Assailing the Fortress, Part II

There is a belief in our society that assailing our fortresses (a.k.a. institutions we have valued such as government, church or heroes) cannot bring them down, or will bring down only the parts we don't like.  It's acceptable, even blood sport, to take potshots at these institutions or people.  I'm not sure if it's out of jealousy, or some need to make ourselves feel "smarter, more beautiful, and darn it!, more capable" than our heroes.  Or perhaps it's simply to assure ourselves that our little brains and voices have some value.  There just seem to be more attacks on anything with visible strength in our society these days. Nothing is above our disrespect.

For example, I get forwarded e-mails from Aunt Mabel (*not her real name) telling me in panicky tones that President Obama is taking us all to hell in an handbasket.  There was another e-mail the other day from Mr. Rondo*, a friend of our family, with an appeal to go watch a stupidly spliced together video trying to make it look like the president had announced straight out that he is a Muslim.  The implication, of course, is that we should all be shaking in our boots because an infiltrator is leading our country. In the olden days, you may recall, the fear was about Kennedy being a Catholic--which in that case was actually a fact. What action is called for by these e-mail forwards is unclear.  It is set up to make people angry and fearful with no place to go--at least until the next national election.

Add to that all the "government is broken" rhetoric of recent times, and you have even more people angry and fearful with no place to go, especially since another election or two is not going to fix a broken government. It's easy to see how this can result in national despair, or vigilante groups and internal terrorism as a way to fight back. This "assail the fortress" dynamic may be replicated at the state level.  I've heard the same kind of shrill rhetoric applied in assessing the stances taken by our governor, who by the way is managing to get the state budget balanced, whether you like how it's being done or not.

The incoming cannonballs hit the fortress, and the damage is more significant than we realize.

Moving on from government to the institution of "church," there are sieges going on against that fortress, as well.  I could talk about the Catholic church, or about the recent articulate writing and speaking by atheists against Christianity, but let me share an example closer to home for me.  It's one in which the attack is coming from our own people.  (Hmm. I wonder if we destroy ourselves more vigorously when we perceive no significant external threat?  Just a passing thought.)

Within my church denomination there exist offshoot groups or purportedly "free press" groups whose mission it is to show that the leadership of the denomination is a bunch of nefarious, double-dealing crooks. Is this just our subculture, or does it happen in other churches, too? One such group recently published a book accusing the church leadership of unethical accounting practices.  The author, who has a conflict of interest because his employment was terminated for moral reasons, included slander about specific people, some only tangentially connected to his story. The book is going like hotcakes with translations into other languages underway.

I am not knowledgeable to comment on the accounting issues, but I do know the story about one of the people who was portrayed by the author as a mentally unstable liar, and it's unconscionable what was written about her. She is being victimized by him yet again, and the book publishers have bankrolled this by paying to publish the book. Now get this: the book publisher admitted in a personal written response to me that there are problems with the book and that they are discussing what they will do about it. What's to discuss?  I had called for them to stop selling the books and to issue a public apology to their magazine readers and to the people slandered in the book.

Six weeks have passed since that admission of poor journalistic practices, and there's no indication that they have pulled the book. Nor have they issued an apology. In fact, at their website they recently announced that the denomination had barred them from selling the book at their booth at the worldwide church meetings coming up this summer. Now all the website commenters are railing at denominational administration (a faceless evil group, of course), whining that the church is shutting out the truth from being told. Come ON, people!  Who said that a church has to give booth space to someone selling lies and criticism about them at their own conference meetings?  I'm surprised the this group still has a booth space!

Throughout all of this, our denominational leadership has to stay silent. They can't name the lies for what they are, for several reasons. It would be "chasing the devil's dogs," and they have a greater mission to accomplish than to defend their dealings from ankle-biters. (And I'm not saying that leadership is perfect, but in this case I know more about the inside story than I typically do.)  Second, if they respond to the book, which deals with the former employee's termination and ensuing lawsuit, they could end up in further legal action from the person who has shown himself to be litigious.  The dollars given to the church need to be spent on mission and ministry, not in legal defense. And finally, any response could be seen as the big monster beating up on the little yapping ankle-biter, and unfortunately in this case, American society tends to sympathize with the little guy. It's the mantra of at least half the movies made in this country. So you don't end up winning anything at all as an organizational leader if you spend precious time and money to reply to lies and slander. And this is just one of a number of people/groups that build up their self-importance by taking potshots at the church institution.

And yet, the incoming cannonballs hit the fortress and the damage is more significant than we realize.

Another example of "assailing the fortress":  the way our press deals with heroes. We have a propensity for creating heroes, and then ripping them apart. We're talking about human beings, not gods! They can barely withstand being made heroes, and then when the tearing-down part comes along, they can barely survive that--if they're lucky.

You'll probably remember quite clearly that viral You-Tube clip showing Susan Boyle's initial performance. This woman who can sing circles around you and me shoots to fame, is the darling of the water-cooler chatter, and becomes a sermon illustration in fifty-hundred churches everywhere. Now watch her not win the final prize.  And watch the British tabloids criticize everything about her, including her makeover. And be sure to print the dirt from her friends on how she's really unhappy and very lonely.  Now watch her fall apart (our heroes are supposed to be above disintegration, you know).  And then when her first full album comes out, be sure, oh you music critics who probably couldn't carry a tune in a bucket, to rip that apart, too.

You see?  We build people into a heroic fortress, and then we assail that fortress.  For what reason?  What kind of dysfunctional media and societal game is this?  The incoming cannonballs hit the newly-built fortress and the damage is more significant than we realize.

(To be continued in the next post.  Should you disagree with me regarding some of my examples, please hang in there until the series is done. We may reach more agreement than you suspect.)