10 Oct Ann Coulter: Christians Are “Perfected” Jews
Meet Ann Coulter, Fox News media darling, best-selling author, syndicated columnist — and raving anti-Semite. From an exchange with Donny Deutsch on CNBC:
DEUTSCH: Let me ask you a question. We’re going to get off strengths and weakness for a second. If you had your way, and all of your — forget that any of them —
COULTER: I like this.
DEUTSCH: — are calculated marketing teases, and your dreams, which are genuine, came true having to do with immigration, having to do with women’s — with abortion — what would this country look like? … Would there be more tolerance? Would there be — would women be happier, would the races get along better? The Ann Coulter subscription — prescription. What — tell me what would be different in our fabric of country, because —
[snip]
COULTER: Well, OK, take the Republican National Convention. People were happy. They’re Christian. They’re tolerant. They defend America, they —
DEUTSCH: Christian — so we should be Christian? It would be better if we were all Christian?
COULTER: Yes.
DEUTSCH: We should all be Christian?
COULTER: Yes. Would you like to come to church with me, Donny?[snip]
DEUTSCH: That isn’t what I said, but you said I should not — we should just throw Judaism away and we should all be Christians, then, or —
COULTER: Yeah.
[snip]
DEUTSCH: Why don’t I put you with the head of Iran? I mean, come on. You can’t believe that.
COULTER: The head of Iran is not a Christian.
DEUTSCH: No, but in fact, “Let’s wipe Israel” —
COULTER: I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention.
DEUTSCH: “Let’s wipe Israel off the earth.” I mean, what, no Jews?
COULTER: No, we think — we just want Jews to be perfected, as they say.
DEUTSCH: Wow, you didn’t really say that, did you?
COULTER: Yes. That is what Christianity is. We believe the Old Testament, but ours is more like Federal Express. You have to obey laws. We know we’re all sinners —
[snip]
DEUTSCH: … don’t you see how hateful, how anti-Semitic —
COULTER: No!
DEUTSCH: How do you not see? You’re an educated woman. How do you not see that?
COULTER: That isn’t hateful at all.
Think any of these comments will affect Coulter’s exalted status among conservatives? Me either.
Full transcript available here.
1) Ann Coulter does not have “exalted status” among conservatives. Some may like her, but others recognize that she is a raving lunatic.
2) What she said about religion is what most religious people believe implicitly. She just doesn’t have the good sense to keep her mouth shut about it.
Emperor,
I respectfully disagree. She is the author of five best-selling books; writes a popular syndicated column for the Universal Press Syndicate; and is a frequent guest on Hannity and Colmes, Wolf Blitzer Reports, At Large With Geraldo Rivera, Scarborough Country, The O’Reilly Factor, Good Morning America, and Fox and Friends. That seems pretty exalted to me.
But isn’t part of the reason she is a guest so often is because she says outrageous things and drives up ratings? Notice they haven’t given her a show of her own. They don’t want to be that closely linked to her.
Her comments are not objectionable. She is merely saying that Jews should become Christian. She isn’t advocating any forcible means or “wiping Israel off the map.” She only says that we would be better if we were all Christians. Hitches and Harris say everyone should be atheist. Does that mean they are anti-semitic as well?
Humble Law Student,
Please correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m guessing you are not Jewish. If you were, you might have a problem — as I do — with being described as an imperfect Christian whose religion should be thrown away.
And by the way, saying that Jews should become Christians is objectionable.
Hitchens, at least, is not saying everyone should be atheist. He is saying, here’s why I’m an atheist, and please stop trying to convert me.
Again, though, implicit in all religions is that they are superior and everyone else should convert. If you didn’t believe your religion was superior, why would you practice it? There may be a few peoople who think that practicing any religion, regardless of which one, is good, but I think that’s rare.
Given forced conversion of Jews to Christianity during the inquisition etc, at a minimum she is grossly insensitive to that painful history that I believe (but given the state of history teaching in schools can no longer be sure) is not a subtle obscure point in history but pretty common knowledge.
You are dismissing her too easily. She plays a role in granting legitimacy to base ideas. There have been others in other generations.
Best,
Ben
I’m going to have to agree with The Emperor here. It is a key tenet of Christianity (and all the religions of the book, as it were) that their particular brand is the only correct one.
Christians regard Jews as those who chose to reject the son of God, and Muslims as disciples of a false prophet.
Jews regard Christians as those who mistakenly thought a prophet was God in the flesh, and Muslims as those who follow a false prophet.
Muslims regard Christians and Jews as not properly following all the testament God gave to the world, in the form of the prophet Mohammad.
None of this is terribly controversial.
Yikes. I wonder whether using Coulter’s remarks as a springboard for discussion of religion, and on a international law blog, is really the soundest course.
Ignoring my own instincts, though, some comments ignore important and very sensitive distinctions among theories of chosenness — some purely historical, some essentially ethnic, some purely descriptive, some far more accommodating than others. It’s true that some of what Coulter expressed is a view held by some other Christians (and, I think, *some* forms of Judaism and Islam), but it would be quite easy to find unambiguous pronouncements by leaders in every faith taking the opposite view. To say that “[n]one of this is terribly controversial” is, well, controversial.
What seems particularly extreme is Coulter’s confrontational form of evangelism — which is hardly common to all religions, or species of Christianity — and her assent to the idea that, perhaps irrespective of individual choice, “we should just throw Judaism away.” But saying shocking things is her whole shtick, and query whether one rewards her by paying attention.
Mr. Heller,
I dislike Ann Coulter. I think she might be anti-semite. Why I react is that I just can´t infer that what she said in the interview is antisemitic rubbish.
Every religion believes some sort of exclusivity, that makes its belief the only one true. Ok, Jews do not say, that everybody should be Jewish. But what about B´Nei Noah? To be precise, every religion has some kind of moral maxims, similar to this: “if you dont do this, you are gonna die in hell”. Well, saying that Jews should become Christians, she might be saying that she wants to save Jews from hell. Is that dull? Possibly. Is that antisemitic? I do not believe so. Especially because she is not discriminating…everybodies religion should be “wiped off” for the sake of Christianity…so even if it is hateful, it is not antisemitic.
Sincerely yours,
Jakub Jost
P. S. Love your blog. Unfortunately did not get to meet you in Vienna.
Ann Coulter is an idiot. Idiots say stupid things. Ignore her. Women like her give female dogs a bad name.
sean s.