 help struggling late night comedy shows with unending material. #
• Follow Wednesday? Sure, why not: follow @celticdiva for best info/links on helping quake victims in Haiti. #fb #
• FiveThirtyEight gives history of U.S. relationship to Haiti. http://bit.ly/71GOFC #
• Firedoglake’s liveblogging of Prop 8 Trial, Day 3 (Wednesday morning) http://bit.ly/82J8mP #
• A better link to Teddy Partridge’s liveblogging of Prop 8 @ Firedoglake: all posts collected here. http://bit.ly/7mCxtH #
• RT: @adn_jomalley: Does technology bring loved ones closer, or does it create more distance? // Closer, since none of them live w/ me now. #
• Pat Robertson: Haiti “swore pact to devil” to be free of French, thus “cursed.” Christianism ugh http://bit.ly/5L650b (ht @shannynmoore) #fb #
• Donate to American Red Cross http://www.redcross.org/ for Haitian earthquake relief. #fb #
• Damn. Fire drill. Signing off. #fb #
• Returned from fire alarm. “Duct alarm” rather. (wtf?) Nothing exploded. #fb #
• FBI: Haitian Earthquake Relief Fraud Alert http://bit.ly/89rdVE – Please retweet. #Haiti #HelpHaiti (ht @celticdiva) #
• Helping Haiti means helping, not blaming it stupidly as lackwit Pat Robertson does — again. http://bit.ly/7nQm05 #haiti #helphaiti #
• An intelligent _Christian_ (& conservative Christian at that) response to Pat Robertson’s “devil” comment on Haiti. http://bit.ly/7ztC6h #fb #
• RT: @jansonjones: Call it a day. I’m heading home. Bleh. // Didn’t you already call “it” a day yesterday? (Hope you get good rest @ home!) #
• @jansonjones A balloon boy? “It’s a day.” Except that was one of those several weeks ago its, wasn’t it? (Wasn’t _it_? “It’s a day.) in reply to jansonjones #
• Pat Robertson: Haiti?! I Thought They Said “Hades” http://bit.ly/8T3eyW (satire – but no doubt PR will have a real lame-ass apology soon.) #
• CNN.com: Wyclef Jean helping through ‘Yéle Haiti’ http://bit.ly/5m7N4A – donate at http://www.yele.org/ #ffb #
• Bent Alaska summarizes days 2 & 3 of Prop 8 trial: homophobia and the fear of transparency. http://bit.ly/84lOOT #

Related posts:

1. The Daily Tweets, 2010-01-15: Haiti relief efforts
2. Helping Haiti (& telling Pat Robertson to STFU)
3. The Daily Tweets, 2010-02-01: Buzzcuttedness

President Obama made a statement this morning—

CBS Special Report: Obama on Haiti quake relief

At the time I visited, the most recent comment on the video above, from user Gorilla396, read:

I was waiting for him to say, “Just another billion dollars, no biggy, right?” The U.S. gov’t needs to stop spending money in other counrties that will never be able to pay it back or return the favor. When are we as a country gonna stop being the “Emergency Services” of the world? He seems to forget or not care that he has spent trillions of dollars already.  Just another counrty we shouldn’t be in.

But see Renard Sexton’s article today at FiveThirtyEight.com about the U.S.’s relationship to Haiti, which includes a history of occupation & interventionism for the protection of American business interests.  We continue to have an economic relationship with Haiti:

Today, the U.S. remains the largest trade destination for Haitian goods (more than 70 percent of exports), while imports from the United States (34 percent) are even higher than Haiti’s next door neighbor, the Dominican Republic (23 percent). U.S. official aid to the country is quite significant (USD 260 million according to OECD DAC), though quite variable, with large spikes during Operation Uphold Democracy in 1994 and 1995, and a tripling of aid from 2004 to 2008, after the 2004 coup that threw President Jean-Bertrand Aristide out of power for the last time. [Ref #1]

I’m proud that my president and my nation is stepping up to the plate.  Besides, it’s not as if the U.S. is the only nation working to bring aid to Haiti in a time of such desperate need — Wikipedia editors, in the Wikipedia article on the quake, have been keeping track of the numerous countries & organizations which are working to render assistance .  There are also lots of international organizations seeking to bring aid.  Public Radio International’s program “The World” has compiled a list of reliable aid organizations that you can donate to.  (But beware of scammers.)  I donated to the International Response Fund of the American Red Cross, which has already pledged $1 million to Haiti relief.

Christianist lackwit Pat Robertson, in one of his typical & predictable damn them when they’re down/blame the victim statements, claimed in a broadcast of the “700 Club” this morning that Haiti “swore a pact to the devil” in order to free themselves of French colonial rule, and that as a result “they have been cursed by one thing after the other” ever since. [Ref #2] Yep, just like the residents of New Orleans brought Hurricane Katrina on themselves too.

This is the kind of bastardization of history — not to mention lack of compassion — one can always expect from a Christianist like Robertson.  This is their simplistic & immature response to the problem of evil in the world — what in theology is called theodicy, which attempts to reconcile the belief in God with the existence of evil, whether moral or physical.  Like Job’s comforters in the biblical Book of Job, Robertson’s kneejerk response is to blame any harm that befalls a person or an entire nation on that person or nation (or their ancestors).  But remember: the Voice in the Whirlwind rebuked Job’s comforters, & vindicated Job:

[T]he Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite, My wrath is kindled against thee, and against thy two friends: for ye have not spoken of me [the thing that is] right, as my my servant Job [hath]. [Job 42.7, KJV]

I recommend that Pat Robertson take note.  And shut the frak up.

Thank goodness for all those Christians who really are Christians, & give their money to relief efforts instead of creeps like Robertson.  Thank goodness that most people of faith throughout the world believe in something other than the Big Bully in the Sky God of Robertson & his ilk — a god which by Robertson’s own account is capable of committing greater cruelties & evils against large populations than the “devil” simply because (supposedly) their ancestors fought off another (no doubt Big Bully in the Sky God-sanctioned) evil — such the French-imposed slavery that ended in Haiti with the Haitian Revolution (1701–1804).

Steve Aufrecht at What Do I Know? gives another reason than Wrath of the Big Bully in the Sky God for high Haitian casualties:

Wrath of God or lack of adequate building standards?

God is one of the stories people use to explain how the earth works.  “Government is evil” is another story that people use to explain things.  Another story we can use is that much of what government does is invisible and we don’t notice it until it isn’t working.  Zoning rules, including building standards, are often seen as one of the evils of government.  People resent government rules that say they can’t build a house the way they want or that they have to use a method that will increase the costs considerably. And sometimes general rules sometimes don’t make sense in specific situations and there are cases of corrupt building inspectors.

But Port-au-Prince’s apparent devastation compared to San Francisco’s relatively minor damage shows how science and government can set standards for construction, which, if enforced, save lives.  As individuals we are always tempted to cut corners when our dollars don’t match our desires, but the law encourages us to use methods that were developed with potential disasters (fires, hurricanes, as well as earthquakes) in mind.  Again, I realize these rules are not perfect and as the science improves old methods get changed.  And humans who enforce the rules aren’t necessarily consistent or honest.  But looking at the difference between the damage in Haiti in 2010 and in San Francisco shows the value good, well enforced, building codes make.   The low death toll in San Francisco is, in part, a result of one of the invisible roles government plays in our lives when it is working right. [Ref #3]

Now, that makes a lot of sense.  Haiti’s people need help in the form of humanitarian relief to recover from the immediate effects of the quake; but also to establish and maintain a government that is responsible to its people & its needs — including good building codes.

Meanwhile, visit at least one of those reliable aid organizations I already mentioned and pony up.

And with regard to theodicy,  remember again the lessons of Job & the Voice from the Whirlwind: bad things sometimes do happen to good people.  Celebrate the goodness of the Haitian people, & help them.

A special shout-out to my friend Lynne, who lived in Haiti for a time & knows this.

Update:

Matthew Yglesias unpacks Pat Robertson’s religious bias & ignorance of history:

[T]he Haitian Revolution began in 1791, years before Napoleon took over France as Consul. Napoleon III didn’t come to power until 1848. So clearly Robertson is confused on the basic history. But I believe that Robertson is referring to the Bois Caïman Ceremony that in Haitian national mythology initiated the revolution. This was a Vodou ceremony and the following text is normally attributed to its leader, Boukman:

The god who created the earth; who created the sun that gives us light. The god who holds up the ocean; who makes the thunder roar. Our God who has ears to hear. You who are hidden in the clouds; who watch us from where you are. You see all that the white has made us suffer. The white man’s god asks him to commit crimes. But the god within us wants to do good. Our god, who is so good, so just, He orders us to revenge our wrongs. It’s He who will direct our arms and bring us the victory. It’s He who will assist us. We all should throw away the image of the white men’s god who is so pitiless. Listen to the voice for liberty that speaks in all our hearts.

If you were a white, Catholic French person or Haitian plantation owner, I can see why you would characterize this as a prayer offered “to the devil.” The black Haitians are postulating the existence of two Gods, one for the whites and one for the blacks. The whites regard the God they pray to as the one true God. So if the blacks are praying to some second god, and doing it with a Vodou ceremony, it stands to reason that they’re engaged in a satanic ritual of some sort.

But there’s no reason for 21st century Americans to accept this interpretation of the story. From the Haitian perspective, I think you’d say they were just praying to God for his assistance and asserting the justice of their cause. This is what pretty much everyone does before heading into battle. [Ref #4]

Well, that’s not new: one of the foundations of Christianist ideology is to assume that any religion (including much of Christianity) that does not kowtow to the narrow strictures of Christianist ideology is “satanic.” Remember, Christianism isn’t identical with Christianity: it’s a religio-political ideology that believes that (its version of) Christianity is superior to all other religions, & seeks to establish itself as the dominant political power to the exclusion & even eradication of other religions & belief systems (not to mention the people who believe in them).   It’s basically about power grab through religion (much as with the religio-political ideology Islamism – which is not the same as the religion of Islam.)

I’m with Yglesias.  Boukman’s god sounds not unlike the god upon whom the biblical King David calls upon time & again in the Psalms, & his prayer sounds not that much different from the psalms of David that called upon God’s help against David’s enemies.

Update #2:

Ta-Nehisi Coates names it: Pat Robertson was “equating an attempt by slaves to claim their freedom with ‘a pact with the devil’”:

The next time your wondering why there are so few black Republicans, consider the fact this unreconstructed Confederate was not long ago one of their greatest crusaders. Consider that he is equating the resistance of slavery, with a rejection of Christ. And there’s an African-American right next to him, nodding in agreement.

Fuck Pat Robertson. Fuck the “Christian” Broadcasting Network. And fuck any black person who’d nod reverently while a white supremacist slanders our founding fathers. She should be ashamed of herself. [Ref #5]

References

1. 13 Jan 2010. “Haiti and United States Inextricably Linked” by Renard Sexton (FiveThirtyEight).
2. 13 Jan 2010. “Robertson’s ‘true story’: Haiti ‘swore a pact to the devil’ to get ‘free from the French’ and ‘ever since, they have been cursed’.” (Media Matters for America).
3. 13 Jan 2010. “Seven Point 0″ by Steve Aufrecht (What Do I Know?).
4. 13 Jan 2010. “Did Haiti Form a Pact With the Devil?” by Matthew Yglesias (Think Progress: Yglesias).
5. 13 Jan 2010. “Professional Bigot Pat Robertson Does It Again” by Ta-Nehisi Coates (TheAtlantic.com).

Related posts:

1. The Daily Tweets, 2010-01-13: Haiti earthquake
2. Haiti: Disaster profiteering v. helping Haiti rebuild for Haitians
3. The Daily Tweets, 2010-01-15: Haiti relief efforts

Related posts:

1. The Daily Tweets, 2010-01-29: Dollhouse ends, Caprica begins
2. The Daily Tweets, 2010-03-05: A nap for lunch
3. The Daily Tweets, 2010-02-01: Buzzcuttedness