Christopher D. Rodkey

As a pastor, I receive unusual phone calls. Sometimes they’re the expected sort of unusual phone calls, but sometimes they’re the not-so-nice calls. I received one of them last weekend; I was out of town, and I allowed the caller to go to my voicemail.

The message was in response to the message on the sign at St. Paul’s United Church of Christ in Dallastown, “Wishing a blessed Ramadan to our Muslim neighbors,” and it was a message of disapproval.

According to the man on the line, I hear that Islam is a pagan, godless religion, you make me sick, you’re despicable, this is unbelievable that a church would be tolerant of another religion. He threatened to put the picture of the church’s sign on social media, I suppose, to invite more shaming and outrage.

The guy who left the message didn’t realize that I can see the number of who is calling on my mobile phone. I Googled the number and found it: Matt Jansen, delegate from York County to the Republican National Convention, and school board member of Spring Grove Area School District.

Pastor harassed over sign supporting Muslims

Mr. Jansen made good on his threat. He publicly posted a photo of the church’s sign along with our phone number on Twitter, and tagged Ann Coulter. At first, I thought, ironically, he is spreading the message of tolerance. But then the phone started ringing. I had to disconnect the phone and answering machine at church. As I write this, five days later, we’re still getting calls.

Yes, Mr. Jansen had encouraged people to harass a local congregation for speaking words of tolerance.

Yes, York County, this is who we have elected to represent you at one of the major party’s conventions this summer and who we have elected to a school board, which makes policies for the education of children and teenagers.

A look into Mr. Jansen’s Twitter account is helpful in terms of context; the profanity can’t really be shared in the newspaper. Muslims, here called “Mohammedeans” pejoratively, are “invaders” and “need to be arrested and deported NOW!” The “damned” Muslims are pedophiles, terrorists and welfare-grabbing “parasites.” Trivial and flippant concern about “race baiting” and women’s rights. Empty — I assume — threats to riot at the RNC convention. Same-sex parents are “disgusting and wrong.”

Do more to help our Muslim neighbors (letter)

From a school board member!

And this is just some of what’s been tweeted since June 1.

The cowardly and frightened message, veiled as belligerent alpha-male baiting left on my phone’s voicemail, makes a whole lot of sense knowing the context from where it comes. His Twitter directly represents the very definition of islamophobia as a fear.

But what concerns me most is that this is who York County has selected to represent at the Republican National Convention. This is who a local school district has elected on a school board: someone who hates Muslims, despises gays and calls some parents “disgusting and wrong.”

Mr. Jansen sits on a school board whose own Code of Conduct “expects that our first and greatest priority is to provide equitable educational opportunities for all youth” (Spring Grove Board Policy 011, sec. 2. a. 6., pg. 4). Can someone who actively and publicly promotes such Islamophobia and homophobia really be able to ensure “equitable opportunity” without prejudice on a school board?

This situation is an encapsulation of where we are, as a society, in 2016.

Let's welcome our Muslim neighbors (column)

America has always been a nation of immigrants, and we’ve always been a country that has romanticized its history of being immigrants. We have always scapegoated immigrants as a rule for our problems, and with it a revolving door of substitute scapegoats: Catholics, blacks, Jews, communists, Mexicans, gays, single mothers, the poor, veterans, Mormons, Native Americans, the mentally ill, elderly, refugees and trans persons, to name a few. They’re all perceived as “invaders” and “parasites,” even when they’re citizens, even while claiming to practice a religion which honors the sacred value and worth of every person.

But it’s becoming clear to me that the character of these discourses follow the typical processes of anti-Semitism from Old Europe. Except any scapegoated group is substituted for the traditional anti-Semitic tricks. Instead of claiming that Jews are “clannish,” they say it’s Muslims who in America are only looking out for themselves. Instead of Jews being separatists and “invaders,” it’s Muslims who are “parasites.” Instead of Jewish world domination wanting a “state within a state,” it’s Muslims threatening to replace the local construct of law with shari’a. Instead of claiming that the Jews are using their internationally wealthy apparatuses to control the media and politicians, it’s now the Muslims who are working against American society and committing dual loyalties — all the way up to President Obama. Instead of the Jews being really responsible for African American slavery, it’s the Muslims. And most recently, the weird argument that Jews are really working against other American minorities has become that Muslims hate one scapegoated group (in this case, gays) more than Christians do —implying, of course, that Christians’ suppression and oppression of gays is righteously legitimate, while Muslims’ hatred is unfounded.

And like in Old Europe, this ethos makes behavior which would otherwise be totally unacceptable to be acceptable behavior.

Encouraging harassment of a local church from a public political figure is now acceptable. A school board member calling certain kinds of parents “disgusting” is now acceptable. Celebrating the founding fathers and Constitution of our country in one breath but targeting and publicly condemning a particular religious group is seen as consistent, courageous and acceptable.

Yet these actions arise from a place of fear, bigotry and religious exclusivism. And like in Old Europe, the loud voices at the bottom, more obscure areas of elected government pave the way for the acceptability of the narratives on regional and national levels. Mr. Jansen’s Twitter account is fronted by Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan: we know that this is cultural code for “make America white again.” But yet so few can say it out loud. Mr. Jansen’s role on Twitter is to name-call and demonize anyone who thinks differently or disagrees. Like in Old Europe, civility is not recognized as a democratic virtue.

Prior to moving to Dallastown to be a pastor in this community, I used to teach at Lebanon Valley College, and one time the subject of Kitzmiller v. Dover School District came up in the classroom. The conservative students accused me of making up the whole thing — they often believed anything that sat outside of their safety-narratives to be part of some “liberal agenda” — until two students in the classroom from Dover rose their hands and said, yes, this really happened. Yes, we in York County have a reputation for not paying attention to local elections and for electing school board members who are politically fringe figures.

Their presence in positions of authority make their fringe beliefs more and more mainstream. It’s easy to point to misinformed demagogues such as Mr. Jansen as the problem, and he is a problem, particularly for Spring Grove Area School District. More exigently, he is not the cause, but a symptom of our national problem. This problem more directly resides in the images who stare back at us in the mirror, even while we’re looking for some other minority group or minority opinion to scapegoat. It’s our choice whether we continue to point our fingers everywhere else or practice some American individualism, and take responsibility for what our actions have done, and work for cultural change.

The Rev. Dr. Christopher D. Rodkey lives in Dallastown with his spouse and four children.

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