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                 THE THEOLOGY OF CRIME
                 By E. Scott Ryan MPS
                           
               In our American Culture of religious pluralism and
          secular  freedom, the relationship between religion and crime
          has been relegated to an analytic cult status.  The idea that
          one can be turned away from crime by "getting religion"  has
          been extensively preached and practiced, just as the idea that
          religion can be a criminological turn on, as well as a turn off,
          has been extensively ignored in both religious and secular
          quarters.
               Dr. Baruch Goldstein, the Doctor of religious murder, in
          committing the horrid crime of the mass murder or Muslims at
          prayer in the Cave of the Patriarchs, was a unique example of
          the theology of crime, although this "very religious" Jewish
          mass murderer is in no way unique in the long history of "very
          religious" Christians and Muslims, among others, who've
          committed murder in the name of their religious theology.
               In reflecting upon this modern crime in the name of the
          one God of a most ancient religion, one can only marvel in
          moral disgust at the unholy proclivity of some (most often the
          "very religious" who proclaim to be most holy) to turn the
          universal spiritual choice of one God for all men into one's
          religious God for oneself and one's group against other men,
          groups and religions.
               Goldstein's religious criminality and criminal religiosity
          of  a theology of divine hate, is not unique, nor, unfortunately,
          is its horror confined to his crime, for as unbelievable as it may
          sound (for those of us who believe that religion and crime
          should be incompatible) there were eulogies in his honor by
          some "very religious" voices from his Kach Party to include a
          rabbi's voice, whose invocation of their "holy man of God"
          confirmed their Nazi Kach-up criminality in catching up to Nazi-
          like hate.
               The particular case of a Dr. Goldstein, as unique as it
          may appear (and please God it will be unique in never again
          reappearing) is illustrative of what is both general and
          particular in the theology of crime as the study of the God of
          crime, of a criminal God of divine hate.  There is a tendency to
          relegate religious inspired criminality to cult status because
          cultists tend to be more extreme and, therefore, they're more
          likely to be deviant and sometimes more suicidal, as
          evidenced in Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple, and in David
          Koresh and the Branch Davidians among many others.
               Nevertheless, while the theology of crime can be a
          disreputable, marginal and sometime suicidal phenomenon, it
          can also be a mainline and sometime homicidal aspect of
          reputable, in terms of non-deviant, religion.
               One can easily document the religious criminality of the
          theology of crime and the criminal religiosity of divine hate in
          the criminal history of Judaism, Christianity and Islam from the
          Biblical Hebrew invocation to slay men, women and children,
          to the 
          unholy office of the Catholic Inquisition, to the Islamic Jihad,
          to Protestant crimes against other Protestants who protested
          too much against established Protestantism, right up to the
          present day Islamic Hamas, the "God Gave Your Land To Me"
          religious cleansing of morally dirty Nazi-like Kach-ups, the
          Orthodox blessings of Serbian ethnic cleansing, and Christian
          fundamentalist inspired abortion clinic bombings and murder.
               In spite of and because of our cherished freedom of
          religion (which must be cherished) and our Constitutional
          freedom of speech and expression (which is only free when it's
          free enough to tolerate the abuse of freedom) there needs to
          be a criminological determination as to what is not correct in
          religion.  A correct criminological determination, however,
          should not be confused with correctness - which legislates the
          freedom to be hatefully wrong or worse, to be right, in being
          wrongly right in being hatefully right.  Correctness infringes
          upon freedom, as bad laws proceed from bad cases, in
          criminalizing incorrect, wrong or hateful expression, in the
          hateful mistake that hate laws take in taking away freedom in
          the incorrectness of political or religious correctness.
               Therefore, despite the serious and unaddressed
          problem that the theology of crime presents in both its
          reputable and disreputable religious manifestations, the easy
          and sinful temptations to ban a sinful holy man, or burn a
          hateful holy book, or outlaw an outside of the law cult, is wholly
          wrong.  It's wrong because correctness is not correct in that
          what is corrected may be incorrect only in violating
          correctness, and what is popularly wrong or politically incorrect
          may be personally right or singularly correct.
               Correctness is based on the socialization of truth which
          impoverishes truth as much as socialism impoverishes people. 
               Nevertheless, in refusing to limit freedom in reaction to
          the abuse of freedom in the further abuse of correctness, the
          need to establish a standard for distinguishing what is not
          correct in the religious rationalization that functions as a divine
          rationality for the theology of crime remains.  Further, the
          implementation of that standard, in respect for freedom of
          speech and religion, needs to be applied internally within
          religion rather than imposed externally upon it.
               Censor Emptor, let the censor beware, in being aware
          that do-good censorship does freedom no good; and Censored
          Emptor, let the self-censored beware, that religious censorship
          in the name of God or censorship of religion in the name of
          Man, does God or Man no good.
               Therefore, in any criminological approach to correcting
          the theology of crime, a correct choice is called for - a spiritual
          choice that looks inward in correcting itself rather than outward
          in correcting others.
               Just as there is correct and incorrect science, there is
          correct and incorrect religion in terms of "getting religion" in
          correcting crime or causing crime.  The criminological analysis
          of the theology of crime in rehabilitating in getting religion has
          to incorporate rehabilitation in getting away from the religious
          crime of the theology of divine hate:  defined as any theology
          that 
          appropriates a divine or divine substitute for the purpose of
          hate.
               The immediate educational issue is that of how to treat
          the criminality of divine hate rather than attempt to censor it,
          and to determine if there has been even one successful
          precedent. 
               Believe it or not, to those who are true believers who'd
          like to truly believe, and to those who are true unbelievers - in
          having no faith in the criminological prospect of treating
          religious crime-the most holy task of criminal rehabilitation can
          work even if it isn't written in any holy book.
               In any criminological treatment plan, however, the
          diagnosis of the cause of the problem constitutes 90% of the
          cure.  Therefore, the cause of the theology of crime - that of
          transcendent choice - needs to be clearly diagnosed.
               A correct religious choice, be it that of a Christian
          choice for God in Jesus, an Islamic choice of surrender to the
          will of the Prophet, Muhammed, or the Enlightened choice in
          the way of Enlightment of the Buddha, is that of universal
          spiritual chosenness wherein God is equally chosen by and for
          all men and women.
               An incorrect religious choice in producing religious
          criminality is a criminal religiosity wherein chosenness
          becomes chosin-ness - a sinful choice - a term I've chosen to
          designate self-serving religious group chosin-ness as
          contrasted to other - serving, universal spiritual chosenness.
               Furthermore, a chosin theological choice is a criminal
          sinful choice in the crime of sinning against others and in the
          sin of crime against others - which sinful crime and criminal sin
          can occur secularly as well as religiously.  It occurs in the
          religious chosin-ness of one transcendent God as one's God
          in transcending over and against others; and it occurs
          secularly in the secular chosin-ness of putting oneself (and/or
          one's group) in the place of one God in displacing God in the
          self-serving place of one's secular transcendence without the
          Transcendent.
               The Hitlerian refrain of "Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein
          Fuehrer" (One People, one Realm, one Leader) was the
          ultimate example of this transcendent secular process of
          chosin-ness (wherein the idea of chosenness and a Chosen
          People was used for the idea of a new Chosen People - the
          Master Race).  This Master secular cleansing adaptation of
          religious cleansing was the concentration camp parent of
          ethnic cleansing and a close cousin of religious cleansing.  It
          was one that proceeded from its own secular transcendent
          version of chosenness: a religious cleansing wherein the
          religious concept of a Chosen People became that of a Chosin
          People - a People of Sin - when the new Chosen People, the
          Master Race, appropriated chosenness to themselves in
          eliminating the Chosen People, the Jewish People, as a
          Chosin People.
               Obviously, chosenness is criminologically dangerous in
          becoming chosin-ness as are many theological concepts and
          transcendent constructs, in becoming most dangerous when
          they are religiously and secularly applied.  What is often
          presented as the 
          
          
          greatest religious good or secular virtue just as often presents 
          itself as the greatest of criminal evils and vices.
               The transcendent criminality of the theology of crime, in
          its many religious and secular variants, usually proceeds
          according to 
          a particular theological construct - in one's being constructed
          by one God in acting for one's God, or in one constructing
          one's God in acting like a god in replacing one God for oneself
          - in a criminal concept of transcendent chosenness that
          generates a hateful religious or secular chosin-ness towards
          others.
               Most studies of the Nazi-type criminality typically focus
          on sociological factors such as unemployment, political
          instability, and psychological processes such as projected
          inadequacy; and all of these are often quite evident among the
          rank and file of the poorly educated and skinhead type
          common criminal.  However, the deeper and more intractable
          cause of the criminal rationality in the theology of crime is
          found in the very opposite kind of uncommon criminal, such as
          a highly educated and intelligent Jewish Dr. Baruch Goldstein,
          M.D., or German Dr. Josef Mengele M.D., Ph.D.  Both Drs.
          Goldstein and Mengele appear, at first, to be exceptions to the
          criminal rule; but, actually, while they are exceptions in terms
          of criminal statistics, they constitute the criminal exception that
          proves the criminal rule of the theology of crime.
               The criminal rule of the theology of crime can be a
          highly educationed if not educated choice (in terms of a self-
          serving choice of one's education), but a true choice,
          nevertheless, of moral falsehood that's based on a moral lie of
          a criminally transcendent process, wherein the choice of one's
          chosen religious group (as in the case of Goldstein's religious
          theology) or one's chosen master race (as is the case of
          Mengele's secular theology) becomes the ultimate angel and
          devil of death against others.  Chosenness becomes an
          avenging angel against everyone in the choice of religious or
          secular chosin-ness as a virtue for one's group and a vice for
          others. 
               In both religious and secular cases of the theology of
          crime, one's God, either one's transcendent self in one's
          religious God or in one's God-like group, replaces one God for
          all men in the misappropriation of God and disappropriation of
          men.  Such chosen groups of people often pride themselves
          on being God like, or even just like God, in their group; but I'm
          sure, God isn't like them, nor would God ever be proud of
          being referred to by any of them.
               Quite obviously, there will never be a "never again" to
          the ever again of ethnic and religious cleansing that appears
          again and again, until the criminal rationality of the theology of
          criminally regarding one's group as chosen and others as
          chosin is exposed.  Further, it must be countered at the same
          level at which it encounters others - the spiritual - in educating
          both young and old, the highly and poorly educated, in a true
          universal spiritual chosenness with which to combat self-
          serving, transcendent group chosin-ness.
               Any educational step in a rehabilitation direction in
          reducing the recidivist rate of the theology of crime requires
          religious and secular cooperation.  Past conflicts wherein this
          criminal problem was exploited or ignored in putting blame on
          too little or too much religion needs to be resolved.  The
          resolution to the theology of crime requires a correct
          determination as to what is explicitly 
          wrong in terms of being criminal in any transcendent theology
          that criminally manifests itself in any religious or secular group. 
          In our secular society of religious freedom, we need to protect
          both secular and religious freedom by transcendent correcting
          of 
          transcendent hate, without resorting to the hateful
          incorrectness 
          of correctness.
               Quite obviously, in the process of transcendent
          correction, a Jew, Moslem or Christian, as a monotheistic
          example, will be less influenced by someone from another
          religion as much as by a source within one's own religion.
               In this respect, I recall the example of Pope John XXIII,
          a truly holy man of God who was never holy at wholly others
          expense, who was regarded as holy by not only many
          Catholics, but, also, many Jews.  He truly earned his Pontifical
          description of His Holiness when he stopped a Catholic
          religious service - certainly not as an anti-Catholic, but as a
          pro-Catholic - when a denigrating reference to Jews evoked
          the age-old Christ-killer stereotype, and he removed it.  He
          was aware how others saw this age-old reference in its group
          invidiousness, and no matter how much religious tradition was
          behind it and no matter how much it was revered by many
          religious, he corrected a transcendent hateful reference with
          a transcendent love of God.  
               A Jew could never have corrected it, nor could a
          Protestant, nor could nor should the State, but corrected it
          was, as it should have been.
               We need more such transcendent correction for not
          only "holy" rituals but also holy books - in emphasizing the
          distinction between man's inspired words of hate in speaking
          about God in contrast to the inspiration of a loving God
          speaking to man.
               Organizations such as the Free Masons, who have
          Protestants, Jews, Catholics and other religions in their
          spiritual fraternity, might take the educational lead in having
          their respective religious constituents create a hate index for
          their respective religions.  The purpose of such a hate index
          would not be that of hateful conversion but, rather, Godly
          inversion  - a la Pope John XXIII - of exposing, correcting and
          removing hate.
               It can be done, and I say it can as a Jesuit educated
          Mason (in realizing how supposedly incompatible groups can
          be compatible in educating each other), such that the greatest
          theology of crime would be to preach that it cannot be done, in
          the sinful, criminal and hateful choice of the "chosin" theology
          of crime.
          EDITOR S NOTE
          
          
          