Connecting the Dots

Harry T. Cook
By Harry T. Cook
8/16/13


One of the explanations for the failure of the United States intelligence agencies to prevent or at least mitigate the catastrophic 9/11 attacks was that no one or no one agency had connected the obvious dots. Had they been connected and the picture seen for what it portended, perhaps the Trade Towers might still be standing and nearly 3,000 souls would not have perished on that terrible day.

 

Surely the monitoring of email and cellphone communications by the National Security Agency -- troubling as it is -- has a great deal to do with efforts to prevent other such attacks.

 

I think that another catastrophe is on its way to destroying America. No matter what the NSA may find out, this is one its operatives could not prevent, even though the dots on the disaster map are obvious. Some almost appear to glow in the dark. Others pulsate, almost begging to be connected. Calamities of this kind do not fall upon us at once or in one place. They occur serially here and there over time, but the sum of their parts is immense.

 

This near-future debacle will not involve suicide bombers, hijacked airliners or guerilla warfare. It will not begin with an enormous explosion. It will produce no instant corpses. It will be the kind of creeping devastation we see even now in the melting of the polar icecap. That is a catastrophe in its own right, but keeping track of it is like watching paint dry or bread dough rise.

 

Most Americans do not have the attention span or patience to attend to such critical matters as they should do. We treat the baleful developments going on around us like the stings of almost invisible gnats, aggravating but tolerable as we go on to the next thing: e.g. keeping track of the scores of our favorite sports teams or the lurid doings of so-called celebrities.

 

Here are a few of the dots that, if they were to be connected, would reveal disaster staring us in the face:

  • The pension funds of all too many municipal jurisdictions are vastly underfunded at just the time that workers in the public sphere -- including teachers -- are being unfairly demonized as leeches with a tide of misplaced resentment threatening to deprive them of promised retirement income. As a result, they may be looking at poverty in their old age.
  • The Affordable Care Act, with its promise of lower health care costs and, at the same time, more decent health care for those who cannot now afford it, is being sabotaged by Republicans in Congress and several state legislatures to the point that its future appears more and more uncertain. It may be that, as a result of what can only be termed political assassination, what is now only bad will become worse.
  • By any measure, the wealth of the infamous 1% continues to build while the income of middle- and lower-class craters. Congress as presently organized is super-resistant to raising taxes on corporations or on the very rich, meaning that the middle class in particular is bearing greater tax burdens and, as a result, becoming poorer. One example of this inequity is the maximum annual income cap on Social Security contributions, which is currently set at $113,700. Edward Gibbons demonstrated in his chronicle of the fall of Rome that too great a disparity between rich and poor is a sure sign of a civilization's collapse.
  • At just the time that unemployment is stuck at too-high a level, and once-settled families find themselves in the shadows of looming homelessness and food shortages, there is a move to lower levels of food stamp support, single women and their children being the chief victims. That whilst banks, bloated with unprecedented profits -- and that with the sometimes tacit approval of government -- are remaining tightfisted about home loans and just as stubborn about helping people whose homes are under water.
  • The resistance in some quarters of domestic industry to take serious steps to lower carbon emissions is demonstrably connected to the melting of polar icecaps, which, over time, will cause a dangerous rise in sea levels both in this country and in regions around the globe where the perennially poor are already suffering due to the salinization of otherwise arable land.
  • The congressional disdain for public works programs and projects is leaving the presumably richest nation in the world with an electrical grid dangerously unmaintained, a network of 19th-century railroad beds that prevent the use of energy efficient bullet trains. Such neglect means that ordinary Americans must travel on potholed highways, over bridges that occasionally collapse and -- for the more fortunate among them -- in coach sections of airplanes, which are contemporary America's versions of cattle cars bound for concentration camps.
  • The growing popularity among the very rich of private jets or, failing that, privileged treatment by airlines panting to sell outrageously luxurious space and perks goes right along with the newest gated communities, their private police forces and off-grid electricity generators. People who travel or dwell in such high-living environments are more and more ignorant and therefore uncaring of the grim, everyday realities with which ordinary folk must cope.
  • Consider the city of Detroit and its world-renowned art institute. Creditors and bondholders are demanding the liquidation of the institute's priceless art collection to satisfy the bankrupt city's debts. Should such a thing occur, Manets and Monets and Rembrandts that can now be viewed gratis by any bona fide resident of Detroit and its neighboring counties will end up privatized on the walls of the mansions of the 1%.

One, maybe two of these dots would not represent insurmountable problems. But connect all the dots, and they become together a picture of a society well on its way to collapse. Should that collapse materialize, the only hope is that the rich will run out of luck not so long after the poor. Then both will discover a tragic kind of egalitarianism as, together, they stumble through the "bare ruin'd choirs"* of what's left of the edifice of their once-great nation.

 

*Shakespeare. Sonnet 73, L. 4

 

 

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Correction: The last name of New York Times oped columnist Ross Douthat was misspelled in last week's essay. Also, the word "principle" was used incorrectly in place of "principal." The corrected version of the essay posted on 8/9/13 is available in the archives. Go to www.harrytcook.com. Scroll down to ESSAYS BY HARRY T. COOK and click as indicated.

Copyright 2013 Harry T. Cook. All rights reserved. This article may not be used or reproduced without proper credit.
 

What a Friend They Had in Jesus: The Theological Visions of Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Hymn Writers

Have you ever found yourself humming a favorite childhood hymn, only to realize you could no longer embrace its message? Harry Cook explores how hymns reflect the religious beliefs of their times. He revisits the texts of popular hymns, posing such questions as: How true are they to the biblical texts that seem to have inspired them? What aspects of nineteenth- and twentieth-century piety have persisted into the twenty-first century through the singing of those hymns? And, how does one manage the conflict between the emotional appeal and the theological content of such hymns?

Available at:
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What reviewers said:

 

"Important and heart-warming ... Cook's keen insights into the most familiar of old-time gospel hymns ... help you do theology like a grownup."
--Robin Meyers, author of Saving Jesus from the Church

 

"A compelling look at centuries of Christian theology and practice, at how particular hymns have shaped American faith and religious thought."
--Richard Webster, Director of Music and Organist at Trinity Church, Boston

 

"A call to integrity in worship ... This exciting, penetrating and provocative study explores the theology we sing, which re-enforces the dated and pre-modern theology from which the Christian faith seeks to escape."
--John Shelby Spong, author of Re-Claiming the Bible for a Non-Religious World


 


Readers Write 
Essay 8/9/13: Jesus Christ!      

 

Dr. Robin Meyers, Oklahoma City, OK:

I read your essay with interest, of course, and agree that [Reza] Aslan's hypothesis is nonsense. A zealot would have advocated violent means to overthrow Rome (which if there is any veracity to the "approved" gospel accounts, some in his own disciples favored and Jesus emphatically rejected. The real zealots (the dagger people) moved among the crowds and sometimes took out client rulers of Rome and could escape in the confusion (a fatal stab and then wander off looking innocent). But I would make a distinction between zealots and determined but nonviolent anti-imperialists, and I agree with J. Dominic Crossan that Jesus was deliberately resisting the world according to Rome in ways that became increasingly obvious, and ultimately deadly. The "unparade" or "untriumphal" entry that lampooned the real military parade happening on the other side of town. And of course, the "cleansing" of the Temple, which Aslan attributes to Jesus' real zealotry, but I would guess had more to do with complete frustration at a religious establishment that brokered access to God and facilitated Roman oppression. Turning over tables and stabbing people to death are different tactics. The difference, of course, between a zealot and a non-violent revolutionary is in the methods used. And we have no evidence (zero) in or out of the canonical gospels, that Jesus ever advocated a violent overthrow of Rome -- correct? I could not agree with you more that the church quickly dispensed with the idea of nonviolence (and egalitarianism and redistribution of wealth, etc., etc.) as quickly as Constantine found it politically expedient to bring the church to the table of power. But what the church did with the message of Jesus is the fault of the church, not Jesus. 

 

Blayney Colmore, Jacksonville, VT:
Doesn't it make sense that Jesus, about whom all physical evidence has disappeared, and who has been portrayed in as many different ways as there are portrayals, is a composite not only of all those who have written about him, but of the projections we all cast onto a figure for whom uncommon authority has been claimed? I have long been puzzled by those who say they "love" Jesus. Again, what they must mean is that they love whatever it is about their projection that makes them like themselves better. Fair enough, but hardly a reflection of an historical figure. Since we claim Jesus to be some sort of fleshed out icon of God, it should be no surprise that our claims for him should be grounded in some alternate reality no one has yet managed to define. We needn't look back into ancient obscurity for examples of how this happens. Che Guevara, who lived and died within my lifetime, decorates many a tee shirt and many a shrine. And his historical memory is nearly as diverse as those who invoke him.


Penelope Gruse, Honolulu, HI:

What you are, sir, is a breath of fresh air. I had harbored such thoughts about my Sunday school Jesus for years, but was afraid to speak them. You have spoken them for me, only better I ever could.

 

Fr. Tom Jackson, Tyler, TX:

I give this essay a special "spot on" for "just about a perfect, concise summary of religious/biblical scholarship, vis-�-vis Christianity." My last test of the power of this document would be, of course, to carry it in my briefcase when going through "airport security" for next week's flight -- just to see if it is determined as "too dangerous" to have on my person.

 

Danny Belrose, Independence, MO:

Your essay "Jesus Christ!" was terrific! Your idea of several Jesuses is spot on. If there were a "singular" Jesus around which the New Testament is woven he would not recognize himself if he read it.

 

Leonard Polger, Westland, MI:

I thoroughly (as always) appreciated your "which Jesus" essay but want to add another example of the violence either initiated or supported by Christian churches. You mentioned the violent crusades, but let's not forget the Holocaust that involved untold thousands of Christians, either as perpetrators or bystanders. 

 

Julie Eliason, Royal Oak, MI:  
Thank you for sharing your brilliance and vast knowledge with us. I find your hypothesis of multiple Jesuses fascinating, and it makes a lot of sense.
  

Thomas R. Mansell, Macomb, MI:

I have been reading your essays for approximately two years. I have been remiss in thanking you for your use of words that are not, at least in the books and online articles I read, found used very much if at all. One of the few things I enjoyed in high school was the list of 12 words that our English writing and grammar teacher gave us every Monday. He would pronounce each one in a clear voice two times. It was up to us to ascertain the spelling and definition of each one and be prepared to take a test every Friday when he would pronounce 10 of the twelve words. We would then write down the chosen words and their definitions. Penalties for any mistakes were steep. I never failed to spell and define each word correctly. This was not due to a fear of punishment for failure but to a joy of learning and a determination to broaden my vocabulary. As life turned out in my case, I usually found myself among people who had a tenuous grasp on basic English let alone the proverbial "50-cent words." So thank you, sir, for stimulating my mind every Friday and giving me a reason to look up long forgotten words.

 

Brian McHugh, Silver City, NM:

"Banana republics of ecclesiastical power." What an absolutely fabulous phrase!! How I wish that I had said it! And, I absolutely love the idea of Jesus as a Mediterranean peasant. Of course you know that I agree with you that Jesus is a composite of various ideas. However, in my old age -- and yes, I know you're older than I am -- I have come to the conclusion that God is completely an invention of the human need to deal with the fear of dying, etc. and with the need to get on with the daily living and not huddle in the back of some cave. I think I am going to start being a little bolder and expressing this view. After all, I should catch up with you on the path of being reviled! We'll see how long it is before the bishop inhibits me!

 

Joel Pugh, Dallas, TX:

I haven't read Aslan's book yet, but from the reviews I do not agree with Aslan. In fact, historical Jesus might have figured out what I did -- Roman rule was a pretty good deal for ancient Palestine. Hell, between Persia, Syria, and Babylon, the Jews had self-rule for maybe only a hundred years or so of the 800 years before Rome finally burned 'em out. What Rome wanted was 4% of the gross for protection and free trade -- a better deal then the other conquerors gave. The real villains here were King Herods 15% tax (he died the first Jewish billionaire) and the rich folks in Jerusalem who sold wine, olive oil and wheat to Rome for silver, and ignored the starving peasants. Jesus' rebellion, like that of Amos, was against the fat cats and the priests that these cats had in their pockets, not against Rome. (Remember that famous inheritance tax that Joseph traveled to Bethlehem for? It didn't happen. Caesar's estate tax idea didn't work because the bulk of the land had be foreclosed on and those farmers still hanging on didn't have much, if any, left in the warehouse after that 15% of the gross tax.)

 

Fred Fenton, Concord, CA:

You quote Pagels' conclusion:" The church chose John's Jesus." She is right. The Jesus variously depicted in the [Mark, Matthew and Luke] would never have made statements like, "The Father and I are one." (John 10:30 NRSV) Thus we are given a pre-existent Word of God instead of the Jewish peasant who was a prophet or sage or zealot, but never himself claimed to be divine. Your argument that we are dealing with a composite figure rather than a single individual seems entirely reasonable and in keeping with the evidence.

 

Cynthia Chase, Laurel, MD:
Interesting to read that [Reza] Aslan was an evangelical Christian for a little while. I just finished reading Middlemarch for the third or fourth time and cackled with glee over George Eliot's treatment of the evangelicals. Another point she makes is that poor old Casaubon was doggedly pursuing biblical scholarship without bothering to learn German. The poor guy was still mucking around in the 18th century.

Mike Crosby, Milwaukee, WI:

I have been following the reviews of Reza Aslan's book on Jesus with great interest. Yesterday's Washington Post attacked his academic claims in a very long piece. Among these was last weeks NYT piece by Ross Douthat. I also once made a list of all the titles different authors gave Jesus for the title of the books, such as Crossan. But I don't think, as you do, that any one suffices. If I had to give any title to Jesus it would be "Challenge to the Violence of Entrenched Religious Systems." Aslan can't find scriptural warrants to justify his "zealot" attribution of Jesus because it's quite clear from Pilate (at least in the telling) that he really didn't know who Jesus was. So he could not have been that much of a challenge. What intrigues me is how much of a threat Jesus was to his own religious leaders; it is they who, to save their system, had Jesus delivered to the Roman system. They manipulated the Roman leaders. True, the Creed says that he "suffered under Pontius Pilate," but he never would have gotten near the praetorium had he not gotten to be such a threat to the Temple. Thanks for your continued insights.

 


What do you think?
I'd like to hear from you. E-mail your comments to me at [email protected].

 


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