As I was driving to have lunch with friends today, I was listening to NPR on the radio. One of my favorite programs, "Fresh Air" came on. As I listened to the interview, I was stunned, sickened and worried. The discussion focused on the "New Apostolic Reformation" (NAR) and this group's intent, ideology and (possible) affect on American politics. In particular, how this group is affiliated with the new presidential hopeful, Rick Perry, as well as other prominent politicians.
Before I explain a bit about this misled, dangerous and delusional organization, you can listen to the NPR interview here.
So what is the NAR?
One blogger notes it as:
"A fast-growing, evangelical movement that promotes modern-day apostles and prophets with great authority, supernatural powers, and the ability to give new doctrinal revelation. Advocates of this movement believe that all people, nations, and demonic principalities must submit to these apostles and prophets, who will lead God’s end-times army in establishing His kingdom on earth. This once-fringe movement has entered many charismatic churches (which are the fastest-growing churches in nearly every region of the world, according to church growth experts, like David B. Barrett), and the movement is being promoted by prominent evangelical leaders, like C. Peter Wagner and Jack Hayford." (Holly Pivec).
OK, so NAR is basically an "end times" ideology that attempts to control politics, media, business, culture and whatever else one can think of, by fear mongering about demons and the anti-Christ. Rachel Tabachnick argues that this evangelic movement is extremely different from existing far right evangelicals because it argues for martyrdom, spiritual warfare -- in violent terms--, and a new version of "dominionism". Tabachnick claims that this new "dominionism" is: "simply that Christians of this belief system must take control over the various institutions of society and government." Interestingly, the reason why these "apostles" view dominionism this way is that they believe that God has lost control of the Earth and needs help from these particular people to fight demons and Satan. So... an all powerful and omnipotent being (as Christians understand God to be) lost control of something that He created, and needs help from human beings, who according to these same Christian scriptures are fallen creatures predispositioned to sin and error. Just so we are clear here.
The NAR movement, apparently, has 3 recurring themes. 1) Anti-abortion 2) Anti-Gay Rights (where gays are demonized, literally) 3) converting Jews. One of the new(er) themes apparently is also fighting against the "demon Islam". Demons apparently "hold Muslims in bondage", so these particular people need to help to convert Muslims to this brand of Christianity. Otherwise one can never get to the end-times. Oh, and the "Rapture" doesn't exist either, everyone has to fight and no one gets to heaven.
From what I could find about NAR on the internet this afternoon, this movement looks quite frightening. The predisposition to violence, the rhetoric of martyrdom, and the sheer and explicit intolerance is, indeed, worrying. I also found that this is a fast growing group... to fast for my comfort.
In any event - as this is Kantemplation - what would Kant say about such a group? Specifically if we look to his writings in the Religion.
"Whoever therefore gives precedence to the observance of statutory laws, requiring a revelation as necessary to religion, not indeed merely as a means to the moral disposition but as the objection condition for becoming well-pleasing to God directly, and whoever places the striving fro a good life-conduct behind the historical faith... whoever does this transforms the service fo God into mere fetishism; he engages in a counterfeit service, which sets back all the work leading to true religion. ... If, however, the human being departs from it, the yoke of a (statutory) law will be imposed on him instead of the freedom of the children of God, and this yoke, since it is an unconditional coercion to believe in something of which we can have cognition only historically and hence cannot carry conviction with everyone, can be much more burdensome to conscientious human beings that the whole business of piously ordained observances could ever be... Priestcraft is therefore the constitution of a church to the extent that a fetish-service is the rule; and this always obtains wherever statutory commands, rules of faith and observances, rather than principles of morality, make up the groundwork and essence of the church. (6:179-180).
What does Kant mean here? (And of course, I picked two paragraphs from an entire book to prove my point...but I do not want to burden the reader too much). He means that by placing absolute power into the hands of a few -- for him priests -- where all authority and all ways to God are vested in them, is nothing more than delusion. For him, this state of affairs means that "the clergy has usurped over minds by pretending to have exclusive possession of the means of grace" (6:200). This is antithetical to what he calls "religion within the bounds of mere reason alone". Religion, for Kant, is the practice of virtue. God's law is that of the law of reason. Reason, is the source and the savior to the human race. Let me explain how he sees things:
Writing from the Christian perspective, Kant believes that because of The Fall, humans are blessed and cursed. Humanity chose to disobey God's orders... well Eve did and Adam was duped I suppose, but whatever... Eve ate the apple. Adam followed. This was an act of choice. This capacity of choice, is what makes us human. It is what is the only indication that we are free beings, and this is the only indirect way to truly experience such freedom (and thus have knowledge of it). We were expelled from the garden, harried by pain and suffering from that day forth, only to try to strive to regain God's grace and forgiveness.
OK....
But this capacity for choice is also how we know the moral law. The capacity to choose, therefore, is tied up with the faculty of reason. It is through reason, that we come to know the moral law (the fact of reason), and it is from our experience + reason + the categorical imperative that we ultimately know how to act in accordance with the moral law. Thus the faculty that got us into trouble to begin with (choice) is also the way back to God's favor. Once we know the moral law and what we have to do to act in accordance with it, we must freely choose to follow it. This, is, of course, to be virtuous. One can act merely in outward conformity, but that act does not have moral worth. (I will leave aside questions regarding justice or Recht here). It is not pleasing in the eye of God.
Heaven, in my reading of Kant, is the Kingdom of Ends. It is a Kingdom where all human beings obey the moral law because they want to, and is a community of humanity treating each other person as an end in themselves and not a means to another end. But, we can only get there via our power and faculty of choice and reason.
Back to the fetishism. So, why does Kant view this type of worship or claim at knowing God's will and acting only through a select few as a fetish? Because it goes against what it means to be human! We are all free! We all have the capacity for free thought and we all can know what the moral law requires. We do not need, and should not be deluded into thinking, that a few people who claim they have the authority to tell us what is right or wrong or pleasing to God, have the answers. They should not persuade us to act against the precepts of morality for the sake of their own delusions. And yes, Kant uses this word "delusion" -- "Apart from good life-conduct, anything with the human being supposes that he can do to become well-pleasing to God is mere religious delusion and counterfeit service to God" (6:171).
There is much more complexity to Kant's arguments in the Religion, but it should be noted that the type of prosthelytizing and evangeliclizing going on with an organization like the NAR is patently unKantian. I think Kant would be appalled by what this group is doing. By attempting, not only to bring religion into the juridical organization of the state (a no no), but also advocating violence against others of different faiths or martyrdom of oneself, is pure nonsense. One does not DEBASE THE HUMANITY IN ONESELF OR ANOTHER. One does not VIOLAT THE RIGHTS OF OTHERS. Such a campaign of intolerance, and nonsense, is detrimental to not only the political fabric of any country but the very fabric of Kant's morality. None of the claims of these people could pass even one formulation of the categorical imperative, and so we should be aware that none of these people are truly "religious" in Kant's terms.
We should also be very afraid of any political candidates attempting to gain control of (high) political office who espouse these very beliefs.
No comments:
Post a Comment