German rabbi prosecuted for performing circumcisions

http://www.timesofisrael.com/criminal-charges-filed-against-german-rabbi-for-performing-circumcisions/

http://www.timesofisrael.com/european-jewry-rushes-to-save-rabbi-in-germany-facing-charges-for-performing-circumcision/

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/08/21/german-circumcision-ban-bags-first-victim-anti-semitism/

The Sacred Rite of Circumcision

http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-life-and-religion/108801/sacred-rite-of-circumcision?print=1

Cutting for stone

Several weeks back Bnonn and Sarah Tennant, Steve, and I were respectfully discussing the medical aspects of circumcision.

Paul and law

Nanos also rightly emphasizes that Paul was not against Jewish believers following the Torah. It is likely the case, especially in Israel, that most Jews who believed in Jesus continued to circumcise their children, followed purity laws, and even offered sacrifices (cf. Acts 21:20-26).

Furthermore, in Rom 14:1-15:6 Paul defends the right of the weak (who were probably mainly Jewish Christians) to observe days and eat foods that were clean. Paul almost certainly thinks here of the Sabbath and of the food laws of the Old Testament. He forbids those who are strong to impose their convictions on the weak. Instead they must love and accept those who differ with them.

Thomas Schreiner in Four Views on The Apostle Paul, Gundry/Bird, eds. (Zondervan 2012), 194.

Skewed view of circumcision

http://www.chiefrabbi.org/2012/07/06/the-jerusalem-post-the-europeans-skewed-view-of-circumcision/

The trial of the century

International Herald Tribune

In the International Criminal Court today, key witness for the prosecution Olaf Olafsen took the stand. The 6’ 5” MMA fighter often broke down during testimony has he recounted the harrowing experience of having his wisdom teeth extracted without his consent as a teenager. Jurors openly wept at the emotional testimony. The judges wept. Even hardened court reporters wept.

“I felt violated,” he sobbed. “I will never be whole again. They took something precious from me.”

He still has recurring nightmares about the ordeal. “My extracted wisdom teeth visit me in dreams, reproaching me. ‘How could you do this to us?’ they say.”

Defendant Jorge Jorgensen, the Swedish dentist accused of crimes against dental integrity, buried his face in his hands during the gut-wrenching testimony.

Dr. Blutenherz, a board-certified psychiatrist and expert witness on cases of posttraumatic wisdom tooth extraction, testified to the delayed psychological impact of the procedure:

“Persons who have lost pearly whites must grieve their loss. The first stage of grief is denial of the loss. Loss of wisdom teeth is bound to have profound psychological effects, not only on the person directly affected but also on family, friends, workmates, and caregivers. The thought of permanent loss of wisdom teeth is so painful that persons deny their loss in order to avoid facing the painful feelings. Denial of loss causes a flight from reality. Persons in denial may minimize their loss. Tooth extraction causes the loss of a body part and all of its functions, so denial of loss is not uncommon in extracted males. Extracted males may experience the full range of distress and emotional dysfunction resulting from loss. This frequently results in extracted fathers adamantly insisting that a son be extracted.

“Fathers are frequently unable to vocalize their feelings. They will say that ‘I want my son to have good teeth.’ In fact, what the father really may be feeling is, ‘I don’t want a son with intact wisdom teeth to remind me of what I have lost.’

“Some extracted male dentists misuse the orthodontic literature to support, rationalize, and justify their own loss; and to defend the practice of tooth extraction. Dentists who have been extracted themselves may be unable to stop extracting others. Dentists who are older, male, and extracted are more likely to condone tooth extraction. Members of dental societies may have emotional issues that may preclude the objective formulation of policy concerning wisdom tooth extraction.

“Wisdom tooth extraction contributes to later aggressive, violent, and/or suicidal behaviour. Studies identified a compulsion in traumatized persons to repeat the trauma. The performance of wisdom tooth extraction by an extracted male dentist may be a reenactment of his own extraction trauma.”

Did rabbinic Judaism change circumcision?

One stock argument deployed by anticircumcisionists is their contention that Jews changed the procedure in the 2C AD, implementing a more radical excision. Prior to that time, circumcision didn’t expose the glans. In other words, modern Jewish circumcision isn’t the same as (or comparable to) OT circumcision. So goes the argument.

I have reservations about nonspecialists who think they can jump straight into the Mishnah, Talmud, and Tosefta. These are often obscure documents that require a lot background knowledge to appreciate the context.

According to this article (see below), rabbinic Judaism did not alter the traditional procedure. Rather, some Jewish assimilators were shirking the traditional procedure, and the Mishnah was merely reaffirming the traditional procedure. In other words, the traditional procedure did expose the glans. That’s not a later innovation.

http://www.cirp.org/library/restoration/hall1/

Ironically, this article is posted on an anticircumcision website.

Circumcision, baptism, and Baptists

What’s the Baptist position on outlawing circumcision?

i) Many Baptists are dispensationalists. I assume they support the right of Jewish parents to circumcise their sons.

ii) Baptist theology also tends to accentuate the discontinuity between the old covenant and the new covenant, although there are many variations on this emphasis. Baptists who subscribe to the LBCF see more continuity than new covenant Baptists (e.g. D. A. Carson). Dispensationalists see continuity in terms of ethnic Israel's future restoration.

Considered in isolation, if you emphasize the newness of the new covenant, you might be more inclined to support a legal ban on circumcision. Circumcision null and void.

iii) On the other hand, Baptists also tend to stress separation of church and state, although there are variations on this emphasis as well. And Baptists who stress separation of church and state often ground this in their view of the old covenant. They say the old covenant in toto is obsolete. The OT theocracy was part of Israel’s unique, unrepeatable, cultic holiness. It represents a temporary stage in the history of redemption.

If you begin with that frame of reference, you might be inclined to oppose the state outlawing circumcision because you don’t think the state has the duty to regulate religion. That’s too theocratic. Rather, you’d support religious freedom. Individual conscience.

Circumcision and the state

Some Christian anticircumcisionists use the following argument to justify banning male neonatal circumcision: according to the NT (e.g. Acts 15, Galatians), circumcision was a rite of the passé old covenant. Christians aren’t obligated to practice circumcision. That’s defunct. Hence, the state has the authority to ban circumcision.

The underlying principle of this argument is that gov’t has the authority to proscribe whatever the Bible does not (currently) prescribe. But there are several problems with that argument:

i) It’s a recipe for totalitarian gov’t. Whenever you empower the state, you disempower the public. You are transferring power from the public to the state–power which the state will frequently use against the public. So that's not something to be done lightly.

Do we really wish to cede to gov’t the authority to forbid whatever the Bible doesn’t command?

For instance, although the Bible encourages Christians to have children, the Bible doesn’t specify how many children a Christian couple ought to have. Does this mean the state has the right to dictate the number of children Christians are allowed to have?

The Bible doesn’t say Christians should have four children. Does this mean the state can regulate the number of children Christian couples can have? Does the state have the authority to forbid a Christian couple from having four kids?

ii) The argument is also fallacious.

a) As a rule, if something is obligatory, then it’s permissible–at least in principle. That’s an a fortiori argument from the greater to the lesser (a maiore ad minus).

God would not command something that’s intrinsically evil. But before something can be morally obligatory, it must be morally permissible.

b) If God used to command something, then even if that’s no longer an obligation, the fact that it ceases to be obligatory doesn’t make it prohibitory. So even if circumcision is no longer a religious duty, it doesn’t follow that circumcision is now forbidden. Rather, it would be adiaphoral.

c) Of course, it’s possible for some things to be permissible under special circumstances, but impermissible under general circumstances. Yet that requires a separate argument. That’s not a given. 

iii) In addition, it is sometimes better for the state to allow evil than suppress evil if the effort to suppress evil would cause greater evil.

For instance, it’s evil for a man to gamble away his paycheck, so that he can’t provide for his dependants. Should the state therefore suppress that evil by outlawing casinos and online gambling? But there are two problems with that solution:

a) It drives gambling underground. Creates an unregulated, black market. And that can be worse than legalized gambling.

b) It would take a police state apparatus to enforce a blanket ban on commercial gambling. And that would create its own evils. Expansive, intrusive gov’t. Abuse of power. 

In theory a police state might seem to be more virtuous because it cracks down on all manner of vice. In practice, a police state is more corrupt because those in power use their unchecked power for personal aggrandizement. The state because a massive, official shakedown operation.

iv) Apropos (iii), let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that Jewish circumcision is morally wrong. That, of itself, is not sufficient reason to outlaw the practice–for we need to weigh the (alleged) evil of the practice over against the attended evils of enforcing a law against it.

That’s an a fortiori argument from the lesser to the greater (a minore ad maius). Does suppressing a lesser evil have the side effect of generating an even greater evil?

To take a concrete example, the Mosaic law had a complex position on prostitution. Cultic prostitution was forbidden. Likewise, male and female Israelites were forbidden to be prostitutes (on pain of death!).

However, foreign nationals were allowed to practice prostitution (except cultic prostitution). The Mosaic law did not condone the practice. But the Mosaic law distinguished between sins and crimes. Not every sin was a crime. Not every sin fell within the jurisdiction of the state.

That’s why Proverbs uses prudential arguments rather than judicial arguments against prostitution.

v) This, in turn, goes to the question of religious tolerance. How permissive should the state be in reference to false religion?

Take folk Buddhism. That’s a false religion.  Should a Christian state outlaw the practice of folk Buddhism?

But even the Mosaic law made provision for resident foreign nationals. These were not Jewish believers. They were normally pagan. As long as they practiced their pagan faith in private, that was tolerated. What was not tolerated is if they attempted to subvert and supplant the true religion.

So let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that rabbinical Judaism is a false religion. That wouldn’t automatically mean it ought to be outlawed. 

And, of course, rabbinical Judaism isn’t false in the same degree as folk Buddhism.

Faith and Freedom

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/NG03Dj02.html

Down with delis

Der Spiegel

In a landmark ruling today, Judge Rudi Ratfink outlawed Jewish delicatessens. Judge Ratfink was responding to a class action suit by fishermen, farmers, restaurateurs, and supermarket chains alleging that kosher food had a negative impact on the local economy by unfairly depressing the sale pork products and shellfish.

Child welfare activists filed amicus briefs alleging that kosher food was child abuse, by unfairly depriving Jewish kids of tasty food items available to gentile kids.

Lutheran ministers filed amicus briefs contending that there was no theological warrant for kosher food under the terms of the new covenant. Hence, whatever the New Testament does not command the State is free to forbid.

In a separate decision, Judge Ratfink outlawed beards. This was in response to a class action suit filed by cosmetologists alleging that halakhic traditions negatively impacted barbershops.

In Tehran, the Grand Ayatollah hailed both rulings as a signal advance in human rights.

Kristallnacht

Before I delve into the details, I’d like to make some general observations. Protestants are conditioned by the Lutheran debate with Rome. How Luther appealed to Paul’s teaching about circumcision and the Mosaic law in reference to the Judaizers. And that’s fine as far as it goes.

But a result of that theological conditioning is that we may fail to notice the other side of the coin. Paul regards circumcision, by itself, as a matter of indifference. He doesn’t think Jewish Christians should cease to be Jewish or Gentile Christians should cease to be Gentile (1 Cor 7:17-20). It’s analogous to his position on food (Rom 14-15; 1 Cor 10:23-30).

Paul takes a pragmatic and conciliatory approach. In relation to Jewish outreach, Jewish observance is permissible. In relation to Gentile outreach, nonobservance is permissible.

Timothy is a borderline case, the result of a mixed marriage. In principle, he could be classified as either Jewish or Gentile. But for purposes of Jewish outreach, it’s expedient that he be circumcised.

Paul himself continues to be an observant Jew. In Acts 18:18 he apparently takes a Nazirite vow. In Acts 20:16 he’s in a hurry to make the Feast of Pentecost. He doesn’t wish to miss this Jewish feast.

Most significant, in Acts 21:17-26, Paul goes out of his way to demonstrate that he’s a loyal Jew. So the new covenant doesn’t render Jewish praxis illicit. Likewise, Jewish Christians continue going to the Temple (e.g. Acts 2:46).

In addition, Paul compares ethnic Israel to the trunk, and Christian gentiles to grafted branches (Rom 11:16b-24). For a defense of this interpretation, cf. R. Jewett, Romans (Fortress 2007), 682-93. The trunk supports the branches, not vice versa.

So how should Christians treat the “trunk”? Shouldn’t the branch protect the trunk? Put a fence around the trunk? A Christian majority ought to protect a Jewish minority. Honor the trunk. 

The Fourth Reich

smokering6/28/2012 12:30 AM

Isn't that why we have laws to protect them against abuses by said parents, including cutting bits off them?

You mean…like cutting their hair, trimming their toenails and fingernails?

A cleft palate is a birth defect; crooked teeth can interfere with function. Repairing something that is wrong with the body is very different to removing a healthy, functioning body part.

Irrelevant. I was responding to a blanket objection by “John.”  He didn’t qualify his objection. So I cited some obvious counterexamples.

You’re admitting that body modification is proper in some cases, but improper in others. But that’s a different argument than “John” offered. My counterexamples were responsive to his objection.

In the cases of purely cosmetic braces, I would argue that parents should *not* force them on their children - by the time a child is old enough to get braces, he's old enough to understand the implications of having vs not having them, and if he changes his mind later in life he can generally get his teeth straightened later anyway. Would it even be legal for parents to force an unwilling 12-year-old child to get cosmetic braces?

i) There are two different issues here: what parents should do and what they should be legally allowed to do.

ii) Adolescents are often shortsighted.

A cleft palate is a birth defect; crooked teeth can interfere with function. Repairing something that is wrong with the body is very different to removing a healthy, functioning body part.

In the case of neonatal male circumcision, the body part isn’t sexually functional at that age.

“Both involve the removal of a healthy, functioning body part from a non-consenting minor.

You’re bundling three issues into one, each of which requires separate analysis: (a) removal of a “healthy, functioning body part”; (b) the age of the affected individual (a minor), and (c) nonconsent.

“Both are practiced in a variety of conditions, from forced circumcisions at puberty to sterile, hospital circumcisions performed by loving parents.

And the variety of conditions requires separate analysis.

Both are largely practiced, in their respective parts of the world, for cultural and sexual reasons. The same arguments are used - that intact genitals are unsightly, that no-one will want to marry an intact man/woman, that cut genitals are cleaner, that cutting makes sex better.

i) Religious and medical justifications are offered as well.

ii) You’re also disregarding a major disanalogy. In Muslim countries, female circumcision is performed to discourage female premarital and extramarital sex. Indeed, you yourself go on to say, “FGM has long been considered to decrease women's sexual desire and/or pleasure, acting as a type of social control.” By contrast, Muslim countries are extremely permissive regarding male promiscuity. So the cultural motivations could hardly be more disparate.

Type 1 FGM, the mildest form of FGM (and, with Type 2, by far the most common), removes the homologous organ to the male foreskin.

And Type 2 would be analogous to castration. So your analogy fails at the critical point of comparison.

How engaged are you with intactivist communities? I'm familiar with them, and the VAST majority of intactivists strongly oppose tattooing, body-piercing and performing cosmetic surgery on non-consenting minors. A few are OK with piercing babies' ears, on the grounds that it has minimal risks and does not interfere with the function of the ear, and/or because it is culturally important to some people (I disagree with both reasons, but there you go). Intactivists have no ethical problem with *adults* freely choosing to modify their own bodies, whether by circumcision or making their ears pointy like Mr Spock; the point is simply not to inflict such needless modifications on babies.

Your argument is equivocal inasmuch as you’ve bundled two or three issues into one: body modification and consent or nonconsent (related to the age of the individual).

And your argument tugs in opposing directions. On the one hand you appeal to an essentialist argument based on “healthy, functioning body-parts.” That would suggest that body modification (of a health, functioning body part) is intrinsically wrong.

But then you switch to an argument based on individual autonomy, viz. the right of consenting adults to undergo voluntary body modification. But on that view, genital integrity is socially constructed.

I might also point out that Christianity has a history with bodily autonomy - Gladys Aylward was hugely responsible for wiping out the practice of foot-binding in China, a practice with more than a few analogies to infant circumcision.

Do you think OT circumcision was morally analogous to Chinese foot-binding?

As far as the issue of Judaism goes, I can't understand why Christians should support circumcision on religious grounds.

No. The question at issue is whether we ought to outlaw Judaism. If that’s your position, how do you think it should be enforced? Should observant Jews be imprisoned? Should the State dissolve custody and place Jewish children in foster care or orphanages? Should Jewish couples be sterilized?

Why would we support a wrong theological belief that harms children?

Depends on what you mean by “support.” There’s a sense in which raising a child as a Jew indoctrinates the child in some faulty theological beliefs. It tends to bias the child against Christianity. Does that mean we should outlaw yeshivas? Forbid minors from attending synagogue?

Paul explicitly states that circumcision is of no spiritual value.

Which didn’t hinder Paul from circumcising Timothy to promote his mission to the Jews (Acts 16:3).

“Friendship evangelism" should not be taken to the extreme of allowing children to suffer genital mutilation.

Is that how you classify OT circumcision?

And if routine infant circumcision is outlawed (as it should be)…

So you do think Judaism should be criminalized.

…allowing religious circumcision means Jewish boys are not protected while Gentile boys are - which in itself could be construed as a type of anti-Semitism.

Gentile boys don’t need to be “protected” from circumcision.

But we are talking about cutting off bits of babies' genitals here, and ultimately my sympathy lies with the children lying in agony while their foreskins are crushed and snipped off.

Unlike male circumcision in modern countries, which is generally performed under sedation, OT circumcision was performed without sedation. So by your logic, OT circumcision was child abuse.

"Genital autonomy"

The ruling of a German court to criminalize circumcision raises a number of issues which modern secular regimes are ill-prepared to sort out:

i) The ruling implicitly criminalizes Judaism. Now perhaps the German court lacks national jurisdiction. I’m not a German lawyer.

ii) The question is not, in the first instance, whether we personally approve of circumcision, but the degree of freedom we allow others.

iii) From a Christian standpoint, circumcision is not a religious duty for Christians. At the same time, we can (and should) defend the right of Jews to practice Judaism.

iv) From what I’ve read, circumcision has medical fringe benefits. But there may be tradeoffs.

v) From what I’ve read, male circumcision isn’t comparable to female circumcision.

vi) People who oppose circumcision don’t seem to oppose tattooing, body-piercing, or cosmetic surgery–so it’s not as if they think the body in its natural condition is sacrosanct.

vii) I don’t think all religions are entitled to equal treatment. And I don’t think parents have carte blanche.

At the same time, parents enjoy default authority to raise their children. There’s a strong presumption of parental authority which should only be overridden in exceptional cases.

Judaism isn’t Islam. And raising boys in Judaism isn’t child abuse.

viii) We can have a reasonable debate over the medial pros and cons of male circumcision. However, like so many “issues,” this is becoming another liberal cause. And it’s being grafted onto a standard liberal paradigm involving “genital autonomy.”

Good thing Abraham wasn't German

http://www.timesofisrael.com/german-court-prohibits-circumcisions/