Religion
Jean-Pierre Crisan, author
Religion and the US Constitution
The exemption of religious and charitable organizations from taxes dates to early colonial times and continues today as an act of "…promoting the common welfare" as written in the US Constitution's Preamble, and in Article 1, section 8. It is tempered by the prescription of religious neutrality in the first amendment: " …Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."
Changes in definitions and in the breadth and scope of religious organizations in the years since our nations’ founding, along with their amassing of corporate and political powers requires us to re-examine this government tax subsidy and policies to recalibrate its role to reflect a more complex and multi layered set of realities that exist today.
Religious organizations are estimated to own approx. 4 billion dollars worth of real estate with the Mormon and Catholic churches being among the largest US landowners. Control of significant percentages of property in any community equate to political power, as influence in matters of land use, local politics and real estate markets affects the entire community.
Constitutional provisions have been exploited as loopholes for expansionary policies based on the corporate model whose fiduciary responsibility is solely to its "shareholders". To the extent that they operate outside of spiritual and humanitarian functions, they compete with and are subsidized by the general population and commerce. Examples include one case of tax exempt large scale retail business operations by a church that the court judged to have afforded them an unfair advantage over competitors.
Conflict between scripture and science in education has created a debate that could only occur among the ignorant, where known scientific fact is replaced by religious opinion, and where subjects such as history are taught through the narrow lens of religious belief.
The rise of the Protestant evangelical movement represents a move away from spiritualism towards a socio-political activist role that is closely connected to neo-conservative politics that goes as far as working against people or groups who do not share their opinions. An example of this is in government hiring practices, or in third world countries where aid is given selectively based on religious conversion away from native faith traditions, or on abortion policy.
Lobbyists for religious groups have direct influence at the highest levels of our government. AIPAC represents a foreign government that is founded on the extreme right wing of Judaism. People connected with this organization were instrumental in promoting war in Iraq, and in the supply of illegal munitions (alleged cluster and phosphorous bombs, and depleted uranium munitions) by our government for the Israeli-Lebanon war.
We have seen messianic delusions in our political leaders that have resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people. Parallels are seen in American history, where 17th century Protestant extremism in the Massachusetts Bay colony was eventually rejected as a destructive and disunifying force in our society.
American liberty allows definitions of religion that can assume any guise, and as we have seen with some Muslim denominations, that may plot terror and destruction in our own lands. This forces us to ask and answer questions relating to the relative roles of charity, the public welfare, and the public’s obligations to support religions based on the directives and intentions of our Constitution and its framers.
The debate goes beyond to tax or not to tax , and extends to the very security of the principles, spiritual and practical, which, ironically, are deeply founded in religious belief, that are the fiber and fabric of what this nation is meant to be.
1794: The Beginnings Of Conflict With The Muslim World
Moored in Boston harbor is the USS Constitution, possibly the oldest commissioned war ship in the world. It and five others were ordered built by president George Washington and Congress in the Naval Act of 1794 to unify the various colonial navies under federal control. It was done with the particular urgency of responding to the ravages inflicted by Barbary pirates on American merchant shipping in the Mediterranean sea. This piracy and the extraction of fees and ransoms was conducted by the semi-autonomous states in northern Africa of a weakening Ottoman empire. At the time, European nations paid tributes, or bribes to these city-states such as Tripoli, Tunis, and Algiers, deeming that it was less expensive than a military solution. The newly independent American nation, which had previously had protection as a British colony, now was having its ships seized, cargos stolen and crewmen taken for slaves and ransom.
Upon inquiring of these states as to why no peaceful trading relations could be maintained, our representatives, such as Joel Barlow, US consul general in Algiers, were told that Muslims had a religious duty to subjugate non-believers and to extract tributes from infidels, or non-Muslims.
The first response by the Americans was to offer the Treaty of Tripoli in 1797, which was a diplomatic overture attempting to normalize relations and to separate issues of commerce from those of religion and to express our tolerance of all religions and our expectations that such religious tolerance be reciprocated.
Excerpt: Treaty of Tripoli:
Art. 11. As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.
The piracy continued, however, and became more brazen including the humiliation of having the USS George Washington, under the command of William Bainbridge seized, forced to fly the flag of Algiers, and to deliver goods to Constantinople.
The first Barbary war in 1804-5 was the Americans’ first attempt to control the problem and is known for the incredible bravery of eight US Marines and the first time the American flag was raised on foreign soil. The capture of Derna was a joint land and sea mission with the frigate USS Argus where 1st Lt. Presley O’Bannon and William Eaton fomented a rebellion with Hamet Karamanli and a rag-tag army of mercenaries, marching 500 miles from Alexandria in an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow Hamet’s brother, Pasha Yusif, ruler of Tripoli. The line in the Marine’s Hymn "to the shores of Tripoli" commemorates the event. Hamet gave his Mamaluke sword to O’Bannon as a gesture of appreciation. This is the ceremonial sword that the Marines use today.
Another act of bravery by the Americans was Lt. Stephen Decatur’s sneak attack on Tripoli harbor on February 15, 1804 to burn the enemy fleet, and most importantly, the captured USS Philadelphia. It was said of Decatur’s raid that "The band of Christian dogs fierce and cruel as the tiger, who killed our brothers and burnt our ships before our eyes". British Admiral Lord Nelson said "It was the most bold and daring act of the age".
These valiant efforts provided only short term relief, and the War of 1812 shifted American naval efforts to its’ own defense against the British.
In 1815 congress declared war on Tripoli, and sent a fleet under the command of Lt. Decatur. On arrival, they shot up the Dey of Algiers flagship, and then the USS Constitution with her sixty cannon on three decks took aim on the Dey’s fortress. Surrender was immediate in the face of overwhelming American military power. Decatur went on to Tunis and Tripoli and secured their surrender as well as large sums for repayment for our lost ships and crew, and the freeing of slaves. Our victory gave the Europeans the courage to also refuse to pay any more tributes, thus ending hundreds of years of terror on the seas.
Pope Pious VII said the Americans had "Done more for the cause of Christianity than the most powerful nations of Christiandom had done for ages."
Neo-Christianity and Our Nation's Course
Radical thinking based on unreasoned ideology is not new in politics or religion, as both realms of thought are born in the passions of our most deeply held beliefs. The founders of this nation were well aware of the human propensity for massing around leaders and schools of thought, and regarded factional interests of all kinds a threat to maintaining the balance of interests in a free and open government. The founders fears were well founded, having seen Puritan theocracy in the Massachusetts Bay colony, in which the church ruled in civil matters, leading to witch trials and hangings in 1692-3, and later with the fire and brimstone sermons of Jonathan Edwards in the 1730's that were eventually rejected as over zealous and divisive.
We face, in our current time, a similar and dangerous concoction of beliefs that has stalled constructive solutions to problems and attempted to thwart the work of education, science and medical professionals. It has led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocents in wars that were purposed in the case of the first president Bush as "Doing God's good work" and with Bush II's declaration of God's will for freedom for all of humanity. A candidate in the 2008 national election is quoted: "...our national leaders, are sending [U.S. soldiers] out on a task that is from God."
While the core of religious belief is based on altruism, and is shared across all belief systems, the introduction of dogmatic extremism subverts these high aims to the personal agendas of individual leaders, and indeed, it is such corruption of power that led, as rebellions, to the formation of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In Christendom, the corruption of the Catholic church created Calvinism and Protestantism, which in turn, led to yet more factional religious interests that themselves are yet vulnerable to corrupting influences in the hands of the powerful or the misleadingly vociferous. It has been often repeated in history, and should be easily recognizable. These exigencies must meet the swift and firm response of truth and reason to keep the balance on interests that our founders intended.
The Mideast Conflict
This article is a frank assessment of the Israeli-Palestinian situation from the perspective of American values and interests. It includes some revealing information that can help the reader understand what is taking place there, and how our national interests are being affected. Read more...
Islam And Conflict With The West
America’s first encounters with the Islamic world were, in spite of our declared religious neutrality, locked in the enmity that existed since the time of the Crusades that began in 1095 and ended with the Muslim recapture of Jerusalem by Saladin in 1187. No extension of our hand in diplomacy or commerce was able to reset the stage, and only under the gleam and shadow of our uplifted sword could normal interactions between the two worlds occur.
Understanding Islam
The Islamic religion originated in the 7th century AD in Medina and Mecca. It is based on the teachings and prophecies of Muhammad which were said to have been revealed to him by the angel Jibril (Gabriel) and were recorded in the last 23 years of his life and compiled shortly after his death in 632 AD as the Koran or Qur’an. These scriptures consist of 114 chapters, or Sura, which are ordered by length, rather than chronologically, beginning with the longest.
Islam believes itself to be of the same theistic lineage as Judaism and Christianity, dating to the time of Abraham, or Ibrahim (2000-1825BC), and while recognizing Abraham, Moses, other prophets and Jesus, it sees Muhammad’s revelations as restoring the purity of the earliest roots of monotheism .
Muhammad was of the Meccan Quaraish tribe, and the religious ideas he taught contrasted sharply with the tribes’ polytheistic religion that centered on the Kaaba, a black granite cubic structure in Mecca that was built in the first century, or earlier, and includes a stone that is believed to be a meteor fragment.
Muhammad’s teachings were not accepted by his tribe, and he lived in Medina till Islam grew in strength when he returned and conquered Mecca militarily near the end of his life.
The Koran reflects the stages of the beginnings of Islam, with earlier writing reflecting an idealistic, fervent, tone, and later verse reflecting a more assertive posture of a religion that now had many believers, and an army.
"In order that Allah may separate the pure from the impure, put all the impure ones [i.e. non-Muslims] one on top of another in a heap and cast them into hell. They will have been the ones to have lost."
(Sura 8.37)
Islamic theologians have generally regarded later verses in the Koran as being more significant than earlier verse when there are contradictory references such as the following regarding the prohibition of intoxicants.
1- "They ask thee concerning wine and gambling say: ‘In them is great sin, and some profit, for men; but the sin is greater than the profit.'" (Al-Qur’an 2:219)
2- "O ye who believe! approach not prayers with a mind befogged, until ye can understand all that ye say" (Al-Qur’an 4:43)
3- "O ye who believe! intoxicants and gambling, (dedication of) stones, and (divination by) arrows, are an abomination of Satan’s handiwork; eschew such (abomination), that ye may prosper." (Al-Qur’an 5:90)
These are progressively more restrictive. The later verses, or nasikh, are said to abrogate earlier references, or mansukh. A moderate would see these three verses as having parallel significance, perhaps based on personal judgment as to the appropriateness of the rule relative to the severity of the need to apply it.
References of aggression towards non-believers became sharper in later writings, and reflected a religion that had to fight or die in the face of widespread opposition. Islam eventually became established in the Arab world, Persia, and northern Africa through conquest, and diplomatic, political, and family associations.
Islam was a movement against polytheism, and originally respected and protected the Jewish and Christian monotheists as “people of the book” but who should nevertheless turn towards Islam. Some four hundred years later, they found themselves battling Christian Crusaders over control of their lands and Jerusalem. In the mid twentieth century, Islam felt the threat of Zionism, a Jewish fundamentalist movement spurred by Jewish persecution in Europe that led to a military state being established in Palestine in 1948 with help from Europe and the United States.
Jihad refers to ones’ struggle to live a righteous life. It also refers to spreading Islam socially and militarily as well as defending it from injustice or oppression.
Branches in Islam
Sunni, meaning words and actions (of the prophet), are about 90 percent of believers. They are adherents of Abu Bakr, Muhammad’s advisor, and successor as the first Caliph, and regard the Hadith, or written oral traditions of the prophet.
Shi’a Islam stresses Koranic interpretation, and began with the fourth caliph, Ali ibn Abu Talib, Muhammad’s cousin and son-in-law. Ali and his successors are called imam. In 656, Ali’s supporters killed the third caliph. Soon after, the Sunnis killed Ali’s son Husain. In 874 the son of the 11th imam disappeared from his funeral, and is thought by Shi’a Muslims as being the messiah that was hidden by God from the world. In 931, the twelfth imam disappeared, further radicalizing the Shi’a.
There are many other groups within and outside of these traditions, such as Sufi Islam, which is a peaceful and more mystical orientation.
A Way Forward
The interpretation of scripture in any given period in history is influenced by socio-political conditions, and mutually affects the views and actions of other religions and governments. In all religions there are the harsh pronouncements and rules, while at the same time, all extol the virtues of patience, tolerance, and humanity. The greater responsibility must consider how this mutuality can either lead to defensive-aggressive actions, like spiritual or actual arms races, or can the vision that inspires the creation of religions be mustered to see a new and enlightened way forward.