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MURDEROUS REGIMES AND THE CHURCHES
The American Spectator
March 18 2014
Turning a blind eye to the savagery of our times.
By Mark Tooley - 3.18.14
his stunning recent graphic offers victim numbers on modern history's
greatest mass murderers. Each blood drop represents one million
killed. China's Mao Zedong ranks "first" with 78 million, followed
by the Soviet Union's Joseph Stalin with 23 million and Nazi Adolf
Hitler 17 million.
"These cold-blooded dictators do not care for the value of life as
much as they do achieving their selfish motives of domination, power,
and immortality," the grim graphic aptly summarizes.
Interestingly, Belgium's notorious King Leopold is fourth with
15 million who died in the Belgian Congo under his brutal colonial
exploitation. Then there's Japanese World War II militarist Tojo with
5 million, and Turkey's WWI chief Enver Pasha with 2.5 million and
Cambodia's Communist despot Pol Pot with 1.7 million. North Korea's
founding tyrant Kim Il Sung is next with 1.6 million, then Ethiopia's
Mengistu with 1.5 million. Nigerian dictator Yakobo Bowon (1966-1975)
is the final listed villain with 1.1 million.
Hitler's monstrosities are often cited and portrayed in popular
history and culture, including countless films and television dramas,
but not so much the others. How many movies about Stalin's crimes or
Mao's? The Killings Fields, a 1984 film, portrayed Pol Pot's crimes,
but blamed the U.S., of course. Armenian Americans periodically demand
recognition of Turkey's WWI genocide against their people. Mao is
still honored as the founding father by the current regime in China.
One of these monsters, Mengistu, is still alive, living quietly in
Zimbabwe. An Ethiopian acquaintance of mine, upon meeting my Zimbabwean
friend, quickly commented, "Oh, the Devil lives in your country."
What did America's churches and religious leaders say about modern
history's most murderous tyrannies? Typically, not much. In the 1930s,
the Mainline Protestant churches mostly focused on opposing war. Many
did eventually criticize Nazism, but often late in the game, and
not fully realizing its cosmic evil. Mostly they were silent about
Stalin's Russia, and many church officials visited the Soviet Union
in the 1930s, during the worst of Stalin's genocidal collectivization,
and gleefully thought it represented the progressive future.
There were initial church concerns about the Communist conquest in
China in 1949 because of the large U.S. missionary presence in China.
But by the 1960s, some avant-garde Protestant mission elites were
celebrating Mao's liberating rule even as his horrific Cultural
Revolution was murderously underway. In 1978, a few years after
Mao's death, a National Council of Churches' official hailed China's
Communists for seeking a "modicum of justice."
Mainline church elites supported U.S. resistance to North Korea's
invasion of the South in 1950. But by the 1970s and 1980s church
elites focused instead on accommodating North Korea, with church
delegations visiting Pyongyang and finding no religious persecution,
typically visiting Kim Il Sung's puppet churches without noticing
the Stepford Wives-style worshippers. Even the great Billy Graham,
in the 1990s, visited these puppet churches uncritically, although
his purpose was commendably to share the Gospel.
When Pol Pot was exterminating hundreds of thousands in newly Communist
Cambodia, U.S. churches were almost all silent. Finally several years
later in 1978 the National Council of Churches condemned Cambodia's
"regimentation" but naturally faulted the U.S. role in the Vietnam
War. About the same time, Mengistu's Marxist regime in Ethiopia was
killing hundreds of thousands, initially through its "Red Terror,"
then mostly through government orchestrated famine, prompting a Church
World Service official to blame U.S. "racism."
In the 19th century, some U.S. churches, especially Presbyterians,
thanks to a missionary presence in the Congo, did alert the world to
Belgium's horrific crimes there. And in the 1920s, southern Methodism
did condemn Turkish atrocities against the Armenians. Otherwise,
the religious record on concern about mass murder by totalitarian
tyrannies is pretty grim.
By contrast, during the 1980s, an endless cavalcade of church officials
and activists routinely sought arrest outside South Africa's embassy
to protest Apartheid, which of course was in fact wicked and deserved
denunciation. But Apartheid across 40 years did not murder as many
as died in a typical day under Mengistu in Ethiopia, whose embassy
was not that far away. To my recollection, indignant church officials
did not protest much less seek arrest outside his embassy.
Catholic leaders in the U.S. were never as negligent on human rights
as the Mainline Protestants, and until the 1960s the U.S. Catholic
bishops were outspokenly anti-Communist. By the 1970s and 1980s they
were tamer, focusing on disarmament and detente.
Evangelicals, to the extent they commented on international human
rights across the decades, were typically strong on critique of
Communist regimes. It was to a receptive National Association of
Evangelicals that Ronald Reagan gave his famous "evil empire" speech
about the Soviet Union. But the latest generation of culturally
sensitive hipster Evangelicals more often than not carefully avoids
potentially controversial criticism of overseas Islamist or Communist
tyrannies, instead hoping to find soothing common ground. When the
next great mass murderer takes power, they cannot be expected to
speak resolutely, if at all. Instead, they will send delegations for
dialogue and tea.
The only regime in the world currently that arouses persistent,
sustained critique by U.S. church groups, including a growing segment
of left-leaning Evangelicals, is democratic Israel. U.S. Evangelicals
just completed a "Christ at the Checkpoint" conference on the West Bank
last week, a now annual event, focusing on Israel's crimes against
the Palestinians. More anti-Israel verbiage is exhaled at this event
than any church criticism was ever deployed against most of the last
century's great mass murderers.
Sudan's Islamist Omar al-Bashir is likely the closest the world has
today to a tyrannical mass murderer on a vast scale, with victims in
the hundreds of thousands. Yet most religious voices are silent.
During the last decade, much religious activism on Sudan's Darfur
region often condemned the Bush Administration, while barely mentioning
Bashir.
Why the churchly silence against regimes of mass murder? Shouldn't
moral and spiritual leaders, especially politically outspoken ones,
lead in identifying and rebutting great evil? One reason may be the
inability of most Americans to comprehend such sweeping horrors.
Americans could understand Apartheid because of U.S. segregation. And
maybe Americans identify with Palestinian inconveniences at an Israeli
military checkpoint because Americans despise highway delays. But
Americans simply have no historical corollary to systematically
killing millions, Howard Zinn-style claims of "genocide" against the
Indians notwithstanding.
God willing, the 21st century will not replicate the last century's
unparalleled and often unchallenged mass murders by genocidal tyrants.
But should another Hitler-Stalin-Mao-Pol Pot-Mengistu arise, may
religious leaders discerningly summon the courage to speak.
http://spectator.org/articles/58377/murderous-regimes-and-churches
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
The American Spectator
March 18 2014
Turning a blind eye to the savagery of our times.
By Mark Tooley - 3.18.14
his stunning recent graphic offers victim numbers on modern history's
greatest mass murderers. Each blood drop represents one million
killed. China's Mao Zedong ranks "first" with 78 million, followed
by the Soviet Union's Joseph Stalin with 23 million and Nazi Adolf
Hitler 17 million.
"These cold-blooded dictators do not care for the value of life as
much as they do achieving their selfish motives of domination, power,
and immortality," the grim graphic aptly summarizes.
Interestingly, Belgium's notorious King Leopold is fourth with
15 million who died in the Belgian Congo under his brutal colonial
exploitation. Then there's Japanese World War II militarist Tojo with
5 million, and Turkey's WWI chief Enver Pasha with 2.5 million and
Cambodia's Communist despot Pol Pot with 1.7 million. North Korea's
founding tyrant Kim Il Sung is next with 1.6 million, then Ethiopia's
Mengistu with 1.5 million. Nigerian dictator Yakobo Bowon (1966-1975)
is the final listed villain with 1.1 million.
Hitler's monstrosities are often cited and portrayed in popular
history and culture, including countless films and television dramas,
but not so much the others. How many movies about Stalin's crimes or
Mao's? The Killings Fields, a 1984 film, portrayed Pol Pot's crimes,
but blamed the U.S., of course. Armenian Americans periodically demand
recognition of Turkey's WWI genocide against their people. Mao is
still honored as the founding father by the current regime in China.
One of these monsters, Mengistu, is still alive, living quietly in
Zimbabwe. An Ethiopian acquaintance of mine, upon meeting my Zimbabwean
friend, quickly commented, "Oh, the Devil lives in your country."
What did America's churches and religious leaders say about modern
history's most murderous tyrannies? Typically, not much. In the 1930s,
the Mainline Protestant churches mostly focused on opposing war. Many
did eventually criticize Nazism, but often late in the game, and
not fully realizing its cosmic evil. Mostly they were silent about
Stalin's Russia, and many church officials visited the Soviet Union
in the 1930s, during the worst of Stalin's genocidal collectivization,
and gleefully thought it represented the progressive future.
There were initial church concerns about the Communist conquest in
China in 1949 because of the large U.S. missionary presence in China.
But by the 1960s, some avant-garde Protestant mission elites were
celebrating Mao's liberating rule even as his horrific Cultural
Revolution was murderously underway. In 1978, a few years after
Mao's death, a National Council of Churches' official hailed China's
Communists for seeking a "modicum of justice."
Mainline church elites supported U.S. resistance to North Korea's
invasion of the South in 1950. But by the 1970s and 1980s church
elites focused instead on accommodating North Korea, with church
delegations visiting Pyongyang and finding no religious persecution,
typically visiting Kim Il Sung's puppet churches without noticing
the Stepford Wives-style worshippers. Even the great Billy Graham,
in the 1990s, visited these puppet churches uncritically, although
his purpose was commendably to share the Gospel.
When Pol Pot was exterminating hundreds of thousands in newly Communist
Cambodia, U.S. churches were almost all silent. Finally several years
later in 1978 the National Council of Churches condemned Cambodia's
"regimentation" but naturally faulted the U.S. role in the Vietnam
War. About the same time, Mengistu's Marxist regime in Ethiopia was
killing hundreds of thousands, initially through its "Red Terror,"
then mostly through government orchestrated famine, prompting a Church
World Service official to blame U.S. "racism."
In the 19th century, some U.S. churches, especially Presbyterians,
thanks to a missionary presence in the Congo, did alert the world to
Belgium's horrific crimes there. And in the 1920s, southern Methodism
did condemn Turkish atrocities against the Armenians. Otherwise,
the religious record on concern about mass murder by totalitarian
tyrannies is pretty grim.
By contrast, during the 1980s, an endless cavalcade of church officials
and activists routinely sought arrest outside South Africa's embassy
to protest Apartheid, which of course was in fact wicked and deserved
denunciation. But Apartheid across 40 years did not murder as many
as died in a typical day under Mengistu in Ethiopia, whose embassy
was not that far away. To my recollection, indignant church officials
did not protest much less seek arrest outside his embassy.
Catholic leaders in the U.S. were never as negligent on human rights
as the Mainline Protestants, and until the 1960s the U.S. Catholic
bishops were outspokenly anti-Communist. By the 1970s and 1980s they
were tamer, focusing on disarmament and detente.
Evangelicals, to the extent they commented on international human
rights across the decades, were typically strong on critique of
Communist regimes. It was to a receptive National Association of
Evangelicals that Ronald Reagan gave his famous "evil empire" speech
about the Soviet Union. But the latest generation of culturally
sensitive hipster Evangelicals more often than not carefully avoids
potentially controversial criticism of overseas Islamist or Communist
tyrannies, instead hoping to find soothing common ground. When the
next great mass murderer takes power, they cannot be expected to
speak resolutely, if at all. Instead, they will send delegations for
dialogue and tea.
The only regime in the world currently that arouses persistent,
sustained critique by U.S. church groups, including a growing segment
of left-leaning Evangelicals, is democratic Israel. U.S. Evangelicals
just completed a "Christ at the Checkpoint" conference on the West Bank
last week, a now annual event, focusing on Israel's crimes against
the Palestinians. More anti-Israel verbiage is exhaled at this event
than any church criticism was ever deployed against most of the last
century's great mass murderers.
Sudan's Islamist Omar al-Bashir is likely the closest the world has
today to a tyrannical mass murderer on a vast scale, with victims in
the hundreds of thousands. Yet most religious voices are silent.
During the last decade, much religious activism on Sudan's Darfur
region often condemned the Bush Administration, while barely mentioning
Bashir.
Why the churchly silence against regimes of mass murder? Shouldn't
moral and spiritual leaders, especially politically outspoken ones,
lead in identifying and rebutting great evil? One reason may be the
inability of most Americans to comprehend such sweeping horrors.
Americans could understand Apartheid because of U.S. segregation. And
maybe Americans identify with Palestinian inconveniences at an Israeli
military checkpoint because Americans despise highway delays. But
Americans simply have no historical corollary to systematically
killing millions, Howard Zinn-style claims of "genocide" against the
Indians notwithstanding.
God willing, the 21st century will not replicate the last century's
unparalleled and often unchallenged mass murders by genocidal tyrants.
But should another Hitler-Stalin-Mao-Pol Pot-Mengistu arise, may
religious leaders discerningly summon the courage to speak.
http://spectator.org/articles/58377/murderous-regimes-and-churches
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress