Monsters?

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Stand Up For The Truth

My Facebook friend Mark shared the following story...

Thanks Mark.

Quotes:

Headline

'MILITARY RELIGIOUS FREEDOM FOUNDATION: “SHARING THE GOSPEL IS LIKE RAPE”'

'What does this current administration think about Christians? That we are “monsters.” The Pentagon’s new “religious tolerance guru” is none other than anti-religious extremist Mikey Weinstein, the man who wants to remove Christianity from the military. And thanks to the Obama administration, his Military Religious Freedom Foundation now has the power and backing to do just that.'

'Weinstein, who heads up the cross-crushing, prayer-prosecuting Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), is the same man who just published a blistering rant calling evangelicals “fundamentalist Christian monsters.” (And that’s the nice part!) “We must,” he writes, “vigorously support the continuing efforts to expose pathologically anti-gay, Islamophobic, and rabidly intolerant agitators for what they are: die-hard enemies of the United States Constitution. Monsters, one and all. To do any less would be to roll out a red carpet to those who would usher in a blood-drenched, draconian era of persecutions, nationalistic militarism, and superstitious theocracy.”'

'Sally Quinn, who highlighted Weinstein’s meeting with the military’s brass, quoted MRFF Board member Larry Wilkerson comparing the act of rape to sharing the Gospel. “Sexual assault and proselytizing are absolutely destructive of the bonds that keep soldiers together… This is a national security threat,” Wilkerson insisted. “What is happening [aside from sexual assault] is spiritual rape. And what the Pentagon needs to understand is that it is sedition and treason. It should be punished.” As Wilkerson probably knows, the punishment for treason in America is death. Are we to assume that MRFF would be lobbying for that as well?'

'WeinSein’s own words: Christians are Monsters Ladies and Gentlemen, let me tell you of monsters and monstrous wrongs. And let me tell you what these bloody monsters thrive on. I founded the civil rights fighting organization the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) to do one thing: fight those monsters who would tear down the Constitutionally-mandated wall separating church and state in the technologically most lethal entity ever created by humankind, the U.S. military. Today, we face incredibly well-funded gangs of fundamentalist Christian monsters who terrorize their fellow Americans by forcing their weaponized and twisted version of Christianity upon their helpless subordinates in our nation’s armed forces. Oh my, my, my, how “Papa’s got a brand new bag.” What’s Papa’s new tactic? You’re gonna just love this! These days, when ANYone attempts to bravely stand up against virulent religious oppression, these monstrosities cry out alligator tears in overflowing torrents and scream that it is, in fact, THEY who are the dispossessed, bereft and oppressed. C’mon, really, you pitiable unconstitutional carpetbaggers? It would be like the utter folly of 1960′s-era southern bigots howling like stuck pigs in protest that Rosa Parks’ civil rights activism is “abusing” them by destroying and disenfranchising their rights to sit in the front seat of buses in Montgomery, Alabama. Please, I beseech you! Let us call these ignoble actions what they are: the senseless and cowardly squallings of human monsters. Queasy with the bright and promising lights of the cultural realities of the present day, those evil, fundamentalist Christian creatures and their spiritual heirs have taken refuge behind flimsy, well-worn, gauze-like euphemistic facades such as “family values” and “religious liberty.'

End of Quotes:

An academic comparison of the concept of rape and sharing the Gospel.

Rape from The Concise Oxford Dictionary (1995), Oxford.

Key Definitions

1a the act of forcing a woman to have sexual intercourse against her will. B forcible sodomy 2…violent assault, forcible interference, violation. 3…carrying off by force. 4 an instance of rape. Commit a rape on. 2. Violate assault, pillage. Page 1137.

Sharing the Gospel would often be understood as in concepts of witness and evangelism. A witness in the New Testament is one that testifies to the deeds of Jesus Christ as in his death and resurrection. Browning (1999: 396-397). One who does so would therefore be witnessing the Gospel message.

From Richard Stoll Armstrong, the word ‘evangel’ is a transliteration of the Greek word ‘euaggelion’. εὐαγγέλιον, ου, τό

Translated ‘Gospel’, in the Anglo-Saxon God-spell, and good news. The meaning is to preach the good news and evangelism would be to preach the Gospel. Evangelism is the proclamation of the Gospel. Armstrong (1999: 192).

Comparing the concepts presented the definitions of rape demonstrate that rape takes place against the will of women, females, and persons. To witness is to share the Gospel, which is to discuss it with another person. In other words, a person that knows about the Gospel, or thinks he or she knows about the Gospel and shares it with another person. Now this could be done aggressively, but even if it was, to present the philosophical, theological concepts of the Gospel very forcefully, still would not necessarily reasonably allow the concept to be equated with rape or sexual assault. Even a very aggressive Christian witness would be primarily verbal and psychological and seemingly does not equate with rape and sexual assault which has a large physical, but not only aspect.

With evangelism, the idea is to proclaim the Gospel, as in a person that knows about the Gospel, or thinks he or she knows about the Gospel and shares it will another. Even a very aggressive Christian evangelism would be primarily verbal and psychological and seemingly does not equate with rape and sexual assault which again has a large physical, but not only aspect.

What of this notion of ‘spiritual rape’? If a Christian or pseudo-Christian religious cult, or misguided Christian assaulted someone with mental attacks as a form of perverted witnessing or evangelism, I view this as psychological, mental abuse, but this even does not seem to easily fit the definition of any type of rape. It would seem to me that one would have to go far, far beyond simply witness or evangelism to spiritually rape someone. The idea of brainwashing comes to mind, possibly with the use of mind-altering drugs. Now, perhaps that could qualify as spiritual rape, among other things.

It seems to me this MRFF watchdog group is politically and spiritually anti-Christian and is opposed to Biblical Christian expression in the military, at least. As I have noted I am not an American Christian Fundamentalist, but I am a moderate conservative. As can be noted on my blog I have many theological, Biblical and philosophical differences with the radical left and right within ‘Christiandom’ but I refuse to resort to using the sort of inaccurate descriptions of Christianity and Christians that arose from the article I quoted.

ARMSTRONG, RICHARD STOLL (1999) ‘Evangelism’, in Alan Richardson and John Bowden (eds.), New Dictionary of Christian Theology, Kent, SCM Press Ltd.

BROWNING, W.R.F. (1997) Oxford Dictionary of the Bible, Oxford, Oxford University Press.

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