Just another Reality-based bubble in the foam of the multiverse.

Friday, January 12, 2007

Dominion Death Cult

Jeff Sharlet at Harpers' via xan

... In the pantheon of fundamentalist history, the man revered above all others is General Stonewall Jackson of the Confederacy, perhaps the most brilliant military commander in American history and certainly the most pious. United States History for Christian Schools devotes more space to Jackson, “Soldier of the Cross,” and the revivals he led among his troops in the midst of the Civil War, than to either Robert E. Lee or Ulysses S. Grant; Practical Homeschooling magazine offers instructions for making Stonewall costumes out of gray sweatsuits with which one can celebrate his birthday, a homeschooling “fun day.” The Vision Forum catalogue offers for men a military biography and for the ladies a collection of Jackson’s letters to his wife; both books extol his strategic and romantic achievements as corollaries to his unparalleled love of God.

Fundamentalists even celebrate the Confederate hero as an early civil rights visionary, dedicated to teaching slaves to read so that they could learn their Bible lessons. For fundamentalist admirers, that is enough; this fall saw the publication of Stonewall Jackson: The Black Man’s Friend, by Richard G. Williams, a regular contributor to the conservative Washington Times. Jackson fought not to defend slavery, argues another biographer, but for religious freedom; he believed the North had usurped the moral jurisdiction of God. “The North seemed to be striving to alter basic American structures,” writes James I. Robertson Jr. “Such activity flew in the face of God’s preordained notion of what America should be.”

Jackson’s popularity with fundamentalists represents the triumph of the Christian history that Rousas John Rushdoony dreamed of when he discovered, during the early 1960s, the forgotten works of the theologian Robert Lewis Dabney, including Life and Campaigns of Lieut.- Gen. Thomas J. Jackson (Stonewall Jackson). Dabney had served under Jackson, but, more important, he was a theologian in the tradition of John Calvin—that is, he believed deeply in a God who worked through chosen individuals—and he wrote the general’s life in biblical terms. Rushdoony imagined the story as transcending its Confederate origins, and so helped make it a founding text of the nascent homeschooling movement. [5]

In 2003, Vision Forum sponsored a national essay contest and awarded first prize to a pretty, freckle-faced young woman named Amanda Freeborn for her essay, “How Stonewall Jackson Demonstrated a Biblical Vision of Manhood.” “There is a name,” writes Freeborn,

"that casts upon the screen of our imaginations the image of the personification of godly manhood. That name is Stonewall Jackson. . . . His life was a testimony to the world of what God can do through a man consecrated to his purposes."

Freeborn goes on to admire Jackson’s reverence for authority and his commitment to prayer—in battle, wrote a fighting pastor who knew him, Jackson would give up the reins of his horse “to lift up his hands towards heaven.” And she admires his Job-like acceptance of suffering—in civilian life he was shy, inept, and so physically fragile that he spent much his time investigating ascetic diets and taking the waters at miracle spas around the country. With his wife, Anna, he loved to dance secret polkas when no one else was watching, but he felt so out of place in “society” that he was deathly afraid of public speaking. Absent enemy fire, he did not know how to take a stand. He watched John Brown hang with his own eyes and marveled at the strength of the man’s Christian conviction. And yet when his own time to fight came, he proved just as devoted. “Draw the sword,” he told his students at the Virginia Military Institute, “and throw away the scabbard.” In All Things for Good: The Steadfast Fidelity of Stonewall Jackson, fundamentalist historian J. Steven Wilkins opens a chapter on Jackson’s belief in the “black flag” of no quarter for the enemy with a quotation: “Shoot them all, I do not wish them to be brave.” The only path to peace, he believed, was total war.

“Today,” writes Freeborn,

"Mr. Jackson’s life stands as a witness to a new generation of what God can and desires to do in each of His children. Let us rise up and follow the shining example of this stern soldier, loving husband, devoted church officer, and Christ-like man."

Civil War buffs study his military maneuvers and wonder whether, had he not been mistaken for a Yankee and shot by his own men in 1863, he might have outflanked the Union Army and fought the North to a standstill. But Freeborn chooses as case study not a Civil War battle but his first victory as a lowly lieutenant out of West Point. Sent to the Mexican War, he defied an order to retreat, fought the Mexican cavalry alone with one artillery piece, won, and was promoted, later commended by General Winfield Scott, commander of the U.S. forces, for “the way in which [he] slaughtered those poor Mexicans.”

Many of the poor Mexicans Jackson slaughtered were civilians. After his small victory had helped clear the way for the American advance, Jackson received orders to turn his guns on Mexico City residents attempting to flee the oncoming U.S. army. He did so without hesitation—mowing them down as they sought to surrender.

What are we to make of this murder? Secular historians attribute this atrocity to Jackson’s military discipline—he simply obeyed orders. But fundamentalists see in that discipline, that willingness to kill innocents, confirmation of Romans 13:1: “For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.” Obeying one’s superiors, according to this logic, is an act of devotion to the God above them.

But wait—fundamentalists also praise the heroism that resulted from his defiance of orders to retreat, his rout of the Mexican cavalry so miraculous—it’s said that a cannonball bounced between his legs as he stood fast—that it seems to fundamentalist biographers proof that he was anointed by God. Is this hypocrisy on the part of his fans? Not exactly.

Key men always obey orders, but they follow the command of the highest authority. Jackson’s amazing victory is taken as evidence that God was with him—that God overrode the orders of his earthly commanders. And yet the civilian dead that resulted from Jackson’s subsequent obedience of those very same earthly commanders are also signs of God’s guiding hand. The providential God sees everything; that such a tragedy was allowed to occur must be evidence of a greater plan. One of fundamentalist history’s favorite proofs comes not from Scripture itself but from Ben Franklin’s paraphrase at the Constitutional Convention: “And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid?”

To put it in political terms, the contradictory legend of Stonewall Jackson—rebellion and reverence, rage and order—results in the synthesis of self-destructive patriotism embraced by contemporary fundamentalism. The most striking example is a short video on faith and diplomacy made in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, by Christian Embassy, a behind-the-scenes ministry for government and military elites. It almost seems to endorse deliberate negligence of duty. Dan Cooper, an undersecretary of veterans’ affairs, announces that his weekly prayer sessions are “more important than doing the job.” Major General Jack Catton says that he sees his position as an adviser to the Joint Chiefs of Staff as a “wonderful opportunity” to evangelize men and women setting defense policy. “My first priority is my faith,” he says. “I think it’s a huge impact. . . . You have many men and women who are seeking God’s counsel and wisdom as they advise the Chairman [of the Joint Chiefs] and the Secretary of Defense.” Brigadier General Bob Caslen puts it in sensual terms: “We’re the aroma of Jesus Christ.” There’s a joyous disregard for democracy in these sentiments, for its demands and its compromises, that in its darkest manifestation becomes the overlooked piety at the heart of the old logic of Vietnam, lately applied to Iraq: In order to save the village, we must destroy it...


"...had he not been mistaken for a Yankee and shot by his own men in 1863"- a likely euphemistic excuse for the first fragging of a barking madman officer by an enlisted man.

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