4 I The Lovell Chronicle I September 25, 2014
CHRONICLE
OHS
Are we heading
for war yet again ?
Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.
Slowly but surely the drums of war are sounding again.
President Obama went before the United Nations Wednes-
day morning to make his case for the world to unite and rise up
against the aggression of the Islamic State, whose militants have
murdered and raped their way across a large swath of the Middle
East and whose leaders have also pledged to bring death and ter-
ror to America directly.
Our president who is most reluctant to wage war and who a
few years ago won the Nobel Peace Prize for that stance now
finds himself a wartime president, though he pledges to not place
"boots on the ground" in the Middle East.
Isn't this the way it always happens? An extremist despot
leads an aggressive movement of some sort. At first the powers
that be, reluctant to become engaged, try to pacify the leader (or
leaders), but as the cries of the oppressed grow louder, nations
are gradually drawn in.
In the early days of World War II, European leaders attempted
to work with, cut deals with and even appease Hitler, until he start-
ed overrunning countries.
Next come advisors and trainers, going hand in hand with air
strikes and, seemingly inevitably, the introduction of ground forc-
es. Sound like Vietnam?
While in this day and age of polarization in Congress one par-
ty would vote against the other on a bill declaring that the sky is
blue, now is the time for unity of purpose if we are to defeat this
latest, and perhaps greatest, threat, which the president Wednes-
day called a "network of death."
While President Obama was surely too slow in reacting to the
situation in Syria and was wrong to pull out all American troops
from Iraq, he now appears to be going about the grim task of
going to war yet again in the proper way, building a coalition of
nations including several Middle Eastem states. Air strikes alone
cannot and will not defeat the Islamic State, so it will, indeed, take
"boots on the ground" to win the war. Whether it will take Ameri-
cans filling thousands of those boots remains to be seen, and it
is maddening that Islamic states in the region are not taking the
lead when it is their own people whose lives are most immediate-
ly threatened.
Will we, as human beings, ever get past killing each other in
the name of religion or power?. Obama condemned the latest vio-
lence Wednesday, saying, "America stands for something differ-
ent" than simply taking over huge swaths of land and killing thou-
sands of people in the process.
He is right, of course, but how we go about exerting our own
power in the region may, in the course of time, determine wheth-
er we keep repeating the cycle of violence and war over and over
again.
Perhaps President Teddy Roosevelt had the right approach
with his principle whereby the USA would "speak soltly and carry a
big stick." In this age, like others, bullies respect strength, and the
USA is among the few nations strong enough to repel the bullies,
but the key to the future is a respect for human rights. Only when
humans can move beyond exerting their will through sheer force
can we hope to stop the never-ending cycle of war.
Maybe we'll get it right this time and, once the war is over,
somehow convince various factions to work together. But that
would mean overcoming two of the most powerful emotions: rage
and hate. If only...
--David Peck
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Ch00000000ging American history,
one movie at a time
It is time to pick new textbooks in
Texas, and the big publishing companies
are hawking their newest works. Every
five years, the Texas State Board of Ed-
ucation selects textbooks to be used in all
schools across the state. Given the size of
Texas' student population, the winning
books reap enormous profits for their
publishers.
Competition for the American gov-
ernment selection for grades six to 12 is
particularly stiff, but several publishers
decided to give themselves an edge by
playing to the board's well-known con-
servative religious leanings. Some even
linked the founding of the United States'
government to Moses! Here are two claims:
McGraw-Hill's entry states that Moses's "idea of
a covenant ... influenced the formation of colonial
governments and contributed to our constitutional
structure."
Pearson Education submitted a book containing
a "Biography of Moses" that likens the Ten Com-
mandments to the U.S. Constitution.
"Moses helped establish a legal system, includ-
ing the Ten Commandments, to govern his people"
the book says. "Similarly, the founders of the Unit-
ed States wrote the Constitution and established a
system of laws to govern Americans."
A group of 10 academics working for the Texas
Freedom Network indicates the problems with giv-
ing Moses credit for these ideas. Their main point,
and one that has been known since America's found-
ing, is that the writers of America's Constitution
were influenced by Enlightenment principles rather
than Scripture.
The misrepresentation in the McGraw-Hill work
is that our country's "constitutional structure" is ac-
tually based upon John Locke's idea of social con-
tract, which was an idea set in explicit opposition to
the biblical covenant.
Pearson's howler is that the U.S. founders cre-
ated a republic, rather than the monarchy put forth
in Moses's laws. In fact, the founders were explicit-
ly "reacting against several of the crucial elements
of the moral, legal and political tradition associated
with Moses and the Ten Commandments." One ele-
ment was, of course, the divine right of kings to rule
their subjects.
The notion that Moses provides anything more
specific to American government than a desire for
good governance is unfounded. So, why is he show-
ing up in these textbooks?
Well, we can thank Hollywood. The link be-
tween Moses and America was most profoundly por-
Paul V.M. Flesher
Religion Today
trayed in that 1956 film "The Ten Com-
mandments" directed by Cecil B. DeMille,
with Charlton Heston as Moses and Yul
Brynner as Rameses.
As Bob Torry and I demonstrated in
our 2007 book "Film and Religion" De-
Mille's blockbuster infuses the Ten Com-
mandments and the Jewish Law with a
decidedly Christian character. Despite
the tablets, God says that the Law is
most importantly written on the Israel-
ires' "hearts and minds." This spiritual-
ization of the Law likens it to the work of
the Holy Spirit in Christianity, which en-
ables inner transformation. In turn, the
Jews of the Exodus become the model for
the future Christians.
But DeMille takes a further step. His Israelites
are not just future Christians, but Americans, as
well. In the pressure cooker of the Cold War, this
mid-'50s film explicitly links Moses' followers with
the United States and the Egyptian enemy with the
Soviet Union.
And, in case the film's symbolism was not clear
enough, DeMille himself comes on stage before the
start and states that this is a story of how God's
"Law of Freedom" opposes tyranny and that "this
same battle continues throughout the world today."
Audiences lapped it up. "The Ten Command-
ments" became not only a wildly successful movie,
but it placed the Cold War into a cosmic scenario in
which God sided with America against the godless
Communists.
Moses' founding of the Hebrew nation through
the giving of the Law, as portrayed by DeMille,
formed the model for the foundation of the Unit-
ed States of America. The tensions of the Cold War
were allayed by the firm conviction among many
Americans that we were in the right and God was
on our side. God guided this nation, just as He guid-
ed Moses and the ancient Israelites. DeMille's filmic
reinterpretation of the Exodus set the rhetorical ba-
sis for linking America's founding to Moses found in
these textbooks.
Credits: Texas Freedom Network, "Writing
to the Standards" www.tfn.org/site/DocServer/FI-
NAL executivesummary.pdf?, docID=4625. Paul
V.M. Flesher and Robert Torry, "Film and Religion:
An Introduction" (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2007)
Flesher is a professor in the University of Wy-
oming's Religious Studies Department. Past col-
umns and more information about the program can
be found on the web at www.uwyo.edu/RelStds. To
comment on this column, visit http: / /religion-today.
blogspot.com.
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David Peck, Editor and Publisher
Editor ................................................................................. DavidPeck
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