Category: Politics

Donald Trump, the Zealot

Trump has emerged as a chosen king, rallying the subjects to take over and displace the present occupiers.

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Gage Skidmore/Flickr
Gage Skidmore/Flickr

When Trump first announced his presidential intentions, it seemed to me like a reality show stunt. It was like a distraction from “the real the thing”, the serious business of presidential primaries that will determine the only choices that we have next November.

Now that Trump, the reality show candidate, is increasingly likely to become Trump, the presidential candidate, I have been unsure how to put it in perspective. Trump, the caricature, seems to be Trump, the real deal. Even as he polarizes people who are already quite polarized, he gains in popularity and delegates to the convention where he will likely be the “popular” choice.

I do not need to recount the number of ways that Trump has failed to exhibit the fruits of the Holy Spirit. The stories are now legion. The examples of mocking a disabled man, or cheering while people are forcibly removed from his audience or statements about punching people in the face are played over and over on social media like a parade of “fail” videos.

Meanwhile, Trump is not just polarizing the haves and have-nots and the Democrats and Republicans; he is polarizing Republicans and Republicans. More importantly, and more significantly, to me, Trump is polarizing Christians, even those who call themselves Evangelical Christians.

Continue reading “Donald Trump, the Zealot” →

The Evil We Must Guard Against

The truth is that we can take every possible measure to protect ourselves and protect our families and still be vulnerable.

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© Can Stock Photo Inc. / aaronamat
© Can Stock Photo Inc. / aaronamat

Immigration continues to be in the news with Donald Trump calling for a ban on all Muslims who want to immigrate to the United Stated. In the wake of widespread criticism, Trump is holding his ground on barring Muslims and tracking the Muslims who already live here until we can determine “where this hatred comes from and why”:

“Until we are able to determine and understand this problem and the dangerous threat it poses, our country cannot be the victims of horrendous attacks by people that believe only in jihad, and have no sense of reason or respect for human life,” Mr. Trump said.

Meanwhile, Loretta Lynch, the highest prosecutor in the land, pledged she will take aggressive action against anyone who uses “anti-Muslim rhetoric” that “edges toward violence.”  She has since toned down her own rhetoric following backlash on the grounds of freedom of speech, but she stuck to her guns on the pledge to protect Muslims against violent actions that might be inspired by “hateful speech”:

“We always have a concern when we see the rhetoric rising against any particular group in America, that it might inspire others to violent action — and that violent action is what we would have to deal with,” Lynch said on Monday.

These heated words on opposite ends of the spectrum follow on the heels of the mass killing in San Bernardino, which the FBI now says was planned out by a couple who had been “radicalized ‘for quite some time’”. We barely had caught our breath from the mass killing in Paris by another group of radicalized Muslims who may or may not have had direct ties to ISIS.

Continue reading “The Evil We Must Guard Against” →

The Rabbit that Won’t Disappear

People hear what they want to hear, but the facts are the facts.

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© Can Stock Photo Inc. / fouroaks
© Can Stock Photo Inc. / fouroaks

From early on after the release of the “Planned Parenthood videos” we have heard Planned Parenthood representatives and others claiming that the videos were edited, as if the fact that they were edited somehow converts the fact of what is shown on the videos to fiction. Nice try. All videos are edited.

But, the backlash from Planned Parenthood has continued and evolved into claims that the videos are “heavily edited”; and not just edited, Planned Parenthood told Congress they were “deceptively edited“; and not just deceptively edited, the NY Times reported they were “altered“; and not just altered but fake. Even White House Says Planned Parenthood Videos Are Fake, Cites Planned Parenthood.

So, is that the end of the story? Are people not even wondering what was not shown? Continue reading “The Rabbit that Won’t Disappear” →

C. S. Lewis on Individualism, Equality and the Church

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Thoughts and excerpts from Membership, published in the Weight of Glory and other addresses (by Harper One) by CS Lewis.

C. S. Lewis, the 20th Century English Literature professor, author and thinker, wrote Membership as a speech given at Oxford during World War II. In this speech, Lewis addressed the popular societal trend toward collectivism and the concomitant effort to relegate religion to private, individual belief.

His address was meant to be an encouraging call to Christian hope in a world threatened to be torn apart by war. We find ourselves in different circumstances, and the world as changed in many ways. We can no longer assume a Christian ideal as a collective rallying point, but is address remains stubbornly relevant in our modern world.

Lewis found irony in the dichotomy of exalted individualism in Western society that was, at the same time, becoming more collective in its political direction – individual rights and equality for all. In his typical style, he unravels the uneasy tension of this secular dualism at the seams, exposing the inherent incongruities and turning them on their heads, as he contrasts them to Christian paradoxes that, while seemingly inapposite, hold together in a more harmonious tension. Continue reading “C. S. Lewis on Individualism, Equality and the Church” →

Through a Glass Darkly

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“We just can’t continue to look into the filter of our politics at our spirituality. It’s got to be the other way around ….” (Spoken by Andy Stanley speaking at Catalyst West at Mariners church, Irvine, CA April 17, 2015 as reported in Christian Post)

Are we, Christians, more identified by our politics than our faith? If it is the former, we have terribly missed the mark.

It may not be completely “our fault”. Political pundits are constantly categorizing and labeling Christians and determining our political leanings. Political analysts and prognosticators are continually defining and redefining Christians and their politics.

But, we do play along and allow ourselves to be pegged by political affiliations and positions and, thus, allow ourselves to be defined by them. We allow ourselves to go with the flow and become indistinguishable from the world around us. Continue reading “Through a Glass Darkly” →