Walter Rauschenbusch 1

The essential purpose of Christianity is to transform human society into the Kingdom of God by regenerating *all* human relations and reconstituting them in accordance with the will of God. The religious spirit is a factor of incalculable power in the making of history. Unless the economic and intellectual factors are strongly reinforced by religious enthusiasm [the communitarian gospel], the whole social movement may prove abortive. The vastness and the free sweep of concentrated wealth on the one side, the independence, intelligence, moral vigor, and political power of the common people on the other side, promise a long-drawn grapple of contesting forces, but if God be for us who can be against us? It is the religious leaders of the people who give direction to the forces of religion, but most have been coopted by the system [prophets for profit; it is up to the common to be led by the Spirit of God, the common spirit granted to all who seek for the *perfecting* of humanity; Work out *your own* salvation with fear (respect, reverence for God) and trembling (Phil. 2:12)]. The conscience of Christendom is halting and groping, *perplexed by contradicting voices*, still poorly informed on essential questions, justly reluctant to part with the treasured maxims of the past, and yet conscious of the call of the future, the voice of our children.

Walter Rauschenbusch 1

Walter Rauschenbusch 2

Ascertaining what was the *original and fundamental purpose* of the great Christian movement - the *life and teachings* of Jesus, and the *dominant tendencies* of primitive Christianity, is imperative due to the impossibility of handling of questions so vital to the economic, the social, and the moral standing of great and antagonistic classes of men, without jarring precious interests and convictions, and without giving men the choice between the bitterness of social repentance and the bitterness of moral resentment. Men must overcome the temptations which made the wrong almost inevitable, and the points of view in which they entrench themselves to save their self-respect. Those who come after us will live in a world which our sins have blighted or which our love of right has redeemed. We must do our thinking on these great questions, not with our eyes fixed on our accounts [the entrenched fear, the blinders], but with a wise outlook on the fields of the future and with the consciousness that the spirit of the Eternal is seeking to distill from our lives some essence of righteousness before they pass away. [Christianity and the Social Crisis by Walter Rauschenbusch 1907, 1913 edition, [with additions]]

Walter Rauschenbusch 2

Orestes A. Brownson 1

The remedy is to be sought first in the destruction of the priest [the systemic priesthood: religious, governmental and business]; we are not mere destructives; we delight not in pulling down; but the bad must be removed before the good can be introduced; conviction and repentance precede regeneration; moreover we are Christians, and it is only by following out the Christian law, and the example of the early Christians, that we can hope to effect anything; Christianity is the sublimest protest against the priesthood ever uttered ... in the person of [Christ] Jesus both God and Man protested against the priesthood -- we may offend in what we say, but we cannot help that; we insist upon it, that the complete and final destruction of the priestly order, in every practical sense of the word priest, is the first step to be taken towards elevating the laboring classes ... He who redeemed man did not spring from the priestly class ... the chief priests were at the head of those who demanded his crucifixion ...

Let us have no class of men whose profession it is to minister at the altar [the altar of power and commerce]; let us leave this matter to Providence; when God raises up a prophet, let that prophet prophesy as God gives him utterance ... let us have none to prophesy for hire [prophets for profit] ... none of your hireling priests, your "dumb dogs" that will not bark ... what are the priests of Christendom as they now are?; miserable panderers to the prejudices of the age, loud in condemning sins nobody is guilty of, but silent as the grave when it concerns the crying sin of the times ... the next step in this work of elevating the working classes will be to resuscitate the Christianity of Christ; the Christianity of the Church has done its work; we have had enough of that Christianity ...

Orestes A. Brownson 1

Orestes A. Brownson 2

According to the Christianity of Christ no man can enter the kingdom of God who does not labor with all zeal and diligence to establish the kingdom of God on the earth; who does not labor to bring down the high and bring up the low; to break the fetters of the bound and set the captive free; to destroy all oppression, establish the reign of justice, which is the reign of equality, between man and man; to introduce new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness, wherein all shall be as brothers, loving one another, and no one possessing what another lacketh - no man can be a Christian who does not labor to reform society ... no man can be a Christian who does not refrain from all practices by which the rich grow richer and the poor poorer [EXPATRIATION], and who does not do all in his power to elevate the laboring classes, so that one man shall not be doomed to toil while another enjoys the fruits; so that each man shall be free and independent ...

We grant the power of Christianity in working out the reform we demand; we agree that one of the most efficient means of elevating the working men is to christianize the community, but you must christianize it; it is the gospel of Jesus you must preach, and not the gospel of the priests ... let it be the genuine Gospel [the communitarian way] ... and not the pseudo-gospel, [the gospel of men; worshipping in vain; commandments of men] which lulls the conscience asleep, and permits men to feel that they may be servants of God while they are slaves to the world, the flesh and the devil ... we must preach no Gospel that permits men to feel that they are honorable men and good Christians, although rich and with eyes standing out with fatness, while the great mass of their brethren are suffering from iniquitous laws, from mischievous social arrangements, and pining away for the want of the refinements and even the necessaries of life -- we speak strongly and pointedly on this subject, because we are desirous of arresting attention

... the redemption of the world is understood to mean simply the restoration of mankind to the favor of God in the world to come; their redemption from the evils of inequality, of factitious distinctions, and iniquitous social institutions [in the present world] counts for nothing in the eyes of the Church and this is its condemnation [the Mammon systemic, the origins of the evil; band-aid solutions provide temporary relief but no cure; you cannot use evil (the systemic) to propagate the good, in doing so you negate the good]. -- [Orestes A. Brownson (1803-76), The Laboring Classes, 1840 [with additions]].

Orestes A. Brownson 2

Christian Thoughts: A Powerful Delusion

Saturday, December 12, 2009

A Powerful Delusion blog link

With millions upon millions in the service to Mammon, who is left to raise the alarm? Who is left to seek to counteract the effects of service to Mammon? And who is willing to hate and despise Mammon as a consequence of seeking to serve God. And what we formerly took for granted, now is revealed to be the service to Mammon all around us. Indeed, there is no way to reconcile the glaring contradictions of those serving Mammon unopposed and unhindered, and unencumbered.

And with service to Mammon, the world becomes innundated with false prophets who instinctively peddle the false hope that God will do nothing. As a matter of fact, the service to Mammon works on the premise that God will not interfere in the affairs of man and put an end to the abomination of hating and despising him for the sake of the luxury and wealth offered by the service to Mammon.

Christian Thoughts blog home

As the heart and spirit moves, so does the pen. JESUS IS LORD.

Christian Thoughts: A Powerful Delusion

International Forum On Globalization

Look at the facts, weigh the judgements vs. free trade, globalization; the TNC corporate model = dependence, ie., Third World Nations, the starving exporting food to meet the demands of the TNCs - most of the biggest TNCs, these private monoliths (and private profits) were researched and developed by US public monies, tax dollars, over the past 50 years - companies merged, employees purged, profits and CEO salaries surged; the TNC contribution to employment argument vs. disestablishment is moot -- the destruction, the non-sustainable growth; third-world forced trade, imports/exports, TNC agenda against self-sufficiency vs. the TNC argument that no growth = standard of living cut in half in an increasing world population; a prescription without corporate growth = decline of rights, human and environmental leading to war, etc., the corporate responsibility vs. future anarchy, protecting mankind [the corporation as *saviour*] - who will prevail? - the answer is *the strong*, they will set the rules [the golden rule: those who have the power and the gold set the rules, must be negated] vs. the double-speak, the construction of words, ie., the WTO declaration; the corporate *monetized minds* emphasizing democracy yet ridiculing the democratic rights and decisions of citizens [ie., the MAI, the subordination of democracy by its self-appointed protectors]. -- [based on International Forum On Globalization, www.ifg.org; Seattle-WTO, Nov.99; debate broadcast on NPR-Alternative Radio, Jan.15.00 [with additions]]

IFG and Allies Look Back to Seattle and Forward to Copenhagen

On Monday, November 23rd, 2009, IFG organized a public evening at the First Unitarian Universalist Center in San Francisco. The forum's speakers reflected back on the 10th anniversary of the historic WTO shutdown in Seattle, Washington, in November 1999, and looked forward to the growing peoples' movement on climate justice about to converge in December of this year in Copenhagen, Denmark. The event featured activists involved in organizing around the connections between them both through local actions taking place across the US on November 30th and December 7th.

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International Forum On Globalization

Antiwar.com article

Our Chief Industry: War

The economy may be collapsing, but the war business is booming

by Justin Raimondo, November 18, 2009 article link

While our factories have long since moved abroad, where wages are lower and regulation is lax, and our crippled industries are in Dr. Obama’s economic intensive care unit, on life support and awaiting last rites, America’s number-one export – representing, by far, our single largest capital investment – is our overseas military presence. What Chalmers Johnson referred to as our "empire of bases" is the framework of an international economic system in which the division of labor is roughly as follows: while Asia is the factory of the world, South America the farmland, and Europe increasingly a theme park/museum, the U.S. role is that of world gendarme. ...

Before the big crash of 2008, you’ll recall, in the glory days of the bubble years, our elites were all atwitter with a vague, glowing vision of the new economic reality, which touted the alleged benefits of "globalization." More than just the traditional free-market prescription of free trade, this concept envisioned extending the reach and influence of Western finance capital over the entire globe. At the end of this road – at "the end of history," as Francis Fukuyama famously put it – we would fall into the all-encompassing embrace of the emerging world state and live happily ever after.

This ever-upward-and-onward Panglossian view, which identified growing Western domination of the global economy with the march of progress itself, was the underlying rationale of an increasingly aggressive policy of U.S. military and political intervention worldwide. We said we were fighting for civilization as we bombed some of the oldest cities in Balkans, and when" humanitarian" interventionism gave way to a more Roman concept of America’s role in the world – the dividing line being, roughly, 9/11/01 – still we invoked the defense of universal values as the ultimate justification for occupation and mass murder. We unhesitatingly identified ourselves and our interests with the advent of modernity and took up the old Kiplingesque burden of empire with alacrity.

This kind of hubris, however, has since gone out of fashion. The trauma of Iraq and an economic downturn have tamped down our crusading fever; a new appeal is needed in order to buttress the global economic and political order our ruling elites once thought they had in their grasp. At a time when the whole rationale for our endless "war on terrorism" is being challenged, a more pragmatic course is called for.

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Monthly Review MRZine article

Crisis of the Capitalist System: Where Do We Go from Here?

by Immanuel Wallerstein article link

The Harold Wolpe Lecture, University of KwaZulu-Natal, 5 November 2009

The depression into which the world has fallen will continue now for quite a while and go quite deep. It will destroy the last small pillar of relative economic stability, the role of the U.S. dollar as a reserve currency of safeguarding wealth. As this happens, the main concern of every government in the world -- from the United States to China, from France to Russia to Brazil to South Africa, not to speak of all the weaker governments on the world scene -- will be to avert the uprising of the unemployed workers and the middle strata whose savings and pensions disappear. The governments are turning to protectionism and printing money as their first line of defense, as ways of dealing with popular anger.

Such measures may postpone the dangers the governments fear and may assuage momentarily the pain of ordinary people. But they will eventually probably make the situation even worse. We are entering a gridlock of the system, from which the world will find it extremely difficult to extract itself. The gridlock will express itself in the form of a constant set of ever wilder fluctuations, which will make short-term predictions -- both economic and political -- virtually guesswork. And this in turn will aggravate the popular fears and alienation. ...

From here on in, we are living amidst the bifurcation of the systemic process. The question is no longer, how will the capitalist system mend itself, and renew its forward thrust? The question is what will replace this system? What order will be chosen out of this chaos?

Of course, not everyone is aware of this as yet. Most people continue to operate as though somehow the system were continuing, using its old rules. They are not really wrong. The system does continue to operate, using its old rules. But now, using the old rules only exacerbates the structural crisis. However, some actors are quite aware that we are in a bifurcation. And they know, perhaps only tacitly, that at some point in a bifurcation, the collectivity of all actors leans definitively in one direction or another. One can say that a decision has been made, even if the use of the word "decision" sounds anthropomorphic.

We may think of this period of systemic crisis as the arena of a struggle for the successor system. The outcome may be inherently unpredictable but the nature of the struggle is very clear. We are before alternative choices. They cannot be spelled out in institutional detail, but they can be suggested in broad outline.

We can "choose" collectively a new stable system that essentially resembles the present system in some basic characteristics -- a system that is hierarchical, exploitative, and polarizing. There are, no doubt, many forms this could take, and some of these forms could be harsher than the capitalist world-system in which we have been living. Alternatively we can "choose" collectively a radically different form of system, one that has never previously existed -- a system that is relatively democratic and relatively egalitarian.

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Community Congregations 1

The hierarchical government form violates the 10C:

1. it is in the service of another god; BAAL [ownership; over and upon];

2. it is the Roman image, the image of the Beast;

3. it is taking God's name in vain; worshipping [as way of life] in vain;

[God's name(s) (His/our spiritual characteristics/responsibilities) denied; God's truth partially taught, but in *little strength*; His government has been denied; the strength has been consumed, in vain, from within];

4. it is employed, working for itself on the new moons, Sabbaths, holy days;

5. it is dishonoring God, our Father, and our Mother, the Church;

6. it is committing murder [the way of gain = the way of Cain];

7. it is committing adultery; fornication (with the world) as instrumentality;

8. it is stealing the authority of God away from the brethren; it is stealing God's tithes (community contribution) for its own work, the Gospel as product [maintaining the corporate church; way of gain as righteousness];

9. it is bearing false witness [hierarchy is NOT the government of God]; it is denying God's self-sufficient community [full preaching, witness]; it is denying the very "anointing" of the brethren, their ministry; it is (/they are) the "anti-Anointed";

10. it is covetous for position and power, honor and privilege; it is covetous for what its neighbor [the world] possesses.

The hierarchical government form is opposed to God, an enemy of God, *carnal*, yet, those within its grasp are our brethren -- you cannot exercise holy, righteous, spiritual character by utilizing the means of the world, the unholy, the unrighteous, the base; good cannot proceed out of evil [there is no good in evil, but, the *recognition* of the evil can bring the good] - God's presence will not occupy the same space, environment, with sin [evil is the absence of God; evil flows from sin, the negation of God's way; selfishness]; righteousness does not come from, originate, from unrighteousness, or its means, its instrumentality !!

Community Congregations 1

Community Congregations 2

We need to look at the governmental structure of the first-century church, built as it was on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, in which every person was a brother or sister and coheir with Christ; where no centralized hierarchy of power and control reigned supreme; where God's Spirit moved mightily among people who put their trust in Him alone -- we are the Body, *not* the corporation, of Christ; Jesus is our Master, King, High Priest and Lord - He and His apostles set the standard for governance -- it is when we understand our weakness that God will be our strength - if our hearts are right and our garments figuratively wet from washing each other's feet, then God can use us in His ** Ministry of Reconciliation ** to prepare a people for Christ's second coming - but, if we insist on patterning our self-rule after the kings of the gentiles, which invariably results in people *acting* like kings of the gentiles, then God might call others who will serve Him and Him alone. -- [partial excerpt: Seeking the Government of God Here on Earth, by Lee Lisman; from the June 24, 1996 issue, In Transition]

Community Congregations 2

Community Congregations 3

The subject matter of 1 Corinthians 12 and Ephesians 4 is *spiritual gifts*, positions of service and responsibility, NOT positions of rank, privilege, and authority over, or upon, the brethren, but in the service for, and of, the brethren - eldership and service from within the congregation !! - there is no professional ministry, no central authority; the government of God is a relationship amongst the ministry of the brethren with Christ as High Priest directing *the* work: the autonomous, self-sufficient, loosely confederated, and flexible [not rigid, but open to new truth, new experience] community-congregations, each *a* work of God, growing in the grace and knowledge of God, each walking with Christ, working out their own salvation with fear and trembling [reverence and awe] !! - a plurality of elders, mature in the spirit, providing guidance in each, with a sharing of the gifts by the brethren amongst the congregations, a *reciprocal relationship* of freely sharing all that God has freely shared with them, for the edification and growth of the Body of Christ - in *brethren assemblies* there is NO imposed distinction between clergy and laity !!

Community Congregations 3

Community Congregations 4

God's self-sufficient and free community ensures preservation of, and absolute, prohibition of evil [fornication as instrumentality; female rivals (church typed: hierarchy; divisions), etc.] within, the COG - the COG is in league [earth community covenant], in alliance with, the natural order of God's creation, in a *reciprocal relationship* [physical as-well-as spiritual; RESTORED TO LIFE] -- the COG is *our* dwelling, home, habitation, *the sacred tent* of God [the tabernacle]; it is a place of health, prosperity, and peace - the COG community is visited [to oversee, muster, charge, care for; do judgment] ** without sin ** [complicity, incur guilt; judge] [without losing oneself, without wandering from the way] - the absolute disestablishment of the hierarchical systemic accomplished; ** pre-millennial fulfillment ** possibility (it is up to us to avert the coming Holocaust); the COG persuaded, opened, made simple again; a very deep, and profound *work* NOW begins; the Holy Spirit deeply stirred, the COG collected, and bound together.

Community Congregations 4

Feast of Dedication 1 Hanukkah/Chanukah

The Feast of Dedication [Chanukah; the Festival of Lights] to GOD and to His Temple must be honored by the COG, just as Christ did [John 10:22-28]: [G] our dedication to God our Father, [O] our dedication to Others, through the body of Christ, [D] our dedication to the destruction of the works of the Devil [his systemic], by growing in grace and knowledge through God's Holy Spirit !! -- the continued use of the world's systemic by the COG is a validation of that which is and the inability to commit to that which ought to be, and we affirm a different vision of strength - God's strength [the application of His word] is dependent on our ability to create a world of love and caring, a world of peace and justice, a world in which every human being is treated as an embodiment of the Spirit of God [the community of God]; ** the works that we do in our Father's name, bear *witness* of us **.

Chislev 25 Festival of Lights or Dedication - beginning of the Jews' eight-day celebration in memory of the dedication of the altar in 164 B.C. after it had been defiled by Antiochus IV on the same date in 167 B.C. (Dan. 11:31; see also John 10:22).

G1456 egkainia; AV - feast of dedication 1) dedication, consecration; in particular the annual feast celebrated eight days beginning in the 25th of Chislev, instituted by Judas Maccabaeus [B.C. 164] in memory of the cleansing of the temple from the pollution of Antiochus Epiphanes.

Feast of Dedication 1 Hanukkah/Chanukah

Feast of Dedication 2

Chislev XXV The Feast of Dedication, viz. of the temple, profaned by the order of Antiochus Epiphanes, and repaired and purified by the care of Judas Maccabeus ["the hammer" or Maccabee]. This festival Christ honored with his presence at Jerusalem. It is likewise called the Feast of Lights because, during the time of its celebration, the people used to illuminate their houses, by setting up candles at every one's door; I Mac. iv. 52., II Mac. ii. 16., John x. 22.

John 10:22. And it was at Jerusalem the ** feast of the dedication **, and it was winter. 23 And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomon's porch. 24 Then came the Jews round about him, and said unto him, How long dost thou make us to doubt? If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly. 25 Jesus answered them, I told you, and ye believed not: *the works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness of me*. 26 But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you. 27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: 28 And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any [man] pluck them out of my hand. 29 My Father, which gave [them] me, is greater than all; and no [man] is able to pluck [them] out of my Father's hand. 30 I and [my] Father are one.

31 Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him. 32 Jesus answered them, Many good works have I shewed you from my Father; for which of those works do ye stone me? 33 The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God. 34 Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, ** Ye are gods? ** 35 If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken; 36 Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God? 37 If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. 38 But if I do, though ye believe not me, ** believe the works **: that ye may know, and believe, that the Father [is] in me, and I in him.

Feast of Dedication 2

Feast of Dedication 3

The spiritual message of who, and what we are, our responsibilities [John 10:34; the Family of God, our self-awareness], and of the "spiritual warfare" that we are engaged in [one definition (occurrence) of evil is our lack of awareness, the absence of *ourselves* (we are a part of God, and our absence is an absence of God's presence) both within and without the COG] - the COG is rededicated by keeping the Feast of Dedication on Chislev 25 for eight days [one day's oil burned for eight days symbolizing the miracle of the Holy Spirit; circumcision (physical) on the eight day (spiritually of the heart); Mary impregnated by the Holy Spirit most likely at this time, Christ was "conceived" at the time of the winter solstice when the night and darkness are longest; the "light" of the world] - a candle is lit each evening [using a Menorah], with each day of celebration focused on a different aspect of God's community [our "agape" relationship with God and with each other] - Chanukah celebrates the world's first recorded national liberation struggle; a message to the COG that we must not worship at the altar of this world's economic, political and cultural "reality," that we must overthrow all bondage [secular as-well-as religious], that we must rededicate God's Temple [which is *each-and-every one of us*] to God !! [Feast of Dedication 1-3] [based on Tikkun Magazine, Nov/Dec.2000]

Feast of Dedication 3

Feast of Dedication 4

The *will* to define our existence must be *God's Will* !! - we are *all* inspired and backed by God [the common fellowship] - we are to give of our gifts, to make a contribution, to the body of Christ, including the body of knowledge and wisdom [the application of that knowledge; the power of God] - we must promote the advancement of knowledge and dialogue, honestly seeking understanding of any resultant conflicts, we must build on the foundation, the existing truths [the template], all-the-while realizing that knowledge without wisdom is like faith without works - we must utilize *all* that God gives us [faith, reason, revelation, etc.] and realize that blind rejection [without due recourse] is *not* protection of belief [we can easily be the source of each other's negation] - many different attitudes, approaches, methods and conclusions will be represented [we are the human face of God], a substantial exchange of views, all-the-while trusting God to bring the harmony !! -- this *community of mind*, a complete and authentic presence of individual, begotten human beings, one to another, inspiring each other with the courage to take the risk of being the source of each other's completion, in the full faith of Jesus Christ, reverencing the animating Spirit that dwells within and among us - that which links us is what *ennobles* us and we must be cognizant of this because *holocaust*, the horror of our monstrous *failure of connection* in the COG, will be the tragic result if we don't !!

Feast of Dedication 4

Feast of Dedication 5

Our fellowship must have the *possession of God's mind*, must be fully prepared to show by words or teaching, to do justice to, to protect and defend, the truth of God, and must be ready to refute and to destroy [to cast out and to cast down], *all* decisions, reasoning's and judgments, that are opposed to, or against, the knowledge of God [and the application of that knowledge (worship and power and wisdom); the spiritual gifts], including the underlying consciousness and systemic structures [the "high things", the "higher powers" of hierarchy both secular and religious]; THOSE SELF-EXALTED AGAINST GOD utilizing the suppression of spontaneity, the enacting of roles, the pervasive imposition of "acceptable" behavior, the ensuing artificiality and stress, and, finally, the collective experience that simultaneously divides a group of people by an infinite distance and unites them in the false communion of being-other-than-themselves together !!

Feast of Dedication 5

Feast of Dedication 6

The *perfected and gifted fellowship* must *STILL* the enemy within and without the COG, and the avenger [the curse, the Tribulation holocaust] by the *power of God*, the strength ordained !! -- there is simply no depth of evil to which a church/society cannot sink once it abandons love as its governing principle, and the test of love's authenticity is that in its presence nobody gets harmed !! - therefore the "imaginary and false community" that purports to satisfy our need for connectedness and recognition always reveals its duplicity by having to generate an *unworthy class of non-members* to outwardly personify the "haunting inner demon" of personal alienation - true "agape love" realizes itself through the *affirmation of the other*; we are, to varying degrees and in the aggregate, *blind*, and in our blindness we injure ourselves and our world; we become *lame* - we must examine with righteous perseverance the symptoms and causes of alienation wherever they manifest themselves; we must be *healed* !!

[Feast of Dedication 4-6] [based on Tikkun, Jan/Feb.2001, pp.66-67]

Feast of Dedication 6

Tikkun Magazine

Chanukah and Christmas Guides (pdf's) download page

CHANUKAH
CELEBRATING THE WORLD’S FIRST RECORDED NATIONAL LIBERATION STRUGGLE
evening of December 11 to December 19, 2009

The Story
(the non-mythologized version you may never have heard)

... To fight against superior military force was totally illogical and unrealistic from the Hellenizers’ standpoint. But the Maccabees rejected assessments of “realism” that derived from the framework imposed by the imperialists, and drew instead upon the Jewish religion and the stubborn spirit of a people who had come to believe that every human being was created in the divine image, hence had a right to be treated with respect and decency. These were people who could not submit to the rule of the imperialist, and whose religion taught them that they need not do so, because the central Power of the universe was a power that rejected the reality of oppression. Their Torah told the tale of their origins in a slave rebellion against another imperialist power thought to be invincible—Egypt of the Pharaohs.

Armed with these stories, the Maccabees and their followers used guerrilla tactics to win the first national liberation struggle in recorded history. In 165 bce they retook Jerusalem, purified and rededicated the Temple (chanukah means dedication), and rekindled the eternal light that was to glow therein. The fighting continued many years more,but eventually the Maccabees and their descendants (called Hashmona’im) set up an independent Jewish state. ...

The miracle was this: a critical mass of people had come to recognize that there was a Force in the world that made possible the transformation of what is to what ought to be (the Force that we call God). That recognition, when it takes hold of large numbers of people, becomes a manifestation of God’s presence, and in that presence “the power of the people,” suffused with divine energy, becomes greater than all the technology and manipulations of the most sophisticated forms of oppression.

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Jeff Sharlet, The Family, 2008

Jeff Sharlet, The Family blog entry

From the bookjacket:

They are the Family—fundamentalism’s avant-garde, waging spiritual war in the halls of American power and around the globe. They consider themselves the new chosen, congressmen, generals, and foreign dictators who meet in confidential cells, to pray and plan for a “leadership led by God,” to be won not by force but through “quiet diplomacy.” Their base is a leafy estate overlooking the Potomac in Arlington, Virginia, and Jeff Sharlet is the only journalist to have written from inside its walls.

The Family is about the other half of American fundamentalist power—not its angry masses, but its sophisticated elites. Sharlet follows the story back to Abraham Vereide, an immigrant preacher who in 1935 organized a small group of businessmen sympathetic to European fascism, fusing the Far Right with his own polite but authoritarian faith. From that core, Vereide built an international network of fundamentalists who spoke the language of establishment power, a “family” that thrives to this day. In public, they host prayer breakfasts; in private they preach a gospel of “biblical capitalism,” military might, and American empire. Citing Hitler, Lenin, and Mao, the Family's leader declares, "We work with power where we can, build new power where we can't."

Sharlet’s discoveries dramatically challenge conventional wisdom about American fundamentalism, revealing its crucial role in the unraveling of the New Deal, the waging of the Cold War, and the no-holds-barred economics of globalization. The question Sharlet believes we must ask is not “What do fundamentalists want?” but “What have they already done?”

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Jeff Sharlet, The Family, 2008