Sunday, April 04, 2010

thoughts on the hutaree

I wanted to be eloquent at first but now I think I should just speak:

1. I don't like guns. I've seen the bad side of having them around in my family and probably wouldn't have one in my home.

2. That said, I can see the theoretical value of militia-like organizations. For example, Robert F. Williams' classic Negroes With Guns gives a persuasive argument for the importance of Black armed self-defense in the racist South. Later, inspired by Williams' example, the Black Panthers add to the argument in their own way. However, in 2010 Post-Obama America, it doesn't seem like guns are a necessary tactic in terms of African-American empowerment.

3. The problem with the Hutaree and the other Christian militia groups is not that they are into guns but that they have an unrealistic narrative of American history which is basically patriarchal, jingoistic and racist (and on top of that, they have guns).

4. Some American Christians want to distance themselves from the Christian militias and say that the Hutaree are non-Christian. I think this is ridiculous. Of course the Hutaree are Christians. So are the other Christian militias (racist or otherwise). So is the Klan. So is The Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda. Of course, in 21st Century United States the views of such groups aren't representative of mainstream Christianity. But every family has their black sheep.

5. Like any living thing, Christianity changes and develops over time and the line between extreme and mainstream changes with it. For example, the beliefs held by the Klan may seem extreme now, but they were probably fairly typical in the pro-segregation, pro-slavery Christian churches during the earlier part of this country's history.

6. In a similar way, the Crusaders, who were certainly approved by mainstream Christianity in their day, are not all that different from the Hutaree in the sense that their concept of Christianity has been combined with a literal physical preparation for military conflict.

7. The Bible is a rich book and is complex enough that one can use it to almost defend any position. One can certainly make an argument that the central message of Christianity is love and not violence. On the other hand it is also easy to point to the genocidal commandments of Deuteronomy which were vividly executed in the book of Joshua or Samson's suicide attack against the Philistines/ Palestinians described in the book of Judges to find messages with a more martial content.

3 comments:

bingregory said...

The Hutaree were explicitly Christian, but not all the militias are. The Michigan Militia man who turned the Hutaree in is a muslim convert!

Abdul-Halim V. said...

Good point. I'd read about Matt Savino in another article and should have mentioned him.

I actually some other bullet points in mind with some thoughts on non-Christian militias and could probably write another post.

Do you know more about Savino's specific ideology re: the government?

I think the government made the right call with the Hutaree in terms of when to act (respecting their first ammendment rights to hold and express anti-government views and their second ammendment right to bear arms, but arresting them when they made specific plans to kill cops). I wonder if an all-Muslim militia would have the same rights?

bingregory said...

There's a short video clip on YouTube of Savino being interviewed: http://www.goddiscussion.com/22807/secular-militia-member-talks-about-hutaree/ - just a vague statement in there re his militia's ideology.

yeah, I was joking over at Talkislam.info that Matt had two other muslims in his militia, HE'D be the one getting arrested.