President Trump

by

“Go Tell that Fox ”

I have been an evangelical Christian since it was a term of contempt among intellectuals. I have always tried to separate my faith from politics. Politics was divisive; Christianity was supposed to unite.   Today I find it hard to preserve that separation, because politics and faith are deliberately blurred for political gain. “The Devil can cite scripture for his purpose.”

Jesus was careful not to get ensnared in politics. His most famous saying was “Render unto to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s,” which kept him above the fray.  But neither Jesus nor John the Baptist were cowed by power. If you read Mark 6 you see how Herod, a minor Hebrew governor, arrested John for publicly criticizing his marriage to his brother’s wife. John followed the prophetic tradition of speaking to morality, not politics. There  was no suggestion that John had questioned Herod’s collaboration with the Roman government or any other raging political controversy of the day.

But for all that restraint, John was beheaded on the whim of Herodias (Herod’s wife), who made her daughter request the head of John.  Perhaps a little intoxicated with wine and the daughter’s dancing, Herod recklessly promised to grant her anything (“even half of my kingdom”). The “anything” turned out to be the “head of John the Baptist on a platter” (Luke 6:25).  It has all the ugly details of a political figure seduced by power and beautiful women.

In fact, if you substitute “Trump” for “Herod” in this story, you will see why I believe Evangelical Christians should disown their President, not on political, but moral  grounds.  Morally President Trump and King Herod are a good match.

Similarly, Herod offered political power to a young girl for exotic dancing.

  • The President slanders and destroys his opponents. He believes in loyalty, but not his loyalty to others. He fired the head of the FBI, slandered Jeff Sessions, his attorney general (a longtime supporter), and fired Preet Bharara , district attorney for southern New York, because he would not fire all the attorneys under him appointed by the Obama administration. None of these firings or slanders were for incompetence or Constitutional violations, but only for failing to neutralize the President’s enemies.

The arrest and beheading of John the Baptist shows the price of disloyalty in Herod’s kingdom.

  • He allies with contemptible power. Whatever he says now, he has courted hate groups in the past, only rebuking them under extreme political pressure and the next day saying they are not all bad. Few mainstream politicians, Republican or Democrat, will allow their names to be associated with such groups that slur non-white or non-Christian groups.

Herod supported Pilate’s desire to dispose of Jesus by dressing him in robes and mocking him, sending him back to Pilate. “That day Herod and Pilate became friends—before this they had been enemies” (Luke 23:12). Alliance with contemptible power.

  • He encourages police brutality. Despite high profile cases where a few policemen have been convicted or fired for brutality or manslaughter, the President advocates harsh treatment of people arrested before they go to trial: “When you see these thugs thrown into the back of a paddy wagon. You see them thrown in, rough. I said, ‘Please don’t be too nice,’” Trump said, mentioning observing the prisoners’ heads being shielded. “I said, ‘You can take the hand away.’”  This goes way beyond supporting the authority of the police to supporting brutal acts for which police officers could be prosecuted.

 In the same incident where Pilate sends Jesus to Herod “. . .Herod and his soldiers ridiculed and mocked him. Dressing him in an elegant robe, they sent him back to Pilate” Luke 23:11. Note that Jesus was an unconvicted criminal during this “arraignment.”

Of course the President is not guilty of arresting and beheading anyone, but he doesn’t have that kind of license. If we imagine King Herod as President Herod, we might see the moral fiber these men shared in common–lasciviousness, vindictiveness, bigotry, and lawless brutality.

We know from Matthew 14:13 that Jesus grieved the execution of John the Baptist, although at that moment he was immediately thrust back into service by a crowd that followed him.

Some time after John’s execution, Jesus gets word from the Pharisees that Herod has resolved to kill him. With uncharacteristic sharpness he replies, “Go tell that fox, ‘I will drive out demons and heal people today, and on the third day I will reach my goal “(Luke 14:32). The next time he meets Herod he is the condemned prisoner sent by Pilate. Herod had the distinction of killing the forerunner and abusing the messiah himself.

With moral conviction, I plead with Christians who elected President Trump by moral certainty to reconsider that choice in their hearts and let the Holy Spirit speak above the political din.  Then echo the indignation of Jesus, “Go tell that fox, ‘ I will drive out demons (hate groups) and heal people (relationships) today . . .” About core principles of love and forgiveness, we should have no division. Our President has failed us all, whatever our place on the political spectrum of Christianity.

by

Becoming in the Kingdom of God

Jesus saw people as becoming someone, not as trapped in their own identity.   In the Parable of the Vineyard, Jesus explained how those who arrived late to the vineyard were to be rewarded for who they had become at the eleventh hour, not for who they had been earlier in the day. And Jesus understood Peter’s fragile spirituality better then Peter himself, but loved him for the apostle he would someday become. Even Nicodemus, standing apart from from the vilified Pharisees, was welcomed by Jesus by night, to discover the life his sect could not see in the daylight.  Jesus saw the end from the beginning.

Another parable about becoming is the Parable of the Sower, in which Jesus separates people for the way they receive and incorporate the Word of God. People are represented as fertile or infertile soil: seed falls along the path, in the rocky places, among the thorns, or in rich soil.  Only the soil in the fertile places takes root, but it is clearly a matter of growth, not identity, that allows the seed to prosper.  We have the expression, “good seed” and “bad seed.”  Jesus knew only good soil and bad soil, because the soil represented potential, not a fated outcome.

The kingdom of this world glibly identifies the good and the bad. In the wake of the tragic Manchester bombing, Donald Trump addressed the terrorists of the world as “losers.”

“I will call them from now on losers because that’s what they are. They’re losers, and we’ll have more of them. But they’re losers — just remember that.”

As we all know, President Trump is a “winner.”  “My whole life is about winning. I don’t lose often. I almost never lose.” So losers are the “anti-Trump,” the worst entity he can imagine. The leader of the free world constructs the battle against terrorism as a  comic book conflict of winners and losers. In his mind I’m sure this emasculates them, but when I hear “losers” I think of many who failed through no fault of their own, many who are victims, rather than depraved or hateful. I think of the inhospitable soils they came from.

Yes, terrorists are degenerate humanity. They kill indiscriminately without regard for the victims, without even knowing the victims. They are damaged, but damaged from innumerable causes: from socio-pathology to homophobia, from schizophrenia to indoctrination, from childhood abuse to fanaticism. To conflate them all with the adolescent insult “losers” shows no attempt to seriously understand their pathology, to understand the soils of their souls.

Or consider this response to Manchester:

“All acts of terrorism are cowardly attacks on innocent people, but this attack stands out for its appalling, sickening cowardice, deliberately targeting innocent, defenceless children and young people who should have been enjoying one of the most memorable nights of their lives.”

These were British Prime Minister Teresa May’s words the morning following the carnage. It was the action, not the actors she vilified.  Rather than name-calling the Prime Minister pointed to the extreme cowardice of targeting “children and young people.” Even when ISIS claimed responsibility, as if it were a political act, the words of Teresa May indicted the bomber for targeting the “defenceless,” spotlighting the barbarity of the act.

This is not so fine a point or a bow toward “cultural correctness.” It is a view of a fallen world trying to redeem itself.  In another parable Jesus describes how weeds might grow among the seeds deliberately planted.  The servants of the farmer ask if they should pull up the weeds, but the farmer replies,

No . . . because while you are pulling the weeds, you might root up the wheat with them. Let both grow together till the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them into bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.    (Matt 4:29-30)

Whatever else this parable means, it shows how difficult it is to separate the wheat from the weeds until the final reckoning. They grow side by side, perhaps even indistinguishable at times. Why else does the farmer worry the wrong plant will be pulled if they are pulled prematurely?  They are each becoming something, and “Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” (I Corinth 13:12).  The weeds and the wheat will finally be known, not now, but then.

If naming is judging, then Jesus is urging us to  withhold naming. The battle for hearts and minds will not be won by name-calling, but by considering what embittered people are becoming.  Uncounted Moslems pivot between sympathy and outrage for acts of terrorism, because they are becoming something: outraged world citizens or persecuted martyrs.   They keep their moral compass, even as it drifts from true north. They are listening to the victims and defenders of terror.They might descend into vengefulness, but they have not reached depravity.

President Trump does not lack the resolve to defeat terror. He lacks the focus and rhetorical sense to address the outrage more than the perpetrator. He assumes the role of tough guy, thumping his chest during international crises, instead of the prosecutor of justice.  He still favors the punishing language of “radical Islamic terrorism,” manufacturing enemies instead of courting friends.  He resorts to common put-downs like “evil losers,” instead of taking the moral high ground.

But each act of terror has its own motive and lineage. ISIS would have us believe every act has political meaning, but peeling back the layers shows what each terrorist is becoming.  Some are sociopaths, some are martyrs, some have perverted notions of justice, some are duped children.  What they did testifies to who they are, not to who they may become.

Prime Minister May’s words rose to that challenge of naming the outrage, its emptiness, its lack of political voice.  President Trump’s adolescent name-calling did not.  Instead of addressing a world tribunal, he  presided in a comic book universe. In that universe, the “Great Satan” still struggles against Allah. We charge out onto the field to pull weeds, heedless of the wheat we trample under foot.  Our hasty judgment may also determine who we are becoming. We are the Pharisees accusing Jesus of being soft on the law; we are the grumbling workers in the vineyard feeling cheated by Jesus’ generosity; we are Peter standing in the way of Jesus, whose eyes are on the cross.

 

 

 

by

Lies, Damned Lies and Alternative Facts

One of the first headlines to announce the downfall of a kingdom was

MENE, MENE, TEKEL and PARSIN

This is the infamous “handwriting on the wall” found in the Book of Daniel 5:24-28. The words refer to monetary units in Aramaic, used to represent God’s judgment of the kingdom as follows:

Mene, mene – God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end

Tekel – You have been weighed in the scales and found wanting

Peres – Your kingdom has been divided and given to the Medes and the Persians.

 The metaphor of the “scales” suggests an unscrupulous merchant who would falsify the weight of his goods to cheat the buyer. The scales would use weights in one pan to equal the weight of the product in the other.  If the weights were falsely labeled, the product would actually weigh less than advertised, and the buyer would be cheated.  The author of the Book of Daniel sets this announcement at a banquet, where King Nebuchadnezzar and his court were celebrating using the holy vessels of the Jewish Temple, taken as spoils in the capture of Judah. Desecration will not go unchallenged, the story suggests.

Donald Trump is a deal-maker who expects to take advantage of false weights in the balance. Without his tax returns there is not much to prove his monetary manipulations, but his employment of alternative facts and outright lies shows that he has talent for deception and manipulation. This, more than his inhumane policies and contempt for the weak, will eventually end with his kingdom severed from him. This is no prophecy, but based on the simple faith that false balances have ultimate consequences.

Presidents do  lie, but there are lies, damned lies and alternative facts. President Clinton lied about his illicit relationship with Monica Lewinsky. He did it for the same reason we all lie: to avoid humiliation and consequences. He did it for the same reason as Adam and Eve: the archetypal lie to escape punishment. As the story of the Fall implies, we are all party to it.

We are less likely to be involved in damned lies. Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon lied consistently about the carnage of the War in Vietnam.  The Pentagon Papers revealed systematic lying to the public in order to wage battle against Communism and later, when conscience told them to retreat, to protect their legacy against being the first American President to lose a war. These are damned lies, disguised as policy and masked by what government calls “classification” of information.  It may have an institutional justification, but “damned lies” nonetheless.

Then there are “alternative facts,” lies told to gain position and distort reality. These are the most cynical lies, because they are nothing but the opening gambit of a deal.  When Donald Trump claimed he had lost the popular vote from millions of illegal immigrants voting, he had no actual facts. He knew the Pew Study was nothing more than a discovery of outdated voting lists, at worst poor record-keeping. He knew there was not a trace of mass voter fraud in all the investigations of all the elections in America.

But President Trump wanted to curb voter access to the polls, to keep the poor and minorities from voting against his interests, and to justify his failure to win the popular vote.  It was unconscionable for a populist President to lose the popular vote, so he made the unsupported claim that voter fraud had cost him the vote.

Alternative facts are the lowest form of lying, because they are deliberate, they are strategic, and they are gratuitous.  The investigation of voter fraud will sow just enough doubt to keep citizens suspicious of future fraud.  And the President may walk back his claims of millions of fraudulent votes to a few thousand or claim he never made such a bold declaration in order to narrow the distance between alternative facts and known facts.  Because these lies are merely a negotiation with the truth.

In 1918 US Senator Hiram Warren Johnson is purported to have said: The first casualty when war comes is truth. No doubt this will be the legacy of the Trump administration. This deal-making with the truth very much simulates the false weights in the balance pan, the ones that make the product appear more substantial and more valuable than it really is.  It is deliberate, strategic and gratuitous. It is more than self-protective, more than expedient policy, it is more than a defensive posture. It is a diabolical scheme.

Like his Babylonian predecessor, President Trump will have his kingdom ripped from him, not for his contempt for global warming or his campaign against refugees, but for reckless manipulation of truth. The lies and the damned lies are part of the business of politics, but the frontal assault on vulnerable truth will eventually disqualify him, and his kingdom will be given to an administration that admits a little more fear of God.