Wiener Schnitzel is UnAmerican
Political Dualism - Mere Christendom
Written by Douglas Wilson
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Details are just beginning to emerge about some American atrocities in Afghanistan. Some of the individuals accused are already on trial, which is at it should be. The presenting problem for the politicos and spin doctors in this situation appears to be the fact that there are allegedly supposed to be a multitude of photographs that show American servicemen posing for gloat shots . . . next to the bodies of killed civilians. Just like Abu Ghraib, only far worse.
But my point here has to do with the approaching public discussion of what is alleged to have happened, not to determine what actually happened. In the uproar that is upcoming, those on the left will say that this is "characteristic," and will use it in support of their opposition to the war. Those on the right will condemn any criminal activities, but they will go on to say that these atrocities are "uncharacteristic," and will go on to defend American involvement in the war there.
My interest in this is to ask a theological question that neither side in this kind of dispute can answer accurately or with any kind of justice. Characteristic of what? Uncharacteristic of what? Characteristic of people? Americans? Soldiers? Sinners? What?
The leftists will say that these soldiers sinned against humanity, and that this is a characteristic sin that Americans tend to commit. The right-wingers will say that they sinned against America, and that this was uncharacteristic of our soldiers, and they will go on to say that the sin was one of being unAmerican.
But such things are sins, if they are sins at all, only if they are ungodly. And we can only know what ungodliness is if God communicates to man, and man is responsible to listen and to hear. The most basic question for those seeking to live an upright life has to do with how we go about defining upright. By what standard? As this debate escalates, the talking heads on television are going to become the yelling heads on television. Stop listening to what they are saying, and starting asking yourself what they are sitting on behind those television desks. What is their basis for being there? What supports them such that the camera can point at their faces?
When the leftists call this a crime against humanity, I will want to know what they think humanity actually is. The end product of so many millennia of mindless and purposeless evolution? It would seem to follow that these soldiers committed crimes against so many pounds of protoplasm, of which we have plenty on this planet. Indeed, liberals like to tell us all the time that we have way too much of this bipedal kind of protoplasm. War is just a drastic eco-measure.
When the rightwingers tell us that this was unAmerican, we should want to know why that is a problem. Wiener schnitzel is unAmerican. Simply being unAmerican is not a moral issue. No, no, they might say. "We didn't say not American, we said unAmerican. There's a difference." Oh, I would reply. Tell us that difference, and tell us why we should care. Tell us how America has generated a moral code that is universally binding on all who are associated with this nation. Try not to suspend that universal moral code from an invisible sky hook, or worse, from snippets of the Gettysburg Address that you learned as a child in an American elementary school.
One of things that Jesus taught us is that a house cannot withstand storms without a foundation (Matt. 7:24-25). And you cannot build your house in a left wing swamp, or on pile of right wing sand, and then when troubles arise, as they surely will, whistle up the foundation you wish you might have had. You either have a foundation when you needed it, or you don't.
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