Nazism empowered this instinctive selfishness. It taught Germans that only their racial ingroup – the Aryans — were created in the image of God and that everyone else was expendable. Communism empowered this inborn selfishness. It taught the urban masses that only their class ingroup — the working class — had a meaningful role to play in the forward march of history. Everyone else was expendable. Skeptics will comfort themselves with the thought that I am exaggerating the ease of this moral degradation. I wish I were.
FP: It has been Christians that have led every major human rights campaign in Western history. Tell us a bit about that fact and why it took Christians to do this.
Brog: Since so many people will take issue with this premise — that Christians have led every major human rights campaign in Western history — I want to be specific. When I discuss the West’s “major” human rights campaigns, I’m referring to the efforts to stop the genocide and ethnic cleansing of the American Indian in both North and South America, the campaigns to end the slave trade and then slavery itself in Britain and North America, our own civil rights movement, and the modern effort to combat the debt and disease of the third world, especially Africa. Not only have Christians led every one of these campaigns, but their rank-and-file activists have come almost entirely from churches and synagogues.
The reason that Christians have played such a prominent role in these human rights struggles is that Christians so often take the Judeo-Christian idea so seriously. After all, for Christians the belief in the sanctity and equality of all humans isn’t just a nice philosophy – it’s a divine insight. And for Christians, serving our fellow men isn’t merely good advice – it’s a divine commandment. In addition, believing Christians tend to go to church and otherwise surround themselves with people who share this worldview, making it far easier to form “conspiracies of goodness” in furtherance thereof. Finally, the fact that Christians believe they are doing God’s will when they take risks for their fellow humans gives them the courage to proceed where others often fear to tread.
Now I need to add some important qualifications. First of all, to note that all of these human rights struggles have been led by Christians does not mean that all Christians have been humanitarians. Far from it. Faith offers a path towards transcending our selfish genes, but it in no way guarantees such transcendence.
In addition, to note the leadership role of Christians in these efforts is not intended to deny the values or activism of the adherents of other faiths. Jews also take the Judeo-Christian idea quite seriously. But we Jews have spent most of the modern era struggling for our survival against people – including millions of Christians – who didn’t take the Judeo-Christian idea seriously enough to overcome their anti-Semitism. It is only recently that we Jews have had the security and freedom to worry about the survival of others, and we’ve being doing so quite actively. In addition, members of non Judeo-Christian faiths may also embrace similar ideas about humanity. But until recent years there have been far too few adherents of such faiths in the West to lead public campaigns. This may well change in the future.
Finally, I should also note that many atheists, agnostics and other secular folk also take the Judeo-Christian idea seriously and have participated in the more recent of these human rights efforts. In fact, atheists like Hitchens and Dawkins typically use the language and values of the Judeo-Christian tradition to sit in judgment on the Judeo-Christian tradition and find it wanting. Ironic, don’t you think?
FP: Your thoughts on the Enlightenment as the source for many of our high ideals?
Brog: The Enlightenment is highly overrated. It tends to be seen as the shining full moon, the bright antithesis of religion’s dark side. Yet neither stereotype withstands critical scrutiny.
The Enlightenment certainly introduced many new and valuable ideas to the world. But it also introduced some extremely dangerous ones. We therefore need to be careful about when we should look to the Enlightenment for guidance, and when we’d be better off looking elsewhere.
In particular, there is an important distinction to be made between theories of government and civil rights on the one hand, and theories of humanity and human rights on the other. When it comes to government and civil rights, the Enlightenment was of enormous value. If we agree that people have a right to rebel against tyrannical governments, we should thank the pre-Enlightenment philosopher Locke (I’ll leave the discussion of Locke’s philosophical debt to the Bible for another time). If we like the idea of separation of powers at the heart of our Constitution, we should thank the Enlightenment philosopher Montesquieu. And so on.
Yet when it comes to our conception of humanity and human rights, the Enlightenment’s record is far more troubling. Enlightenment philosophers updated ancient rationales for slavery and gave them respectability in a new era. And Enlightenment philosophers and their progeny introduced dangerous new divisions of mankind that gave renewed relevance and urgency to the separation of ingroups from outgroups. Enlightenment thinkers invented the concepts of race and racism. The romantic reaction against the Enlightenment brought us the concept of nationalism. And the children of the Enlightenment brought us Communism.
The Twentieth Century was a century punctuated by genocide from start to finish. And almost every one of these genocides was inspired by one or more of these modern, secular ideas of racism, nationalism or Communism. I’m not saying that those who invented these concepts intended that they be used to rationalize genocide – this clearly wasn’t the case. But it is equally clear that once these ideas were unleashed into the world, they empowered that selfish drive inherent in all of us to persecute outgroups with a vengeance.
FP: What are your thoughts on Israel and why we should stand beside her?
Brog: America has always stood for something greater than power and realpolitik. There has always been a purpose to our power. And this purpose has led us to stand for certain morals, certain freedoms, and certain ideals in the world.
Israel is the embodiment the best of these morals, freedoms and ideals. Israel is a democracy in a region dominated by despots. Israel provides full civil rights and religious freedom to all of her citizens, while most of her neighbors openly flout such freedoms. Israel is an outpost of Judeo-Christian civilization surrounded by militant Muslim enemies bent on her destruction. When we talk about the “special relationship” between the United States and Israel, we are talking about these shared values and beliefs.
Yet even when we leave principle aside and think only of power and realpolitik, it turns out that Israel is an important strategic ally. During the Cold War, Israel was a democratic ally that repeatedly defeated the Soviet satellites who attacked her. Today, Israel is front-line ally in the war on terror. When Israel fights Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Qaeda or Iran, it is fighting our enemies as well.
Those who believe that if we only abandoned Israel the terrorists would no longer hate us get it terribly wrong. Iran hates Israel because they see it as an outpost of America in the Middle East, and not visa versa. Iran’s hatred of America came first, and it stems from our involvement in overthrowing their elected government in 1956 and putting the Shah in power. Likewise, the Muslim Brotherhood, which has spawned modern terrorists such as Al Qaeda and Hamas, has hated America since its founding in 1928, well before there even was an Israel. We need to stop blaming Israel for harming our interests and realize the great extent to which Israel furthers our interests without ever once asking American boys to sacrifice their lives for her. I pray our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan produce countries even half as free, and allies even half as valuable, as the Jewish State.
FP: David Brog, thank you for joining Frontpage Interview.
It is not only about Israel: It is about the Western civilisation
Earlier this month (July) José María Aznar wrote: "It is easy to blame Israel for all the evils in the Arab world, and some are even ready to sacrifice the future of Israel if a new understanding with the Muslim world were to be achieved in return. However, to weaken Israel is a serious mistake since it is our first line of defence in the region; if Israel fell into the hands of its enemies, the West as we know it would cease to exist. The West should wake-up : http://israelagainstterror.blogspot.com/2010/07/f…
I fail to see how you could include nationalism as an evil or an artifical theoretical ideological construct. The EU is a post-democratic, cultural marxist anti-nationalistic slow motion coup d etat, which has been the engine driving the massive demographic Islamification of Europe ( ethnocide ). The European nationalist movements are the only hope Europe has left for its survival. Nationalism may be associated with Nazism, but that is a false comparison. Hitler was also a vegetarian. Nationalism was also instrumental in the fall of the Soviet Empire.
As I did not send the comment, how and why would it be deleted by the administrator.
I presume you are replying to my post, journeyman. I don't know what your involvement in the process is, but I apparently have a problem with the site admin.
About a week ago I issued a post at FPM. It was deleted, and a message appeared saying something to the effect that the site admin was reviewing it. My post never reappeared.
The next day I tried to post the same article with the same results. I sent a message to the "contact us" asking for an explanation. No results.
The day after that I repeated my request with the same result, down a black hole.
I would like to know why my post was deleted. I would also like assurances that my future posts won't be deleted without cause.
Thank you for responding to my frustration.
I am constrained from commenting by the site admin.
I was responding to the administrator because as soon as I hit the send comment function , all I saw was a message saying that the comment had been deleted.
Sorry I can't assist with your problem
Thanks anyway.
Good luck trying to get anything out of the site admin at FPM. He needs to learn from the site admin of NRB. David Swindle does an excellent job of responding to problems and getting them cleared up.
Really? Because the last time I was active on the Newreel blog, Swindle hounded me, said I was attacking the writers of FPM and like a rowdy guy at a bar wouldn't let it go…he visited my Intensedebate profile (that I use only to post here) and my account was banned across the board for over a month. I am suprised it's even back on now. I have just avoided going over there. I posted once a week or so ago and it was taken off. It was just a critique of what the writer was saying….
You also have to be careful who you tangle with on the board. Some of the posters go crying home to momma and will get you banned.
I would like to add that Christianity , and in Europe in particular should drop the collaborative cultural marxified, interfaith-outreach dialogue nonsense with Islam and become nationalistically milltant if it wishes Europe to survive and European Judeo-Christian civilization along with it. We are running out of time. Christianity has become almost irrelevant in this battle in Europe. This is no time to continue the search for the mythical moral " Goldilocks Zone ". We are now entering the place of " miserable options".
It was the anti-nationalist Leftopian progressives who brought us to this civilizational demographic crisis, with their long march through the institutions over the last five4 decades. With the idea that it is better to lose ones country than be called a racist.
שנה טובה תשעא Shana Tova 5771
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-U07Hex-_4&fe…
Happy New Year to you too!
Sigh. Another ignorant attack on the most important of all virtues, self-interest. The Declaration speaks of 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness'. Nor does it mention the Judeo-Christian God, but "Nature and Nature's God". Rights and moral depend on Natural Law, which exists, logically, prior to and independent of revealed religion. I am ashamed this person interviewed, and the reporter, do not understand that we are, as Americans,
I just got this book in the mail Saturday after hearing it discussed on Dr. R. C. Sproul's show. There are some assumptions made in the book, for the benefit of the PC crowd, that are simply that, assumptions. There is at least one major contradiction of an assumption from one page to the next right at the start. These tend to lessen the impact of the overall content.
I do agree with the idea. Despite some weakness, it is worth reading. It will bring to mind some interesting facts for further research.
I would like to praise also the previous book "Standing with Israel" by David Brog, where he reveals the roots of Christian Zionism emerging in the beginning of 19th century – in fact earlier than the modern Jewish Zionism of Herzl.
Judeo-Christian civilization is a unique successful story of spiritual, cultural and scientific achievements of the humanity unparalleled to anything else.
And Judeo-Christian tradition provides the only justification for existence of Israel in this rotten Socialist/Islamic world (see items 2, 3):
http://www.resonoelusono.com/DeclarationForIsrael…
Before there was "faith," don't forget, there was also "reality." Many of the same "realities" due to oppression, led to the very creation of Judaism and Christianity. Islam is able to control its populations by focusing on the the roots of its religion, even where those roots depend on Jihad. It might help us to also refocus our own vision back to our roots, which go back much further, to Judeo-Christian foundations. The very ground we live on, our physical history even in this country, is rooted in it. (i.e. http://www.moses-in-history.com).
What seems to be happening, IMO, is that those philosophies which took us out of the tribal life into a more universal mindset, is now reverting backwards. 95% of the population growth of the world is coming from undeveloped countries and continents. There, the tribe or sect is all that matters. A Christian or Jew to them is equivalent to the way we imagined "Invaders from Mars" 50 years ago. This trend is not good. The word "tribe" is constantly in the world news. South of our border, the term "gang" is used instead. We need political leaders that can make us see the big picture so we can get a grip.
The Judeo-Christian God is clearly the God of our founders. Their private correspondence bears this out that nature's God and the Judeo-Christian God are one and the same.
What an excellent interview. I must obtain his books immediately!
Religion works as the context that we see ourselves in. There really can't be a self-definition of self, without a context. I couldn't possibly see myself as something that is completely at odds with my context. The way I see the culture of Judea-Christianity working is that over the length of time since its inception, we have constantly sought self improvement. If you look at our history, yes we've made many wrong turns, but have tried to analyze and correct our course. I see that we are leaders among the world's entire population, we meaning the followers of a humane religion. If you look at all the turns that have led to death, destruction, genocide, hate, etc you will see that the true Christian-Judea path doesn't lead there.
I personally don't care if Christ walked on water, or raised the dead, or fed multitudes with one fish and one loaf of bread; out of all the religions (philosophies, contexts) that have arisen in human history, Christian-Judea philosophy leads to self-enlightenment, inner searching, self-criticism, concentrating on finding our personal talents that we can contribute to the world. As for the after life promised – that's a bonus if it happens.
Other isms, like the author states, have led directly to turning the worst of mankind against the perceived inferior others. The isms exist for no other reason than to do this. Their promised eden takes place after they annihilate their targets. Then they turn to others to annihilate. Eden never comes, it is only promised. The people starting this always see themselves as belonging to the group that should be spared, the elite.
If our culture goes it will be replaced by something. I very seriously doubt, even with all our faults and mistakes and wrong-headed individuals in our own group, that anything better will arise out of the ashes. It will return to the law-of-the-jungle – might-makes-right world.
For those believing that we can build utopia on earth and wish to throw away our last two-thousand years of history in order to do it, all I can say is you really do need to put down the pills, alcohol and pot or a while and start reading history. Learn how we have tried to take the best ideas that came to light as far back as the ancients, and Greeks and enlightenment age philosophers. Learn how we have added them to our context and attempted to wean ourselves of the selfishness that harms other people.
Anything that comes along in the modern age as far as ideas will also have to go through this process if they are to be lasting and I guarantee they will repeat all of our mistakes.
I am not enjoying looking at the train coming down the track that is bringing the joys of communism as its cargo. This New "Communism" that so many are feeling a thrill about is the same old dictatorship, slavery, elitism, divisiveness and poverty of morality that pre-dates civilization. It will not be a happy day. Everyone says that Obama's ratings have slipped to an all time low. As for me, I'm amazed they are as high as they are. It just tells me how many people are still living in la-la-land and really believe that all this will benefit themselves and mankind. They are laying on the tracks with a big smile on their face.
It sounds as if you are an atheist or agnostic. Take my word for it, there is a way better life coming after this one. I have it on the utmost authority! My faith teaches me to have a "relationship" with Jesus Christ/God. My "religion" didnt teach me that. Regarding the "pc" minded, I am sick & tired of them!! We've been beating that dead horse long enough! I personally think that if we dont start defending ourselves we're not going to be around much longer. Enough with this "politically correct" crap all ready! It's getting quite old!
"Indefense of Faith"- that doesn't cut it anymore. YOU people have had- judaism 3500 + – years, and christianity 2000+ – years. You haven't inproved the world any, you've devolved it, as a matter of fact.
You've had your turn. All yu have to show for it, is torture and kill everybody else that didn't agree with you. And anybody that survived, by chance, you did your utmost to convert.
You couldn't leave people alone.
Whether we, believe in THE God, or a multitude of Gods, is OUR business. We want direct experience with THE God. And we're having it too.
Actually, we're at this point in "civilization" – sorry as it still is, Iwe, made it this far, N SPITE of judaism and christianity. Both religions suck. There is NO judeo-christianity, it's one and the same. After, Yeshua ben joseph, came the pharasee Saul/Paul, who turned The Way, the "new" philosophy right back, in a u-turn to Pharasism.
So there is no defending either religion. And now, we have to face another one, islam!
May the All That is, ve with us!
I am Not Going To Bow to Just Any God! Only The True God Who Sons Name Is Jesus Christ! He Is My Savior! And That Is Enough For Me,My Flesh Is Rotten And Gets In My Way Of Freedom! Self Is Destructive.
Bonnie,
Read Gifts of the Jews: How a Tribe of Desert Nomads Changed the Way Everyone Thinks and Feels
Also, Desire of the Everlasting Hills.
Both by Thomas Cahill.
Also, read The Myth of the Eternal Return, by Mircea Eliade, perhaps the greatest historian of religions of the twentieth century. I'll bet you haven't even heard of him, much less read any of his work, yet you pretend to know about the history of religion!
I think you are at most spottily informed about history.
The reason Nietzsche and his follower Hitler hated Jews was they were a "priestly" nation that had cut the wings of the "bird of prey" so to speak with their priestly beliefs.
And so they have, in truth, through their beliefs civilized the predator and made this a better world than it most certainly would have been without those believes.
Add Christianity to the Jews achievements and their contribution to civilization is immeasurable for from Christianity sprang this great nation and it's freedom.
True, since this is a world of duality the opposite of every good attribute is also present and has to be overcome by the genius of Judeo-Christian beliefs. America's history is the story of this overcoming.
Hear, hear. A more balanced view than Bonnie's. To her, the wonders of our Western civilization have nothing whatsoever to do with Judaism or Christianity. The slaughter of the secularists is ignored, yet she embraces secularism. Bonnie absorbs the culture of the West and its incredible freedoms through her skin every waking hour but thinks it's her pure rationalism that makes life worth living. Cretins and killers can only be inspired by irrational faith. They never arise from a world that has rejected faith. The zealot lurches from one extreme to the other because she cannot tolerate something that's pretty darn good. No, there has to be perfection.
Well Self Spelled Backwards With A H added at the end is called Flesh! Flesh! Self With A H Added, Got It? When You Become A true Christian Your self Begins To Die and you start to live in Truth! Which Gives you true freedom not self freedom! True Freedom is far better than Self Freedom and You Get Truth By Jesus Christ The Son Of God! He Is the Only Way! TRUTH, And Light! It Seems To Me His Name Has been pushed Under the Rug! It Is The Greatest Name Above All Names Like It Or Not!Flesh He will Come! So Go Your own Way! Self Get Out of my Face! You Are Flesh With A H added spelled Backwards! Got It?Backwards? So Self To Me with A H Added Is Backwards! I Love Going Forward! Backwards makes me sick, dizzy, and confused! You Are Right on about this article.
We cannot imagine the blessings that Israel has brought us. It is the Jews who taught us that all mankind, gentiles and unbelievers included, are created equally in the image of G-d. This is why we are loved, because יהוה is madly in love with His image. It is the basis of all genuine humanitarianism. We're also equally begotten of the same sinners. Sinners beget sinners who in ourselves are less than deserving. The basis of humility. Both of these are necessary for equal justice under the law and preserving the rights of all. I thank the L-rd everyday for the House of Jacob. Without Israel, America would have never existed.
L'Shana tova to David Brog and our friends at CUFI.
"rising to be chief of staff to Senator Arlen Specter," tells you all you need to know about this fool. There are many paths to spiritual enlightenment. None of them lead to Arlen Specter. It astounds me that Frontpagemag gives any measure of credibility to Mr. Brog and his muddled thoughts on "radical egalitarianism" which meand radically different things indeed to all manner of human beings. Even a cursory knowledge of history would enable that awareness.
After now completing the book, I can say again, this is one of the worst books I have ever read. I really like the premise and agree with it whole heartedly.
The problem is, this book uses conjecture in place of fact in so many areas it destroys its own argument. It is also filled with politically correct garbage. He uses examples that are now well known for their communists work and passes their work off as a Christian work for example Rossa Parks and MLK.
The author does not have a good grasp of Christianity. He has a very good grasp of the Jewish call for social justice. He says Christians who supported slavery did not understand the Bible. WRONG. They understand it perfectly old and new testament.
Please, if you are going to start with such a wonderful idea as the fact that Darwinism simply cannot come close to the morals based on Judeo Christian morals then you have got to do much better.
I just could not stomach much of the reading.
Initially, I was startled regarding Brog's oxymoronic claims. He omits the numerous crimes committed in the name of Christianity and Judaism, and is totally wrong regarding 9/11 moving the secular West away from faith. Europe was moving away from faith long before 9/11, and the 70% of the U.S. population is faithful.
Frankly, there is so much wrong with this article, it is not worth my time to critique, as most can see through Brog's faulty analysis.
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