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"Hypocrite Nation"

by Open-Publishing - Friday 18 March 2005
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Wars and conflicts International Religions-Beliefs USA

http://www.johndear.org/articles/hy...

"Hypocrite Nation"
Rev. John Dear
March, 2005

Last September, I spoke to some 2,000 students during their annual lecture at a Christian college in Pennsylvania. After a short prayer service for peace centered on the Beatitudes, I took the stage. “Now let me get this straight,” I said. “Jesus says, ‘Blessed are the peacemakers,’ which means he does not say, ‘Blessed are the warmakers,’ which means, the warmakers are not blessed, which means warmakers are cursed, which means, if you want to follow the nonviolent Jesus you have to work for peace, which means, we all have to resist this horrific, evil war on the people of Iraq.”

With that, the place exploded, and it seemed like 500 students stormed out and the rest started chanting, “Bush! Bush! Bush!”

So much for my speech. Not to mention the Beatitudes.

I was not at all surprised that George W. Bush was reelected president. As I travel the country speaking out against war, injustice and nuclear weapons, I see many people consciously siding with the culture of war, choosing the path of violence, supporting corporate greed, rampant militarism, and global domination. I see many others swept up in the raging current of patriotism. Since most of these people, beginning with the president, claim to be Christian, I am ashamed and appalled that they support war and systemic injustice, that they do it in the name of God, and that they feign fidelity to the nonviolent Jesus who gave his life resisting institutionalized injustice.

I am reminded of Flannery O’Connor’s great book, “Wise Blood,” where her outrageous character Hazel Motes is so fed up with Christian hypocrisy that he forms his own church, the “Church Without Christ,” “where the lame don’t walk, the blind don’t see, and the dead stay that way.” That’s where we are headed today.

I used to think these all-American Christians never read the Gospel, that they simply chose not to be authentic disciples of the nonviolent Jesus. Now, alas, I think they have indeed chosen discipleship, but not to the hero of the Gospels, Jesus. Instead, through their actions, they have become disciples of the devout, powerful, murderous religious officials who made his execution possible.

A Culture Of Hypocrites

We have become a culture of religious hypocrites. Instead of practicing an authentic spirituality of compassion, nonviolence, love and peace, we as a collective people have become self-righteous, arrogant, powerful, murderous hypocrites who dominate and kill others in the name of God. We have learned from religious officials like the Pharisees, Sadducees, scribes and high priests who supported the brutal Roman rulers and soldiers and lived off the comforts of the empire.

Most North American Christians are now becoming more and more like these hypocritical religious officials. We side with the rulers, the bankers, and the corporate millionaires and billionaires. We run the Pentagon, bless the bombing raids, support executions, make nuclear weapons and seek global domination for America as if that was what the nonviolent Jesus wants. And we dismiss anyone who disagrees with us.

We have become a mean, vicious people, what the bible calls “stiff-necked people.” And we do it all with the mistaken belief that we have the blessing of God.

In the past, empires persecuted religious groups and threatened them into passivity and silence. Now these so-called Christians run the American empire, and teach a subtle spirituality of empire to back up their power in the name of God. This spirituality of empire insists that violence saves us, might makes right, war is justified, bombing raids are blessed, nuclear weapons offer the only true security from terrorism, and the good news is not love for our enemies, but the elimination of them. The empire is working hard these days to tell the nation—and the churches—what is moral and immoral, sinful and holy. It denounces certain personal behavior as immoral, in order to distract us from the blatant immorality and mortal sin of the U.S. bombing raids which have left 100,000 Iraqis dead, or our ongoing development of thousands of weapons of mass destruction. Our so-called Christian rulers would have us believe that our wars and our weapons are holy and blessed by God.

In the old days, the early Christians had big words for such behavior, such lies. They were called “blasphemous, idolatrous, heretical, hypocritical and sinful.” Such words and actions were denounced as the betrayal, denial and execution of Jesus all over again in the world’s poor. But the empire needs the church to bless and support its wars, or at least to remain passive and silent. As we Christians go along with the Bush administration and the American empire, we betray Jesus, renounce his teachings, and create a “Church Without Christ,“ as Flannery O’Connor foresaw.

Troublemaking Nonviolence, The Measure Of The Gospel

The first thing we Christians have to do in this time is not to become good, devout hypocrites, like the religious officials of Jesus’ time. Instead, we have to try all over again to follow the dangerous, nonviolent, troublemaking Jesus. I believe war, weapons, corporate greed and systemic injustice are an abomination in the sight of God. They are the definition of mortal sin. They mock God and threaten to destroy God’s gift of creation. If you want to seek the living God, you have to pit your entire life against war, weapons, greed and injustice—and their perpetrators. It is as simple as that.

Every religion, including Islam, Judaism, Hinduism and Buddhism, is rooted in nonviolence, but I submit that the only thing we know for sure about Jesus is that he was nonviolent and so, nonviolence is the hallmark of Christianity and the measure of authentic Christian living. Jesus commands that we love one another, love our neighbors, seek justice, forgive those who hurt us, pray for our persecutors, and be as compassionate as God. But at the center of his teaching is the most radical declaration ever uttered: “love your enemies.”

If we dare call ourselves Christian, we cannot support war or nuclear weapons or corporate greed or executions or systemic injustice of any kind. If we do, we may well be devout American citizens, but we no longer follow the nonviolent Jesus. We have joined the hypocrites and blasphemers of the land, beginning with their leaders in the White House, the Pentagon and Los Alamos.

Jesus resisted the empire, engaged in nonviolent civil disobedience in the Temple, was arrested, tried by the Roman governor and executed by Roman soldiers. If we dare follow this nonviolent revolutionary, we too must resist empire, engage in nonviolent civil disobedience against U.S. warmaking and imperial domination, and risk arrest and imprisonment like the great modern day disciples, Martin Luther King, Jr., Dorothy Day and Philip Berrigan.

If we do not want to be part of the culture of hypocrites and do want to follow the nonviolent Jesus, we have to get in trouble just as Jesus was constantly in trouble for speaking the truth, loving the wrong people, worshipping the wrong way, and promoting the wrong things, like justice and peace. We have to resist this new American empire, as well as its false spirituality and all those who claim to be Christian yet support the murder of other human beings. We have to repent of the sin of war, put down the sword, practice Gospel nonviolence, and take up the cross of revolutionary nonviolence by loving our enemies and discovering what the spiritual life is all about.

Just because the culture and the cultural church have joined with the empire and its wars does not mean that we all have to go along with such heresy, or fall into despair as if nothing can be done. It is never too late to try to follow the troublemaking Jesus, to join his practice of revolutionary nonviolence and become authentic Christians. We may find ourselves in trouble, even at the hands of so-called Christians, just as Jesus was in trouble at the hands of the so-called religious leaders of his day. But this very trouble may lead us back to those Beatitude blessings.

Forum posts

  • The self-righteous judgmentalism revealed in this piece is exactly the kind of sin that Jesus Christ called hypocrisy.

    If you are a fan of tyrants, you are no fan of peace. If you oppose Saddam’s removal, and cannot side with our troops, then you are no friend of the Iraqi people, and an enemy of justice and freedom.

    Pacifism is evil’s best friend. Just ask the survivors of Auschwitz. Or Halabja.

    • I guess you think Jesus was a warmonger and would support killing people for oil??? The people involved in the military industrial complex are not God’s choosen people, and neither are people like you who speak with a forked tongue. And by the way have you forgotten Saddam used to be our dictator puppet installed by the C.I.A., and supported 100% by our government for 20 years....did you forget? So who supports Saddam more than our own government?

      I am no fan of Bush the biggest tyrant ever known in history. Even worse than Hitler.

      For your information since you are so stupid you think otherwise, pacifism is not the cause of Auschwitz or Halabja, both which resulted from tyrants like Bush in his evil warmongering and his march for imperalism around the earth. and his "democracy" with nuclear weapons pointed at their heads. Remember your Bible says "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall inherit the earth". Get a Clue before you post here, or go somewhere else to play the fool.

    • It seems that you cannot tell the difference between being passive and using nonviolent civil disobedience. Add that to *your* judgemental attitude, and I find myself firmly on the side of Reverend Dear. I found his article to be level-headed and simple to understand. It contained a universal truth; one that many have spoken before: Buddha, Jesus Christ, Mahatma Ghandi and Dr. Martin Luther King, to name but four who come spontaneously to mind. We have come a long way from the dog eat dog world of our past, and I for one do not want to see a few megalomaniacs and paranoiacs drag us back down the slippery slope.

      Nothing is ever completely resolved by violence; it only makes the situation worse. To quote Isaac Asimov’s character Salvor Hardin in "Foundation": "Violence is the last resort of the incompetent." The fact that Bush and Co. resort to violence to get what they want only shows that they are otherwise incompetent as human beings. Perhaps that is why they cannot hear the words that Reverend Dear and so many before him have spoken so bravely!

    • The truth is that Man created Religion NOT the other way round. Just in case I’m wrong , one thing is certain; those pseudo christian White House bastards are destined for perdition...

    • Its interesting to note that governments have a monopoly on VIOLENCE. Its only’legitimate’when THEY napalm, nuke, truncheon, shoot .....otherwise its er...terrorism.

  • Contrary to John Dear’s claim, the Pharisees did not support the Roman occupation in any way shape or form. The Pharisees made up the population majority of the Jewish Nation 2000 and it was this group that fought the Romans and became the ancestors of modern Judaism, the Saducees were a small and elitist group who worked with the Romans.

    As for the Iraq war, Tanach (Jewish Bible not to be confused with the Christian Old Testament) requires us to bring justice to this world. Rather than passively sitting by and hoping for peace/justice we are COMMANDED to work to bring peace/justice to this world. If military action is required to do this it is an unfortunate but necessary act.

    • Man, you are simply full of crap. Whatever right wingnut testimonies you’re reading from , please take them out to the back yard and promplty burn them. Then take more prosac. It’s obvious that you need drugs to believe the things you’re saying.

    • You use the Tanach the way an insane Muslim would use the Koran, to justify killing. As far as being "COMMANDED" , this proves that you have no free will, no accountability and no soul, just like the terrorists. If there is a satan, he is playing all you fundamentalist jackasses like a violin and having a ball while the world burns.

    • Well why not focus that ’justice’ on the stealing of Palestinian land and degredation and slaughter of the Palestinian people, just as Gentiles brought justice to the nazi slaughterers of jews ????

    • Does this mean tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis, Iranians, Palestinians and other peoples of the Islamic faith must be tortured and murdered?

      That their soil be peppered with depleted uranium, spreading birth defects and cancers for decades to come?

      How is this spreading justice?

      TRUTH, peace, tolerance and diplomacy are how we spread justice! Lying to the American people about the reasons we go to war and wasting tax dollars in Iraq while giving the rich tax cuts and cutting food stamps, school lunches and medical care to the poor - is this how we spread justice?

      How does one justify murder?

  • thank you rev. dear for this truthful statement on the state of the disunion here in america. i am ashamed that our country has fallen into the hands of this violent,corrupt administration and am surprised that a revolution has not occurred to over throw this malignancy that is growing daily. destroying not only our citizenship-life liberty and pursuit of happiness-, but destroying the world globally.what ever happened to the golden rule"do unto others as you would want them to do onto you". or " little children love one another". if we would just follow these basic rules in the world, as taught to me as a child, we could live in peace and harmony globally.non violence is the real truth and unfortunately has gotten lost in the passing down of religion by men thru the years. god save the world, as we can’t save ourselves

  • Thank you Rev. John Dear, very well said. I find this part particularly striking...

    "I think they have indeed chosen discipleship, but not to the hero of the Gospels, Jesus. Instead, through their actions, they have become disciples of the devout, powerful, murderous religious officials who made his execution possible."

    And I wonder, can we love these people? When Jesus said ’love your enemies’, did he mean the devil’s disciples in this case Bush and crew, even the people on the internet who prop them up. Can we love them through this if they have no hearts? If we are kind to them, if we turn the other cheek, they will continue until they destroy the planet. We might have had more time 2,000 years ago, but the perils of global warming are quickly approaching and I am not feeling hopeful for a change of heart in the US administration.

  • Dear Reverand Dear,
    I couldn’t agree with you more....if we did nothing more than follow the Beatitudes and the deeds and words of Jesus, we might
    not be so separated from God. Unfortunately, too early on, Christianity was co-opted and changed. This led to massacres of righteous people, who the church called heretics......Today, we have the same kind of power/control freaks twisting the meaning of Jesus’ words and intent, worshipping the almighty dollar, anxious to kill for power, etc. The god of greed and materialism is the one this Administration and its supporters seem to worship......the one who separates us from one another and the true God.......the ones who use the name of God to give credence to their lust for power....these are the ones who work for Satan. Those who know it are hypocrites and the other who don’t realize it are blind. There are none so blind as those who will not see.

    • Jesus Christ is nothing more than a whore to be used by which ever money grubber has the bucks to use him for their own perverted needs.

  • To make it clear:

    Jesus Christ is not linked to these criminals (Bush administration).

    He did not preach murder, theft and torture.

    Therefore the Bush Administrations and their phony followers are blasphemic and don’t have
    any religion at all - except money grabbing.

  • Thank you...I was starting to wonder if any one else saw the incredible hipocrisy of our countrys leaders....truly arrogance, ignorance and cowardice are rampant everywhere in our country.