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April 2008
Subheading: Poverty Makes a Good
Host To the extent to which our loneliness is
converted into solitude we can move from hostility to hospitality. There
obviously is no question of chronology. The complex and subtle movements
of the inner life cannot be neatly divided. But it remains true that
loneliness often leads to hostile behavior and that solitude is the
climate of hospitality. When we feel lonely we have such a need to be
liked and loved that we become hypersensitive to the many signals in our
environment and easily become hostile toward anyone whom we perceive as
rejecting us. But once we have found the center of our lives in our own
hearts and have accepted our aloneness, not as a fate but a vocation, we
are able to offer freedom to others. Once we have given up our desire to
be fully fulfilled, we can offer emptiness to others. Once we have become
poor, we can be good hosts. It is indeed the paradox of hospitality that
poverty makes a good host. Poverty is the inner disposition that allows us
to take away our defenses and convert our enemies into friends. We can
only perceive the stranger as an enemy as long as we have something to
defend. But when we say, “Please enter—my house is your house, my joy is
your joy, my sadness is your sadness, and my life is your life,” we have
nothing to defend, since we have nothing to lose but all to
give. Turning the other cheek means showing our
enemies that they can only be our enemies while supposing that we are
anxiously clinging to our private property, whatever it is; our knowledge,
our good name, our land, our money, or the many objects we have collected
around us. But who will be our robber when everything he or she wants to
steal from us becomes our gift? Who can lie to us, when only the truth
will serve? Who wants to sneak into our back door, when our front door is
wide open? Poverty makes a good host. This paradoxical
statement needs some more explanation. In order to be able to reach out to
the other in freedom, two forms of poverty are very important, the poverty
of mind and poverty of heart. 1975 From You I Receive Every week, when I need to research and write a sermon, I seem to
have several choices. Sometimes the choices are easy and sometimes they
aren’t so easy. Even when it the path forward seems clear, it isn’t
necessarily so. Take this week’s theme. It is taken from the sweet little
song #402 in the hymnal. There are several possibilities for a sermon. The
phrase “from you I receive and to you I give,” is the essence of
relationship. Good theology
is found in relationship whether with an invisible deity or with the
mystery. I place interpersonal relationships as those with mystery. No
matter how well you know another, they will always remain more a mystery
than known. I also put a daily meditation or prayer practice in the room
of relationship and receiving and giving. Those who have a daily
meditation or prayer practice are better learners, react to stress in more
positive ways, and are more open to new
experiences. Did you know that people who own pets are over 40% less likely to
have heart problems? Cats fair better as pets than dong by almost 100%.
That relationship is less with mystery than with the familiar giver and
receiver. Now I have a larger problem. Every time I sit down to write my
cat jumped in my lap to be petted. Since I was in the mode or receiving
and giving, I obliged the cat by petting it and didn’t write anything. It
is sort of a reverse “the dog ate my homework.” Only my homework was the
dog. That had to end so I put the cat and the dog out. So here is a door
we could walk through. The door to health. In fact, in a 15 to 20 minute talk, no avenue will be
followed very far so I could touch on several thoughts. But one good story
can say it all. I’ve asked that we sing it after candles of community in my
services. I haven’t asked worship committee to make any changes so much as
to indulge me this small request. So let me demonstrate how choices can
either move us forward or stop us dead in our tracks. In doing so, I hope
to let you into my own heart and how I might make a choice. And remember, even the best choice
isn’t always the wisest. This song was written mostly by Nathan Cohen but
his brother Joseph helped. It seems a little odd that it would take two
grown men to write such a little song. There’s a reason for that, and it
is imbedded in the song. I could go into the history of the Segal brothers
and Nathan or Natan’s commitment to loving community, and I probably
will. You would be informed;
placed in a perspective. That’s good, but what’s the point? Did you come
here to simply be informed? I wouldn’t have and I wouldn’t be back if
that’s all that happened. I have a history with this song (you’ll hear
about that) so it sings in my heart. For me, it has meaning beyond the
simple song. Here’s how that meaning gets
expressed. A few weeks ago, the
church in You see, a few weeks ago, I flew to So here I am sitting in the foyer with Jack and he’s confessing to
me; sharing with me, giving to me and receiving from me.
His confession took me back to times he and I had been together and
he would try to convince someone to think the way he thought. There it was
in my heart too. That fearful child that wants to know he’s safe with like
minded people. And, worse yet, an angry adult that wants to protect that
child. You wouldn’t think that officiating my uncle’s memorial could open
so many doors, or rather point me to doors that were never closed, only
lost. Jack sat there looking
at me and I was looking back. I knew how he felt. He had come in to my
heart and in that one startling and painful moment I knew love for what it
is. Something else cracked, and I couldn’t tell you what. I can’t even
begin to tell you what my experience was. The best way I can put it for
now is that in that moment of connection I fell in love with that heart,
that soul, that spirit.You must go out there and find that out for your
self. It could be that it’s spring and I like spring. It could be that
I’ve been noticing convergences. It could be that the stars are aligned. I
don’t know if stars and planets are aligned. It all feels very fortuitous.
It is probably nothing more than what Jack was telling me, we’re learning.
I used to tell people, “I don’t want to say I’m not superstitious because
I’m afraid it will bring me bad luck.” And this is exactly what the little song “From You I Receive”
means. Reb Nathan Segal was
ordained in 1977 by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi in Natan’s vision, which I think I’ll steal, goes something like this
prayer.
I want to help build
community That beholds Divinity with thanksgiving and
spontaneity in-joy-ing our sensuality - A
common humanity - In love and
prosperity So help us God! Jack and many people here have given me and many in this
congregation a rare opportunity. I want to thank you for that. My
experience has informed me in ways I never thought possible. And now it is
time to take that learning to the next level. I have officially resigned
as minister of this church. My departure date is not for a while, but I
will not return for the next church year. I have wanted to expand my
ministry for some time and I’ve explored the different avenues that
attract me. You could say that I reverted back into my work at All Souls
in I will continue to work with the church and our district office in
facilitating this transition. My last week will be at the end of my agreed
time, the last week of July. There are several little things that need
finishing. For one, we will need to start a selection process. For the
past three months, I have been in discussions with my mentor and with our
Distirct Executive, There are packets from several prospective ministers
waiting to be mailed. Most of you don’t know Katherine, the young woman who sends out
those Tuesday email announcements and generally holds things together.
When we hired Katherine, it was in deference to me. She was not actually
the first choice of the selection committee, but she was mine. One of the
gifts you have given me is that I’ve learned to trust my self and my sense
of things. Hiring Katherine is one prime example of this.Katherine has
also resigned. Her last day will be April 26. We will need to find a
replacement quickly and I will need to be part of that process. There will
need to be a transition time. When I look around, I see our hand in everything I see. I say we
because it is we not me who created this space. My purpose was to hold the
vision, which I did with the help of a few people. If you hear the first
person singular over and over from anyone, me or anyone else, you’re in
big trouble. In a community there is nor real I or me. It’s us and we. But
a minister fills a different role. It is him or her, I or me. The other
day I was lamenting my leaving. With the help of a friend, I reviewed
where this church was when I came and where it is now This is a different
place and it is the same place. With Katherine’s help, we went form a scattered and confusing
church center to one that most any minister should be able to walk into
and know quickly where everything is and how it works. We’ve managed to
not only welcome another congregation into our midst, but to embrace many
of their members as valued friends. We’ve created some good boundaries.
You should all be proud of yourselves for your efforts in creating
a space that is open and welcoming.
Together we’ve offered the larger community numerous opportunities
for spiritual and religious exploration. Together, we’ve created an open
and beautiful center of liberal religious expression. Together, we’ve
celebrated, built, grown, and created. Now it is time for you to work with
another who can take you to you next step. It is easier to change one’s
clothing than to change one’s heart.
Greeley, Colorado
Lost in America Reverend Zakir Lawrence Henson Do you remember your childhood? Do you remember the town where you grew up and how things seemed in that town? I remember these things clearly and I remember what I thought life would be like. My guess is that if you do remember that town you also know that it is nothing like you remember and that much of your life has not been anything like you thought it would be when you were a child. One of the characteristics of nostalgia is that what you remember is not what you think things were like. Do you know why? Most if not all of us only remember our projections, not our reality. That’s how the statement “Time heals all wounds” works. We tend to remember the best of things. Even if our childhood was horrible, somehow later in life we remember the tender mercies and quiet graces that came our way. Even those who were wounded and misshapen by their experience, never realize the extent of their distortion. But you know what? We’re distorted by our history, in some way. There really is no such thing as normal. And that is what many religious and political leaders rely on. And that, my friends is a whole story itself. There is a little allegory most call the frog in the pot that fits perfectly here. If you put a frog in a pot of hot water it will immediately escape at all costs unless it dies first. But, if you put it in a pot of cool water, it will stay there. You can slowly raise the temperature of the water until the frog cooks and dies. The slow heat rise is almost too perceptible for the frog to bother trying to escape until it’s too late. I feel like that frog. When I was a kid, I saw society and government much like Thomas Paine in his beginning words to his 1776 essay ‘Common Sense.’ SOME writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher That pretty much says how I saw my country and my government most of my life. And, this is the single one statement that describes the philosophy upon which our country was founded. But one day I awoke confused and wondering where I was. This was not the country I grew-up in. It was a different place. One morning, March 19, 2003, I awakened lost in a fascist country. It took me a while to understand the extent of it all and I’m not sure I do fully understand it. My cousin used to say, “I don’t understand all I know about it.” To understand where we’ve come and where we are going we must first recognize that most of the players in the shift into darkness did not do so with the idea of creating an ur-fascist state. By ur-fascism, I mean a fascism of an eternal form or universal form. Some of the players have been fully aware of what was happening and acted with full intention. Whoever the players, whether intentional or not, events and intention have caused a confluence of strange bedfellows. It is impossible in this sermon to go into the whole history and trajectory of events. It is possible to hit on a few points that will definitely open some doors to perception. To understand how the water got turned up we need to know what we’re dealing with and how it happened. The word fascist comes from the Latin word fasces; a bundle of sticks tied together. Each stick is a citizen, the bundle the state. Of course, the idea is that citizens tied together are far stronger than any individual. That doesn’t exactly sound un-American. After all, our motto is E Pluribus Unum (“One out of Many”). The Roman fasces is symbolized by a bundle of arrows we see directly behind the speaker’s podium in the U.S. House of Representatives. Obviously, the founding fathers and those who built the Capitol, did not have twentieth century fascism in mind when they spoke those ideals. When most people hear the word fascism they think of Mussolini or Hitler or Franco. Such images as Hitler’s anti-Semitism and forced dispersion of the Jews, or the racism and brutality in Mussolini’s Italy. But fascism has a definite economic element. Mussolini, the founder of modern-day fascism was a corporatist or those who control a state or organization by large interest groups. Few realize that many giants of industry praised fascism as the coming economic structure in the 1930’s. If it weren’t for Roosevelt’s social contract and his New Deal, many titans of American industry would have been very willing to usher in an American fascism as a form of recovery during the Great Depression. In 1935, Sinclair Lewis understood the dangers of a conservative convergence when he wrote It Can’t Happen Here, the story of a Southern politician, Buzz Windrip, helped to the presidency by a syndicated radio talk show host. His campaign is platform is one of family values, the flag, and patriotism. With the help of the talk show host, Windrip portrays those concerned with individual rights and freedoms as anti-American. Lewis clearly understood the possibilities and dangers of an alliance between politics and a compliant and manipulative media. Within a year economist Lawrence Dennis published The Coming American Fascism in which he cheered the defeat of 18th Century Americanism (Thomas Paine, Jefferson, and Madison) and the rise of a conservatism which would defeat the, “liberal norms of law or constitutional guarantees of private rights.” Most notably, he hoped for the removal of all labor unions, liberal churches, and any organization that gave the individual rights to a voluntary collective liberal voice. In other words, he hated everything Roosevelt stood for and loved everything he saw in the corporatistic alliances between the governments of Germany and Italy and the corporations of those countries. We must understand that many found the economic system created by fascist governments of the 1920’ and 30’s as far more efficient that our system of independent and unfettered or even nominally controlled capitalism. How much more efficient business could be if it were interwoven with the government. Here we see one of two common elements of all expressions of fascism, a hatred and vilification of all things liberal. Liberalism becomes the enemy and liberals are responsible for all our ills, the other element being the absolute authority of the man in power. Mussolini, one of the early definers of fascism, viewed any liberal ideas as apostasy. “The fascist conception of life,” wrote Mussolini, “stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only in so far as his interests coincide with the State. It is opposed to classical liberalism [which] denied the State in the name of the individual; Fascism reasserts the rights of the State as expressing the real essence of the individual.” Though fascism is fed by some form of traditionalism, it must change the language and twist meanings to make itself attractive and meaningful to those individuals who would willingly give up their rights for the security fascism offers. There are several ways to define fascism but all of them have elements in common. There is not enough distinction to eliminate any definition. I include a link to Umberto Eco’s 1995 article in the New York Review of Books. His article essentially agrees with each of the points I make here. Dr. Lawrence Britt, a political scientist includes political and social agendas in his examination of fascist regimes. When he compared the prominent and overtly fascist regimes of Mussolini, Hitler, Franco, Suharto, and Pinochet he found fourteen common characteristics of fascism. Powerful and continuing nationalism. Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos , slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays. Disdain for the recognition of human rights. Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in the fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of need to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners and so on. Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause. The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial, ethnic, or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists; terrorists; and so on. Supremacy of the military. Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of governmental funding and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized. Rampant sexism. The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Opposition to abortion is high, as are homophobia and antigay legislation [in] national policy. Controlled mass media. Sometimes the media are directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media are indirectly controlled by the government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople, and executives. Censorship, especially in wartime, is very common. Obsession with national security. Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses. Religion and government are intertwined. Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government’s policies or actions. Corporate power is protected. The industrial and business aristocracies of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business-government relationship and power elite. Labor power is suppressed. Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed. Disdain for intellectuals and the arts. Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts is openly attacked, and governments often refuse to fund the arts. Obsession with crime and punishment. Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations. Rampant cronyism and corruption. Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even stolen outright by government leaders. Fraudulent elections. Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against, or even assassination of, opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political-district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.
Do any of these sound familiar? They should. OK, some are more extreme than others and some are actually necessary to any good governing. But not all are necessary and to call a regime ‘fascist’ one must find most, if not all of these. Economic and business interests are probably the only one of three legs of the fascist tripod that has been openly fascist in the past. But after the outbreak of World War II and the racist abuses of Hitler and Mussolini, no careful businessman would ever acknowledge an interest or even a preference for fascism. That doesn’t mean that the inclinations to totalizing an entire society ever went away. We see examples of this in Ronald Reagan’s father-in-law who succeeded in turning Reagan from being an outspoken progressive and chair of the screen actors guild, into a rabid reactionary ur-fascist. The plutocrats of wealthy business interest have no interest in religion. Their interest is in doing away with the reforms of Roosevelt’s New Deal, that gave rise to the middle class. They will use religion as a tool for their ends, even claiming, and maybe believing, they have accepted Jesus and have been born again. We witness that phenomena in the founding of the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank, by some of the most vocal fascists of the thirties including our own Coors family. And that leads us to the second of the three legs of the neo-fascist tripod. conservative, fundamentalist and dominionist Christianity. The second leg is perhaps the most difficult to deal with and should be the one we are most concerned with. It is a particular form of dominionist evangelical pseudo-Christianity. The most prominent men of this group are Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, James Dobson, Tim LaHay, Jerry Jenkins, and James Kennedy. Some of these names are familiar and a couple may not be so familiar. What they have in common with groups like the Heritage Foundations is that both link what they term as tradition, history, and religion into a strange brew of nostalgic distortions, linguistic slight of hand, and historical revision. James Kennedy of Choral Gables, Florida has almost completely rewritten American history. It is one in which Jefferson, one of the founders who crafted the forming documents of this country, becomes a god-fearing Christian who wished to create a Christian-centered nation. Nothing could be further from the truth, yet he has convinced millions of people that they have been deceived by liberals into a secular illusion, nothing short of satanic and the work of the Devil. James Kennedy is just the tip of the iceberg. Others have been prolific in their attempts to change the language of a free society. Words are twisted into what Hedges calls “logocide”, one meaning is killed off and another meaning is substituted. Words such as love, truth, wisdom, death, liberty, freedom, and life take on a different meaning in the invisible fantasy world of the new faux-Christian. In his Institutes of Biblical Laws R. J Rushdoony paints a picture of freedom found only in law and order in the surrender to a Biblical, monarchal god. Chris Hedges in his 2007 book, American Fascists, The Christian Right and the War on America, paraphrases Rushdoony when he says “”Liberty” is not about freedom, but the liberty found when one accepts Jesus Christ and is liberated from the world to obey him.” Rushdoony says,”The goal must be God’s law-order in which alone is true liberty.” Of course, when one is liberated one is free to follow the interpreters of the liberty found in Jesus. One need only get their marching orders (and I do mean marching orders, because all of these men use militaristic language and the language of war to articulate their aims) from the men who are only too willing to project their own fears, hates, and inadequacies onto a king god. This king god is, in the words of Rushdoony, “locked and loaded”, waiting until the right moment to finely abuse his enemies, the liberals and secular humanists, into a painful death and a quick journey to hell. Notice how all gender specific language is masculine and war-like. Women are meant to be subservient in this nightmare of a future based on a non-existent nostalgic past. That brings us to our third and last leg of the tripod, male dominated corporatistic nationalism. It is a perversion of patriotism assuming that what works for me will work for everyone else, regardless of culture, history, or ethnic identity. There is perhaps no better illustration of this blind militant nationalism than the Project for a New American Century. I compare the ravings of such luminaries as Jed Bush, William Kristal, Dan Quayle, and William Bennett, each signers of the original letter, as nothing less than similar to the fantastic crimes against basic human dignity of the early Third Reich in the beer halls of Bavaria of the 1920’s. The Project for a New American Century is an American Reich operating under the similar assumption that American (United States) hegemony in the world is ordained by an invisible god of order under Jesus. Though Israel is looked to as the gateway to god’s dominion, Yahweh of the Hebrew Bible has been successfully killed of and supplanted by a more pliable and far removed Jesus. All that is necessary is that Jesus be placed squarely back on the cross every Sunday morning, thus relieving the followers the pain of facing Jesus’s own prophetic ministry. It certainly relieves them from the humility and compassion for the poor of 8th century prophets such as Amos and Micah. These men, and there are many, many more of them, are all linked to wealthy business and investment interest, right-wing politics, and dominionist Christianity. I could go into much more detail about any one of these elements. Any would be worthy of, not just a sermon, but a whole series of sermons. But time is not our friend. Just note how each of the three twist tradition and language into something unrecognizable to any except the true believer, the one who has been subjected to a closed culture of constant propaganda and reprogramming. Davidson Loehr tells us what we might expect from the future on our current trajectory: · The theft of all our Social Security funds, to be transferred to those who control money, and increasing destitution of all those who depend on Social Security and social welfare programs. · Rising numbers of uninsured people in this country, which already has the highest percentage of citizens without health insurance in the developed world. · Increased loss of funding for public education, combined with increased support for school vouchers, urging Americans to entrust their children’s education to Christian schools. · More restrictions on civil liberties as America is turned into the police state necessary for fascism to work. · Withdrawal of virtually all government funding for the Public Broadcasting System. At their best these media sometimes (though seldom) encourage critical questioning, so they are correctly seen as enemies of the state’s official stories. · The reinstatement of a draft, from which the children of privileged parents will again be mostly exempt, leaving our poorest children to fight and die in ways of imperialism and greed that could never benefit them anyway. · More imperialistic invasions–of Iran and other places – and construction of permanent military bases and a huge embassy in Iraq. · More restrictions on speech, under the flag of national security. · Control of the Internet to remove or cripple it as an instrument of free communication that is exempt from government control. This will be presented as a necessary antiterrorist measure, or a necessary business decision. · Efforts to remove the tax-exempt status of liberal churches and to characterize them as anti-American. · Tighter control of almost all media and demonization of the few media that they are unable to control––the New York Times, for instance · Continued outsourcing of jobs, including more white-collar jobs, to produce greater profits for those who control the money and direct the society, while simultaneously reducing America’s workers to a more desperate and powerless status. · Moves in the banking industry to make it impossible for an increasing number of Americans to own their homes. As they did in the 1930’s, those who control the money know that it is to their advantage and profit to keep others renting rather than owning. · Criminalization of those who protest as un-American, with arrests, detentions, and harassment increasing. We already have a higher percentage of our citizens in prison than any other country in the world. That percentage will increase. It may soon be illegal to say what I’ve just said. It is risky to talk like this, here in Weld County today. Where do we go from here? We have our seven principles, one of which is the honest search for truth, another is democratic process in our congregations and our society, and another is the worth and dignity of every person. The direction this country has followed, not just in the last six years but the last 26 years, is an offense to the teachings of every great spiritual teacher of history and every religion upon which humanity has anchored happiness and well-being. It is an offense to every principle of our Unitarian Universalist covenant. Davidson goes on to say that if liberal religion and liberalism is to survive it must evolve into a less negative and critical self-absorbed political liberalism of the past into a larger, more complete positive moral vision of the future. Liberal religion must learn to go beyond Christianity to become a power that will attract and affect the minds and hearts of voting Americans. It must envision a positive future for all in a crowded and diverse world; a vision of a world that works for all. That may mean encouraging many to return to citizenship and leaving their consumerism and apathy behind. One follower of our slow slide into fascism, Michael C. Ruppert, offers advice on what we can do now. This is simple, reality-based and it’s all about money. First, get out of debt. Some debt may be necessary, but consumer debt isn’t. Second, spend your money and time on things that give you energy and provide you with useful information. Third is to stop spending a penny with major banks, news media, and corporations that feed you lies. And finely, learn how money works and use it like a political weapon – if his predictions are right, the rest of the world will be going against us. One last thing, fascism is always ideologically and authoritarian based. In theory it may sound like security, but its victims are too many and too diverse. We need to tell stories from reality. The enemy of fascism is both anecdote and relationship. Keep it real, keep it positive, keep it inclusive, and keep it relational. Illegitimati Non Carborundum
Links and Bibliography http://www.ushistory.org/paine/commonsense/index.htm
Loehr, Davidson: America, Fascism, and God, Sermons form a Heretical Preacher, 2005, Chelesy Green, White River Junction, Vermont
Lewis, Sinclair, It Can’t Happen Here, 1935, New American Library Pub October 2005
http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/fasci14chars.html
http://www.themodernword.com/eco/eco_blackshirt.html
Kennedy, James Ph.D, What If America Were a Christian Nation Again? Nelson Books, 2005
http://www.newamericancentury.org/, (perhaps one of the most un-American documents produced in the last 75 years)
Hedges, Chris; American Fascism, The Christian Right and the War on America, Free Press, Simon and Schuster, New York, 2006
R. J. Rushdoony, The Institutes of Biblical Law, P&R Publishing, 1973
Bloom, Harold, Jesus and Yahweh, The Names Divine; Riverhead Books, New York, 2005
http://www.commonway.org/index.htm#top
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