The Theological Mistake of the King Hearings

The Theological Mistake of the King Hearings

by Jim Wallis 03-09-2011

There is no doubt, terrorism is real. And there are small groups of terrorists who threaten countless innocents across the world. They are waging a battle on two fronts. The first is physical and the second is theological. Both have consequences.

Of course, Americans want to protect their families and nation from physical attack by terrorists. And since 9/11 we are likely safer than before but, at the same time, terrorist threats have grown. And most Americans agree on the necessity of good intelligence and policing to protect against further terrorism. But it is a serious mistake to only address the symptoms and results of terrorism, without addressing the causes.

One cause is that the terrorists are making gains in the theological battle. The terrorist’s ideology claims that every action they take is part of a global battle between Islam and the West. They want to convince the world that Islam is right and good, and that the West is wrong and Evil. And it helps the terrorists immeasurably when Americans say, in effect, that West is right and good, and that Islam is wrong and evil. Every time American voices say or imply that, it is counted by the terrorists as a victory. They love to point to those stories in the American media, and to use them to justify their cause, make themselves more righteous, and recruit more terrorists.

But the West and Islam are not at war. There is a small group of terrorists, motivated by both real and perceived grievances against the West, who justify their extreme response of violence against innocents by the continuing narrative of one side being good and the other evil. But, there is indeed a radical fringe of Islam that is fueled by hate and violence, and must be prevented from doing further violence. And the more they are marginalized, the less power they have.

The new hearings about to begin in Washington could make the situation worse. For Representative King’s hearings, the medium is the message. And that message tells the story that the terrorists want to be told — that Muslims are the problem. He doesn’t say that, but the message comes through. By singling out the American Muslim community Rep. King is re-enforcing the story that the West and Islam are at war. That is a theological mistake and could result in another victory for the terrorists.

Make no mistake, we have to overcome terrorism. I’m grateful that we have not been attacked physically on American soil since 9/11. But our country is under theological attack every day in the polarized debate of the West vs. Islam, and that narrative must be changed. And Congressman King’s hearings are more likely to reinforce, rather than transform that narrative.

Jim Wallis is the author of Rediscovering Values: A Guide for Economic and Moral Recovery, and CEO of Sojourners. He blogs atwww.godspolitics.com. Follow Jim on Twitter @JimWallis.

The King of Irony (Cross-Post)

• • March 9, 2011
   
  • 10:38am
• The King of Irony
• Post by JACK FERTIG, MATT GLASER AND LAURY SILVERS

• 
  

  Peter King, an Irish-American representing a district with a heavily Jewish constituency, has taken on an unwittingly ironic role: a crusader against what’s characterized as a foreign religion being brought into America by people from backwards countries threatening our American way of life.

  • 
    

  As Americans of mixed heritage, we grew up hearing stories about how our Jewish grandparents faced similar prejudice in the early 20th century and how our Irish ancestors faced more of the same when they arrived in the mid-19th century. Chinese workers faced even harsher legal restrictions with the Chinese Exclusion Act and Japanese-Americans were interred through World War II. Countless others have been through similar treatment. And these are willing immigrants and their descendants; African and Indigenous Americans have suffered much worse.

  Up into the 1930s, Republicans attacked the Democrats as “the party of rum, Romanism, and rebellion,” and a Democratic president’s heritage was questioned with sneers at “Franklin Rosenfeld.” Haven’t the American people learned? King is perpetuating an American tradition, but one that should have been sent the way of Jim Crow segregation, not to preserve as part of our “American way of life.”

  King complains that Muslim community leaders are not cooperating with law enforcement. We have to wonder what sort of cooperation he is looking for. If an Imam says, “We have none of that here,” it is more likely a statement of fact than an evasion. Or in some cases those susceptible to violent acts keep it secret from their community. Last December when Mohamed Mohamud was drawn into what he believed to be an al-Qaeda cell he never told anyone at his mosque, knowing they would disapprove, as nearly all Muslims would.

  As with the young Somali, the FBI has been far more successful in recruiting Muslim malcontents into sting operations than al-Qaeda has been in carrying out the real thing. Whether on an urban street corner or at a Tea Party rally, finding angry, alienated young men who can be talked into foolish acts is no great challenge. It was angry young men in earlier days who donned white hoods to protect “good, Protestant Americans” not just from the “menace” of racial integration, but the “dire influence” of Catholics and Jews. We have seen the same anger and alienation in films of racist hate rallies, whether in anti-Semitic rallies in Germany in the 1930s, in Alabama in the 1960s, or in Yorba Linda this February.

  What kind of “cooperation” does King want? In reporting instances of planned violence, Muslims have been not just cooperative, but proactive. The Nigerian would-be airplane bomber was reported by his own father. The attempted Times Square bomber was first identified by a Muslim street vendor. Would that Ted Kaczinsky and Timothy McVeigh had lived in such alert communities!

  King’s hearings are a signal to Muslims that we are not accepted as a part of American society. This can only promote more alienation and anger. He is not only exploiting Islamophobia to build a political base of fear and prejudice; his message of divisive suspicion also will undermine Muslim efforts to integrate into our society, to enrich America as our Catholic and Jewish ancestors did, not by abandoning their religion, but by bringing it into the American mainstream.

  We are American Muslims dedicated to democracy and pluralism; we support women’s equality and GLBT rights. We recognize that there are religious extremists in our religion as there are in others and we struggle with prejudices within our community and without. We see bridges between peoples and inclusion leading to integration and mutual cultural enrichment as evidenced by our own mixed backgrounds.

  We are American Muslims of mixed Irish and Jewish backgrounds, and have great faith in the strength of cultural diversity. But just when we would like to think that racial and religious prejudices have been left in the past, we see frightening new repetitions of old patterns. We ask Peter King and his constituents to recognize the language of hatred and fear, to remember how our families endured humiliation and abuse, and to offer Muslim Americans, native and immigrant, the friendship that our Irish and Jewish ancestors and so many other new Americans should have enjoyed.

• 
  

Ash Wednesday 2011 [Cross-Post]

ash wednesday 2011
by Fr. Rick Morley
St. Mark's Episcopal Church

One of the interesting features of Year A in the Revised Common Lectionary, is that Ash Wednesday's traditional year-after-year Gospel lesson comes after five Sundays in Epiphanytide of Gospel lessons from The Sermon on the Mount.

Unlike years B and C, we get to see the Ash Wednesday Gospel after hearing from the Great Sermon for over a month. We've been well-steeped in the Sermon this year, and it provides an interesting vantage point.

The entirety of the Sermon is about authentic faithful living as the cornerstone of the Kingdom of God. Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21 is no different.

1 "Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven. 2 "So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 3 But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. 5 "And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 6 But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. ... 16 "And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 17 But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, 18 so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. 19 "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; 20 but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Portions of the Sermon on the Mount are Jesus telling his audience, and us, to "do something," and other times he tells us "not to do as others do." In the Ash Wednesday Gospel, Jesus is contrasting an optimal faith (maybe a "true" faith) with the faith of the Pharisees. 

Jesus portrays these poor Pharisaical slobs as going through all the motions of religious living, but falling short in grafting faithfulness in their hearts.

For Jesus, faith is meant to be a matter of the heart.

Historically, Lent was a period of time spend catechizing the soon-to-be-batptized. Functionally, today, it's a season where we a meant to 'up our game.'

Some of us, and some of our fellow church-goers will take on a spiritual discipline or two. Some will give up chocolate. Some will give up soda. Some will take on something they don't usually do.

Whatever we do though, we have to make sure that it's a matter of the heart. Not a weight-loss technique, not a way to beat ourselves up, and not something to impress the priest.

Whatever we do with our Lent, let us make it about bringing our heart more in-line with the Kingdom of God. As we saw early on in the Sermon on the Mount, let us try on 'purity of heart,' so that we 'may see God.' Let us try on poverty of spirit, hungering and thirsting for righteousness, and peacemaking. Let us pray, let us fast, let us make our needed repenting.

And let us analyze our spiritual echo-cardiograms. So that our hearts are set squarely in the Kingdom for the Day of Resurrection.