Demonic Control
By Rev. Michael Piazza

On Sunday, June 18, 2006 our guest preacher at Cathedral of Hope was Rev. Peter Johnson. Peter is a true hero of the Civil Rights movement. Although he never achieved the fame of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. or Andrew Young, or even Congressman John Lewis, Peter was one of the young people working in the trenches in the early days. He suffered greatly for the progress that we have made in this country, literally paying for it with his own blood. He has been arrested more than 100 times, attacked by dogs in Birmingham, Alabama, beaten 14 times and hospitalized six times, twice in a coma. As my friend Peter described being struck in the face with the butt of a shotgun by a Louisiana State Trooper, I wondered what kind of demon bigotry would cause people to act so irrationally. Ultimately, it is the demon of fear that is at the root of irrational prejudice. We who are lesbian or gay know that reality. That is why we call it homo-phobia.

Since September 11, 2001, our nation has been in the grip of the demon of fear. I label it demonic because it has taken possession of our souls and caused us to behave in ways that can only be labeled as evil. Under the control of fear, we invaded not one, but two sovereign nations. Iraq had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11, had never attacked us, and posed no threat to us. Without provocation, we let our fear delude us into justifying our invasion. While the whole world is glad to be rid of Sadaam Hussein, I suspect the families of the 100,000 dead in Iraq, and of the 2,500 American soldiers who have died, wish we had found a better way.

Nothing better illustrates the demonic control that fear has had over the American soul than our response, or lack of response, to revelations about torture. While the rest of the world is absolutely outraged, most Americans are, at best, mildly embarrassed. The administration has blatantly ignored, covered up, or rationalized revelations, trusting that our fear will negate any strong reactions. They have exploited our fears to justify disregarding and destroying our values. While there have been a few low level punishments for Abu Ghraib, they have completely ignored that the abuses there were a direct result of a shift, at the very top, in core humane values. A decade ago it would have been unthinkable that the Attorney General of the United States could suggest that our country could ignore certain provisions of the Geneva Conventions. The demon of fear has changed all that.

A recent Slate story broadcast on NPR ended with this conclusion:

It is not true, as many in the Arab world believe, that the United States has embarked on a reckless campaign of torture and abuse of its Arab prisoners of war. But what has happened—a slow slide from coherent, consistent standards for interrogation and treatment of prisoners to a sometimes ad-hoc, occasionally brutal search for information at all costs—should warrant public outcry. That it has not suggests either that this shift doesn't interest us because it affects outsiders, or that we no longer consider torture or near-torture to be beyond the bounds of civil conduct.

How have we become a nation that tortures prisoners? At the very least, how have we become a people who doesn’t care if our leaders torture people? Are we so obsessed with our own safety, so possessed by the demon of fear, that we have allowed it to transform us from people of compassion, integrity and justice into the very people we fear and disdain? That is demonic.

Evil is the source of lies, and it has caused us to believe a number of lies:

• “We aren’t torturing prisoners.” Americans are the only people on the planet who believe that. The rest of the world knows better. Amnesty International calls Guantanamo Bay “the gulag of our day.” Americans are the only ones who are not outraged that the Red Cross isn’t given access to prisoners there. What would we be saying or doing if another country were treating American prisoners in the same way? Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld recently expelled reporters from Guantanamo Bay, leaving me to wonder just what we are hiding or covering up. Of much more significance, though, is the question, “Why don’t we care?”
• “There is a new vast international threat from terrorists.” The truth is that there were no more terrorists in the world on September 12, 2001 (when we began our “war”) than there had been for decades. Almost every objective analysis says that the dramatic increase in the number of terrorists in the world has been the direct result of our invasion of Iraq.
• “We should be afraid.” While the events of 9/11 were horrific, more than 30,000 Americans die of the flu every year; more than 25,000 people die of suicide. This is not to diminish the tragedy of 9/11, but to put in to perspective the irrational fear that resulted. Why all the anxiety and resulting cultural changes, when 40,000 more people died in 2003 from traffic accidents than from terrorist attacks? We have allowed ourselves to be made more afraid than is rational. Because of our fear, we have allowed our country to compromise many of our principles.

The power of a lie is dispelled when it is identified for what it is. We must refuse to live out our fear. We must stop being manipulated, and we must call it out publicly. Talk to your family, friends and co-workers about how irrational this fear that has come to possess our country really is. Complain to the media when they play the fear game. Rebuke our leaders and embarrass them until the demon possessed no longer lead us. Work for traffic safety, a cure for AIDS, or some other cause that really will make you safer. Exorcize the demon of fear by doing what you can to be safe and trusting your life to God. As the Bible says, “If we live we live unto God, and if we die we die unto God. Whether therefore we live or we die, we are God’s.”