Tread lightly on the things of earth

I got distracted during LotR: The Return of the King as I suddenly realized its most literal interpretation has been adopted by the neoconservative hijackers of democracy in our country:

“We declare that all of them are evildoers, and we, blameless keepers of the flame, bearers of the light, are exercising our duty and divine calling in wiping them out. See? — it’s eagles that defeat the Nazgul. See? — those Arab-looking riders of the oliphaunts are evil. See? — the ‘Men of the West’ are the last hope for the world. What we have here is an allegory for America.”

I’m not a Tolkien scholar, but I don’t think literal interpretations suit his work or convey his intent. And I doubt that Peter Jackson, a New Zealander, aimed to craft a pro-America masterpiece.

As my distraction lengthened, I finally found a trace of empathy for those who think this way. If someone truly believes violence can be redemptive in this physical world, as many do, then a literal interpretation of LotR affirms present U.S. foreign policy.

Unfortunately for Christians who believe in this myth of redemptive violence^†, Jesus emphatically does not. According to him, nonretaliatory love is what redeems, violence never does. A literal interpretation of LotR — and by extension, of U.S. action in the world under the Bush administration — cannot be made to square with following Jesus.

Now where the lessons of LotR swell into truth is on the spiritual level. We are to resist evil. We are to be warriors against darkness just as imaged in the film. But against spirits and dominions and powers only, not against people. According to Jesus, we are to care for everyone the Father cares for, even the “ungrateful and the selfish and wicked” that the Father is “kind and charitable and good” to (Luke 6:27-36, AMP).

None of us are wholly good and the “enemy” is not wholly evil. The potential for — and reality of — evildoing lies in all of us. We must recognize this in ourselves. We must see the deception and greed and injustice and retribution that inhabit us in our prosecution of this war on terror. And we must repent. Our leaders must repent. To do otherwise is to bring down judgment on ourselves.

The truth is this: God has never appointed us policemen of this world. What he appoints us to be [is] its stewards and its servants. If Jesus is right, our present tack of meeting violence with violence will never work. If Jesus is right, meeting people’s needs from out of our abundance will.

I know several Bush supporters who are determined to see George as Aragorn, rightly enthroned as king who beats back the hordes of darkness. I think this is purest fantasy. At best our president is Boromir — not a king but a steward, one who despite possible good qualities is unable to resist the Ring of Power. And it is driving / has driven him mad. At worst I see George & Co. as Ringwraiths, wreaking division and death and destruction upon the world, once men but now made hollow where their souls once were, long ago sold for the Power of a Ring.

(I use “we,” “us,” and “our” as shorthand for my U.S.-oriented point of view. I use “Bush” as shorthand for the multiple [Bush-]like-minded persons and powers inhabiting our government.)

[Denethor was the last ruling Steward of Gondor, father of Boromir and Faramir. He was subject to depression and denial, maladies I recognize in myself and the Christian Right, more or less respectively. I’m pretty sure we both can be healed. Eventually.]

2003-12-31 update:
Charles Sebold, someone I’ve enjoyed virtually knowing for some years now, observes in his review of the first LotR movie something that (as long as I’m trying to be generous) sets me thinking George may be more analogous to Tolkien’s — not the movie’s — Saruman:

Saruman [in the movie] is so one-dimensional that it will make the purist cry. Tolkien’s Saruman is the victim of good intentions, overestimation of his own abilities, and a subtle corruption of power that extends over time — he is never really the ally of Sauron.

Regardless of intent and nature of alliance, I note that the devastation wrought is the same.

^†Interesting related reading:

• Martin Hattersley: The Myth of Redemptive Violence

• Walter Wink: Myth of Redemptive Violence

• Walter Wink: Babylon Revisited: How Violent Myths Resurface Today

• Gutless Pacifist: Redemptive Violence for a Just War

• First Congregational Church (UCC), Closter, NJ:
  The Civic Religion of Redemptive Violence
  The Ring of Tolkien: The Magnification of Power by Technology

• National Catholic Reporter: Candy ain’t dandy in this classroom

Observing the current Republican-led fiscal insanity, I am forced to conclude: the creditable “Party of Lincoln” is dead. Hell, even the Republican Party of my youth — with which I identified, BTW — is dead.

Fiscal responsibility — not just theological responsibility among those waving religion as a political issue — is an absolute requirement with me.

Bush offers neither. In contrast, as a fiscal moderate with a solid, multi-year state budget track record and a Congregationalist Christian who quietly celebrates religious diversity, Dean offers both.

I like that.

[via Daily Kos]

Seymour Hersh writes a new article in The New Yorker, Moving Targets, that begins —

The Bush Administration has authorized a major escalation of the Special Forces covert war in Iraq. … [The Special Forces group’s] highest priority is the neutralization of the Baathist insurgents, by capture or assassination.

This radical Pentagon news once again juxtaposes contrasting concepts on the teleprompter in my head …

An American who has advised the civilian authority in Baghdad said, “The only way we can win is to go unconventional. We’re going to have to play their game. Guerrilla versus guerrilla. Terrorism versus terrorism. We’ve got to scare the Iraqis into submission.”

Can logic — or sanity — encompass both these beliefs? (I think not.)

One of the key planners of [this] Special Forces offensive is Lieutenant General William (Jerry) Boykin … In October, the Los Angeles Times reported that Boykin, while giving Sunday-morning talks in uniform to church groups, had repeatedly equated the Muslim world with Satan. Last June … he told a congregation in Oregon that “Satan wants to destroy this nation, he wants to destroy us as a nation, and he wants to destroy us as a Christian army.” … The Muslim world hates America, he said, “because we are a nation of believers.”

(emphasis mine)

Boykin says we are a nation of believers. But believers in whom?

“Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?”
—Jesus (Luke 6:46, NIV)

[story link via Meteor Blades at Daily Kos]

In the midst of today’s enthusiastic hubbub that Al Gore is likely to endorse Howard Dean for the Democratic presidential nomination, Nathan in MN at Daily Kos provides my favorite quote of the day —

Dean’s campaign is not just about changing presidents, it is about changing the entire social fabric of this country.

Yes. The whole feel of this emerging drama is mercifully different than in 2000. There is pneuma in it this time, I think.

Thanks, Nathan.

2003-12-09 update: Indeed it’s happened, and I am jubilant about what an ascendant Dean candidacy means; the whole phenomenon is breathed through with hope.

As reported by CNN, Al Gore endorses Howard Dean —

Gore said part of the reason he chose to endorse Dean was his ability to appeal to the nation’s “grassroots” elements, a reference to Dean’s success in organizing and raising funds on the Internet and in small voter gatherings.

The Dean phenomenon has proven that grassroots works. You can, I can, anyone can truly make a difference. This is, in fact, what democracy is. $2000-per-plate campaign fundraisers as the price of admission — what you have to pay to play, which means hardly any of us can play — have now become optional.

Side benefit to this grassroots approach:
There is much less beholden-to-big-money sludge accumulating in this campaign.

Gore also praised Dean’s opposition to the U.S.-led war in Iraq. The former vice president called the Iraq war a “catastrophic mistake” by the Bush administration, a move that leaves the United States less effective in the nation’s battle against terrorism. …

“He was the only major candidate who made the correct judgment about the Iraq war,” Gore said. “And he had the insight and the courage to say and do the right thing. And that’s important because those judgments — that basic common sense — is what you want in a president.”

Yes, sound judgment arising from basic common sense is what I want. It is a baseline requirement in a president.

Our societal abandonment of basic common sense, a lapse we displayed so vividly in the buildup to this Iraq debacle, will be markedly less likely in the future, I think, if we’re listening to truth-telling, insightful, courageous, sensible elected leaders who credibly exercise a commitment to democracy and social justice. I am certain we’re not stupid, but we are too easily duped. It’s a bug, and we can fix it.

“When we set this event up,” Dean said to loud laughter at the rally’s start, “I had absolutely no idea that we were going to have the elected president of the United States here with us today.”

I’ve been struggling to stop overly lumping in genuine, honest conservatives — with whom I have much in common — with the festering, malodorous sore on the face of democracy that is right-wing, extremist, neoconservative Bush Republicanism.

In this clarifying effort I can probably put to use Lefty’s semantics suggestion in a Daily Kos comment:

I’ve stopped using the term “conservative” as much as possible, preferring the term “regressive” instead. First, I feel it is a more accurate description of the debate to frame it in terms of regression and progress. Second, “regressive” sounds uglier and more undignified, much as the right wing has done with the term “liberal” in common usage over the last 20 years.

Sounds fair — regressive extremism is ugly and undignified. Thanks, Lefty.

But mostly, I’d rather live in a world that doesn’t need labels. How long, O Lord? Maybe when the lion lies down with the lamb? (popular reference, I think, to Isaiah 11 and 65)

Until then, though, as Martin Luther quipped, “If the lion lies down with the lamb, the lamb must be replaced frequently.”

As an Enneagram Nine I am often the lamb in conflictive situations. So for now accurate labeling — Crap! That’s a lion! — helps me lessen the frequency of my replacement.

And sometimes — on my good days — an accurate label reminds me to respect and engage the lion as a splendid fellow creature, even though all I see is him licking his chops and drooling.

In the interest of precision, I note that the text actually couples wolf with lamb, leopard with goat, and calf, lion, and yearling. No lion and lamb AFAIK. The message for me is clear enough, though: one day we’ll all get along.

I watched Howard Dean on Hardball with Chris Matthews last night, broadcasting from the JFK, Jr. venue at Harvard University (transcript, video). Wow.

I can’t imagine George lasting five minutes in a context like that, wherein you need to be smart as a whip, historically and politically knowledgeable, think quickly on your feet, and be blisteringly articulate.

Damn, it’s exhilarating to witness principled intelligence in action!

I was sold on Dr. Dean’s principles and positions already, but man — now I find I like him.

Great response to a question about why African Americans should vote for Dean “do Republicans use race to divide whites and blacks as a campaign tactic, and how do we overcome that as a nation?”

Dean answered that this election’s focus must be on matters that are important to all of us [“our common interests”], crossing all divisions among us:

“We have got to stop having the campaigns run in this country based on abortion, guns, God, and gays, and start talking about education, jobs, and health care.” <huge applause>

Yes. The former themes — especially in the cognitively- and semantically sloppy way they’re most often used — divide us as a people; the latter can unite us.

With Dean’s campaign something new and wonderful is happening, I think, a profound grassroots phenomenon much larger than one candidate. I imagine I’m seeing democracy being reborn, like Professor Dumbledore’s elderly pet phoenix Fawkes in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, who bursts into flame as Harry watches him, only to arise again from his own ashes, fresh and new.

We may yet again achieve for ourselves — with God’s help, for real this time, eyes wide open, no hubris, no living in denial — a government that uplifts instead of crushes, empowers instead of impoverishes, welcomes instead of excludes, that is truly of the people, by the people, for the people, in place of the present one that we have nearly let the Enemy, quoting God-talk to deceive us, render into ashes.

2003-12-03 update:
Added transcript- (thanks to Rich) and video links (QT, WMP);
updated blockquote above from actual transcript.