Rendering Caesar

You read about the fall of Rome, and you wonder what it's like when an empire dies.

How shattering is the crash when an unimaginable colossus finally falls to the ground? What's it like to live a day-to-day life, even as you and everyone around you is in a free-fall from grace?

Well, no need to hit the books, or buy the video games to find out. We can all look out our windows and witness the fall of an empire--although, unlike many, I'd argue it's not America.

How can it be when the truly important things that made this country great are in ascendancy all over the world? There are now more democracies than there ever have been in human history; some version of capitalism has triumphed everywhere; and the adults of tomorrow are all gorging on whatever version of American pop culture strikes their fancy, in many cases hypocritically picking and choosing cafeteria-style from our dizzying array of 'whatever makes you happy' music/television/movie/books/arts/etc.

It's not America, but we do live amongst this dying empire--and as any student of history or business or sports know, as those who are used to being the rulers feel power slipping out of their grasp, they resist. Sometimes bloodily.

Gone are the days of easy generosity, of largess, of turning the other cheek, of complacency born from a lack of fear. The self-ease of a worldview free from serious worry, from true rivals, from gnawing self-doubt crumbles away and is replaced by the same cutthroat, dog-eat-dog zero sum game that everyone else in the world lives by.

Not quite gone is power, the ability to bend others (even if temporarily) to your will; to bully, to intimidate, to snarl, to cheat, to try every trick in the book to prop up the edifice.

The interesting thing is these acts, coming from the hegemon, are always initially seen by everyone else as unworthy of a 'great champion'. People are surprised and a little incredulous when Michael Jordan starts lobbying for calls, when GM pushes for import quotas, when Britain asks its colonies to pay for 'protection'. We're so used to thinking of the alpha dog as the protype, in some ways brainwashed to see its patterns as the norm.

This is when people are often bitterly disappointed to learn that the champ wasn't so noble by nature... but rather was just lazy or disinterested enough that when the streets ran with gold, there was no need for their true nature to stir.

That incredulousness soon turns to fear, though, as the 800 lb. lion comes down among you and starts fighting for its survival; heck, for a while all the roaring and bloodshed might even be enough to make people believe the beast is still king.

But time tells all; and over time, as the challengers realize the champ's definitely got feet of clay, the downward spiral escalates. Pretty soon, the ex-champ's in the gutter with everyone else, vicious and ignoble.

Sometimes, of course, the ex-champ learns on its own things the truly nobel virtues of sharing and compromise. And even the values of diversity... skills that had previously been unnecessary and thus alien.

Usually, though, these things have to be taught.

Talk in Class Turns to God, Setting Off Public Debate on Rights

Tina Kelly in the Times: Before David Paszkiewicz got to teach his accelerated 11th-grade history class about the United States Constitution this fall, he was accused of violating it.

Shortly after school began in September, the teacher told his sixth-period students at Kearny High School that evolution and the Big Bang were not scientific, that dinosaurs were aboard Noah’s ark, and that only Christians had a place in heaven, according to audio recordings made by a student whose family is now considering a lawsuit claiming Mr. Paszkiewicz broke the church-state boundary.

“If you reject his gift of salvation, then you know where you belong,” Mr. Paszkiewicz was recorded saying of Jesus. “He did everything in his power to make sure that you could go to heaven, so much so that he took your sins on his own body, suffered your pains for you, and he’s saying, ‘Please, accept me, believe.’ If you reject that, you belong in hell.”

The student, Matthew LaClair, said that he felt uncomfortable with Mr. Paszkiewicz’s statements in the first week, and taped eight classes starting Sept. 13 out of fear that officials would not believe the teacher had made the comments.

Since Matthew’s complaint, administrators have said they have taken “corrective action” against Mr. Paszkiewicz, 38, who has taught in the district for 14 years and is also a youth pastor at Kearny Baptist Church. However, they declined to say what the action was, saying it was a personnel matter.

“I think he’s an excellent teacher,” said the school principal, Al Somma. “As far as I know, there have never been any problems in the past.”

Staci Snider, the president of the local teacher’s union, said Mr. Paszkiewicz (pronounced pass-KEV-ich) had been assigned a lawyer from the union, the New Jersey Education Association. Two calls to Mr. Paszkiewicz at school and one to his home were not returned.

In this tale of the teacher who preached in class and the pupil he offended, students and the larger community have mostly lined up with Mr. Paszkiewicz, not with Matthew, who has received a death threat handled by the police, as well as critical comments from classmates.

Greice Coelho, who took Mr. Paszkiewicz’s class and is a member of his youth group, said in a letter to The Observer, the local weekly newspaper, that Matthew is “ignoring the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which gives every citizen the freedom of religion.” Some anonymous posters on the town’s electronic bulletin board, Kearnyontheweb.com, called for Matthew’s suspension.

On the sidewalks outside the high school, which has 1,750 students, many agreed with 15-year-old Kyle Durkin, who said, “I’m on the teacher’s side all the way.”

While science teachers, particularly in the Bible Belt, have been known to refuse to teach evolution, the controversy here, 10 miles west of Manhattan, hinges on assertions Mr. Paszkiewicz made in class, including how a specific Muslim girl would go to hell.

If it weren't for the audio recordings, who'd have believed LaClair? There's more in the rest of the article; it's pretty incredible Paszkiewicz thinks himself fit to teach in a public school.

It's shameful that the school and town are supporting this bully. I wonder how many students in how many other schools--lacking someone with the courage of LaClair and his family--are suffering from the likes of Paszkiewicz in these waning days of our 'Christian' country.

How many other people who are 'Christians' by default, because it was easier than not being Christian, are now acting out their un-Christian, un-tutored natures? How many of them are now huddled in their holes, snarling at everyone and everything they define as 'them,' forsaking the warmth of God's puzzling and ever-changing world for the hobgoblin claustrophobia of their own making?

It's a hole that, on top of everything else, is shrinking steadily by the day. Just check out the numbers , in this case from Religious Tolerance.org. People who identify as Christians make up about 32% of the world; and it's dropping. Muslims make up 19%; and it's growing.

How can any religion as tied to the victorious West be losing ground in this day and age? It's ridiculous--I mean, here's a faith that has all the advantages of being affiliated with the most successful society on earth today. And yet, Christianity is losing ground to its fellow desert religion, a set of beliefs whose most famous adherent is probably Osama bin Laden!

You might argue it's because people are inherently wicked, or ignorant. In which case, what percentage of Christianity's growth through the 20th century was on the backs of the ignorant/wicked? The choices of the masses have to count for something, otherwise why would God care enough to send his only son etc.?

Besides which, it's not just the dusky Third World that's trending less Christian. It's also Americans; the benchmark American Religious Identification Survey shows Christians are now 76.5% of the U.S. population, down 10% in the last 10 years.

So I can see how despite, as Jon Stewart likes to point out, an unbroken record of 43 presidents in a row, some Christians in America are panicking. Aargh, Christmas under siege! Oh my gosh, religious bigotry everywhere--no, not what Jews in America have had to put up with for generations, and Muslims and Buddhists and Hindus et al for decade, this is something worse. It's directed at US!

Heck, especially if you believe you were born to rule, the shock of discovering maybe it's not in the natural order of things that your views dominate can be great. Who, after all, wants to be among equals--even first among equals--when not too long ago it was your way or the highway.

It's like a middle-aged man waking up to the notion one day that he's not immortal, that this, too, shall pass. So you act out--have a crisis, maybe take it out on your wife and kids.

Except in this case, thanks to sheer numbers and a wonderful little thing called the lawsuit (helped along by media coverage), the wife's not having any of it, and the kids are grown.

Heck, the other humans in the world are not simply here as a blank canvas for non-Christian Christians to work out their issues, to travel or not travel the path of self-discovery upon our backs. Any more than the people in the World Trade Center existed so that non-Muslim Muslims could get the attention of the rest of the world.

There undoubtedly are people in this world of ours who are going to hell. I just think it unlikely that God has delegated those decisions to any human, let alone a punk middle-aged bigot.

Photo of Colisium taken by Gerald Oskoboiny, International Man of Mystery.