Another sad day for our republic

 

Wrecking the White House's east wing to build the Trump ballroom seems to me to be the perfect symbol for what he and his party are trying to do to our nation.

No Kings Protest in Mentor, OH—A Personal View

Maxine and I were part of a significant turnout of Americans at this afternoon’s No Kings protest in Mentor, OH. Mentor is in Lake County, northeast of Ohio’s Cuyahoga County and the city of Cleveland. It is very Republican.

We stood with many others (I cannot guess a number) along busy Route 20, carrying home-made signs, chanting slogans, waving to passing cars, and acknowledging one another in a very upbeat atmosphere. We were all ages and conditions of folk, mostly white but a few Black. The signs we carried decried many aspects of the Trump administration. A few contained personal attacks on him and others.

There were a few Trump signs in our crowd, carried by people who seemed willing to engage in conversation with anyone who approached them. I heard no raised or angry voices.

Other than a sign stating that “Jesus would be a socialist,” I saw or heard nothing about socialism, one way or the other. Across the street a speaker with a huge sign about sin and damnation tried to bring some folks to Jesus. I would love to have heard a conversation between those two!

A memorable thing happened when a good-sized, red pick-up stopped right in front of us. The older man who was driving got out, and the woman who was with him slid into the driver’s seat. For a moment I feared what they might be up to. He walked around the truck, took a sign out of the back seat, and then somehow got himself into the bed of the truck, where he stood displaying a sign that said something about the USMC (Marine Corps) and liberty. I wish I had a picture of it, but I believe he was a veteran expressing his dismay at what President Trump’s administration and party are visiting upon the land he defended.

The drivers of many of the vehicles that passed by honked their horns or raised their fists in support of us. Some of them had signs, too, and when they passed us more than once I realized they were part of our crowd. A few drivers flipped us the bird or gave us a thumbs down; we responded with peace signs and waved flags. Most drivers just drove on by looking straight ahead, trying not to get involved. I understand that.

There were quite a few American flags in our crowd, and since no one tore them out of anyone’s hands, or stomped on or burned them, I am quite sure I was not in a “Hate America” rally. Nothing I saw or heard indicated anyone around me was pro-Hamas, or pro any of the other things Speaker Johnson warned us about. He, like many of his cohorts, is living inside the Beltway bubble that only believes what serves their particular political interest, and who have little contact with day-to-day American life and Americans ourselves.

Ours was an orderly crowd, and as far as I experienced it, a passionate one, too. We  love America and fear losing her. I dare to hope that we will all continue to find ways to demonstrate America’s truth to the powers that threaten our way of life. I trust that, with sustained effort, we will be able to get back to the business of securing liberty and justice for us all.

Un-American Americanism

“Anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, anti-Christianity.”

Wow! That’s a whole lot of anti-s!

All appear, together, in a memo President Trump signed recently aimed at “Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence.” The memo identified a presumed “terror network” that is fueling violence, particularly violence against ICE agents.

The trinity of anti-s appears in the President’s claim that the “common threads animating this violent conduct include anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, anti-Christianity; support for the overthrow of the United States Government; extremism on migration, race, and gender; and hostility toward those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality.”

The memo goes on to suggest ways in which law enforcement is to counter individuals and organizations seeming to engage in or support such viewpoints and activities. They pretty much come down to the government can do practically anything it wants to hassle anyone or any organization that it suspects does not agree with its priorities and policies.

Wow, and wow! This is American?

There are all kinds of ways to challenge this dangerous memo (and what’s the status of a memo anyway, even if the President authors it?). But focus for the moment on the anti- threesome.

The implication of placing the three of them together is that the three are interrelated: that “American, capitalist, and Christian” are like three peas in a red, white, and blue pod; that you can’t be any one of them one if you aren’t willing to be all three; that if you are opposed to, or even mildly suspicious of, any one of them you must automatically be opposed to the other two.

With regard to Christianity’s place among the three, remember that Christianity has been around for far longer than the either the United States or capitalism have been. Its reach around the globe is far broader than our nation’s ever will be. And Christianity as a faith neither wants nor needs any government to defend it against those who are against it.

Christianity has flourished in America for 250 years, not because to be an American is to be a Christian or vice versa, but because Christianity has been free of government support and control. That the number of Christians in American is declining is not the government’s problem. In fact, the religious convictions or lack of such convictions on the part of the American population is only of interest to our government when any one faith tries to use the state’s power (including tax money for religious schools) to achieve its own ends.

There were a lot of Christians in the room when our nation was founded and its Constitution adopted. And they freely paid homage to God and Jesus in many of their writings. But they left both out of the Constitution precisely because they had had enough of state-sponsored religious institutions. They did not want their federal government to equate being an American with being a Christian, or with any other faith or non-faith group. Until the present administration, we pretty much agreed on that, despite recurring passionate skirmishes over exactly what it means.

I have no idea who or what this Presidential memo is for, or what it will eventually result in. I do know that in its every detail it is just about as un-American as anything I’ve ever read.

Shouting Our Way into War

 

Huffing and puffing and war-whooping don't make a nation great. And using the military against its own citizenry doesn't make a nation free.

"Christian" Nationalism on trial...

 

After last Sunday’s funeral/revival meeting/political rally in the name of Charlie Kirk, it is past time for all Christians to learn about the Theological Declaration of Barmen (Germany, 1934). Presbyterians should be aware of it, but Episcopalians may not be, so I will be leading an introduction to it at a local Episcopal church this coming Sunday.

Why Barmen now? Just one sentence offers a hint: “We reject as false doctrine that the Church could have permission to hand over the form of its message and of its order to whatever it itself might wish or to the vicissitudes of the prevailing ideological and political convictions of its day.” That happened big time on September 21, and the Church must not give in to it.

I invite all of my friends, and particularly those who are Christians, to become familiar with the Theological Declaration of Barmen. The time is right.

Charlie Kirk Murder Comments

Here are a couple of my recent Facebook posts for those who do not follow me there.

"A government headed by the man who pardoned the convicted far-right-wingers who attached the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, is now threatening an all-out assault on people on the "far-left" in general. A dangerous hypocrisy is at work here, and it will lead to no good end. Every American should be appalled."

"ABC caved to the government in suspending Jimmy Kimmel’s show. I am not defending what it’s reported that he said; it seemed over-the-top to me. But my question is this: who is going after all the administration and Republican Party prople who are blaming “the left” for Charlie Kirk’s murder? Are they accountable to no one when they make up a culprit? Why don’t they have to stick to the facts as we know them? We are in deep trouble."

What If It's Too Late?

Charlie Kirk was a guy who lived near the very edge of my current-events radar screen, if even he was on it at all. I’d heard of him, and probably could have connected him with Turning Point, USA if I’d had to. But that’s about it.

Now, in the aftermath of his murder, I am learning more about him in his death than I had in his life, and that forces me to ask myself, once again, what business I have sharing opinions about what’s going on in our nation and world. I don’t know anything that tons of other people don’t know a whole lot more about than I do.

I do know what lots of people are saying about Charlie Kirk, most of them not only trying to prove their own political creds to the world, but, more importantly, to draw me into their circle of beliefs. In this war of attrition we call political discourse these days, it’s the body count that matters, not the quality of the arguments.

Amongst all of this clangor there are few plaintive cries imploring us to become more temperate in our discourse, to respect one another more, to try a little harder to act like Americans all. I appreciate those cries and I value them, and I wish—O how I wish!—those cries might come to something positive.

Alas, I think and I fear it is too late. The horse is out of the barn, and the cat is out of the bag. Our democracy’s fate is sealed, and our republic, Mr. Franklin, is lost. We cannot go home again, because those in power do not want us to and will not allow us to.

I still have opinions about things, and I will continue to express them in the respectful and thoughtful ways I hope for from us all. But offering what I think about our current political situation feels somewhat akin to sharing my thoughts about the weather while experiencing an earthquake and a tornado at the same time. Who cares? Who has the wits to care? It’s whistling in the wind while our very foundations shake ourselves unto death.

It all might drive me back deeper than ever before into some form of my lifelong Christian faith. A form so basic and so simple that it simply assures me that Jesus loves me and loves you and loves us all, and I don’t know exactly what that means or how it will finally play out, except that by some grace both Charlie Kirk and I will one day both be held in those everlasting arms. And if Jesus can hold us both close, Jesus can and will do even more than I will ever think, or offer opinions about.