Soon.To.Come
So once upon a time I made a promise on this blog that I was going to write a book. Then along came this thing called school and he stole all of my time. Here comes summer, here comes all my time back, and what do you know I’m writing again. Only this time much more confident with what I’ve got. I finished the bare bones to what is probably going to be a chapter. Here is a glimpse at it. On April 12,1922, just one year after Hitler became the leader of the National Socialist Party of Germany, he delivered a hate filled speech to party members against the Jews. Germany at the time was recovering from crippling debt they accumulated during World War 1. As the financial stress compounded on top of the average hard working German, frustrations towards the wealthy Jewish community compounded as well. So Hitler begins to build his case against the Jews by saying, “The Jew has not grown poorer: he gradually gets bloated, and, if you don’t believe me… go to one of our health-resorts; there you will find two sorts of visitors: the German who goes there, perhaps for the first time for a long while, to breath a little fresh air and to recover his health, and the Jew who goes there to lose his fat…” World War 2 wouldn’t begin for another 17 years but I argue it began the moment Hitler began to make his case against the Jewish people. He slowly over time brain washed his party to not only view them as something less than human but he began to build an ideal race of humans called the Aryan race. To be an Aryan meant that they had to be non-Jewish Caucasians, preferably tall, slender, and muscular. However, the main emphasis for Aryans was placed on ancestry. For one to be considered an Aryan, they had to have several generations of German ancestors. Aryans were supposed be sexually ‘straight’, non-smokers, immune to Marxism and to refrain from masturbation. As Hitler designed this ideal race of humans and contrasted that with his continual hate for the lesser race known as the Jew, it became rather easy for him to get his entire party around the idea of mass murder. This type of thinking and name-calling is the beginning of the dehumanization and objectification of a person or ethnic group. We objectify and project negative qualities onto those we fear or despise. It is challenging to discriminate against a person when you identify with them or think of them as being an equal brother or sister. However if we can reduce them to title such as: “Terrorists,” “Savages,” “Dogs,” or in Hitler’s case “Jew,” then they become less then human and therefore more acceptable objects of mistreatment. After that, the transition from discrimination to hatred or bigotry becomes easier and easier; racism, hate crimes, and even murder can then be justified by well-meaning people as something they are doing for the betterment of themselves and others. I love the story John records in his gospel about Jesus and Samaritan woman. The story starts in: John 4: 1-9 The Pharisees heard that Jesus was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John, although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. When the Lord learned of this, he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee. Now he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour. When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) To understand what Jesus is actually doing here we have to understand the years of cultural dehumanization and objectification that has taken place between Samaritans and Jews. This hate for one another roots back to a story in 2 Kings 17. The Assyrians attacked and controlled the northern kingdom of Israel and in doing so exiled most of the Israelites in 722 B.C. Then the king of Assyria colonized what was left of Samaria with people from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath and Sepharvaim. Samaria then became a melting pot of native Israelites who were not deported at the fall of the Northern kingdom and the new foreign colonists brought in by the King of Assyria. There were theological discrepancies between this new melting pot of northerners and the Jews from the south in Jerusalem because of the Samaritans refusal to participate in worship at Jerusalem. To add to all of this, after the Babylonian exile, the Samaritans went out of their way to put obstacles in the way of the Jewish restoration of Jerusalem. Samaritans in the 2nd century helped the Syrian monarchs in their wars against the Jews. And then in 128 B.C. the Jewish high priest burned down the Samaritan temple on Gerizim. The Samaritans religious practices were subsequently characterized by “unfaithfulness to the covenant established by the God of Israel…. ….In a culture where these two social groups couldn’t live comfortably knowing the other one even existed our Savior extends a love that surpasses all understanding. With a few simple words he not only meets this woman at the well where she is at in life but he extends a hand and offers a relationship that will never leave her thirsty again. He then continues to live amongst these people for a few days. I assume breaking bread and sharing in fellowship, which in Jewish culture was the most common way of saying “we are equals with one another.” In a culture that chose to dehumanize and objectify these Samaritans by labeling them as “dogs” Jesus instead chooses to label them as “equals,” “brothers,” and “sisters.” The danger with this dehumanization and objectification doesn’t just take place in racism and it doesn’t just happen amongst cultural differences. It happens in pornography, media, medicine and even the church. Pornography The men and women that participate in the making of the pornography get reduced to nothing more than a series of body parts that are labeled desirable by the general public, which consumes it. These men and women often go under the knife to obtain the perfect body in order to keep their job. They no longer even look in the mirror and see themselves in the reflection but rather they see job security. On the other hand this dehumanization plays itself out on the men and women participating in the viewing of the pornography as they reduce themselves down to a simple desire. To participate in pornography is to say that body parts x,y, and z or fantasy x, y, and z are the only ways you can receive love. It’s a scary disconnect from reality as it dehumanizes both the creators and consumers of pornography. While viewers continue to label them as “body parts,” Jesus instead chooses to label them as “equals,” “brothers,” and “sisters…. I’m taking most of my old stories and adding to them along with writing new stuff all together. I’m excited to see how far I get before school starts up again in the fall. More sections Soon.To.Come -Billy
