22AR27-14

( - previous issue - / - next issue - )

pdf = www.bit.ly/37Irvuu

AR 27:14 - Defeat confusion. Pursue truth. Follow Christ.

In this issue:

ANTIFA - observations from "the top of Antifa's most-wanted list"

BIAS - a study in media conflicts of interest and its vanishing trustworthiness

Apologia Report 27:14 (1,567)
April 13, 2022

ANTIFA
If you ask the average evangelical if they think Antifa is a cult, you will probably get more agreement than not. Kyle Shideler's review of Unmasked, by Andy Ngo (Claremont Review of Books, Sum '21), may help to clarify your thinking on the matter.

Shideler (director and senior analyst, Homeland Security and Counterterrorism at the Center for Security Policy, <centerforsecuritypolicy.org>) opens by describing Ngo: "I found it hard to conceive that this short-statured, soft-spoken son of Vietnamese refugees was Antifa's public enemy #1. ...

"Ngo serves as editor-at-large of the popular conservative website the Post Millennial. For merely daring to walk among Antifa's apparatchiks as they brutalize Americans, and for putting the carnage on film, Ngo has been doxxed, harassed, threatened with death, and viciously assaulted. One attack left him with a serious brain injury. ... Yet for all this, he has never so much as lost his temper. He remains quietly resilient, refusing to indulge in open hatred toward the violent thugs who have persistently tormented him. Instead, he is simply determined to inform the public, using documentary evidence, about what Antifa really is. That is the one thing these black-clad anarchists cannot abide.

"In his new book, Unmasked: Inside Antifa's Radical Plan to Destroy Democracy, Ngo hopes to show the wider world what he has uncovered about Antifa, and at what cost. This is a careful exposé, illustrated with photos and research from the author's own reporting."

Shideler reports that Ngo finds "many Republicans and conservatives are also unwilling to face the situation head-on. Some on the Right mock Antifa rioters as degenerate 'soyboys' who would be easily dispatched if law enforcement were allowed to do their job. Still others seem to attribute to Antifa capabilities more analogous to those of the feudal Japanese ninja - able to be anywhere and accomplish almost any act of violence or sabotage."

In Ngo's basic history of the movement we learn that "Antifa originated in street clashes between Communists and fascists in mainland Europe. ... Ngo explains, the 'anti-fascists' helped perpetuate the revolutionary chaos through which the Nazi Party would eventually march to power. ...

"But the group would reemerge after the war, only to be subsumed into the East German state as part of its official enforcement apparatus. ... The East German Stasi also promoted 'anti-fascist' movements in West Germany, giving rise to several of the urban Communist organizations of the 1970s. ... In Britain, a copycat group, Anti-Fascist Action, joined forces with punk rockers in their street battles....

Shideler adds additional content of interest that is not included in Unmasked. First, "in 1980s Germany, Antifa honed new tactics as it took part in clashes between police and student squatters." The German experience gave birth to "the pioneers of the now-infamous 'black bloc' street-fighting tactics, in which rebels would block off and then passionately defend their self-styled 'autonomous zones.' Black bloc action remains the basis for Antifa's modern campaigns....

"One of the last groups to continue the fight was the May 19th Communist Organization, a radical feminist-led collective which robbed banks and planted bombs in cooperation with the Black Liberation Army and Puerto Rican Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional (FALN) in the early 1980s.

"The May 19th Communist Organization and its front group, the John Brown Anti-Klan Committee (JBAKC), played not merely a theoretical but an operational role in the creation of modern Antifa. ... Susan Rosenberg, a JBAKC co-founder and convicted May 19th terrorist, had her sentence commuted by President Bill Clinton to time already served and sits on the board of Thousand Currents, the group which handled fundraising for the Black Lives Matter movement. ...

"Describing the political atmosphere of CHAZ [Antifa's notorious Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone in downtown Seattle], Ngo writes: ... As leftward as the Democrats have swung in reaction to Trump, the party is still viewed as too moderate for the revolutionaries who want the abolishment of police, capitalism and the United States itself.

"Antifa's members view the entire American system and way of life as evils to be destroyed. ... 'Now, not only are large factions of the left sympathetic to antifa violence,' writes Ngo, 'some are actively working to suppress their opponents through getting corporate businesses and Big Tech to ban them.' The Left's reception of Unmasked has proven his point: anyone who dares express an interest in hearing what Ngo might have to say has been demonized.' ...

It is perhaps one of life's ironies that Andy Ngo finds himself facing off against the ideological descendants of the very Communists who forced his family to flee Vietnam mere decades ago. [Ngo] is defending the America his parents fought so hard to reach. ... Ngo is heartbroken to see those values under siege: he is trying, desperately, to shake Americans out of their complacency and warn them of what happens when fanatical groups like Antifa are allowed to take control."

Shideler closes: "Unmasked is successful at achieving the very thing that earned Ngo his position at the top of Antifa's most wanted list. He fairly reports the truth about Antifa and their violence, with evidence from the ground. Whenever possible, he names names. That does indeed make him a brave man." <www.bit.ly/3NrkzlP>

While I’ve (RP) only just started to read Unmasked myself, I can confidently say that it will help its readers defeat confusion.

---

POLITICS

"On January 6, 2021 ... I received an email from a freelance journalist who was writing a story about 'Christian imagery used by the protesters who stormed the Capitol building today.' She sent me five images to review....

"I reviewed videos of the attack and numerous photographs. ... I cautioned the reporter, who was writing for the progressive Christian magazine Sojourners <sojo.net>, that she should be careful not to make too much of the few Christian images she had sent me. She ignored my warning and published an article about how Christian nationalists had attacked the Capitol. It featured three photographs containing religious images and words, none of which were from the assault on the Capitol."

So begins Mark David Hall, a historian at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and Herbert Hoover Distinguished Professor of Politics at George Fox University. He includes another related example of biased reporting and emphasizes: "Christian nationalism, as defined by its critics, is an ugly phenomenon."

He also considers the definition of Christian nationalism in the book <www.bit.ly/3tK3ThM> by Andrew Whitehead and Samuel Perry, Taking America Back for God, concluding that "If we accept this definition, Christians must soundly reject Christian nationalism."

Then he advises that "there are very good reasons to question [Whitehead and Perry's] calculation that 51.9 percent of Americans are Christian nationalists."

The Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Freedom (BJC) and the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) "believe that church and state must be strictly separated and that religion must be scrubbed from the public square. ...

"Reasonable people can disagree about whether a Star of David should be in a public monument, but there is no reason to think supporters of such monuments are racists, sexists, nativists, etc. - or even that they are improperly conflating God and country. ...

"Which brings us to David French. French recently published an essay <www.bit.ly/3LjkPBy> on the dangers of Christian nationalism in American churches. To document how widespread and dangerous Christian nationalism is, he provides links to both the BJC/FFRF report <www.bit.ly/3LlHblV> and Whitehead and Perry's book. Ironically, both works suggest that French is a Christian nationalist.

"Among the myriad of silly claims in the BJC/FFRF report is Andrew Seidel's charge that the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) is 'a Christian nationalist legal organization.' If ADF is a Christian nationalist organization, it would presumably be staffed by Christian nationalists. Because David French once worked for ADF, and because he continues to hold views about religious liberty and church-state relations similar to ADF's, we might reasonably conclude that he is a Christian nationalist. ...

"David French is not a Christian nationalist in any meaningful sense of the phrase. Any set of measures that classifies him as such should be treated with caution. ...

"To call the Alliance Defending Freedom a 'Christian nationalist legal organization' is simply ridiculous. ...

His conclusion regarding Christian nationalists: "the phrase has become meaningless.

"Christian nationalism is a thing, but it is not the thing many of its critics describe. Christians concerned about Christian nationalism should be wary...." Providence, Mar 3 '22, <www.bit.ly/35lHOwC>

We included this item not so much to encourage your reading of another book as much as your reading Hall’s article for yourself. We believe it may well help you in the pursuit of truth.

Last minute addition: Also see "Two insiders' writings should be weighed carefully by evangelical-watchers in the press" by Richard Ostling (GetReligion, March 3, 2022) <www.bit.ly/37HtLSW>

( - previous issue - / - next issue - )