“After Pilate had Jesus scourged, he handed him over to be crucified. Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus.. and gathered the whole cohort around him… and threw a scarlet military cloak about him and… kept striking him on the head… and led him off to crucify him… (at) a place called Golgotha —which means Place of the Skull… After the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they divided his garments by casting lots.”
The institutional christian church, formed primarily by one of Pilate’s successors, the soldier Constantine 1700 years ago, highlight the cross, especially during Lent. Militarism’s weapon has its perverted meaning on Palm Sunday and Good Friday with a veneration of the cross and a retelling of Jesus death on it. The yearly retelling remembers Jesus’ very public execution in which soldiers murder him, in obedience to their masters and their training. It is proof of the deep indoctrination by the cult of Militarism, that many people, especially self-title christians, do not reckon with, let alone attempt to heal, the weapon bearers guilty of murdering Jesus, soldiers. The crucifixion has never been a secret. It is not hidden. The Gospel fact is not questioned. Yet, despite this Gospel fact, self-title christians, especially in the U.S., routinely, even fervently, still support empires, their many Pilates, and their many weapons bearing soldiers guilty of Jesus’ murder. Militarism’s deadly soldier system publicly murdering human beings is still openly acclaimed, justified, and sanctified by self-titled Christians who keep it in operation. The sanctified slaughter of human beings is observed in war. It is also observed in mass shootings. Mass shootings are simply another public crucifixion in which the empire and its many Pilates, with its many soldiers, using their many weapons keep murdering so many human beings. We are thus politically indoctrinated into returning to office weapons supporting Pilates. We are financially indoctrinated into purchasing the products and stocks of weapons manufacturing companies. We are theologically indoctrinated into offering thoughts and prayers to victims of violence killed at the hands of Militarism’s many soldiers. Militarism’s many soldiers and those supporting the troops include the Boogaloo Boys, Corporate Media, Hollywood, the Military, the NRA, the Police – certainly of Ferguson and Hogan Square and Memphis and so many regions, the Second Amendment Foundation, shooters Cruz and Klebold and Lanza and recently Hale, and so many more, and The Supreme Court, and still so many more. As we are indoctrinated by the religion of Militarism into accepting salvation through public execution and we celebrate on Palm Sunday, Good Friday, and other feast days, the Veneration of the Cross, so too we also celebrate, in some manner or another, the Adoration of the F-22 Raptor, the Worship of the Electric Chair, and, especially, the Exaltation of the Uzi, the Glorification of the AR-15, and the Sanctification of the Glock. Under Militarism’s indoctrination, the empire with its many soldiers carrying out their many public executions will go on. The Supreme Court in New York State Rifle and Pistol Assoc Inc vs Bruen, asserted Militarism’s right to continue public executions using guns, “the Constitution presumptively protects that conduct.” “We know of no other enumerated constitutional right whose core protection has been subjected to a freestanding ‘interest-balancing’ approach.” An interest such as “the State’s compelling interest in preventing gun violence and in protecting the safety of its citizens” (Breyer). That interest is not compelling enough in a U.S. Empire that forces gun rights over human rights. Toni Cade Bambara (1939-1995) was a Professor of Black Studies, an author, documentary film-maker, social activist and artist. She rejected violence as acceptable and knew that “as a cultural worker, who belongs to an oppressed people, my job is to make (peaceful) revolution irresistible.” Militarism with its many soldiers make gun rights salvific and thus public executions / mass shootings inevitable.
“After I’ve been executed for the crime of being in a public place, my final wish is for the people who enabled this crime, again and again and again, to have to… look at what the bullets did to me… Every day, pile more bodies in the halls (of Congress, corporate America,…) so they can’t go anywhere without stepping over the victims… I want them to look down into my vacant eyes and reckon with the way it ended… I (was) thinking of all the ways my own country has abandoned its people (for profit, for spite, for no reason at all). I would be lying there, remembering all the murders I’ve cheered for in movies, all the thousands of dead bodies I’ve digested and forgotten, and I would look up at the ceiling searching for meaning and find nothing at all.” (What To Do With My Body In The Event I Die In A Mass Shooting – Tom McAllister)
Prayer: Spirit of Courage, fill me with an irresistible power for peaceful revolution.
Question: What am I doing for a peaceful revolution away from soldiers and their guns rights and toward artists expanding human rights?
April 02, 2023 Gospel Matthew 26:14-27:66 Palm Sunday