Tough Love and the Duty to Protect Life and Liberty

 By Rudy Barnes, Jr.

            The greatest commandment makes loving our neighbors as ourselves a moral imperative of our faith, and that requires the duty to protect life and liberty in a dangerous world with the use of force.  Moses and Muhammad had no trouble doing that, but Jesus complicated the issue when he taught: …do not resist an evil person.  If someone strikes you on the right cheek turn to him the other also. (Matthew 5:39)   And Jesus went on to say: You have heard it was said, Love your neighbor and hate your enemies.  But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…. (Matthew 5:43,44). 

            Many pacifists have taken those sayings literally as a prohibition against any use of lethal force, but most Christians consider the sayings as hyperbole that was typical of Jesus.  Otherwise it would be impossible to protect life and liberty in a dangerous world.  The real challenge for the faithful is not whether lethal force can be used, but when and how it is used, and that raises issues of tough love and the duty to protect.

            The duty to protect life and liberty is based on love for others—not hate for those who threaten them—and it requires the use of lethal force by those police and military forces who are charged with the duty to protect.  When and how lethal force is used is governed by rules of engagement that are grounded in self-defense and the defense of others; and while there have been too many instances of the use of excessive force, the prohibition of lethal force is not an option if we expect to maintain the law and order that is needed to protect freedom and justice.

           

            The duty of the military to protect U.S. national security interests requires understanding the threat, the operational environment and U.S. military capabilities.  Containment rather than military intervention is the best U.S. strategy to combat Islamist terrorism in Islamic cultures, but elsewhere domestic intelligence and law enforcement operations must identify, apprehend and prosecute terrorists.  These complementary approaches are needed to protect lives and vital U.S. security interests from Islamist terrorism, and they require that the capabilities of U.S. security forces are properly matched with their strategic missions.

            President Obama has continually asserted that there are no U.S. combat forces in Iraq or Syria, but he has acknowledged that U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF) have conducted direct action strikes and raids against ISIS in the past and will continue to do so in the future.  These are combat operations conducted by elite warriors of SOF and represent U.S. “boots on the ground.”  Such direct action SOF operations should not be confused with indirect SOF advisory and training missions, but statements by President Obama and Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter have confused those two fundamentally different military capabilities and their missions.

            The elite SOF warriors of the Army’s Delta Force and Navy’s Seals conduct direct action strikes and raids, such as the take-down of Osama bin Laden and the recent liberation of Kurdish prisoners in Iraq.  By way of contrast, SOF advisors and trainers rely on indirect action to achieve mission success.  They are diplomat-warriors whose legitimacy and effectiveness depend upon keeping a low profile and motivating their Muslim counterparts to do most of the fighting; and they work as closely with State Department officials as with the military chain of command.

           

            The legitimacy of the extended advisory and training missions of SOF diplomat-warriors requires public support both at home and in the operational area, and that public support is jeopardized by conflicting standards of legitimacy.  SOF personnel are expected to respect local laws and moral standards and also report violations of fundamental human rights under the Leahy law.  Such violations are inevitable where apostasy and blasphemy laws deny the freedoms of religion and speech, and women and non-Muslims are denied equal protection of the law.  This can create a mission impossible for SOF diplomat-warriors in Islamic cultures.    

            The fundamental freedoms of religion and speech are anathema to radical Islamism, which is the life-blood of Islamist terrorism.  Those freedoms are necessary for Muslims to challenge the legitimacy of radical Islamism, and U.S. combat operations only increase the legitimacy of radical Islamism among Muslims.  Understanding how libertarian human rights can undermine the legitimacy of Islamist terrorism is critical to achieving U.S. strategic objectives; and SOF diplomat-warriors can support their Muslim counterparts in their battle for legitimacy.   

           

            Jews, Christians and Muslims all share the moral imperative to love God and to love their neighbors as themselves.  In a dangerous world that requires tough love and the duty to protect life and liberty.  In Islamic cultures Muslims should have the freedoms of religion and speech to challenge the legitimacy of the radical Islamism that sustains Islamist terrorism.  Promoting those fundamental freedoms should be a strategic objective of SOF diplomat-warriors who advise and train Muslims on the front lines of the battle for legitimacy. 

           

Notes and References to Resources:           

Previous blogs on related topics are: Faith and Freedom, December 15, 2014; Religion, Violence and Military Legitimacy, December 29, 2014; The Greatest Commandment, January 11, 2015; Jesus Meets Muhammad: Is There a Common Word of Faith for Jews, Christians and Muslims Today? January 25, 2015; Religion and Human Rights, posted February 22, 2015; A Fundamental Problem with Religion, May 3, 2015; Religion, Human Rights and National Security, May 10, 2015; De Oppresso Liber: Where Religion and Politics Intersect, May 24, 2015; Christians Meet Muslims Today, posted June 21, 2015; Freedom and Fundamentalism, August 2, 2015; How Religious Fundamentalism and Secularism Shape Politics and Human Rights, August 16, 2015; Legitimacy as a Context and Paradigm to Resolve Religious Conflict, August 23, 2015; and A Strategy to Defeat Radical Islam: Containment, not Confrontation, November 1, 2015.

On turning the other cheek (Matthew 5:39), see Submission, retribution and giving to all who ask in the J&M Book at page 102.   

Michael Walzer has postulated that life and liberty are human rights that justify the duty to protect in war.  See Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, Basic Books, 1977, pp xvi, 133-137,

cited in end note 20 to chapter 4 of Barnes, Military Legitimacy: Might and Right in the New Millennium (Frank Cass, 1996), at page 99, which is posted at page 83 at http://www.jesusmeetsmuhammad.com/#!page3/cee5.  The unique nature of SOF diplomat-warriors is compared with conventional combat warriors at pages 89-92 in chapter 5 of Military Legitimacy: Might and Right in the New Millennium, at http://www.jesusmeetsmuhammad.com/#!page3/cee5 and at http://media.wix.com/ugd/a8edf7_f0f4d486bb9b440ea5cfdddfed46517b.pdf.

U.S. Special Forces advisors have ignored human rights violations in Afghanistan involving the sexual abuse of boys.  See http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/09/21/world/asia/us-soldiers-told-to-ignore-afghan-allies-abuse-of-boys.html?_r=0.  On the need for U.S. Special Operations trainers and advisors to promote compliance with fundamental human rights and the different skill sets required of SOF warriors who conduct direct action combat operations and the SOF diplomat-warriors who conduct advisory and training operations, see Barnes, Back to the Future: Human Rights and Legitimacy in the Training and Advisory Mission, Special Warfare, January-March 2013, posted at http://media.wix.com/ugd/a8edf7_3ceb977e13df46129e7fe22b9dae6789.pdf.

On the strategic dilemma facing President Obama in sending additional SOF forces to Iraq and Syria, see http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-to-send-special-forces-to-syria-1446216062 and https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/after-promising-to-end-two-wars-obama-may-leave-three-behind/2015/10/31/01f3f70a-7fe3-11e5-beba-927fd8634498_story.html?wpmm=1&wpisrc=nl_headlines. On the dangers of incrementalism to a coherent strategy, see https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-dangers-of-incrementalism/2015/11/05/22aad1de-83f9-11e5-9afb-0c971f713d0c_story.html?wpmm=1&wpisrc=nl_opinions.

A Containment Strategy to Defeat Islamist Terrorism

 By Rudy Barnes, Jr.

            U.S. military strategy to combat the terrorism of radical Islam, or Islamism, in the Middle East and Africa is sorely in need of clarification.  Critics have long complained that the U.S. lacks a clear and coherent strategy in the region, and since Russia intervened in Syria to support the Assad regime the lack of a U.S. strategy to confront radical Islamism in Syria and Iraq has become painfully obvious.  Plans to train and equip indigenous forces to fight Assad’s regime and ISIS have failed, and there is a real danger of an unintended confrontation between U.S. and Russian military forces in the region. 

            Things are little better in Afghanistan, where there has been a resurgence of the Taliban and ISIS has asserted itself.  A U.S. AC-130U gunship supporting Afghan forces destroyed a hospital run by Doctors Without Borders leaving 22 civilian casualties; and U.S. Special Forces have continued to ignore flagrant human rights abuses by the Afghan forces they advise.  By sacrificing its legal and moral standards to political and military expediency the U.S. has undermined its legitimacy in Islamic cultures, where apostasy and blasphemy laws, honor killings and traditional practices that abuse children and women are sanctified by Islamic law (shari’a), and political corruption remains endemic.    

            The U.S. military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq were based on the premise that regime change would enable those nations to embrace the principles of democracy, human rights and the secular rule of law.  That has not happened.  A clear and coherent U.S. national security strategy is now needed to address Islamist terrorism in the Middle East and Africa, and that strategy should be based on containment rather than confrontation.

            Containment was the U.S. strategy that addressed the threat of communism during the Cold War.  Direct confrontation with the USSR as a nuclear power was ruled out by the danger of mutually assured destruction, or MAD.  Low intensity proxy conflicts became the norm for the Cold War, and the Vietnam War was the exception that proved the rule.

            A strategy of containment rather than military confrontation is necessary to avoid extended U.S. combat operations in Islamic cultures.  The U.S. has expended billions of dollars and spilled precious blood to little effect in Afghanistan and Iraq, recalling the painful U.S. experience in Vietnam.  But unlike Vietnam, Islamist terrorism continues to be a very real threat to the U.S. and its allies, and that necessitates a long-term containment strategy like that of the Cold War that can minimize U.S. military confrontations in hostile Islamic cultures.

            Conservative politicians continue to urge the deployment of more U.S. combat troops to the Middle East to defeat radical Islamist terrorism there before it can get to the U.S.  But experience in Iraq and Afghanistan has taught that large deployments of U.S. forces in Islamic cultures do more harm than good, with U.S. forces seen as infidels who exacerbate the religious polarization sought by al-Qaeda and ISIS.  No matter how effective they are militarily, U.S. military forces in Islamic cultures undermine strategic U.S. political objectives.  They not only jeopardize the legitimacy of the supported government, but they also make the U.S. the common enemy of sectarian Islamic factions that would otherwise be fighting each other.

            Sectarian conflict reflects an Islam in transition, and it will take time to determine whether mainstream Islam is compatible with democracy, human rights and the secular rule of law or becomes what al-Qaeda and ISIS claim it to be—a religion that uses violence to dominate Islam and oppress the rest of the world.  The defeat of radical Islamism depends upon moderate Muslims undermining the legitimacy of radical Islamism with libertarian values that begin with the freedoms of religion and speech.  That would convince the world that Islam is a religion of peace and justice rather than one of violence and oppression.

            Islamist terrorism will not be defeated by U.S. military forces in Islamic cultures, but only when it is denied legitimacy among Muslims.  A U.S. strategy of containment can allow that to happen in Islamic cultures, but it must be complemented by a strategy of confrontation in the U.S. to identify and eliminate terrorist threats.  Domestic U.S. counterterrorism capabilities coupled with limited special operations capabilities overseas can contain the threat of Islamist terrorism to Islamic cultures and allow Muslims to deny its legitimacy, so long as the U.S. does not provide it with undeserved legitimacy with a large deployment of combat forces.

           

Notes and References to Resources:           

Previous blogs on related topics are: Religion and Reason, December 8, 2014; Faith and Freedom, December 15, 2014; Religion, Violence and Military Legitimacy, December 29, 2014; Religion and New Beginnings: Salvation and Reconciliation into the Family of God, January 4, 2015; The Greatest Commandment, January 11, 2015; Love over Law: A Principle at the Heart of Legitimacy, January 18, 2015; Jesus Meets Muhammad: Is There a Common Word of Faith for Jews, Christians and Muslims Today? January 25, 2015; A Fundamental Problem with Religion, May 3, 2015; Religion, Human Rights and National Security, May 10, 2015; De Oppresso Liber: Where Religion and Politics Intersect, May 24, 2015; The Future of Religion: In Decline and Growing, June 7, 2015; Christians Meet Muslims Today, June 14, 2015; Fear and Fundamentalism, July 26, 2015; Freedom and Fundamentalism, August 2, 2015; How Religious Fundamentalism and Secularism Shape Politics and Human Rights, August 16, 2015; Legitimacy as a Context and Paradigm to Resolve Religious Conflict, August 23, 2015; What Is Truth? August 23, 2015; The European Refugee Crisis and Radical Islam, September 6, 2015; and Politics and Religious Polarization, September 20, 2015.

President Obama revised his commitment to withdraw all U.S. forces from Afghanistan by the end of 2016 following the recent surge by the Taliban in Kunduz that resulted in the destruction of the Doctors Without Borders hospital.  See https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/obama-expected-to-announce-new-plan-to-keep-5500-troops-in-afghanistan/2015/10/14/d98f06fa-71d3-11e5-8d93-0af317ed58c9_story.html?wpmm=1&wpisrc=nl_evening.

U.S. Special Forces soldiers have been advised to ignore the sexual abuse of boys by Afghan allies.  See http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/09/21/world/asia/us-soldiers-told-to-ignore-afghan-allies-abuse-of-boys.html?_r=0.  On the need for U.S. Special Operations trainers and advisors to promote compliance with fundamental human rights, see Barnes, Back to the Future: Human Rights and Legitimacy in the Training and Advisory Mission, Special Warfare, January-March 2013, posted at http://media.wix.com/ugd/a8edf7_3ceb977e13df46129e7fe22b9dae6789.pdf.

The failure of U.S. policy to train, arm and equip a rebel force in Syria resulted in a shift of policy that initially appeared to be more compatible with a strategy of containment than confrontation.  See https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/pentagon-plans-sharp-scaledown-in-efforts-to-train-syrian-rebels/2015/10/09/78a2553c-6e80-11e5-9bfe-e59f5e244f92_story.html?wpmm=1&wpisrc=nl_headlines.  But the announcement that the U.S. will be sending Special Forces to Syria has raised new questions about U.S. military strategy in the region.  See http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-to-send-special-forces-to-syria-1446216062.

Michael Gerson has criticized President Obama’s celebration of counterfeit war victories in the Middle East.  See https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-united-states-counterfeit-victories-abroad/2015/10/29/fde592b2-7e76-11e5-b575-d8dcfedb4ea1_story.html?wpmm=1&wpisrc=nl_headlines. 

Thomas L. Friedman sees only two ways for coherent self-government to emerge in the Arab world: Through the total occupation of an outside power (the ultimate intervention and confrontation policy used by the U.S. in Afghanistan and Iraq), or by allowing the sectarian fires to burn themselves out without U.S. military intervention—and Friedman considers the latter more likely than the former.  See http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/27/opinion/thomas-friedman-contain-and-amplify.html?emc=eta1&_r=0. 

Walter Pincus favors containment over confrontation citing the painful lessons of Vietnam. See http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/in-iraq-lessons-of-vietnam-still-resonate/2015/05/25/86a20a82-00bd-11e5-805c-c3f407e5a9e9_story.html?wpisrc=nl_headlines&wpmm=1.

Andrew Bacevich suggested a containment strategy for Islamic extremism in The Limits of Power (2008, Metropolitan Books, Henry Holt & Co.) at pp 176.177.              

The Muslim Stranger: A Good Neighbor or a Threat?

 By Rudy Barnes, Jr.

            Muslims are considered strangers in Europe and the U.S., and the refugee crisis has raised the question of whether Muslims can be good neighbors or are a threat to non-Muslims. 

           

            Judaism, Christianity and Islam all consider the greatest commandment to love God and one’s neighbor as oneself (Mark 12:28-33) to be a moral imperative of their faith.  The difficult question is, Who is my neighbor?  In Mosaic Law a neighbor is “one of your people” (Leviticus 19:18) as well as the stranger or alien (Leviticus 19:33,34; Deuteronomy 10:19).  Jesus was a Jew who answered the question with the story of the good Samaritan (Luke 10:29-37), in which an apostate Samaritan was a good neighbor to a wounded Jew while other Jews passed him by.  While the Qur’an does not include the greatest commandment, Islamic scholars have affirmed it as a common word of faith for Jews, Christians and Muslims alike.

            The perception of Muslims as good neighbors among Jews and Christians in the U.S. and Europe has deteriorated, perhaps because of continued violence against non-Muslims and the enforcement of apostasy and blasphemy laws in Islamic cultures.  It seems that most Muslims in Islamic cultures do not consider Jews and Christians as good neighbors but as unbelievers who are condemned by God as a threat to Islam, this in spite of the assertion of Islamic scholars that the greatest commandment is a common word of faith.  The result is that today fewer Jews and Christians consider Muslims to be good neighbors than they did five years ago.

            The refugee crisis in Europe has exacerbated the fear that Muslims are a threat to Western libertarian values and cultural standards, if not basic security, and right-wing politicians in Europe and the U.S. are stoking those fears to promote their own interests.  The best way to counter such suspicion and fear is by developing personal relationships between Jews, Christians and Muslims, and interfaith dialogue groups provide a means to do that.

            Synagogues and churches should promote interfaith dialogue groups, but few do, perhaps because most are exclusivist religious institutions that promote their religion as the one true faith and ignore the moral imperative of the greatest commandment to love their unbelieving neighbors, or strangers, as they love themselves.  Most Muslims are also exclusivists who consider it their evangelical duty to convert those of other faiths to Islam.  One of the first rules of an interfaith dialogue group is to respect those of other religions and not try to convert them.

            The trend toward religious polarization needs to be reversed before it enables radical Islamism to claim victory in the first phase of its Jihad, with Jews and Christians seeing Muslims as a threat rather than as good neighbors, and vice-versa.  With the forces of globalism creating more religious pluralism, religious reconciliation is essential to world peace.  While no one religion can dominate the world, it only takes one religion to bring war to the world if other religions do not resist religious polarization by seeking reconciliation.  Religious polarization has led to wars in the past, but it should not be allowed to happen again.

            No matter how bad things seem to be in Islamic cultures overseas, the freedoms of religion and speech in the libertarian democracies of the West should prevent religious violence.  When Jews, Christians and Muslims can come together and get to know one another, and no one seeks to convert any others, religious differences can be discussed and better understood without those of a minority religion being threatened by those of a dominant religion.  That is what good neighbors are expected to do, and in a world of increasing religious plurality, people of different religions must consider those of others religions as good neighbors rather than threats.

            Believers must resist the contentious political and religious rhetoric used by political and religious leaders to polarize their constituencies and promote their power with the fear of the stranger among them.  Jews, Christians and Muslims must all remember that to love God they must love their neighbors as themselves, and that includes their unbelieving neighbors.           

    

Notes and References to Resources:           

Previous blogs on related topics are: Religion and New Beginnings: Salvation and Reconciliation into the Family of God, January 4, 2015; The Greatest Commandment, January 11, 2015; Love over Law: A Principle at the Heart of Legitimacy, January 18, 2015; Jesus Meets Muhammad: Is There a Common Word of Faith for Jews, Christians and Muslims Today? January 25, 2015; Promoting Religion Through Evangelism: Bringing Light or Darkness, February 8, 2015;  A Fundamental Problem with Religion, May 3, 2015; Religion, Human Rights and National Security, May 10, 2015; The Future of Religion: In Decline and Growing, June 7, 2015; Christians Meet Muslims Today, June 14, 2015; Fear and Fundamentalism, July 26, 2015; Freedom and Fundamentalism, August 2, 2015; Legitimacy as a Context and Paradigm to Resolve Religious Conflict, August 23, 2015; The European Refugee Crisis and Radical Islam, September 6, 2015; and Politics and Religious Polarization, September 20, 2015.

Behind a warm welcome for refugees in Sweden, there is a growing backlash against Muslim refugees.  See https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/behind-swedens-warm-welcome-for-refugees-a-backlash-is-brewing/2015/10/17/b5f4110c-661d-11e5-bdb6-6861f4521205_story.html?wpmm=1&wpisrc=nl_headlines.

A model for an interfaith dialogue group is provided in the Resources to the J&M Book at  http://media.wix.com/ugd/a8edf7_1502053c58a4441197ed1acade7287bd.pdf.

Some evangelical Christians in the U.S. are working with Muslims to oppose religious bigotry.  See http://www.religionnews.com/2015/10/23/fighting-perceptions-evangelicals-muslims-commit-oppose-religious-bigotry/.

David Brooks has noted the lack of traditional values that once governed U.S. domestic politics and foreign policy, and the decreasing influence of religion in shaping those values.  See http://www.kansascity.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/syndicated-columnists/article40497270.html.

   

Michael Gerson has argued that in the Middle East and America religion has become more dysfunctional and sectarian and lost its primary value of helping those in need, regardless of their religion.  He asks, “Is the Christian faith merely a cover for tribalism?  Or will it demonstrate its essence in service to the refugees of another faith who did nothing to deserve their fate?”  See 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/christians-shouldnt-ignore-the-suffering-of-muslims/2015/10/19/d9f5f40a-7697-11e5-b9c1-f03c48c96ac2_story.html?wpmm=1&wpisrc=nl_headlines.

God, Money and Politics

 Rudy Barnes, Jr.

            Jesus said, No one can serve two masters.  Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.  You cannot serve both God and money. (Matthew 6:24)  If loving God requires that we love our neighbors as ourselves, especially the poor and weak, then we cannot love God and love the money and worldly power that exploits the poor and weak.  That is a principle of faith common to Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

            It is a stretch to describe the U.S. as a Godly nation given its materialism and hedonism.  And the consummate love of wealth, pleasure and power is not unique to the U.S.  It is prevalent wherever humankind has the freedom to choose between the love of God and money.  If the two are considered competing masters for our souls, then most people seem to have put the love of money and the pleasures and power it can buy over the love of God.

            Does God Bless America?  We hear that mantra from politicians as they campaign for money and votes, but it is an offense to God to claim blessings for a nation that worships money, pleasure and power.  Some young Muslims have been so offended by the decadent values of libertarian democracies that they have left them for the oppressive idealism of ISIS.  And many people of faith and reason in the U.S. also seem to be losing faith in the capitalistic and political structures that control the nation’s wealth and power. 

            The unlikely popularity of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders as presidential candidates is evidence of widespread public dissatisfaction with the political status quo.  They are at opposite ends of the political and economic spectrum: Trump personifies Ayn Rand’s objectivist philosophy that sanctifies unrestrained greed and self-satisfaction at the expense of the public welfare, while Sanders represents the socialist ideal of government as our brothers’ keeper.  Rand’s objectivism sacrifices altruism in free enterprise for vulture capitalism, while socialism sacrifices individual freedom for an unrealistic altruistic political ideal.

            The U.S. is at a crossroads of religion and politics, with freedom and democracy at risk.  The evolution of U.S. democracy has resulted in an emphasis on individual rights and wants at the expense of providing for the common good.  Plato predicted as much, favoring a benevolent dictator over self-rule since the majority of people could not be expected to act in their own best interests; and Edmund Burke warned Americans that in a democracy we forge our own shackles.  Pogo affirmed them both, observing that we have met the enemy, and it is us.       

            Libertarians have long warned of the dangers of big government to freedom, but today neo-libertarians condemn big government and ignore the greater dangers to freedom represented by the big banks and businesses of Wall Street, whose insatiable appetites for cheap money are fed by the Federal Reserve.  Those capitalists who control the wealth and power of Wall Street are Rand objectivists, and government seems either unwilling or unable to stem their power.       

             

            A healthy democracy depends on a strong middle class, and in the U.S. the middle class has been exploited more by Wall Street and the easy money policies of the Federal Reserve than by big government.  But most conservative Americans have not seemed to notice and consider the welfare programs of big government the main enemy of the middle class, even though most of those welfare programs are Social Security and Medicare entitlements that benefit a shrinking middle class rather than the poor and needy.

            The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) has made health care a government entitlement, and has come to illustrate the conflict between socialism and capitalism.  When campaigning for President, Obama promised to provide for cost controls for health care before making it a universal right, but that never happened.  As a result, vulture capitalism has corrupted public health care, as evidenced by astronomical increases in pharmaceuticals, demonstrating the need for cost controls in government entitlement programs.            

            To protect the U.S. middle class from further erosion, Americans must acknowledge that big business can be as much of a threat to the middle class as big government.  Both are part of the problem and both must be part of the solution, and that will require political initiatives that provide a viable balance between individual freedom, free enterprise and providing for the common good.  Neither Trump’s objectivism nor Sanders’ socialism can succeed in America, but something in between must be done to prevent further erosion of the middle class by the rich and powerful vulture capitalists—otherwise, individual rights and democracy will be at risk. 

            A healthy democracy requires balancing individual rights with providing for the common good, and that requires regulating the big banks and corporations of Wall Street that have been flourishing while the rest of the economy (Main Street) has been languishing.  The problem is not free enterprise but the unrestrained greed of vulture capitalism that limits competition rather than encouraging it, and the monetary policies of the Federal Reserve and the lack of regulation of the banking industry since the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999 that have favored the rich and powerful conglomerates of Wall Street over the smaller businesses of Main Street.

            A strong middle class must be sustained by a form of free enterprise free of the vulture capitalism that exploits the weak to benefit the rich and powerful.  That is an imperative of faith taught by Moses, Jesus and Muhammad that is summed up in the greatest commandment to love God and neighbor.  It is ironic that most neo-libertarians claim to be evangelical Christians but do not see how the love of money and power is inconsistent with the teachings of Jesus. 

            Our faith is in what we love most.  If we love God more than money then we must put the value of God’s love over the value of money, and that should be reflected in the priorities of our politics and our pocketbooks.  People who love God share God’s love with others, while people who love money exploit others to promote their selfish interests.  In politics the love of God requires that we find a middle ground between the extremes of Trump’s objectivism and Sander’s socialism, balancing our individual freedom with providing for the common good.

Notes and References to Resources:

Previous blogs on related topics are Faith and Freedom, December 15, 2014; The Greatest Commandment, January 11, 2015; Wealth, Politics and Religion, March 8, 2015; The Power of Humility and the Arrogance of Power, March 22, 2015; Liberation from Economic Oppression, May 31, 2015; Balancing Individual Rights with Collective Responsibilities, August 9, 2015; and Religion, the Pope, and Politics in the Real World, September 27, 2015.

For commentary on Matthew 6:24, see Faith God and Money at pages 117-119 of the J&M Book; also Lesson #8, Riches and salvation (Mark 10:17-27) and Lesson #9, the Widow’s mite (Mark 12:41-44), at pages 45-50; and Treasures and the heart (Luke 12:33-34) at pages 235-238.   

On Why Bernie Sanders Can’t be President, see https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/10/12/why-bernie-sanders-isnt-going-to-be-president-in-5-words/?wpmm=1&wpisrc=nl_evening.

On the need to find a political middle ground between the extremes of Trump and Sanders, see https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-sanders-trump-magical-mystery-tour/2015/10/13/d9fdfc3e-71e9-11e5-8248-98e0f5a2e830_story.html?wpmm=1&wpisrc=nl_opinions.

On the need to reveal the huge gap between CEO pay (in big business) and worker pay, see http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-leadership/wp/2015/08/04/this-new-rule-could-reveal-the-huge-gap-between-ceo-pay-and-worker-pay/?wpisrc=nl_headlines&wpmm=1.

On an egregious example of vulture capitalism in the pharmaceutical industry, see http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/09/23/pharma-bro-martin-shkreli-and-the-very-american-debate-over-maximizing-profit/?wpmm=1&wpisrc=nl_evening.

On how the Glass-Steagall Act effectively regulated banks from 1933 to 1999, see http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/economic-intelligence/2012/08/27/repeal-of-glass-steagall-caused-the-financial-crisis.

On why the Federal Reserve and other central banks can no longer save the world with easy money, see http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/10/us-imf-cenbank-idUSKCN0S40VE20151010.

On Ayn Rand’s self-centered objectivism, see  https://www.aynrand.org/ideas/overview.

Seeking, Being and Doing on Our Journey of Faith

 By Rudy Barnes, Jr.

            Our journey of faith is a search for God’s truth.  It is a search motivated by doubts—doubts as to the truth of religious doctrines and dogmas that should not be discouraged by the boundaries of orthodox religion.  Beyond those boundaries there are few guideposts for seekers other than experience and reason, but Jesus encouraged questions raised by doubt when he said: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened unto you.  For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.  (Matthew 7:7,8).

            This saying of Jesus is in the context of prayer, but it goes beyond prayer and contemplates a detachment from worldly concerns and limitations that can open our hearts and minds to a transforming spiritual power that Jews, Christians and Muslims refer to as God and that Buddhists refer to as nirvana.  For Christians, God has been equated with love. (1 John 4:16-21).  It is a mystical spiritual power of altruistic love taught and exemplified by Jesus that shapes our relationship with God and our spiritual being; and it has a moral dimension that shapes those standards of legitimacy that determine how we relate to each other—that is, our worldly doing.

            Just as our spiritual being motivates our doing, it can be said that, As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead. (James 2:26)  The relationship between faith and deeds (or works) has long been the source of debate between Protestants like Martin Luther who have argued that God’s grace is the sole source of salvation, and that good works don’t count for much, and Catholic doctrines based on the passage from James that emphasize the importance of good works to salvation.  For Muslims the Qur’an provides that both good works and belief in the Qur’an as the perfect and immutable word of God are required for salvation.

            In a world of many religions, the exclusivist belief that God favors one religion and condemns all others is inconsistent with the concept of God’s reconciling love.  Evangelism that has its focus on converting those of other religions is not based on God’s reconciling love but on a sense of religious supremacy that promotes religious conflict.  Jesus taught that all who did the will of God were his brothers and sisters in the universal family of God.  He never taught that God favored one religion over others—not even his own.

 

            Jesus was a Jew who rejected the deontological concept that Mosaic Law was God’s standard of righteousness.  Jesus taught the primacy of love over law, a teleological principle summed up in the greatest commandment to love God and one’s neighbor as oneself.  It combined the mystical being (loving God) with the moral doing (loving one’s neighbor); and when asked, Who is my neighbor, Jesus told the story of the good Samaritan in which an apostate Samaritan stopped to help a wounded Jew.  It illustrated that loving our unbelieving neighbors is the test of true faith, negating exclusivist religious doctrines that condemn unbelievers.

  

            Those bound by exclusivist religious doctrines and dogmas cannot see the truth of God’s universal and reconciling love and how it can set them free from the bondage of sin and death.  Religion can be both good and evil.  Satan does a convincing imitation of God with some of his best acting in the synagogue, church and mosque.  How can we tell the difference?  God seeks to reconcile and redeem believers with forgiveness and love, while Satan seeks to divide and conquer them with fear and hate.  History has confirmed that religions have confused the forces of good and evil in the past, and current events illustrate that they continue to do so.

            To be or not to be, that is the question.  That was the question of a despondent Prince Hamlet as he contemplated death as a means to escape his complex dilemma.  It is also a question for us related to our spiritual being that not only motivates what we do in this life but anticipates what follows—of which Hamlet was uncertain.  Our being (how we relate to God) and doing (how we relate to each other) is shaped by an understanding of scripture and tradition that must be made relevant to our time and place by experience and reason, including advances in knowledge and politics such as democracy, human rights and the secular rule of law.    

            Our journey of faith seeks God’s truth, and that requires using our experience and reason to interpret scripture.  One of the passages used to support the exclusivity of Christianity is John 14:6, which has Jesus say, I am the way, and the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father but through me.  In the preamble to John’s Gospel (John 1:1-14) Jesus is presented as the Logos or word of God made flesh, not as God per se; and John’s Gospel goes on to emphasize the new command of God to Love one another. (John 13:24,35)  A reasonable interpretation of John 14:6 in context is that God’s word to love one another is the way, and the truth and the life.  That word requires following Jesus as the word of God but not worshiping Jesus as God. 

            That is just one example of how seekers whose beliefs are not constrained by exclusivist religious doctrines and dogmas can experience new revelations of God’s word on their journey of faith, and it applies to Muslims as well as Jews and Christians.  God is bigger than any religion, and God’s word is a living word that is not limited to those words in ancient holy books and its meaning is not restricted to the doctrines and dogmas of exclusivist religions.  Believers should be seekers who embrace experience, reason and advances in knowledge—including critical biblical scholarship—that challenge the exclusivist doctrines and dogmas of orthodox religion so that they can help transform the world with the reconciling power of God’s love.

Notes and References to Resources:

Previous blogs on related topics are: Religion and Reason, December 8, 2014; Faith and Freedom, December 15, 2014; Religion and New Beginnings: Salvation and Reconciliation into the Family of God, January 4, 2015; The Greatest Commandment, January 11, 2015; Love over Law: A Principle at the Heart of Legitimacy, January 18, 2015; Jesus Meets Muhammad: Is There a Common Word of Faith for Jews, Christians and Muslims Today? January 25, 2015; Promoting Religion through Evangelism: Bringing Light or Darkness? February 8, 2015; Is Religion Good or Evil?, February 15, 2015;  Jesus: A Prophet, God’s only Son, or the Logos? April 19, 2015; An Introduction to God is Not One, by Stephen Prothero, April 26, 2015; Christians Meet Muslims Today, June 14, 2015; Freedom and Fundamentalism, August 2, 2015; What Is Truth?, August 30, 2015; Politics and Religious Polarization, September 20, 2015; and Faith and Religion, the Same but Different, October 4, 2015.         

Faith and Religion: The Same, but Different

   By Rudy Barnes, Jr.

            The words faith and religion are often used interchangeably, but there is a real difference in the distinction.  Religion requires faith, but faith does not require religion.  Faith is what we believe to be sacred, and has been described as “…being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” (Hebrews 11:1)  Religion is an institutional and pre-packaged form of faith, complete with a holy handbook, doctrines that define orthodoxy (right belief), and immutable standards of legitimacy that define what is right and wrong.     

            Most believers begin their journey of faith with a traditional religion and at some point question their religious doctrines and dogmas based on advances in knowledge, reason and experience.  This transition from religion to faith can be illustrated by the four elements of the Wesleyan Quadrilateral: Scripture, tradition, experience and reason.  Orthodox religious beliefs are defined by doctrines and dogmas based on scripture and tradition.  Experience and reason can cause believers to question religious doctrines and dogmas and challenge the boundaries of orthodox beliefs.  That is typical in libertarian democracies where believers have the freedoms of religion and speech, but rare in Islamic cultures where those freedoms are restricted.  

            A believer’s journey of faith from orthodoxy to heterodoxy is only natural and should not be discouraged, but most religious leaders condemn those who question their orthodox doctrines and dogmas.  The result is that many nones (those who claim no religious preference) have left religion, but few have abandoned their faith.  The transition from religion to faith is a positive development in a globalized world of increasing religious pluralism since it lessens the likelihood of religious conflict.  Christians and Muslims who once sent missionaries to convert the heathens and infidels of other religions now struggle to live with each other as neighbors.    

           

            Christianity and Islam are exclusivist religions that encourage polarization and hostility, since each claims to be the one true faith.  Since the Reformation, the Christian religion has mutated from the original Catholic and Protestant division into a panoply of competing faiths or denominations, a trend aided and abetted by critical biblical scholarship and the freedoms of religion and speech.  This process has diffused the contentious nature of exclusivist religion in libertarian democracies of the West but not in the Islamic East, where sectarian religious conflict predominates and apostasy and blasphemy laws prohibit the freedoms of religion and speech. 

            Islamism is fundamentalist Islam, and Salafism and Wahhabism are two prevalent strains of Sunni Islamism.  ISIS, al-Qaeda, Boko Haram and al-Shabaab have promoted particularly radical and oppressive forms of Islamism to justify their terrorism, and they will continue to attract disaffected Muslims to their violent cause until Muslims define Islam in a way that denies radical Islamism its legitimacy.  That will require Islam to reject apostasy and blasphemy laws and embrace the libertarian principles of democracy, human rights and the secular rule of law. 

            The fragmentation of Protestant Christianity into numerous denominations that continue to be exclusivist in matters of salvation but libertarian in their politics illustrates that the freedoms of religion and speech can mitigate the hostility between exclusivist religions and minimize virulent religious conflicts like those now plaguing the Middle East and Africa.

            Until Islam has embraced the freedoms of religion and speech, it must find the common ground needed to minimize sectarian conflict; and Islamic scholars have already identified that common ground.  In 2007 they offered the greatest commandment to love God and one’s neighbor as oneself as a common word of faith for Jews, Christians and Muslims alike; but there is a question whether loving one’s neighbor—especially one’s unbelieving neighbor—is an accepted norm within Islam.  The enforcement of apostasy and blasphemy laws and sectarian conflict in Islamic nations since the Arab Spring of 2011 has indicated there is no tolerance—much less love—of one’s unbelieving neighbors within Islam.

            The rigid and exclusivist religious doctrines of Christianity and Islam encourage religious conflict and discourage the growth of individual faith.  Making a distinction between faith and religion is of my own doing, not that of Webster, who defines the terms as synonymous—as is my use of experience and reason as a means of transcending the limits of religion with faith.  My purpose is to illustrate how exclusivist religious doctrines based on scripture and tradition discourage the growth of faith based on experience and reason.  Advances in knowledge coupled with experience and reason will always challenge the boundaries of orthodox religion, and when enough believers move beyond those boundaries religious conflict is minimized.

            The world needs more faith and less religion.  The freedoms of religion and speech have enabled believers in libertarian democracies of the West to transcend the rigid constraints of orthodox religion, and believers in Islamic cultures can experience the same religious and political liberation once they eliminate apostasy and blasphemy laws and embrace the principles of democracy, human rights and the secular rule of law.  Those libertarian principles can bring diversity to Islam just as they did to Judaism and Christianity, and that would minimize sectarian religious conflict and debunk the legitimacy of radical Islamism.

Notes and References to Resources:

Previous blogs on related topics are: Religion and Reason, December 8, 2014; Faith and Freedom, December 15, 2014; Religion and New Beginnings: Salvation and Reconciliation into the Family of God, January 4, 2015; The Greatest Commandment, January 11, 2015; Love over Law: A Principle at the Heart of Legitimacy, January 18, 2015; Jesus Meets Muhammad: Is There a Common Word of Faith for Jews, Christians and Muslims Today? January 25, 2015; Promoting Religion through Evangelism: Bringing Light or Darkness? February 8, 2015; Jesus: A Prophet, God’s only Son, or the Logos? April 19, 2015; An Introduction to God is Not One, by Stephen Prothero, April 26, 2015;  A Fundamental Problem with Religion, May 3, 2015; Religion, Human Rights and National Security, May 10, 2015; The Future of Religion: In Decline and Growing, June 7, 2015; Christians Meet Muslims Today, June 14, 2015; Fear and Fundamentalism, July 26, 2015; Freedom and Fundamentalism, August 2, 2015; and Politics and Religious Polarization, September 20, 2015. 

The four components of the Wesleyan Quadrilateral—scripture, tradition, experience and reason—are described in Our Theological Task in The Book of Discipline of the United Methodist Church, 2012 (The United Methodist Publishing House, Nashville Tennessee) at pages 78-91. See https://www.cokesbury.com/forms/DynamicContent.aspx?id=87&pageid=920.  It should be noted that reason includes critical biblical scholarship that relates to interpretations of scripture that are part of tradition, illustrating how the four components are interrelated.

On how nones have left religion without abandoning their faith and spirituality, see the interview of Kaya Oakes, author of The Nones are Alright, at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/kaya-oakes-the-nones-are-alright_560d8787e4b0af3706dff3b1.

Religion, The Pope, and Politics in the Real World

 By Rudy Barnes, Jr. 

            Pope Francis has put a new face on institutional Christianity.  He has been called a Pope for all seasons for his willingness to address controversial issues and consider changes in traditional Catholic doctrines, but he is also “old school.”  When asked about gay priests, he said, “Who am I to judge?”  But he called the rise of the LGBT community “a new sin against God.”  He has offered forgiveness for those who have had abortions and streamlined the annulment process for the divorced, but he has stood fast opposing birth control while telling Catholics they should not breed “like rabbits.”

            Pope Francis has condemned consumerism and the unrestrained greed of capitalism as the enemy of the poor, and issued an encyclical on climate change that he described as moral guidance rather than a resolution of scientific disputes.  Conservatives like George Will have criticized the Pope’s idealistic positions as “fact-free flamboyance,” but Fareed Zakaria has noted that any criticism of the message of Pope Francis is a criticism of the message of Christ.

            While emphasizing moral ideals, the Pope has also addressed politics in the real world.  When he met with Turkey’s Erdogan last year the Pope condemned the fundamentalism and fanaticism of ISIS and asserted that the freedoms of religion and speech should be a matter of faith as well as law, and repeated that theme in his address to Congress last week.  The Pope has also challenged the 21,000 Catholic parishes in Europe to each take in a refugee family.

            Pope Francis has exemplified the greatest commandment to love God and one’s neighbor as oneself.  Translated into real-world politics, that is not just an ideal but a moral imperative to put love over law and balance individual freedom with providing for the common good.  That means emphasizing the common good in libertarian democracies where individual rights have often obscured public obligations, and emphasizing individual rights in Islamic nations where apostasy and blasphemy laws preclude the fundamental freedoms of religion and speech.

            Religion and politics are interrelated forces in the real world that can help us or hurt us.  They can bring us together or polarize us.  When Jesus spoke of reconciliation and redemption in a universal family of God it was not based on belief in any religion, but on sharing the power of God’s reconciling love to overcome our fear and suspicion of others—especially those of other religions.  Islamic scholars have asserted that the greatest commandment to love God and neighbor is a common word of faith for Jews, Christians and Muslims alike.  But is it?

            Religious fundamentalism is an obstacle to religious reconciliation.  Its exclusivism creates fear and hate among religions, polarizing them in a world of increasing religious pluralism.  Religious fundamentalists—whether Jew, Christian or Muslim—believe that their holy scripture is the inerrant and infallible manifestation of God’s word and law, thus preventing them from supporting the supremacy of the U.S. Constitution and its secular rule of law.  Religious fundamentalists are a minority among Jews and Christians, but recent polls indicate that fundamentalists are a majority among Muslims—and that has political implications.

            Article VI of the U.S. Constitution provides, inter alia: The Constitution, and the laws of the United States…and all Treaties…shall be the supreme Law of the Land.  All officers of the U.S. and the several States shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation to support this Constitution, but no religious Test shall ever be required. 

            Kim Davis is a fundamentalist Christian and county clerk in Kentucky who went to jail for refusing to perform her duty to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples because it conflicted with her religious beliefs.  It would be the same for any fundamentalist Jew or Muslim who could not put loyalty to the U.S. Constitution ahead of submission to Mosaic Law for Jews or to the Qur’an and Islamic law, or shari’a, for Muslims.               

            The 1960 Presidential election provided an example of such questioned loyalty.  As a Catholic John F. Kennedy had to assure the American public that his ultimate loyalty was to the U.S. Constitution and not to the Pope, the Vatican or to cannon law.  Today any person of faith seeking public office—whether Jew, Christian or Muslim—would have to pass the same political loyalty test.  And it is hard to imagine any fundamentalist believer passing that test.

            Believers in the U.S. who are not public officials can resort to peaceful civil disobedience to assert the moral supremacy of their religious standards of legitimacy over those of secular law, but they must still acknowledge the supremacy of secular law over religious law.  That is a prerequisite for anyone holding public office in the U.S. and applies to Christian fundamentalists like Kim Davis as well as to Jewish and Muslim fundamentalists who cannot subordinate their religious laws to the supremacy of the U. S. Constitution and its secular rule of law.

            The visit of Pope Francis to the U.S. has come during a messy debate over religion, politics and law, and his emphasis on moral ideals underscored the need for religious standards of legitimacy to be voluntary moral standards rather than coercive laws—but moral standards that shape our politics and law.  The greatest commandment summarizes the moral imperative of Jews and Christians to love their neighbors as themselves—including their unbelieving neighbors.  If Muslims can join with Jews and Christians and truly embrace that moral principle, then the three great religions of the book can be reconciled and coexist with a lasting peace.

Notes and References to Resources:

Previous blogs on related topics are: Religion and Reason, December 8, 2014; Faith and Freedom, December 15, 2014; Religion and New Beginnings: Salvation and Reconciliation into the Family of God, January 4, 2015; The Greatest Commandment, January 11, 2015; Love over Law: A Principle at the Heart of Legitimacy, January 18, 2015; Jesus Meets Muhammad: Is There a Common Word of Faith for Jews, Christians and Muslims Today? January 25, 2015; Wealth, Politics, Religion and Economic Justice, March 8, 2015; A Fundamental Problem with Religion, May 3, 2015; Liberation from Economic Oppression, May 31, 2015; Christians Meet Muslims Today, June 14, 2015; Fear and Fundamentalism, July 26, 2015; Freedom and Fundamentalism, August 2, 2015; Balancing Individual Rights with Collective Responsibilities, August 9, 2015; Accommodating Religious Freedom under the Rule of Secular Law, September 13, 2015; and Politics and Religious Polarization, September 20, 2015. 

On Pope Francis as a pope for all seasons, see http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/local/2015/09/14/a-pope-for-all-seasons/?wpmm=1&wpisrc=nl_evening.

On George Will’s criticism of the fact-free flamboyance of Pope Francis, see https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/pope-franciss-fact-free-flamboyance/2015/09/18/7d711750-5d6a-11e5-8e9e-dce8a2a2a679_story.html?wpmm=1&wpisrc=nl_headlines. 

On Fareed Zakaria noting that those who criticize the message of Pope Francis are criticizing the message of Christ, see https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-main-message-of-pope-francis-and-jesus/2015/09/24/997e1e54-62ea-11e5-b38e-06883aacba64_story.html?wpmm=1&wpisrc=nl_headlines.

On welcoming Pope Francis to the messy U.S. religious and political debate, see

http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/21/politics/pope-francis-religion-united-states/. 

On the address of Pope Francis to Congress, see http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/25/us/pope-francis-congress-speech.html and https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/pope-francis-to-address-divided-congress-in-washington-on-thursday/2015/09/23/971b0a9e-6260-11e5-b38e-06883aacba64_story.html.

On Pope Francis condemning religious fundamentalism and promoting religious freedom, see

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/pope-francis-religious-fundamentalism.