Christian Book On Manly Aggression Inspires Violent Mexican Fundamentalist Narco-Cult

[Joanne98]

"My boys chew their graham crackers into the shape of handguns at the breakfast table." - John Eldredge, from Wild At Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man's Soul


What if your million copy-plus bestselling inspirational book calling on men to act more manly, aggressive, even violent became a key source of inspiration for a ruthless cultic Christian paramilitary fundamentalist crime syndicate that controls most of the Crystal Meth traffic in the US and is fond of tossing severed heads into Mexican discos ? You'd probably feel awful. Or at least a bit embarrassed. As a June 25th column in the Colorado Springs Gazette that sounds like it could have been written by satirists from The Onion, Local Christian author laments popularity of his book among ruthless Mexican gang, (the post has since been re-titled, to the milder "Mexican drug cartel co-opts Springs writer’s message") notes, "Writers can't control how readers interpret the words they write." Very true. But has La Familia really "co-opted" John Eldredge's paean to the glory of male aggression ?

We'll have a look at the book in question, Wild At Heart, by John Eldredge, in a moment. But first, a bit about the ruthless cultic Christian paramilitary fundamentalist crime syndicate fond of tossing severed heads into Mexican discos.

As Tim Johnson details, in a recent McClatchy News/Seattle Times story that's helped put La Familia back in the spotlight this summer, La Familia leader Nazario Moreno just came out with a 104 page booklet, Thoughts, with advice such as, "If you want to say 'I love you!' to those who surround you and to your friends, say it today." It's like a Hallmark card but, as Johnson details, a little incongruous too:



http://www.talk2action.org/story/2010/6/28/184759/709/Front_Page/Christian_Book_On_Manly_Aggression_Inspires_Violent_Mexican_Fundamentalist_Narco_Cult

Brewer Falsely Claimed Immigrants Beheaded People In Arizona (VIDEO)

When defending her highly criticized immigration law, Gov. Jan Brewer (R) often lists the myriad problems she says undocumented immigrants bring to her state. In an interview on Fox News last week, for example, she claimed: "We cannot afford all this illegal immigration and everything that comes with it, everything from the crime and to the drugs and the kidnappings and the extortion and the beheadings ..."

There's no better way, it seems, to make the case for strict anti-immigration laws than to claim that undocumented immigrants are pouring into the country to decapitate innocent Americans.

Brewer nonetheless stuck by the claim that undocumented immigrants are murdering Arizonans when asked about it last weekend on a local Arizona political show.

"Our law enforcement agencies have found bodies in the desert, either buried or just lying out there, that have been beheaded," she said.
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/07/brewer_claims_illegals_are_beheading_people_in_the.php?ref=fpa

Mystery solved. THE CHRISTIANS DID IT!

[rpannier]

1. Thanks for posting this

I have posted an article or two on this group but I never knew where they got their 'inspiration' to be a fundamentalist Christian group that ruled the crystal meth trade

Thanks much
Now I know

[zabet]

2. How is an author

supposed to control how a reader interprets and uses what the author has written? Not really possible.

[Dogmudgeon]

3. I actually read that book

Mein Kampf it ain't.

A client of mine insisted I read it. It wasn't a very weighty tome, and I was able to read it in about an hour. It's actually an okay read, providing you don't take it seriously, and can tolerate the constant "Jeezing" (gratuitous fundamentalist word-diarrhea). It's Christianized New Male pop-psych, "Iron John, Matthew, Mark, and Luke". When I say it's "actually an okay read", I mean that it does contain the little epigrams that sell most self-help books, but there's no incitement to rape, murder, pillage, or spank your children. There is a lot of whining about absent Fathers and the crying (actual crying) need for Spiritual Initiation. And Eldredge likes to quote Jackson Browne. It's a Sensitive-New-Age-Guy book for the Ned Flanderses of the world.

How it was turned into the inspiration for a vicious "narco-cult" is a head-shaker. It's like if the Klan decided to make Hello Kitty their mascot. Which I suppose is how The Onion picked up on it.

Men in Western society actually do need to rediscover "manliness", while leaving sexism and chauvinism behind. Books like Wild At Heart serve (or should that be "pander to"?) that need. A great many criminals take up violence precisely because they don't "know how to be a man", and all the New Male books at Amazon.com can't change that.

Taking a stand against violence and thuggery is, in my mind, a Manly act. It's a shame that ideas like that one don't get as wide circulation as "kick ass and gloat with your buds at the cigar bar".

--d!

[DirkGently]

4. Jesus.

Couldn't get the first link to work. Here's another:

In “Wild at Heart,” Eldredge writes of men’s innate love of weapons, combat and hunting.
“Aggression is part of the masculine design; we are hardwired for it,” he writes. “If we believe that man is made in the image of God, then we would do well to remember that ‘the Lord is a warrior (Exodus 15:3).’”

Read more:
http://www.gazette.com/articles/writers-100813-local-author.html#ixzz0sX3yHBTi

Sounds like Mr. Eldredge has neatly embodied the contradiction between American fundamentalist Christianity and the actual teachings of Jesus. In other words, be selfish and angry and combative, but give lip service to "love thy neighbor," then claim moral superiority and run away. I'd say he and La Familia are very much on the same page, whether he chooses to acknowledge it or not.

Good find.

[burnsei sensei]

5. And while "the Lord is a warrior"

is on our minds, let's remember that that comes from the Old Testament, not the New.
When Miriam sings "the Lord is a warrior," she also sings next "Yaweh is his name."
The lord was very different in her eyes.
A typological reading, if it takes no account of history, will lead to fanaticism.

[DirkGently]

6. This is a large part of my beef with Christian politics in the U.S.

To be clear, I'm a non-believer, but I have no quibble with the core philosophy Jesus put forward, which to me is suprisingly Eastern -- almost Buddhist, e.g. "Do unto others ..." which is the embodiment of empathy. And yet "empathy" is now openly attacked by "Christian" fundamentalist groups and similar factions in U.S. They give lip-service to Jesus, but actually reject his almost startlingly peaceful teachings, and hew to the much more vindictive and violent God of the Old Testament.

I'd love to see American Christians embrace what Jesus actually said and did, but it seems that the ones claiming their Christianity the loudest are actually contemptuous of every single thing he stood for, save the supposed condemnation of homosexuality.

[burnsei sensei]

7. I agree that those who doth protest too much

are those you should suspect the most of having lax faith.
The condemnation of homosexuality is said to be scripturally based, but the fact is that it is a free choice once you get to the implications of the New Testament.
I consider the condemnation of homosexuality and the persecution of homosexuals to be anti-humanistic, and an anti-humanistic or even non-humanistic Christianity is corrupt.