The debate has come to an end. The evolution that began in the 1960's has come to fruition. Progressives are no longer satisfied with building castles in the sky. Now they've moved in.
Last night I was lounging at home watching the nightly news. The topic was New York Congressional Representative Peter King's decision to hold hearings focusing on the radicalization of Muslims within the confines of the US. Sounds like a reasonable issue to explore today. After all Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano herself has said; "The threat of terrorism is at "its most heightened state" since the 9/11 attacks nearly a decade ago."
Immediately following the lead-in, we viewers were treated to a video clip of CNN anchor Suzanne Malveaux interviewing Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center regarding the hearings:
Ms. Malveaux – "From your study of tracking radical groups, potentially hate groups, what do you think of this hearing? Is al Qaeda radicalizing Muslims? Is that our biggest homegrown terrorism threat right now?"
Mr. Potok – "It's not our biggest domestic terrorist threat. That clearly comes from the radical right in this country."
Upon hearing this I spit two fingers of an extremely pricey single-malt across the Living Room carpet. I said to myself; "This guy can't possibly be serious!" but he went on.
"Let me say I do think it's a significant threat. I don't mean to minimize it, but there are even larger threats out there. An example, to respond to your question, is within the so-called anti-government patriot movement, what we used to think of as the militia movement back in the 1990s. There is a whole and rapidly-growing kind of sub movement called the 'sovereign citizens' movement.' These are people who believe the government has no right to control them in any way, to pass laws that affect them, to require them to pay taxes, even to require things like driver's licenses and auto registrations. Well, you know, on May 20 of last year, a father and son team of these 'sovereign citizens,' in fact, murdered two officers, police officers, in West Memphis, Arkansas, and badly wounded two others before being killed themselves. You know, this was at an ordinary traffic stop."
I shook my head in utter amazement! Referencing our subject matter experts (and I use the term loosely) testimony that the threat of terrorism is at its most heightened state since 9/11 and literally ran the numbers from memory. Let's see; sometime back in May of 2009 an anti-abortion activist named Scott Roeder gunned down Dr. George Tiller who had run an abattoir in Wichita, Kansas since 1970. His practice was one of only three in the US that would routinely perform abortions on fetuses in the third trimester for any glib reason whatsoever.
Then there was James Von Brunn, who shot and killed Stephen Tyrone at the US Holocaust Memorial in Washington DC on June 10th of 2009; although his writings were more skewed toward Neo-Nazism as opposed to any T.E.A. Party affiliation.
Joe and Jerry Kane were separatists from Ohio and they did shoot two police officers in West Memphis Arkansas on May 20th of 2010. Try as I might; the only other slaughter I could attribute, from memory, to right-wing extremism required me to go back to April 19th of 1995. However; the Oklahoma City bombing was almost six-and-a-half years before 9/11/2001.
Right after that little morsel we were treated to another video clip. This one was from the CNN show Morning Joe with Joe Scarborough. During this clip The Washington Post blogger and American Prospect associate editor Erza Klein says in response to Scarborough's questioning regarding Rep King's hearings as juxtaposed with the Fort Hood shootings; "We've had school shootings from young Christians, there are neo-Nazis who claim they're Christians. Is the Christian community in America so deeply vulnerable to neo-Nazis?"
I Googled – Young Christians charged in school shootings – and got a hit from Elizabeth City, North Carolina where a suspect named Christopher Amyx was charged with the murder of Jonathan Schipper during an argument in a dorm room at Mid-Atlantic Christian University.
Over the last 16 years there are six incidents, a total of eight suspects, and 174 casualties attributable to all of them: And, believe me, the connections of these people to the conservative ideology in most of these cases is tenuous at best
Since I'd gone back to 1995 for the list I decided to take the same time span in calculating the Islamic attacks this nation has suffered during the same period. I Googled – Islamic terror attacks in US and got the List of Islamic Terror Attacks on American Soil. According to this web site, the first listed Islamic terrorist attack occurred in April of 1972 in New York when ten members of a local mosque phoned in a false alarm and then ambushed responding officers, killing one. Not wanting to be unfair, I decided to find the closest date to the Oklahoma City bombing and only count attacks after that date.
The first Islamic attack recorded after April of 1995 was in March of 1997 from Brooklyn, NY where a Palestinian left an anti-Jewish suicide note behind and traveled to the top of the Empire State building where he shot seven people in a Fedayeen attack. He killed one and wounded six others. The last documented attack listed occurs on April 14th of 2010 in Marquette Park, IL. When a Muslim convert, after quarreling with his wife shot his entire family supposedly to "Take them back to Allah and out of the world of sinners." In between those two we have a total of 35 attacks, 38 suspects, and exactly 3,038 killed.
That's 6 incidents versus 35, 8 suspects versus 38, and 174 deaths versus 3,038 deaths over the same time-frame. It has been said that those with personality disorders build castles in the sky but the truly insane actually move in. As we speak, progressives are measuring those ersatz castles for drapes.
Even more importantly, this supposed inundation of Christian school kids shooting their classmates and “sovereign citizens” killing cops has no organizational structure or collaborative power, in contrast to Islamic militancy, which is preached in Saudi Arabian petro dollar-funded mosques all over the world, including inside the United States. Even Timothy McVeigh, by far the most destructive single example of terrorism ascribed to the right wing, had all of one co-conspirator out of the thousands and thousands of ostensibly unstable people with whom he had interacted at gun shows across the country in the early 90′s. There was no network of billions of dollars of washed money paying for his living expenses, providing him access to professional bomb makers, helping him purchase and smuggle materials, and harboring 50 other people to help him carry out the attack. After the Murrah Building bombing we did not have a country whose government was operated by McVeigh supporters against whom we could declare war to rout out the people who carried out the attack. No network of bank accounts to freeze, no organization or government to blame, no McVeigh sympathizers dancing wildly in the streets in celebration of the attack, and perhaps most importantly, no further bombings or attempted bombings carried out by members of a vast global network of McVeigh followers all congregated under the umbrella of a shared formalized ideology of violent insanity. Anyone who thinks there is even a remote equivalence between the multi billion dollar global networks of international Islamic terrorism and a few kooks out in the woods with a rack of AR-15′s, iodine tablets, and a Faraday cage full of ham radios waiting for the big one to drop is a dangerous nut case in his own right.
It may surprise both Mr. Mulligan and Mr. Wavering that I agree with them. Right-wing terrorists are not a major problem in this country. It’s not reasonable to deny their existence, but none of them have the enormous infrastructure available to jihadists. What many liberals absolutely will not admit, either to themselves or to anyone else, is that people who identify themselves as believers in a world religion might be willing to kill people. The most that some of my fellow liberals will allow is that if any terrorists are identified as Muslims, that an equivalent reference to Christian or conservative terrorists follow immediately. I cheerfully fail to abide by such nonsensical conventions, so, as I’ve often said here on IC, I pass for a right-wing wacko in my university, even though I’d carry a liberal card if I knew where to find one.
Here’s an unofficial list covering 1961 – 2003, put together by the State Dept. How many are Left-wing vs Right-wing is left to the reader.
http://www.fas.org/irp/threat/terror_chron.html
Gestell:
Re: “What many liberals absolutely will not admit, either to themselves or to anyone else, is that people who identify themselves as believers in a world religion might be willing to kill people.”
They obviously believe it about Christians judging from Potok’s remarks.
Rather, what liberals absolutely will not admit, either to themselves or to anyone else, is that people they perceive as the “oppressed” and who identify themselves as believers in a PC religion might be willing to kill people.
reply to sedonaman,
Of course I should have added “unless they are Christians” to my sentence. Muslims get a free pass from much of the Left largely because they’re oppressed denizens of the Third World and thus largely justified if they become terrorists. Christians just seem weird to many on the Left so they can be suspected of almost anything.
I’ll never comprehend the ‘moral equivalence’ of the left. Progressives insist that Christian fundamentalists are more dangerous than radicalized Muslims. Although the closest you can come to a Christian ‘fatwa’ are those knuckleheads from Westborough Baptist Church. But even they only carry signs. It isn’t as if they’re burning down domiciles, or stalking those who disagree with them as ‘good’ Muslims would if told to by their Imams.
On another note: Gestell, You’ve made this “…it may surprise you that I agree…” statement several times lately; particularly with regard to Islamic Extremism. You’ve also deployed the “…I pass for a right-wing wacko in my university…”
If most of your peers at university believe you to be a right-wing wacko two other questions immediately come to mind.
1. Does this mean they have yet to meet a bona fide conservative?
2. What do you expect would happen when they actually do?
Re: “I’ll never comprehend the ‘moral equivalence’ of the left.”
It’s simply an attempt to re-define truth.
reply to Mr. Wavering,
Both your questions are intriguing. On (1): In two departments that I know very well–my own (Political Science) and History–there have been bona fide conservatives (now retired or deceased). A sprinkling of other departments have had the occasional conservative, but, like most American universities, mine has very, very few conservatives on the faculty. (2) In Political Science and History, younger, more leftist faculty just didn’t engage intellectually and, for the most part, personally with the conservatives. From my vantage point, it seemed like the conservatives were regarded as persons with some dreadful, embarrassing personal problem that was just too horrible to mention–the way alcoholism used to be regarded.
In my early years in my department, I worked with the conservatives (two of whom were full professors) writing a column in the campus student newspaper as a response to a left-wing column. My participation in this exercise of free speech brought me around 30 years of enmity from leftists in the department. Once the old guard of conservatives was gone, I became a target. This lead to, among other things, a smear campaign against me, which led to my dean denying a salary increase to the leftist department chair who had orchestrated the campaign when I was able to document my case. Eventually the ring leaders retired or died and now the only problem I face is the frank incredulity of my colleagues at some of my views.
Re: “…now the only problem I face is the frank incredulity of my colleagues at some of my views.”
The attitude of Leftist/liberal professors, exemplified by your experience, is one that leads me to conclude that knowledge in the social studies is now complete since they have all the correct answers. So we can now shut down the social studies departments, majors, and courses, fire the professors, and get those correct answers from just watching the tube [except for Fox which isn't real news anyway].
I have found that many students are very interested in conservatism. This was brought home to me a couple of semesters back when many of the better students in my course on conservative political thought were favorably impressed by the conservative writings I assigned. I try to make that course a ‘safe’ place for students who might be conservative or even seriously interested in conservatism. I devote a couple of course meetings to the question ‘why are so many of my professors on the Left?,’ a question asked at least once or twice every semester in that course.
“I devote a couple of course meetings to the question ‘why are so many of my professors on the Left?,…’”
And what are some of the main conclusions reached?
Many, but not all, students who ask this question have tried to figure out answers to it, and some of them come up with approximations of explanations that academics interested in this question offer. Some students prefer the ‘generational’ explanation–that many of their professors were in college/grad school in the 1960s, and imbued the then-fashionable attitudes and doctrines present in both academia and parts of the wider society. Of course, that’s not quite enough to explain (a) why such attitudes and doctrines were there in the first place or (b) why so many people seemed to absorb them so uncritically.
Others are more impressed with the idea that there is an affinity between certain personality types/character types and various academic areas, so the “social sciences/humanities” cluster of areas attracts people who are potentially or actually left/liberal in their views, while the hard sciences/engineering/business areas attract more conservative people.
Some students attributed ideological orientations among faculty as the product of stupidity or evil intentions.
A small number (the total class N=39)thought that leftist orientation had something to do with ways of thinking typical in the social sciences. Thus, if you’re educated like a sociologist you’ll be more likely to be a leftist.
There were only a few pure types for each of these interpretations; most students blended together two or more factors.
My point as a teacher esd not to give them some definitive answer but to encourage them to try to figure out how the explanation they preferred might really work, and to be as specific as possible, relating what they thought to the conservative readings (most of which, of course, include analyses of and attacks on liberals).
There is a relatively small, but growing, literature on this topic among political scientists, psychologists, and sociologists. Versions of the first three types of explanations abound; none, of course, pick the fourth one.
Gestell:
“It is a common mistake to regard National Socialism as a mere revolt against reason, an irrational movement without intellectual background. If that were so, the movement would be much less dangerous than it is.” Hayek, F. Road to Serfdom
“The demise of the Soviet Union left a large gap in what Leftists could advocate. Nobody now believes in the old Leftist mantra that the government should ‘own the means of production’ (i.e., run businesses). This has by and large simply meant a redirection of the Leftist’s energies into other well-established equality-seeking causes – such as anti-racism, radical feminism and treating criminals as simple unfortunates who can be set on the right path with a bit more ‘education’ (Criminals are equal too, it seems). There has been an attempt, in other words, to move the focus of agitation away from economic reform towards social reform. As well as such old ideas, however, there have also arisen various new foci for Leftist discontent and agitation.” “The Psychology Underlying ‘Liberalism’”, by John J. Ray, http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=22626
“One of the most surprising aspects of this study [Intellectuals and Society by Thomas Sowell] is how often intellectuals have been proved not only wrong, but grossly and disastrously wrong in their prescriptions for the ills of society-and how little their views have changed in response to empirical evidence of the disasters entailed by those views.”
Anyone suggest the Leftists’ fascination and obsession with death and communism to the prime movers of their dementia, or would that come under “evil intentions”?
Gestell:
“It is a common mistake to regard National Socialism as a mere revolt against reason, an irrational movement without intellectual background. If that were so, the movement would be much less dangerous than it is.” Friedrich Hayek, Road to Serfdom
“The demise of the Soviet Union left a large gap in what Leftists could advocate. Nobody now believes in the old Leftist mantra that the government should ‘own the means of production’ (i.e., run businesses). This has by and large simply meant a redirection of the Leftist’s energies into other well-established equality-seeking causes – such as anti-racism, radical feminism and treating criminals as simple unfortunates who can be set on the right path with a bit more ‘education’ (Criminals are equal too, it seems). There has been an attempt, in other words, to move the focus of agitation away from economic reform towards social reform. As well as such old ideas, however, there have also arisen various new foci for Leftist discontent and agitation.” “The Psychology Underlying ‘Liberalism’”, by John J. Ray, http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=22626
“One of the most surprising aspects of this study [Intellectuals and Society by Thomas Sowell] is how often intellectuals have been proved not only wrong, but grossly and disastrously wrong in their prescriptions for the ills of society – and how little their views have changed in response to empirical evidence of the disasters entailed by those views.”
Anyone suggest the Leftists’ fascination and obsession with death and communism to the prime movers of their dementia, or would that come under “evil intentions”?
In the US, much of the academic left had long since focused on cultural issues before the collapse of Soviet Communism.For what it’s worth, in my experience in the student left in the 1960s, Soviet Communism was already a dead issue–in general, student leftists and leftist faculty regarded both the Soviet Union and Mao’s China as having, at bottom, nothing important to do with Marx or Marx’s legacy. They certainly did not regard Lenin, Stalin, and Mao as anything other than tyrants who has borrowed imagery and terminology from Marx.
Instead, the version of Marxism imbibed in those days was “Western Marxism,” drawn from a variety of Western European sources dating back to the 1920s. Influential theorists were Antonio Gramsci and the Frankfurt School of ‘critical theorists’ (Marcuse, Adorno, Horkheimer, etc.)and their many intellectual descendants. These were the Marxists who taught later generations on the left to focus on culture. The big issue–’problematic’ as we said in those days, trying to sound oh-so-European–had been the notable failure of industrial working classes anywhere in Western nations to do what Marx had predicted–stage a revolution against capitalism. The handful of episodes, such as the abortive Communist uprising in Germany after WWI, had been disastrous, and, increasingly, workers seemed to be doing better economically.
These Marxists were called “Western” to distinguish them from the dogmatic goons who followed Moscow’s orders in the Communist parties around the world and danced to the tune of the “Third International.” European “Western Marxists” were culturally sophisticated, often educated in a wide range of philosophy, social science, and humanities areas, and American students tried to emulate them whenever possible. The European masters were convinced that capitalism had managed to shape the cultures–both high and low–of the Western nations to conceal the problems of capitalism from most people, both the elites and the masses. So these Marxists set out to analyze and expose the problems of society through cultural criticism.
This agenda hooked up easily with a manifold of other trends, such as the civil rights movement, support for liberation of colonial populations from their European masters, general (and uncritical) support for any countercultural forces, etc. That’s why American student leftists could join the freedom riders in the South. The Vietnam War catalyzed a lot of the opposition and allowed student leftists a further opportunity to protest against the “system,” that was supposedly the source of all evil in society. Of course, attacks on cultural and especially moral tradition were self-evidently good things. Add the sexual revolution, rock music, and drugs, stir slightly, and you have the familiar images of the 1960s.
Very, very few 1960s leftists were much interested in economics, even Marxist economics. There were a handful of radical economists who settled into standard academic career paths while continuing to engage in political activity on the Left. The ‘cultural Marxists’ (another label for ‘Western Marxists’) thought (and those academics now nearing retirement continue to think) that lots of expressions of new, radical, and authentic cultural activity will work to delegitimize American capitalism.
After all of this, what did these folks imagine would replace ‘the system?’ Actually, most of the substantive vision that emerged from these movements was very mild-mannered–little more than a Western European style social democracy. The old revolutionary Marxist image of the future had failed, at enormous human cost. This is why people whose views may be far to the Left had no problem supporting what passes in the US for ‘social democrats,’ like Obama.
The goal of the leftist/cultural Marxist is always to indict Western culture. In my experience, he/she will always contort reason toward that end. The average, run-of-the-mill liberal who plays along with that game is, more or less – in the words of Lenin – a ‘useful idiot.’
The influence of the Frankfurt School, and its bastard children in the Po-Mo movement, continues to denigrate the Humanities and so-called ‘Social Sciences.’ I believe that this influence is lasting and will never be eliminated. There is little hope, other than forming alternative educational resources.
Regardles: I attribute the notion ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend’ to the more radical of western leftists. Since Islam in general pits itself against western culture, lefties are all for it. Leftist Utopianism blocks out all rational thought in this sense. David Horowitz covers this quite effectively in his writings.
In thinking more about this, some of the biggest trouble I have in this area is with atheists and anti-religionists (most of whom are leftists anyway). When I mention the brutality of Islam, almost all of them retort with the usual “We’d be all better of without any religion at all in this world,” etc, blah blah blah. My retort to their intellectual and moral laziness (so smart, those atheists, aren’t they?) is always, ‘Well, the fact is that there will ALWAYS be religion in this world. And since, as opposed to your Utopian vision of a world without religion, there will ALWAYS be religion, our next step is to figure out which religions have proven they can coexist with and perhaps even contribute to secular democracy. From there, we then figure out which religions have proven that they CANNOT coexist with secular democracy and single those f___ers out and get rid of them. What do you think?’
Since I actually force them to think about their positions, they usually just answer me with a blank stare. Atheists never expect a logical argument from believers. They’re also not accustomed to making REAL value judgments. They get pretty angry when I ignore their red herrings of nihilism and moral equivalency and try and force them to stay on topic. They don’t like that.
reply to jhan,
You seem to assume (if I understand you correctly) that ‘secular democracy’ is somehow a permanent feature of the world and that some religions are compatible with it, while others are not. I think that genuinely religious conservatives should (and many of them do) doubt the worth of ‘secular democracy’ and see nothing permanent about it. Secular democracy hasn’t been around for very long, compared with the major religions. Maybe the question should really be: what kind of political system really is compatible with (in the West, at least) with Christianity? The traditional answer to that question has not been ‘secular democracy.’
Gestell,
First off, I think you’re splitting hairs. Second, Islam has proven itself beyond a doubt to be incompatible with secular democracy. Since there’s mountains of evidence to that effect, I’ll leave it up to you to discover it. And no, I do not assume that secular democracy is a permanent feature of the world. Nice try with that one. If I had meant that, I would have said that. I do believe that the secular democracy that we enjoy in the United States is the best experiment in government the world has ever seen. I believe, according to the evidence, that radical Islam is the single biggest threat to that experiment and that so-called ‘moderate’ Muslims have done nothing to clean their own side of the street, so to speak. In fact, I do not believe that there are even that many ‘moderate’ muslims. I could spend more time delving into minutiae, but my REAL LIFE EXPERIENCE living in a major American city with a large Muslim population is enough to convince me.
These are my thoughts. I’m sorry I can’t seem to rise to your level of erudition on the subject. Perhaps I have more learning to do.
jhan,
For me the most interesting thing in your posts is your characterization of the US as a “secular democracy” and your evident approval of this system. On the assumption that you regard yourself as a conservative, this is surprising since for many conservatives either (1) it is incorrect to call the US a “secular democracy” or (2) if it is a “secular democracy,” this is not a good thing. Over here on the liberal side of the spectrum, we usually think it’s a good thing that the US is a secular democracy; it’s simply surprising to find someone on the Right who agrees with us.
Jahn,
Gestell is probably content to allow this continued discussion of ‘secular democracy’ as it forwards his belief system. However; I must object to your; “I do believe that the secular democracy that we enjoy in the United States is the best experiment in government the world has ever seen.” statement. First we do not exist in a democracy; we exist in a Constitutional Republic. Democracy is three wolves and a sheep voting on what’s for dinner. Second; although, especially in the last two generations, our government has become more secular, the phrase “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” has been misconstrued. This phrase was not included in order to keep religion out of government; it was included to keep government out of religion. The case can certainly be made that as the general population of the US has become more secular, the direction of the country has moved further from individual concepts of liberty and property rights to the more ‘secular’ beliefs of community ownership, social justice, and the restriction of individual liberty. Many conservatives believe that this religious core must be re-established in the population in order to affect a return to the origins of the Republic.
The two governing books of Islam; the Quran and the Hadith, describe the entirety of Islamic behavior. Islam is frighteningly similar to the authoritarian nationalism of the Italian Fascists; “Tutto nello Stato, niente al di fuori dello Stato, nulla contro lo Stato” which means ‘Everything in the State, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state’. I submit that Islam is not only incompatible with western secular democracy, but inherently incompatible with ANY governmental system other than Sharia. Islam enjoys the dual quality of simultaneously being incompatible with any other religion on the planet as well.
Islam’s primary tenet of predestination versus the belief in ‘free will’ that other Christian religions subscribe to make Islam irreconcilable with other Christian religions. This is the reason for Jihad in Islam. Jihad is the only method a Muslim has to alter what Allah has already discerned will be his/her final station in Paradise. His/her Jihad, or undertaking of the spreading of Islam and the defeat of Islam’s enemies is the only way to garner favor with Allah and increase the ‘value’ of his/her final reward in Paradise. If killing in the name of Allah is the only way to advance after death; well guess what you’ll do.
As for the progressive penchant for ‘supporting’ Islam. Occam’s razor would suggest that such support is more rooted in self preservation than any other perceived compatibility. For progressives there’s little to love about any religion when their philosophy requires the belief in the secular perfection of Man on earth. However; an easy case can be made that progressives kowtow to Muslims just as they do to any other outspoken regime that threatens violence. They routinely feed other cultures to the meat grinder hoping to assuage that bloodlust before they become the target of attention. Progressives; while good with slogans, fearless in majority, and excellent in deploying inflammatory language and outrageous epitaphs, melt away quickly when confronted by persons ideologically committed enough to take it to the next level.
Progressives live to denigrate Christianity because they get a ’two-fer’. They gain popularity with the wine and brie crowd they hang with; plus the worst that will happen from the Christian point-of-view is that we’ll pray for their souls; which they feel is an advantage just in case they miscalculated and there IS a final judgment. They won’t hammer Islam in the same manner because an Imam will send someone to his address to burn his house and slaughter his family.
“The case can certainly be made that as the general population of the US has become more secular, the direction of the country has moved further from individual concepts of liberty and property rights to the more ‘secular’ beliefs of community ownership, social justice, and the restriction of individual liberty.”
I will have to disagree with you here in that many Americans probably do not believe that ‘secular’ beliefs incidcate collectivism. Rather, I will say that the Left has transmogrified ‘secular’ values into the values of collectivism, to the dismay of many a citizen. Note also the influence of the Social Gospel in the Mainline Christian churches – especially since the Left infiltrated these churches years ago. Collectivist values are certainly not exculsive to the non-religious. This concetration on Social Gospel to the exclusion of personal spirituality is the reason why people have left the Mainline Churches in droves. (It is, in fact, why I left the ELCA.) In my opinion, at least, I find the Social Gospel to be devoid of personal spirituality and quite boring. (This last part is probably one of the greatest crimes of Mainline Protestantism. No insult intended ;-)
“As for the progressive penchant for ‘supporting’ Islam. Occam’s razor would suggest that such support is more rooted in self preservation than any other perceived compatibility.”
This might be the case here and there, but one also has to remember the dictum, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” To a true radical, ANY enemy of Western capitalist culture is an ally. I believe that’s why so many Lefty university faculty members excoriate Israel while siding with Hamas.
I can agree with you, however, that as America has become more secular, its gone more towards collectivist values. The same is obvious in Europe, which has about fifty years on us in this respect.
I would say that your observation that many Americans do not believe that secular belief indicates collectivism is fairly accurate. That still does not abrogate my assertion that increased secularization of the American culture has helped drive the redistributive, social justice, and multiculturalistic portions of current progressive political ideology.
I can also appreciate your feelings regarding the Social Gospel. My personal religious philosophy rejects this also. Christ preached that both faith and good works are required for salvation. Good works are defined as personal contributions to the betterment of society; demanding political or government contributions to this end do not satisfy this condition. (Enforced charity is not charity at all.) Likewise; faith in government cannot be substituted for Faith in the Almighty
Martin Luther insisted that salvation is not earned by good deeds but is received as a gift of God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ. Despite that, the ELCA church I attended in Hoboken, NJ, focused almost exclusively on social issues (from a lefty perspective, of course). One of the issues they supported (to the tune of actually attending rallies) was in-state tuition at state universities for children of illegal immimgrants. Some of the things this particular church ran or supported did in fact do some good; but it was issues like the illegal immigrant thing that finally pushed me out.
Some of the other local churches this particular ELCA church was partnered with via ecumenical agreements (the Episcopal church, for example) were even more lefty. It got to the point where I was expecting church-sponsored CAIR lectures. Don’t know if they ever happened. I hope not.
One of the things I remember most about mainline churches in my area is their infantile perspective on faith, the Bible, etc. It pretty much never rose above Noah and the Flood. There was no real ‘digging in’ to the Bible from an adult perspective. They treated people like children. But they did have good coffee and cake after services!
I could never get a straight answer from the pastor of this church on the ‘issues.’ Everything was ‘Yes but/well maybe/ and er, um . . . ‘ and stuttering and evasion. It was then that I realized that the mainline churches had really painted themselves into a corner. In order to retain their more liberal members, they have to water down their theology and become more secularized; in order to keep their few remaning conservatives, they have to be vague about their secularization. The end result is that the conservatives eventually get the picture and flee to non-denominational churches, while the liberals get bored and eventually stop going to church altogether.
When a church’s mission becomes, ‘Whatever we do, we must not offend ANYBODY!!’ the gig is pretty much up. And that’s what’s happened to mainline Christianity, IMO.
Really, it’s a shame. The people at that ELCA church were personally very nice, as was the pastor. Most of the members were fairly well educated. (The pastor had gone to Yale and the lefty bastion of Union Theological Seminary.) It’s just that I couldn’t take the proselytizing and the boredom anymore. I wanted to know what faith means to me on a personal level, and they did everything they could to avoid that subject.
It’s the same story for the mainline Catholic churches.
I live in NYC now, and it’s impossible to find a mainline church that is NOT steeped in social gospel. Hence, I’m looking for a non-denominational church.
jhan,
I’m sure you could find what you’re looking for in almost any Assemblies of God church, or a Southern Baptist church. There’s lots of overlap between these and most non-denominational (evangelical) churches, so it shouldn’t be too difficult almost anywhere in the US. There are even Lutherans who should be conservative enough. How about Missouri Synod or Wisconsin Synod Lutheran churches?