“God put Abraham to the test.” Take your “son Isaac… and offer him up as a holocaust.” “Abraham… took the knife to slaughter his son.” But God said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy.” “I know now how devoted you are.” Abraham’s tribe is transfigured by his action on a mountaintop. A people are rejecting child sacrifice. Jesus is also transfigured on a mountaintop. It is not tribal but universal and tricks no bloody devotion but reveals a peaceful declaration, “This is my beloved.” Unfortunately, neither Abraham’s halted test nor Jesus’ beloved witness guide most Christians. Instead, many follow Paul’s belief from today’s Romans reading, God “did not spare his own Son but handed him over for us all.”
Paul’s gruesome theology of atonement asserts God does indeed practice child sacrifice. His own child’s spilt blood supposedly saves believers from the deity’s violence. This belief is an obvious rejection of both Abraham’s and Jesus’ transfiguration. Believing “God did not spare his son” but had him murdered is responsible for perpetuating blood sacrifice, including of children. It is an ongoing horror in human history, practiced still today. One seemingly minor but nevertheless horrific example of the practice of child sacrifice is what U.S. society is increasingly misnaming as ‘radicalized’ youth. Radical is organic and means growth from the root. Media have been misusing “radicalized” not as organic growth but as trained violence for some years. Knowing who first coined the term ‘radicalized,’ begins to educate us on why it is misused. The term ‘radicalized’ was coined by soldiers, mostly white male soldiers in the U.S., Mossad, and MI5. They made it up to refer to mostly brown young men overseas whom the soldiers persuaded / recruited into violence – because the soldiers targeted the youth with violence as foreign enemies. The youth learned to mimic the soldiers. As overseas youth mimicked soldiers by practicing violence, so too do domestic youth mimic soldiers. U.S. soldiers and police, who often consist of ex-soldiers, are having to expand their use of the word ‘radicalized.’ It includes mostly white male youth in the U.S. targeting, like the soldiers, mostly brown skinned people in the U.S. Some of the white male soldiers / police are the supremacists recruiting other white males for violence against domestic enemies. They are recruiting them into the military and police and additional militia groups; the Klan, Boogaloo Boys, Constitutional Sheriffs, Oath Keepers, and the like. Given the root meaning of the word ‘radical,’ it can thus be said that none of these youths are being ‘radicalized.’ They are being soldiered. They are being recruited into violence because that is the purpose of the soldiering profession, to recruit young people into violence. These youths are like Abraham when first with Isaac, mistakenly convinced a War Lord deity directs their violence. Like the early Abraham, young men are being recruited into believing a Supreme Being (their father or drill instructor or President) directs them to act violently for an ever narrowing tribe (their family or army or MAGA cult) against an ever expanding enemy (another family or army or people of color). The U.S. has regressed to an ethical devolution worse than Abraham. Thousands of years ago, he and his tribe were transfigured by his rejection of child sacrifice. Yet current U.S. white supremacist tribe members are actively promoting child sacrifice. For example of Kyle Rittenhouse and his blood sacrifice of Anthony Huber and Joseph Rosenbaum. The process of soldiering white teen boys into sacrificing themselves for their tribe can begin with 1)subtly racist online memes and jokes they ‘like’ but 2) get called out on and 3)feel embarrassed about but hear 4)‘everybody else is so sensitive’ messages which 5)shifts genuine embarrassment to false anger and to 6)identify with their white supremacist recruiters – white youth are “placed like baseballs on a tee and hit right out of the park.” (J.Schroeder).
Our youth are our vital roots in this world, radical, meaning the life giving power from which we grow, from which we nurture community. ‘These are our beloved.’ Let us radicalize them as peacemakers and not soldier them as warmakers.
Prayer: Spirit, root us in a love of peace.
Question: Where do I see youth being soldiered and what am I doing to stop it?
February 28, 2021 Mark 9:2-10 Second Sunday of Lent / Transfiguration