The Judeo-Christian Tradition and the Drumpf: Merry Christmas, ISIS

In 2014 Adam Zagoria-Moffet, currently Rabbi at the St Albans Masorti Synagogue, suggested that the concept of a Judeo-Christian tradition was actually coined in the course of the 1940s by none other than General Eisenhower (1890-1969). And in 1952, Eisenhower set out to connect his coinage with the historical figures of the U.S. Founding Fathers, Zagoria-Moffet continues reproducing part of a speech then delivered by Eisenhower: ‘“all men are endowed by their Creator.” In other words, our form of government has no sense unless it is founded in a deeply felt religious faith, and I don’t care what it is. With us of course it is the Judeo-Christian concept, but it must be a religion with all men created equal’.⁽¹⁾ In the same year, the German American Christian existentialist philosopher and theologian Paul Tillich penned a piece carrying the meaningful title “IS THERE A JUDEO-CHRISTIAN TRADITION?” . . . and he the goes on to pose the following query “[i]s it meaningful to say that Christianity is a Jewish or that Judaism is a Christian heresy?” only to then retort: “I answer in the affirmative”.⁽²⁾ Tillich’s answer betrays the inherent problems of the coinage of a Judeo-Christian unity, given that anti-Semitism has been one of the important building blocks of Christianity, with the trope that Jesus was killed by the Jews functioning as the main justification for the many persecutions and progroms inflicted upon Jewish communities in Christian lands. Zagoria-Moffet, for his part, adds insightfully that the “Judeo-Christian value system that American political commentators love to reference has no precedent in history (in fact, quite the opposite), but it also has no basis in the theological and ethical systems of the two faiths. Advocates of the use of ‘Judeo-Christian’ as an acceptable adjective fail to acknowledge that the very core of their argument – that Judaism and Christianity share essential values – is simply untrue. It’s impossible to adequately compare two extremely developed theological systems – not even in a multi-volume work, much less in a blog post. For the sake of brevity, simply consider some basic principles of each faith. Law, salvation, afterlife, sin, hierarchy, ritual, monotheism – even belief, faith, and practice – nearly every component of an authentic Christian practice and an authentic Jewish one differ in an elementary way. If we wish to be precise (which we should), it simply doesn’t make sense to consider Judaism and Christianity as sharing the same outlook on God or the world”.⁽³⁾

Still, it seems safe to say that the idea of a Judeo-Christian value-system has by now become nearly universally accepted in the West, meaning Europe and America, with such added components like Australia and New Zealand as well as Israel. In the 21^st century, particularly following the tragic events cursorily known today only as “9/11”, the idea of a Judeo-Christian unity seems to have been superseded by the even more outlandish yet academically quite commonsense notion of Abrahamic religions sharing the same god, namely the God of Abraham. Thereby suggesting the existence of a kind of social corollary in the form a united fold of believers or the happy coexistence of Jews, Christians and Muslims – a coexistence that is supposed to act as a moral and social counterweight against sectarian violence, Islamist terrorism and Islamophobic outrages. The renowned religious scholar Aaron W. Hughes, however, suggests that “Abraham” as a “symbol of ecumicism” could “just as easily [also] function . . . as one of division and exclusivity. [A veritable] dialectic of history and myth, inclusivity and exclusivity, is the true progeny of Abraham as the three monotheistic religions have sought to define themselves and their relationsip to one another”.⁽⁴⁾ Nowadays, the idea of an Abrahamic God is commonly used as a gateway to interfaith dialogue to counter a possible “Clash of Civilizations”, the proverbial Huntingtonian sword now threatening global peace, security and stabiltiy.

In contrast, particularly now that the current US. President, Donald J. Trump aka the Drumpf, is regularly in the habit of invoking the notion of “Judeo-Christian values” ,⁽⁶⁾ I would say that the trope of a “Clash of Civilizations” rather than interfaith dialogue has moved to the centre of attention again. He was recently speaking at ”an annual socially conservative conference”, the 2017 Values Voter Summit, and he did his best to dispell any notion that Christians are safe and sound today. The event took place on 13-15 October 2017 at the Omni Shoreham Hotel.⁽⁷⁾ The dedicated website explains as follows: “Values Voter Summit was created in 2006 to provide a forum to help inform and mobilize citizens across America to preserve the bedrock values of traditional marriage, religious liberty, sanctity of life and limited government that make our nation strong. It has drawn over 3,000 plus attendees from around the nation and foreign countries. Garnering national and international media attention, CNN has called it ‘one of the top 10 political events of the year’ and ‘one of the conservative movement’s marquee annual events’. Sean Hannity called it ‘the premier conservative event now in the country’. VVS showcases the nation’s leading conservative voices including Republican presidential hopefuls. Previous speakers have included then-candidates Donald Trump and Mike Pence; Governor Mike Huckabee, Sam Brownback, Bobby Jindal and Rick Perry; Senators Ted Cruz, Lindsay Graham, Mike Lee, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Tim Scott and former Senator Rick Santorum; Representatives Michele Bachmann, Steve King, Paul Ryan, Steve Scalise and former Representative Allen West; media personalities Glenn Beck, Dr. Bill Bennett, Erick Erickson, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Lt. Col. Oliver North, Duck Dynasty’s Phil Robertson; and Bill O’Reilly; Dr. Ben Carson, Donald Trump, Kirk Cameron, Star Parker, the Benham Brothers, national pro-life advocates including Lila Rose and David Daleiden, whose investigative work exposed the truth about Planned Parenthood; nationally recognized terrorism expert Brigitte Gabriel; and national best-selling authors Joel Rosenberg and Rabbi Jonathan Cahn. Mariam Ibraheem, the Sudanese Christian sentenced to death for her faith, was honored with the inaugural Cost of Discipleship Award in 2014, and in 2015, Kim Davis, the Rowan County, Kentucky Clerk, who refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, was awarded the second inaugural Cost of Discipleship Award”.⁽⁸⁾

The Drumpf addressed the gathered Christians, off-handedly remarking, “[a]nd we stand united behind the customs, beliefs and traditions that define who we are as a nation and as a people”, arguably keeping his six bankrupcies and two divorces in mind. Unperturbed by his own apparent moral failings, going on to say that “George Washington said that ‘religion and morality are indispensable’ to America’s happiness, really, prosperity and totally to its success. It is our faith and our values that inspires us to give with charity, to act with courage, and to sacrifice for what we know is right. The American Founders invoked our Creator four times in the Declaration of Independence — four times. [Applause] How times have changed. But you know what, now they’re changing back again. Just remember that. [Applause] Benjamin Franklin reminded his colleagues at the Constitutional Convention to begin by bowing their heads in prayer”.⁽⁹⁾ In the next instance, the Drumpf states that “[r]eligious liberty is enshrined in the very first amendment of the Bill of Rights. And we all pledge allegiance to — very, very beautifully — ‘one nation under God’. [Applause] This is America’s heritage, a country that never forgets that we are all — all, every one of us — made by the same God in Heaven. [Applause] . . . To protect the unborn, I have reinstated a policy first put in place by President Ronald Reagan, the Mexico City Policy. [Applause] To protect religious liberty, including protecting groups like this one, I signed a new executive action in a beautiful ceremony at the White House on our National Day of Prayer — [applause] — which day we made official. [Applause] Among many historic steps, the executive order followed through on one of my most important campaign promises to so many of you: to prevent the horrendous Johnson Amendment from interfering with your First Amendment rights. [Applause] Thank you. We will not allow government workers to censor sermons or target our pastors or our ministers or rabbis. These are the people we want to hear from, and they’re not going to be silenced any longer. [Applause]”.⁽¹⁰⁾

Leaving the provision of abortion in foreign lands, the Drumpf turned homeward at a later point, exclaiming that “[w]e are stopping cold the attacks on Judeo-Christian values. [Applause] Thank you. Thank you very much. And something I’ve said so much during the last two years, but I’ll say it again as we approach the end of the year. You know, we’re getting near that beautiful Christmas season that people don’t talk about anymore. [Laughter] They don’t use the word ‘Christmas’ because it’s not politically correct. You go to department stores, and they’ll say, ‘Happy New Year’ and they’ll say other things. And it will be red, they’ll have it painted, but they don’t say it. Well, guess what? We’re saying ‘Merry Christmas’ again. [Applause] and in another instance, turning his gaze outwards again: “In protecting America’s interests abroad, we will always support our cherished friend and partner, the State of Israel. [Applause] We will confront the dangers that imperil our nation, our allies, and the world, including the threat of radical Islamic terrorism. [Applause]”.⁽¹¹⁾

(1) Adam Zagoria-Moffet, “The Myth of a Judeo-Christian Tradition” State of Formation (07 April 2014). http://www.stateofformation.org/2014/04/the-myth-of-a-judeo-christian-tradition/.

(2) Paul Tillich, “IS THERE A JUDEO-CHRISTIAN TRADITION?” Judaism, 1.2 (01 April 1952), p. 106. http://search.proquest.com/openview/96dcfb348d31a59c7d2b7817a57a2582/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=1817128. 

(3) Adam Zagoria-Moffet, “The Myth of a Judeo-Christian Tradition”.

(4) Aaron W. Hughes, Abrahamic Religions: On the Uses and Abuses of History (Oxford, 2012). p. 1. https://books.google.de/books?hl=en&lr=&id=0K3Ia1rQCZEC&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=abrahamic+religions&ots=Mi6YAL7Hz4&sig=dRmwBOwO71W2JiypgSo052GVwmU#v=onepage&q=abrahamic%20religions&f=false.

(6)  Dan Merica, “Trump: ‘We are stopping cold the attacks on Judeo-Christian values’” CNN (13 Oct 2017). http://edition.cnn.com/2017/10/13/politics/trump-values-voters-summit/index.html.

(7) 2017 Values Voter Summit. http://www.valuesvotersummit.org//.

(8) “VVS17 ★ ABOUT VVS” 2017 Values Voter Summit. http://www.valuesvotersummit.org/about.

(9) “Remarks by President Trump at the 2017 Values Voter Summit” The White House. https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/10/13/remarks-president-trump-2017-values-voter-summit.

(10) “Remarks by President Trump at the 2017 Values Voter Summit”.

(11) “Remarks by President Trump at the 2017 Values Voter Summit”.

The Mandalay Bay Massacre: Multiple Shooters and Mandatory Metal Detectors

The sociology instructor Ed Curtin (Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts or MCLA)^* says that “[t]he he mainstream media’s (MSM) ongoing narrative of the massacre in Las Vegas is clearly deceptive . . . [w]hat the media do not say is that there is video and witness evidence that there were at least two more shooters, maybe more, one from a lower floor and another at the Bellagio Hotel that was locked down. This means that there was a conspiracy involved. They don’t mention this so that someone like me can do so and be branded a “conspiracy theorist,” the term created by the CIA to besmirch anyone questioning the official narrative of the JFK assassination . . . Why would the MSM push this narrative of the lonely crazed gunman? . . . People need to realize that they must be immediately skeptical of such official narratives and do their own research, and they will learn that there are excellent alternative websites that are doing real journalism and are seeking truth for truth’s sake”.¹

And, as it is, Collective Evolution‘s Joe Martino “came across a post on Facebook from a girl named Rikki Raulerson who was in Las Vegas the night of the shooting”. . . and Miss Raulerson subsequently seems to have told Martino that ‘[t]he security guard at the Cosmopolitan exact words were “I know about as much as you do. I have heard 7 confirmed shooters at multiple hotels including the Bellagio.” I do not have any idea how he knew this info, but this is the time they were locking down the hotel. There were a few metro police officers alongside security guards outside our hotel Vdara, and as they were checking our credentials we asked are there really multiple shooters, what’s going on? And the police officer confirmed yes multiple shooters at multiple hotels including Aria next door. He did not say 7 however he just said multiple. I assume he heard this over the radio, bc he was a metro officer . . . We did not hear any shots from our hotel room. However while running from Cosmo we did hear shots, but they weren’t loud enough for me to think they were right next to us. The Bellagio is quite far from the Vdara on one side, and the Mandalay is about 1.7 miles on the other side. I don’t believe the shots we heard were coming from Mandalay however, because quickly after we got to the room they had released that he was dead. I could be wrong however. It was all happening so fast.”.² On Facebook, California native and resident Rachel Monroy posted that she “KNOW[s] for sure that the first reports stated MULTIPLE shooters, including a shooter at Bellagio. People listening to police scanners heard ‘multiple shooters’. The people who were THERE have said there were multiple shooters. But yeah, just ignore the witnesses, if media says ‘lone shooter’ it must be true. MSM never lies. 🙄Nothing to see here. I read a lengthy, detailed account of one guy’s experience. He said people were being shot as they tried to escape. They were running from one shooter, towards another shooter. This guy and his girlfriend escaped and ended up hiding in a dumpster for HOURS because they didn’t know how many shooters were out there”.³

As a result, it really seems that eyewitnesses on the ground ‘heard’ multiple shooters, which does not necessarily denote the actual presence of multiple shooters . . . but, as they say, there it is. And the below screen shot, provided by my Facebook friend Paula Densnow, might give an insight into a possible additional reasoning behind the occurrence of the Mandalay Bay Massacre.⁴

Moreover, the Drumpf met with Sheldon Adelson on Monday, 2 October 2017: “[t]he [Monday] afternoon meeting had been scheduled before the shooting attack and was aimed at discussing policy, the Las Vegas Review–Journal reported on Tuesday [, 3 October 2017], citing a representative from the Sheldon’s Las Vegas Sands casino and resort company. Adelson, who owns the Review-Journal, was one of Trump’s biggest financial backers during his successful 2016 presidential election campaign, donating millions to the Republican candidate’s cause. The two men both own casinos in Las Vegas. Adelson is also a major backer of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and owns the widely circulated Israel Hayom free daily”, as related by Stuart Winer in the Times of Israel.⁵

1 Edward Curtin, “A Provocation to Investigate the Las Vegas Massacre” The Greanville Post (05 Oct 2017). http://www.greanvillepost.com/2017/10/05/a-provocation-to-investigate-the-las-vegas-massacre/.

2 Joe Martino, “EYE WITNESS AT LAS VEGAS SHOOTING STATES ‘THERE WERE 7 CONFIRMED SHOOTERS’” Collective Evolution (04 Oct 2017). http://www.collective-evolution.com/2017/10/04/eye-witness-at-las-vegas-shooting-states-there-were-7-confirmed-shooters/.

3 Rachel Monroy on Facebook (Yesterday [05 Oct 2017] at 12:01am ). https://www.facebook.com/rachel.monroy.3/posts/10208117984026899.

4 Paula Densnow on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/paula.whowantstoknow/posts/1736037193087033.

5 Stuart Winer, “Casino mogul Adelson met with Trump hours after Las Vegas shooting” The Times of Israel (04 Oct 2017). https://www.timesofisrael.com/casino-mogul-adelson-met-with-trump-hours-after-las-vegas-shooting/.

Heineken’s Europe: The Balkanization of a Continent

Back in 2009, Joshua Keating shared his musings about an “intriguing theoretical map of Europe designed by Dutch beer tycoon Freddy Heineken. A dedicated Europhile, Heineken believed that smaller nations within a larger European framework would be more manageable in the post-Cold War era. In 1992, he coauthored a pamhplet titled The United States of Europe (a Eurotopia?), which included the above proposal for a new Europe comprised of small territories of roughly equal, ethnically homogernous populations”.¹ This 18-page tract was published by De Amsterdamse Stichting voor de Historische Wetenschap, a seemingly reputable publisher which is in fact a vanity project financed by the beer magnate himself: ‘Alfred Henry “Freddy” Heineken (4 November 1923 – 3 January 2002) was a Dutch businessman for Heineken International, the brewing company bought in 1864 by his grandfather Gerard Adriaan Heineken in Amsterdam. He served as Chairman of the Board of directors and CEO from 1971 until 1989. After his retirement as chairman and CEO, Heineken continued to sit on the board of directors until his death and served as chairman of the Supervisory board from 1989 till 1995. At the time of his death, Heineken was one of the richest people in the Netherlands, with a net worth of 9.5 billion guilders’.² Or, a bored rich Dutchman looking for rhyme and reason, who, in the Nineties fell upon the idea of turning the whole of Europe into a giant continent-wide Balkan peninsula for the benefit of the corporatocracy . . . And now, let’s leave the field to the eminent map specialist Frank Jacobs: “Heineken collaborated with two historians to produce a booklet entitled The United States of Europe1, A Eurotopia? The idea was timely, for two reasons. Eastern Europe was experiencing a period of turmoil, following the collapse of [C]ommunism. The resulting wave of nationalism led to the re-emergence of several nation-states (i.e. the Baltics) and the break-up of several others (Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia). And in 1992, the Maastricht Treaty would transform an initially mainly economic ‘European Community’ into a more political ‘European Union’. Heineken’s proposal would lead to the creation of dozens of new European states, which would have a comparably small population size (mostly between 5 and 10 million), some basis in history, and for the most part would be ethnically homogenous. The theory behind Heineken’s idea is that a larger number of smaller member-states would be easier to govern within a single European framework than a combination of larger states competing for dominance. Heineken might have been inspired by the work of Leopold Kohr”,³ . . . and continuing in another entry, Jacobs explains that Kohr (1909-94) was “an Austrian philosopher influenced by Anarchism and influential on the Green movement”,⁴ whose most influential work is a book entitled The Breakdown of Nations . . . in which he apparently expanded upon the notion that small is beautiful . . . Jacobs continues that for Kohr the “main question for society, therefore, [was] ‘not to grow, but to stop growing. The answer: not union but division.’ Not something you often hear advocated by politicians. Kohr wrote about half a dozen other books in all, also wrote one titled ‘Is Wales Viable? – a question that has still not been answered satisfactorily . . . As Kohr saw it, the problem with Europe’s geopolitical makeup was the fact that its states were not equal in size, allowing the ‘big ones’ to dominate the rest. Or at least try to, hence the endless series of wars in Europe. One way to solve this, would be to chop up the continent into rectangular chunks of territory, disregarding most existing cultural, religious, linguistic and natural boundaries”.⁵

Heineken took Kohr’s ideas and ran with them . . . Jacobs explains what Kohr’s plans were really all about: “Eire, Portugal, all 5 Scandinavian countries, the 3 Baltic countries . . . the Netherlands and Belgium . . . Austria, Hungary, Albania, Greece, Bulgaria and Switzerland” are all small enough to pesist, but “[t]he UK is [to be] disestablished in favour of its constituent nations: England, Scotland, Wales, (Northern) Ireland. Spain disintegrates into Asturia, Castillia, Andalusia, Catalonia and Aragón. France falls apart into Aquitaine, Brittany, Normandy, Isle de France, Alsace-Lorraine, Burgundy, Languedoc, the Midi and Corsica. Italy is replaced by successor states Savoy, Lombardy, Tuscany, the Papal States (!), Naples, Sicily and Sardinia. Yugoslavia breaks up into Croatia, Dalmatia, Bosnia, Serbia and Macedonia. Romania becomes Transylvania and Wallachia. Czechoslovakia is divided among Bohemia and Slovakia. Germany, the pivotal power in Central Europe . . . disintegrates into Bavaria, Saxony, Hanover, the Rhineland, Baden-Württemberg, Brandenburg, Prussia, Silesia and one more state the name of which I can’t quite make out – but which would have to be Mecklenburg” and “Poland becomes Posen, Galicia and Warsaw”.⁶

The Irish journalist Gearóid Ó Colmáin explains matter-of-factly that “Kohr’s ideas have become extremely influential in European Union policy circles. Trans-national financial elites want to make the European Union into the political representation of their power.A federal Europe of micro-states whose policies are determined by global elites would make it impossible for Europe’s citizens to unite against the trans-national financial ruling class; it is the reason why Heineken’s map is now becoming a grim reality – all over Europe”.⁷

1Joshua Keating, “Tuesday Map: Heineken’s “Eurotopia’” Foreign Policy (2009). http://foreignpolicy.com/2009/05/26/tuesday-map-heinekens-eurotopia/.

2“Freddy Heineken” Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freddy_Heineken.

3Frank Jacobs, “My Kingdom for a Beer? Heineken’s Eurotopia” Big Think (2016). http://bigthink.com/strange-maps/386-my-kingdom-for-a-beer-heinekens-eurotopia.

4Frank Jacobs, “Want World Peace? Divide the World in Enough Small States” Big Think (2016). http://bigthink.com/strange-maps/18-the-world-a-la-leopold-kohr.

5Frank Jacobs, “Want World Peace? Divide the World in Enough Small States”.

6Frank Jacobs, “Want World Peace? Divide the World in Enough Small States”. .

7Gearóid Ó Colmáin, “Catalan ‘independence’: a tool of capital against labour” (03 Oct 2017). http://www.gearoidocolmain.org/catalan-independence-tool-capital-labour/.