Hello Friends,
What a strange and horrible week. Shootings so close together that one at a school in Colorado is largely put aside to focus on the killing of Charlie Kirk.
There seems to be no way to get away from that as the central story of our country. And while it seems that everyone, people of all ideologies, are condemning it—rightfully so—they are also saying things like: “This is not who we are.”
It’s exactly who we are, and that is something to mourn.
In my social feeds, I have acquaintances I used to be closer to. But having left the workplace, I only see them online. Several are rightwing Christians. They are making Kirk out to be a martyr. I’m very sorry to see that. One even said she hadn’t heard of him/didn’t know who he was before he was shot, but searched the internet for a hot minute, and now she is continuously posting videos of him to show that he is a Christian martyr.
Perhaps a more in-depth search is in order, I think, but do not respond. Because pointless. When I think about what Kirk said about other political violence—the beating of Paul Pelosi, nearly to death, comes to mind—I think of him telling the story of Jesus admonishing the crowd “Let he among you who has not sinned cast the first stone.” (John 8)
We know this story, right? A woman caught in adultery, the crowd wanting to stone her, Jesus’s response. [Kirk said she was selling herself for sex, but this is the story he means.] The crowd leaves. Jesus tells the woman to ‘go and sin no more.’ Kirk was the kind of guy who would have followed through on picking up a stone and throwing it. Metaphorically, he did that all the time. Worse, he included people who weren’t doing anything wrong, but who disagreed with him, endangering their lives because of their opinions or political views. Here’s One example from Heather Cox Richardson, a historian who daily discusses current events in the historical content of the U.S.:
Condemnation of the shooting was widespread. Perhaps eager to distance themselves from accusations that anyone who does not support MAGA endorses political violence, commenters portrayed Kirk as someone embracing the reasoned debate central to democracy, although he became famous by establishing a database designed to dox professors who expressed opinions he disliked so they would be silenced (I am included on this list).
It made him a lot of money. Which reminds me of another of Jesus’s admonitions in the gospels. (Hint: It’s about the root of all evil.)
Here’s a story you probably haven’t read because it’s from the Christian journal of Sojourners, an evangelical left organization. It spoke to me because it shows that people can change. The following paragraphs are noncontiguous excerpts.
I REJECTED CHARLIE KIRK’S POLITICS. THAT’S WHY I GRIEVE HIS DEATH from Sojourners
Before I abandoned the conservatism Kirk so effectively promoted, I shared many of the same platforms he exploited, from the massive student assemblies at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., to the Christian Broadcasting Network's popular television programming. Like Kirk, I was a young star in the Christian conservative universe, but a generation before him. …
Wherever political violence occurs—including recent examples in Utah, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and anywhere else—it is ugly, and it reverberates through whole societies, shocking consciences, instilling fear, giving rise to pervasive pessimism and hopelessness. It is also counterproductive to the ideals that perpetrators ostensibly feel that their ill-advised, misguided actions defend—or even advance. Instead, studies show that assassinations often undermine democracy and social institutions, decrease political participation, correlate with social conflict, contribute to economic decline, and cause harmful psychological impacts across social strata. …
Kirk's opinions about others were regularly cruel, dismissive, and exclusionary. Still, he had a constitutional right to express his views and lead his movement—and those who oppose his contemptuous attitudes have an equal right to call out those harmful attitudes and work to defeat the policies and behaviors they produce. But silencing ideological competitors by frightening, brutalizing, or murdering them is contrary to the very foundation of our constitutional republic. …
Now is the time to rededicate ourselves to the passionate pursuit of nonviolent social justice fueled by a powerful ethic of love and energized by a generous spirituality that celebrates rather than diminishes humanity. Let's build a safe and accepting future for everyone—and let's do it in honor of all the victims of violence, known and unknown, those who make the headlines and those who don't.
Landing
I had a lot of other things I wanted to address today concerning books and authors, cakes, quince, and passion fruit. I’ll cut it out and paste it into next week. Mostly, I'm worried about my response to Kirk’s murder. Because when I heard that he had been shot from 200 yards away and killed with a single round and that there was an unmarked plane nearby, I started to think conspiracy theory thoughts. That the rightwing had killed one of their own to move the national conversation from other topics. Ugh. I’m starting to believe we are all just going to choose the cult we belong to.
I don’t know. If years down the line, it were proven that MAGA was behind the death of Kirk, I would not be shocked. I would have a response something like, ‘Yeah, that tracks.’ Maybe that says more about the movement of the country into crazy territory than it does about me.
I’m trying to give myself some grace. I’m still working out whatever weird autoimmune issue I have. I just finished a round of antibiotics and my fourth prescription for a steroid ointment. Got biopsy results and good news on endless blood labs. I’m now on a 50% higher dose of Prednisone that is taken for three weeks instead of 12 days. It’s disrupting my sleep, making me dizzy, wildly jittery, anxious, and irritated. But—and this is a wow after four months!—the rash, bruising, blistering, lumps, and joint aches are disappearing. I cannot express how great this is for me. But maybe the sleeplessness is affecting my thinking. I hope the immune response issues are resolved and don't return when I finish the meds.
Maybe it’s all just stress related. If you are looking for a stress fix, these five steps were in the Wellness newsletter from the NYTs this week. You’ll need to read for the details.
Or here’s another idea from Allison Lane's interview with Dr. Partha Nandi, author, physician, and host of the syndicated show Ask Dr. Nandi. He recommends setting a goal in any of these five areas this week (don’t wait!).
* Purpose
* Community
* Spiritually
* Nutrition
* Movement
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The Cultishness of Now
Since I’m thinking about how cultishness has overtaken us, how about a few more recommendations on cult books? Here are two I haven’t posted about yet:
Educated by Tara Westover
Tara Westover grew up in view of Buck’s Peak, in Idaho, the youngest of seven children, born into a fundamentalist (though not polygamist) Mormon family. Her father, Gene, is so afraid of the outside world that he has no birth certificates for many of the children. He wants no records the government can use to track them—and, in his mind, the feds are always working to track them down. He doesn’t allow visits to the doctor since those exhibit a lack of faith in God.
Most important of all, Westover and her siblings are kept out of public school so that the government will not teach them evil ways. Supposedly, their parents are homeschooling them, but, in reality, almost no teaching is going on. Westover, and a few of her siblings who are interested in being educated, work hard to have the opportunity to learn. Eventually with the help of a brother, Westover teaches herself enough to take the ACT test and get into Brigham Young University. But before she can use education as an escape route, she suffers severely at the hands of one of her brothers, a violent boy who exhibits traits of sociopathy. Her parents shrug it off, insisting that it is not happening, or, when confronted with real evidence, that it was accidental or horseplay that had gone too far.
That Westover and her siblings survive their upbringing is, quite honestly, astonishing. They do not, however, come through it unscathed. Not only were they psychologically abused, but they were physically harmed in completely unnecessary accidents through the sheer stupidity of their parents. They work in very dangerous conditions (free of government constraints!) resulting in many falls, concussions, third-degree burns, open wounds, and, yes, near deaths.
Each time the parents risk the lives of their children, they put it in God’s hands. To them, this is a deep act of faith. To the reader, it is a criminal refusal of responsibility. While it’s hard to leave family behind, it’s the only way for Westover to move forward.
Counting the Cost by Jill Duggar
Duggar outlines how her parents, particularly her father, lost their way in starring in the reality TV series “Nineteen Kids and Counting.” She is the family’s pleaser—‘Sweet Jilly Muffin’—and also one of the victims of her brother Josh’s sexual abuse. The riptide of her authoritative upbringing repeatedly pulls her into her father’s control despite her having married and become a mother. This lack of self-reliance is at the heart of the teaching of the Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP), a religious group the Duggars belong to, one that Jill finally understands is a cult. Her memoir is her effort to take back her narrative.
The IBLP teaches that there is an umbrella of protection in its families. God over all, the father under God, and everyone else in the family under him. Importantly, this hierarchy continues after the children become adults. While the leader of the IBLP—Bill Gothard, who never married and has no children—resigned over accusations of sexual harassment and molestation of female employees, the cult is still active. We learn some of its teaching: God opens and closes the womb, so birth control isn’t allowed; homeschooling is a must; and older children are assigned ‘buddies,’ younger children for whom they act as surrogate parents.
Duggar is beyond kind in her final assessment of her parents, as people pleasers who grow up under manipulative control often are. She gives them grace readers don't feel they deserve, particularly when we see the difference between how they treat Jill and their son Josh, now convicted of downloading and possessing child sex abuse images on his work computer.
While patriarch Jim Bob Duggar began the reality TV journey with the belief that it was his ministry to shine a light on Christian family values, his continual practice of swindling his kids out of their earnings shows he has succumbed to what Jesus refers to as the root of all evil—the love of money. (And that appears to be one of our themes today.)
Past Posts
The following post discusses four books about the FLDS cult:
* Stolen Innocence by Elissa Wall
* Escape by Carolyn Jessop
* Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer
* Lost Boy by Brent W. Jeffs
Other cult stories I’ve covered in the past:
“Uncultured” by Daniella Mestyanek Young
“Rift” By Cait West
“A Well-Trained Wife: My Escape from Christian Patriarchy” by Tia Levings
Please take care. ❤️
