If ever there were an opportunity to point out the problems with religion, it’s with the publication of a new book by Bonnie Weinstein, To the Far Right Christian Hater: You Can Be a Good Speller, or a Hater, but You Can’t Be Both: Official Hate Male, Threats, and Criticism from the Archives of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation. That’s a mouthful of a title, and I like the mutual incompatibility of hatred and spelling ability (something I see regularly in my emails and comments from religionists and creationists); but of course the book has limited selling potential, particularly in the religious US.
The Military Religious Freedom Foundation, headed by Michael “Mikey” Weinstein, is the military equivalent of the Freedom from Religion Foundation: an organization trying to ensure that the U.S. military is kept secular. Here’s its stated mission:
The Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) is dedicated to ensuring that all members of the United States Armed Forces fully receive the Constitutional guarantee of religious freedom to which they and all Americans are entitled by virtue of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
Religion, even religious fundamentalism, is a severe problem in the U.S. military, probably much worse than among the American public in general since the military is not only infused with conservatives and Republicans, but there’s also a traditional connection between Christianity and the penchant for war. There are regular reports of illegal proselytizing at military academies and among members of the service (here’s one example), so Weinstein is really up against it.
The book is a collection of hate mail (real letters) compiled by Weinstein’s wife Bonnie over the years, and is described in a new piece in Salon by Edwin Lyngar, “Christian right’s rage problem: how white fundamentalists are roiling America.” Here’s how he characterizes the book:
Married to Mikey Weinstein, founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), the author has collected and annotated a sampling of the hate mail the foundation has received over the past few years. This hate mail is not trolling or anonymous “Internet comments.” The letters are specific and threatening and most often include a return address or email. The Weinsteins’ home has been vandalized — many times — and the family has had to take serious and expensive security measures. It’s no joke. As I read the book, curled up on my couch, my wife kept asking if I was OK. My face was fixed in an expression of horror and disbelief as I read the rage, hate and cruelty cataloged on every page. Bonnie has uncovered a shocking reality: Self-professed Christians deny the fundamental humanity of other people they don’t even know.
As hard as it was to read in places, it’s important to read and understand. It offers an unflinching examination of a subset of American fundamentalism, created by a segment of our society that is whiter, more conservative and a lot angrier than the rest of America. For some people the future of their faith and of the nation are in danger, threatened by secular forces controlled by Satan himself. This existential threat to Christian supremacy justifies the most offensive, vulgar and cruel letters I’ve ever read. Think I’m overstating it? Read the book.
And they call atheists “strident” and “militant”! How many atheists have written hate mail en masse to religious figures like Joel Osteen, William Lane Craig, or even Pat Robertson? I venture to say that none of those people could compile a book like this one. There is no hater like a Christian.
Heres a bit more about the book, which Lyngar also says has the “saving grace of Bonnie’s charm and humor as she annotates the entries”:
I will spare you, dear reader, actual excerpts from the book. Instead I will summarize almost every letter: The MRFF hates America, Weinstein is a dirty Jew who deserves to be raped / murdered / skull-fucked, some truly awful sexual filth directed at Bonnie, fuck-shit-fuck, cocksucker, and Jesus is Lord. Frankly, I’m downplaying it a lot. Bonnie adds commentary and worked with an artist to create some fun illustrations to give the book structure, and the letters get worse as toward the end of a book, reflecting real life. As the MRFF has racked up success pushing back against the creation of a Christian army — also outlined at the very end of the book — the letters the MRFF receives have gotten angrier and meaner.
Note the anti-Semitism, which of course is still pervasive in America, but has gone undercover, except to surface in things like this book or in the disproportionate criticism Israel receives in comparison to Palestine.
I wish the book would be selling better, and were more widely reviewed, but given its contents I doubt it. And I wish that the author of the Salon piece wouldn’t be so reluctant to pin the blame where it belongs, on religion. For somethow Lyngar manages, in the end, to blame it all on right-wing politicians who simply incite the religious Right to spew venom at atheists:
Despite the condemnation these letter writers deserve, I would argue many of them have been goaded into their ugly views. There is a systemic, manufactured religious war going on in America. It’s passed down through families and churches. It’s exploited by “family values” spouting politicians. It has been created to line the pockets of the most ignorant and vile flimflam artists who dare call themselves “reverend.” It’s used to fill pews and collection plates and to generate votes for the self-proclaimed party of God, the GOP.
Lyngard conceives of the “hate,” then, as politically motivated and channeled through religion:
Hate as a political weapon has gone mainstream in America, but this isn’t the first time. We’ve seen it during the awful red-baiting of the ’50s, during the civil rights era and segregation and earlier than that during the American Civil War. But in my lifetime, I don’t remember seeing such naked hate as we do today.
Maybe I’m being oversensitive here, but reader Chris, who sent me the link, felt the same way, saying “the ideology that is producing the hatred involves deeply held religious beliefs.”
Perhaps some of the letters the Weinsteins received were orchestrated by politicians, but I’m willing to bet that most of them simply came from private individuals whose Christianity was affronted by two people of Jewish descent trying to keep the military secularized—as it should be since it’s an arm of a secular government. In suchg cases hate isn’t a “political weapon,” but a religious one. Salon, of course, doesn’t like that line of thinking.
“headed by Michael “Mickey” Weinstein”
You’ll find that it’s Mikey Weinstein.
The danger of a publication like this, which is clearly intended to embarrass and shame abusers, will be used instead as an instruction manual.
Thanks for the correction; I’ve fixed the nickname.
Also is the subtitle actually “…hate MALE…” as the clickable link says, and not “mail”? That’s a real funny slip if an accident or a very funny title if on purpose. 🙂
This is quite serious. Where is the evidence? Anyone can make up ‘hate mail’. I’m sure if Pat Robertson wanted, he could compile a book of ‘hate mail’…even if he wrote it himself.
I’d want actual proof this was sent by ‘Christians’ and not random nutjobs…or even Atheists masquerading as Christians.
Publish the names, email addresses of the haters. Verify the sources. That’s good journalism. Otherwise the whole book is highly suspect.
Highly suspect? Because “random nutjobs” couldn’t possibly be Christian?
Asking for evidence should be standard for a site that prides itself on reason and evidence.
Are you saying Atheists would never pretend to be bigoted Christians?
Simple solution: evidence.
It’s a simple request. Otherwise it can be casually dismissed as an invention.
Let’s use proof to support our opinions…not hearsay.
You do know how hate mail works, right? It comes randomly to you. The evidence is in the mailbox. Our host gets the stuff all the time and periodically posts an example for our edification.
The FFRF gets a steady stream of this kind of hate mail. They publish several pages of it in every issue of their newsletter, ten times a year.
Your demand that the FBI (presumably) get fingerprints and trace the mail is pretty ridiculous. So, no, it isn’t a “simple request”. The most charitable characterization I can come up with is that it is an absurd example of hyper-skepticism.
In my own personal experience from 15+ years of being an active and outspoken atheist, I have no doubt of the authenticity of the hate mail. I’ve been on the receiving end of plenty of it, you’d be amazed at how little it takes to set some of these lunatics off.
“And I wish that the author of the Salon piece wouldn’t be so reluctant to pin the blame where it belongs, on religion.”
I really don’t think this about religion so much as tribal identity and out-group demonization. Religion just happens to be a big tribal marker.
You see the same kind of language from MRA types and gamergaters, or any group that is seeing its cultural dominance wane.
Gamers.. oh gamers. I’ve been on the receiving end of graphic suggestions of what should be done with my skull after cutting it free from my neck for the terrible crime of not doing the best damage but then winning a desirable item from the monster. It went from 0 to I WILL KILL YOU in seconds, but unlike Mikey and Bonnie that angry guy has no idea who I am or where I live. For which I feel lucky.
Makes me glad that when I do indulge in games, it’s classics like CIV and UFO (“X-Com” in the States, I think?)
Who needs this “online interaction” stuff in a game, any way?
I was going to say something similar, that group think and othering is notbut we disagree on whether you can blame religion. I think we can blame religion. Many religions, including much of Christianity and Islam, institutionalize ignorance and make othering a central tenet of the faith. Religion makes people not just different, but a blight in God’s perfection. And in many cases one proves one’s virtue, you are one of the good people, by being nasty to the others. The vilification is baked in to many religion, a central tenet, not something that has to be added.
So, yes, there are other “tribal markers,” but that doesn’t make the role of religion innocent.
I don’t understand why you included gamergate in this. From what I understand, gamergate is about corruption in gaming journalism.
Part of gamergate is the anonymous hate posts directed especially toward female gamers and those preferring “non-shooter” genres, perceived to be illegitimate to (a minority) of “hard core” gamers. From what I’ve seen and heard from gamer acquaintances there’s actually a lot of similarity re perceived invasion of the tribe, loss of power, etc. Gamer-haters do seem to be better spellers, though!
This is the end of that discussion, as I stated above. There are other places to go if you want to talk about “gamergate,” as it’s just going to start a flame war.
I think it’s a tribal marker and also a measurement of disposition. The military thrives on conformity and dependency – as an example, recruits are encouraged to marry and stay married, to have someone to come home to and to cement attachment to the system. Conservative Xians are nothing if not conformists and fans of authority. I think it is a mutually reinforcing system. As to the political dynamic, I think the right does take advantage of believers, but the movement did not create the traits; it definitely stems from the religious upbringing.
Okay, we’re not going to get into this topic, okay? This is a superfluous comment that will derail the thread in a direction I don’t like.
It’s nor just about tribalism. Fundamentalist Christians eagerly anticipate an apocalyptic war between Good and Evil, and see the Christianization of the military as a necessary precondition for the Second Coming.
Religion is a big tribal marker with unique features which make it more virulent, more intractable, and more divorced from reason and common sense than other tribal markers.
So I think it’s okay to say it’s about religion.
Precisely.
Without religion we’d still have tribalism, but without the supposedly unassailable claims of piety, righteousness, and threat of eternal torture.
Tribalism would be much harder to defend without the end-all-discussion claims of divine sanction.
It is surely a reflection of colonialism. Religion couldn’t be motivating it.
Damn. I forgot the /sarcasm tag.
Blame it on the Brits, we’re ultimately responsible for all the world’s woes.
Not surprisingly, many comments in the Salon article are like this:
“Well, those people aren’t really Christians.”
I hope Weinstein included the return and email addresses for his letter-writers, so that such commenters can contact the letter-writers and have a productive discussion on what is Christian and what is not, and get back to the rest of us when they’re fully in agreement.
and that’s what Lyngard whined too in this
“It’s passed down through families and churches. It’s exploited by “family values” spouting politicians. It has been created to line the pockets of the most ignorant and vile flimflam artists who dare call themselves “reverend.” It’s used to fill pews and collection plates and to generate votes for the self-proclaimed party of God, the GOP.”
all pure “but those people aren’t real Christians”. “It’s a relationship not a religion” bs.
” In suchg cases hate isn’t a “political weapon,” but a religious one. Salon, of course, doesn’t like that line of thinking.”
I’m off to read the Salon piece, because I cannot fathom how Salon can write such a thing. If the hate is a “political weapon” what is it being used to achieve politically? A Christian military? And that is not a religious goal?
Well, I agree that religion shouldn’t be left off the hook, but the political ends associated with the readers’ hate are not difficult to fathom.
Ever since the republican party decided to get into bed with the evangelicals, Christianity has been an important marker for the party. Pushing Christianity and demonizing atheists (or whomever else) is in the interest of getting more conservative politicians elected.
To put it (over) simply: Christian proselytizing is good for the Republican party and the Republican platform is good for Christianity. The hate mentioned above is both a religious and political weapon.
I’ve been reluctant to view the relationship between Republicans and evangelical Christianity as such. Mostly out of respect for a few decent Republicans that I know. But, it seems to be the case.
Orwell depicted something called the “Two Minutes’ Hate” in 1984. In 2014, we have a 24-hour hate called Fux News.
Excellent point.
Given the targeted organization, it seems likely to me that these letters are from members of our military. Is there any regulation against their making threats (skull f*cking)? Surely that is conduct ‘unbecoming of a member of the armed services’?
A cynical answer to this question would be easy, but I am looking for a more technical answer. Seriously.. violent threats?
The issue of internet threats is before the Supreme Court. It’s one of those double bladed swords.
The war against internet threats could become as useful as the war against drugs, or alcohol.
My personal take is that there are evils in life that are not as evil as the war against.
“Skull fucking” has obviously been borrowed from Gunnery Sergeant Hartman in Full metal jacket.
Or “Grateful Dead” (AKA Skull and Roses) (1971) which the band wanted to call “Skull Fuck”.
Seriously? Violent threats? From the military? That’s their bloody job! The entire raison d’etre of the organisation is to make threats of violence, and then carry them out. (Plus, of course, surrendering their individual moral responsibility to the “superior officers” is also an absolute requirement.)
I wouldn’t be surprised to find that officers or chaplains were organising “hate-hours” to get a number of these letters composed with unique threats. And when (if?) the organisers get caught, they’ll get promoted.
Awk! Cringe! You misspelled “threats” in the title in your lead paragraph.
I think that was intended to make fun of the hilariously awful spelling of the folks sending the hate mail.
It’s the author’s TITLE! If the misspelling was a joke, it was in poor taste. If the author wanted to parody all the misspellings in her title, she could have done so herself. It would be okay for Jerry to ridicule those people in his own text, but not by misspelling the title of someone ELSE’S book. It reads like a typo, not caricature, and I’m sure it was unintentional.
It was a typo, and I apologize for it. It’s been corrected.
At least it wasn’t in ALL CAPS!!!
I also assumed it was intentional, especially since “mail” is also spelled incorrectly.
But visiting amazon reveals that Weinstein’s subtitle is correctly spelled.
Unfortunately, the book is temporarily out of stock on Amazon.
Someone probably shot down a drone making a delivery.
I wonder who that could have been?
If they are current Military members the civilian laws do not apply. They fall under the UCMJ, Uniform Code of Military Justice and that is another Universe.
The military has a long record of the over the top religious types. Probably lots of reasons for this but with the merging of the GOP and the Christians it gets worse. Lots of Military folks come out of the south where religion is king and that adds to the flock.
It is the good old boy’s club at it’s worst. Good luck to those trying to clean it up.
I can tell you that people I was in the service with 40 plus years ago who were pretty normal and tolerable guys are today, right wing nut jobs. I’m not sure how that happens.
Reblogged this on My WordPress Notepad.
salon as usual also forgets that it’s not just white folk who are raving religious fundamentalists.
I’m a proud member of FFRF and MRFF and encourage folks to join either or both.
Occasionally Mikey et al send around some of the crazier emails they get to the membership. And FFRF has their hate mail often read on youtube.
There are few people more vile and violent than TrueChristians. The imprecatory prayer ones always amuse the heck out of me, all sure that their god will be their hitman.
I’ve been to four or five of the annual Freethought Days in Sacramento CA (held each year around Oct 12, when spectral evidence was ruled unlawful re Salem witch trials) and Weinstein was the only speaker there I’ve ever seen that had an armed security bodyguard!!!
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I’m a bit loath to blame religion in !*general*! for stuff like that- like Sam Harris I think “religion” is too broad a label- there are simply a lot of specific religions, but it’s certainly religion and religion which dominates the American South and MidWest. It is patently sophistical to say the motivation is not religious, or these people are not “really” Christian. It is a classic case of the “no true Scotsman” fallacy!!!
While my views on bad vs. good religion are almost 180 degrees the reverse of Russ Douthat, I think he’s right to frame the discussion about American life in terms of “bad religion” (though I abhor RD’s use of the word “heretic”. No one really can say what is “true” religion. But one might make judgments about what is humane and healthy religion.) Douthat even states bad religion is a much greater threat to America than atheism, though again his evaluative standards are just about the full reverse of my own.
On the other hand, apologists like Karen Armstrong have a “heads I win, tails YOU lose” argument. Good stuff done in the name of religion, whether creating great art, compassionate behavior, etc. is really from religion, but ISIS and the Crusades are not from religion. “No true Scotsman…”(Admittedly, it may be argued Hitchens does something similar in “God is not Great”. I think CH’s claim that Martin Luther King was a humanist in Christian drag is entirely wrong!!)
In this sense, Douthat’s way of framing the discussion is more sensible than more liberal apologists.
Huh? Salem was centuries before Fraunhofer and the origins of spectroscopy? Wasn’t it? I’m not even sure if they were before, during or after Newton doing his stuff on spectra?
“There is no hater like a Christian.” I dunno- I think the Muslims could give them a run for their money. I do believe that part of the vehemence inherent in their comments is due to frustration; they know our society will not allow them to go out and DO what it is they threaten to do, a “privilege” that Islamic societies routinely grant their zealots.
Sounds to me like it’s opening up a race. To the bottom. Which I am sure the religious will take up with fervour.
“There is no hater like a Christian”
Well let’s not get started on haters in Islamic circles maybe… :S
This is the paragraph which bothered me a bit:
Okay, so if groups like the American Humanist Association ARE “out to promote atheism,” then it would make this outpouring of hate more understandable? Less outrageous? Not so bad?
I find it disturbing that the writer seems to think it’s important to explain that the Weinsteins aren’t outspoken New Atheists and that hey, many of the people in MRFF aren’t atheists at all! And yet they still get this kind of mail! They get undeserved threats! If Mikey wasn’t Jewish, would that be trotted out as the critical argument against the antisemitism?
It seems to me that the real underlying hatred of atheism shows up when the moderates and liberals simply assume that persuading people that there is no God is the litmus test for what qualifies as a Bad Atheist. So yes, it’s about religion. It’s apparently even about religion when we’re dealing with an otherwise sympathetic article in Slate.
That’s a very good point. The whole thing is about religion and when I first read the article, I completely overlooked the tacit implication that somehow hate mail is more justified based on who it is sent to, especially if it’s those damned New Atheists who actually dare to respond when religion is promoted at every turn.
I agree with Lyngard that deliberate incitement of religious demographics by political groups for political purposes has been at high levels for decades. Mainly by conservative / Republican organizations. How much that factors into the fundementalist authors of the hate mails directed at the MRFF is hard to say, but I can’t come up with any good reason to doubt it is a factor.
Of course, the key thing that makes the incitement possible is religious belief. If it weren’t for that this problem would not exist.
What’s especially ironic about all the Christian hate mail is that most of Mikey Weinstein’s MRFF clients are Christian. The MRFF works to protect the religious freedom of all service members from favoritism and coercion.
I doubt that many understand the impossibility of Weinstein’s job. Primarily attempting to protect a member within a military service from being eaten alive by a superior (his boss) who happens to be a religious nut.
Dealing with the House Armed services committee which is top heavy with southern congress men and women who already don’t like the non religious and defend this problem in the military. It is the same set of rules that explains why they can’t do anything about sexual assault and rape in the military.
The military wants to leave everything in the chain of command and therein lies the problem.
Note the anti-Semitism, which of course is still pervasive in America, but has gone undercover, except to surface in things like this book or in the disproportionate criticism Israel receives in comparison to Palestine
I would point out that much of that unwarranted criticism comes from the left side of the spectrum (e.g. Glenn Greenwald, Noam Chomsky, Max Blumenthal, PZ Myers, etc.). It’s even worse in Europe where Israel bashing is the national sport on the left. Actually, all too many on the religious right are much too eager to give Israel a pass no matter what they do.
So true, and so lamentable! Esp. in regard to how liberal many (most?) modern (not to mention secular) Jews are themselves. I often wonder why they haven’t become reactionary in response to all the hate.
Many liberal American Jews don’t agree with Israel’s policies, especially with regard to its asymmetric response to Hamas’ rocket attacks, its support of settlements on the West Bank and its flat refusal to compromise on Jerusalem. There’s no shortage of solutions; what’s lacking is political will – and most of all, good will.
I prefer arguments based on facts and not on ethnic affiliation of those who are presenting arguments. The fact that some Jews are critical of Israel’s politics is not an argument based on merits. So let’s go to facts.
First Jerusalem: this town was one undivided town for its whole many thousand years long history with the exception of 19 years between 1948-1967. 1948, in a war in which Arab states tried to annihilate Israel, Jordan occupied part of Jerusalem, inclusive Jewish Quarter. Jordanian army expelled all Jews, destroyed all synagogues and other Jewish places and no Jews were allowed even to visit their most holy places. Jordanian snipers killed and maimed quite a lot of Jews with shots from one building (in occupied Jerusalem) to the other (in Jewish Jerusalem). Jordan annexed Judea, Samaria and this part of Jerusalem. Nobody talked about a Palestinian state, East Jerusalem was a backwater of no interest to anyone, not even to PLO (established 1964) which officially announced that it is not interested in the lands under Jordanian occupation and that its goal to “liberate Palestine” means to destroy Israel. Jerusalem, in its long history, never was a capital of any Arab state (not to mention Palestinian – no Palestinian state existed in the history of the region). Since at least beginning of 19th century (there were no censuses conducted earlier) there was a clear Jewish majority in Jerusalem. Under Israeli rule all people have access to their holy places, with privileged access to Muslims (Jew are forbidden by Israeli government to pray on Temple Mount in order not to hurt Muslim feelings).
Settlements: Israeli settlements in the West Bank take less than 5% of West Bank areas. Most of them are in blocks close to the Green Line (armistice line from 1949 which Arab side never wanted to be treated as boarder: “No provision of this Agreement shall in any way prejudice the rights, claims and positions of either Party hereto in the ultimate peaceful settlement of the Palestine question, the provisions of this Agreement being dictated exclusively by military considerations.”) Israel in many peace proposals offered land swaps for those 5% and dismantling of settlements which are not in those blocks. All Israeli peace proposals were rejected by Palestinians.
Asymmetric response: I think this was best answered by U.S. chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dempsey: http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.625194
When it comes to good will I suggest you listen to the statements of Abbas, Jibril and other officials from Fatah, PLO etc. (not to mention Hamas) which they make in Arabic (translated into English to the chagrin of their authors).
Jerry,
Perhaps you missed it, but Salon actually did manage to diss religion recently in publishing an excerpt from John Loftus’s new book, Christianity Is Not Great: How Faith Fails.
I missed it so thanks – I am rewarding it with clicks!
Another typo: It’s supposed to be “hate mail,” not “hate male.”
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Self-professed Christians deny the fundamental humanity of other people they don’t even know.
Epic truth.
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The far right have the most bizarre love-hate relationship with Israel and the Jewish people.
HATE:
Thinly veiled anti-semitism often directed at ‘Hollywood Liberals’ or “Wall Street” or George Soros.
LOVE:
But Jesus was king jew and so were all the great characters of the bible.
And if they don’t side with Israel, then they have to side with palestinians, who are more brown, muslim and caused 9/11.
What is a christian white supremacist to do??
This is certainly about religion causing harm in the world. Perhaps the idea is correct that it is deep seated hatred that is being passed down through Churches and “the party of God” and absent these things, the hatred may still be there. But when religion is used as a divine justification for hatred, the views are then immune from criticism and that is purely religion, for divine mandate is arguably the basis for all monotheistic religions second only to the proposed existence of God himself.
If any credence is going to be given to the argument that this is in fact not about religion, then no credit can be given to religion for people behaving well either. The apologists want it both ways. Religion doesn’t do harm, people do harm is the left wing parallel to the canard that guns don’t kill people, people kill people. In neither case does it make sense to facilitate the process for crazy people to justify and commit crazy acts.
Mikey Weinstein, MRFF and the 30000+ members of that organization deserve our respect and our support. They have taken on a difficult and dangerous job. They are trying to ensure that our military follows existing military law by not promoting or proselytizing for any particular religion. Would you really want a dominionist, evangelical Christian military that believes it has a mission to carry “the Faith” to all the countries it sets boots on the ground in? Some of these people have a desire to bring about “Armagedden”, “the End Times” whether we want it or not. Is there any other religion you’d prefer the military preach instead? What happened to “separation of church and state?” Our military should confine itself to the functions and actions for which it is formed, and not to be Christian missionaries.
Over the years,I have read MRFF online and the vitreolic hate mail. I don’t believe that these poison pen letters are written by members of MRFF. However, responses to the haters often are written by various MRFF members, some of whom are in the military or are former military.