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.
Gravity and the other laws of the universe were either created by God or ARE God in a sense. They are pretty much immutable and steady as far as we humans know. They don't play favorites; they subject everything to the same set of rules and they give equal attention to every object.
Similarly, I imagine that a God who has a WHOLE UNIVERSE to keep an eye on is really not going to pay that much more or less attention to a quark than a rock or a squirrel or a good man or an evil man or a supernova or a black hole. There are, what, five billion of us, and millions of galaxies brimming with possibility out there. We're all brothers to him, flesh, fire and stone, and we all need minding for different reasons and in different ways.
Sometimes I think it is man's fragile ego begging for a stroking when he imagines that God either pays more attention to the virtuous or favors them or loves them more. Those most desperately in need of attention or uplifting seem to be the ones crying the loudest that God is "on their side". Those who are content with their lot in life seem to be of the mind that God loves all his children equally. That is not evidence of God's intentions, but it does hint at the origins of human belief in God's favoritism.
The only evidence I could point to that God favors all his children equally is that we all end up the same, as dust of the universe. That doesn't take into account the possibility of favored treatment in an "afterlife", but since it's impossible to prove directly that one exists, evidence must come from our physical world.
I'd also say that the fact that good people suffer horribly from time to time is potential evidence that God treats all his children equally. You could probably find a correlation between the "goodness" of people and the quality of the life that God gives them, but it's far from overwhelming.
I'll think about this some more and post again, but I'd be interested to read your thoughts as well.
But he didn't levy war against us. That's the whole point. If there was some evidence linking him to the hijackings he could possibly be tried for treason. As it stands, he was living in another country, had, for all practical purposes, renounced his citizenship, and was merely defending his homeland against what he saw as an invading force. I submit that even if there was a declared war it would be difficult to try him for treason.
Well, the same argument could be made about the Southerners who took up arms against the Union. Lincoln waged an undeclared war against the seceding states because he did not accept the way they renounced their citizenship. Technically, Confederate soldiers, as far as that tyrant Lincoln was concerned, could have been tried for treason but they weren't. The charges of treason were even dropped against Lee and Davis. The feds knew they could never make those charges stick so they dropped them. I think we'll see the same thing happen here. The only way out for Bush might be to claim that Walker is no longer a citizen and send him to one of his military tribunals. However, I wouldn't want to get caught on that slippery slope.
They sure seem to be able to grab your attention.
The point of my post is that a declaration of war is not required to charge someone (anyone) with treason. Whether Johnny Bin Walker committed treason or not will be decided by the courts if he is charged.
But the fact remains: A declaration of war is not required to charge someone with treason.
evidence must come from our physical world
The first comment above is the one that made me interested in how you put the pieces of the puzzle together. I guess my definition of religion is different than yours. "Religion" to me is just that: the system by which one explains the metaphysical. It encompasses all the big "why" and "how did it happen" and "what is the meaning of" questions.
Your religion is not an uncommon one. You believe in a natural religion. You take your evidence from the observable universe and use that evidence to deduce your opinions about God, life, meaning, etc. You might not call it a religion, but given the definition I've proposed (similar to Huston Smith's in "Religions of Man") nearly everyone has a "religion." Interestingly, there are some judicial rulings that go the same direction. In them they affirm that "atheism" itself is a religion in that it's an effort to systemitize the "ultimate questions." So is communism and so is secular humanism.
Truth be known, I am a Christian and an ordained minister of a leading, mainline denomination. I've served as a representative of my denomination under official appointment by a bishop for years in the military and now in a local parish. I don't say this to do anything other than convince you that I'm not a "mail order" or "self-proclaimed" minister. That doesn't make my answers right, it only points out that I'm "really" a part of a very refined system of religion.
My answers to the above questions would appear very Christian to you, and you have probably heard them before.
I'm interested in the question of origins. Intelligent design forces me to conclude a creator. I begin there.
If a creator were to create a world peopled by intelligent beings what could creator's purpose have been?
First, he either WILLED to create or he did NOT WILL to create. If he did not WILL to create then the creation is some accidental quirk of his mind or it is the result of his having been somehow forced (by circumstance or outside necessity) into what he didn't want to do. As a result, he would have been either pleased, not pleased, or neutral about this "creation" that he had not willed.
Similarly, if he WILLED to create, then his WILLING came about for his own purposes or as a result of some force of necessity. Again, he would have either been pleased, not pleased, or neutral about the creation which was a result of his willing it into existence.
Therefore we have WILL/NOT WILL; FORCED/NOT FORCED; and PLEASED/NOT PLEASED/NEUTRAL as a starting point. 2x2x3 = 12 possible explanations of creation once we assume a creator. (E.G., (1) WILLED, FORCED, PLEASED, (2) WILLED, FORCED, NOT PLEASED, (3) WILLED, FORCED, NEUTRAL), ETC.)
Each of these explanation will result in a different systemetized "religion." I imagine a Calvinist would clearly come down in the camp that God Willed it, It wasn't forced on Him in any way (not of necessity), and He was Pleased with the result. I'm not a Calvinist, so I'm only guessing.
I'm guessing you in the area of Willed, Not Forced, and Neutral. Our choices, of course, say a lot about how we envision God.
I'm in the area of Willed, Forced, and Pleased.
Of course, the permutations and combinations can be further refined....and could be endless.
What we really need is for God himself to speak authoritatively in some way to provide some kind of guidance through this morass of permutations once we try to deduce God from the natural creation. (Most Christians see that being done by the his giving the bible and becoming human.)
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.The same could be said about Charles Manson, John Wayne Gacey, Ted Bundy, "Mumia," et al.
Let's not be judgmental.
What's the process for doing that? What form? And you can't prove he faught against U.S. Troops.
Walker didn't go with his state, he left the country and then joined his fellow cultists in their jihad. It seems to me that if he still has a US passport and is not claiming, even now, to have renounced his citizenship, that he's guilty of waging war on the US. The standards of proof would have to apply, of course.
I expect Bush to waffle here anyway. He'll weasel his way out of hanging this traitor and his worshippers will applaud him and indulge in an orgy of pompom shaking and cheering his "leadership, humanity and strategery". ;-)
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."
I've never seen Joe Sobran so muddle-headed. He seems to be beside himself with glee, that a child of American decadence would take up with an enemy army. Well, that's decadent as Hell of YOU, Joe! An American boy walking around Marin County quoting from the Koran to the local pagans and wiccans, is eccentric. Joining the Taliban, and fighting your own country, constitutes treason. Whatever your religious beliefs, it is Caesar's due, that you not seek to destroy your own country. Since Sobran knows this, and even made it his title, I can only see this essay as a case of intellectual perfidy.
T.S. Eliot renounced his American citizenship for the Crown's. Ezra Pound did not. That's why, when Pound made broadcasts on behalf of Il Duce, he was guilty of treason.
More perfidy: Sobran brings up the example of Cassius Clay changing his name. Since when is a name change the same as fighting in an enemy army against your own nation? Sobran neglects to mention, that when Clay-Ali was drafted, and refused to serve in the American armed forces, he was arrested, convicted, and imprisoned for draft evasion. And rightfully so!
I think Sobran is dead wrong, when he claims that letting this particular traitor off will not encourage others to be traitors. (And I wonder at his sincerity: judging by the tenor of this essay, he seems to praying for a harvest of traitors!) I guess he's been off somewhere sleeping, the past forty years. You know, while we're at it, why did we ever execute those lovable eccentrics, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg? Surely, giving them the chair was purely symbolic. Surely, letting them go, would not have encouraged others to commit treason.
Does Joe Sobran secretly identify with John Walker Lindh? Has he come to hate America so much, that he wants to encourage more treason? Has he totally lost his mind?
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