Posted on 12/27/2001 1:35:48 AM PST by Ada Coddington
The Things That Are Caesar's
by Joseph Sobran
Nutty boy, John Walker Lindh. But why is everyone so furious at him?
By now you've heard all about him. Born a Catholic, he lived in the Maryland suburbs of Washington until he was ten. His family moved to crazy Marin County, Calif. His mother dabbled in Buddhism.
A bright, likable boy and a superior student, with a good sense of humor, John became a Muslim in his teens and went off to Yemen, changing his name to Suleyman al-Faris. He found the Muslims there disappointingly lax in their observance of Islam, so he migrated to Afghanistan and joined the Taliban, fighting in a local war under the name Abdul Hamid.
His parents, who eventually divorced, lost track of him until he turned up as a prisoner of war in early December. He was wounded in the leg during the prisoner uprising that killed one American CIA agent who had interrogated him.
His parents were shocked, both by his role and by his strange appearance – Islamic costume, beard, dirty face, long matted hair – but they defended him as well as they could. That is to say, awkwardly. How do you explain "my son, the Taliban"?
Newsweek reports that his parents "tried to be nonjudgmental, even supportive, about his conversion"; last week, in interviews, his father still "steadfastly refused to be judgmental."
Meanwhile, everyone else called John a "traitor." Many are demanding that he receive the death penalty. The US government wants to throw the book at him. But there are also doubts as to whether he is legally a traitor; though technically still a US citizen, Congress hasn't declared war as prescribed by the Constitution. And there may not be the two required witnesses to confirm that he actually made war against the United States.
I guess I understand the indignation, but I don't share it. What is all the uproar about a single eccentric? Is it amazing, or shocking, that a country this big should produce such a freak, or even a few more like him? Letting him off is hardly likely to encourage hordes of young Americans to follow his bizarre example. There is no need to make an example of a unique case.
No, Lindh's significance is purely symbolic. He affronts prevailing notions of American patriotism. But he effectively renounced his citizenship, even if he didn't do the paperwork, and he transferred his allegiance to another country. How was he supposed to know it would be attacked by US forces? If Cassius Clay could become Muhammad Ali, why can't John Walker Lindh become Suleyman al-Faris? "In the U.S. I feel alone," he once said. "Here I feel comfortable and at home."
Of course, he has also said outrageous things, defending, for example, the 9/11 attacks and general terrorism against the United States. But to me the most interesting fact is the dog that hasn't barked. Nobody seems to mind that Lindh renounced Jesus Christ.
You can repudiate your Savior, but not your nation-state. Your religion is a private affair, which nobody else can judge, not even your family; but political loyalties are indissoluble.
If Lindh had stayed here, become an abortion provider, and attached a little American flag to his Mercedes, he would still qualify as a good American.
Even his parents don't mind his change of religion. Why should they? They abandoned the faith themselves. It evidently wasn't a serious commitment for them; neither was their marriage. They were typical modern Americans – indeed, Californians – and they believed in doing your own thing.
John's thing just happened to be Islam. He is reported to have complained that Americans were so busy pursuing their personal goals that they had no time for their families or communities. He seems to have been generalizing from his own parents. And he had a point.
It looks as if what he was really trying to escape was the soulless relativism that was his real religious heritage. Did he ever receive a true Catholic education, or did he, as we say, just "happen to be" a Catholic? Did he encounter the faith in its fullness, or did it appear to him just one more feel-good, nonjudgmental denomination in the great American smorgasbord?
Maybe he felt closer to God in Islam than in liberal Catholicism. And maybe he was right. The Taliban is pretty far from God, but perhaps not as far as lukewarm Christianity.
In his odd way, Lindh was looking for stable truths that were not to be found in Marin County, and he didn't care if his search led him to conclusions that seemed insane to the apostles of pluralism.
Given time, he might even have come back to the true Catholicism he probably never knew. It's not impossible even now. I'd be more surprised if his parents came back to it.
But in the media, Lindh the Traitor has upstaged Lindh the Apostate. Politics matters, religion is incidental. If the logic of Lindh's adoptive religion leads him to political heresy, he is condemned for following his religion – just as pro-lifers are blamed for refusing to subordinate their religion to a court decision.
So the strangest story to emerge from the War on Terrorism throws a revealing light on what America has become. The message of the press and public reaction is clear. We have the secularist culture's full permission to rebel against God, but not against Caesar.
Nobody seems to see sin, or pathos, in John Lindh's estrangement from Christ.
But at least Lindh realized that he had a soul. This explains just about everything the media and the public find baffling about him.
Reprinted from the December 20, 2001, issue of The Wanderer.
Joe Sobran is a nationally syndicated columnist. He also edits SOBRAN'S, a monthly newsletter of his essays and columns.
He invites you to try his new collection of aphorisms, "Anything Called a 'Program' Is Unconstitutional: Confessions of a Reactionary Utopian." You can get a free copy by subscribing or renewing your subscription to Sobran's. Just call 800-513-5053, or see his website, www.sobran.com. (He's still available for speaking engagements too.)
Copyright (c) 2001 by Griffin Internet Syndicate. All rights reserved.
Crimes are punished by government authorities. Sin is punished by God. What is he finding so unclear in this? Surely he isn't wanting our government to take on more of the form of the Taliban.
"In the U.S. I feel alone," he once said. "Here I feel comfortable and at home."
Maybe he felt closer to God in Islam than in liberal Catholicism. And maybe he was right. The Taliban is pretty far from God, but perhaps not as far as lukewarm Christianity.
In his odd way, Lindh was looking for stable truths that were not to be found in Marin County, and he didn't care if his search led him to conclusions that seemed insane to the apostles of pluralism.
More along the lines that, as many children raised in families that are broken or next to it, there is deep anger and even hate. From what I have read of him, he blamed his parents but also America. Just as some turn to gangs and feel "they belong", he turned to yet another oganized hate group, one that claimed their actions were "for Allah". If he had any religious or spiritual feelings, I would guess the idea of acting on hate in the name of religion would seem appealing.
Sobran is also dissembling here by trying to insinuate that citizenship is as free from legal definition as religion is in the US. Any of us may change religious affiliation at will and the government has no power to require that we notify them. The same is not true of citizenship.
None of this really matters, since we have a President with very elastic scruples. Walker will skate because Bush hasn't the backbone to face the outcry that liberals would raise should he let the traitor be hanged as he so richly deserves.
Bingo. There is more outrage shown at the fact that he decided to live somewhere else. He's not an Amerian. And thus he can't be called guilty of treason. Nor can it be proven that he made war against us.
Politicians seem to like undeclared wars because they can profit from their treason under that technicality, but they usually refrain from actually firig on our troops. There's not any money in that end of the war anyway. ;-)
"Liberal Catholicism" to Joe Sobran is anything that has manifested itself since 1962.
In Joe's mind, vernacular Masses, married deacons, women reading scripture at Mass, and priests in shirt sleeves are worse than an ideology which leads to flying planes into buildings full of innocent people.
Sobran, like Charley Reese, has completely lost any relevance since 9/11.
Nope, she is wrong. As I recall, there were executions for treason against the US during the "Cold War", for which there was no declaration of war, either. The section on treason in the Constitution says not one word about any necessity for a declaration of war.
Maybe for the same reasons that teachers do. Or maybe for the reasons that parents do (and then deny it.) Or maybe for the reasons that executives do...or sales managers...or movie directors....
But you never told me. On what do you base your opinions?
Ammnd he NEEDS it , from a screeming harppyu with limitred grasp of the enhlish langiuge !
Perhaps he also needs better research help , as well. There HAVE been articles, and talking heads , who have been just as hard on Johnny Jihad, and his parents, about his converting to Islam.
None that I've seen.
Only those with VERY little knowledge, can read this drivel and applaud it.
You imperiously demeaning others' mental abilities is like a midget squeeking out threats to beat normal people up. It's amusing.
In John 8:44 Christ was telling the Jews that the devil was their father.
So who are God's children? Or should I ask how does one become a child of God?
Nope ! Many of those, who went to fight, in Spain, WERE punished, once they came home ! That is precisely the example I was using ... the Lincoln Brigade. LOL
Thanks for allowing me to correct you and prove you incorrect at the same time. : - )
And you have quotes of Sobran to back this up? Or is it just one more convenient bit of neocon slander?
Name one. I've not read of any of the Lincoln Brigade ever having been punished.
He's a Tridentine advocate.
In the 1950s most veterans, whether Communist or not, were harassed or forced out of their jobs by the FBI. Communist Lincolns in particular were hit hard by the repressive Subversive Activities Control Board, the Smith Act, and state sedition laws, although over time all but a few convictions were overturned. In the 1950s and 1960s the majority of Lincoln veterans quit the CP but continued to be active on the Left. Notwithstanding its exclusion from American textbooks, the Abraham Lincoln Brigade commands attention as a unique example of prescient, radical, and selfless action in the cause of international freedom.
http://www.english.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/abe-brigade.html
Looks like the Reds aren't privy to your information. The only prosecutions they mention of Lincoln Brigade veterans is for their subversive activities back in the States after their return. Maybe your boast of knowing that the Lincoln Brigade was prosecuted was ... premature.
In Joe's mind, vernacular Masses, married deacons, women reading scripture at Mass, and priests in shirt sleeves are worse than an ideology which leads to flying planes into buildings full of innocent people.
But then, as you say, you are reading Joe's mind to gain this information. I would have thought it was "hyperbole unsupported by evidence", but then I have yet to learn the art of mindreading. I mostly rely on quoting someone when attributing incendiary positions to them. This mindreading stuff opens an entirely new field to the art of debate.
For the same reason that He decided to reveal Himself to the Jews first and referred to them as the apple of His eye. He is sovereign. He answers to no one but Himself.
Why did He choose Abel over Cain?
"But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name."
---John 1:12
I don't see why not. Again, the section of the Constitution that defines treason doesn't say anything about "dual citizenship" being an excuse. I suspect that if a "dual citizen" committed an act of war against the US, they would be convicted of treason based soley on their AMERICAN citizenship. Maybe they would only be shot half as dead :)
I see Pelham has disabused you about the Lincoln Brigade members.
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