Making enemies where there are none

Once again, Faith Family Church’s Jim Graff trots out a right-wing trope in the Dec. 1, 2024 Victoria Advocate. His message is that those who are vocal and open about being a Christian are victims of persecution. But,
in keeping the faith throughout the persecution will result in a reward in Heaven. Even the title, or headline, for this piece is divisive: “How to win the war for those we love.”

This is the Christian nationalism that “The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism” by Katherine Stewart exposes and warns us about. And its emphasis on Christians being persecuted is part of the echo chamber and serves the purpose of riling up the troops to oppose both the more liberal versions of Christianity and those of a more secular bent. In setting up his pep talk for his version of Christianity, Graff uses John Bunyan’s imprisonment is an example of someone enduring persecution for his faith. We can give Graff a pass when he calls John Bunyan, the author of “The Pilgrim’s Progress,” Paul Bunyan in the second paragraph.

As he has done before, Graff uses misdirection an disinformation by clearly implying that the 250 million copies of Bunyan’s work helped the imprisoned preacher support his family. While the multi-million copies sold is accurate from the time it was first published on February 18, 1678 until now, it’s playing fast and loose with the facts that is so troubling. Whether in hard news or opinion articles, this kind of writing damages credibility. Why Graff chose Bunyan’s story as an example of religious persecution isn’t clear, but there are several stories in whatever version of the Bible Graff likes to make the same point. The apostle Paul comes to mind.

The real damage, however, is pivoting to cherry-pick verses to make his case that Jesus assured those persecuted that they’d go to Heaven. Even worse, he quotes Jesus from Matthew 10:34-35, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law… .”

There is some delicious irony when Graff states, “He did not cause division because He wanted to, but because division was the natural response of a culture set on duplicity.”

What is the irony? It’s that he brings this up when many of us see this time of the year as one of peace and goodwill to all. Further, it would be helpful if Graff told us what this duplicity is in our culture. Is it that other religions or faiths are deceiving their followers? And, if so, about what? Why does Graff disrespect the possibility of one faith promising 72 virgins? Or a good follower of another version of Christianity would get their own celestial planet? Or is it our society that is deceptive? If so, how?

Graff then quotes the late Dr. Warren Wiersbe to assert that — and I have to quote to make my point — “Jesus is the Prince of Peace and the gospel is the message of peace. But when people confess Christ, they usually make enemies.”

I don’t see it. I’ve never had anyone display enmity toward me for being a liberal Episcopalian or before as a parishioner at a United Church of Christ. Nor have any of my friends in various other mainstream Christian denominations complain to me that they were treated as enemies. If you’d like examples of people persecuted either in this country or around the world, consider Muslims, Jews and America’s own Native Americans.

What Graff is doing in this piece is telling his flock that they must love God more than their own families to reach his version of Nirvana and the path for that is to withstand persecution. But what he is really doing is isolating his flock, imbuing his followers with religious hubris and making others enemies where there are none. One wonders how Faith Family Church’s worldview would fit in with any kind of ecumenical work in Victoria. If we want to celebrate this season, we can do so this year with our Jewish friends whose holiday this year shares the season. Hanukkah runs from the evening of Dec. 25, 2024 to Jan. 2, 2025. And while this year our Muslim friends’ holy days don’t overlap Christmas and Hanukkah, there’s always Festivus.

However, looking at this column in a broader and more well-read context, the message is sinister. By isolating and framing disagreement of beliefs as war, Graff subtly telegraphs the agenda of Christian Nationalism and dominionism that underlies the White conservative evangelical movement. Perhaps there is more duplicity here than meets the eye.

Sowing Chaos is the plan

On most days, I scan the news landscape by opening two dozen sites, including The Associated Press, The Washington Post, New York Times, Houston Public Media and Google News.

Today I noticed a pattern of content having to do with Trump’s cabinet and other leadership roles in his upcoming administration. Most of the pundits focused on how poor these choices are. Some are in over their heads, others know nothing about that which they will supervise and so on. What these choices have in common, these BigMedia talking heads assert, is their loyalty to Trump. Therefore, they will sow chaos, as will Trump, across the entire federal government.

While all all of these lamentations are partly true, they miss the bigger picture. These proposed appointees aren’t really Trump’s picks. He doesn’t know enough about the government to make those picks. They are are chosen by the operatives of the billionaire plutocrats and oligarchs behind the the dismantling of our democracy. And, yes, they will cause chaos, but that’s only a tactic. The real strategy is to destroy government. As Dr. Nancy MacLean points out in “Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America,” Charles Koch and his allies — a cast of thousands — want to tear government out at its roots.

Remember, this is a long-term game. At its heart, this is the epitome of white privilege and racism that caused a civil war in the Nineteenth Century. Those feelings didn’t go away. They just flew below the radar. But they were energized by Brown v Board of Education, the 1954 Supreme Court decision that separate education wasn’t equal. This is at the core of the right-wing radical movement. Immediately after the ruling, the so-called segregation academies popped up as private schools for whites only. ProPublica’s series (https://www.propublica.org/series/segregation-academies) traces this movement. But that was just the start. Voucher plans to destroy public education are operationally no different now from the ones 70 years ago.

And topics that raise ire and are “hot button” reactions like abortion, contraception, union busting, crime, immigration, LBGTQ rights fossil fuels and climate change are the wedge issues designed to divide people and sow chaos. That’s why we’ve been subjected to them. Even worse, they’ve been normalized as the right-wing American Enterprise Institute’s Jonah Goldberg points out, “But now it seems the odor has dissipated, at least among political scientists and operatives. Sure, there are still some ugly wedges, but wedge issues as a generic category or tool are now recognized for what they always were: normal politics.”

The truth is that most of the right-wing, at least the secular part, really doesn’t care about the cultural issues like abortion and gay rights. But they rile up the crowds, don’t they?

So, the chaos, you see, has been a tactic all along; and, so has disinformation, which has been turning definitions on their head. Tyler Cowen, the Holbert L. Harris Chair of Economics at George Mason University, Koch-funded intellectual mothership of the radical-right movement, wrote, “the freest countries [defining freedom as economic liberty] have not generally been democratic.” MacLean quotes Cowen in “How the Koch Network Uses Disinformation,” Chapter 5 in “The Disinformation Age: Politics, Technology, and Disruptive Communication in the United States.”

MacLean continues by writing that her research “adds to our understanding is its exposure of the core ideas guiding these efforts and how those ideas, in turn, explain the reliance on radical rules change (including change to the Constitution) being secured without alerting the public to the real endgame.”

Read that again. It’s began long ago with stacking the judiciary with Federalist Society judges, overturning Roe v Wade, gerrymandering, voter suppression and eliminating voting sites. But these were for two reasons: to undermine the voice of the people and to distract from the long view. This stealth project wants to change the Constitution to lock down the unfettered economic power of the ruling class. The next step is a Convention of the States, under Article V of the current U.S. Constitution. I am not going to dwell on this, but I urge you to look at: https://conventionofstates.com/

It really doesn’t matter whether the Trump appointee is incompetent. The pandemonium is the plan and the rhetoric will ramp up calling for the dismantling of whatever the government activity is. That will open the door for shutting it down. Then think about what’s left when the government has only two functions: law enforcement and national defense. Posse Comitatus be damned.

Gov. Greg Abbott's order on forcing hospitals to grill immigrants flies under local media radar

A little more than a week ago, hospitals began questioning undocumented immigrant patients who come to the emergency room or are admitted. Greg Abbott signed Executive Order GA-46 on August 8 collect data on undocumented immigrants being treated a the hospital. Included in the data are demographic and cost information that must be reported to the Health and Human Services Commission every three months and yearly. Those questioned can decline to answer without jeopardizing getting care, according to the order.

Abbott has asserted that Texas taxpayers are overly burdened by the cost of providing care to non-US citizens, although the verbiage in the order is clearly political and inflammatory thus raising questions about the right-wing’s real agenda. If one’s ear is to the ground in the health/medical, the drum beating of concern, anger and GOP overreach is audible. Yet, as important as this issue is, it looks like the Nov. 1 implementation date flew under the local media radar.

For example, the Catholic Legal Immigration Network issued a statement raising several concerns, including that the order will frighten immigrants to the point of not getting care. The network also noted that a Harvard study “explained how a similar policy in Florida puts immigrants in an ‘impossible position: avoid the hospital and risk a loved one’s health, or seek care and potentially risk deportation.’”

Every Texan, formerly the Center for Public Policy Priorities, slammed the order.

“Abbott’s Executive Order will lead to fewer Texans and their families seeking medical care when they need it, even when dire medical needs make expensive health care necessary at the emergency room,” writes Lynn Cowles, health and food justice programs manager at Every Texan,. “These are Texans who generally already avoid less expensive medical care in settings like clinics and health centers because they are uninsured and often concerned about the cost and documentation requirements.”

She also called it anti-immigrant rhetoric “intended to scare people into not using any kind of public benefits program.”

The economy will be hurt as non-citizen construction, agricultural and service sector workers avoid the hospitals’ interrogations, Every Texan stated, adding “Meanwhile, Texas families will suffer the governor’s policies as he threatens their rights to seek medical care in emergencies.”

I reached out to DeTar Hospital Navarro and Citizen’s Medical Center on November 4 asking about how each facility might implement the order. Neither hospital has responded to me by the time this blog publishes.

But the Texas Hospital Association, responded within minutes, of my email. Carrie Williams, spokesperson for the health care trade group, said the major concern is that patients will be concerned about immigration questions and defer medical care.

“The bottom line for patients is that this doesn’t change hospital care. Texas hospitals continue to be a safe place for needed care,” Williams added. “On the particulars of implementation, all hospitals are different. Hospitals across the state are working on the backend to determine how to comply with the reporting guidance and meet the state’s deadlines.”