Dear Mormons, our history of worrying about 'impure blood' doesn't end well

(RNS) — Latter-day Saints are once again on the wrong side of justice, the wrong side of the gospel and the wrong side of history.

Migrants seeking asylum line up while waiting to be processed after crossing the border Wednesday, June 5, 2024, near San Diego, Calif. (AP Photo/Eugene Garcia)

Jana Riess
November 8, 2024


(RNS) — Last month, the Public Religion Research Institute released its annual American Values Survey, just in time for the presidential election. One finding in particular jumped out at me: Nearly a third of U.S. Latter-day Saints agree that immigrants are “poisoning the blood” of the nation.

PRRI likely added this question because President-elect Donald Trump used the phrase in his political campaign speeches at least once. “They’re poisoning the blood of our country,” Trump said in December 2023 at a rally in New Hampshire. “That’s what they’ve done. They poison mental institutions and prisons all over the world, not just in South America, not just to three or four countries that we think about, but all over the world. They’re coming into our country from Africa, from Asia, all over the world.”

This idea of undesirable people “poisoning” the blood of a nation dates back nearly a century to another populist leader, a guy by the name of Adolf Hitler, as President Biden pointed out in response to Trump’s comment.

The comparison is worth examining now that we are awaiting a second Trump administration. Ordinary Germans who viewed themselves as good people — people who took casseroles to sick neighbors and attended church regularly — voted for Hitler in large numbers. They did so because he promised an end to their economic woes and vowed to make their nation one the world would have to respect again.

Not coincidentally, he also gave them convenient scapegoats for all the things that were wrong with their country — Jews, Roma people, sexual minorities, people of color. Anyone with “impure” blood. Anyone who did not belong in his vision, anyone with “poison” in their veins.


The “selection” of Hungarian Jews on the ramp at the death camp Auschwitz-II (Birkenau), in Nazi-occupied Poland, in May/June 1944. Jewish arrivals were sent either to work or to the gas chamber. Photo from the Auschwitz Album/Creative Commons

Last winter, when I was in Germany, I visited the vast site of the Nazi Party Rally grounds outside the city of Nuremberg, where Nazi Party leaders were tried in the years after the war ended and sentenced for war crimes.

What I did not realize is that Nuremberg was strategically selected to be the site of those trials because the city had been such a stronghold of Nazism in the 1930s. The sprawling grounds and enormous stadia attest to that. This was where thousands of Nazis convened each summer for party rallies, Hitler Youth competitions and events, family camps and military parades.

It’s a chilling place to see, and remember.

It’s likely that there were eager Latter-day Saints at those rallies. According to historian David Conley Nelson, most German Mormons were accommodationists of the Hitler regime, to varying degrees. The one German Mormon we have chosen to remember is one who resisted: teenage martyr Helmuth Hübener, the youngest resistance fighter to be executed for opposing the Nazi regime. We love his story, the fact that he sacrificed everything to be on the right side of justice, living out the gospel with everything he had.

But the LDS Church in Germany did not support him; in fact, his Nazi branch president excommunicated him for standing up to Hitler.

Again: Most church members in Germany were accommodationists. In fact, two of the saddest episodes that emerge in Nelson’s historical research relate to how obsequiously German Latter-day Saints sought to make themselves useful to the Nazi regime by helping Nazis with two things Mormons were very good at: basketball and genealogy.

In 1935 and 1936, Mormon missionaries helped teach the German national team how to play basketball so they could compete in the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games, the first to include basketball as a medal competition. They were apparently delighted to share their knowledge.

Throughout the 1930s, German church members employed their talents at genealogical research to assist fellow Germans in finding their ancestors — not for the usual reason of linking families together forever in the eternities, but for the much darker purpose of proving their Aryan ancestry. Germans living under Hitler’s regime had to demonstrate their “biological purity, free of ‘racial pollution’ or the ‘corrupting blood’ of Jews or others Hitler considered to be inferior,” Nelson writes. And Latter-day Saints, with their expertise in family history, were only too happy to help Germans verify their racial superiority.

Which brings us back to blood poisoning. I don’t think a majority of U.S. Latter-day Saints who voted for Trump this week did so because they were hoping to rid the nation of impure blood. Most likely did it because they believed Trump’s rhetoric about the economy.

But in doing so, they have nonetheless accommodated the other elements of Trump’s platform. That includes the scapegoating of immigrants, comparing them to animals (with animal and insect comparisons being step one in the dehumanization process necessary for their removal).

Our people are once again on the wrong side of justice, the wrong side of the gospel and the wrong side of history.


Related:

German Mormons: New book uncovers LDS support for the Third Reich

Review: ‘Heretic’ delivers a new brand of extremism


By Sarah Gopaul
November 8, 2024

A scene from 'Heretic' courtesy of TIFF

‘Heretic’ is a thrilling debate between opposing religious beliefs that turns malicious when one side proves determined to win at all costs.

The world is filled with people who have different lifestyles and beliefs. This diversity makes life rich and provides endless opportunities for new experiences. It nurtures acceptance and commands understanding. However, it also leads to a lot of disagreement and conflict. Some discourses are healthy as it is important to challenge ideas, but others are dismissive and violent as they have no tolerance for anything that doesn’t align with their views. In Heretic, a man invites a pair of young women into his home for the sole purpose of questioning the validity of their religion.

Sister Barnes (Sophie Thatcher) and Sister Paxton (Chloe East) are travelling to people’s homes who’ve shown an interest in learning more about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. As Mormons, they follow a distinct set of rules when it comes to these house visits, but Mr. Reed (Hugh Grant) assures them all is well. He has some very stimulating thoughts and questions about their religion, and Paxton thinks she may finally convert someone. However, as the conversation derails, the young women find they cannot leave and have been tricked into participating in a series of experiments so Reed can test their faith.

Religion is generally one of the most contentious subjects in human history. Wars have been waged, cultures destroyed and people forcibly converted as one group determines their beliefs are superior to all others. In some instances, people are brought up in one religion, but as they get older they find another dogma better aligns with their principles. Reed believes he’s found the one true religion and resolves to convince the Mormon missionaries that they’ve dedicated their lives to the wrong one. What begins as moderate prodding of their convictions — including a provocative metaphor involving Monopoly — slowly evolves into terrifying tests of their faith.

The writer-director team of Scott Beck and Bryan Woods thrive on creating stories that unfold in unique circumstances. The film’s opening acts are intensely thought-provoking as Reed initiates an intimidating debate to which the girls can only provide wrong answers and only he can win. Grant’s performance is incredibly unsettling as his calm demeanour masks a sadistic need to be right at all costs. Barnes recognizes that this is a vicious game and encourages Paxton to help her challenge Reed to advance their survival to the next level. Paxton is the meeker of the pair as she was raised in the church and Barnes, while similarly devoted, is a convert and still retains some of her more stubborn qualities.

Regrettably, the last act loses the thread to some degree. It introduces some ideas with great potential that are not fully explored, while also rejecting Reed’s doctrine by significantly shifting his character’s arc. An intriguing model is used sparingly in the narrative, though it could’ve been a far more curious prop if better utilized. Similarly, Reed’s wife’s role in his quest for the truth is only mentioned in passing, though there’s a sense that there’s a bigger, untold story. It’s unfortunate the narrative loses its stirring momentum at the end, but the rest of the picture and Grant’s latest turn as villain is still worth the watch.

Directors: Scott Beck and Bryan Woods
Starring: Hugh Grant, Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East

Meet the conservative, white religious women voting for Kamala Harris

(RNS) — Democrats and some prominent evangelical women are highlighting Donald Trump’s character and conduct, as well as issues such as abortion access, to convince religious conservative women to vote for Harris.

Supporters hold signs and cheer before Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris arrives to speak at a campaign rally, Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2024, in Raleigh, N.C. (AP Photo/Allison Joyce)

Jack Jenkins
October 30, 2024

(RNS) — Kellianne Clarke doesn’t really have time for an interview.

An active member of her Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints congregation in Chester County, Pennsylvania, she spoke to RNS earlier this month while preparing a lesson she planned to lead for her church’s women’s group the following Sunday. A mother of four with a master’s in strategic communication who regularly serves on various nonprofit boards, Clarke also helps lead the local chapter of the Relief Society, the LDS church’s international women’s group. All that, along with her long history with the church, means she is in constant conversation with her fellow Mormons.

But there’s one thing she hasn’t really talked to her faith community about: her plans to vote for Democrat Kamala Harris

“I generally don’t talk politics with the people of my local congregation, mostly because I believe I’m generally an outsider,” said Clarke, a graduate of Brigham Young University, the LDS church’s flagship university. She describes herself as a “liberal mom” — but only in the religious sense, compared with fellow Mormons.

“People tolerate that, but don’t really want to talk about it,” she said.

Talkative or not, the Harris campaign hopes women like Clarke will make their voices known at the ballot box on Tuesday (Nov. 5). In addition to outreach to Black Protestants, Hispanic Christians and many other groups, Democrats are betting big that a subset of conservative women — specifically white, suburban religious women who have traditionally voted for Republicans — will back Harris this year for a constellation of reasons, be it questions about former President Donald Trump’s character and dedication to democracy or concerns about winnowing women’s rights.

For Clarke, the choice was clear long ago. As a registered independent, she typically splits tickets when voting, dividing her support between Democrats and Republicans. But in the past few election cycles she has voted for Democratic presidential candidates, in no small part because of her ambivalence about Trump.

“My vote for Kamala is because I believe that she believes in common good, and I believe Donald Trump believes in himself, and is self-serving,” she said. Trump is “just about cronyism and lifting up only the people he believes are good enough to be up with him, rather than the commonality that binds us all together.”

Nancy French speaks on a panel during the RNS 90th Anniversary Symposium and Gala, Sept. 10, 2024, in New York City. (RNS photo/Kit Doyle)

Concerns about Trump’s character and conduct are also front of mind for prominent evangelical Christian author Nancy French, who announced on RNS’ “Saved by the City” podcast this month that she plans to back Harris.

In a separate interview with RNS, French, who said she didn’t vote for either major party candidate in 2016, cited Trump’s role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol as one of several reasons to oppose him.

“Jan. 6 changed the political dynamic for me,” she said, adding that she long ago decided to never vote for an “election-denier.”

“The presidency qualifies as an important office that needs to be filled with someone who appreciates the value of democracy and actually preserving it. That’s why I’m voting for Harris,” said French, author of this year’s “Ghosted: An American Story.”

Being public about her vote, French said, is an intimidating prospect. She recounted the fierce blowback she and her husband, New York Times columnist David French, have experienced because of their criticism of Trump. “If you could have lived my life and David’s life, you would not want to have anything to do with Trump,” she said.

Even friendly conversations can descend into political debates. French recalled how a pickleball opponent recently sent her a video from his pastor as a conversation starter about whether Democrats belong to a “satanic death cult.”

“It’s very difficult to say that out loud, because the Christian pressure in white evangelical churches to support Donald Trump is very, very strong,” she said, referring to her support for Harris. “A lot of people don’t want to deal with the hassle of being perceived as a liberal or a Democrat.”

These tensions make it difficult to track any shift toward Harris among white conservative women. There is evidence Harris has made gains among white women overall: A Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday showed Trump and Harris splitting the vote of white women 46% to 44%, a notable improvement over 2020, when they favored Trump over Joe Biden by 16 points. But there is suspicion that some white conservative women who historically vote Republican would not admit support for Harris to pollsters or campaign staffers.

That hasn’t stopped the Harris campaign from launching robust efforts to court the group, including a string of events featuring the vice president and former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, a cradle Republican and a United Methodist who as a congresswoman from Wyoming led a House inquiry into the Jan. 6 riot and has been staunchly critical of Trump.


The Rev. Jennifer Butler. (Photo by David F. Choy)

“I think we have an opportunity there to engage particularly evangelical women in this conversation,” said the Rev. Jennifer Butler, a Presbyterian minister, shortly after she became the faith outreach director for the Harris campaign in August.

“I’ve seen a lot of evangelical women coming our way who want us to join in common cause, to support women and families,” Butler continued. “I think they’re seeing the hypocrisy and the Republican approach … to put women and doctors in jail, to be very punitive. That kind of criminalizing of abortion actually does not create the conditions for strong family life (or) for protection of women and strong families.”

The Harris campaign unveiled a new effort in early October to court members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Arizona, and an initiative by the group Evangelicals for Harris, which operates separately from the campaign, has convened calls specifically for conservative Christian women.

Another group, Vote Common Good, led by progressive evangelical pastor Doug Pagitt, released two new digital ads this week with voice-overs by actors George Clooney and Julia Roberts. In the latter, women wearing patriotic clothing are shown casting ballots for Harris in voting booths in apparent defiance of a man in a bald eagle hat, who later asks if they “made the right choice.” The ad, which organizers say they are hoping to run on cable networks, ends with Roberts saying, “Remember: What happens in the booth, stays in the booth.”

The ad speaks to a dynamic Clarke said impacts many women navigating patriarchal pressures.

“I think a lot of it is fear-based,” she said. “They don’t speak out because they’re afraid of whatever the retribution is from a husband, from a boyfriend, from a neighbor, from a workplace.”

But while some may not be public about their politics, Clarke said conservative religious women sometimes reveal their support for Harris in private moments. Clarke has been surprised to hear from several religious women in her hotly contested county — Mormons and members of other religious traditions, such as Catholicism, she said — who told her they planned to back Harris as well.

“They told me it’s about character leadership and servant leadership, rather than sort of strictly party and religious responsibility,” Clarke said.


Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign rally in Washington, Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

In addition, Clarke noted some conservative women may be drawn to Harris for reasons not altogether different from more traditional liberal voters, such as their wish to take a stand in favor of abortion rights. Clarke grew emotional as she described how she “had to experience health care for an untenable pregnancy,” which had a profound impact on her.

“My view of, let’s even say, abortion, has grown more compassionate and empathetic and generous,” she said.

French said she would be “pleasantly surprised” if a cadre of conservative religious women break for Harris but that in Tennessee, where she lives, “almost every single person that I meet is supporting Trump.”

“I’m pretty despondent over the whole thing, honestly,” she said.

Clarke was more optimistic, saying she wouldn’t be surprised if “women come out in more numbers than expected for Kamala Harris,” noting that “women tend to rally around other women.”

“I think that there’s a great deal of fear of what Donald Trump could and would do in terms of women, women’s rights, women’s bodily autonomy, just what he would do for women in general,” she said.

Clarke, herself one of eight children, has two sisters who live in the swing states of Georgia and North Carolina. She said they, too, plan to vote for Harris, and like Clarke, they’re busy: They are currently working to convince their parents — who just moved to North Carolina — to join them in casting a ballot for the Democrat.

“We have been in a full court press,” she said. “We’re like, ‘Do not follow your tradition of voting for Republican candidates.’”

'Veep-like comedy of errors': Analyst pans Trump's efforts to woo Mormon voters

Matthew Chapman
October 28, 2024 

RAW STORY

Donald Trump (AFP)

Former President Donald Trump's campaign is fighting to prop up its numbers in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints — but it's been one blunder after another, wrote McKay Coppins for The Atlantic.

Mormons, who have relatively large populations of voters in the key Western battleground states of Arizona and Nevada, have typically been a reliably Republican voting bloc, and they are still expected to back the GOP overall in this election, but Republicans have been bleeding support from them for years, as the LDS church has broken with them on key issues like immigration, and as former President Donald Trump's personal vices have repelled some of the more socially conservative in the faith.

"Almost immediately, Latter-day Saints for Trump devolved into a Veep-like comedy of errors," wrote Coppins. "The official website went live on October 7 with a photo of Russell M. Nelson, the president of the Church and a man considered by its members to be a prophet of God. When a reporter for the Church-owned Deseret Newsasked if the campaign had gotten permission to feature the image, given the Church’s neutrality in partisan politics, the campaign quickly scrubbed the photo from its homepage."

One of the other more high-profile blunders came when the Trump campaign started selling "LDS for Trump" branded coffee mugs and beer koozies — apparently with no thought for the fact that observant Mormons don't drink coffee or liquor.

ALSO READ: 'Abusive and frightening': Trump official earned bad reputation for treatment of children

But all that was just the beginning, Coppins continued: "Mormon-targeted campaign events have been scheduled with an odd indifference to Latter-day Saint religious practice. A canvassing event in Nevada, for example, was held the same weekend as General Conference, a semiannual series of Church broadcasts in which senior leaders deliver sermons and spiritual counsel ... And when Trump held a rally in Prescott, Arizona, with an array of MAGA-Mormon luminaries — including Senator Mike Lee of Utah and the right-wing media personality Glenn Beck — it took place on a Sunday, which Latter-day Saints traditionally set apart for worship, service, and rest, not political events."

To cap all of this, Doug Quezada, who heads up the LDS for Trump initiative, is now "being sued for fraud over an alleged scheme involving a cannabis company," according to the report.

These blunders are probably not going to prevent Trump from winning a majority of Mormon voters, concluded Coppins — but if his margin among them declines, that could be the ballgame in some key swing states.

"For the Harris campaign, holding on to those voters this year could be the difference between losing Arizona and cracking open a celebratory beverage on Election Night," Coppins wrote. "I know a website where they might be able to get some koozies on sale."

As Great Salt Lake dries, Utah Republicans pardon Trump climate skepticism

Salt Lake City (United States) (AFP) – From his ranch on the shores of the Great Salt Lake, Joel Ferry has a front row view of climate change: a native of Utah, the Republican farmer has seen the water's surface area shrink by two-thirds in the past 40 years.

Issued on: 07/10/2024 - 

The bed of the Great Salt Lake contains arsenic and toxic heavy metals, which can contaminate the atmosphere during dust storms if exposed to the open air by falling levels © Frederic J. BROWN / AFP\

And as director of the western US state's natural resources department, he knows that the drying up of the lake is an "environmental nuclear bomb," threatening the existence of Salt Lake City and the homes of two million people living on its shores.

Still, he will vote without hesitation for Donald Trump this November, despite the Republican presidential candidate's outspoken skepticism on climate change.

Ferry praises the former president's "good economic results," and as a Mormon says he is grateful because Trump has "been very strong on family value issues," including packing the US Supreme Court with conservative judges who overturned abortion rights.

David Parrott, deputy director of the Great Salt Lake Institute at Utah's Westminster University, said if the lake disappears 'it would be like Mad Max' © Frederic J. BROWN / AFP

For Ferry, these factors outweigh the fact that Trump regularly mocks claims of a climate emergency.

Just this summer, Trump claimed sea levels would rise "one-eighth of an inch over the next 400 years" and create "more oceanfront property."

"I think he's just teasing a little bit, I don't think he truly believes that," said Ferry.

This is a common response in Utah, where Mormons -- who represent half the state's population -- remain largely loyal to the Republican Party, despite reservations about Trump's personality.

No Democrat has won a presidential election in Utah since 1964.

- 'Mad Max' -

The region received a stark reminder of its ecological fragility in 2022.

The Great Salt Lake plummeted to its lowest recorded levels in 2022, but has recovered slightly © Frederic J. BROWN / AFP

That year, the Great Salt Lake plummeted to its lowest recorded levels, due to a combination of overconsumption of water by farming and mining sectors, and a historic drought spanning two decades.

The water became so salty that brine shrimp, a major source of income for the local economy, began to die. Migratory birds vanished because the flies they feed on were gone.

"It really triggered a lot of scientists, but a lot of just general worry that the lake was going to completely dry up," said David Parrott, deputy director of the Great Salt Lake Institute at Utah's Westminster University.

If the lake disappears, "it would be like 'Mad Max,' where water is completely gone and we just have to abandon the city," said the biologist, referring to the dystopian Hollywood movie franchise.

"It would be unthinkable."

This is because the lake bed, which contains arsenic and toxic heavy metals, would become more exposed to the open air, and contaminate the atmosphere during dust storms.

Joel Ferry, director of Utah's natural resources department, says he will vote without hesitation for Donald Trump despite the Republican presidential candidate's outspoken skepticism on climate change © Frederic J. BROWN / AFP

Ferry said the looming threat sparked a "rallying cry" among local Republicans.

Financial incentives for farmers to reduce water consumption; exploring technology that optimizes irrigation, and seeds clouds to increase rainfall; splitting the lake into two to limit its salinity: "over a billion dollars" has been invested in the past three years, he said.

Even the Mormon Church has set an example, substantially cutting its water use.

Utah is "a great example where you have a very red and conservative state making decisions that are very environmentally driven," said Ferry.

Nationally, "the environment should be a key priority of the Republicans as well."
'Local problem'

Trump's environmental policies, which include rolling back President Joe Biden's climate legacy, are a world away from this ambition.

Water levels at the Great Salt Lake remain below the minimum necessary for its preservation © Frederic J. BROWN / AFP

If he wins in November, it would likely end any hope of limiting global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius (35 degrees Fahrenheit), according to climate science and policy website Carbon Brief.

Trump has pledged to once again withdraw the US from the landmark Paris climate agreement, which limits greenhouse gas emissions.

He has also repeatedly promised to "drill, baby, drill" for oil.

"A Donald Trump presidency would be disastrous for the environment in general and generally for Great Salt Lake," said Parrott.

He applauded local Republicans for doing "a Herculean job," but warned that every fractional increase in global temparatures will require more and more unpopular measures to be adopted, from increasing the price of water to banning lawn sprinklers.

Migratory birds vanished because the flies they feed on were gone © Frederic J. BROWN / AFP

In Salt Lake City, most conservative voters who spoke to AFP expressed concern about the health of the lake.

But many, like 75-year-old Bill Clements, said politicians in Washington should stop "telling us what to do" about this "local issue."

He is encouraged by the two abnormally rainy winters just passed, which have allowed the lake to rise a little -- though still below the minimum levels necessary for its preservation

"I also believe a lot of these things are natural... it goes down, up and down," said the retiree.

"I haven't joined the religion of climate change yet."

© 2024 AFP

Religious Trauma Syndrome: Here's how some beliefs lead to mental health problems

Valerie Tarico
June 17, 2024 



At age sixteen I began what would be a four year struggle with bulimia. When the symptoms started, I turned in desperation to adults who knew more than I did about how to stop shameful behavior—my Bible study leader and a visiting youth minister. "If you ask anything in faith, believing," they said. "It will be done." I knew they were quoting the Word of God. We prayed together, and I went home confident that God had heard my prayers.

But my horrible compulsions didn't go away. By the fall of my sophomore year in college, I was desperate and depressed enough that I made a suicide attempt. The problem wasn't just the bulimia. I was convinced by then that I was a complete spiritual failure. My college counseling department had offered to get me real help (which they later did). But to my mind, at that point, such help couldn't fix the core problem: I was a failure in the eyes of God. It would be years before I understood that my inability to heal bulimia through the mechanisms offered by biblical Christianity was not a function of my own spiritual deficiency but deficiencies in Evangelical religion itself.

Dr. Marlene Winell is a human development consultant in the San Francisco Area. She is also the daughter of Pentecostal missionaries. This combination has given her work an unusual focus. For the past twenty years she has counseled men and women in recovery from various forms of fundamentalist religion including the Assemblies of God denomination in which she was raised. Winell is the author of Leaving the Fold – A Guide for Former Fundamentalists and Others Leaving their Religion, written during her years of private practice in psychology. Over the years, Winell has provided assistance to clients whose religious experiences were even more damaging than mine. Some of them are people whose psychological symptoms weren't just exacerbated by their religion, but actually caused by it.

Two years ago, Winell made waves by formally labeling what she calls "Religious Trauma Syndrome" (RTS) and beginning to write and speak on the subject for professional audiences. When the British Association of Behavioral and Cognitive Psychologists published a series of articles on the topic, members of a Christian counseling association protested what they called excessive attention to a "relatively niche topic." One commenter said, "A religion, faith or book cannot be abuse but the people interpreting can make anything abusive."

Is toxic religion simply misinterpretation? What is religious trauma? Why does Winell believe religious trauma merits its own diagnostic label? I asked her.

Let's start this interview with the basics. What exactly is religious trauma syndrome?


Winell: Religious trauma syndrome (RTS) is a set of symptoms and characteristics that tend to go together and which are related to harmful experiences with religion. They are the result of two things: immersion in a controlling religion and the secondary impact of leaving a religious group. The RTS label provides a name and description that affected people often recognize immediately. Many other people are surprised by the idea of RTS, because in our culture it is generally assumed that religion is benign or good for you. Just like telling kids about Santa Claus and letting them work out their beliefs later, people see no harm in teaching religion to children.

But in reality, religious teachings and practices sometimes cause serious mental health damage. The public is somewhat familiar with sexual and physical abuse in a religious context. As Journalist Janet Heimlich has documented in, Breaking Their Will, Bible-based religious groups that emphasize patriarchal authority in family structure and use harsh parenting methods can be destructive.

But the problem isn't just physical and sexual abuse. Emotional and mental treatment in authoritarian religious groups also can be damaging because of 1) toxic teachings like eternal damnation or original sin 2) religious practices or mindset, such as punishment, black and white thinking, or sexual guilt, and 3) neglect that prevents a person from having the information or opportunities to develop normally.


Can you give me an example of RTS from your consulting practice?

Winell: I can give you many. One of the symptom clusters is around fear and anxiety. People indoctrinated into fundamentalist Christianity as small children sometimes have memories of being terrified by images of hell and apocalypse before their brains could begin to make sense of such ideas. Some survivors, who I prefer to call "reclaimers," have flashbacks, panic attacks, or nightmares in adulthood even when they intellectually no longer believe the theology. One client of mine, who during the day functioned well as a professional, struggled with intense fear many nights. She said,
I was afraid I was going to hell. I was afraid I was doing something really wrong. I was completely out of control. I sometimes would wake up in the night and start screaming, thrashing my arms, trying to rid myself of what I was feeling. I'd walk around the house trying to think and calm myself down, in the middle of the night, trying to do some self-talk, but I felt like it was just something that – the fear and anxiety was taking over my life.



Or consider this comment, which refers to a film used by Evangelicals to warn about the horrors of the "end times" for nonbelievers.
I was taken to see the film "A Thief In The Night". WOW. I am in shock to learn that many other people suffered the same traumas I lived with because of this film. A few days or weeks after the film viewing, I came into the house and mom wasn't there. I stood there screaming in terror. When I stopped screaming, I began making my plan: Who my Christian neighbors were, who's house to break into to get money and food. I was 12 yrs old and was preparing for Armageddon alone.


In addition to anxiety, RTS can include depression, cognitive difficulties, and problems with social functioning. In fundamentalist Christianity, the individual is considered depraved and in need of salvation. A core message is "You are bad and wrong and deserve to die." (The wages of sin is death.) This gets taught to millions of children through organizations like Child Evangelism Fellowship, and there is a group organized to oppose their incursion into public schools. I've had clients who remember being distraught when given a vivid bloody image of Jesus paying the ultimate price for their sins. Decades later they sit telling me that they can't manage to find any self-worth.

After twenty-seven years of trying to live a perfect life, I failed. . . I was ashamed of myself all day long. My mind battling with itself with no relief. . . I always believed everything that I was taught but I thought that I was not approved by God. I thought that basically I, too, would die at Armageddon.
I've spent literally years injuring myself, cutting and burning my arms, taking overdoses and starving myself, to punish myself so that God doesn't have to punish me. It's taken me years to feel deserving of anything good.


Born-again Christianity and devout Catholicism tell people they are weak and dependent, calling on phrases like "lean not unto your own understanding" or "trust and obey." People who internalize these messages can suffer from learned helplessness. I'll give you an example from a client who had little decision-making ability after living his entire life devoted to following the "will of God." The words here don't convey the depth of his despair.

I have an awful time making decisions in general. Like I can't, you know, wake up in the morning, "What am I going to do today? Like I don't even know where to start. You know all the things I thought I might be doing are gone and I'm not sure I should even try to have a career; essentially I babysit my four-year-old all day.


Authoritarian religious groups are subcultures where conformity is required in order to belong. Thus if you dare to leave the religion, you risk losing your entire support system as well.

I lost all my friends. I lost my close ties to family. Now I'm losing my country. I've lost so much because of this malignant religion and I am angry and sad to my very core. . . I have tried hard to make new friends, but I have failed miserably. . . I am very lonely.


Leaving a religion, after total immersion, can cause a complete upheaval of a person's construction of reality, including the self, other people, life, and the future. People unfamiliar with this situation, including therapists, have trouble appreciating the sheer terror it can create.
My form of religion was very strongly entrenched and anchored deeply in my heart. It is hard to describe how fully my religion informed, infused, and influenced my entire worldview. My first steps out of fundamentalism were profoundly frightening and I had frequent thoughts of suicide. Now I'm way past that but I still haven't quite found "my place in the universe.



Even for a person who was not so entrenched, leaving one's religion can be a stressful and significant transition.

Many people seem to walk away from their religion easily, without really looking back. What is different about the clientele you work with?

Winell: Religious groups that are highly controlling, teach fear about the world, and keep members sheltered and ill-equipped to function in society are harder to leave easily. The difficulty seems to be greater if the person was born and raised in the religion rather than joining as an adult convert. This is because they have no frame of reference – no other "self" or way of "being in the world." A common personality type is a person who is deeply emotional and thoughtful and who tends to throw themselves wholeheartedly into their endeavors. "True believers" who then lose their faith feel more anger and depression and grief than those who simply went to church on Sunday.


Aren't these just people who would be depressed, anxious, or obsessive anyways?

Winell: Not at all. If my observation is correct, these are people who are intense and involved and caring. They hang on to the religion longer than those who simply "walk away" because they try to make it work even when they have doubts. Sometime this is out of fear, but often it is out of devotion. These are people for whom ethics, integrity and compassion matter a great deal. I find that when they get better and rebuild their lives, they are wonderfully creative and energetic about new things.

In your mind, how is RTS different from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder?


Winell: RTS is a specific set of symptoms and characteristics that are connected with harmful religious experience, not just any trauma. This is crucial to understanding the condition and any kind of self-help or treatment. (More details about this can be found on my Journey Free website and discussed in my talk at the Texas Freethought Convention.)

Another difference is the social context, which is extremely different from other traumas or forms of abuse. When someone is recovering from domestic abuse, for example, other people understand and support the need to leave and recover. They don't question it as a matter of interpretation, and they don't send the person back for more. But this is exactly what happens to many former believers who seek counseling. If a provider doesn't understand the source of the symptoms, he or she may send a client for pastoral counseling, or to AA, or even to another church. One reclaimer expressed her frustration this way:
Include physically-abusive parents who quote "Spare the rod and spoil the child" as literally as you can imagine and you have one fucked-up soul: an unloved, rejected, traumatized toddler in the body of an adult. I'm simply a broken spirit in an empty shell. But wait…That's not enough!? There's also the expectation by everyone in society that we victims should celebrate this with our perpetrators every Christmas and Easter!!


Just like disorders such as autism or bulimia, giving RTS a real name has important advantages. People who are suffering find that having a label for their experience helps them feel less alone and guilty. Some have written to me to express their relief:
There's actually a name for it! I was brainwashed from birth and wasted 25 years of my life serving Him! I've since been out of my religion for several years now, but i cannot shake the haunting fear of hell and feel absolutely doomed. I'm now socially inept, unemployable, and the only way i can have sex is to pay for it.


Labeling RTS encourages professionals to study it more carefully, develop treatments, and offer training. Hopefully, we can even work on prevention.

What do you see as the difference between religion that causes trauma and religion that doesn't?

Winell: Religion causes trauma when it is highly controlling and prevents people from thinking for themselves and trusting their own feelings. Groups that demand obedience and conformity produce fear, not love and growth. With constant judgment of self and others, people become alienated from themselves, each other, and the world. Religion in its worst forms causes separation.

Conversely, groups that connect people and promote self-knowledge and personal growth can be said to be healthy. The book, Healthy Religion, describes these traits. Such groups put high value on respecting differences, and members feel empowered as individuals. They provide social support, a place for events and rites of passage, exchange of ideas, inspiration, opportunities for service, and connection to social causes. They encourage spiritual practices that promote health like meditation or principles for living like the golden rule. More and more, nontheists are asking how they can create similar spiritual communities without the supernaturalism. An atheist congregation in London launched this year and has received over 200 inquiries from people wanting to replicate their model.

Some people say that terms like "recovery from religion" and "religious trauma syndrome" are just atheist attempts to pathologize religious belief.

Winell: Mental health professionals have enough to do without going out looking for new pathology. I never set out looking for a "niche topic," and certainly not religious trauma syndrome. I originally wrote a paper for a conference of the American Psychological Association and thought that would be the end of it. Since then, I have tried to move on to other things several times, but this work has simply grown.

In my opinion, we are simply, as a culture, becoming aware of religious trauma. More and more people are leaving religion, as seen by polls showing that the "religiously unaffiliated" have increased in the last five years from just over 15% to just under 20% of all U.S. adults. It's no wonder the internet is exploding with websites for former believers from all religions, providing forums for people to support each other. The huge population of people "leaving the fold" includes a subset at risk for RTS, and more people are talking about it and seeking help. For example, there are thousands of former Mormons, and I was asked to speak about RTS at an Exmormon Foundation conference. I facilitate an international support group online called Release and Reclaim which has monthly conference calls. An organization called Recovery from Religion, helps people start self-help meet-up groups

Saying that someone is trying to pathologize authoritarian religion is like saying someone pathologized eating disorders by naming them. Before that, they were healthy? No, before that we weren't noticing. People were suffering, thought they were alone, and blamed themselves. Professionals had no awareness or training. This is the situation of RTS today. Authoritarian religion is already pathological, and leaving a high-control group can be traumatic. People are already suffering. They need to be recognized and helped.

—- Dr. Marlene Winell is a human development consultant in the San Francisco Bay Area and the author of Leaving the Fold – A Guide for Former Fundamentalists and Others Leaving their Religion. More information about Marlene Winell and resources for getting help with RTS may be found at Journey Free. Valerie Tarico is a psychologist and writer in Seattle, Washington. She is the author of Trusting Doubt: A Former Evangelical Looks at Old Beliefs in a New Light and Deas and Other Imaginings, and the founder of www.WisdomCommons.org. Her articles can be found at Awaypoint.Wordpress.com.

MAGA’s Christian nationalism excludes a vast majority of Christianity

John Stoehr

March 16, 2024

Photo by Gracious Adebayo on Unsplash

You have probably heard a lot of scary things in the news lately about something called “Christian nationalism.” Without going into the weeds about what these people want in terms of policy, it’s important to understand who they are, and who they are is pretty simple: people who believe America was founded as a Christian nation for Christians.

That’s where the simplicity ends, but you might not know that if your understanding of “Christian” comes primarily from politics. In that case, your understanding is that “Christians” are aligned with the Republican Party, support Donald Trump unequivocally and seek to restore America to a kind of pre-Eden era in our history – before science, technology and liberalism triggered a fall from God’s grace.

Of course, there are many other Christianities, seemingly too many to count, and that’s what makes the “Christian nationalist” objective of restoring America to its “Christian roots” more complex than it seems. They say, as the country gets more diverse and more secular, that their faith is increasingly under assault. They say that whatever they do, it’s in the name of religious freedom. It isn’t, though. It’s in the name of religious suppression. That includes suppressing other Christianities.

Recently, I was watching a video clip of Fox host Laura Ingraham interviewing Steven Miller. He’s the architect of a plan, pending Donald Trump’s election, to deport 10 million “illegals.” It requires massive staging areas and as many as 200,000 law enforcement officers. As I watched, it occurred to me that these two people – a Roman Catholic (Ingraham) and a Jew (Miller) – were oblivious to the danger. They seemed to believe the urge to purge America wouldn’t ensnare them.

Most of us seem to understand antisemitism well enough, but few of us seem to understand anti-Catholic hatred among white conservative Protestants, who make up the core of “Christian nationalism.” Most of us don’t understand, because social and political forces, including white solidarity and the anti-abortion movement, have since the 19th century assimilated Catholics to the point where they seem like any other Christian. To the mainstream American, that’s true. White conservative Protestants, however, are not mainstream Americans.

I say this from personal experience. I was born into and raised up in a white conservative Protestant sect whose identity as the true religion worshiping the true God was predicated on not being a false religion worshiping false gods. Jews always got a pass, because they would have a chance to convert after the Apocalypse and Christ’s millennial reign. But Roman Catholic never did. They were idolaters, pagans and heretics, perhaps even unknowing minions of the Antichrist. The Roman Catholic God was not ours. It was something closer to Satan.

Anti-Catholic hatred among white conservative Protestants hasn’t gone away. It’s rooted in one of the greatest theoretical disagreements in human history. It only seems to have gone away, because political interests are at work to make it look that way. In part, they stem from the fact that “Christian nationalism” wouldn’t be as successful as it has been, to the point where it really does pose a threat to democracy, the Constitution and religious freedom, if Roman Catholic participants like Laura Ingraham understood, or stopped denying, how hated they are.

They won’t understand, or won’t stop denying, how much they are hated, because in their minds, they are immune to the outcomes of their own hatred. They can rah rah rah for the restoration of America’s “blood” to a time before its “poisoning” by 10 million migrants. They can rah rah rah safe in the knowledge that their apparent whiteness will protect them. And for a time, they’d be right. But only for a time.

Eventually – if Trump is elected and if 10 million immigrants are deported – the urge to purge wouldn’t stop because it can’t. It is too totalizing. Before that point, “Christian nationalists” said America was founded as a Christian nation for Christians. Afterward, they’d say America was founded as a “real Christian” nation for “real Christians” – a term that would exclude Christians seen after the Reformation by many conservative Protestants as idolaters, pagans and heretics.

We might see happen to Christians what’s currently happening to Republicans, as calls for group purity (namely, calls against the influence of RINOs, Republicans in Name Only) have gutted the GOP organizationally to the point of chaos. The ranks of “real Christians” would shrink, as the ranks of “real Republicans” has been shrinking. Roman Catholics, Mormons, Seventh Day Adventists, Church of Christ, Lutherans, Episcopalians, Unitarians – any Christian insufficiently recognized as “Christian nationalist” would be purged until God’s chosen people are an island surrounded by an ocean of heresy.

The outcome of the presidential election does not depend on making conservative Roman Catholics like Laura Ingraham (or for that matter, conservative Jews like Steven Miller) see the dangers they are in. As Rev. Dan Schulz wrote recently, “Christian nationalists” are a marginal bunch. There’s just not enough of them. Their views are unpopular.

But as long as they won’t understand, or won’t stop denying, how much they are hated, they will continue to give “Christian nationalism” a dangerous credibility that it doesn’t deserve and will only abuse. It claims to speak for all Christians but its vision of America excludes, or has the promise to exclude, a vast majority of Christianities. It might be too late for Laura Ingraham. But other Roman Catholics who cherish their religious freedom should speak for themselves.

MORMONS; AN AMERIKAN KULT

Who is leaving the LDS church?

8 key survey findings

Among the findings: Most don’t join another religion after leaving but they also aren’t interested in coming back to the LDS church.

An angel Moroni statue sits atop a temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 

March 7, 2024
By Jana Riess

(RNS) — When Josh Coates and Stephen Cranney wanted to learn more about members and former members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, they had to strategize about the best ways to reach them. More and more people aren’t answering surveys, either by phone or online. Reaching a small minority population like Latter-day Saints is notoriously difficult.

So they resurrected an old-school methodology — sending 80,000 physical postcards to randomly selected households in the Mormon Corridor — and supplemented with targeted Facebook ads to a Utah audience. Both methods led respondents to take an online survey that was then weighted to be representative of the LDS population. After they removed late and invalid responses, they had a sample of 2,625 current and 1,183 former Latter-day Saints.

Our Zoom interview about their findings has been edited for length and clarity.

1. Former members are more likely to be LGBTQ.

In the survey, only 4% of current members identified as LGBTQ, compared with 18% of former members.

“There’s a million questions to be asked there about why there’s a four times difference between current and former,” said Coates. “One theory is that if you’re LGBT and you’re in the church, it’s not 100% compatible, and you’re going to leave. And so obviously that means there’s going to be a lot more former Latter-day Saints. Undoubtedly there is a component to that. Or it’s possible that people that leave the church and then begin to identify as LGBTQ for whatever reason. We don’t know, because the survey did not explore any of that level of detail. That’s the next level.”

2. Few have a traditional belief in God, without any doubts.

The 2023 Current and Former Latter-day Saint Survey repeated a long-standing question from the General Social Survey about belief in God. Comparing the current and former members, the differences in belief are stark: Among current members, more than 7 in 10 say they “know God really exists and … have no doubts about it.” That’s more than six times the rate of certainty about God among former members.

 


Belief in God for current and former Latter-day Saints. Data from the 2023 CFLDS/B. H. Roberts Foundation.

Cranney pointed out in an article in Times and Seasons that most former members do “still have some kind of belief in something higher,” but they’re less likely to know without a doubt that God exists. “Their belief in God is characterized more by ambiguity than a firm belief one way or another,” he wrote. In this, they’re similar to the nones in the general population of the U.S., while current members resemble the General Social Survey’s “religionists,” the most devout Americans.

3. Their moral priorities look very different.

One of the most groundbreaking aspects of the survey Coates and Cranney devised was that they utilized Jonathan Haidt’s Moral Foundations Theory to try to understand whether current and former Mormons emphasized different aspects of morality. MFT measures values such as fairness, loyalty, authority, care and purity. In Haidt’s research, liberals tend to stress fairness and care but put less emphasis on obedience to authority or being loyal to a particular tribe.

Former Mormons, it turns out, have much in common with liberals in the general population, with high ratings for care and fairness. Meanwhile, current members look more like conservatives, but with a particularly high emphasis on purity/sanctity — something former Mormons do not stress much at all.

“That was surprising, how defined that difference was,” Coates said. “Current Latter-day Saints are off the charts on purity and sanctity. And for former members what’s interesting is that in in-group loyalty, they’re significantly lower even than the liberals.”


Moral Foundations Theory scores for current and former Latter-day Saints compared with conservative, moderate and liberal groups in the national population. Data from the 2023 CFLDS/B. H. Roberts Foundation.

Cranney said that makes sense. “This is a relatively high-tension faith that, oftentimes to survive, has had to have fairly strict binding norms. People who have decided that it’s not for them are going to score lower because they have rejected those very intense binding norms.”

4. They are more likely to have been divorced.

For survey respondents who were still members of the LDS church, the divorce rate for first marriages was 18%, while for former members it was 39%. The former members’ rate is closer to the national average for divorces in the United States.

Coates said the rate of temple divorces is especially low, between 14% and 20%, while “marriages between members that are not sealed in the temple are closer to the national rate of about half of marriages ending in divorce.”

5. They have smaller families.

Coates cautions that the data on this is still provisional because accounting for age will make a major difference in the findings, but in terms of the raw numbers, current Latter-day Saints appear to have almost one child more per family (3.4 children) than those who’ve left the church (2.5 children).

6. Many say they left the church because of historical issues.

The top three reasons for leaving in the 2023CFLDS were 1) history related to Joseph Smith; 2) Book of Mormon; and 3) race issues.

However, Coates says he is somewhat skeptical, comparing these questions to asking divorced couples why their marriages failed. He says it’s difficult to know what potential conscious or unconscious biases are at play.

“We think this portion of the survey is only useful in answering the question ‘What do former members prefer to respond when asked on a survey why they left?’” he said.
7. The vast majority have no interest in returning to church activity.

More than 4 out of 5 former members say that returning is “very unlikely,” with an additional 10% saying it’s unlikely.

A strong majority of former members surveyed said it was very unlikely that they would return to LDS church membership. Data from the 2023 CFLDS/B. H. Roberts Foundation.

A majority has very negative feelings about the church. “Three out of 4 said they dislike or strongly dislike the church as an institution,” Coates reported. In brighter news, “they had a neutral to positive disposition toward the people.”

Cranney performed a regression analysis to see if he could isolate predictive factors that might shed light on which former Mormons were most likely to return to church. “The one thing that is associated with being more likely to say that you’ll return to the church is if you are married to a member,” he said.

That situation describes about a fifth of the former LDS sample: 20% were married to believing members, and 30% were married to fellow former members.
8. Most don’t join another religion after leaving.

Seventy percent of the former members selected “none” when asked to describe their religion now. However, Coates observed that the actual percentage could be even higher, because an additional 19% chose “other” and then hand-wrote responses that were sometimes compatible with “none.”

“They’re not joining another religion,” Coates said. “It’s possible that means they’re Christians without a congregation, but the question only asks ‘Hey, are you affiliated? Do you identify with a religion?’ And no, they don’t. I think that was our intuition about former Latter-day Saints, so that finding didn’t surprise us.”

Related content: Study: Utah is no longer a Mormon-majority state

Liberating the Palestinians

A pro-active primer

by Dan Lieberman / January 31st, 2024

The daily grind of atrocities committed on the Palestinian people continues with one trajectory ─ extinction as a people and realignment into disbursed communities. Civil protests against the destruction, heroic actions by confrontation with the oppressor, dedication to the concepts of justice and freedom, and physical and monetary sacrifices by millions of people in the world have not deterred the killing machine from its proscribed purpose. Much is said of what is being done to the Palestinians; less is said of what needs to be done for the Palestinians and prevent their genocide. Are the Palestinians doomed?

Two difficulties that confronted the Palestinians during the British Mandate were:

(1)    They were not sufficiently prepared to react to the organizational ability and duplicity of the adversarial Zionists, and
(2)    They had no central authority to guide them.

Neither difficulty has been resolved and both exist today.

No matter the atrocity committed, Israel’s well-placed supporters have plans for action to any reactions. The organized and well-received campus demonstrations protested U.S. government support for Israel’s slaughter of Gazans and were countered by discrimination complaints from a few well-placed students, by media changing the naturally charged demonstrations into artificially charged anti-Semitic rants, and by a hastily arranged House Committee investigation into the artificial charges. University presidents fell into the “anti-Semitism” trap and their errant responses showed a lack of knowledge of how to recognize duplicity and how to protect against it. Preventing mass killings of people in Gaza was no longer an important endeavor. Focus changed to one Jewish student claiming anti-Semitism; he did not feel confident when walking to class.

The conventional and unscrupulous media replayed, replayed, and replayed the October 7 attack so it became a multiplier effect and served to conveniently change the dialogue from oppression of the Palestinians to defense of Israel, and reboot the conflict so that it started from the Autumn day. The 75 last years and its tears no longer had any role in analyzing the conflict; that conflict ended and a new conflict started when Hamas attacked Israeli civilians.

The demonstrations, misinformation corrections, enlightening articles, YouTube podcasts, and Zoom meetings that feature masses dedicated to seeking justice for the Palestinians from the river to the sea serve good purposes. However, they lack the essentials of managed expression, efficient use of resources, complementary activities, combined planning, unified strategy, and, most importantly, ability to acquire and distribute huge amounts of funds for large undertakings in place of small amounts of funds for small endeavors. Efforts are duplicated, resources are wasted, harmony is lacking, organizations compete for funds, and conflagrations become dying embers. Each tomorrow is a new day of oppression and lacks continuation of the past to a new level of strategically placed advancement. The principal effect has been to augment awareness and convert the misinformed to a proper understanding of the situation. An ever-increasing number of faithful rally and dialogue together but they cannot rally those who can change the distorted dialogues and modify the perilous situation.

These are facts and perceptions of the elements in the structures that combat the carefully prepared and disciplined structures the Zionists created to pursue their objectives. Understanding the problems facing those struggling to liberate the Palestinians from oppression is the preliminary step in learning how to work around the problems and devise a meaningful strategy. The realization leads to optimism. It is impossible that the most blatant genocide in human history, the ugliness that Israel shows to a world audience, the terrible fate that faces the world as the genocide unfolds, and the deception done to the Jewish community, its identification with the genocide, will result in an ultimate and disastrous conclusion. The pain will be great and the entire world will overdose on Fentanyl.

The genocide has had only one direction ─ toward fulfillment. Without planned, coordinated, and effective strategies that reverse the direction, can the destruction be halted? Start with thoughts, recommendations, and procedures that, hopefully, can evolve into effective strategies and change a tale of lamentations to a story of glorious rescue.

Thoughts

Developing a single central authority that governs actions and fund distributions is preferred but is too complex and will meet resistance from independent organizations, which are the principal drivers of the protests. Organizations, each with a paid staff and voluntary cadres, and each having a specific purpose are an acceptable alternative to managing the strategy. Hundreds of millions of the world’s people from every continent can be accessed to support these organizations. Some organizational recommendations.

Recommendations

Legal: Initiates lawsuits and seeks changes in laws.
Fundraising: Raises large amounts of funds and authorizes distribution of the funds for activities. Managed and staffed by the most respected, credible, and trusted people.
Information source: Gathers information from several sources and makes it available to others.
Legislative: Constructs Political Action Committees (PACS) that steer voters away from pro-Israel candidates and lobby government officials.
Media access: Issues news reports, opinions, and articles to a wide range of media.
Talking points: Provides instant access for rebuttals to misinformation.
Protests and Demonstrations: Suggests and assists protests and demonstrations so they are efficient, react quickly to events, and complement one another.
Recruiting: Solicits volunteers for each activity.
Publicity and advertising: Provides media and public with information on activities.

Procedures
Talking points
Articulation of responses to outrageous reports and comments can benefit from a distribution of “talking points,” especially important for new generations who do not have historical knowledge. One example is answering the frequent reference to Jews as a people who always had a nation and deserve a nation, and framing Palestinians as an artificial construct.

The Jews are not a people. People share a common language, culture, ethnicity, descent, and history. Religion plays no role. Unless they demonstrate to each other that they observe the same religion, two Jews sitting in a café, one from Sweden and the other from Italy, would have no awareness of any commonality. If it were otherwise, why has Israel given its Jews the scaffolding of a new nation by giving them a common language, culture, descent, and history, and rejecting their previous languages, cultures, and histories? Should Mormons and Mennonites be classified as people? Proof positive! No matter where they live, Chinese, most of whom have no religion, are always identified as Chinese, due to skin tone, common language, and common culture.

The Palestinians are Arab people from the Levant. Post-World War I separation of the Levant Arabs into Lebanon, Syria, and the Palestine Mandate sub-titled the Arabs who lived in the common area of the Mandate as Palestinians. They were always a people and now are known as the Palestinian people.

Dual Citizenship and Immigration

Israel’s greatest weapon, even more than its military might, is infiltration into Western nations — controlling the information flow, skewing the dialogue, lobbying elected officials, and gaining intelligence

In 2010, the FBI uncovered and deported 10 unregistered Russian agents living in the U.S. as ordinary citizens and engaged in harmless activities, such as meeting people in high places to influence their attitudes and reporting American views on foreign and domestic affairs to Moscow. Multiply the number of discovered Russian agents by tens of thousands and you will have the number of Israeli expatriates in the U.S., many of whom take the opportunity to do the same for Israel, become U.S. citizens, and vote for Israel-friendly candidates. Forty years ago, synagogues refused to display the Israeli flag; after years of Israel’s infiltrators gaining positions, most synagogues display the Star of David.

A great number of Israelis have migrated to the U.S. and other Western nations in the last decades and formed a massive propaganda organization that steers Westerners to favor Israel. Israeli government ministries and the Los Angeles-based Israeli American Council, which represents Israelis across the United States and promotes their interests, estimate between 500,000 and 800,000 Israelis live in the U.S., about 150,000 live in the New York area, 120,000 in Los Angeles, and 80,000 in Miami. What are the more important voting areas in the United States? New York, California, and Florida are significant. American-Israeli dual citizens can shape the ballot in those regions and may have done that in the disputed 2000 presidential election.

This immigration needs an intensive investigation. Exposing the schemes, identifying the culprits, seeking lawsuits against the violators, and petitioning for new laws that restrict dual citizenship and guard against knavery and trickery are the most necessary activities for combatting the Israeli threat.

Demonstrations

Large and fixed demonstrations remain confined in an area and do not confront the populace. The media gives them minimum coverage. Divide some of the larger demonstrations into hundreds of smaller walking demonstrations, activists strolling miles and miles along main boulevards and through highly populated areas. Many more people will become aware of the perilous situation.

Directed Protests

Protests directed against embassies, consulates, institutions, and media that support Israel or pedal the pro-Israel agitprop have not occurred and could have strategic significance. German embassies and consulates, representatives of a democratic country that committed genocide against the African Herero people, the African Nama people, and European Jews, and now aids and abets in the genocide of the Palestinians; British embassies and consulates, representatives of a democratic country that committed massacres in Ireland, Africa, and Asia, and now aids and abets in the genocide of the Palestinians; and the United States embassies and consulates, representatives of a democratic country that committee genocide against the indigenous Americans and slaved African peoples, and now aids and abet in the genocide of the Palestinians should be targeted to reveal their involvements and for their hypocrisies.

Germany insists its present population make amends for previous genocides in which they had no involvement and instructs them to participate in the Palestinian genocide. Advocacy groups from 12 British Commonwealth countries asked King Charles III to “acknowledge the horrific impacts on and legacy of genocide and colonization of the indigenous and enslaved peoples.” The U.S., on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, respects the destruction of a foreign people in a foreign country and has no equivalent day of respect for the indigenous peoples it destroyed. Nobody asks why is an International Remembrance Day reserved for the tragedy of one ethnicity and does not include the tragedies of many other genocides. Isn’t that an insult to the other ethnicities and their descendants?

Think tanks, educational institutions, and media conglomerates that favor Israel, deceive the American people with misinformation on Israel’s role in the genocide, and actively promote the genocide deserve a daily picketing.

Confronting Legislatures

Every Representative and Senator should be confronted and asked at scheduled meetings, “Why do you commit treason by supporting a nation that is committing genocide and harms the interests of the American people? Pulverize each legislator with messages and office protests. Label them as war criminals.

Lawsuits

Lawsuits that consider defamation, violations of civil rights, violations of human rights, violations of civil laws, and recommend changes in laws challenge the genocide protection system

·         In Oakland, California, a group of American Palestinians and aid groups have filed a lawsuit against Joe Biden and accused the President of complicity in the Gazan genocide. Section 1091 of Title 18, United States Code defines genocide as violent attacks with the specific intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. Federal extraterritorial jurisdiction applies when the offender is a United States national.

·         Attempts to register AIPAC as a foreign agent have failed. More effort is needed to have the registration succeed and attend to other PACS and institutions that front for Israel. Assignment of legal organizations to do the task and raising of huge funds to support them has high priority. No room for failure.

·         In previous years, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), known for defaming those who criticize Israel, has been sued and paid damages. Charges of bigotry backfire, by George Lane, Denver Post Staff Writer, April 29, 2000

An Evergreen couple accused publicly of being anti-Semitic won a $10.5 million damage award from a federal jury Friday in a defamation lawsuit against the Anti-Defamation League. The ADL accused William and Dorothy Quigley at a 1994 news conference of perpetrating the worst anti-Semitic incident in the area since the slaying of Jewish talk-show host Alan Berg 10 years earlier. They were accused of launching “Operation Aronson,” an effort to run their Jewish neighbors out of town, and threatening to commit acts such as painting oven doors on their neighbors’ home. The jury found that the statements at the news conference, and on talk radio, were defamatory and “not substantially true.”

I can think of tens of necessary lawsuits against agencies, institutions, and government officials. A lawsuit against the state of Israel and anyone who uses the expression the “Jewish state of Israel,” which defames Jews by identifying them as guilty of genocide, should be entertained.

Economic warfare

Israel has a 100 percent advantage in its bludgeoning military warfare and, by holding back Palestinian funds and access to materials, uses economic warfare to enhance the genocide. Worldwide communities and governments that sympathize with the Palestinian cause can apply economic pressure and reduce Israel’s power on the world stage. The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement (BDS) has had limited success; expanding its thrust into other products, sources, and recipients, including military hardware, can have a positive effect. A group devoted to seeking battlegrounds for economic warfare and interfacing with government officials to adopt economic measures, including sanctions, that can cause economic problems for Israel, is necessary. Extension of the elements of BDS to all Israel’s supporters — producers, financiers, intermediaries, marketers, retailers, and consumers tells the public that supporters of genocide cannot be tolerated.

Playing the name game

Strong and scornful words attached to an adversary leave psychological and emotional impressions that influence behavior. Israel’s media supporters always characterize Resistance groups to Israel’s oppression, namely Hezbollah and Hamas, as terrorist Hezbollah and terrorist Hamas. The juxtapositions of the spurious adjective and proper noun appear as if they are one word and the effect triggers an association with terrorism each time the Resistance group is mentioned. Although Iran has rarely engaged in international terrorism, other than maybe a tit-for-tat response to terrorism committed against its people, Iran is always, Iran, the leading sponsor of world terrorism. Throw it back at them.

For years, I have recommended and have used apartheid Israel as attached words. It is now legitimate to use genocidal Israel, as well as genocidal Britain, genocidal Germany, and genocidal United States.
The president of the U.S. is now genocidal Joe.
Mossad is international killer Mossad.
Why use the word anti-Semitism; it is a deceptive word that means against speaking a Semitic language. Why not use anti-Jewish or, as I have on occasions:

Anti-SemitismA refers to discrimination against Arab Semites from non-Arabs.
Anti-SemitismJ refers to discrimination against Jews from non-Jews.
Anti-SemitismAA refers to discrimination against Arab Semites from other Arabs.
Anti-SemitismJJ refers to discrimination against Jewish Semites from other Jews.

Strategy

Developing a strategy requires meetings, inputs, discussions, and certifications from many interested and well-informed people, well beyond what can be said in an article. A few thoughts.

The Zionist strategy of spreading false information, making the world feel guilty for any harm done to Jewish people, so they will believe that Jews will not survive unless they have their nation, bribing legislators by offering them funds and publicity if they show allegiance to Israel, coopting Evangelists into supporting Israel, swindling American governments into eliminating Israel’s adversaries, and convincing the public that by evicting, killing and suffocating defenseless people Israel is defending itself has already been successful. The Zionist strategy has prepared the Palestinians for their final moments and paralyzed the world into accepting the gruesome deed.

Strategies have clear objectives. The Zionists will continue and strengthen their present strategy. Intent to eliminate or neutralize all opposition, from the smallest group to the large Iran nation, will accompany the strategy of severe repression that is used to obtain their objectives — strip self-identity from the Palestinians, deny them ontological security, and accelerate deterioration of their community.

The strategy for rescuing the Palestinians has three objectives. Concurrently with attending to the objectives, Israel will know that If it continues with the genocide of the Palestinian people, does not halt the repression, and does not listen to United Nations’ directives, the three objectives will be pursued.

(1)    Modifying Western governments’ policies, especially the United States, from approval of genocidal Israel to opposing genocide Israel.

(2) Bringing Israel to economic ruin.

(3) Bringing Israel to social ruin.

The first objective is fulfilled by recruiting capable people to run the organizations, acquiring billions of dollars to fund the operations, and appealing to hundreds of millions of people to join in the liberation movement.

The second objective solicits governments to ban all exports and imports to and from Israel, and denies access to financial markets and The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT), the system that powers most international money and security transfers.

The third objective solicits governments to forbid all travel to Israel and from Israel and deny Israel’s participation in every international educational, scientific, medical, and cultural organization.

Rescuing the Palestinians from genocide is a tough road. Nevertheless, it’s a road that must be carefully and urgently paved and lead to a correct destination. Now, the road is foggy and is leading to an indeterminate place.

Dan Lieberman publishes commentaries on foreign policy, economics, and politics at substack.com. He is author of the non-fiction books A Third Party Can Succeed in America, Not until They Were Gone, Think Tanks of DC, The Artistry of a Dog, and a novel: The Victory (under a pen name, David L. McWellan). Read other articles by Dan.