Churchgoers have been told they must protect themselves.(Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
Les annonces à la messe ne mettent généralement pas le feu aux poudres, mais le mois dernier, une annonce dans la newsletter de l’église catholique de l’Ascension à Chesterfield, Missouri, a réussi cet exploit. Placée par le paroissien John Ray, l’annonce appelait au recrutement de ‘tous les jeunes hommes de retour dans l’église afin de former une milice’ à la Légion de Sancta Lana. Ceux qui accepteraient l’offre auraient pour tâche de ‘protéger le Saint-Eucharistie, notre congrégation, notre clergé et les terrains de l’église contre les attaques violentes et non violentes’.
Les recrues auraient reçu des cours sur les opérations militaires et le latin – un signifiant politique clair alors que le Vatican tente d’interdire la messe en latin au grand dam des éléments plus conservateurs de l’Église. Le St Louis Post-Dispatch a rapporté que la demande en ligne pour la milice, qui a depuis été retirée et désavouée par l’Ascension, faisait également référence à des ‘pelotons’, des ‘combats corps à corps’ et présentait même un croquis des ‘uniformes blancs éclatants’. Bien que les légionnaires ne serviraient pas de gardes armés à l’église, ils ‘pourraient être appelés par le pasteur de la paroisse à prendre les armes défensivement’ si la congrégation était menacée.
Au milieu de la controverse nationale, Ray est revenu sur son appel aux armes, citant son angoisse face au déclin des congrégations et à la fermeture des églises. Il espérait, a-t-il dit, ‘créer une organisation pour les jeunes hommes pour se pousser mentalement, physiquement’ à travers des pratiques ‘modélisées sur le militaire’. Regrettant l’utilisation du terme ‘milice’, Ray a expliqué que ‘l’état actuel de l’Église en Occident est tout aussi regrettable et je suis sûr que nous pouvons tous convenir que nous sommes dans des temps désespérés’.
Bien que Ray puisse sembler être un excentrique local, son initiative fait en fait partie d’une tendance plus large aux États-Unis. On observe de plus en plus d’églises rassemblant des forces de sécurité armées, décrites de différentes manières comme des ‘ministères de sécurité’ ou, à l’extrémité la plus explicite, offrant une ‘formation de guerrier chrétien’.
Les attaques contre les lieux de culte ne sont pas nouvelles et sont un facteur à prendre compte pas du tout hypothétique même pour la congrégation la plus pacifiste. Historiquement, elles ont été associées à des crimes de haine contre des congrégations protestantes noires, principalement dans le Sud profond, par opposition aux congrégations catholiques riches et majoritairement blanches, comme à Chesterfield. Mais à mesure que la proportion d’Américains s’identifiant comme chrétiens blancs diminue, ils se sentent de plus en plus menacés.
Un rapport sur la violence contre les églises aux États-Unis publié plus tôt cette année par le groupe évangélique le Family Research Council confirme cette angoisse. Il déclare que ‘l’hostilité contre les églises américaines est non seulement en augmentation mais s’accélère également’. Identifiant quelque 436 incidents contre des églises en 2023 – plus du double du nombre en 2022, selon leurs archives, et plus de huit fois le nombre en 2018 – il a averti que ceux-ci sont ‘destructeurs et ont le potentiel d’intimider une communauté religieuse’.
La peur est compréhensible. Malheureusement, cependant, le Family Research Council est loin d’être une source impartiale ou autoritaire. Désigné de manière controversée comme un groupe de haine par le Southern Poverty Law Centre en 2010 pour son hostilité envers les questions LGBT, le Conseil a concédé dans son rapport que ‘les motivations de nombreux de ces incidents restent inconnues’, cependant, il croit que ‘la montée des crimes contre les églises se déroule dans un contexte où la culture américaine semble de plus en plus hostile au christianisme’.
Seulement, il y a un contexte politique plus large : le prétendu déclin de l’Amérique chrétienne blanche. Cette idée est souvent répétée dans certains médias de droite, avec des affirmations que les politiques d’immigration changent la composition raciale et religieuse du pays.
Dans cette optique, le rapport du Family Research Council, bien que largement cité, semble être plus politique que scientifique. Il ne liste pas la méthodologie de ses recherches, ni ne classe les incidents. L’hostilité et la violence perçues sont considérées comme une seule et même chose. Un exemple cité dans le rapport est celui d’un panneau ‘Vote No’ arraché du sol et jeté dans une poubelle à l’extérieur d’une église de Cincinnati, tandis que des incendies aux causes inconnues sont regroupés avec des incendies criminels établis.
Une étude plus crédible de la fondation non partisane A-Mark Foundation a mis la violence dans un meilleur contexte. Ils ont identifié 59 attaques ciblant des fidèles, des membres du clergé ou du personnel dans des lieux de culte de toutes les confessions entre janvier 2012 et décembre 2022. Les fusillades ont causé 74 des 79 décès, tandis que 40% des auteurs souffraient de troubles mentaux.
De plus, le rapport d’A-Mark a révélé que lorsqu’il s’agit de la motivation des attaques contre les lieux de culte, les chrétiens ne sont pas la cible principale. ‘Seulement 18% des attaques visant des lieux de culte chrétiens ou catholiques étaient motivées par la haine raciale, ethnique ou religieuse’, ont déclaré les auteurs, tandis que ‘les attaques visant les lieux de culte juifs (93%) et musulmans (83%) étaient largement motivées par la haine antisémite ou islamophobe’.
Cela ne signifie pas que la peur ressentie par les membres de l’église catholique de l’Ascension, ou de toute autre congrégation chrétienne, n’est pas réelle, mais elle est attisée de manière disproportionnée par les politiciens et les personnalités médiatiques, ainsi que par les organisations de formation à la sécurité des églises à but lucratif.
Le fondateur d’une entreprise dans ce secteur, Dwayne Harris de Full Armor Church Safety Solutions, a déclaré à UnHerd qu’il a lancé la société en 2017 en réponse à ‘certaines incidents qui se produisaient dans l’actualité’ comme la fusillade de l’église de Charleston. Évêque pentecôtiste ordonné et agent de police, Harris affirme que les incidents les plus courants dans les églises impliquent des acteurs solitaires en crise, souvent en raison de problèmes de santé mentale, cependant, il croit que ‘les changements culturels et les tendances vers la violence et la perturbation’ dans la société plus large ont créé un sentiment de peur qui aggrave ces problèmes.
Un concurrent dans le secteur, Joe Puckett de la Church Security Academy, m’a dirigé vers une récente vidéo qu’il a publiée sur YouTube alertant les fidèles américains sur la menace de l’ISIS-K, une branche particulièrement active du de l’État islamique soupçonnée d’être responsable de attaques récentes en Russie et en Afghanistan. Puckett affirme que les églises ont tendance à venir vers lui ‘craignant leur niveau de compétence et comment elles peuvent se défendre’ contre ‘l’attaque traditionnelle du loup solitaire’. Cependant, de plus en plus, il affirme que ‘nous avons peur de certains de ces groupes qui sont ici’ et que ‘il pourrait s’agir de plusieurs personnes qui nous attaquent en même temps’.
Il n’y a aucune preuve que l’ISIS-K, basé en Asie centrale, ait une présence aux États-Unis, cependant, l’idée que des terroristes passent par une frontière sud avec le Mexique non sécurisée est un refrain courant à droite et de la part des politiciens du Parti républicain, y compris Donald Trump.
Le professeur d’études religieuses Matthew D. Taylor à l’Institut des études islamiques, chrétiennes et juives estime que dans certains cercles chrétiens de droite, la création de ce climat d’anxiété aide à justifier les représailles. ‘Les gens se conceptualisent très rarement comme des agresseurs violents’, dit-il. Mais l’écosystème MAGA, explique-t-il, aide à rationaliser le fait de prendre les armes comme une posture défensive, car d’autres groupes représentent une plus grande menace.
Les catholiques et d’autres dénominations sont très attentifs à cette tendance, mais Taylor affirme que cette dynamique est le produit du mouvement charismatique-pentecôtiste connu sous le nom de Nouvelle Réforme Apostolique (NAR), de plus en plus influent au sein du Parti Républicain et comptant Paula White Cain, conseillère spirituelle de Trump, parmi ses membres.
‘Le mouvement NAR est accélérationniste sur le plan spirituel’, affirme Taylor, soutenant que ‘le système actuel est corrompu, faux et démoniaque – et que leurs adversaires sont si totalitaires et tyranniques qu’ils doivent être combattus’. Des influenceurs chrétiens de droite de premier plan aident à traduire ces thèmes politiques en termes spirituels, ‘affirmant que nous avons besoin d’un grand réveil – qui est intrinsèquement politique et de droite dans leur théologie – pour réinitialiser la culture américaine’.
La doctrine critique émergeant du mouvement NAR est le concept de ‘Guerre Spirituelle’. Ici, les ennemis cosmiques sont partout, contribuant à créer un climat de peur et d’hostilité, plaçant les ‘vrais croyants’ sur une posture de guerre permanente. À partir de là, l’idée de créer des milices privées aide les compagnons de route à ‘désinvestir dans le système’, selon Taylor, ce qui risque de susciter des soupçons pour la démocratie américaine.
‘Lorsque vous commencez à dire que nous devons nous protéger physiquement contre nos adversaires politiques, et qu’ils représentent une menace pour notre existence même, il n’y a pas de place pour le compromis’, avertit Taylor. ‘Il n’y a pas de place pour la négociation démocratique si vous prétendez que l’autre camp cherche à vous détruire. C’est la violence tout du long’.
Alors que le climat politique brûlant de l’Amérique entre en collision avec une crise de santé mentale et un accès sans entraves aux armes à feu, l’idée de milices armées d’églises est une phénomène dangereux. Les lieux de culte sont déjà des cibles de violence très médiatisées. Mais un risque plus grand de conflit pourrait cependant venir de l’intérieur. À une époque où de nombreux chrétiens conservateurs ont le sentiment d’être assiégés par le monde séculier et libéral qui les entoure, prendre les armes pourrait sembler être leur seule protection.
Elle Hardy is a freelance journalist who’s reported from North Korea and the former Soviet Union. She is the author of Beyond Belief: How Pentecostal Christianity Is Taking Over the World.
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SubscribeThese movements all seem to have had a negative impact. Some people who once felt totally comfortable around black people are now censoring their speech for fear of causing offense or confusion. The same is true of LGBT. And some other people have gone down the route of treating anyone with dark skin or non-heterosexual leanings as either special needs (how condescending) or as a minor celebrity. The latter seems to be particularly true for trans people, who are now rarely treat is just normal folk, but some kind of local royalty.
Bring back the days where we treat women, darker skinned folk and LGBT people as just ordinary folk, who deserved just as much respect as everyone else, no matter what their perceived differences might, or might not be.
I agree. The problem is less with the #MeToo movement and more with Identity Politics.
Mob movements nearly always make things worse. MeToo, BLM, Trans lunacy… all based on mob psychology.
I saw a great poem a while back but never saved the link. It went something like:
“I hardly noticed the colour of your skin before you called me racist.
I had collaborated with women for years until you called me sexist.”
etc
Anyone know this poem?
Or it my just have opened our eyes to problems we were all pretending not to see for fear of fear of the being branded racist etc. but which we now know there is no hiding from.
Them bears are at it in the woods again.
Yes, women (and minors) have been handed power to destroy your reputation and career, if fact your life. Spite is quite common in both groups and poses a real threat. Extra precautions with them are necessary: social distancing avoiding physical contact: never meet in private without cctv: never meet outside work: record all conversations: these are some of the measures which will help clear you during investigations or Law. However, when you are found not guilty, “believe everything they say” and “no smoke without fire” will still finish you off … so complete avoidance is prudent.
As a Cub Scout helper I once helped up a kid who had fallen over and was told I shouldn’t do that by a female colleague – who proceeded to cuddle the kid.
The demonisation of men.
I’m not entirely against the #MeToo movement, as it exposed a horrible injustice that was being perpetuated against women that was not contained by ideological boundaries. However, it certainly was used as cudgel, unjustly, more than a few times, especially by the Left (i.e. Justice Bret Kavanaugh and President Donald Trump). In my opinion, using the suffering of women as a political devise to “cancel” individuals who do not agree with the Left’s ideology is a second and maybe more severe injustice against those same women.
This seems to go along with a strange trend in the modern Left to denigrate women across the board, such as forcing women collegiate athletes to compete and lose to biological men, or trying to eliminate the word “mother” from our vocabulary and consciousness, and finally to not being able to define what a woman is at all. Is there dignity to being a mother? The Left doesn’t appear to believe so. When did that happen, and why? How can you respect, honor, and grant dignity to a woman if you can’t say anyone is a woman (unless, of course, you are biologist!)? When did the Left decide there was no room in our collective social discussion for women?
It seems that feminism has lost the good fight if “feminism” can be boiled down to just one issue–abortion access–and “feminism” can no longer speak about what it means to be a woman.
It could be because the two key goals in Marx’s The Communist Manifesto are:
destroy private property
destroy the bourgeois family.
By denying sex differences and encouraging women to behave more and more like men you get more workers and you destroy the family.
It’s been quite successful so far.
https://thecritic.co.uk/the-false-choice-of-feminism/
Spot on.
Though I think it is heartening that the seismic disruptions of #MeToo and BLM have had the positive effect of unearthing the thoroughly diseased roots of Marxism in our institutions — particularly the schools and universities although they are everywhere.
It only remains for us to get our intellectual rotavators in to them — and fast.
Office rules for men who want to avoid being used as a stepping stone to a harassment payout are well known:
•If a woman enters your office, move the meeting to a communal area
•Do not be alone with a woman during work
•Always have a chaperone in meetings with females
•Do not mentor women
•Do not meet with a female colleague outside of work
•Do not go for drinks, lunch or dinner with female colleagues
•Do not enter a lift if the only other passenger is a woman
•Whenever possible, senior male managers should record all meetings with females
•Do not compliment women, especially on clothing
•Never touch a woman
The ‘Graham-Pence’ rule is vindicted.
There was no “horrible injustice” being perpetuated against women. Other than certain industries like movie making (where also it was a mix between predatory men and women encouraging them to advance their career), in most workplaces most men couldn’t care less about harassing or sexually targeting women. There are a very few exceptions – but they are usually high ranking sleazeballs and they are still as untouchable as ever, metoo notwithstanding.
The bigger issue though is, like a lot else with “modern” women, is that they think they don’t need to change. In this case, most women still think men must initiate and approach, and women can, at their whim and fancy, soak up attention or scream about harassment (for approaches which, if done by a rich guy, would suddenly be perfectly acceptable)
Personally, I stopped meeting one-on-one with women after learning how several prominent men had be blackmailed by women threatening false accusations
There have been several reports of so-called “honey trap” plots to make false accusations against high profile men: for example Eric Raymond and Linus Torvalds.
Based on his findings, Raymond posted the following warning on his blog:
“The short version is: if you are any kind of open-source leader or senior figure who is male, do not be alone with any female, ever, at a technical conference. Try to avoid even being alone, ever, because there is a chance that a ‘women in tech’ advocacy group is going to try to collect your scalp.”
In the case of Linus Torvalds, the inventor of Linux, the plot involved two women as Linus had already stopped meeting one-on-one with women. Evidently the women thought he might think himself safe and agree to a meeting if it was with more than one woman. Plus, if they both accused him of inappropriate behaviour they were more likely to be believed. Evidently they revealed too much about their plan before the meeting and Linus was forewarned.
I vaguely remember those doings, and it far preceded #MeToo. It was many years ago that Linus only attended tech conferences with a ‘posse’, to ensure he was never alone.
The defensive measures in business/office environs, as mentioned by other commenters, had also been in effect considerably prior to #MeToo.
Rather ironic that the ‘intellectuals’ of the academy have only just cottoned on!
You’re correct that the honey traps were underway prior to the full force of MeToo but there is considerable overlap and interaction between them.
Raymond’s blog post, which included a mention about the issue Linus was dealing with was in November 2015.
Tarana Burke, a feminist activist, first used the phrase “Me Too” in 2006. Alyssa Milano’s tweet encouraging followers to use the #MeToo hashtag was in 2017.
Henry Hazlett describes economics is the art of “seeing the unseen”, and economists pride themselves on thinking through unintended consequences in bad incentives. And this profession is surprised that when men are routinely pilloried by women who claim sexual harassment, other men would decide not to collaborate with women? Talk about ironic.
There were some people who actually raised this possibility when MeToo started 4 years ago. We were called sexists, Nazis, bigots, rape apologists, and all the other names the Left uses to stifle their opposition. And as usual, when it turns out we were right, there will be no apology, only more criticism of sexist men who refuse to collaborate with women because they hate them. The Left really is a broken record.
Why is everything always about women?
I remember when everyone seemed to pillory an ha-ha Mike Pence for upholding the Billy Graham Rule. It will hold back women in their professional political careers, everyone cried. Now people seem to be inadvertently following the Billy Graham rule because of MeToo and wondering why women are being held back in their political careers!
Never mind that all you need to do to be scrupulous about these things is to prop the door open, or install CCTV.
It is absolutely obvious to me, a flip in the endless human game to date, of males chasing females, is coming. Perhaps a decade or so away. Technology and demographics. And a more bizarre thing I cannot imagine. Because the biological aesthetics of attraction have not (yet) changed, so what form this takes is anyones guess.
The obvious conclusion of the decline in marriage and the explosion in short term hook-ups is that the sexual marketplace will become totally dominant. Legalised prostitution is ultimately inevitable.
This is an extremely interesting question that few are asking. The fact is, women aren’t just competing with each other. What happens when the modern independent woman discovers her mating pool consists mostly of porn addicted males (“man” is no the correct term in this case) and she has to compete with a custom made virtual, AI “girlfriend”?
In basic neurological wiring, men care mostly about sex and women care mostly about babies. This doesn’t mean men don’t care about children or women about sex, but in the aggregate, these stereotypes do hold — regular Internet porn watchers are 90% male. A consistent number of women chasing a shrinking number of men does not bode well for the women long term.
Women don’t need men any longer except possibly fleetingly to get pregnant.
State handouts to replace a husband’s wage and the state replacement of mothers with professional carers…. no incentive to bother with an inconvenient partner.
Depends on what it meant by “need”. The partnership between the brains of the two sexes complement each other and feed satisfaction rewards.
Financially, you are arguably correct (at least at the lower end of the economic ladder.) But I don’t think anyone would say that broad single-motherhood is beneficial to women (most of whom want close relationships with their children) or to children (who need fathers) or to society (who need a functional next generation).
The catch here is, those state handouts are funded primarily by “patriarchal” breadwinner males slogging away to provide for their families, paying maybe half in tax to support “independent” single mothers (and simultaneously doing a lot of jobs such as logistics, industry, mining where women don’t seem keen on “equity”).
When those men check out, they also don’t need to do those jobs. Who will pay taxes and who will drive trucks? Not women, for sure.
Is anyone surprised?
If anything I say (or don’t say)…if anything I do (or don’t do)…if the simplest and most innocuous of things (or imagined things) can be ‘held against me’ — NOT in a court of law but a hearing with the Vice Chancellor of Title IX or my local HR Director — if my entire career can be washed away by a flood of accusations (right or wrong, it doesn’t matter) why why why why would I deliberate and consciously increase that crash & burn risk by associating with the very people who have the power to crush me?
I wouldn’t.
No one would.
If you’ve seen your friends & colleagues walk into the woods and come back bloody from a bear attack (those that come back at all), would you really, tomorrow, go romping into those same woods, whistling while you work?
The ridiculous Mike Pence Practice of never dining alone with a woman…which initially sounded like something from a bad SNL skit (is there any other kind these days) now begins to sound like the sanest voice of reason. Leadership Training’s new chapter is how to find and safely use witnesses when meeting with members of protected classes.
No one should be surprised that eventually we all learn the lessons being taught.
It is a general ethnocentric-driven misunderstanding in the West that separate male and female institutions were the result of patriarchal oppression. It should be clear by now that they are as much driven by women’s wish to be removed from what they perceive as “male toxicity.”
I’m not in the academic world, but I am in corporate. I’m responsible for people. I do not initiate any conversation with any woman in the workplace. If they need something having to do with work, they will find me. I will be polite and professional. If I have to have a meeting with an individual, I always invite a third party. I never have any one-on-one conversations with anyone. I’m too far in my career to have someone derail it at this point.
-I am male, and heterosexual.
-I did not vote for Donald Trump.
-I am not white.
This whole thing is complicated.
The vast majority of women are NOT academics, and are much more concerned about being able to work and live their lives without being sexually assaulted.
This essay illustrates the problem with the domination of journalism by the professional class.
Most poor and working class women are far more concerned about being safe from sexual violence and harassment than they are about getting tenure or the corner office.
If women in the corporate and academic worlds think it’s worth getting groped and bullied to advance their careers, good for them.
Most women just want to be able to do their jobs without the boss grabbing their breasts and whispering lewd propositions into their ears.
This article makes ridiculous and extremely classist assumptions.
How so? It’s a short article about how women in universities have been negatively affected by the self censoring of some men who are fearful of working with them in case something they say or do is misconstrued. It wasn’t referring to every work situation as that would have ended up with it becoming vague and rambling.
I think groping and more was exceedingly rare in all my work situations. Seems more related to the power proposition where the woman needed to allow abuse because she wanted something only he could give. She was powerless to take the expected actions of correction – a strong no and/or a slap. But now that boss has become an ordinary male being accused of something he may or may not have done.
“Most poor and working class women are far more concerned about being safe from sexual violence and harassment”
And how many of the metoo cases were from help poor, working class women?
And as for “do their jobs without the boss grabbing their breasts and whispering lewd propositions”…
Sad to say, real life is not exactly the same as 50 shades. Most men are more bothered about their football club than their co workers dubious “assets”
I find this general casting of poor and working class women as timid and helpless quite ludicrous.
All the poor and working class women workers I have known and worked with have been pretty tough and capable of standing up for their rights. The older ones know how to deal with Handy Andys and teach the younger ones. Not only that but they can be lechers themselves. It is far from unknown for inexperienced young men to have to cope with being grabbed by teasing women.
The full on #MeToo wave was an hysterical reaction to the The Handmaid’s Tale TV series which came out just a few months before, imo. It even managed to find a man victim to tear to pieces (symbolically) as happens in the book.
Agrees entirely with my experience. Reality never reflects the theory
“Most women just want to be able to do their jobs without the boss grabbing their breasts and whispering lewd propositions into their ears.”
Oh, really? In my 36-year career I never encountered a single instance in which a male colleague behaved in this way. Such behaviour may have occurred, but rarely. My male colleagues were generally terrified of being accused of sexism or worse and avoided behaviours that would have compromised their integrity – and this decades before #MeToo arrived on the scene.
However, I was aware of several instances where female workers sought to entrap male managers and destroy their careers with false allegations of sexual harassment/misconduct, none of which succeeded but which caused deep mental trauma.
Almost without exception the men I worked with were decent, honourable people who respected their female colleagues and treated them as equals. Sweeping statements like this seek to denigrate men collectively and add nothing of merit to a discussion.