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Ann Coulter Reveals Her Shriveled Soul
In a recent interview with David Deutsch, Ann Coulter revealed a form of Anti-Semitism that she shares with a number of Christians--in particular, those of the Evangelical stripe. Without querying too deeply into Ann's professed commitment to some brand of Christianity--she is, after all, hardly the paragon of virtuous empathy for the downtrodden--Ms. Coulter has shown the ugly face of religious extremism by clarifying her agreement with one side of an ancient debate about how Christianity ought to view Judaism.
As many know (except perhaps a substantial number of fundamentalist christians), the historical Jesus was jewish. It was his followers--perhaps principally Saul of Tarsus (later, Paul)--who established christianity (in a wide variety of forms) as a separate religion. At the time, one of the many doctrinal controversies was whether a convert first had to become Jewish in order to become a Christian. Interestingly, this was a very problematic doctrine to hold if the church was to grow because of the simple fact that most non-Jews were not circumcised. Therefore, if a man was interested in joining the christian religion and the "must first convert to Judaism" doctrine held sway, he would have to be circumcised: not a very pleasant prospect for any man at any time, but it is easy to imagine the much less pleasant outcomes of such an operation in the days prior to our current advanced practices with anaesthesia and sterile surgical practices.
For Saul of Tarsus, once he had his "revelation" and converted, this was a major theological impediment to proselytizing successfully to Gentiles. Thus, he argued forcefully that no such conversion to Judaism was necessary, but rather that conversion to Christianity was a matter of faith, or proper belief. The First Council of Jerusalem issued an edict supporting Paul's position that circumcision was not necessary. (Later, the Catholic Church banned the practice at the Council of Florence in 1442, in response to continuing practice by the Coptic Church.) Coupled with the existing Roman bureaucracy, Paul was able to snuff out numerous branches of the budding religion in favor of a centralized church in Rome. Eventually, Roman authority was cemented in the canonization of the New Testament at the Council of Nicaea. The rest, of course, is history--which ironically includes the Protestant Reformation and the diverse versions of Christianity that arose from that split: many protestants also seem to believe that somehow Catholics aren't really "christians". A twisted web, to say the least.
But back to Ms. Coulter: her statements reflect some doctrinal practices and beliefs of some Christians that arose out of this ancient controversy--namely, that Jews are somehow "imperfect Christians", as ridiculous as that sounds, given the history of the multitude of religious practices and beliefs that now constitute the supposedly uniform "Christianity". (See this link for a timeline of Catholic antisemitism, for example.) At worst, you see word and deed manifested in the ancient "blood libel" that the Jews were somehow responsible for Jesus' death. Again, a ridiculous notion, not grounded in fact, but rather religio-racial hatred and xenophobia.
As Deutsch duly notes (perhaps inaccurately, since a horse led to water cannot be made to drink), Ms. Coulter is "educated" and should easily be able to discern the hatefulness and perversity of such an opinion. Yet, of course, as an attention whore such hatefulness and perversity is her stock in trade, allowing her to connect viscerally to those less "educated" and more likely to harbor twisted, irrational emotional biases, hate and rage. "Official" "christian" doctrines of the sort to which she alludes serve only to place a patina of apparent respectibility to the perverse motivations and desires underlying the position she takes.
The bottom line, laid bare for all to see, is the perversity, intolerance and nakedly blindered ambition underlying any religion that proselytizes, in this case, some form of Christianity. The fact that the realization of such an ambition somehow makes things "easier" is lame at best, and bloodthirsty at worst. Given Ms. Coulter's prior inclinations to kill and destroy those whom do not share her beliefs, it's hard to see how her current diatribe is simply lame: rather, it would hardly be surprising to hear her call for reinstitution of the auto de fe for nonbelievers.