WHAT DOES IT TAKE to turn a Presbyterian minister, a lecturer in Religious Studies and a respected author on the life and times of Jesus Christ, into a vocal defender of the national surveillance state? How was a gentle liberal theologian transformed into an “expert” on international terrorism? In short: What the hell happened to Dr Jim Veitch?
Listening to last night’s (2/7/13) “Checkpoint”, it was hard for me to believe that the man recommending the GCSB Amendment Bill to Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee was once a frequent contributor to Radio NZ’s “Spiritual Outlook” religious programme.
But, maybe the switch in focus from Jesus to jihad isn’t quite as dramatic as it first appears.
Dr Veitch’s liberal theological views find few supporters inside the contemporary Presbyterian church. With a few notable exceptions, such as St Matthew’s on the Terrace in Wellington, most of New Zealand’s protestant congregations now subscribe to the deeply conservative, fundamentalist, view of the Bible as the “inerrant word of God”. This dogmatic, literalist, approach to scripture is most easily identified in its adherents’ condemnation of homosexuality.
A liberal Christian like Dr Veitch would find it extremely difficult to preach with any honesty in today’s Presbyterian church – at least, not without arousing considerable protest. Perhaps this is why, like that other great liberal Presbyterian, Professor Lloyd Geering, he sought out a more congenial “congregation” in the students of the Department of Religious Studies at Victoria University.
It was in this guise of an academic theologian that Radio NZ’s Maureen Garing regularly consulted him on her “Spiritual Outlook” programme.
Then came the great historical punctuation mark of 11 September 2001.
What follows is pure speculation, but I hope you will agree that it provides a reasonable working interpretation of Dr Veitch’s subsequent career.
It all comes back to religious fundamentalism and the way in which dogmatic interpretations of scripture can lead the faithful to blur – or even erase – the dividing line between the religious and the political.
“Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.” So says the Gospel of Matthew. But, what if a Christian decides that God and Caesar should be one and the same? What if, like the radical regiments of Oliver Cromwell’s army, the faithful declare their determination to fight for “King Jesus”?
Dr Veitch had witnessed personally the steady advance of fundamentalism in his own Presbyterian church throughout the 1970s and 80s. As a student of both religious history and contemporary global politics, he’d observed the radical politicisation of the conservative protestant churches in the United States. As a lecturer in religious studies (a discipline which requires a sympathetic understanding of all religious faiths) he must have followed the growth of Wahhabism, and other radical fundamentalist Islamic sects, throughout the Muslim world.
His experiences in South-East Asia and the Middle East – dating from the 1980s – had whetted his interest in religious conflict and from the 1990s this had developed into a serious academic interest in the phenomenon of terrorism – and the methods used to counter it.
The impact of 9/11 upon the world’s liberals was profound. In many cases (that of Christopher Hitchens springs to mind) the attack on the United States inspired the enemies of religious fundamentalism – of every kind – to move from a position of purely theoretical opposition, to one of an actual, hands-on commitment to take up arms against it.
Was Dr Veitch an early volunteer in the War on Terror?
It would seem so.
From engaging in open-ended religious conversations with Maureen Garing on “Spiritual Outlook” Dr Veitch swiftly graduated to declaiming anti-terrorist certainties on “Morning Report”. By 2005, he had put the Department of Religious Studies behind him and was helping the Victoria University School of Government and the Office of the Police Commissioner jointly host New Zealand’s first National Counter-Terrorism Capability Seminar. “International Terrorism: New Zealand Perspectives” – a collection of the papers presented to the seminar, and edited by Dr Veitch – was published by Victoria’s Institute for Governance and Policy Studies in December 2005.
From 2006 until 2008 Dr Veitch co-chaired the International Steering Committee of CSCAP – the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific. In 2009, in recognition of his contribution to the study of terrorism and counter-terrorism, he was made a fellow of the UK-based Royal Society of Arts.
Currently, Dr Veitch is Senior Lecturer, Security Studies, at Massey University’s Centre for Defence and Security Studies – based in Wellington.
And yesterday, in marked contrast to nearly all the other submitters on the GCSB Amendment Bill, this former Presbyterian minister delivered a coolly amoral defence of the national surveillance state’s need to be regularly re-equipped with the powers necessary to do its job of protecting New Zealand’s national security: “Legislation always tails what is actual practice in this area. Because the intelligence area is a fast moving area and to get the legislation to go with that is quite difficult.”
After an hour or so of being upbraided by the good and the great, Dr Veitch’s submission must have come as a pleasant surprise to the Chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee. One wonders if John Key made a mental note to invite Dr Veitch to the next big cocktail party at Premier House.
Someday, I would very much like to have a discussion with Dr Veitch about Matthew 22:20-22. Since 9/11, his decision to leave behind the things that are God’s, for the things which are Caesar’s, has led him into strange and dangerous company.
The German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, had a special warning for those who believed that the Good and the Right could be kept safe by mastering the use of their enemies’ own weapons.
“Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster… for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you.”
I’m never really surprised by the mental gymnastics of theologians.
Love that last quote!
Is the ‘Church’ not a form of surveillance state?
Amen…
why are you so surprised, plenty more cretins produce by that church… just look at the likes of Dr Clark…
“What the Hell happened to Jim Veitch?”
It’s an interesting question. A few of us are sitting round asking that same question of a number of people we grew up with.
Whether its Donna Awatere-Huata, Jim Veitch, Tony Bloody Blair, many of today’s senior public servants in NZ, et al – they became ‘comfortable’. When anything ‘uncomfortable’ occurred/occurs – they simply disengage (often hiding behind the gated/pin-accessed firewalls they think are going to protect them from an inevitable backlash).
They discovered the benefits of American Express Gold.
They transitioned from collective engagement with liberal outlook, through having kids and paying mortgages, to the most convenient position that allowed them to justify their existences. Left Labour, to 3rd Way Labour, liberal to libertarian to borderline fascist.
They were never really very principled ‘specimens’ to begin with.
It’s a shame they can’t take it all with them though, (well maybe not -kama).
Even more shameful is that their offspring (of the ones we were thinking of) have turned out to be some of the biggest fuckups anyone could imagine.
Glad to know I’m not the only one wondering about what the hell has happened to Jim. Minor correction: St Andrew’s on The Terrace. Not to be confused with St Matthew’s in the Cuty, Auckland.
This is rather a generous appraisal, Chris. I think the real reason Jim Veitch finds himself with the praetorian guard side is that his friends in power are fast closing down the Religious Studies Depts in NZ and he saw a convenient opening. No doubt he trains many of the spies in his new position. He is looking after number one, but in doing I fear he may have lost his soul.
Well said. Off to send Dr Veitch the following press release and see if his world view can be changed by the available scientific evidence of 911.
I would like to alert you to the press release and preview to the new documentary “9/11 in the Academic Community”, by Adnan Zuberi; a Winner of the University of Toronto Film Festival. This film documents academia’s treatment of critical perspectives on 9/11 by exploring the taboo that shields the American government’s narrative from scholarly examination. Through a powerful reflection on intellectual courage and the purpose of academia, the film aims at changing intellectual discourse on 9/11 and the War on Terror.
http://911inacademia.com/2013/08/05/911-in-the-academic-community-preview-press-release/
see the trailer here http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=OFzVKDdCa6s
As well as probing the repercussions several scholars have endured due to their investigation of 9/11, this documentary provides an analysis of impairments in professional inquiry, ranging from the failure to critically reflect on terms functioning as thought-stoppers (such as “conspiracy theory”) to the structural approach that restricts inquiry to the broad implications of 9/11 while shutting out enquiry into the events of the day itself. Morton Brussel, Professor Emeritus of Physics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has stated: “The main thesis of the film concerns the silence of the academic community on this vital issue. I think it is extremely important and very well produced.”
As 9/11 served as the rationale for the Global War on Terror, the expansion of the military and intelligence complex, the invasion of other countries in violation of international law, and the curtailing of civil liberties, the film provides an inspiring demonstration of intellectual courage that will cause many scholars to reflect on the academy’s role and strength to dismantle the war system. As Alvin A. Lee, President Emeritus of McMaster University, has stated in his endorsement of the film: academics should “stand sufficiently outside society intellectually to see, understand, and interpret what is going on.”
Lance deHaven-Smith
Professor of Public Administration and Policy at Florida State University
Former President of the Florida Political Science Association
As an academic, I found the film to accurately describe how
academics tend to deal with controversial issues.
Hendrik Van den Berg
Professor of Economics at University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Former Foreign Service Officer, U.S. Department of State
This documentary confronts the academy’s uncritical response to the defining event of our times. It is an essential viewing for everyone in academe.
Recent ‘terrorist’ attacks such as the Boston bombing and the Woolwich murder have occurred despite the multi-billion dollar spying and security apparatus. In these and other ‘terrorist’ attacks the suspects were known to the security services but somehow they escaped detection in time. I believe that future terrorist attacks will occur no matter how much our spying laws are enhanced nor how much money is spent on security.
We need to ask whether these enhanced laws and security measures are to protect us or to protect the real terrorists by going after honest whistle-blowers.
Chris Trotter wrote:
“Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.” So says the Gospel of Matthew. But, what if a Christian decides that God and Caesar should be one and the same? What if, like the radical regiments of Oliver Cromwell’s army, the faithful declare their determination to fight for “King Jesus”?”
Joseph Atwill, author of Caesar’s Messiah, writes convincingly that the Christian religion was invented or developed by the Flavian Caesars precisely because the Jews in Palestine refused to accept dearly departed caesars as gods. Jesus Christ, the messiah character invented in c. 70AD, was a thinly but cleverly disguised substitute for the Roman general cum Caesar, Titus Flavius, whose military campaigns were documented by the Flavian’s Jewish house historian, Josephus. Very soon, the Flavians saw the wider usefulness of a pacifistic monotheistic religion centred on a Saviour God who was a substitute for the imperial controller. The fictional character known as Saul/Paul was invented to spread the Flavian’s state religion to gentiles far beyond Judea. The Roman empire survives today in the form of the Roman (get it?) Catholic Church.
Some Christians have strayed from the pacifistic intent of the New Testament, including the Crusaders, Cromwell’s army, the Roman Catholic Church through its Inquisition and Jesuit quasi-military branch, and modern fundamentalist Zionist Christians who, like Cromwell’s army, believe in a King Jesus or a General Jesus who will “leave behind”, nuke or otherwise destroy non-believers.
Jim Veitch, while spurning fundamentalist views and probably any actual Christian faith at all has nonetheless adopted a belief or at minimum a public adherence to Caesar as God, bypassing or forsaking his former alleged secular humanist Uncle Jesus views.
Lacking any moral compass, he has opportunistically become a shill for the man, and by that, I don’t mean the Son of Man.
Jim does still preach in the Presbyterian Church, I’ve just come back from a thoughtful service taken by him at First Church Martinborough, where we enjoy hearing his views – he would be the most interesting minister I’ve ever heard – and we count ourselves lucky to have him. If you listen to him you would understand the logical progression of his thoughts.
Comments are closed.