The Worst Thing You Can Call Someone

Since the end of World War II, even though the world since then has seen massacres by Stalin, Pol Pot, Pinochet, Idi Amin, and others, there is still no worse judgment to be made than comparing a leader anywhere to Hitler and his party to Nazis. Name-calling in general has been on the rise in the past decade in the United States, and Hitler name-calling is increasing at an alarming rate, notes Edna Friedberg of the William Levine Family Institute for Holocaust Education at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, who finds the trend “disturbing.” She writes,

 

This oversimplified approach to complex history is dangerous. When conducted with integrity and rigor, the study of history raises more questions than answers. And as the most extensively documented crime the world has ever seen, the Holocaust offers an unmatched case study in how societies fall apart, in the immutability of human nature, in the dangers of unchecked state power. It is more than European or Jewish history. It is human history. Almost 40 years ago, the United States Congress chartered a Holocaust memorial on the National Mall for precisely this reason: The questions raised by the Holocaust transcend all divides.

 

Neither the political right nor left has a monopoly on exploiting the six million Jews murdered in a state-sponsored, systematic campaign of genocide to demonize or intimidate their political opponents.

 

Both right and left, she points out, have made use of these dangerous analogies.

 

Recently someone I know slightly posted on Facebook about Nazis in relation to American politics. He listed a few oddly chosen political sins of the Nazis (leaving out depriving people of basic citizenship rights, plus the whole Holocaust death machine!!!) as follows: They “tore down statues; banned free speech; blamed economic hardships on one group of people; instituted gun control; put the state before God; nationalized health care; and placed strict government regulations on industry.” He then posed the question (though it looks as if he copied the whole post from someone else; I don't really know), “Does this sound like the policies of a current political party in the U.S.?”

 

Well, let’s see. Let’s look at those “sins” one at a time. Here's what he says the Nazis did, which he thinks sounds like one of the American political parties:

 

Removed statues. Statues of Confederate leaders have been removed in more than one American city and state—are we talking about any statues other than those of Confederates? —and we can probably thank the primarily Democrats for that. Please note that the statues removed were leaders of an armed insurrection against the U.S. government, leaders of an opposing army in a war that cost over 600,000 American deaths, a war that took place over a century and a half ago; that most of those statues went up much later, during the 1890s, the Jim Crow era, i.e., when Reconstruction ended and Southern states began enforcing strict segregation laws; and that the current Republican president, in sympathy with the old Confederacy, has ordered a couple of those statues put back up. (He has never wanted to be the president of “all Americans” and has made that clear time and time again.) 

 

On the other hand, it has been the present Republican administration that removed online memorials to Black and Native Americans, and the Republican president himself had portraits of President Obama and both presidents Bush moved out of a highly visible area of the White House to a place where they are hidden from public view. 

 

Banned free speech. Sounds like the current Republican administration to me, where any criticism of the president is seen as treason, radio stations are threatened with loss of their licenses, newspapers are sued for printing true stories that show the administration in a bad light, etc. I suspect, however, given his general sympathies, that the questioner has in mind bans against “hate speech,” particularly on college and university campuses, so here’s the way the United Nations explains that idea. Did you follow the link for the definition? If “free speech” is an absolute, then “hate speech” must be permitted, and if this is where you come down on it, both parties are guilty restricting speech. The line between acceptable and unacceptable speech under the line has always shifted with shifts in political climate, in every country of the world, under all manner of political power. One absolutist on the matter wrote that he would not even ban yelling “Fire!” in a crowded theatre. Can you go that far? I can’t, although I tend in general to lean towards freedom. 

 

Blamed economic hardships on one group of people. Yes, Nazis blamed economic hardships on one group, the Jews, though they also scapegoated gypsies, homosexuals, disabled people, dark-skinned people, etc., etc. Republicans blame economic hardships on immigrants and Democrats, two different groups. They also love to call Democrats "socialists," because that's a hot button that short-circuits thought for many of their listeners. Democrats blame Republicans for their policies that favor the wealthiest Americans at the expense of everyone else. Not sure how to score this one.

 

Gun control. I don’t know what the specific German laws about gun ownership were under the Nazis, but neither major party in the U.S. has ever advocated making gun ownership unlawful. Democrats do, however, favor the kind of laws that most Americans also find reasonable, 

while Republicans kow-tow to the gun lobby and see any law about ownership of any weapons as an infringement of individual rights. It's strange that while they oppose even the “morning-after pill” as “murder of a child,” they are willing to sacrifice the lives of actual living schoolchildren so that anyone who wants to own a military-style assault weapon can get his hands on one. So yes, if “gun control” is a sin, Democrats are guilty. 

 

Put the state before God. That, like the foregoing, would be in the eye of the beholder. The separation of church and state does not elevate the state above the church and certainly does not elevate it above God. It’s a huge topic, what any individual might mean by this claim. 

 

Nationalized health care. There is only one country in the world, as far as I know, that has national health care, and that is the United Kingdom. Other countries have national health insurance, and the U.S. made a move in that direction with the Affordable Care Act, stopping short of having the government as a single payer. So American health insurance is still the business of for-profit corporations. Hospitals and clinics, too, which used to be owned and operated by cities and religious groups when I was young, are now for-profit businesses. Bottom line: We do not have nationalized health care. Neither major party has pushed for it. There is no country in the world that puts a greater burden on its people to pay exorbitant fees to private companies for health insurance and health care. 

 

Put strict government regulations on industry. This is certainly a sin of the Democratic party. Republicans would prefer that business be completely unregulated, with no safeguards for workers or for public health and no concern for the national resources of the country, on which all of us depend, including the industries.

 

Here's how I see these points, one by one, in summary: 

 

Every country chooses its heroes, and most adults recognize that we must choose our heroes carefully. 

 

Free speech would be less controversial if public, commonly accepted standards of civility and decency were still in place and respected and adhered to by our country’s leaders. 

 

Purposeful attributions of blame are unfortunately common in politics, but anyone following the news can see that it is much more common coming from Republicans, starting with the current president, the Blamer-in-Chief. 

 

I don’t know that this country will ever have sensible, reasonable discussion of gun ownership and gun control. 

 

Putting one religion above all others (often in a very perverted, materialistic form), rather than “putting the state before God,” is what I see Republicans doing these days, whereas Democrats would be content to maintain the traditional separation of church and state as laid out by the Founders. 

 

Nationalized health care is a straw man: We don’t have it, and neither party advocates for it. 

Government regulations on industry are nothing but common sense; the absence of regulations would be nothing but the raping and pillaging our own land and our own people for the short-term gain of the wealthiest segment of the population. I should say, for the short-term gain of the segment of that segment who recognize only one value: money and the power it gives.

 

A more important question relating to the list, however, is—what, if anything, does this list say about either major American political party? Would anyone want to say that a country with gun regulations or regulations on industry is, because of those regulations, led by Nazi-like politicians? The idea is ludicrous. 

As for my own view (which would not be the view of the person who posted the list), I believe that analogies between the present Republican administration and its leader to Nazis and Hitler are unnecessary and beside the point. We don't need analogies. All we need to do is listen to what is said by the Blamer-in-Chief and his diehard supporters and watch what they are doing and ordering done. It's all plenty bad enough without comparing it to other people and times and places. So let's not undermine our testimony with a reductio ad Hitlerum.

 

But I will let Edna Friedberg have the last word today: 

 

Careless Holocaust analogies may demonize, demean, and intimidate their targets. But there is a cost for all of us because they distract from the real issues challenging our society, because they shut down productive, thoughtful discourse. At a time when our country needs dialogue more than ever, it is especially dangerous to exploit the memory of the Holocaust as a rhetorical cudgel. We owe the survivors more than that. And we owe ourselves more than that. 

Soldiers of the—Cross??? Or Something Else?

My Lutheran confirmation Bible

Persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire was bigtime. Churches were destroyed, worship meetings forbidden, clergy arrested, and followers of Jesus commanded to sacrifice to Roman gods. Margaret Nutting Ralph, Ph.D., writes that “Christians were vulnerable to persecution because they would not participate in emperor worship” and were therefore seen as unpatriotic.

Present-day countries with the highest levels of persecution against Christians are North Korea, Somalia, Libya, Eritrea, and Yemen--persecution that can involve physical attacks, legal discrimination, torture, arrest, even death. It should be noted here that North Korea is a single-party state, ruled by a single “Supreme Leader.”

 

If your Christian faith is discovered in North Korea, you could be killed on the spot. If you aren't killed, you will be deported to a labour camp and treated as a political criminal. You will be punished with years of hard labour that few survive. And it's not only you who will be punished: North Korean authorities are likely to round up your extended family and punish them too, even if your family members aren't Christians.

 

That is persecution. That is what it means to risk being a martyr to your faith in the 21^st century. 

 

On February 7, 2025, however, the president of the United States signed an order to create a national task force to “eliminate anti-Christian bias.” Official statements claim that this task force will promote “religious liberty” and increase grant opportunities (i.e., government funds) for “faith-based entities.” Presumably, focus will be on Christian “faith-based entities” (we'll look closer at that in a minute), since the formation of the task force implies bias against Christians and a need to correct that bias. 

 

Christians have never been persecuted in the United States of America. On the contrary, without any establishment of a state religion—and the Founders were very clear about wanting to leave Americans free to worship or even not worship as they might choose—Christianity has managed to be the dominant American religion from the beginning of the nation to the present day. Yet being dominant is not enough for many so-called Christians today. Nothing short of imposing their own political agenda on everyone else—and make no mistake, many groups of nominal “Christians” in America have a strong and determined right-wing political agenda—will satisfy the ambitions of those who have abandoned the teachings of Jesus but continue to use his name.

 

Back in October I wrote about a book published in 1833, Three Years in North America, by James Stuart, Esq. You can go back and read what I wrote earlier, but if you don’t want to bother I’ll repeat myself briefly. The Englishman who wrote the book, as his title indicates, spent three years traveling around the United States in the early 1800s, going as far south as Mississippi (maybe New Orleans, but I’d have to check that) and as far west as St. Louis, and during his time in our nation’s capital he attended a meeting of Congress where the business of the day was consideration of a bill that would close post offices on Sunday to respect the Sabbath.

 

One argument against the bill was that it violated freedom and equality (what we since came to call the separation of church and state) by elevating one religion above others. 

 

The constitution regards the conscience of the Jew as sacred as that of the Christian, and gives no more authority to adopt a measure affecting the conscience of a solitary individual, than that of a whole community. 

 

Another argument (that I found absolutely fascinating!) was that the bill insulted Christianity by implying that its followers were so weak in their faith that they needed to be forced by government to practice it! This argument can be generalized to oppose any attempt to establish a state religion.

 

A third argument was that favoring one religion over another had not made life peaceful in European nations. 

 

One member remarked that it was “perhaps fortunate” that the question was coming up so early in the life of the nation, “while the spirit of the revolution yet exists in full vigour,” the spirit of freedom of conscience belonging to every American and not to be abridged by what we would call Congressional overreach. The Founders thought they had settled the matter in Philadelphia, and the early 19^th century Congress clearly reaffirmed the answer to the question. But now we have a president who curries favor by granting special status to the already dominant religion, pretending that it has been under attack. 

 

How fragile must be the faith of Christians who see persecution when they hear the greeting “Happy Holidays!” in December!

 

BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE!

 

Attacks against world relief provided by Christian organizations initially seem at odds with the new protect-the-faith task force. How does it compute? For example --

 

Example #1: Relief aid around the world provided by Lutheran agencies (Lutheran Social Services, etc.) has been targeted by people in the current administration of Washington as “illegal payments.” One accuser was Michael Flynn, a Catholic, retired Army general, and former adviser to the current U.S. president. Unelected Elon Musk, a self-described “cultural Christian” (???), moved quickly to shut down payments. It is thought by some that work to resettle refugees was the blackest mark against the Lutheran relief agencies. Bishop Elizabeth Eaton, presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, responded (read her full statement here):

 

As a faith-based nonprofit, we have proudly served legally admitted refugees and immigrants for more than 85 years. This includes Afghan Allies who risked their lives to protect U.S. troops, as well as persecuted Christians, all of whom have been extensively vetted and approved by multiple U.S. government agencies before traveling to our country. We also remain committed to caring for legally admitted unaccompanied children forced to flee to the United States.

 

Example #2: J.D. Vance, another avowed Catholic, along with Flynn, has also targeted Catholic relief agencies. With USAID already forced by Musk to cut programs in war-torn Gaza and elsewhere, National Catholic Relief, a group founded by American bishops in 1943 to help survivors of World War II, says,

 

Now, Catholic Relief Services is facing the most serious existential threat in its history in light of proposed federal funding cuts [my emphasis added]. 

 

The director of the Office of International Justice and Peace for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops from 2004 to 2018, Stephen Colecchi, characterizes Musk’s stoppage of USAID funds as “haphazard and irresponsible”:

 

To target this tiny portion of the federal budget in such a haphazard and irresponsible way is going to cost people's lives and livelihoods. It is not a thoughtful or humane way to go about treating programs that help the poorest of the poor all over the world.

 

In Colecchi’s words, “the poorest of the poor.” In the words of a former board chair of Catholic Relief Services, Bishop Gerald Kicanas, “desperate people, living in desperate situations, struggling day by day, hour by hour.” These are the people who have been helped, whose risk of survival is now greater than ever. You have seen photographs of present-day Gaza! 

 

And yet, only the other day (everything done is “only the other day” in an administration not yet a month old, God help us!), the president ordered the creation of a “White House Faith Office” to “root out anti-Christian bias” in government and protect the Christian faith by supporting “faith-based entities.”

 

The woman named to lead the president’s new faith office is Paula White, a televangelist. I will not rehash her background or go over her many public statements (you can look those up yourself if you are unfamiliar with her) but want to highlight one single aspect of her ministry. Her teaching is that of the so-called "prosperity gospel." The message is pretty simple: God wants you to be rich! Follow me, and you’re following God! You can start down the road to riches by sending money to me so I can continue spreading the word (says the television preacher), and I promise it will come back to you tenfold. 

 

Where, I ask, is the Christian gospel in this? Where is Jesus? Where are the Beatitudes? 

 

Where is Matthew 6:19-21?

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. ²⁰ But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. ²¹ For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

 

Where is Matthew 6:24?

No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.

 

But put the pieces together, and they fit perfectly. 

The new administration in Washington has no interest in protecting the Christian faith or serving those truly persecuted (whatever faith they may profess, if any). Catholics and Lutherans are not "Christian" enough, in their warped view of a major world religion. The real sin of these long-established, traditional Christian churches is that by sending relief funds abroad, they are not directly enriching the greedy at home. 

What the billionaires now in charge really want to do is to make the world safe for the worship of mammon. Their sign is not that of the cross but of the dollar sign. Put the pieces together, and it all makes sense. 

If You Must Tell Lies –

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The other day I went down a rabbit hole, as people say these days, chasing the ninth commandment, “Thou shalt not bear false witness.” That’s the wording I remember from Sunday school days, the explanation we were given simply that lying was wrong. 

 

Newer translations online give the Biblical text as “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor,” and while some internet sites read the commandment as forbidding any false statement, others, even religious ones, claim that the commandment is not about lying in general but only requires that we refrain from giving false testimony about another. I’ll leave it to you to go down your own rabbit hole(s), if you find the prospect inviting.

 

For the moment, however, for the sake of discussion, let us accept the narrower interpretation. I have personal misgivings about allowing even “harmless” falsehoods, as in ordinary situations, dishonesty does nothing good for relationships, but for now, let that go and agree – for the sake of argument or discussion -- that I can lie about my age with impunity, and you can lie about your natural hair color, but we are all forbidden by the commandment to speak falsehoods against our neighbors. 

 

The next obvious question becomes, Who is to count as my neighbor? Only someone who lives in my immediate neighborhood? Someone I know? Someone I like?

 

The Jewish people are told in Leviticus to remember always that they were once slaves in Egypt and should therefore treat “the stranger among you” as one born in their land, a neighbor, while anyone who claims to be Christian and a follower of Jesus should recall the parable of the Good Samaritan and its message that even our enemies are our neighbors and should be loved as we love ourselves. 

 

Telling harmful lies about another person is slander, defamation of character, and constitutes grounds for lawsuit, whether the words are spoken on the witness stand or in the street. (On the witness stand, it is also perjury.) And when such lies – about entire groups of people -- are spoken publicly and widely disseminated, putting the slandered at risk for their very lives, how can a candidate for any public office, how can any public person whatsoever, claim justification for such lies because, for instance, lies about Haitian immigrants in this country legally “brought attention to the legitimate issue of illegal migration”? No!  

 

No! The Republican candidate for vice president claims to be a Catholic and has borne false witness against his neighbors. He also possesses a degree in law and is guilty of slander. This is not a matter of taking something out of context, as the context is public and broad, and his attempted justification has been publicly given. Going to confession does not undo the harm he has caused. He is unfit for any public office at any level. 

 

Moral of my story: If you must lie, lie about your age, your weight, your hair color – in short, lie about yourself, not someone else, and keep your lies trivial, please, IF YOU MUST LIE AT ALL. -- But really, is it necessary? Is it good for you? Do your words and actions align with what you claim are your beliefs? At issue is what is called character.

A Wise Friend's Response

A friend of mine who works for a Christian-based organization was asked to sign a declaration of faith as a condition for continued employment. She read it through and said sadly that she was unable to sign. "Why?" she was asked. "Because I don't believe it," she said in her direct but very sweet and honest way. She said, sadly, that if she had to sign to work there, she would have to resign.

They didn't want to lose her.

"What could you sign?" they next asked.

She thought a minute and then said, "I could sign that I believe in being kind to people."

The people took the paper away, and in the end no employees had to sign anything. My friend prevailed by standing her ground without yelling or shaking her fist at anyone.

Think Twice Before Throwing Out Quilts

One Sunday on an NPR show about religion I heard an interview with David Murrow, the author of Why Men Hate Going to Church. His basic thesis is simple. Everything about churches, he says, from the hymns to the religious metaphors to the flowers on the altar and quilts on the wall is aimed at women. Church is too feminine. Christianity, he might have said, has been feminized, and there’s not much room in churches for men to feel comfortable.

He objected several times in the interview to lace and quilts. Not manly. I’ve seen churches that featured, along with women’s handcrafted quilts, beautiful pieces of woodwork by men. In the interview, Murrow did not suggest bringing in men’s work, only throwing out women’s.

Get rid of the flowers, too, he says. Flowers are “feminine”? Flowers, I would remind Mr. Murrow, possess not only pistils but also stamens. Flowers are part of nature, i.e., creation. This is a problem?

When it comes to the hymns, I’m afraid Murrow has cherry-picked his facts. He cites “Onward, Christian Soldiers” as the old kind of hymn a man could sing but ignores a 1913 hymn often sung, in the old midcentury (20^th) days, on the very same Sundays,  “In the Garden," by Charles A. Miles. Sappy, romantic, elevator-type hymns are nothing new. Actually, “In the Garden” was one of my father’s favorites. How many hymns over the centuries have been of the martial variety, anyway? And should churches really be in the business of reviving the Crusades?

My own problem with most modern “praise music” isn’t that it’s “feminine” but that it’s sappy. That is, it sounds sappy to me. When I go to church, I don’t want to hear elevator music. For a lot of younger people, though, it’s what they’ve grown up with, and to them it is church music.

When asking why women outnumber men in churches, here are a few demographic facts the author might have consulted. More boy babies than girl babies are born, but beginning with the 25-54 age group, females outnumber males in the U.S., and the difference grows greater with age. For the 65+ age group in 2010, there were 132 for every hundred men.

As for the metaphors, I’m afraid Murrow is asking that Scripture be thrown out with the bathwater. He objects to the term “lost,” for instance, saying that men don’t like thinking of themselves as lost, which is why they hate asking for directions. So that parable of the lost sheep? Get rid of it! 

(If you’re curious about other parables, here’s a list. But be forewarned: You’ll find flowers! If you find admonitions to be a brave soldier or a captain of industry, let me know.) 

Murrow is also down on all “relationship” talk in the church. “Love thy neighbor”? “God is love”? Feminine talk! That won’t bring in “the guys,” as he calls them. Guys don't like to hear about relationships!

A long-time woman in local politics used to say she had learned years before from her mentor, “You gotta take care of your base!” Remember the Aesop fable of the dog who saw his reflection in the water and thought he was looking at another dog who had a bone? Those tempted to follow Mr. Morrow’s advice should think carefully about the ambitious reach they are contemplating.

If someone who has not read and does not plan to read a certain book can write a review of it, then this is a book review. Otherwise, I don't know what to call it. You be the judge.

One final word:

At the annual St. Wenceslaus chicken dinner, the men of the church cook the chicken, and they do a fantastic job of it. Real men are not scared away by  the presence of quilts.

Quilts at St. Wenceslaus Church, Gills Pier, Michigan

Practicing Self-Denial

As everyone knows, today is Mardi Gras, the festival preceding the 40 days of Lent, but while Mardi Gras has become synonymous with orgies of self-indulgence, Lenten observances have mostly fallen by the wayside. I can’t help wondering: what is the point of a stand-alone Fat Tuesday?

“The purpose of Lent is to be a season of fasting, self-denial, Christian growth, penitence, conversion, and simplicity,” reads another site I found online. This site likens Lenten observance to a “spiritual spring cleaning.”

Even without Christian theology, a period of spring self-denial can make sense. In earlier centuries, winter stores were probably pretty low by March, and tightening belts was a way to get through until planting season. For spoiled and self-indulgent modern Americans, on the other hand, it can be as simple as a diet to shed unwanted winter pounds. What is “given up,” doesn’t have to be food, of course, but the basic idea is disciplined self-denial.

My first idea was to give up complaining for Lent, but after a few days’ reflection I realized that complaining is something I should give up, anyway, not something good to deny myself temporarily. Still, it wouldn’t be self-denial if it weren’t something tempting that has tremendous power over me. What could it be?

I’m thinking coffee. It’s a big step, but I want to take a big step. I want to clean my spirit along with my house.