Not Walter Cronkite, but we will tell it the way it is. This article was interesting. Cronkrite is considerably more thoughtful than the famous lemming with the similar sounding last name. There's a bit of a nuance in his thought, and not a little wisdom.
So close, but yet so far. An interaction with Cronkrite
First, his text, followed by my interspersed comments.
Here's the link over at CovenantNews.
Is God Imperialistic?
Will Armies Establish His Kingdom?
By Al Cronkrite
The Covenant News ~ January 14, 2010
German Christians helped elect Hitler to power and supported his aggressive policies during the 1930s and beyond. American Christians supported President George W. Bush and the imperialistic invasion of Iraq. Though many are now dubious there is still substantial support for an American victory and widespread reverence for our troops.
The military has been a respected branch of our government since the birth of the nation. We fought the Indians and replaced them, first, in the East and later across the entire continent; we fought for our independence from Britain, twice; we invaded and appropriated Texas, California and the remainder of the West; over 600 thousand of our citizens died when the government exerted its power to enforce its Constitutional jurisdiction; we fought the Spanish for sections of the South and killed 200 thousand Filipinos to control the Philippines; we waved our flag and sent our young men to Europe to die for the dreams and avarice of the world's elite, twice; we ventured into the human morass of the Far East and fought pointless wars in Korea and Vietnam; now, with troops in 140 of the world's nations we are engaged in a decade old, war in the Middle East where we have constructed embassies and built fortifications that imply an intent to remain permanently. American Christians have, for the most part, supported our aggressive behavior.
President George W. Bush characterized the invasion of Iraq as an altruistic venture to establish democracy but instead the infrastructure has been destroyed, tribal conflicts flourish, hundreds of thousands have been killed, millions of citizens have fled, and those that remain live in a police state lacking many of life's essentials. It was a selfish war that won us a measure of hegemony at a terrible cost in suffering and hatred." Though this tragic disregard for human life has exacerbated Islamic hatred for "The Great Satan", many American Christians fear Islam, have developed a visceral dislike for Muslims and Arabs, and support killing as many as possible.
C-Span ran an historical program on Robert E. Lee. His military genius and religious fervor beamed forth in spite of an obvious bias. The program assumed that slavery was the issue and the defeat of the South was a victory for righteousness. One commentator maintained both sides believe God was on their side. It was mentioned that Lee was a pious man but no distinction was made between the battlefield conduct of the opposing armies and nothing was presented on the rights of the Southern States to secede. It was a pro-war documentary.
It seems God has included a sufficient number of paradoxes in His Word to confound human reason. He promised to His chosen people of a land of milk and honey and His participation in a forcible conquest and genocide has provided an aggressive theme that is foreign to the Law given to Moses. The spirit of manifest destiny prevalent in Colonial America was responsible for the slaughter of the indigenous Indian population. The same spirit is at work in the Middle East as neo-Israel is slowly annihilating the original inhabitants of the land they now occupy.
The Huguenots were French Calvinists. Wikipedia's definition includes this telling description: "In their countries of refuge, Huguenots fostered a distinctive French Protestant identity that enabled them to remain aloof from the culture of their host society. In all cases Huguenots asserted themselves as a self-confident minority, convinced of the superiority of their language and culture, and believed themselves to be privileged in this world as in the next."
Chosen by God, obedient Christians are privileged members of society. This distinction has been lost in the effete Christian theology of our time. Christians are meant to be the wisest, most productive, most obedient, and most peaceful people in God's creation. We are to enjoy privileges and blessings not accorded outsiders. When God gave Moses the Law He gave His people a gift that could make them superior to their neighbors. In the 26th Chapter of Leviticus God records the blessings resulting from obedience to His Law:
"If you walk in My statutes and keep My commandments so as to carry them out, then I will give you rains in their season, so that the land will yield its produce and the trees of the field will bear their fruit. Indeed, your threshings will last for you until grape gathering, and grape gathering will last until sowing time. You will thus eat your food to the full and live securely in your land. I shall also grant peace in the land, so that you may lie down with no one making you tremble. I shall also eliminate harmful beasts from the land, and no sword will pass through your land. But you will chase your enemies, and they will fall before you by the sword; five of you will chase a hundred, and a hundred of you will chase ten thousand, and your enemies will fall before you by the sword. So I will turn toward you and make you fruitful and multiply you and I will confirm my covenant with you. I will also walk among you and be your God, and you shall be My people."
Recently, a Christian minister whose work I respect called me to account for condemning Manifest Destiny and the murder of the American Indians. He wrote "Viewing what occurred with the American Indians from Yahweh's sovereignty (thus, His intention, for whatever reason, for them to be either killed and dispossessed), could it be possible that like the Canaanites that the Indians' iniquity had finally gotten to the point that Yahweh unleashed His wrath upon them, providing a homeland for Christianity to (hopefully) flourish?"
The earth is the Lord's and everything in it. He can do with it as He sees fit. If He decides to wipe out a population and allow His chosen people to occupy their land His action is righteous and He has every right to do so. However, the Old Testament nation God created on the Promised Land was not an imperialistic entity. Its battles resulted from disobedience and were against invaders and indigenous enemies of their own creation. God gave the nation victory and defeat in accordance with the blessing and cursing of obedience and disobedience. He did not order a Babylonian genocide or direct His people to invade the pagan world.
Peace is a product of obedience to God's Commandments. God will not fight on the side of those who ignore His Law. Failure to obey results in the transgressor being on the losing side of the conflicts his behavior has created. God may use people and nations that He has not specifically chosen but His dealings with His chosen people are different than with those He has not chosen. Since He gave the Law to Moses as a gift that would make his chosen people superior to their neighbors He still expects His chosen people to obey His Law and when they ignore the Law He ignores their plight and their efforts fail. For decades American Christians have been working to change our political system. They have failed.
God's promise to provide His people with a land of milk and honey and His orders to slay its indigenous population was a unique, one-time event that was not to be repeated. It is our duty to obey God's Law in all of our affairs and to bring to the world the Good News of salvation through Jesus Christ. If we are obedient God will extend His Kingdom and not only our nation but the remainder of the world will be blest.
Unfortunately, the United States of America has never been a Christian nation. It has never had a Christian government; it has never enjoyed theological agreement or religious unanimity. The seeds of discord were planted in Europe before the major immigration to the New World. When the Constitution was drafted there were Catholics, and various Protestant denominations. The Biblical structure for a Christian nation requires agreement between the people and their leadership to worship the One True God exclusively and obey His Commandments. We have always been a nation overwhelmingly populated by professing Christians. But the "Christian" description is misleading because the theological divergence between Catholics and Protestants produces a serious separation which becomes even more serious with the major differences among the various Protestant denominations. These differences are so severe they create different religions which contend with another. At the founding there was more agreement among the nation's leaders over Masonry than there was in the population over Christianity.
Christians are meant to be a privileged people. As He did throughout the Bible, God chooses His people and provides them with His Law so that they might receive blessings far above their pagan neighbors. They are royalty, Heaven bound through the forgiveness provided by God's own Son, and when they have subdued the enemy they are destined to live in peace.
Jesus claimed He was not bringing peace but a sword. He was not supporting imperialism but instead a robust proclamation of the Gospel of forgiveness and obedience and a fearless confrontation of the devil's activities along with a stout solution.
For a nation that has never been invaded the United States of America has fought an inordinate number of wars. Some have gained territory but most have caused the premature deaths of millions of people and accomplished nothing.
The theological heresy that contends that God's people must wait for the return of Christ before working to establish His hegemony is as paralyzing as the fixation on the imminent return of Christ. Christians have been chosen to be warriors for God's Kingdom. Their primary vocation is to extend God's hegemony over His creation by reminding the world of His Law and the blessings of obedience. We must be zealous for a Christian world and we must understand that God will work with us in bringing about that endeavor.
A real Christian nation will be blest with peace both within and without.
Al Cronkrite is a free-lance writer from Florida.
He can be reached at fmsinfla@hotmail.com
And now the interaction:
Is God Imperialistic?
Will Armies Establish His Kingdom?
By Al Cronkrite
The Covenant News ~ January 14, 2010
German Christians helped elect Hitler to power and supported his aggressive policies during the 1930s and beyond. American Christians supported President George W. Bush and the imperialistic invasion of Iraq. Though many are now dubious there is still substantial support for an American victory and widespread reverence for our troops.
The military has been a respected branch of our government since the birth of the nation. We fought the Indians and replaced them, first, in the East and later across the entire continent; we fought for our independence from Britain, twice; we invaded and appropriated Texas, California and the remainder of the West; over 600 thousand of our citizens died when the government exerted its power to enforce its Constitutional jurisdiction; we fought the Spanish for sections of the South and killed 200 thousand Filipinos to control the Philippines; we waved our flag and sent our young men to Europe to die for the dreams and avarice of the world's elite, twice; we ventured into the human morass of the Far East and fought pointless wars in Korea and Vietnam; now, with troops in 140 of the world's nations we are engaged in a decade old, war in the Middle East where we have constructed embassies and built fortifications that imply an intent to remain permanently. American Christians have, for the most part, supported our aggressive behavior.
Proto:
Brilliant start...even with the euphemisms. Cronkrite is an example of a Theonomist embracing Paleo-conservativism. This is a bit different than what you'll find with DeMar's American Vision, or the type of preaching you heard with D. James Kennedy.
Though ideologically on the same page, paleo-conservatives tend to have a more cynical view of American history. It's not glorious. It's taken wrong turns, but if you could just get it back on track......then all will be well.
While many conservatives consider this kind of talk to be sacrilege. To them America has always been good and glorious, you're evil if you think otherwise, and if we can keep her from going off track....then all will be well.
I resonate more with paleoconservative interpretations of American history, though I still don't share their vision.....all will NOT be well....ever. All will still be Babylon....same yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
When America is rightly understood to be yet another Babylon, we can view at as... well enough, but never well.
Cronkrite sees the problems with just signing onto the Blessed America viewpoint that many of his theological brethren espouse. He sees it as problematic to equate America with God's Kingdom and then muddle the idea of Kingdom expansion with American Imperialism.
Cronkrite:
President George W. Bush characterized the invasion of Iraq as an altruistic venture to establish democracy but instead the infrastructure has been destroyed, tribal conflicts flourish, hundreds of thousands have been killed, millions of citizens have fled, and those that remain live in a police state lacking many of life's essentials. It was a selfish war that won us a measure of hegemony at a terrible cost in suffering and hatred." Though this tragic disregard for human life has exacerbated Islamic hatred for "The Great Satan", many American Christians fear Islam, have developed a visceral dislike for Muslims and Arabs, and support killing as many as possible.
Proto:
Again, well said.
Cronkrite:
C-Span ran an historical program on Robert E. Lee. His military genius and religious fervor beamed forth in spite of an obvious bias. The program assumed that slavery was the issue and the defeat of the South was a victory for righteousness. One commentator maintained both sides believe God was on their side. It was mentioned that Lee was a pious man but no distinction was made between the battlefield conduct of the opposing armies and nothing was presented on the rights of the Southern States to secede. It was a pro-war documentary.
Proto:
Without diving into the murky arguments over the American Civil War, which actually wasn't a civil war, I appreciate Cronkrite's observation that American conflicts have taken on a religious nature. I call it the child of Sacralism, but Cronkrite doesn't venture there. He seems to point out a theme similar to what I keep saying....that the Civil War (and all of America's wars) is viewed in American Myth as a Righteous War, and part of our Redeemer-Nation heritage.
Pleasing thematic construct to Christo-Americans. Heresy to those who reject Constantinianism.
So is Cronkrite agreeing with me? Not at all. Read on.....
Cronkrite:
It seems God has included a sufficient number of paradoxes in His Word to confound human reason. He promised to His chosen people of a land of milk and honey and His participation in a forcible conquest and genocide has provided an aggressive theme that is foreign to the Law given to Moses. The spirit of manifest destiny prevalent in Colonial America was responsible for the slaughter of the indigenous Indian population. The same spirit is at work in the Middle East as neo-Israel is slowly annihilating the original inhabitants of the land they now occupy.
Proto:
Good observation. Again that spirit of manifest destiny....that spirit of expansion, is nothing more than the Babel Impulse that we see in all kingdoms. The Israelites were different in that they were specifically commissioned by God Himself to engage in practices....that were good because He commanded them, but when man initiates such practices....they are abomination.
When the Northern Kingdom broke away.....you start seeing the Babel Impulse again. It's not about God's Covenant Kingdom....it's about power and prestige.
But without a doubt, many Christians in order to promote their particular facet of Christendom have appealed and/or been inspired by the Conquest of Canaan.
As I point out repeatedly, this stems from a fundamental hermeneutical error regarding the relationship between the Old and New Testaments.
Cronkrite:
The Huguenots were French Calvinists. Wikipedia's definition includes this telling description: "In their countries of refuge, Huguenots fostered a distinctive French Protestant identity that enabled them to remain aloof from the culture of their host society. In all cases Huguenots asserted themselves as a self-confident minority, convinced of the superiority of their language and culture, and believed themselves to be privileged in this world as in the next."
Chosen by God, obedient Christians are privileged members of society. This distinction has been lost in the effete Christian theology of our time. Christians are meant to be the wisest, most productive, most obedient, and most peaceful people in God's creation. We are to enjoy privileges and blessings not accorded outsiders.
Proto:
Wait a second. Since when did the New Testament teach that we are to think of ourselves as privileged members of society? We are saved by Grace, a chosen people....but should the Huguenots have tied such a notion to an Ethnic or Cultural identity? Are we somehow special because we're British or American Christians in a way that a Christian in Turkey is not?
Actually I would argue the Huguenots were unique in their cultural malleability. They blended in. In the United States, northern Huguenots became Yankees....in the South, they became Southerners, and sometimes slave-holders. In South Africa they did retain something of their identity, but sadly this mixed with Dominionist/Cultural Mandate ideas which led them to be zealous participants in and promoters of the white racism that's so integral to South Africa's sad story.
Apartheid was at its core a result of Dominionist Theology. When Christianity is defined in cultural terms and a so-called "Christian" culture encounters one that is very different....keeping the cultural lines distinct becomes a Kingdom building/gospel task.
Doesn't the whole notion of thinking of ourselves as 'privileged' lead to an elitist mentality? When coupled with cultural and ethnic identity, how can it NOT lead to racism?
Keep that in mind as you hear conservatives throw around the term 'elitist.'
Cronkrite:
When God gave Moses the Law He gave His people a gift that could make them superior to their neighbors. In the 26th Chapter of Leviticus God records the blessings resulting from obedience to His Law:
"If you walk in My statutes and keep My commandments so as to carry them out, then I will give you rains in their season, so that the land will yield its produce and the trees of the field will bear their fruit. Indeed, your threshings will last for you until grape gathering, and grape gathering will last until sowing time. You will thus eat your food to the full and live securely in your land. I shall also grant peace in the land, so that you may lie down with no one making you tremble. I shall also eliminate harmful beasts from the land, and no sword will pass through your land. But you will chase your enemies, and they will fall before you by the sword; five of you will chase a hundred, and a hundred of you will chase ten thousand, and your enemies will fall before you by the sword. So I will turn toward you and make you fruitful and multiply you and I will confirm my covenant with you. I will also walk among you and be your God, and you shall be My people."
Proto:
This would apply to the Church if you want to bring it into a modern context...it has to be spiritualized in order to do so. No land, no nation today can claim this Old Covenant agrarian-Iron Age-context covenant form for their own. The typology of the land points to Christ and thus has been fulfilled. The Church inherits these promises, but they are modified since we look not for earthly Canaan, but for the New Heavens and Earth.
And the Church is not limited to a group of Christians from France, Europe, or any other nation or Civilizational grouping. The Church can't take promises for Old Covenant Israel and appropriate them to a modern nation. Only God could do that, but if you understand the message of Galatians and Hebrews.....why would we want Him to do that? Why would we want to go back to type and shadow?
Cronkrite:
Recently, a Christian minister whose work I respect called me to account for condemning Manifest Destiny and the murder of the American Indians. He wrote "Viewing what occurred with the American Indians from Yahweh's sovereignty (thus, His intention, for whatever reason, for them to be either killed and dispossessed), could it be possible that like the Canaanites that the Indians' iniquity had finally gotten to the point that Yahweh unleashed His wrath upon them, providing a homeland for Christianity to (hopefully) flourish?"
Proto:
This minister needs to learn the lesson of Isaiah 10. Yes indeed God in His Providence used Euro-Americans to destroy the American Indians. That does not mean it was right, nor does it mean it was sanctioned. Part of God's plan....ultimately yes, but look at Assyria? They were judged for their wicked actions even when their wicked actions helped to accomplish and serve God's overall plan.
Maybe America's murder of Indians was part of their storing up of Judgment to be unleashed at a later time? How does the minister know? Theological interpretations of history are not wise. We can find comfort in acknowledging God's rule of history, but I would be a little more cautious before I probe the depths of God's Eternal Decree and tell everyone else what was happening.
Bottom line, Cronkrite is right.....Manifest Destiny was geo-political murder and theft. That's what Imperialism is. Just because we don't openly announce The American Empire...doesn't mean that it's not a reality. What is Imperialism? It's not merely some political form...it's an ideology that can be brought about through various means. Politics and military activity are one way....but that's just a start. In our modern and increasingly complex world, Imperialism has also grown more complex.
Cronkrite:
The earth is the Lord's and everything in it. He can do with it as He sees fit. If He decides to wipe out a population and allow His chosen people to occupy their land His action is righteous and He has every right to do so.
Proto:
Chosen people? Is the Church a geo-political entity? Is he only referencing Old Covenant Israel?
Cronkrite:
However, the Old Testament nation God created on the Promised Land was not an imperialistic entity. Its battles resulted from disobedience and were against invaders and indigenous enemies of their own creation. God gave the nation victory and defeat in accordance with the blessing and cursing of obedience and disobedience. He did not order a Babylonian genocide or direct His people to invade the pagan world.
Proto:
I agree. Let's see what he means by pagan world.....
Cronkrite:
Peace is a product of obedience to God's Commandments. God will not fight on the side of those who ignore His Law. Failure to obey results in the transgressor being on the losing side of the conflicts his behavior has created. God may use people and nations that He has not specifically chosen but His dealings with His chosen people are different than with those He has not chosen. Since He gave the Law to Moses as a gift that would make his chosen people superior to their neighbors He still expects His chosen people to obey His Law and when they ignore the Law He ignores their plight and their efforts fail. For decades American Christians have been working to change our political system. They have failed.
God's promise to provide His people with a land of milk and honey and His orders to slay its indigenous population was a unique, one-time event that was not to be repeated. It is our duty to obey God's Law in all of our affairs and to bring to the world the Good News of salvation through Jesus Christ. If we are obedient God will extend His Kingdom and not only our nation but the remainder of the world will be blest.
Proto:
God will extend His Kingdom not only for our nation? Since when is the Kingdom of God tied in with a nation? Herein lies the problem. If you cease to think of your own surrounding society as the pagan world....you're thinking in Sacral terms. If we (nation X) are Christian and everyone else is pagan....the nation X is Sacralized...defined as Holy in terms of culture and mission.
Biblical Christianity divides the world into those who are part of the Kingdom and those who aren't. Those who are part of the Kingdom live in all kingdoms. Nations and kingdoms (little k) have nothing to do with it.
Cronkrite sees so much, but doesn't see that he's still operating in the same box that has led Christians to view their nations....Britain, America, Germany, France, as God's Kingdom on Earth. It's this type of thinking that leads to Manifest Destiny and all the other examples throughout history of the Babel Impulse.
Cronkrite:
Unfortunately, the United States of America has never been a Christian nation. It has never had a Christian government; it has never enjoyed theological agreement or religious unanimity. The seeds of discord were planted in Europe before the major immigration to the New World. When the Constitution was drafted there were Catholics, and various Protestant denominations. The Biblical structure for a Christian nation requires agreement between the people and their leadership to worship the One True God exclusively and obey His Commandments.
Proto:
There NEVER has been a Christian nation anywhere. So for Cronkrite, if we established a religiously unified society in which this unity and confession are codified....all would be well. We just have been Sacral enough!
Aside from the theological problems, this is historically naive. Fallen man, even when redeemed will always betray Christ's Kingdom when he tries to establish it in earthly form.....you never end up with a physical manifestation of Christ's Kingdom....which is impossible apart from the Church....you always end up with Babylon....a pseudo-Zion.
Cronkrite sees the events of the past with greater clarity than most American Christians. Their sentimental commitments blind them to the truth. Cronkrite sees it, but doesn't understand why it happened. He would unwittingly repeat it if his ideas played out.
Cronkrite:
We have always been a nation overwhelmingly populated by professing Christians. But the "Christian" description is misleading because the theological divergence between Catholics and Protestants produces a serious separation which becomes even more serious with the major differences among the various Protestant denominations. These differences are so severe they create different religions which contend with another. At the founding there was more agreement among the nation's leaders over Masonry than there was in the population over Christianity.
Proto:
I can agree with that.
Cronkrite:
Christians are meant to be a privileged people. As He did throughout the Bible, God chooses His people and provides them with His Law so that they might receive blessings far above their pagan neighbors. They are royalty, Heaven bound through the forgiveness provided by God's own Son, and when they have subdued the enemy they are destined to live in peace.
Proto:
The privilege the Bible would teach us...generates a humility and a heavenly mindedness....we're to lay up our treasures there and not be deceived or seduced by what the world offers. What is worldliness? The lust of the flesh, eyes, and the pride of life....
Man covets....he wants what he doesn't have. His refusal to submit to Providence is cosmic treason....he wants to be God....he wants Power, that's what coveting is. This Power can manifest itself in different ways, but throughout the history of the world men have always worked together to build nations to make a name for themselves......and then stab themselves in the back as each tries to climb to the top of the Tower.
All men would subdue their enemies and live in peace (pseudo-Eden/Zion)....but as Christians we have a different understanding of the enemy. We see the nature of evil and the real enemy is spiritual in nature...primarily within, rather than without. We also understand that as pilgrims....there's no peace in this life. All who live in Christ will suffer peace? No, persecution. And that will not change until the Lord returns.
Cronkrite:
Jesus claimed He was not bringing peace but a sword. He was not supporting imperialism but instead a robust proclamation of the Gospel of forgiveness and obedience and a fearless confrontation of the devil's activities along with a stout solution.
For a nation that has never been invaded the United States of America has fought an inordinate number of wars. Some have gained territory but most have caused the premature deaths of millions of people and accomplished nothing.
Proto:
What does robust proclamation of the Gospel mean? I think he's about to tell us.....
Cronkrite:
The theological heresy that contends that God's people must wait for the return of Christ before working to establish His hegemony is as paralyzing as the fixation on the imminent return of Christ.
Proto:
Dominionism....conquering the earth's cultural spheres and institutions. Is he kidding himself? He can't see that everything he condemned in the opening paragraphs stems from Dominionism?
What? All of America's wars stem from theological Dominionism?
Dominionism is the mechanism to produce a Sacral society. Sacralism is the quest to create a Unified Society, a Monism....everything working together in harmony toward the common end. As Verduin points out in The Reformers and their Stepchildren, it didn't originate with the Reformation or with Rome....it's as old as Cain, purely pagan.
As I put it...it's the Babel Impulse. It's man's attempt to define the Kingdom of God in earthly terms and to build it with worldly means. It's man's pride. It's Worldliness manifest.
It's a rejection of Christ's own teachings concerning the nature of His Kingdom.
Dominion was possible in the garden until the First Adam failed. After that came curse. Dominion will only once again be possible under the Second Adam in the new garden (as it were)....the New Heavens and Earth.
We and only we participate in the New Eden, because we're IN Christ. Those who are not believers in union with Him, are not capable of seeing or comprehending the Dominion-realm. It's spiritual and will not become a temporal-physical reality until the Parousia.
Cronkrite:
Christians have been chosen to be warriors for God's Kingdom. Their primary vocation is to extend God's hegemony over His creation by reminding the world of His Law and the blessings of obedience. We must be zealous for a Christian world and we must understand that God will work with us in bringing about that endeavor.
Proto:
We are to proclaim his already existing hegemony....which as I said, will physically manifest itself as Judgment on the Day of the Lord. We don't bring about the post-consummation hegemony, and we can't manifest the Spiritual hegemony.
God rules in terms of Providence....but the Holy Realm is spiritual and will only become physical when Christ returns.
Cronkrite:
A real Christian nation will be blest with peace both within and without.
Proto:
He sees so much....but in the end, totally misses it.
Theology determines how we understand history. We are given general principles. Without additional special revelation, particularized interpretations are speculative at best. The Christian Right builds a whole system based on such speculation. Theology helps us make sense of the world, but in no way can we construct some kind of narrative as to the specifics of God's decree. The interpretations we garner from it are nothing like those we find among the Christian Right. Cronkrite sees that clearly enough and even sees the dangers of this type of theological historiography. Nations like America, believing God is on their side can actually end up justifying murder...not very pro-life is it?
But Cronkrite doesn't understand that the theology he espouses generated the events he condemns.