Below are excerpts from an outstanding essay by a Pulitzer Prize winner for criticism in 2019. But the last lines, though intended to be hopeful, ring perversely hollow–especially given what one can read on this website about the horrors of American Expansionism/Exceptionalism/Empire:
America is suffering from a sort of post-traumatic stress democracy. It remains in recovery, still a good country, even if a broken good country.
Perhaps he has no choice but to sound such a note when writing for mainline media that fully endorsed the War on Terror 20 years ago.
Then there is the White Evangelical Community, perhaps epitomized by Southern Baptist theologian Dr. Richard Land–of (1990s/2000s) “The Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission” of the Southern Baptist Convention. I engaged in Alaska with Dr. Land in 1997 on the issue of capital punishment. The following about that is from: Why I Oppose the Death Penalty: “The Talking Place: Discussing the Death Penalty” Forum on the Death Penalty, Fairbanks Alaska, March 22, 1997.
The dialogue was organized by the Presbyterian Church in Alaska because debate was heating up in a state with no death penalty on the books.
It took place March 22, 1997, at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, and was teleconferenced throughout Alaska including into the Juneau legislature, and also translated simultaneously for the deaf. Questions were posed from the university audience and from the teleconferencing sites. There was a professionally produced video of the exchange made available to churches in Alaska. Parts I and II permitted a statement of my opposition to capital punishment. Part III dealt with specific biblical texts used erroneously, I argued, in defense of capital punishment.
Worse, Dr. Land sadly went on to become one of the most outspoken American evangelical voices in support of the War on Terror. See his tragic “Land Letter.”
When I was initially invited, it was to a “debate.” I refused to attend. I said that a debate reflects a “winners” and “losers” mentality that is of little use except possibly as entertainment. But I said I would take part if it was a “dialogue.” The event eventually was called “To the Talking Place,” based on a local aboriginal tradition of the entire community coming to “the talking place” to work out differences respectfully and communally. 1
It involved a morning pre-session by a Religious Studies professor at the University on how to read the Bible. The dialogue was moderated by a local radio host. It was highly tasteful and respectful.
Afterward, Dr. Land shared with me that he was a seventh-generation Texan. That growing up white in that state meant profound “unlearning” on racial issues alone. That when his then 18-year-old son, a top university American football draft pick that year as I recall, discussed the “dirty little war” in Vietnam, Dr. Land told me that, contrary to his Southern Baptist preacher-father, he informed his son that if America otherwise was caught up in another war of that sort, he was duty-bound to burn his draft card! (Dr. Land’s father had warned he would be disowned if he ever burned his draft card during the Vietnam War.)
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