The Truth Shall Set You Free...

I resolved not to weigh in on the George Tiller murder.  All Monday night and into Tuesday morning the dominos kept falling in my mind.  So many connections were being made to this event that finally I had to drag my butt to the computer and begin to type these words.

The murder of George Tiller raises so many questions that stretch far beyond the confines of the Life/Choice debate.  Strongly argued is the issue of freedom of speech.  People are pointing out potential links between this latest crime and the inflammatory comments made by Bill O’Reilly.  Being a true Liberal, in the most radical sense of the word, I am not sure I would censor O’Reilly if I could.  My belief in the need of the free play of ideas in a society would perhaps stop only short of the proverbial shout of “fire!” in a crowded theater.  Of course the shout of “fire!” comes quite close to bridging the fine, illusive boundary between speech and action. 

On a more practical level, does the blocking of women’s’ health clinics by maniacal, frothing, placard wielding religious fanatics constitute approved free speech or is it ipso facto the denial of a woman’s rights under the law.  Does the very real threat of violence that is inherent in the speech of the religious right, who describe abortion in terms of the Nazi Holocaust, negate the right of protected speech?  And what about the publishing of the names and addresses of health care providers which make them targets for harassment and violence?  How would the CIA, FBI and the local undercover racist DEA agents feel if their names, pictures and family’s addresses were published on posters around town?  I think if you tried this, you might find that the First Amendment has limits.  

Where in this country today is it possible to get a fair and open discussion of the issues of Life v Choice when the voices that would presume to speak for the rights of the woman in this whole mess are allowing themselves to be hamstrung by ignorant, primitive, Christian, male-dominated belief systems, slanted rhetoric, and popular indifference.  Calling abortion—even when the result of incest—“murder” is such outrageous hyperbole that it is any wonder the fanatics are even allowed to get away with it.  It is not too difficult to understand how such violent, literalist beliefs can dominate the mind of one who has an unshakable faith in a vengeful sky-god who set down his irrevocable, infallible (although contradictory) wrathful, ravings in the Bible? 

It was very interesting to hear Obama’s message to the graduating class of Notre Dame last month.  His words attempting to pour oil on the troubled waters of this debate fell on deaf ears.  The only side that seems able or willing to engage in a free and open dialogue has been browbeaten into near silence in the public forum.  How is it even possible to dialogue with a group who has been told, by this aforementioned God, of the rightness of their cause and the evil of the very compromise that might make some resolution possible?  Remember these people Obama would have us try to reason with believe that all who disagree with them are emissaries of Satan Himself who are awash in the evils of secular humanism, evolutionism, and moral relativism. 

It matters little to me how their bizarre belief systems may contort the perceptions and the rationality of Christians.  They are free to believe that virgins can give birth, and the dead can rise, and monkeys can fly out of their asses if they choose to.  It is when these beliefs cross over into the public forum where policy is made that effects all of us, either by chilling the actions of health providers or the passage of downright draconian laws restricting the rights to education and care, that I must draw the line.  I devoutly believe in tolerance.  The only thing I will not tolerate is intolerance.  How to legally muzzle the toxic influences of the intolerant, fundamentalist, religious right without doing irrefutable damage to our own basic rights is a problem I wrestle with daily.  Of one thing I am certain however; no Christian worries about my rights. 

As with Islamists, Christians believe Democracy should take a back seat to the Word of God.  As the founders, who were conversant with the “evils” of the Enlightenment, knew, the religion of Christianity and its clergy are the enemies of Democracy.  I realize this leaves us in a completely untenable position.  How do we quash this irrational minority that would tear down the whole system without doing irrevocable damage to that system?  I need not point out the troubles in the mid east that have been  the stage for the acting out of the conflict between the Islamists (brethren to the Christian fundamentalists) and the secular Muslims.  We only have to look to the government of Iran to adequately demonstrate what would happen if the US were to “come back to Jesus.” 

We have brought this present mess upon ourselves ultimately.  So many things would become so much clearer if people had access to the facts without the benefit of all the superstitious, religious dogmatics.  Because they are certain of the absolute Truth of their faith, the Christians refuse to even inform themselves of any inconvenient details that might threaten their position. 

Note: Some of you unfamiliar with my writing may take umbrage at my lumping of all Christians with those fundamentalists who would have us believe in miracles, those who believe Science is satanic and the true believers who would have us all accept Jesus Christ as our personal Lord and Savior.  After all George Tiller was, to all appearances, a devout Lutheran who served his church with devotion and distinction.  I have thrown out this challenge to many of my mainstream Christian friends on several occasions:  Demonstrate to me that fundamentalist Christianity is not the true interpretation of the basic tenets of the religion as set forth in the Old and New Testaments?  I believe that any Christian who cannot say the patently absurd, Nicene or the Apostles Creed without his fingers crossed is not a true Christian.  After all, aren’t these the rules of membership?  Can you call yourself a Christian and not follow his decree to make yourself a royal pain in the ass by trying to get all your friends and associates “born again”? 

Just to set the record straight, I do not deny Christ.  I take my text from the Gospel according to Thomas—Thomas Jefferson that is.  I am pretty certain that there was no historical Jesus, the same as, as a practicing Buddhist, the historicity of the Buddha means little to me as well.  Can religions evolve and modify even the most sacred principles of their belief systems?  Yes, certainly.  This is what has been happening in many Christian churches over the past half of the 20th Century.  In most mainstream protestant churches there has been a steady advance of something I can only call secularization. 

Modern Christian theology has long ago jettisoned the miraculous, historical Jesus along with any literal interpretation of the Bible as the absolute word of God.  Sometimes I wonder to myself: why even keep clinging to this old sky-god as well.  It is certainly not necessary to any ethical moral philosophy.  I do acknowledge Christ as both a moral teacher and as a powerful myth as well.  Certain individuals and archetypes take on a mythical dimension quite independent of the real, quasi-historical person.  We have seen this already taking place in the case of Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Contrary to Shakespeare’s Caesar, the evil of these men is oft interred with their bones.  In fifty years hence, who will even remember that MLK consorted with white prostitutes?  I even blush myself as I type it. 

Should mainstream Christians attempt to distance themselves from the fundamentalists and eschew the horrors, lies, fabrications and contradictions of their wretched Bible?  Actually Jews have done just that.  Today there is a very real distinction between Orthodox and Reformed Judaism.  Not too long ago there was a serious attempt on the part of the Orthodox Jews to oust the Reformed from the membership.  Actually I think the Reformed Jews should have taken them up on it.  I have nearly as much scorn for the Orthodox Jews as I have for the fundamentalist Christians.  It was in the final analysis, the attachment of the Reformed Jews to the brand identification that caused them to reject the invitation of the Orthodox to exit the name.  I don’t think that mainstream, secular Christians need to abandon their name. 

Again there is the issue of brand identification in the popular consciousness.  Perhaps mainstream Christians could adopt the adjective “Reformed” like their Jewish friends.  This would make things so much easer and might actually work to disenfranchise the fundamentalists and relegate them back to the age of the Crusades where they belong. Christianity, the way it has been practiced since the martyrdom of the Gnostics, is very rapidly finding no place in either the hearts of rational men and women or in the intellectual arena.  The chief thing slowing its well deserved demise is ironically the cowardice of the mainstream congregations to critique these irrational maniacs who so dominate the franchise.  When was the last time you read a position paper published by a major church condemning the many irrational superstitions at the essential heart of Christianity? 

I have focused most of these comments on protestant Christianity.  I pretty much regard the Roman Catholic Church as a lost cause, being as it is so dominated by the greatest minds of the 14th Century.  It’s not that there is not much to be found of value in the myth and mystery of the Church.  It is just that the clergy and the hierarchy are so dominated by mindless obedience at best and a dark, pernicious evil at worst, that I cannot do other than oppose them in nearly every arena of public discourse.

I began this essay by stating that the murder of George Tiller had set off a whole cascade of falling dominos in my head.  I have touched on only a couple of concerns that first came to mind in this somewhat disconnected rant.  There are so many others from the importance of a realistic gun control program (weapons ban) in this violent land to the immorality of keeping young people in ignorance concerning the life and death issues of Aids and the basics of reproduction.  

“The truth (small “t”) shall set you free” is only relevant to an enlightened electorate.  There is a distinct absence of either truth or enlightenment in our country today. George Tiller, was by all accounts a man of courage and conviction.  He was killed by ignorance, violence and indifference.  I leave it to you to determine your degree of responsibility for his death.

Peace,

Robert Boldt an editor of MWC News, is a freelance film/video producer living in Jefferson City, Missouri. He is active in local politics, worked on the Howard Dean and John Kerry campaigns and is a cofounder of The White Rose Collective. Articles by Bob Boldt at MWC News http://mwcnews.net/bob-boldt

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