Fundamentalist legalism and murder

Today I've read a few interesting commentaries on the role that certain fundamentalist Christian teachings (specifically a doctrine known as "legalism") have had in producing the outcomes of Andrea Yates murdering her children and Matthew Murray killing several people in Colorado. Murray, who was raised in an ultra-fundamentalist home and home schooled, was in an environment based on the teachings of Bill Gothard, whose "seven basic life principles" may be found here. The obedience to authority component is one which has led to some problems, such as a sex scandal within Gothard's organization. (An online forum for discussing Bill Gothard's teachings, open to both supporters and critics, may be found here.)

Gothard has other teachings beyond his seven principles, some of which are enumerated by a commenter at Midwest Christian Outreach:

Wives who work outside the home are to be compared to harlots — Bill Gothard
It is a total insult in Scripture to be called uncircumcised, and the only moral choice parents can make is to have their sons circumcised in order to follow in the footsteps of Jesus — Bill Gothard
“Unmerited favor” is a “faulty definition” of grace. Grace for sanctification is merited as we humble ourselves before God — Bill Gothard
Females who enjoy horseback riding have a problem with rebellion — Bill Gothard, from testimonies of people who use their real names who have heard him say this in person
Unbiblical submission taught — Abigail was WRONG to do what she did in saving Nabal and his servants — Bill Gothard
Tamar was partially at fault for being raped, because she wasn’t spiritually alert and didn’t cry out — Bill Gothard
Rock music is evil because it is evil — Bill Gothard
Cabbage Patch dolls are demonized — Bill Gothard

Matthew Murray wrote about some of these rules, observing that "I still remember how we were told that 'The Simpsons' was a very evil and Satanic TV show with the intent of causing people to leave Christianity (as if that’s a bad thing). As a teenager my mother had the TV tuner removed by a TV technician so that it could only receive from the AV inputs, meaning, could only watch VHS and DVDs." He specifically blamed Gothard's teachings for his problems:

I am 22 years old and I was raised in Bill Gothard's homeschool program all the way through high school. I went to both the Basic and Advanced Seminars. My Mother was fully into both Bill Gothard's programs AND the Charismatic movement. What I found were all these other rules Irealized I could never live up to, yet, the man seemed to have a biblical basis for everything. In Februrary 2001 at age 17 I plunged into a dark suicidal depression all because I thought I had lost my "salvation" and somehow couldn't live up to the rules. Every single hour of every single day, up until October 2001 I thought about ways of suicide and hating myself for not being worthy enough and failing God. I felt like there was no reason to live because I had lost my salvation and could never live up to the rules.

By contrast, Bill Gothard blames it all on rock music:

Gothard, in an interview Wednesday, said he “didn’t recall"ever meeting the Murray family, but he was sure one of the parents was probably trained in his program. Ultimately, Gothard blames rock music for Murray’s murderous rampage. “That is the most contributing factor,” said Gothard, who is based in a small town south of Chicago. “It’d be important to see the connection between his passion to rock music and how it ultimately brought this on.” Gothard said whenever he gets calls from parents having trouble with their kids, he asks about what they listen to. “In every case, (the kid) is listening to rock music,” he said.

The Andrea Yates case didn't involve Bill Gothard--she was a follower of Michael Woroniecki, a traveling preacher who carried a cross onto college campuses. I met and argued with him at Arizona State University in October of 1986, where he was arrested (via citizen's arrest) for allegedly disrupting a campus event occurring on the mall. The charges were absurd--he wasn't creating a disturbance or disrupting any event--and some other skeptics and I attended his court hearing prepared to speak up for him, but the charges were dismissed when the ASU student who made the citizen's arrest failed to show up. Woroniecki's teachings are similar to Gothard in that he places a strong emphasis on following rules (and against following any church or leadership other than his own, since he doesn't seem to think anyone other than himself lives up to his standards, which apparently presents him with a bit of a problem in maintaining followers). He lacks the sophistication, charisma, and organizational skills of Gothard.

There is empirical evidence that excessively rigid parental control over children can cause serious dysfunction. Christians should take notice of this, rather than resort to blaming rock music.

UPDATE (December 31, 2007): I just remembered, by way of contrast with Bill Gothard's view of The Simpsons, that a Christian satirical magazine, The Wittenburg Door, did an issue on the theology of Homer Simpson back in May/June 1999--the issue immediately preceding their "XENA: Warrior Theologian of the Year" issue. I've got a copy around here somewhere...

UPDATE (February 3, 2010): Joshua Woroniecki, son of Michael Woroniecki, has a blog where he criticizes claims that his father had any responsibility for the actions of Andrea Yates, even denying that she and her husband were followers of his father. That should be contrasted with Wikipedia's discussion.

UPDATE (March 1, 2014): Bill Gothard has been placed on administrative leave as a result of accusations of sexual harassment from at least 34 women.

Ron Paul connected to white supremacists?

Ed Brayton at Dispatches from the Culture Wars points out allegations from a neo-Nazi that Ron Paul has regularly met with a variety of white supremacists at a Thai restaurant in D.C. Others have pointed out that Paul campaign expenditures have included expenses at that restaurant and that he has spoken to some questionable groups.

I've also updated this blog's post on "Ron Paul, religious kook" to point out his recent statement that he doesn't accept the reality of evolution.

UPDATE: The alleged campaign expenditure link to Wednesday restaurant meetings with white supremacist groups has been conclusively refuted at the Irregular Times blog, which goes through the expenditures in detail and shows that while Ron Paul has spent money for meetings at the Tara Thai restaurant in D.C. (which is right around the corner from an office he rents in D.C.), none of those expenditures have occurred on a Wednesday. The source of the allegations, Bill White of the American National Socialist Workers Party, is not a particularly credible source, as has been remarked repeatedly in the comments at Ed Brayton's blog (first link above).

However, Paul has definitely taken contributions from and posed for photographs with at least one white supremacist, Don Black, who runs the Stormfront website.

Dembski knew he was infringing copyright

In a September 2007 talk, Dembski used an over-dubbed version of a computer animation of the inner workings of the cell that he took from Harvard and XVIVO, which he subsequently claimed he had downloaded from the Internet in a form that didn't have the credits (e.g., from YouTube).

Peter Irons has now shown that the content of Dembski's latest book, Design of Life, shows that his explanation is a lie. That book includes a reference to the same video, with a link to its original location, marked as "last accessed" on January 25, 2007. Since he knew where the video came from in January 2007, he also already knew in September 2007. ERV points out the details of Dembski's deception.

(Via Pharyngula.)

UPDATE (December 31, 2007): There is an entertaining exchange of letters between Peter Irons, Bill Dembski, and Dembski's attorney John Gilmore posted at Pharyngula.

Chinese intelligence was translating for the NSA

The Washington Times reported on December 21 that several years ago, Chinese intelligence successfully subverted the National Security Agency in Hawaii. First, by creating a company based in Hawaii to do Chinese translations which successfully obtained government contracts with the NSA to translate intercepted Chinese communications. The intercepted communications included sufficient information to identify the sources, giving the Chinese the ability to control what information was obtained by the NSA either by preventing significant information from being carried over by the compromised channel or by introducing disinformation.

This shows one of the problems that faces a world superpower whose own language is commonly used and which does little or nothing to encourage its citizens to learn other languages. Understanding communications in other languages require the assistance of translators who may be working for the enemy, and the enemy can almost get away with speaking freely anywhere while being overheard, since the likelihood of comprehension is so small. The more communications you need translated, the more translators you need, and the greater the likelihood of compromise.

UPDATE (January 2, 2008): Noah Schachtman at Wired and Jeffrey Carr at IntelFusion cast some doubt on this story.

Books Read in 2007

As another year comes to a close, I've again put together a list of the books I've managed to read this year. Once again, there are many that I've not finished, some of which were started but left uncompleted in 2005 or 2006, but I'm not going to bother listing those this year. While in previous years I've reviewed almost every book I read on Amazon.com, this year I've hardly done so at all, and my Amazon.com reviewer rank has dropped accordingly--I had hopes at one time of cracking the top 2000 (and got up to 2,171), but that won't happen if I don't write some more reviews. I'm disappointed with how few books I've read this year--this is the first time I can recall purchasing more new books than I've finished reading, so I plan to use my vacation days (the rest of the year) to see if I can finish a few more.

• Akhil Reed Amar, America's Constitution: A Biography
• Barton Biggs, Hedge Hogging
• Brian Doherty, Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement
• Giles Foden, Mimi and Toutou's Big Adventure: The Bizarre Battle of Lake Tanganyika
• Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia: The Business of Private Protection
• Barry M. Goldwater, The Conscience of a Conservative
• Madeleine L'Engle, A Wrinkle in Time (nowhere near as good as I remembered, and the other two I read were so bad I didn't buy the fourth)
• Madeleine L'Engle, A Wind in the Door
• Madeleine L'Engle, A Swiftly Tilting Planet
• Mark R. Levin, Rescuing Sprite: A Dog Lover's Story of Joy and Anguish
• Roger Lowenstein, When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management
• Ernest Nagel and James R. Newman, Goedel's Proof
• Robert Neuwirth, Shadow Cities: A Billion Squatters, A New Urban World
• Ronald Numbers, The Creationists: From Scientific Creationism to Intelligent Design (revised edition)
• Kevin Phillips, American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush
• William Poundstone, Fortune's Formula: The Untold Story of the Scientific Betting System That Beat the Casinos and Wall Street
• Rudy Rucker, Frek and the Elixir
• Jim Steinmeyer, The Glorious Deception: The Double Life of William Robinson, aka Chung Ling Soo, the "Marvelous Chinese Conjurer"
• Tim Weiner, Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA
• Jonathan Wolff, Robert Nozick: Property, Justice and the Minimal State
• Carl Zimmer, Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea

(Previously: 2006, 2005.)

Chris Hedges gives Huckabee too much credit

Chris Hedges, author of American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America, has written an article about how the religious right's support for Mike Huckabee "represents a seismic shift in the tactics, ideology and direction of the radical Christian right" in that Huckabee is a candidate who repudiates many of the core principles of conservatism in favor of populism. I'd say he's more of a William Jennings Bryan than a Barry Goldwater.

Hedges' article correctly identifies some very serious reasons to be concerned about a Huckabee candidacy, with his ties to Christian reconstructionism and his complete ignorance of foreign policy. He concludes with a few paragraphs about Huckabee's opposition to the HPV vaccine and his desire to quarantine AIDS patients. It's here that Hedges gives Huckabee too much credit, when he writes that "Huckabee has publicly backed off from this extreme position." In fact, Huckabee hasn't backed off from the position, only from the specific words he used to describe it.

Here's what he said about it to Chris Wallace, as reported at the Huffington Post (with the accompanying video record):

This morning, Huckabee first tried to deny his comments. "Chris, I didn't say that we should quarantine," he said. In fact, he said we "need[ed]" to isolate AIDS patients.

Pressed repeatedly by host Chris Wallace, however, Huckabee relented. "That is exactly what I said. I don't run from it, I don't recant from it. Would I say it a little differently today? Sure, in light of 15 years of additional knowledge and understanding, I would."

That's not backing off from the position.

What would happen if Jesus converted to Islam?

The Onion has the story. The part about Jews for Jesus splitting into three groups is priceless.

Irony

Unlike the examples in Alanis Morissette's misnamed song, this is both unfortunate and ironic:

Roofing billionaire dies in fall through roof

The 91st richest man in the U.S., a roofing company billionaire, has died after falling through his home garage's roof, local authorities said Friday.

Ken Hendricks, 66, was checking on construction on the roof over his garage at his home in the town of Rock Thursday night when he fell through, Rock County Sheriff's Department commander Troy Knudson said. He suffered massive head injuries, according to his company, ABC Supply Co.

Lakota Nation withdraws from U.S. treaties

Yesterday, a group of Indians from the Lakota Nation announced that it has withdrawn from all U.S. treaties and will be issuing its own passports and driver's licenses and creating a tax-free state where non-Native Americans are welcome to move so long as they renounce their U.S. citizenship. They've stated that they will be filing liens against the properties within their territory which have been illegally homesteaded, and have contacted the governments of Bolivia, Chile, and Venezuela seeking recognition.

You can find a map of the Lakota Nation territory here, with more detail and explanation here. It covers western North and South Dakota and Nebraska, and eastern Montana and Wyoming.

This declaration of independence was made yesterday by Russell Means, leader of the American Indian Movement (who was nearly the 1988 Libertarian Party candidate for president instead of Ron Paul), and is based on many years of U.S. government failure to live up to its treaties with Indian tribes. But Means actually has no authority to speak for the Oglala Sioux (the Lakota tribe he is a member of), since he did not win the 2005 election for president of the tribe, though he unsuccessfully contested it.

I haven't seen any specific mention with regard to the Lakota Nation's action of the case of Cobell v. Kempthorne, a lawsuit which has been in federal court since 1996. This lawsuit is over the U.S. Department of the Interior's mismanagement of Indian land lease trust funds, in which they've lost the accounting records for 118 years of data about $13 billion in funds and its accumulated interest, which the plaintiffs would like to see returned to them. (I previously mentioned this lawsuit two years ago as one of the issues former Arizona Rep. J.D. Hayworth was on the right side of.) Eloise Cobell is a member of the Blackfeet tribe of Montana.

Mention has been made, however, of a 1980 U.S. Supreme Court decision which awarded the Lakota $122 million in compensation for the land that had been taken from them in violation of treaties, but not any land. The Lakota refused the award, which has accrued interest bringing it close to $1 billion today.

Depends on what the meaning of "saw" is

Mitt Romney said on national television several times this year (including at least twice this month) that he saw his father march with Martin Luther King, Jr. In 1978, he claimed to the Boston Herald that he and his father both marched with King.

Susan Englander, assistant editor of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Papers Project at Stanford University, did some research and found that while Gov. George Romney (Michigan) issued a proclamation in support of King in June 1963 for a March in Detroit, he declined to attend, saying that he did not attend political events on Sundays. He participated in a civil rights march in Grosse Pointe a few days later, but King did not attend that march.

Now, after defending the claim repeatedly, Romney has admitted yesterday that neither he nor his father marched with King--but not that he has said anything false. Instead, he says that he "saw" his father march with King in a figurative sense: "If you look at the literature, if you look at the dictionary, the term 'saw' includes being aware of in the sense I've described. ... It's a figure of speech and very familiar, and it's very common. And I saw my dad march with Martin Luther King. I did not see it with my own eyes, but I saw him in the sense of being aware of his participation in that great effort."