The Monuments Debate (cont.): Confronting a Double Standard

Yesterday morning, as if on cue, Politico Magazine published the kind of reasoned discussion of memorials and racism that I had called for the day before. While I agree with the titular premise–that we don’t need to “cancel” George Washington–I can’t help but think the main thrust of the argument is deeply flawed.

Isaac J. Bailey, a public policy professor at Davidson College, claims that the reason so many people resist the demystification of Washington and Jefferson is that they have failed to recognize slavery as an absolute evil. To make his case, he contrasts the way society treats dead slave holders with the way society treats anti-Semites, namely Louis Farrakhan and Wernher von Braun.

Both von Braun and Farrakhan promoted an ideology that killed six million people and has caused unquantifiable harm throughout history. Our conversation about whether to include them as historical figures of note begins from the premise that anti-Semitism is an unmatched evil. And, from there, we decide the roles these two men played in those prejudices and institutions are too great for us to acknowledge any good in their legacies.

We say Washington is rightly celebrated despite his prominent role in one of the world’s great evils—and any argument that his legacy should be re-evaluated is immediately dismissed….We say despite the good some say Farrakhan accomplished and the technological advancements von Braun helped make possible, Farrakhan and von Braun are evil men who should be revered by no one. We say that it would be immoral to use taxpayer dollars to honor them or to put statues of them in public spaces.

If we drill down into why, it’s this: Because Americans have never viewed race-based chattel slavery as an unequivocal evil. 

The argument is hard to swallow, no matter how attractive the conclusions. The problem is one of false equivalency, not (as Bailey expects) because Washington and Jefferson’s accomplishments dwarf those of Farrakhan and von Braun (although they do) but because he is comparing those who committed these sins centuries ago to recent (and in one case living) perpetuators of anti-Semitism. The antiquity of Washington and Jefferson does not excuse their sins, but it does explain and contextualize them in a way that it cannot for Bailey’s two examples. If he wants to make his argument stick, Bailey would need to find more distant examples to consider.

Consider as a more appropriate choice Martin Luther, one of the founders of Protestant Christianity. He is arguably a figure whose historical contributions to Western civilization match or eclipse those of Washington and Jefferson. Never a slave owner, Luther has been rightly accused of the kind of “virulent anti-Semitism” that Bailey says Americans would never brook the way they do slavery:

“Set fire to their synagogues or schools,” Martin Luther recommended in On the Jews and Their Lies. Jewish houses should “be razed and destroyed,” and Jewish “prayer books and Talmudic writings, in which such idolatry, lies, cursing, and blasphemy are taught, [should] be taken from them.” In addition, “their rabbis [should] be forbidden to teach on pain of loss of life and limb.” Still, this wasn’t enough.

Luther also urged that “safe-conduct on the highways be abolished completely for the Jews,” and that “all cash and treasure of silver and gold be taken from them.” What Jews could do was to have “a flail, an ax, a hoe, a spade” put into their hands so “young, strong Jews and Jewesses” could “earn their bread in the sweat of their brow.”

If Louis Farrakhan ever said anything worse than that about Jews, he is to some degree indebted to the intellectual legacy of Luther as undoubtedly one of the great theologians of Western anti-Semitism. He vocally advocated for hating Jews in a way that Washington and Jefferson never did for slavery.

Yet Martin Luther is memorialized freely and openly in the United States and Europe, in the same uncomplicated way that Washington and Jefferson are and for presumably the same reason–“despite his prominent role in one of the world’s great evils.” Statues of him stand in Minnesota, Texas, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and even Washington D.C. One in Maryland is on public land and managed by the city of Baltimore. There are undoubtedly more statues than these, but they will suffice to prove the point. Clearly there is no distinction between the moral evaluation of anti-Semitism and racism/slavery the way that Bailey imagines. Americans will overlook anti-Semitism along with racism, whether because of ignorance or because of the magnitude of the accomplishments being memorialized.

The simple fact is a good historian could likely dig up as many anti-Semitic presidents as racist ones (and undoubtedly more than those who actually owned slaves). Americans continue to memorialize notorious anti-Semites closer to home (both in time and place) whose accomplishments are considerably less world-altering that were Luther’s. Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh both spring readily to mind as having been evangelistic in their anti-Semitism and enjoying an entirely uncomfortable number of historical linkages to Nazi Germany and to Adolf Hitler personally. Both men have prominent statues in public places in the US.

Lindbergh (center) giving the Nazi salute during a rally at Madison Square Garden (1941).

There are more such offenders with prominent memorials besides these, but the occasional attention they are receiving now is still much less pronounced than the new ire directed at Washington and Jefferson. So Bailey’s final conclusions are welcome: “Washington and Jefferson, who did not die fighting explicitly for a white supremacist state but had a hand in creating one, are more complicated [that Confederates]. Their monuments shouldn’t be destroyed, but their myths must be.” His defense of that position, however, leaves a lot to be desired. Anti-Semites like Luther, Ford, and Lindbergh enjoy the same unexamined legacy that Washington and Jefferson do. They also enjoy some of the same benefit of an anti-Donatist approach to memorialization. Lindbergh is not primarily significant for his role in Hitler’s Germany; neither is Ford. Lutherans probably need to come to terms publicly with their namesake’s role in the history of anti-Semitism (if they haven’t already), but grappling with that legacy does not and should not require the toppling of Luther memorials. He did not, as Bailey would say, die fighting for the cause of anti-Semitism.

So now that it seems at least some people are ready “to pause the debate, deepen and re-center a discussion we’ve never really had,” let’s work a little harder to develop a still more sophisticated approach to public memorailzation before we undo the good work that’s been done and can still be done.

Muslims Love Their Families More than Christians

As the holidays approach, our minds often turn to families. Late night comedians make abundant fodder of the Thanksgiving and Christmas rituals of arguing politics or religion around the dinner table. For those families who agree on politics and religion, there always seems to be something else to bicker about. My own annual pilgrimage to spend time with my in laws speaks to the underlying truth of these comic stereotypes. As my own parents age, my wife and I have begun to weigh the competing desires to live near and take care of them versus the joy of having a thousand miles of insulating distance to keep the relationship safe and enjoyable.

All of this is going through my head as I read the results of a new Pew Study about how Christians and Jews tend to live in much smaller families than Muslims and Hindus. It’s not just a matter of having fewer children either. The study finds that:

• Muslims across the globe live in the biggest households, with the average Muslim residing in a home of 6.4 people.
• A majority of the world’s Hindus live with extended family, such as grandparents, uncles and in-laws.
• One in 10 Jews worldwide live alone — more than members of any other religious group.
• Buddhists are least likely to live in two-parent families. Though even in single-parent households, Buddhists are more likely to have extended family in the home.

Admittedly, religion alone cannot account for this, but the analysis claims that “religion still seems to have an impact.” The primary alternative explanation has to do with economic geography, with affluent North America and Europe showing the smallest family living groups (presumably because when people can afford not to live with their parents, they choose not to) and Sub-Saharan Africa and Southwest Asia showing the largest family living groups.

Nigeria is offered as a counterpoint to demonstrate the significance of religion even when accounting for economic geography.

A good example is Nigeria. Africa’s most populous nation is almost evenly split between Christians living in the country’s south and Muslims living in the country’s north. But even in the same country, Nigerian Muslims have an average household of 8.7 people; Nigerian Christians just 5.9. (A similar pattern within a country is true for Senegal: Muslims there live in 14-person households on average, while Christians live in homes of about nine members.)

The problem with this example is that it betrays an ignorance of the relationship between economics, geography, and religion in Nigeria. The North-South division in Nigeria is really a coastal-Sahel division, and that geography has influenced the economic development of each region. The wealthier coastal regions were (logically) the primary focus of British colonialism and, in consequence, the primary zone for Christian missionary activity–not to mention the main locus for passive, cultural conversion pressures as locals sought to accommodate to and advance in the British colonial system. The result is not just that the south is more Christian but also that it is wealthier and more (though obviously never fully) accommodated to the cultural norms and expectations that prevail in the North Atlantic.

A couple of maps illustrate the overlap among geography, wealth, and religion in Nigeria that parallels the relationship elsewhere.

The first map shows roughly the religious division between the Christian coast and the Muslim Sahel, the second between the oil rich, commerce friendly Niger Delta and the subsistence agriculture and husbandry borders of the Sahara. I would pretend any expertise about Senegal, but as a post-colonial state it would stand to reason that the patterns prevail there as well, with the Roman Catholic minority concentrated in old French colonial centers and the Muslim majority relegated–disproportionately though not completely–to the geographic and economic margins. That the global model of Euro-Christian affluence should replicate (or perhaps parody) itself outside of Europe and North America shouldn’t surprise us.

Religion, may in the end, amount to a poor explanation for these differences, and the researchers admit that it is neither the only nor self-evidently the most important factor. “‘It’s interwoven and bidirectional and we can’t parse the main cause,’ said Stephanie Kramer, a Pew researcher. ‘The causal arrows are going in so many directions.'” Still, I can’t help but be suspicious of claims that something inherent to Christianity (or Judaism) explain smaller family size.

Brad Wilcox, director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, said it may be that Christianity, in particular, lends itself to a more individualistic worldview.

“Part of the story here is that Christianity and perhaps Judaism have a deeper emphasis on the individual conscience,” said Wilcox. “That may express itself in more nuclear families and single-parent households.”

That seems both self-serving and willfully blind about more compelling–not to mention more obvious–explanations. (“The vast majority of the world’s Jews live in two countries: Israel and the U.S., both highly developed, affluent and educated. That more than anything may explain the higher number of Jewish people living alone.”) In the end, it may merely be that both Judaism and Christianity are so intricately intertwined with Euro-American history and values that the culture and affluence of those societies now often act as a gloss for the faith itself, even in places outside of Europe and North America.

Then again, I’m a Christian, and I share a roof (even temporarily) with my in-laws only and always under duress. I always thought that made me a yet-imperfect Christian, but if Pew says I’m doing Christianity right, who am I to argue?

The Ethics of Sport Hunting

Deer season is upon us, and to commemorate it, a Michigan news outlet has posed the question to a variety of clerics: in what context is hunting morally permissible? Four panelists offer responses.

The Jewish respondent concludes from a review of Genesis and the Law that the killing of animals required extraordinary justification but that God Himself has given such a justification. The only question that remains is how to treat those animals who will be killed. “It is acceptable to kill animals, but it is not acceptable to be callous toward animal life.” The response is a laudable beginning, but it leaves so much of the heart of the question unexplored. What constitutes callousness? Killing for the sake of killing? Or is it only killing in an “inhumane” way? The rabbi gives no satisfactory answers.

The Muslim respondent provides a richer, fuller picture of his religion’s ethical stance on hunting and on the slaughter of animals more generally. The result, somewhat unexpectedly, is a decidedly palatable set of rules governing both the ethical treatment of animals intended for slaughter and a strict utilitarian boundary for when such slaughter is appropriate. “Killing is not for sport but only for sustenance.” Yet, even while his regulations for slaughter are better explained and (for my part) better received, his justification for killing to begin with leaves much to be desired. He states, rather matter-of-factly, that animals are going to die anyway, so it makes no difference whether they die of old age or by human hands. Curiously, the same premise could be applied to humanity, but even with Islam’s decidedly different stance on justifiable violence relative to Christianity, sure no Muslim would want to argue that humans are going to die anyway so it doesn’t matter whether we let them die of old age or kill them for utilitarian purposes. At least I hope not.

Next, a reverend gives the traditional and decidedly unsophisticated view of Christians throughout history. God said we could kill animals. Society says we can kill animals. What’s the problem. I mean, in some cases, not killing animals is like disobeying Jesus. That’s no good. Alright…it’s a paraphrase and a parody, but it nevertheless represents the essential message. There is no consideration of the importance of the creation account or the Law in determining the ethical stance of Christians toward animals. Not even a mention of the eschatological place of the natural world in the Christian scheme. A personal inclination matched with a proof text remains the surest Christian hermeneutic.

The same, unfortunately, proved true for the equally unsatisfying response from the Christian vegetarian. He makes the highly dubious claim that God allows animals to be killed only because it is a necessity and that, since it is no longer a necessity, there is no justification for continuing to kill them even for food. Of course, he offers no support for the argument that the permission to use animals for food and clothing is need based nor does he demonstrate that something has fundamentally changed to remove that need. (Incidentally, he also makes the easily falsifiable claim that eating meat is more efficient.) Most importantly of all, however, he seems to be woefully ignorant of the historical fact that meat has only recently begun to play a significant role in the human diet. Precisely because it is such a painstaking and inefficient means of ingesting calories, meat has been a luxury in most cultures throughout human history. Slaughtering an animal and eating it was a significant event reserved for feasts and sacred occasions, a fact typified in the rituals of both Judaism and Islam. The notion that you can eat meat at every meal is a relatively modern, primarily American innovation.

Disappointingly, with the exception of the Muslim, none of the respondents deal directly with the question of the ethics of sport hunting. More disappointing still is the facile responses of both Christians–leading me to believe that some lazy journalist probably just found four clerics who had nothing better to do that day than answer the phone. No one gets to the root of what sport hunting is or why it might be ethically problematic. Hunting, neither out of necessity nor even with any intent to make reasonably full use of the kill, is violence for violence sake, a behavior which is difficult to justify from the viewpoint of any of the three major religions. It is the agonistic modern analog to the gladiatorial arena, only instead of the helpless slave being thrown to the lion for the amusement of the masses it is the helpless herbivore which is turned over to the heavily armed and merciless hunter to end its life for his amusement.

Hunters who love the taste of venison, who eat whatever they kill and kill only what they will eat, are on ethically safe ground. In more omnivorous days gone by, I have even gladly shared in their spoils. But the point at which hunting is undertaken exclusively or even primarily for the thrill of killing and pride in the trophy, it becomes the exclusive province of lovers of violence, about whom God is quite clear.

The Great Foreskin Debate Continues

I honestly felt remiss in delaying so long sharing this, because I noticed it right when it happened. The German government, clearly responding directly to pressure from me personally, responded to the court ruling made several weeks ago now which declared religious circumcision illegal:

Germany’s foreign minister on Sunday offered assurances that Germany protects religious traditions after a court ruled that circumcising young boys on religious grounds amounts to bodily harm even if parents consent…

Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said that a legal debate “must not lead to doubts arising internationally about religious tolerance in Germany.”

“The free exercise of religion is protected in Germany. That includes religious traditions,” Westerwelle said in a statement. “All our partners in the world should know that.”

That’s good to hear, Guido, but even weeks later, it would appear that many are unsatisfied with these kinds of toothless assurances. So frightening is the stance of the German government–apparently, just one of many European abridgments of religious freedoms–that the Germans have driven together Jews and Muslims for a common purpose:

In a joint statement from Brussels earlier this week, a group of rabbis, imams and others said that they consider the ruling against circumcision ‘‘an affront on our basic religious and human rights.’’

…The German ambassador to Israel told lawmakers in Jerusalem on Monday that the government was looking into whether laws needed to be changed.

‘‘For us the deadline is not tomorrow, but yesterday,’’ Goldschmidt said of possible changes to the law. In the meantime, however, ‘‘we say to the Jewish community … keep performing the brit milah, and have no fear.’’

Unfortunately, it may be difficult for the Jewish community to heed this call, since “the president of the German Medical Association this week recommended that doctors cease performing circumcisions for religious reasons until the law can be clarified.”

Holy Uncircumcised Penises, Batman!

Germany has become the first country (to my knowledge) to outlaw religious circumcision. While many countries have made cosmetic circumcision of children illegal, a court in Germany now says that religion is no longer a valid excuse:

Circumcising young boys on religious grounds amounts to grievous bodily harm, a German court ruled Tuesday in a landmark decision that the Jewish community said trampled on parents’ religious rights.

The regional court in Cologne, western Germany, ruled that the “fundamental right of the child to bodily integrity outweighed the fundamental rights of the parents”, a judgement that is expected to set a legal precedent.

“The religious freedom of the parents and their right to educate their child would not be unacceptably compromised, if they were obliged to wait until the child could himself decide to be circumcised,” the court added.

The fact that roughly one in every three males born into the world is circumcised in a practice which has been carried out continuously since the dawn of recorded history didn’t seem to bother the German judiciary. After all, we are entering a brave new world, one that can put behind it the ways of life in the backwoods parts of the world where circumcision is still prevalent: Africa, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Canada, the United States, and Australia. Thankfully, we have Germany to lead the way, standing on the cutting edge of oppressing Jews for nearly a century now. (I’m sorry. It was just too easy.)

This, it would appear, is what societies get when law and ethics become reducible to questions of conflicting theoretical rights. Being neither a Muslim nor a Jew and living in a country which permits circumcision with broad latitude, I don’t really have a dog in this fight, except for my ideological consternation when I see courts ruling in favor of self-determination for infants. Because a baby has a right to a foreskin, a right which supersedes a mandate from G-d or Allah. That works if you’re a secular court in Germany because you can touch a foreskin and you can’t touch God, but that logic won’t fly with the billions of unenlightened people in the world who think that the commands of their respective deities hold real weight.

The idea of self-determination for infants is, pragmatically, nonsensical. We recognize that infants require guidance and support in every area of life but at the same time pretend that parents ought to be raising them in a political, ideological, and religious void. Says the court: “The body of the child is irreparably and permanently changed by a circumcision. This change contravenes the interests of the child to decide later on his religious beliefs.” Ignore for a moment the fact that the absence of a foreskin does not actually prevent little Fritz von Spielberg from growing up to be good secular humanist like every other European millennial and imagine what this self-deluded ideology of neutral child-rearing and apotheosis of choice looks like in practice. In the words of Stephen Prothero, “This is foolhardy, not unlike saying that you will not read anything to your daughter because you don’t want to enslave her to any one language.”

It is the right, or more precisely the duty, of every parent to raise each child in the way the parent believes is best for its health and safety temporal and eternal. Democrats can raise little Democrats. Republicans can raise little Republicans. Sooner fans can raise little Sooner fans, and the children of Longhorn fans will continue to thumb their noses at them every fall at the state fair. More importantly, Christians can raise little Christians and would be rather perturbed to find a court somewhere ruling that baptism prior to eighteen “contravenes the interests of the child to decide later on his religious beliefs.”

And Jews and Muslims ought to be able to raise their children up in the way they should go. That includes performing the defining and foundational right, at least in Judaism, on their children. Unfortunately, the Germans don’t seem to agree, and who better than the German courts to decide for Jews and Muslims what unacceptably compromises their religious beliefs.