This is Brad DeLong's Grasping Reality—my attempt to make myself, and all of you out there in SubStackLand, smarter by writing where I have Value Above Replacement and shutting up where I do not… The Trump Tanakh—That Is, the Law, the Prophets, & the Writings—Was Written by Quentin Tarantino "Pulp Fiction" Character Jules WinfieldQuentin Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction” becomes Holy Scripture in Trumpist civil religion: the astonishing war prayers of DefSec Peter Hegseth rewrite God in the image of a sadistic pulp-movie thug. The...
Quentin Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction” becomes Holy Scripture in Trumpist civil religion: the astonishing war prayers of DefSec Peter Hegseth rewrite God in the image of a sadistic pulp-movie thug. The real Ezekiel 25 is about how nobody’s aggressive violence escapes divine judgment. Hegseth’s CSAR 2517 is about how American violence is itself the Divine judgment—and that is about as anti‑Christian as you can get…The work DefSec Peter Hegseth regards as Holy Scripture:
The actual Ezekiel 25:17 (KJV) <https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ezekiel%2025&version=KJV> is:
At the Pentagon, DefSec Peter Hegseth led the congregation in saying this, that he said was called “CSAR 2517”, for “Combat Search And Rescue [Ezekiel ]25:17:”
As seamusmcduffs says <https://www.reddit.com/r/Christianity/comments/1smo7ah/pete_hegseth_quotes_fake_pulp_fiction_bible_verse/>: ‘I would say if you’re version of Christianity feels in line with a fake verse from “Pulp Fiction”, you’ve taken a wrong turn somewhere…’ The context of Ezekiel 25 is that Ezekiel is writing from Babylon, to which he has been carried as an exiled prisoner after -586 when Babylonian Emperor Nabû-kudurrī-uṣur had dealt with the rebelling King Zidkiyahu by destroying the Kingdom of Judah, leveling its capital of Jerusalem, scattering the population, and carrying at least its élite into the Babylonian captivity. The Ammonites, Moabites, Edomites, and Philistines had joined Nabû-kudurrī-uṣur’s punitive suppression of the Judahite rebellion. And so Ezekiel is reassuring his audience that they will, at God’s hand and in God’s time, be properly punished for this. Ezekiel is much more “nobody’s aggressive violence will escape divine judgment in the end”, and not “we are powerful righteous winners whose violence is itself the divine judgment”. I mean: what is supposed to say about this? Quentin Tarantino makes very good, very violent, very cathartic movies. But he is not the voice of God. And he is in no sense a preacher of the Gospel. And there is great confusion in what Hegseth said toward its end: Is Hegseth really saying that God’s call sign is “Sandy 1”? Is Hegseth saying that the US military is God, or at least the Bearer of the Divine Name, executing the great vengeance and furious anger of the Divinity? Quentin Tarantino wrote a brilliantly stylized gangster monologue, not a liturgy, yet Trump’s DefSec just treated it as if it were holy writ. That isn’t a cute pop‑culture mash‑up; it is a revealing window into who the rulers America elected in November 2024 really are. If reading this gets you Value Above Replacement, then become a free subscriber to this newsletter. And forward it! And if your VAR from this newsletter is in the three digits or more each year, please become a paid subscriber! I am trying to make you readers—and myself—smarter. Please tell me if I succeed, or how I fail…##the-trump-tanakh-that-is-the-law-the-prophets-the-writings-was-written-by-quentin-tarantino-pulp-fiction-character-jules-winfield
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