Why Remember the Armenian Genocide?

“Are you aware that there was an Armenian Genocide?” Five years ago, Zogby pollsters asked Americans that question. Fewer than 35% of the respondents answered “yes.’ Almost half of the respondents were totally unaware, and the rest were unsure. For those of you who know about it, today’s column is a time to remember. For those who have never been told about it, today is a time to learn.

The Genocide took the lives of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians between 1915 and 1923. April 24, 1915 commemorates the day when about 250 Armenian leaders were arrested and taken to a remote prison. There they were executed without trial.

Armenians are an ancient people from eastern Turkey who were converted to Christianity by St. Bartholomew, one of Jesus’ twelve apostles. By 301 A.D., Armenia became the first kingdom in the world to adopt Christianity as its religion. Later, as Islam gained control of the region, a series of treaties allowed Armenia to remain a pocket of Christianity in a Muslim world. By 1555, it was a semi-autonomous state within the Ottoman Empire.

A new era came about in 1908 when the Committee of Union and Progress (the “Young Turks”) came to power in the Ottoman Empire. Many Armenians thought that this would bring them full independence as a nation. The Young Turks had other plans.

Fearing that the Christian Armenians would rebel against the new government, they created an organization of criminal gangs called chetes. At the outbreak of World War I, in August, 1914, they sprang into action.

Within weeks Armenian males between the ages of 20 and 45 were conscripted into the army leaving their homes and families unprotected. A week later 56,000 Turkish troops were garrisoned in Christian schools and churches of the region.

By late September Armenians in the empire were forced to turn in all weapons from firearms to kitchen knives while their Turkish neighbors were armed. Communications with the outside world were cut off. Then the slaughter began.

Bands of chetes began looting, violating women and children and murdering Armenians. Mass public executions of Armenian soldiers, who had been conscripted into the army only months earlier, further terrorized the Armenian population. Over the next several months Armenians who had been deferred in the first draft were conscripted nonetheless. By March of 1915 those Armenians serving in the army were stripped of their weapons and uniforms.

Orders were sent from Constantinople to expel Armenians from any government posts—elected or appointed. The remaining Christian schools and churches were requisitioned as barracks for the Turkish army. The homes of many Armenians, together with horses, carts and other travel equipment were also seized by the army.

The April 24th arrest and subsequent execution of Armenian politicians and intellectuals in Constantinople unleashed the slaughter on an even greater scale. In place after place, community leaders were arrested and executed. Then, the remaining population was rounded up and forced to march to their deaths in the Syrian desert.

While the world was focused on the fighting in Europe, the most ancient Christian people in the world were being systematically exterminated. In eight years, 75% of Christian Armenians were killed, while many thousands were uprooted and scattered. Historians and academic institutions that study genocide have come to a consensus that the systematic massacres and deportations of Armenians from the Ottoman Empire formally constitute the 20th century’s first genocide.

The genocide of the Christian Armenians set a precedent that would soon be followed on an even larger scale by the Nazi regime. A week before invading Poland, Adolph Hitler reportedly told his commanders, “…I put ready my Death's Head units, with the order to kill without pity or mercy all men, women, and children of the Polish race or language. Only thus will we gain the living space that we need. Who still talks nowadays of the extermination of the Armenians?”

Had the world risen in defense of the Armenians, it would have significantly changed the calculus of Hitler and his henchmen. Who knows the lives that might have been saved had the world not turned a blind eye to the treatment of the Armenians?

The extermination of six million Jews in Germany is not adequately answered by the mere condemnation of Hitler and the Nazis. We must look more deeply at the apathy of the world and the evil in every human heart—regardless of ethnicity. Ultimately, the reason to keep alive the memory of the world’s first genocide is to guard ourselves against evil in its every form, against every creed, and in every place.

Bonhoeffer exposed the illusion of neutrality

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was one of the most influential thinkers of the 20th century. He was a bright light in a dark time. Hitler had him executed shortly after his 39th birthday.

On the Sunday after Easter in 1945, a hastily assembled tribunal sentenced him to death. Hours later, in the predawn twilight, soldiers waited at his cell while he finished his prayers and removed his prison clothes. Then they led him to the gallows where he gave his life to the Risen Lord.

Only three weeks later, Hitler would end the war by committing suicide. Allied forces were rapidly approaching Berlin. But the Fuehrer desired his revenge. Bonhoeffer was a co-conspirator in the failed Valkyrie assassination attempt.

Some say that this fact disqualifies Bonhoeffer from the title of martyr. Pastors should not intrude into the political realm, they say. Most especially, they should not take up the sword. But those who say this misjudge both the nature of life and the details of Bonhoeffer’s life.

Other notable German theologians, like Barth and Tillich, abandoned Germany for the safety of Switzerland and America, respectively. Bonhoeffer’s friends advised this, too, and arranged his passage to America. But when Germany made the first moves of war, he knew he could not abandon the German people to the Nazi regime.

“Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act,” said Bonhoeffer. Those who left their posts in Germany to criticize the Nazi regime from afar, gave up their birthright as German citizens. Bonhoeffer did not know what awaited him in Germany, only that he must be within its borders to live out his God-given vocation.

The speech and action that he had in mind was to train Lutheran pastors. However, that door was closed to him when he was conscripted into the Nazi army as an intelligence officer. Unable to escape this calling, his choice was narrowed by God. He could discharge his office faithful to God, or faithful to the Fuehrer.

Nuremberg Trials

Thousands of German officers were grappling with the same choice. Day in and day out, ordinary Germans who had been conscripted into the service of a madman were given hideous orders and forced to choose between God and man. Some disobeyed them and died. Others carried them out claiming the duty of obedience.

Bonhoeffer answered, “If I sit next to a madman as he drives a car into a group of innocent bystanders, I can't, as a Christian, simply wait for the catastrophe, then comfort the wounded and bury the dead. I must try to wrestle the steering wheel out of the hands of the driver.” This led to the choice of his life.

Generals and government ministers who understood their responsibility to wrestle the steering wheel out of the hands of a madman approached Bonhoeffer. They asked him to use his position to query the Allied forces secretly. The German officials wanted him to ask the Allies if they would spare the German people if the officials could remove Hitler from power to end his illegal war.

Simply by asking Bonhoeffer this question, they had placed their lives into his hands. His duty as a Nazi officer was to report this traitorous question to his superior officer. But what was his duty as a human being under God?

What would you do? Would you report the question to your Nazi overlords, or would you join the conspiracy? This stark dilemma is unacceptable to most Americans—as it was unacceptable to most Germans. The modern mind hates binary choices and wants to forge a third path of its own choosing.

Moral relativists pride themselves in avoiding the fray and seeking neutral territory. Bonhoeffer considered this path. Theoretically, he could neither report the question to his Nazi superiors, nor convey the conspirators’ question to the Allied forces. But what at first seems an elegant solution is, in fact, an act of double betrayal.

Merely knowing the existence of the conspiracy already made Bonhoeffer a co-conspirator. Silence would not exonerate him; only revealing the secret could do that. On the other hand, refusing to convey the question to Allied forces would be actively opposing the generals and government officials who had concluded that their duty to the German people required them to use their God-given office in opposition to the evil war.

If you have ever asked yourself how an entire nation could allow the holocaust to happen, you now have the answer. It was enabled by the false belief that neutrality is possible. This justified a million acts of silence and proved Bonhoeffer’s most famous words, “silence in the face of evil is itself evil.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer is a martyr in the pure sense. By his own blood he testified that moral neutrality is illusory. The 75th anniversary of his martyrdom invites us to learn that message anew.

WTE: Love does not require suspending the Constitution

In the COVID-19 crisis, some are calling for “stay-at-home orders.” Desperate times demand desperate measures, they say. So far Governor Gordon has resisted pressure from mayors and interest groups. While strongly urging stay-at-home tactics, he has declined to enforce them at the point of a gun.

He stands with nine Republican governors—and the legislature of Kansas that overturned their governor’s executive order. They all understand that constitutional restraints on government power do not dissolve in desperate times.

Unfortunately, not all in Wyoming have followed the governor’s restraint. Teton County has run roughshod over the Constitution with Public Health Order #20-4. It threatens “criminal prosecution” against any “person or entity” that gathers with even one individual not already “living in the same household.” This violates both the free assembly clause, and the free exercise clause of the First Amendment.

While there are some narrow exceptions for “essential activities,” church is not one of them. This categorical discrimination ignores nuanced differences between religions. While some declared their gatherings non-essential from the start, others disagree with this doctrine and have labored to find responsible ways to carry on their essential work.

Some who want to suspend First Amendment protections are openly hostile to Christianity. Such hostility was on open display in a recent New York Times op-ed that irresponsibly blamed “the religious right” for the entire pandemic.

Others, however, are members of various religions who argue that Christian love for the neighbor requires the suspension of worship gatherings. These deserve a thoughtful answer.

The requirements of neighborly love can be rightly understood only when we understand human need. We must first see that human beings are both corporal and corporate.

A man is more than a mind. Our bodies are a part of who we are, and these bodies are designed to come together. As social beings we live life in groups—families, classrooms and cities. This is easily observed as a universal fact. We should also see it is a necessary fact.

That’s the first rub in our COVID-19 crisis. Epidemiologists want to separate people in order to “slow the spread.” But people are not spread as easily as so many beans on the counter. Human need binds people together. Not mere personal choice.

Social distancing fights against a fundamental force of human nature. The force of law and social shaming can scatter people in the short run. But, like stretching a rubber band, the farther and longer people are separated, the greater is the tension.

The second thing to recognize is that human togetherness is fundamentally life-giving. This principle is turned on its head when people are portrayed as walking petri dishes to be avoided like the plague.

From the first moment of your conception, you depended upon nearness to your mother. At birth you were placed upon her breast. Babies in the NICU thrive by human touch. They waste away without it. Medical professionals have learned the need to find the right balance between a sterile, pathogen-free environment and “risking” the life-giving benefits of human touch.

Balance is the key word. When we talk of personal responsibility to love our neighbor, we can neither command total isolation nor irresponsible contact. If we veer too far toward either pole, we are not helping our neighbors, but harming them.

Human beings are not mere atoms that can be rearranged willy-nilly. When natural bonds are broken and replaced by unnatural ones, individuals and societies suffer. We are seeing this writ large in the treatment of the elderly.

Since the first days of the COVID-19 crisis, nursing homes closed their doors to visitors. Even this drastic measure has not infallibly spared our elderly from infection.

Human contact is always a risk. But it is the risk of love. When we allow nursing home staff to take that risk, but deny it to family, we are making value judgments about the relative worth of natural family bonds. And these judgments are by no means foolproof.

Who is qualified and capable of determining such a delicate balance with absolute certainty? Not even the president’s COVID-19 task force is infallible. This need for balance is why republican governments entrust judgment to those most directly affected by the decision.

Governments that ham-handedly designate liquor stores as “essential businesses” while closing churches as “non-essential” are enough to illustrate the point. Unwittingly, they are establishing a religious doctrine by state authority.

That’s why the First Amendment remains necessary especially in desperate times. Faithful congregants are as capable as anyone of weighing the risks of love and finding a responsible balance.

The free exercise of religion does not conflict with authentic human love but supports and enhances it. We need it now, more than ever.

Also published in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle on April 10, 2020.

Constitution, Church and the COVID-19 crisis

Photo by Travis Grossen, unsplash.com

Teton County’s Public Health Order #20-4 is among the most drastic in the country. It prohibits anyone from gathering who is not already “living in the same household.” It was issued only days after New York City Mayor, Bill DeBlasio, threatened to shutter permanently synagogues and churches that attempted to hold services.

In this context, it can hardly be argued that Teton County accidentally overlooked the constitutional problems that their order presented. Rather, they simply became the latest example of government officials willing to use force to deny the free exercise of religion and the right to assembly.

Of course, COVID-19 presents an unprecedented social crisis. Desperate times demand desperate measures. Many, especially the unchurched, are ready to blame and shame synagogues and churches for jeopardizing at-risk populations by stubbornly refusing to disband. But before we jump on the shame-wagon, let’s use the opportunity for some thoughtful conversation.

In the scramble to distance socially, a trinity of foundational principles is in play. First-Amendment freedoms are up-front and center. These seem in conflict with a second principle, to love your neighbor by social distancing. Last to be considered—if at all—is the corporate and corporal nature of human life.

We should really reverse this order. Before we can rightly weigh personal responsibility and first freedoms, we first need to observe that human beings are both corporal and corporate.

A man is more than a mind. Our bodies are a part of who we are. We are corporal. Furthermore, human beings naturally congregate. We are corporate. Go to any party and watch how people are not evenly distributed. There are knots and clusters of people with empty space between. As social beings we live life in groups—families, crews, classrooms and cities.

Photo by Ryoji Iwata, unplash.com

This is easily observed as a universal fact. But we rarely think of it as a necessary fact. That’s the first rub in our COVID-19 crisis. The concern of epidemiologists is to separate people in order to “slow the spread.” Bean counters can position people on paper exactly six feet apart. But this is not true to real life. The first thing we must do to meet the present crisis is to recognize that we are not merely working against people’s preferences. We are attempting to deny a fundamental force of human nature.

The force of law and social shaming can work in the short run. But, like stretching a rubber band, the farther it is stretched, the greater is the tension. Soon it takes enormous force just to hold people apart.

The second thing to recognize is that human togetherness is not an indifferent matter; it is fundamentally necessary for life. This principle is turned on its head when people are portrayed as walking petri dishes that only transmit diseases and have no positive value.

We readily see that, from the first moment of your life, you depended upon your mother’s womb. Twins in the womb are often found in embrace. Newborns are placed upon the mother's breast. Models that fail to take this into account lose their persuasive value.

NICU nurses know that babies thrive by human touch and waste away without it. They must find the right balance between a sterile, pathogen-free environment and “risking” the life-giving benefits of human touch.

Balance is the key word. When we talk of personal responsibility to love the neighbor, we can neither command total isolation nor irresponsible contact. In today’s climate of Scientism that is hostile both toward God and toward the human soul, the necessity of an ordered, bodily community is under attack.

Such imbalanced Scientism treats human beings as mere atoms that can be arranged and rearranged willy-nilly. Natural relationships are broken, and unnatural ones are imposed. The CDC’s recommendation that newborn children be quarantined from their own mothers is one such extreme example.

At the other end of life, we see an entire class of vulnerable people forced into solitary confinement. Since the earliest days of the COVID-19 crisis, nursing homes have forbidden families from visiting their loved ones. Not only does this mean that parents are dying alone and isolated from children and grandchildren, it also means that they cannot even eat together or visit with friends they have in the care facility.

At what point is the cure worse than the disease? We simply must recognize that there is a sliding scale between responsible bodily contact and irresponsible bodily contact. Both extremes should be avoided.

It is a risk to let any human being have contact with another person. When we allow nursing home staff to take that risk, but deny it to others, we are making value judgments about the relative worth of natural family bonds. And these judgments are by no means foolproof.

We have seen COVID-19 transmitted from patient to nurse and nurse to patient in spite of the most draconian measures. The fact remains that judgments must be made. Risks must be taken. The question is about authority. Who has the perfect judgment? Who has the absolute authority to make these myriad decisions?

That, finally, brings us to the First Amendment. The ideal—the way our social life is supposed to work—is that perfect knowledge of nature and perfect knowledge of God lead each individual to draw the boundary perfectly between responsible and irresponsible use of our bodies. But such utopian idealism is not the world we inhabit.

Through decades of the sexual revolution, authorities throughout the land have dissipated their credibility by assuring society that obviously unhealthy things are perfectly healthy. Not only does no person or institution have a corner on perfect judgment, our entire populace is divided and distrustful of one another.

So, in this divided and distrustful world, we have constitutions and laws that limit any single authority from having absolute power to impose its judgment. This is especially important when it comes to judging which establishments remain open and under what conditions.

Christians have good cause to question a secular government that designates liquor stores as “essential businesses” while closing churches as non-essential. This moral judgment is, in itself, a religious statement. And if the waiting room at the chiropractor has more people per square foot than a church sanctuary, who is being irresponsible?

First-Amendment freedoms to assemble and worship should not be unilaterally revoked if there is a responsible way to exercise them. The Religious Freedom Restoration Act is a good starting place for federal, state and local governments to work with the Church in finding a responsible sweet spot between draconian restrictions and responsible contact.

It seeks a balance between “compelling government interest,” and “least restrictive means.” Certainly, during the COVID-19 crisis, there is a compelling government interest to prevent irresponsible social contact. But is it the least restrictive means when Christians are forbidden to meet even in groups of 10, as the Teton County order dictates?

Responsible government officials will issue guidelines and encourage responsible boundaries while leaving the details to each local establishment. They are already doing this with everything from grocery stores to gas stations. Activities explicitly protected by our constitution should be no exception.

The governors of Michigan, Colorado, Texas and other states have already recognized this constitutional necessity. Teton County should follow them, rather than New York’s mayor.

WTE: Who is worthy of life, and who gets to decide?

Theresa Maria Schindler should be in her 57th year of life. Instead, her cremated remains are buried at Sylvan Abby Memorial Park in Clearwater, Florida. A granite headstone marks the spot.

The epitaph reads, “Schiavo | Theresa Marie | Beloved wife | born December 3, 1963 | Departed this earth | February 25, 1990 | At peace March 31, 2005 | I kept my promise.” These are not the words of her parents. The stone was engraved by her one-time, two-timing husband, Michael Schiavo.

They say that history is written by the victors. Michael Schiavo was, certainly, the legal victor in this case. Theresa was the victim, but not the only one. She was robbed of her life, but her family was also robbed of her life. In fact, we all were.

The epitaph tells Michael Schiavo’s version of history. His claim that she “Departed this earth” on February 25, 1990 refers to the morning that he found his wife lying face-down in the hallway of their home in St. Petersburg, Florida.

When the paramedics arrived, they immediately restarted her heart and respiration. Initially, her breathing was assisted by intubation and a breathing machine. Before long, these were removed, and she could again breathe on her own.

Terri awoke with significant brain damage. Swallowing was difficult, but not impossible. She slept and woke up. She had basic reflexes and was able to open and move her eyes. She could also make noises with her voice and smile. Despite all this, her tombstone claims that she “Departed this earth.”

That claim was never even made until several years had passed. At first, her husband took Terri for experimental rehabilitation. He also filed two medical malpractice suits against her doctors. These worked their way through the courts until the fall of 1992.

Two and a half years after she “Departed this earth,” Michael Schiavo received $300,000, plus a $750,000 trust fund set up for Terri’s ongoing care. At about this same time, he began dating Jodi Centonze. After this, he began withdrawing medical care.

When Terri developed a common urinary tract infection, he directed two different nursing centers to withhold antibiotic treatment. By 1997 he began legal maneuvers to remove food and water.

The world should know two simple facts. First, for more than two years everybody involved in Terri’s care treated her as a living human being who fully occupied planet earth. Second, there was no change in Terri’s status that prompted a change in her treatment. The only discernible changes happened to her husband.

Some doctors claimed that Terri was in a “persistent vegetative state.” Nobody has ever seen a vegetable in a state of wakefulness. Potatoes do not blink and move their eyes. Peas and carrots are not widely known to smile and make vocal sounds.

It is not obvious why “vegetative” is more accurate than “subconscious,” or some other term describing a person who is awake but lacking in typical signs of consciousness. One thing is certain, though, vegetative is an intentionally dehumanizing term.

During Michael’s decade-long fight to kill his wife, he lived with his lover and fathered two children. Since his marriage vows promised “to forsake all others and remain united to her alone,” Terri’s family filed for divorce on her behalf. They hoped this would give them legal guardianship to care for her life.

Even though her court-appointed guardian testified that Michael had a conflict of interest the court denied their petition. That they wanted her to live while he wanted her to die seemed not to matter.

During all this time, Terri was receiving the least-possible care. Yet, her condition was not getting any worse. This is key. Michael’s desire to starve her was not because he saw her health was declining but because he judged her improvement insufficient.

By that brutal measure, who is worthy of life? And who should have the power to decide? Florida’s legal system granted sole power to Michael and denied repeated attempts to give Terri a voice.

Appeals were made from the Florida circuit court to the U.S. Supreme Court. Both the Florida State Legislature and the U.S. Congress passed laws to give Terri a chance. In the end, all that mattered was the opinion of Pinellas-Pasco County Circuit Court Judge, George Greer. On Friday, March 18, 2005 he gave the final directive to remove her feeding tube. Like today, it was the Friday before Good Friday.

Fifteen years ago this week Theresa Maria Schindler succumbed after two weeks of clinging to life. The story of her unwilling starvation dominated the news throughout Holy Week and Easter of 2005. Far from having departed this earth, she was very much present to the end. That is her true epitaph.

Also published in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle on April 3, 2020.