4.01.2004

quote for today

"...I'm afraid we have to remember Bourne's reminder that any skepticism of imperial convention--even one leavened by Christian faith--will always appear as an insult. It should be an insult, and I see no reason why disembedded Christians should pull any punches for the sake of "civility." Much of what passes among Americans, Christian or non-Christian, for argument, historical wisdom, and moral sense is sheer stupidity and avarice. However insistent they are on a "moral clarity" that disguises a will to obfuscation and forgetting, embedded Christians merely add to the corruption of moral imagination by supporting this immoral war, and they do so with the lamest standards of evidence and argument. Thus, our criticism needs, not only wide and impeccable erudition, but flair, wit, and a withering sarcasm in the face of venality and chauvinism. (Augustine displayed no pious decorousness when dissecting venerables like Cicero and Varro.) "In these times, when death is so readily offered as the solution to inconvenience, loss, injustice, or death, the affirmation of life is our most urgent and emancipating duty. From poverty, unemployment, and alienation, to abortion, capital punishment, and war, the Empire thrives, not only on death, but on our bogus ways of evading or sacralizing it. A freedom purchased with death is really a servitude; a homeland so secured is really a prison; a security so leveraged is really a terror. Worshippers of death in the midst of plenty, the imperial populace marches to the crack of the Devil's riding crop. It's time to emerge from the catacombs, shake the foundations, make a spectacle unto the world." --Eugene McCarraher, "Christian Intellectuals, Embedded and Otherwise", in New Pantagruel vol. 1, iss. 1 (2004).

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