A Civil War?

Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world.  And the devil said to him, "To you I will give their glory and all authority; for it has been given to me, and I give it to anyone I please.  If you then will worship me, it will all be yours.

Jesus answered him, "It is written, 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.'" 

-Luke 4: 5-8

When Christianity Today, published their editorial by Mark Galli, calling for the impeachment and removal of Trump, I felt a little like Luke Skywalker at the end of Return of the Jedi, after Vader turns on Emperor Palpatine and chucks him into the core of the second Death Star, "I knew there was still good in you." But I also recognize that such a stand by a conservative evangelical publication has a cost, and given the strictures of the publishing business, I hope we don't have to build a funeral pyre for CT soon.  Red Letter Christians, an evangelical group with whom I share much more natural affinity, has been on this bandwagon for a while, but they reiterated their disapproval of the mendacious scam of the last three years. 

Of course Franklin Graham doubled down on Trump, claiming that his Father, despite being bed-ridden and of anything but sound mind and body in November of 2016, somehow voted for Trump, a claim that was quickly twitter-slammed by other members of his own family.  Jerry Falwell Jr., Franklin Graham and their ilk are not going to abandon Trump any time soon, and are indeed still shilling the whole "chosen one" angle, which is quite frankly blasphemous and entirely contrary to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

First of all, the actual "chosen one," Jesus the Messiah, the Christ, was given the opportunity to rule the kingdoms of the world, and he solidly rejected it.  The false teachers will tell you it was because he was too wise to trust Satan on such a thing, that he knew the promise itself was a lie.  But that's only partly true, Jesus also knew that power of the sort that was being offered was a lie in and of itself.  If you think you can accomplish the goals of the Kingdom of Heaven by using the tools of the devil you are actually not a follower of Jesus, you are a sorcerer, who arrogantly believes you can control the dark spirits of power and violence rather than have them overcome you.  Hate, does indeed appear to make you strong, (Star Wars' fictional religion does have some moments of truth).

What I hear from those who still, even after all this, support Trump is some version of a Faustian bargain: "I don't like him, but he gets things done," even if he demonstrably does not get much of anything done other than make a general mess of things.  Or perhaps it is the "lesser of two evils" argument: "he's better than Killary, or Nancy Pelosi," both of whom happen to be rather shrewd, successful and female, but it's not just that, it's (insert poorly disguised excuse for sexism here).  Finally, there are the people who actually do believe, probably thanks to Fox News, that Trump really is the strong leader they have been praying for, rather than a global laughing stock who traffics in fear and division at his own expense and to the detriment of our democratic republic.  The reason, I think they are willing to be so willfully blind is because they have let hatred infect them so thoroughly that not only do they disagree with "liberals," they deeply wish to "own the libs," and believe that without someone to defend them against the "lefties," they will be doomed to live under the rule of atheists and communists. Honestly, I pretended to be asleep while that conversation was going on, rather than try to argue with them.

The question that is on my mind lately though is, "Can we have this argument/fight/war in a civil manner?"  It seems to be devolving into shouting matches, and "call outs" at worst and arrogant dismissal of opposing viewpoints at best.  I have said many times over the past year that I really miss George W. Bush, because while I often took issue with his policies and his warmongering, I never felt like I was dealing with a cult.  Cheyney was unnervingly evil, but he was just the Veep and W. was honestly unlikely to be impeached for anything, or kick off early.

This is the bargain that has been made by a certain segment of the Christian Church in America, for the illusion of power they have abandoned Jesus, they have rejected his example, from how he resisted the temptation of the Satan to how he willingly laid down his life.  When did Jesus grab for power? Never.  When he was offered the kingdoms of the world, did he take them? No. When they tried to make him king, did he accept? Also, no, he dodged them.

I found a passage that comes from one of Wendell Berry's Sabbath poems, I used this as our prayer of Confession on the "low Sunday" that falls between Christmas an New Years:

Hate has no world.

The people of Hate must try to possess the world of love,

For it is the only world,

It is Heaven and Earth.

But, as lonely, eager hate possesses it, it disappears.

It never did exist.

And Hate must seek another world that love has made.

Jesus showed us the way that love must move through this world, as a stranger and an alien, it has no home in the world of power and violence.  The Kingdoms of the World are illusions and lies compared to the reality of Love.  If we love we know God, and we are in Christ.  If we think there is another bargain to be made, we do not know the truth.  What Wendell apprehends is that Hate cannot own, dominate or pollute Love, what he sees though is that Love will not even use the tools of Hate to defeat Hate itself, it simply disappears and remakes (resurrects) the world once again.

A Proverb

One who justifies the wicked and one who condemns the righteous

are both alike an abomination to the Lord.

-Proverbs 17: 14

I have not written here for quite some time.  Part of the reason for this is that I have been spending a greater share of my time exercising my body, and less time sitting in front of a computer.  But honestly, I could have found the time if I so chose, I just didn't choose.  The reason for this silence is in part that I just don't know if I have anything of value to say about the events that have dominated the past several months.  I have been following the inquiries and the testimonies, I have been watching the Tweets and posts, and it would seem to me that there is pretty clear evidence that our not-so-beloved leader is a corrupt person, but then again, I knew that in like 1998, this is not new information.

I have some measure of confidence that our Republic will survive the impeachment.  In fact, I have been given confidence in watching William Taylor, Maria Yovanovitch, George Kent, Fiona Hill, Alexander Vindman, and even in a strange way Gordon Sondland.  The thing that became clear to me was that these people, even Sondland, all had a clear sense that something was rotten in Ukraine.  None of them are what you would call liberal, let alone leftist.  Most of them, Sondland being the exception, are career government people, call them bureaucrats if you want, but they are professionals whose training and experience qualify them to deal in international affairs on behalf of our nation.  Even the lone Trump booster, Sondland, seemed to realize that the gig was up, they had been caught doing something that probably has pretty severe consequences and seemed to apprehend that lying to Congress was going to put him in the pokey with Michael Cohen, Paul Manafort and Roger Stone (eventually).

What I am not so sanguine about is whether or not our commonweal will ever be what it was four years ago.  Trump has erupted with what George Will colorfully called "a Vesuvius of mendacity." The man just rarely tells the truth.  This is, of course, entirely consistent with who he is and who he has always been.  I spent a good deal of time being angry with people who voted for Trump, which includes some people I actually love very much.  At this point though, I feel sorry for them, because if they have an ounce of perspective and are paying attention to any sources other than Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity, they must realize that they were conned.  They were conned the way that all the people who did work for Trump and didn't get paid were conned, they were conned the same way all the students at Trump University were conned, they were conned the same way that apparently the entire Republican Party is being conned.

In the process of duping his way to an electoral victory, Trump has had to up his game from simply sly mendacity to outright demagoguery.  Now that he is out there on that thin ice it is far too dangerous for him to back up or admit that he is a sham.  He simply must continue to erode our common conception of the truth.  And the thing is, he has help.  He has willing co-conspirators in his assault on objective truth.  I feel like history will not be kind to Mitch McConnell, Jim Jordan, Devin Nunes, or even Mike Pence (who might actually be President for a minute before January 2021).  They will be the Spiro Agnew and Gordon Liddy of this debacle.

This is what worries me though, their calculus in allowing themselves to be rolled up in this sewer sandwich is a cynical political decision.  They know that there are still enough MAGA hat folks out there to last them through the next election cycle.  And the worrisome thing is that I suspect they're right, which means that our collective sojourn in the land of lies and half truths is not over.  Even if Trump gets his orange posterior handed to him next November, even if we fire the firer in chief, there are a lot of people who have hitched their wagons to the engine of falsehood that has been pulling this manure wagon through our society.

Our collective sense of trust is going to take time to rebuild.  We can't have another Trump, or another Clinton, we need more politicians like Barack Obama and Jimmy Carter, people whose integrity is not in doubt, even if you disagree with their policy.  We cannot accept con men, even if you think they will get you what you want.  I know, this sounds unrealistic, but it is in fact the supposition upon which our Constitution is founded, that our rule of law would constrain the raw greed and self-interest inherent to our worst impulses and a search after a "more perfect union," would elevate us to be more than just savages who look out for number one.

Jesus said that a bad tree will bear bad fruit and a good tree will bear good fruit.  He was very insightful about such things, even if you're not a person of faith, you can trust him on that one. Look at the fruit: indictments, prison sentences, world leaders (even Boris Johnson) laughing at him, cruel policies towards the poor and the immigrant, and to top it off our modern equivalent of Scribes and Pharisees saying how he might even be the chosen one.  A good economy is not the only measure we should be taking of how things are going.  How does this feel?  To me it doesn't feel good, it feels like, well... an abomination.

I'm going to be quiet again for a while, sanity requires it.