Jerry M. Lewis’ Speech about the Kent State Shootings

Today is the 41^st anniversary of the shootings at Kent State University, when members of the Ohio National Guard fired more than 60 rifle bullets at a group of students demonstrating against the American assault in Cambodia. Four students were killed and nine were injured, some very seriously. Some of the students were not even involved in the demonstration and were merely caught in the crossfire.

Retired Kent State Professor Jerry M. Lewis spoke on campus today to commemorate the shootings, to which he was an eyewitness. Like all good ceremonial (or epideictic) speakers, Lewis did not merely honor the fallen, but also drew important lessons from the tragic events. Indeed, he had two lessons to convey, both worth remembering.

First, he reminded his audience that being a social activist carries risks:

“People get hurt. People die. A student shouldn’t become an activist for marijuana rights, women’s rights, voting rights, unless they are willing to take risks.” 

He continued: 

"Students who enter into activism without being aware of those risks are in danger, and it’s our responsibility as teachers to prepare them for those risks.”

That’s an important point. People sometimes think about demonstrations and protest speeches as games. The powerful people who run societies do not, however, like to be challenged. The authorities can fight back at any time, often with extreme violence, and rarely face any consequences. As a case in point, neither the justice system nor army discipline called anyone to account for the May 4^th shootings.  We see this today, of course, with the Black Lives Matter demonstrations, which are often opposed violently even when the demonstrators themselves are peaceful. We saw this during the civil rights movement of the 1960s, as well, when voting rights organizers sometimes paid with their lives.

 Second, Professor Lewis reinforced the importance of free speech:

“In many ways, the commemoration serves to protect democracy and free speech.” 

He also said: 

“When we gather on the Commons every May 4, and we say what happened in 1970 was wrong and shouldn’t have happened, and we honor the suffering of the students and their families, we are fighting for free speech.” 

 

Free Speech on Campus: It Happened Again, at William and Mary!

Don't Fear the Protests! Free Speech on Campus Applies to Everyone

We’ve heard a lot about free speech from the right wing, who often feel that their right to speak is being oppressed, but, in my experience, established authorities more often suppress left-wing speech. The Kent State shootings were not a test case for peaceful demonstrations, since some of the demonstrators were, indeed violent. Still, the indiscriminate shooting, which was disproportionate to the threat, was obviously intended to end the demonstrations. 

Cait Christenson Not Allowed to Speak about Equity

Ceremonial speeches like the one that Professor Lewis delivered remind us about the past. But they do more. Lewis gave admonitions about values and how those values should affect the future. That is why he said:

“It is essential that Kent State continues to remember May 4 because it honors the four and the nine and comforts the parents and relatives, but more importantly, it provides a medium for protest and study on social problems.”

I particularly identify with Lewis’ speech because I lived in Kent from 1984 to 2005. I became friends with the legendary bearded professor who had led a group of students to safety. I have seen the bullet holes that were never repaired. I can attest that hard feelings from May 4 lingered for a long time. Although the huge university was the town’s major employer, many residents deeply resented the students. Students who had not even been born in 1970 sometimes faced open hostility. 

Conservatives, by their nature, often prefer a stable social order. Social justice demonstrations threaten that order. The demonstrators’ purpose was to call public attention to a military action that many people felt was illegal. It was an attempt to arouse conscience. It was particularly poignant because we still had the military draft in 1970, and young male students could be called up at any time to fight in a cause they might not support. 

The spiritual wounds from the Vietnam War still afflict us today. Also, let us not forget that, only 11 days after May 4, 1970, a group of police overreacted against a similar demonstration at Jackson State University, a historically Black university, killing two students. 

Speech might be free, but it can carry a penalty.

Fannie Lou Hamer, "Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired," Gave a Voting Rights Speech in Narrative Style

As Women’s History Month comes to a close, let’s remember the influential voting rights speech that Fannie Lou Hamer presented in Harlem, New York on December 20, 1964. She shared the platform with civil rights leader Malcolm X.

Although she had little formal education, Hamer skillfully used a public speaking technique called the narrative style. Her point was that the nation had a problem. A radical organizer might have called this a consciousness-raising speech. For, once one admits out loud that there was a problem, the solution – racial justice – becomes obvious.

Hamer’s simple thesis was that the United States had a values problem.  She put it like this near her conclusion: “And I’ve been tired so long, now I am sick and tired of being sick and tired, and we want to change.” She didn’t, however, prove her point with logic. In narrative style, a speaker doesn’t present an argument like this:

“I believe that X, Y, and Z because the following evidence and proof show that I am right…”

No, instead, in the narrative style, a speaker tells a story, and the audience draws a conclusion from the story. And narrative is less like a debater’s proof; it is more a matter of telling a story that gives a moral or lesson. Sometimes the speaker states the lesson out right, and sometimes the speaker lets the audience figure out what the point is for themselves. In her speech, Hamer told her story and pounded the lesson into her audience as if she were wielding a sledgehammer. 

Starting in her second paragraph, Hamer started her story:

“It was 31 August of 1962, the 18 of us traveled 26 miles to the country courthouse in Indianola, Mississippi, to try to register to become first-class citizens. It was 31 August 1962, that I was fired for trying to become a first-class citizen.”

That’s quite a narrative hook, isn’t it? And she didn’t say “register to vote.” She said, with incisive word choice, “try to register to become first-class citizens.” She continued her story:

“When we got to Indianola on 31 August 1962, we was met there by the state highway patrolmen, the city policemen and anybody – as some of you know that it worked in Mississippi, any white man that is able to wear khaki pair of pants without them falling off him and holding two guns can make a good law officer.” 

She then explained to taking the literacy test that was required for her to register to vote. She reported that the test had 21 questions. One of them asked “by whom are you employed – so we can be fired by the time we get back home.” She then had to copy and narrate an explanation of part of the state constitution. 

"The Law Can't Change the Heart, but It Can Restrain the Heartless:" Martin Luther King, Jr. 

After not being allowed to register, she explained that she traveled back home, only to discover that she had already lost her job. She then took refuge in a friend’s home only to find that:

“On 10 September 1962, 16 bullets were fired into the home of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Tucker, where I’d been living after I was fired from this plantation.”

She then hold how the FBI swarmed the community without managing to make a single arrest. She narrated how she later traveled to a voter education conference, when “a man jumped out of his car and said, “you are under arrest.” When she arrived in her jail cell, an officer asked where she was from, and she said she was from Ruleville. The officer said, “You’s from Ruleville all right and we are going to make you wish you was dead.” In matter-of-fact style, she explained that she endured several beatings, with one man replacing another when the first became too exhausted from swinging a blackjack at her. The beating left her with permanent injuries. 

Her story was spellbinding. She then responded to the old excuse that racial justice will take time:

“And you can always hear this long sob story: ‘You know it takes time.’ For three hundred years, we’ve given them time. And I’ve been tired so long, now I am sick and tired of being sick and tired, and we want a change.”

That was not the only excuse she refuted. When people want to pretend they are not doing evil, they tell lies. Hamer would have none of that:

“The truth is the only thing going is to free us. . . .  If we want America to be a free society we have to stop telling lies, that’s all. Because we’re not free and you know were not free.”

Her only proof was her story. However, everyone listening – and everyone reading her story today – knows perfectly well that her story could be told thousands of times over. That is what gave it power. That is what made it convincing. We all know that she did not suffer injustice alone. That is why her conclusion could take a broad sweep: 

“But this is something we going to have to learn to do and quit saying that we are free in America when I know we are not free. You are not free in Harlem. The people are not free in Chicago, because I’ve been there, too. They are not free in Philadelphia, because I’ve been there, too and when you get it over with all the way around, some of the places is a Mississippi in disguise. And we want a change.”

Decades later, after citing some poorly-informed statistics, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts said that the South has changed. Well, of course, in many ways it has. African-Americans are no longer routinely arrested and beaten half to death just for trying to register to vote. Nevertheless, the sweeping voter suppression laws being proposed, and sometimes passed, around the nation show that many white people still fear minority votes. Fannie Lou Hamer’s battle is not over. We should take care to remember her story.

We human beings are not really all that logical. A good story can convince people faster than any kind of logical argument.

 

Research Note: For more information about the narrative method of persuasion, this article by Walter R. Fisher is a good place to begin.  

More about Fannie Lou Hamer

 

The Golden Trump Statue and Its Magic Wand at CPAC 2021: Do Conservatives Believe in Magic?

I still disintegrate into astonishment every time I think about the bizarre Golden Trump statue that was wheeled into the recent Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at the Hyatt in Orlando, Florida. All public speaking takes place in a setting, and that setting helps create the speech’s meaning. Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address had special meaning because he gave it at a military cemetery dedication. Ronald Reagan’s “Tear Down This Wall” was powerful because he delivered it in front of the Berlin Wall. An American Flag gives speakers a patriotic background image. In turn, the CPAC speakers spoke down the hall from the Golden Trump statue. The statue was part of their context. 

What did the statue mean? What did it tell us? Well, where should I begin? My earlier post discussed the obvious sacrilege (at least in the Judeo-Christian tradition) of worshiping a golden idol. Should I next talk about the statue’s American Flag shorts? The kingly crown? (Patrick Henry warned us that our president could become a king!) The red sandals? Or the too-long red tie?

Did Patrick Henry Warn Us about Donald Trump? 

The Golden Trump at CPAC 2021: Why Is the Christian Right Silent? 

No, to me, the real message was the star-tipped magic wand that the statue waved in its hand.

 

A magic wand? The symbolism boggles the imagination. The magic wand represented Trump’s ability to provide simple, imaginary solutions to the complex problems that his supporters prefer to ignore.  

 

So, first, what is magic? If we ignore modern interpretations in Harry Potter and Charmed, and go back to its origins, magic uses ritualistic behavior from pagan religions. Most pagan religions are practical: people appeal to local gods for fertile crops, good health, romantic success, or the destruction of one’s enemies. Pagan religious practice often involves spell-casting rather than prayer: if the exact spell is recited with the exact, correct words, in the exact right way, it compels a goddess, tree-spirit, or love-god to fulfill a wish. In Homer’s Odyssey, various gods used magic wands to channel their power and place people under magic spells.

 

Life would be simple if magic actually worked. Yet, in real life, Trump did not wave a magic wand and stop the pandemic. Nor did he wave a magic wand and fix the economy. That’s because magic wands don’t actually work.

 

Suppose, for example, that we want to stop the coronavirus pandemic. Real solutions require effort: people could wear masks, avoid large gatherings, take vaccines, and so forth. Who needs that? How unpleasant! Trump famously predicted that the coronavirus epidemic would go away like a miracle. Much easier. That sounds, however, more like magic than science.

 

Well, the miracle didn’t happen. But the magic wand can accomplish many make-believe things. Maybe the Golden Trump idol can wave its magic wand and get Trump back into office? Maybe the magic wand could still give us a miraculous virus cure? Maybe the Golden Trump idol can wave its magic wand to make immigrants go away? (Since opposition to immigration was one of Trump’s main agenda items.)

 

No, course not. Facing real problems requires effort. We might need policies. We might need to spend money. We might need to change how we do things. We might need to learn from the school of hard knocks and do things differently.

 

But, if you are a Trump supporter at CPAC, who wants to do that? Isn’t waving a magic wand a lot simpler?

 

When I was in grade school, our teacher explained that ancient Sumerian kings read omens and entrails and consulted astrologers before they made important decisions. She assured us that such things didn’t happen in the United States. I’m afraid that she was wrong. President Ronald Reagan scheduled his news conferences only after his wife consulted an astrologer. And, now, Trump’s worshippers brought in a Golden Trump idol that could wave a magic wand and solve all of their problems.

 

By the way, of course Trump’s CPAC crowd were worshippers. A golden idol? A magic wand? Could they be more obvious?

 

Still, we all know that a magic wand won’t solve the nation’s problems.

 

The rhetorical implications are fabulous. First of all, CPAC attendees can, if challenged, deny everything. Yes, the wand is undeniable, but they can explain it away. The magic wand obviously symbolizes pagan magic, but since it is an image, not a policy document, they can reinterpret its meaning if someone challenges them. (I don’t think anyone has yet.) Yet, nobody needs to explain the magic wand to them; they can see it for themselves. Most of all, they can continue their fantasy that Trump’s supposedly miraculous powers can solve their problems without requiring them to engage in actual policy, make sacrifices, or face reality.

 

Lots of people believe in magic, but I never thought they would try to control the United States government with a magic wand.

 

 

P.S. Communication researchers have produced a rich and insightful literature about visual persuasion. A good introduction is this wonderful article by Katherine L. Hatfield, Ashley Hinck, and Mary J. Birkholt.

 

P.P.S. Since many CPAC speakers profess the Judeo-Christian religious tradition, what does the Bible say about magicians? Oops, it’s not good: “I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, . .  saith the Lord of hosts.   --Malachi 3:5. Hmm. 

The Golden Trump at CPAC 2021: Why Is the Christian Right Silent?

Sometimes, it’s what you do not say that matters most. The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) was once a simple event where conservative pseudo-intellectuals gathered to spout ill-conceived ideologies. In 2021, it transformed into a quasi-religious celebration of Donald Trump. At the conference’s outset, an artist wheeled in a golden statue of Trump, wearing red, white and blue shorts and waving a magic wand. The Christian evangelical leaders, who supported Trump so strongly throughout his political career, still remain silent. No word of protest from them. Their silence, I think, sends a message: a message that they have sold their Christianity to a false god. They are so quick to condemn the tiniest religious slight from liberals, but not a word about the Golden Trump? How remarkable.

About 80% of white Christian evangelicals voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020, and they continue to provide his most reliable support. Yet, we read in the Bible that, during the Exodus, while Moses was on Mount Sinai collecting the 10 Commandments, the prophet Aaron commanded the people to melt their gold jewelry to create a calf statue. They held a festival for the golden god they made, “and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play.” When Moses saw the calf, he destroyed it and a murderous civil war broke out among the people. All things considered, the golden calf didn’t go well.

This wouldn’t be so striking except that political cartoonists have for years mocked white evangelical Trump supporters for worshiping the golden calf. Most famously, Los Angeles Times artist David Horsey’s 2017 cartoon shows Moses descending from the mountain, carrying two stone tablets covered with Bible verses, while the people worship a golden bull bearing Trump’s face. The people pointed to the tablets and shouted, “Fake News!” At the time, we all thought his cartoon was a bizarre exaggeration. Little did we know that it would come true at CPAC in 2021.

Rhetoric of Silence: What You Don't Say Matters - The Minnesota Mosque Bombing

Yet, Trump’s leading evangelical supporters stun us with their silence. Reverend Franklin Graham has not only offered Trump unyielding support, but once compared Barack Obama to the Christian-oppressing Roman emperor Nero. Yet, I see no sign that Graham has condemned the Golden Trump statue. He has, however, found time to condemn equal rights for LGBT persons, which he thinks would “discriminate against people of faith.” Dallas pastor Robert Jeffress has been one of Trump’s strongest supporters. Yet, even as the Golden Trump rolled out, Jeffress wrote that he would support the most anti-abortion party, while political issues like immigration were “secondary.” I find not one word from him about the Golden Trump.

Nor have Reverend Paula White’s views about the Golden Trump appeared. Not a word, indeed, as far as I can see, from any of the top Christian evangelical leaders who have boosted Trump. Nothing in the news, and nothing in their Twitter feeds. Even if the Golden Trump failed to trouble them, maybe they could have seen the magic wand as a blasphemy against their religion.

Donald Trump at the Values Voters Conference: Defender of the Faith?

Liberal Christians’ ridicule of the Golden Trump spreads across social media, with one Twitter user sarcastically commenting that, “If only there were some sacred text, one most people at CPAC claim allegiance to, that very explicitly warns against making golden idols.”

Often enough, what we don’t say matters more than what we do say. Silence is always ambiguous. Its meaning is never clear. Are these supposedly Christian leaders silent because they are not paying attention? Unlikely. Are they silent because they are appalled, but their political ambitions override their moral awareness? Possibly. Or, maybe, could it be that they lack any moral awareness at all? That would not surprise me. I don’t suppose we will ever know.

Still, the Golden Trump statue cries out for religious commentary, and yet we are not hearing it from the people who should be shouting about it the loudest. At this point, we run into the common law principle: “silence gives consent.” Are the Christian Right’s leaders on board with the Golden Trump? Sometimes it is good to be silent. Sometimes silence should alarm us.



P.S. Despite Trump’s America First philosophy, artist Tommy Zegan made the statue in Mexico. It took him six months.

P.P.S. I find it hard to believe that people like Reverend Jeffress read the same Bible I do. Otherwise, how does one call immigration, a subject on which the Bible repeatedly emphasizes a liberal and tolerant attitude, a “secondary” question? Yet these same people find abortion, on which the Bible is silent, to be central to the faith. To each their own, I guess, not my place to judge them. Yet the Bible teaches, “Thou shalt neither vex a stranger, nor oppress him: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Exodus 22:21).

P.P.S. I wrote an existentialist analysis of the rhetoric of silence in Chapter 7 of my book about the 1896 presidential campaign. Interested readers can find the book in large research libraries or for purchase. My point was that, when speech is called for and yet is not forthcoming, the silence means something.

Update March 4, 2021: it's now reported that the statue was made in China, but this information was withheld because of Trump's antipathy toward China. 

Janet Yellen Established Her Credibility During Her Confirmation Hearing

Janet Yellen

Always calm and measured in her speech, Secretary of the Treasury nominee Janet Yellen is past master of the art of establishing credibility. She demonstrated that quality once again in today’s opening presentation during her Senate confirmation hearing. Scholars of speech and persuasion have known, literally for millennia, that the speaker’s own character is the most powerful element of a persuasive speech.

We might think that the most energetic speakers are more credible, and this is often true. Not always, however. Consider Yellen’s persuasive challenges:

 

1. Nobody in the United States Senate wants to put a firebrand in charge of the United States Treasury. Yellen needed to persuade people that she would be a sure, calm, sober advocate of good fiscal policy.

 

2. Economics is a scary subject, whose devotees throw around analytic geometry problems and billion-dollar figures like confetti. Yellen needed to give economic policy a human face.

 

3. Having run up enormous budget deficits over the last four years, Republican legislators have suddenly become fiscal hawks. Yellen needed to advocate President-Elect Joe Biden’s economic policies, which call for massive coronavirus relief, without scaring the hawks too much.

 

Speaking remotely from her home due to coronavirus restrictions, Yellen used two simple techniques to establish her credibility. 

Janet Yellen's Speech at Jackson Hole: Do We Need a Stable Financial System?

 

Economics, the Human Science

 

Yellen’s first technique was to talk about her background in a way that gave economics a human face. She accomplished that by talking about her parents, who she described as children of the Great Depression. She said this about her father, a family physician: 

“He was the kind of doctor who treated the whole patient. He knew about their lives, about when they’d been fired, or couldn’t pay. Those remain some of the clearest moments in my childhood.”

She then emphasized that she viewed economics, not as a sterile economic field, but as a way to help people improve their lives: 

“Economics is sometimes considered a dry subject, but I’ve always tried to approach my science the same way my father approached his, as a means to help people. And this committee, I believe, has viewed it the same way, especially during these last few years.” 

It never hurts to compliment your audience, does it?

 

Similarly, discussing her expertise, Yellen did not waste time boasting about either her credentials (she was a Professor of Economics at the University of California Berkeley and chaired the Federal Reserve Board for four years) or her impressive scientific research record. Instead, once again, she focused on the human side of economic science: 

“I have spent almost my entire life thinking about economics and how it can help people during hard times.”

In other words, instead of discussing abstruse economic theories, Yellen emphasized her commitment to helping people. Since the economy has been struggling during the pandemic, her comments were both timely and thoughtful.

 

 

Calm Delivery

 

Yellen’s second technique was to speak calmly and clearly. Although she used plenty of vocal variety, Yellen never raised her voice. She spoke slowly and quietly in measured tones and did everything she could do to play the part of the calm, self-assured grandmother. That was exactly the right tone for her purposes. I could almost smell chocolate chip cookies baking. It’s hard for even the most bellicose politician to get angry with someone who speaks as she did.

 

Still, her delivery was varied and interesting. For example, when she said of her father, “He was the kind of doctor who treated the whole patient,” she paused just before she said “the whole patient.” That emphasized her point without ever making her sound shrill.

 

Yellen’s obvious goal was to sound calm but concerned. Her delivery did as much to accomplish that as the words she spoke.

Shaktikanta Das Gave a Central Banker's Perspective on the Coronavirus Depression

 

Conclusion 

Yes, people admire powerful speakers like Martin Luther King, Jr. or Barack Obama. But there’s something to be said for a speaker who is calm and reassuring, whose caring attitude gives us hope. Always relaxed under pressure, always measured in her thoughts, Yellen makes herself an easy person to trust.   

 

 

Interested in Yellen’s research? This 2018 paper is less technical than most of her work and helps readers understand current United States economic policies.

  

Thanks to rev.com for once again preparing a quick transcript of Yellen's statement. 

 

P.S. I have no idea whether Yellen is a grandmother, much less whether she does or does not bake cookies. Not my point.

Image: Federal Reserve

"The Law Can't Change the Heart, but It Can Restrain the Heartless:" Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Speech about Church and the Struggle for Justice

In November 1964, Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke to the Methodist Student Leadership Conference in Lincoln Nebraska. He proclaimed that “while the law may not be able to change the hearts of men, it does change the habits of men. And when you begin to change the habits of men, pretty soon their attitudes will be changed and their hearts will be changed.” King called for churches to stand for social justice, and in more than just words. King called for legislative action. “There is nothing more tragic," King said, “than to sleep through a revolution.”

King talked about the important role that the Christian church plays in advancing human rights. In a lesson that we should, but often do not, remember, King emphasized that churches should stand foursquare behind social justice. Yet, then, as today, churches too often go the wrong way. Injustice did not disappear in 1964, and King’s words are as true today as they were back then.

Yesterday was Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, and it was temporarily heartening to hear right-wing politicians and church leaders say that they honored Dr. King’s legacy. They can prove their sincerity when they have a chance to support the John L. Lewis Voting Rights Act. Will they back up their words with action?

Martin Luther King, Jr. at the Mountaintop: A Speech for the Ages

In this important but long-forgotten speech, King noted that church leaders and religious councils often made “noble pronouncements” about civil rights and social justice. All the same, he lamented that those pronouncements “filtered down all too slowly in some situations to local congregations.” He complained that “the Church is the most segregated major institution in America.” (As it is today, in 2021.) The church, he warned, has a long way to go to meet its own ideals. Church members often sing the old hymn, “In Christ there is no East or West,” he said, and yet, as they sing it, “we stand in the most segregated hour of America.”

And, nevertheless, King knew that cynics too often lament that it is not possible to impose noble values on people. Acknowledging that this is often true, King’s response was a model of incisive and ethical clarity. We cannot legislate how people feel, but we can legislate against bad actions:

“It may be true that morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. It may be true that the law can’t change the heart, but it can restrain the heartless. It may be true that the law can’t make a man love me, but it can restrain him from lynching me and I think that’s pretty important also.”

We, today, must remember these oppositions. Too often, conservatives dismiss efforts to impose morality as “political correctness.” Indeed, they often sneer at political correctness as if they have a perfect right to say and do evil things and yet escape criticism.

For example, today, people refuse to wear a coronavirus mask because of their freedom, and yet feel free to spread disease to innocent people. Still, although people’s attitudes might not change, the law can force them to wear a mask. We can’t force people to believe that Black lives matter, but we can pass laws to protect Black lives.

That is the language of today. In the language of 1964, King refuted a similar kind of thinking. Indeed, he expressed his hope that, if people are forced to behave better, their hearts may eventually soften. Thus, King argued that the Christian church should and can properly support laws to encourage justice. He praised churches for their role in encouraging the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which had just been enacted when he gave this speech:

“And so it is the role of the Church to support meaningful legislation. And I am happy to say that, as we were struggling to get the civil rights bill through, we had the support of so many elements and segments of the Church community all across this nation.”

Continuing his speech, King underlined the role of Christian churches in making society better. By appealing to the conscience, Christian churches can improve our communities. He said:

“And I am convinced that the civil rights bill is a reality today because the religious forces of our nation were willing to join with the civil rights organizations and the other forces of goodwill. And it was this coalition of conscience that brought it about and this kind of coalition of conscience must continue, if our problems are to be solved.”

For all the honors done to him today, Martin Luther King, Jr. was extraordinarily unpopular during his own lifetime. To resist powerful forces of injustice requires great courage, and rewards often come slowly.

Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" Made Biblical Morality a Public Imperative

The old hymn to which King referred, “In Christ There Is No East or West,” is loosely based on a Bible verse, Galatians 3:28 – “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” The biblical imperative is that all of us are equal. Are the Christian churches of today teaching this important lesson? Living by this lesson? 

Speeches Show That There Are Two Different Christianities

So, it is fine as far as it goes, to honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. by tweeting his praise. Truly, however, as King showed in this thoughtful speech, we can also honor justice, and King, by passing legislation. When too many police officers feel free to kill black men for the crime of waving a cell phone, and when the President of the United States orders teargas to be sprayed around a church so he can wave a Bible that he has never read, then, yes, we need to remember King’s ideas, not just his birthday. We need to honor him with public action, not just empty words.



Scripture quotation from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1946, 1952, and 1971 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Once again, thanks to the good people at AmericanRhetoric.com, led by my former graduate school classmate Martin J. Medhurst, for publishing an accurate transcript of King's speech.

Adolf Hitler’s “Christian Nationalist” Speech

In his April 12, 1922 Munich speech, testifying of his “boundless love as a Christian and a man,” Adolf Hitler warped Christianity to support cruel public policies. Just like conservative American politicians today, Hitler identified himself with the group that has since become known as Christian nationalists. To persuade conservative Christians, Hitler talked about Jesus as a warrior, not a peacemaker; a fighter, not a man of love. Hitler didn’t just give his audience an excuse to be cruel; he said that Christianity required Germans to lash out. Hitler is gone, but those themes resonate today.


Joe Biden, Donald Trump, and the Christian Right Showed Us There Are Two Different Christianities


Adolf Hitler was a public speaker of hypnotic power, one of the last great masters of the ancient art of elocution, who could captivate his audience with a stream of words. Alternately thoughtful and bombastic, pleading and demanding, Hitler planned and rehearsed every word, every phrase, every gesture, and every facial expression in meticulous detail. He used his powers to rally Germans to an evil cause and ultimately to destruction, leading conservative Christians to become his all-too-willing tools.

Eleven years before he became Chancellor of Germany, Hitler was already a major Nazi Party leader. Do Hitler’s Christian nationalist views echo in the United States today? I think they do. As we’ll see in a moment, Hitler cited Jesus’ life and actions to support his values. But Hitler’s framework was nationalism. Hitler stated his nationalist theme with these opening words, where he praised a historical German leader:

“Frederick the Great after the Seven Years War had, as a result of superhuman efforts, left Prussia without a penny of debt.”

Not just great efforts, not just human efforts, but “superhuman” efforts. It’s only one step from the superhuman to the supernatural. Would the audience think that Hitler planned to make superhuman efforts himself? Maybe so. Here is how Hitler introduced his twisted version of Christian theology a few minutes later:

“I say: my feeling as a Christian points me to my Lord and Saviour as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to the fight against them and who, God’s truth! Was great not as sufferer but as fighter.” 

Hitler preached a violent, angry Christianity that provided strength and power. To Hitler, Jesus, his “Lord and Saviour,” was a “fighter.” Indeed, we will see that, by the speech’s end, Hitler transformed Christianity into a struggle to rescue downtrodden Germans. He didn’t do this by building them up, but by blaming their supposed enemies. 

Hitler was raised in the Catholic Church. However, he did not practice Christianity in adulthood. All the same, conservative Christians formed Hitler’s support base throughout his political career. Hitler, in turn, reached out to them, spoke in their terms, and placed himself in their ranks. Hitler depicted himself as a minority figure who, like Jesus, was fighting for an unpopular but noble cause. 

In turn, it appears that Hitler would have had no use for the Jesus who said, “But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also” (Matthew 5:39). The Jesus of Matthew’s Gospel was not a fighter. Likewise, Hitler seemed to leave no place for the Golden Rule: “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you.” That surprises me not at all. In my many years attending church in conservative areas, I have only heard one sermon (out of hundreds) about the ever-so-liberal Sermon on the Mount, and not even one about the Golden Rule. No, Hitler had no interest in submission. Indeed, he directly contradicted Matthew: 

“As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice.”

Hitler wasn’t turning the other cheek, was he? Continuing, Hitler tied Christian duty to patriotism, and, in turn, patriotism to anger:

“For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people. And when I go out in the morning and see these men standing in their queues and look into their pinched faces, then I believe I would be no Christian, but a very devil, if I felt no pity for them, if I did not, as did our Lord two thousand years ago, turn against those by whom today this poor people is plundered and exploited.”

That is, Hitler felt that the solution to German workers’ economic struggles was to blame Jews. Using the language of liberalism – “plundered and exploited” – Hitler’s rhetoric twisted the issue into a mass of unsupported denunciations. He told his audience that Christianity not only allowed but required that they crush Jews. By this point in the speech, Hitler had spun Christian mercy into its opposite. Yet, as he did so, he continued to speak words with which, apparently, many German churchgoers could identify.

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Thus began Hitler’s pseudo-theology of Christian nationalism. Throughout the speech, Hitler talked about a Jesus who was a fighter, not a healer. Hitler taught a theology of strength. According to Hitler, Jesus was an enemy of Jews, and that Jesus “summoned men to the fight against them.” Jesus, Hitler emphasized, started with a handful of followers – as did Hitler himself – and rose to prominence by power. Indeed, as this 1922 speech continued, Hitler praised Jesus for “His fight for the world against the Jewish poison.”

Hitler concluded his speech by creating a new moral theology. Hitler’s religion did not speak for peace or Christian love, but, instead, for a new faith of strength and power:

“That is the mightiest of things which our Movement must create: for these widespread, seeking and straying masses a new Faith which will not fail them in this hour of confusion, to which they can pledge themselves, on which they can build so that they may at least find once again a place which may bring calm to their hearts.”

And with that comment, Hitler left the stage. Christianity had now vanished from his speech. Having left Jesus behind, Hitler announced a new nationalist faith. No longer guided by Christian values, Hitler subordinated Christianity, with its teachings of tolerance and love, to a new religion of nationalist triumph. Millions of German Christians followed him to the bitter end.

Germany was one of the world’s greatest nations, a center of art, music, literature, philosophy, and religion. If Nazism could arise there, it could arise anywhere. It could arise in the United States. Don’t ever think it couldn’t. In eleven years, Hitler’s powerful but evil rhetoric converted his great nation into a land of violence and hatred. When he cited his supposed Christian faith, Hitler gave his audience an excuse to commit wrongful deeds. How could it be wrong, Hitler implied, to be cruel in Jesus’ name? 

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Do you think that Hitler’s themes – a Christianity of power and struggle, whose rhetorical purpose is to promote national strength and vengeance, not mercy – resonate in the Christian Right of today? Or not? More important, is it even possible to fight for Christianity while forsaking its teachings? Please feel free to make comments below.

Technical note: "Elocution" has meant different things during different periods of rhetorical history. For more insight into the public speaking methods that Hitler was taught, interested readers might look at Gilbert Austin's book Chironomia, or the Art of Manual Rhetoric. It's fascinating, but it's also heavy-duty reading. François Delsarte may have been a more direct influence on Hitler or his mentors.