Monday Morning Music Ministry

2-22-21

Rush Limbaugh died this week. Death is an eventually that comes to us all, but Rush had the somewhat unique disadvantage of knowing several months ago that his time was nigh. “Disadvantage”? Something to ponder.

For his followers it was an “advantage” – that is, versus a sudden death – because we could listen day by day to his reflections on faith, acceptance, hope, gratitude, forgiveness, encouragement, and… faith. Oh, I said that already. So did he, many times over.

Over his career, Rush did not become a preacher; and not particularly so in his last days. But as is often said, you can share the Gospel – and sometimes even use words. No listener, of his millions across the Fruited Plain, doubted that he knew who his Savior was. The Radio Revolutionary surely inspired people in his last days in matters of faith as well as in politics.

“Rest in peace,” many said.

But many people did not; have not; will not let him rest in peace. A tsunami of invective and hate began at the moment his death was announced. In conversations, on web posts, in the media. Gratitude, too; but people grateful that he died. People wishing that he suffered. Curses upon his family and friends.

Unbridled hatred.

With almost demonic fury, these people – fewer in number than his friends, I believe – have wormed into places of prominence, and cloned more such disciples. They allege horrible things – the worst of them tearfully refuted by his producer of many decades, a black man – but as with President Trump, the firestorm of hate from the Secular Left is not for things done or said, but for who these men were.

More specifically, and this is a major point, Limbaugh did, and Trump does, “get it.” They looked over horizons and saw the broader landscape of ideas and challenges. What people call the 30,000-feet view. Their allies quibble over statistics, but Limbaugh and Trump knew that statistics don’t lie… but statisticians do. The Dark State – and what is at stake today – they recognized.

Few people cut through the fog, perhaps occasionally checking “civil discourse” at the door. In the church today there are few, too few, counterparts. Franklin Graham, even more than his father Billy, gets to the salvation message, the centrality of Christ, in the first minute. I don’t mean in sermons; I mean in conversations and interviews. As we all should.

So it was not enough to defeat Trump: he has to be destroyed. Rush Limbaugh could not and cannot be dismissed – he has to be demonized and degraded.

In my little sphere, I have had phone calls and a note in my mail box wishing that… well, that I would join Rush in hell; and similar sentiments. When I once posted a photo of myself with Jack Phillips, the baker who declined to decorate a cake for a homosexual wedding, and was sued all the way to the Supreme Court… a Facebook “friend” immediately posted a message calling me (not Phillips) an obscenity. And this was a guy who previously put out feelers about collaborating with me on something or other. (Notice what Facebook does not censor.)

So they dance on Rush’s grave. They danced quickly on Herman Cain’s grave too when he died an early COVID death. His great sin was being a black conservative, successful entrepreneur, and a presidential candidate with an economic plan.

Dancing on graves – that is, destroying and not merely defeating – is the new blood sport of liberals and secularists. And, like sharks, blood in the water attracts more of them, ever more bloodthirsty.

Sometimes it is not only people but symbols. This summer’s onslaught on statues across America is of a kind. The arson against shop-owners’ stores. The desecration of public buildings. The burning of churches. Few people decried the images of Jesus and Mary defaced and smashed; or the torched historic church in Washington DC. But how loud was the scabrous venom directed at the President when he made a statement, holding aloft a Bible at its shuttered door.

None of this is new – in human history, that is; in societies when they disintegrate.

“The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones,” Shakespeare wrote in Julius Caesar (note to Andrea Mitchell: that’s William Shakespeare, not William Faulkner). Which, in my thesis, is why the loosed demons inspire today’s “Unity” squads to hate and destroy. They can’t stand the truth.

One grave that we remember, however, could not be danced on. The memorials to Jesus suffered superficial effects, spray painting and sometimes sledge-hammer blows this summer. The church buildings dedicated to Him were vandalized. But his grave? No one could or can dance on that, even metaphorically.

Jesus walked out of His tomb. There was no grave that could hold Him down. He conquered sin, flesh, and the devil. He lives. After all, He had more work to do, through His children.

The living do not belong in graves.

And that goes for us, too. If you have Jesus in your heart, neither can you recognize a grave that can hold you down in this life. We too have work to do.

And certainly… do not let anybody start planning to dance on your grave.

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I hope you will watch this music video, perfect with this message:

Music Vid: “There Ain’t No Grave” (For readers with hand-held devices, click or copy and paste: ) https://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=jwr-sciUwFQ

Click: There Ain’t No Grave

10-12-20
There is a bit in an old Laurel and Hardy comedy where the boys are caught in a situation, Ollie impersonating a rich guy and Stan his servant. “Call me a cab,” Ollie commands, thinking of a way they can escape.

“What?” asks the typically bewildered Stan.

“Call. Me. A. Cab,” Ollie patiently orders.

Stan says, “All right. You’re a cab!”

Fast-forward 90 years or so to this election season. In fact to many aspects of life today, and politics, and in the church. Labels have become virtually meaningless. They have not become obsolete, because everybody is quick to proudly adopt a label, or to smear someone with another label. But labels are now fungible, malleable, chameleon-like.

In the same way, statistics don’t lie; but statisticians do.

President Trump identified himself as a very stable genius, a manner of self-description people usually leave to others than themselves, and usually to posterity. Today, critics immediately challenged one, two, or all three of those words. Kamala Harris is described, by Democrat handlers, as a “moderate,” but she would have considered that an insult during the primaries. We recently were told that Antifa is not an organization but an idea… the distinction holds no difference to shop owners seeing their life-dreams torched street by street, city by city by thugs in identical costumes.
The irony is most bitter in religion of the 21st century. Joe Biden calls himself a “man of faith” (faith in what?) but bristles when priests and cardinals deny him the Eucharist because he denies Catholic Church teaching, for instance on abortion.

If the church, the Bible, Jesus’ teachings do not mean anything – if your opinion is superior to the Revealed Word – what is the point of adopting certain labels, claiming to be a Catholic? Some pastors deny the divinity Of Christ, and the Virgin Birth. Are their salaries the same as taking money under false pretenses?

We all evolve, change opinions, and learn. President Trump used to be accepting of abortion, as was I at one point; and a lot people I know. But science, experience, and conscience “spoke” to us. When politicians who also are aware of science, hear of experiences, and have consciences – when they switch “sides” or switch parties — they cannot fail to know where they fight life’s battles now: Who their new friends are. And what effects their defections will have. I refer to conservatives and Catholics who support the party of abortion-on-demand.

This is not in a vacuum; these new rules – or lack of rules – are a microcosm of life today. Heresy is as old as human nature; its first appearance was in the Garden.

“Relativism,” it is called: What’s OK for me is all that matters; There is no right and wrong; You are free to make up your own rules…

I wonder why many people today rebel against Christianity, democracy, capitalism, when the fruits of our civilization have advanced, refined, and are blessings to so many. To ignore our heritage, to decline to defend our values, and surrender to the enemies of our souls… seems like a crime in itself.

If America does not undergo a spiritual awakening, it does not deserve to continue as the Republic we inherited.

Returning here to the political context, and to shifting labels: Politicians and pollsters do not even know what they mean when they profile and predict about the “evangelical” community. Ah, the “faith-based.” Yes, “family values voters.” Some “evangelicals” have enormous differences between them.

Just as Jesus did not die for denominations or missions organizations or charities or movements or committees, but for individuals – you and me – so will the redemption of America not depend upon parties, movements, organizations.

America will be redeemed, revived, and resuscitated by citizens. Individuals. You and me.

If someone wants to know our label, we can use the one that was a perfect description when this noble project of a Constitutional Republic began – Citizen Patriots.
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Click: Who Am I

5-18-20

Occasionally things happen in history – I mean catastrophic turns – where the old saying about inability to see the forest because of trees, is taken a step further. These rare moments are not events like an invasion; neither a slow evolution, say, from serfdom to democracy; nor the relentless spread of an epidemic across the globe. A creeping four weeks is no different than a speedy month, is it? – and that is not the type of catastrophic turn I address.

When I was in college I had a professor who taught World History not by chronology nor region, but by category topics. They all were fascinating. One class looked at world history – different eras, different societies – through the lens of epidemiology. How did diseases, plagues, and pandemics change history and the course of civilizations? They certainly did, and often. In the 1600s a plague killed one-third of some European lands; the Spanish flu a century ago reportedly killed 100-million souls around the world. More American soldiers died of the flu in World War I than died in battle.

In those times, all through history, plagues were plagues and influenza was influenza. I want us to consider the possibility that our current situation might be a “virus-plus.” Is there an invisible enemy, a coronavirus? It sure seems so, and many have died of diagnosed conditions; I am not a flat-earther.

But this might be the world’s first plague where the fear of it causes more serious problems than the infection itself. Yes, deaths. But our spinning globe has virtually ground to a halt. The harm represented in that metaphor will be seen by future generations, if we survive, as perhaps worse than simple, cold death statistics. Families, careers, livelihoods, social disruptions, international anarchy, countries losing their freedoms, even wars might be the next chapters.

All this we know. And death vs disaster arguments must yield to logic and a larger sympathy. Many people are gripped by the belief that mere citizens of various nations are not threatened as much as the actual human species is threatened. Really?

I have become convinced that over-reaction has replaced caution among our leaders; and that panic has replaced prudence among our neighbors. Scratch a liberal official with rule-making power and a totalitarian pops out. In my state the governor decreed that DIY stores can sell hammers but cannot sell paint. In many states you can openly operate a marijuana shop, but are forbidden to hold church services. Neighborhood clinics have to restrict services medical exams, but abortions are allowed in those types of clinics.

This is the first epidemic in history with an agenda.

That is not the fault of the fuzzy little virus.

Your mind is not affected if you can wonder at the implausible and changing stories about the origin and the rotating lies as the virus spread across the earth.

You may well wonder at the timing, the US in a healthy and dominant position, dropped to its knees… as an election approaches. How – and why – we went from the healthiest economy in world history, to 1930s-depth depression. In weeks.

You should wonder why politicians welcome illegal immigrants, untested; and tolerate feces-covered vagrants by the thousands, yet you and I, law-abiding hermits, have to mask-up, stand in lines, submit to testing and testing.

You should question, as my friend Sarah Phillips recently did, about the massive imposition of imminent DNA collections, retinal and finger scans, cell-phone tracking, and smiling assurances from Bill Gates and other leaders (elected by whom?) that every detail of our activities – plus that of our bloodstreams through mandatory vaccinations – will soon be seen by people we don’t know. Calm down.

It is very possible – I am persuaded very likely – that we are under attack. Not by guns or bombs. Nor even by those furry viruses.

Am I being paranoid? That is not my style, usually… but even paranoiacs can indeed have people conspiring against them. Ah: conspiracy theories. I have a friend who recently ridiculed skeptics as being “conspiracy theorists.” In the same message – I kid you not – he floated his belief that President Trump is signaling an army of goons (?) by the colors and directions of the stripes on his ties every day.

I have a happy suggestion, if you have read this far and think I am crazy. There are some things that may safely distract you from deadly coronas:

* If you are alarmed by death tolls, spend some your precious emotional energy on ending the drug epidemic – yes, epidemic – in this country. That, you can affect. Straighten up the kids under your roof. Maybe drug cartels will dry up, too, with no customers – what a concept.

* If you are concerned about death tolls, think about the fact that hospitals are restricting, or forbidding, “elective” matters like cancer operations, mastectomies, scans, and other procedures — or patients are encouraged to self-deny — and people die. The stats about fewer cancer diagnoses, screenings, and diabetes complications these recent months are nothing to celebrate. Our masters decree that we shuffle morbidities, a fake-numbers game. Because the side-effects of shuttered businesses and lockdowns include more domestic violence and suicides.

* Stop acting like pickpockets, larding corona laws and regulations with back-door funding for abortions and legal weed and gun confiscation. Be honest, and lose in the courts of public opinion, if you dare.

* Resist freeing convicted felons from prisons and arresting hair dressers, pastors, and barbers, throwing them in jail.

* Show some outrage – if you feel any – about policies that leave hospital ships empty but pour infected people into nursing home beds. Wake up to the fact that in some areas, 80 per cent of “virus” deaths are in nursing homes.

* Realize that hospitals are encouraged to check COVID-19 on death forms, even when primary causes were other, and prior, conditions.

* Google a copy of the Constitution. Read it, and the Bill of Rights, the first 10 amendments. Check off the rights that have been violated recently, and violated with coercion. There will be many… and there will not be fine-print exclusions for influenza. Remind yourself that reportedly more people die in a normal “flu season” than have yet died from COVID-19. Remind yourself a second time of this fact. We don’t stop the world every flu season.

Finally, among those rights that have been violated – and politicians continue to ramp it up – are Freedom of Assembly (allowing crowds of… how many???); Freedom of Speech (social media routinely censors us at increasing rates); the Right to Bear Arms (laws are proposed to restrict gun ownership – because of a virus???)…

And. Freedom of Religion. Christians, People of the Book, are not dopes. We don’t sneeze on each other, even in normal times. We render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s – like respecting suggestions from experts and elected officials. Sure. We also live with consequences. We trust the Lord; we trust our God-given intelligence.

And we cherish our God-given rights.

Churches ordered to close? Worshipers drive to parking lots, listen in cars with closed windows to their church’s radio services, hungry for a minimal sense of community – and are arrested?

If the British Redcoats, those civilized gents 250+ years ago, had tried any such thing, Americans would have said three words: Lock and Load.

Yes, holding our Bibles and guns, Christians and patriots have to keep their spines from being infected by this “virus-plus”; we have to be discerning and consider whether this is all just a “Plandemic,” as I recently wrote; we must calculate the risks of responsible activities – as with a thousand other daily activities in life – and maybe we should regard the incessant and absurd carping of visible, not invisible, enemies in our midst…

And take our country back. The current epidemic is bad enough. A second pandemic — infecting our spirit — would be catastrophic.

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Click: I Know Who Holds Tomorrow

11-4-19

“If being a Christian were illegal, would there be enough evidence to convict you?”

Sometimes such aphorisms – what I call bumper-strip theology – pack a lot of implications and wisdom.

In many place around the world, being a Christian is illegal, or nearly so. I can tell that this blog is read in some of those countries, perhaps to the peril of those readers.

Will such a thing ever happen in the United States, in Western Europe? Many of us think so – it has happened in societies that were once like ours – and at the moment, if belief in Christ is not yet illegal it is however improper or at best impolite in many places and situations.

When the leader of ISIS recently was killed, we were reminded that one of his countless victims was the young American missionary Kayla Mueller. The Christian woman had been held in captivity for 18 months, a sex slave of al-Baghdadi himself. The man whose Washington Post obituary called “an austere religious scholar” and a shy man behind spectacles, repeatedly raped and tortured Kayla, according to eyewitnesses like Yezidi sex slaves even younger than Kayla.

That description of Kayla says more about al-Baghdadi – and the Washington Post – than it does about Kayla. Almost.

What is scarcely said in the news stories is that Kayla was repeatedly asked, and frequently beaten and tortured, to renounce her Christian faith. This she never did – by ISIS’s own frustrated reports – and it gained her torture, rape, beatings, and death. Photographs of her bruised and lifeless body were e-mailed to Kayla’s parents by ISIS.

She lost her life. By her confession and faithfulness, as a contemporary martyr, she secured a place in Heaven, we can believe.
Correction: she saved her life.

Kayla was not alone, I am sure she would maintain. Every day, Christians around the world are being persecuted, tortured, and killed for their faith.

We smugly think that things in this world are growing brighter and better. Not everything. There were more Christians killed simply for being Christians in the 20th century than in all the combined centuries since Christ, including the iconic grotesqueries of Nero.

This week we noted – did you? – Reformation Day, the commemoration of Martin Luther’s challenge to the Church of the day. He nailed 95 complaints about corruption to a church door in Germany. It spread beyond Wittenberg’s town square; past the triangle of land formed by Hannover, Berlin, and Dresden; through Germany; to Rome and other territories of the Vatican; through the Christian world… and even unto today.

Luther had not intended to leave the Catholic Church – he was an ordained priest – nor establish a denomination, much less see his protest turn into Protestant-ism. Yet the “world system” that had corrupted the people and practices of the Church transformed widespread dissatisfaction into open revolts.

Luther’s reliance on “Scripture Alone” – that is, not mankind’s rules or new doctrines not found in the Bible – was a revolution of the spirit, conscience, and faith. Indeed, Luther was not the first anti-Romish reformer: previous theologians had similar heartfelt critiques… and had been martyred.

Fired, exiled, imprisoned, tortured, killed for their consciences. Luther was to be the next. Hunted and excommunicated, he was hauled before a council in the city of Worms, Germany.

All his writings – books and pamphlets, sermons and essays – were laid on a table, and Luther was ordered to renounce them. Outside the castle, at night, the Church was burning his books.

“Renounce them?” he said in effect, “How can I, when they all quote the Bible and rely on Scripture?”

Further, he argued that they were the result of his conscience, and “no man, no council, no Pope” can force me to act “against my God-inspired conscience.”

It was made clear that he would suffer death if he did not deny his writings. He said “I will not and I can not.”

With his life on the line, and conscious of the blood of martyrs before him, in the hushed council, Luther firmly said, “Here I stand. I can do no other.”

“Here I stand. I can do no other.” Those simple words, spoken in that obscure German town, have rather thundered like mighty artillery through the ages. Indeed for 500 years they have been spiritual and intellectual bombs. They inspired the translations of Bibles into languages of local peoples. They ignited a rediscovery of Scripture. They freed believers from relying on human intercessors when praying or petitioning God. They inaugurated the spread of literacy. They were the underpinnings of democratic movements around the world.

Luther was not murdered; he was secreted away by German princes who likewise “saw the light.” Thrown out of the Roman Church, he married and continued to write and preach. Others who knew him, and many who never met him but were – and still are – electrified by his words, followed.

“Here I stand. I can do no other.” These are the words, perhaps word for word, that the missionary girl Kayla Mueller spoke.

God forbid – which cliché is my hope, but is not a certainty – that any of us will be in the position of a Martin Luther or a Kayla Mueller. It is not an abstract warning: every day Christians are in those positions.

When you have the opportunity, are you however too shy to speak the Name of Jesus? Do you hold back from sharing your faith with a stranger, or a family member, knowing that they might be on their ways to hell? When politicians, from school boards to the presidency, offend the Truth of the Gospel, do you think, speak, and act in opposition?

Do you “stand”? Will you stand? Can you do no other? If being a Christian were illegal, would there be enough evidence to convict you?

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The “Battle Hymn of the Reformation,” words and music by Martin Luther. All my life, tears come to my eyes when I sing, or try to, the last verse: Let goods and kindred go, This mortal life also: The body they may kill – God’s truth abideth still!

Click: A Mighty Fortress Is Our God

11-5-18

It is axiomatic that the United States of America is not a democracy. At least it was not intended to be an open democracy by the Founders and Framers. In fact those gifted and wise people abhorred and distrusted straight democracy. But this axiom is not accepted by those who willfully dissent, or choose not to understand the distinctions and consider their implications.

Those who claim that the US is a democracy, or should be more so than it is, should realize that the government was established to be (at best, in their eyes) a representative democracy; but otherwise, and by direction, a democratic republic.

What both those terms mean is that our system was appropriate when established – a new people on a new continent established nevertheless along traditional bases of religion, morality, ethical behavior, justice, and good will – and appropriate now. With the exceptional foresight granted to them, they assessed the future. The Framers of our fundamental documents were not political theorists but sagacious architects.

In that view, there have been necessary additions and occasional repairs made to our American Home, but the structure has stood the test of time, at least until now when its stresses and fractures are most evident.

I recently bought a two-volume set of Alexis deToqueville’s Democracy in America, ancient books they are as I hold them, seemingly never read in more than a century since this edition’s publication. I was struck by two things as I read this iconic work: how brilliant this visiting Frenchman, in the 1840s, assessed the American spirit and ethos. He marveled at the bounteous natural resources, and the common virtues of the uncommon and diverse population.

DeToqueville dwelt on religion and its effect on the American people – specifically, the value of Christianity to the American “system” as Henry Clay meant it: the government and its laws. Earlier, Framers like Franklin and Jefferson, supposed “Deists,” revered the Bible and sought to employ its prescriptions for social comity and justice. John Adams predicted that an America without fidelity to Biblical principles would not – could not – long succeed.

The other factor that struck me about the book Democracy in America is that it is frequently cited and often quoted (or mis-quoted: deToqueville never wrote the aphorism “America is great because America is good”) – but is seldom read. When I determined to own a copy, it was difficult, even on used-book sites. The book is seldom assigned, scarcely read, and imperfectly understood.

Which describes, also, how our Constitution is regarded. Many people who yammer for the overturning of the Electoral College cannot discuss the valuable reasons for its establishment. The Framers thought people with a stake in the government ought be the ones who vote, and dissenters have a point of view. But that point of view approaches the irresponsible (in the view of the Framers, as well as me) when its alteration extended past women and former slaves to anybody with a pulse, including those, as advocated in some parts, who are not even citizens.

I think it should be more difficult, not always easier, to voter. I think the type of questions on citizenship tests should be administered every 10 years or so – not to new arrivals but to every voter. (And I believe many congressmen and senators would flunk a lot of those tests.) When voting costs nothing, not monetarily of course, it is worth nothing.

So for years I did not vote. I followed, and addressed, public issues, but generally I took the view that voting only encouraged the scoundrels. When I repeatedly heard my parents’ generation talk about “the lesser of two evils” every November – and then felt that way myself in the voting booth – I realized I was voting for evil, after all. When I thought that illiterates, felons, welfare cheats, and the uninformed had the same bit of influence I did (and more, counting those who are herded and directed to vote multiple time), I despaired at the futility of it all.

The United States has slid toward a new brand of despotism, perhaps difficult to discern, being in its very throes; a bizarre mixture of corporate syndicalism, finance capitalism, supported by a cabal of media elite and a quiet, sometimes informal, conspiracy of like-minded thought police in the government, bureaucracy, media, educational establishment, and even the church. Mind-control, intimidation, the “compassion” metrics, and the “hate speech” game comprise the New Orthodoxy. Shadowy, in some cases, but dangerous. It engages in a politically correct jihad that permeates every part of our culture, operating the greatest propaganda machine in human history.

So. Now I vote. I am no longer cynical, but a warrior. Do I remain pessimistic? … about our nation, our political system, out beloved Constitution?

Yes, I am pessimistic about their survival.

But that is not our primary concern. For those who call themselves Christian, our first loyalty is to Christ and Him crucified and Him risen. We must be concerned with our souls and those of our families, friends, communities, then our nation and the world. Our opponents with increasing ferocity would deny Christians their rights in the public square, in classrooms, in our very homes. If they succeed… we will still worship and fight, as uncountable martyrs have done for millennia; as uncountable persecuted Christians around the world do every day.

In so doing, we must “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s.” I believe Jesus did not restrict His words to coins. That is, if elections mean that we engage in politics… we must engage in politics. If we think abortion is the murder of babies… we oppose it as we would despise any murder. We must stop the acquiescence in secularists’ view that there is no God, and our traditions, or beliefs, should be merely tolerated (or, eventually, not)… and fight back: there IS a God; this is His world; He established the means not only for our salvation but our happiness on this earth. In the beginning, is now, and ever shall be.

I believe we can and should make alliances. We can debate tactics, but there is a man who is very flawed (can we qualify that word?) but who willingly aligns himself with the Christian community on an astonishing number of issues; who has delivered on many promises to Christians and Jews (and many ethnic groups previously taken for granted by politicians). I am not sure, frankly, that I would like Donald Trump as a next-door neighbor, but I daily pray thanks for what he is doing.

The imminent elections can confirm the rebirth of Christian commitment in the United States… or illustrate that the reclamation of “democracy in America” in the way deToqueville assessed and celebrated it, was a passing illusion. Polls do not lie, but polltakers, and those who fashion them, do.

The saving grace of democracy is that the masses can be manipulated, but when they assert themselves, defying their would-be masters… they must be listened to. We are beginning to see: we must be listened to.

That is why to vote.

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Click: Looking for a City

6-25-18

We are reaching full employment in America, the experts say. I know one job category whose openings are greater than the number of workers or applicants these days: Jeremiahs. Biblical Jeremiahs: that is, not mere prophets but those who discern the times, the danger signals, the warnings; and raise the alarums.

The Old Testament’s Jeremiah was not simply a grouch, or a pessimist, or someone who got out of too many wrong sides of beds too often. And we need a similar fiery servant who can know God’s mind, analyze the crisis of the age, and deliver articulate solutions.

America has been gifted with preachers and teachers, with revivalists and reformers. But our times are different, and a different messenger is sorely needed in our land, in our time.

I once was phlegmatic about the pendulum-swings of social pathologies. But I am now convinced that challenges have turned to problems have turned to crises. Contemporary turmoil is no longer evolutionary release-and-realignment. It is the harbinger of disintegration and destruction. Of course I have a point of view about this retrogression – and I believe, humbly, that it is an informed, Biblical view – but the inevitable firestorm of opposition we receive will prove my larger point. Only a few years ago, reasonably presented opinions perhaps risked arguments and debates… but now are certain to invite savage billingsgate, and insure obloquy. Forget Thanksgiving dinner disruptions; innocent Facebook posts and overheard mall conversations routinely incite everything from heated rhetoric to hate-filled rhetoric.

America has, with shocking rapidity, become a country where good will is an endangered species. Quoting Bible verses or Rodney King (“Can’t we all just get along?”) is unlikely to have everyone waking up tomorrow morning, desirous of kissing and making up. One time that theoretically would have made people happy. Now, many people are happy to be unhappy; they love to hate.

We see it every day, every where. We see it – for instance; and I know I am tap-dancing in a mine-field – in the “debate” over today’s border problems.

People arrive who claim asylum from lands south of Mexico; but no one proposes helping those countries solve their problems, the source of social angst.

Mexico (whose own Southern border is harsher than Trump’s fantasies for our own), allows “caravans” to trek hundreds of miles… protected, not even challenged; but no one proposes treating Mexico as a virtual accessory to felonies.

Adults, often with evanescent “asylum” claims (and in spite of orderly remedies and applications where we have embassies) use children as “anchors,” because, as children are released into the maw of America, they must be too.

Well, these are the challenges, and I honestly did not want to start yet another debate over these issues. My point, however, is that goodwill in American has left the building. And this issue illustrates it. Even among Christian friends, I have seen it go this way:

They once agreed with border and immigration policies of Clinton, Bush and Obama. Trump enforced the same policies… which oddly earns him the sobriquet of “nazi.” If you object to children being separated from adults so they are spared jail-house situations, you are a nazi. If you accede and say they should be incarcerated with the adults, you are a nazi. If you look for a solution that would return them all to their home-countries, or neutral locations, even while their cases might be adjudicated, you are a nazi. If you advocate shelters built for (grateful) hurricane victims, temporary and probably superior to homes the migrants have left, you are a nazi.

Showing contempt for America’s previously normal and compassionate laws, and a larger concern for the orderly welfare of children, today has Christians judging fellow Christians as… bad Christians. And worse.

Lost in all this is concern over social burdens, costs, crimes, that accompany these radical disruptions whose details-of-compassion are rudely dictated to the rest of us. The parents of Kate Steinle are supposed to be compliant. After all (I suppose) they are nazis, too, if they object to the state of affairs and dare to miss their daughter. Twenty years ago – before this all came to a head – I had a friend who taught the second grade in a Southern California school. All but two of her (oversized) class were Mexicans – not Mexican background, but kids whose parents were not citizens, many of whom were driven across the border every day to attend school from towns south of the border. And that was 20 years; no doubt more widespread, and farther north, now. I am sorry to sound like a nazi if questioning the lunacy of such things fits your definition. No… I’m not.

I mention the immigration flash-point, and the vicious vituperation, because it clogs the headlines right now. But the same evaporation of comity and reasonable goodwill marks other, and widely separate, topics: the crusade to ban religious expression; coercion in the form of regulation and taxes; prior censorship of decorations on cakes by bakers, and sermons by pastors; mandatory sex instruction in schools but regarding parents’ opposition as “hate speech”; attempts to violate the consciences of doctors, nurses, clergy who resist being complicit in aborting babies.

Wow, how many of us nazis are there? No matter, they will try to silence us all soon.

The question of abortion provides a focal point. The radicals claim that keeping children of criminal migrants out of jails is nazi-like. But they often are fine with killing babies in the womb. Forgive me for thinking the lunatics are trying to Occupy the asylum.

Can we return this to a Biblical context? I am not especially optimistic about God’s imminent intervention in America. I might change my opinion if someone can show me an example of any time in history when God sent revival to a people when they did not pray for one as a people. He certainly may intervene through judgment, because He has done that many times throughout history. And because, frankly, America deserves it.

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Click: Dido’s Lament

12-4-17

In that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah: We have a strong city; God makes salvation its walls and ramparts (Isaiah 26:1).

At this time of turmoil and fast-moving events – television news crews must think they are participating in triathlons these days; and viewers risk whiplash – we try to process wars and rumors of wars; economic upturns; legislative battles; scandals and daily surprises; government crises; terrorism; candidates rising and falling here and abroad…

Our lives go on, and I pray that holidays recently celebrated and coming soon are remembered as just that: holy-days.

In times when we feel adrift, even when some of us feel the thrill of change (for surely we all regret the changes just as often)… the anchor holds. The anchor MUST hold: we need to be moored and have security. It is useful not only to our bodies and peace of mind and our economies and our sanity, but our very souls.

A problem, if not THE problem, of our time is that too many people, and our culture itself, is ignorant of life’s anchors and their importance. Worse, contemporary society rejects the very concept of anchors – grounding, standards, Truth – and how essential they are to our lives. They are not options but necessary components.

With a great debate on taxes behind us, and despite other issues swirling about, the question of Walls will remain. It is not owned by one politician or one party, even if it seems so. Borders – as with language and culture – are elemental definers of a nation. The mightiest wall I have seen in my life surrounds the Holy City, the Vatican. There are others around the world. The Great Wall of China is so great as to be seen by orbiting astronauts; it was not ornamental, however, but an effective defense for centuries.

The White House has a secure fence, though sometimes porous. Museums have gates and Plexiglas shields. Bridge walkways have guard-rails – for safety; sometimes against suicide attempts. Liberal celebrities, despite their anti-gun and anti-wall positions, live behind armed guards and fortified walls. The estate of film producer Michael Moore, in my neck of the woods, has defenses that could repel many armies.

In the end, of course, walls are neutral structures. Like guns, or even votes, their usefulness depends on the functions for which they are designed, and the character of the owners. The strength and effectiveness of walls are not always gauged to keep people out, neither to keep people in: Ultimately, the strength of families, homes, and communities is measured by in what lives within the walls.

The operative factor, then, is not physical strength. Not weapons ready to attack, nor shields with which to defend.

It is righteousness, the God of our Fathers told us. It can be manifested in songs of praise.

At the dedication of the wall of Jerusalem, the Levites… were brought to Jerusalem to celebrate joyfully the dedication with songs of thanksgiving and with the music of cymbals, harps and lyres (Nehemiah 12:27).

It is prosaic, perhaps, to seize upon the upcoming Holy Days of many faiths to pray that we can take a breath, or escape the maelstroms for a spell, and count our blessings. Too many of us, during overheated crises, take perverse joy in hating… or, at least, in fighting. Even when we think our cause is just – or convince ourselves that we are fighting HIS fight, not our own – let us not forget that “Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails….” I Corinthians 13:5-8.

Love is a weapon too.

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Reminding us that walls are not exclusive but always have utility, this video clip is of joyful singing unto the Lord in Jerusalem, at David’s Citadel. The Isaacs; mom Lily and her children Becky, Ben, and Sonya.

Click: Hallelujah

7-24-17

1.
Last summer, learning about Michigan trip by trip, I visited Grand Rapids and the Gerald R Ford Presidential Library. I came away with a new repect for the modest accidental president. This week, returning from my latest European trip, I came home with a new respect for America. It was in an unexpected manner, in unexpected ways.

I have waved the flag in many ways through my life. I support our heritage and our military in traditional, and often fervent, ways. My patriotism – the catch-all word for the bundle of impulses – has an aspect that is somewhat unorthodox these days, but not unique.

I favor a strong military, but I think we have used it far too often in recent years. I am for peace, but not always going to war on its behalf. I endorse democracy, generally, but I do not think it is perfect for every society, especially by our imposition. I have been uneasy about America having bases in something like 140 countries. I think we breed resentment among other nations by interfering in their affairs, their trade – and, yes, their elections – when we wantonly define our own self-interest. I think “nation-building” is noxious and pretentious elsewhere when our own nation is crumbling in many ways – structurally, economically, morally.

My patriotism, then, is not qualified but has standards. Neither is it blind; and not defined by knee-jerkers of the left or right.

It is informed by the eternal wisdom of the Roman military tactician Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus in his book De Re Militari: “Si vis pacem para bellum” — “In times of peace, prepare for war.” Unfortunately, he lived in the Fourth Century when Rome, about to be overrun by by Vandals, most needed the advice. Rome was paying the price of choosing Empire over Republic, however.

My patriotism is informed by George Washington, who warned his countrymen, and posterity, to be free of “entangling alliances.”

And it is informed by Theodore Roosevelt, who combined both outlooks, and, typically, other sober considerations when he said: “To be rich, aggressive, and unarmed, is to invite certain disaster and annihilation.”
2.
I mentioned Gerald Ford because upon my arrival on home shores, the commissioning ceremony of the USS Gerald R Ford, the biggest and most powerful battleship in the world, and world history, took place this weekend.

It was worthwhile for any patriot, indeed any citizen, to watch. It is a ship possessing as many superlatives, perhaps, as weapons systems and lethal innovations. The length of more than three football fields and powered by two nuclear reactors, the floating fortress will be head of a battle group, not even a solo player on the world’s oceans.

I was unexpectedly moved by elements of the ceremony that, to military people, could have been the most mundane. But the uniforms; the protocols; the orders, salutes, and marching; all impressed me. Military life is a way of life from which the American public has largely grown ignorant, even immune, since Volunteer Service created a segregated system almost half a century ago.

Thank God for aspects of that system, that tradition, for instance the discipline that still flows therefrom.

Perhaps my sensibility was tilled by two weeks in Ireland, where I was struck by comments from all manner of people about the current state of things in America. After many overseas trips since the age of 14, I am used to Europeans being curious about the United States. Whether as a tourist peppered by questions about blue jeans and rock ‘n’ roll; or making appearances on behalf of the US Information Service of the State Department about… well, often again, blue jeans and rock ‘n’ roll, I was aware of a fascination with America.

Seriously, I have also parried questions about Pershing Missile deployment under Reagan; the first Gulf War under the first Bush; and, now, about Donald Trump.

Trump largely is despised by the European public, left and right. When he is not despised, he is dismissed or merely dissed. That is a given, at least at present, and was not a surprise.

But what did surprise me, in many (and unscientifically charted) conversations was a common feeling among all types and classes of my encounters. Generally stated, it was not a basic resentment of the United States as a country, even as a power. Rather, many people confessed to a realization, even a conscious reliance, on America’s role in world affairs… European security… even country-by-country’s occasional internal matters.

Not about all details of their lives, surely; but, nowadays, more than blue jeans and rock ‘n’ roll. “We need America.” You ask them about paying their share of NATO, and they will shrug in embarrassed agreement, but there is little “America, Go Home” sentiment in Europe. They cannot understand Trump – as if all Americas can – but they appreciate our presence, including our military shield, in inchoate ways.

3.
Which brings me again to the commissioning of the USS Gerald R Ford, and what the battleship (and the commissioning ceremony) represents.

Ultimately, even if the battleship sees action in some virtual holocaust, it is more of a symbol than an arsenal. The USS Gerald R Ford represents American might. Our entire military complex manifests our strength. American power has been in danger of losing its effectiveness over the past decade because the world came to realize that some presidents and some parties are unwilling to deploy; that bluffs have become seen as substitutes for action; that red lines are empty threats and “resolve” can only be found in the dictionaries, not operations manuals, of the White House and Pentagon.

Americans, and Europeans, can be sure that the current president is not ambiguous on such matters. Significantly, Russians and Chinese, as well as Iranians and North Koreans, can be quite unceratin about how Trump will act – and that is a powerful stealth weapon in and of itself.

However, deflating my swelling breast a bit, I have legitimate worries that America of the 21st century is too much like Rome of the 4th century.

Are we an empire being eaten away at the edges? Are we a society whose spiritual core has rotted? Are our priorities chiefly wealth and it accumulation? pleasure? license? relativism? Do we project power, and not values, any more?

Of course, the questions are rhetorical. II Chronicles 7:14 says, “If my people, who are called by my name, shall humble themselves, pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways….” We read the holy promise, but we can hear the holy warning.

God forbid that the elements of the American arsenal like the USS Gerald R Ford will be just so much metal and wires and tubes and diodes. Things that rust and decay were never what made America great.

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The Naval Hymn, with a photo of Gerald Ford in uniform. He rose to the rank of Lieutenant Commander in the US Navy.

Click: The Naval Hymn / Eternal Father, Strong To Save

5-29-16

July 4 is a pivotal date in American history, not only the date when the Second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence. Fifty years later, to the day, two of the Framers, erstwhile political opponents, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, the second and third presidents of the United States, respectively, died. After the Siege of Vicksburg, U S Grant accepted the surrender of that Confederate stronghold of the Civil War. The battles around San Juan Hill were fought and won by Col Theodore Roosevelt’s Rough Riders in the Spanish-American War.

And, of course, it was on the 4th of July that Southern troops under Gen Robert E Lee withdrew after three bloody days at Gettysburg PA in 1863, and retreated to Virginia.

It was to establish a National Cemetery and commemorate that Battle of Gettysburg during the iconic Fourth, that President Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg address. It was one of the great state papers in America history; and indeed one of the finest orations in the history of humankind.

It is, not at all, to denigrate that speech – how could anyone? – nor to criticize our current President, whom I have grown to admire, if for nothing else, daring to keep his commendable campaign promises, that I offer here the Gettysburg Address as it might be delivered by Donald J Trump (stick with me!):

Four score and seven years ago – that’s eighty-seven years, folks; a long, long time ago, let me tell you – our forefathers brought forth, upon this continent, this great, great continent, believe me, nothing like it anywhere in this country, a new nation; conceived in Liberty – right? Liberty, nothing like it, I tell you – dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Great, great men. And women too, don’t forget the women.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, the greatest – maybe the greatest ever in this country, and I know what I’m talking about, believe me – testing whether that nation, or any nation so concerned, and so dedicated, and so civil, let me tell you, can long endure. Long. Endure. I tell you, long endure, right? We are met here on a great, great battlefield of that war, that great war. The greatest; you know that, right? See, I told ya. We have come to dedicate a portion, a wonderful, wonderful portion of it, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. Resting and living, how great. Rest and live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. Fit – we fit, right? C’mon!

But in a larger sense, a much, much larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hollow this ground. Hollow ground, believe me. I love hollow ground. The brave men, living and dead and many other ways, many wonderful wonderful ways, I tell you, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or subtract. But not poor for long, just wait! The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but can never forget what they did here. Never. Forget. The great state of Gettysburg, which supported us in November. Right? Remember? C’mon – the world WILL remember!

It is for us, the living, rather, you and me, and Corporal James Tanner – where are you, James? Where are you? Stand up! Somebody help him stand – we are dedicated here to the unfinished work which they have, thus far, so nobly carried on, ahead of schedule and under budget! It is rather for us… to be here dedicated… to the great task remaining before us… that from these honored dead, all those dead, those many, many dead, believe me, to take increased devotion to that cause… for which they gave the last full measure of devotion… to which we are devoted… a great, great devotion, let me tell you… that we hear. Highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, I tell you. That this nation shall have a new birth of freedom, great freedom; and that this government will Drain. The. Swamp. I tell you. With all of the people, to all of the people, from the people, shall not perish from the earth. I tell you, you will be tired of not perishing.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Well, I beg forgiveness to those who think I being irreverent to either Lincoln or Trump… or those hallowed dead. In fact, Gettysburg, and Lincoln’s address, are the closest things we have to civic holiness in America. I am tweaking the president’s rhetorical style, as a friend – and as an admirer of his most recent speech to vets and Christians, on July 1, 2017.

There is a larger point, perhaps, that as thinkers and writers and speakers we should be careful about our presentations. Words matter. Lincoln’s genius was in part his pellucid thoughts… and his flawless delivery. Not his voice, which was remembered as high and raspy, but his brilliant arrangement and construction.

This attends whether we argue legal cases, preach the Word of God, teach classes, or instruct our children. Everyone’s business is communication.

End of “lesson”! I am loth to finish, however, without citing the actual Gettysburg Address. It is something I long ago committed to memory; and I think every American should.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Finally, we go from Fake News to Fake History if we believe the books that say that Lincoln was a religious skeptic or agnostic. Year by year through his life he increasingly invoked God and the Bible. In his last years his speeches, writing, proclamations, letters, and conversations were so spiritual that he sometimes sounded like a preacher.

Of the many biblical affirmations he made, to me among the most profound is:

My concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God’s side.

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Click: Battle Hymn Of the Republic

6-19-17

The subject of this essay has been on my mind for some time, and was outlined before the assassination attempts at the Republican baseball practice this week. I will not intone about the “need for civility,” as many are doing and which of course I endorse. But I fear that such hopes are futile, and that was, and is, the sad conclusion I want to discuss.

First, what I substantially had written and still believe:

Donald Trump is likely to be assassinated. Of course I do not urge such I thing. I largely support him, and in fact am happy with his initiatives, and the president he has become. I will take one day – one hour – of his Administration to eight years of his predecessor.

So it is prudent for me to repeat that I do not favor nor encourage his assassination. Neither do I think that raising the topic will inspire any nutcase. To be precise, I am not even prophesying or predicting the heinous act. I am not in that business. I am only reckoning that a personal, physical attack is likely, given the arc of ugliness, violence, threats, and extremism – not infesting politics in general, which is the case, but specifically directed toward President Trump.

Not occasionally; not every day; but virtually every hour since his election. It grows uglier and bloodier. It serves no reason to claim that candidate Trump suggested that thugs at his rallies be given the bum’s rush, or other coarseness; everybody, even leftist protesters, were taught by their mommies that two wrongs don’t make a right. And blue-haired ladies at Tea Party rallies cannot be conflated with Antifas or Bernie and Hillary supporters who set cars on fire and smash store windows.

Ugly words that quickly turned to violence, and “satire” that transformed itself into an ISIS-like depiction of a decapitated President, or his bloody murder on a New York stage, inevitably will inspire weak minds to turn thoughts to deeds.

More, I fully believe that the despicable act can be committed not by an impressionable left-wing nitwit, but by a celebrity. An actor or actress, a “journalist,” a celebrity whose access to a president is easier to achieve than among normal, sane, folks.

John Wilkes Booth was a prominent actor in his day. The moment people heard of Lincoln’s assassination, they immediately recognized Booth’s name. Today, it could be a Baldwin brother, or a Maddow, or a Madonna. I suppose many leftists would be happy to do the deed and be considered martyrs. In a nation virtually free of the death penalty, the perpetrator would a) be considered a hero by half the country; and b) serve less than a life sentence.

Does any reader think this is implausible? Booth thought Lincoln a “baboon” who ruined the South (while the Reconstruction President would have been the defeated South’s best friend). Garfield’s assassin Guiteau was disappointed that he had not received a political appointment; the president represented a faction different than Guiteau’s. That was it.

McKinley’s assassin Czolgosz was an anarchist, plain and simple. Largely forgotten by history is the fact that between the 1880s and World War I there was a worldwide epidemic of bombings and political assassinations. Royalty; elected leaders; prominent businessmen – dozens were killed by anarchists and leftists, down to the “match” that lit the fires of the Great War in 1914: the murder of an Austrian archduke by a Serbian nationalist.

When Theodore Roosevelt was shot point-blank in the chest during the Bull Moose campaign (and, with the bullet in him and blood pouring from the wound, he insisted on delivering his 90-minute speech) it was by an unemployed bartender whose “mind” was inflamed by newspaper editorials calling TR a tyrant.

Given the fever-temperature of our political health these days, an attack on President Trump seems not unlikely.

So. This week an apparently average liberal activist and Bernie backer, after months of stalking, and preparing a written hit-list of Republicans found in his pocket, targeted an enclosed field of GOP politicians warming up for a charity baseball game. That his guns were legal and registered, and he was a liberal, there were few calls for the Second Amendment to be repealed. That nobody died, and only a few people maimed, liberals felt safe, outside the comments and prayers at second base during the game, to blame Trump’s “rhetoric” and other diversions.

The New York Times even wrote, immediately, about Gabby Gifford’s attack six years previous, citing a Sarah Palin campaign sheet with “targeted” Congressional districts. Aside from the canard, “equivalency” is losing its meaning in the United States of Alinsky.

Should we remind ourselves?

During the campaign (thanks for notes to The Daily Caller), anti-Trump protesters attacked, pushed, spit on, and verbally harassed attendees forced to walk a “gauntlet” as they left a Trump fundraiser in Minneapolis, and beat an elderly man. Protesters also attacked Trump’s motorcade;

Protesters in El Cajon CA, chased and beat up a Trump supporter;

A GOP office in North Carolina was firebombed and spray-painted with “Nazi Republicans get out of town or else”;

The president of Cornell University’s College Republicans was assaulted the night after Trump won the election;

Maryland high school students punched a student who was demonstrating in support of Trump, and then kicked him repeatedly while he was on the ground;

California GOP Rep. Tom McClintock had to be escorted to his car after a town hall because of angry protesters. The tires of at least four vehicles were slashed;

Protestors knocked a 71-year-old female staffer for California GOP Rep. Dana Rohrabacher unconscious during a protest outside the representative’s office;

Milo Yiannopoulos’ speech at the University of California-Berkeley was canceled after rioters set the campus on fire and threw rocks through windows. Milo tweeted that one of his supporters wearing a Trump hat was thrown to the ground and kicked. Ann Coulter and other speakers have been prevented from speaking on campuses;

Protesters at Middlebury College rushed the conservative Dr Charles Murray and Prof Allison Stranger, pushing and shoving Murray and grabbing Stranger by her hair and twisting her neck as they were leaving a campus building. Stranger suffered a concussion. Protesters then surrounded the car they got into, rocking it back and forth and jumping on the hood;

Republican Rep. Tom Garrett, his family, and his dog were targeted by a series of repeated death threats deemed credible by authorities;

-FBI agents arrested a person for threatening to shoot Republican Rep. Martha McSally over her support for Trump;

-Police in Tennessee charged a woman for allegedly trying to run Republican Rep. David Kustoff off the road;

After the shooting of Rep Steve Scalise and others, GOP Rep Claudia Tenney received an email threat that read, “One down, 216 to go.”

These were overt acts. Following is a list complied by Breitbart News of threats spoken and threatened by the celebrities I spoke of earlier. It is not unreasonable to foresee one of these people, or simple minds inflamed by them, to follow through:

Kathy Griffin “beheads” Trump in a graphic photo

Madonna – “I’ve thought a lot about blowing up the White House”

Snoop Dogg “shoots” Trump in the head in music video

Robert De Niro: “I’d like to punch him in the face”

Joss Whedon: “I want a rhino to [F—] Paul Ryan to death”

Shakespeare in the Park stabs “Trump” to death in performance of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar

Rapper YG threatens Trump in “[F—] Donald Trump” song

Marilyn Manson kills “Trump” in music video.

A New Jersey “Democratic Strategist” issued a statement the day after Rep Scalise’s shooting that the attack might have been deserved, echoing comments by elected Democrats across the country. Surely, there were many sincere offerings of regret by the political establishment. Nancy Pelosi’s impromptu comments from the House well were eloquent and heartfelt, about Scalise’s recovery, and about political amity.

Will these expressions bear fruit? They did not, after 9-11; the state of our nation grew bitterer.

Winston Churchill said that democracy is the worst form of government, until you consider every other. Democracy gone wild is what we have in America today, and the world, similar but worse than 125 years ago: akin to anarchy. The outrageous has become normal. People’s own agendas are considered not only more valid, but exclusively valid, over opponents… and “opponents” have become “enemies” today.

People throughout history have debated with opponents. But enemies are deemed deserving of being killed. This paradigm is what is unfolding in America today.

Welcome to the End Times. Your road map can be II Timothy 3: 1-5: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God — having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof. Have nothing to do with such people.

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click: Trauermusik (Funeral Music) Marche Funebre by Chopin

1-30-17

“The old order changeth,” and sometimes it changeth pretty dang fast. With the sum of human knowledge doubling every 17 months, they say – whoops, this just in: it doubles every 16-1/2 months – our heads spin.

Surely this is the case beyond facts and scientific data. Common folk feel a disconnect with changing morality, musical styles, social policies, and fashion. Such things have always evolved, but never before between breakfast and bedtime. To the extent that essentially evanescent matters change, humankind has always been assured, and relied upon, and embraced the Word of God as immutable, everlasting.

That contemporary churches and denominations are re-shaping their brands of theology to accommodate contemporary mores, instead of the opposite, is disturbing. It offends the faithful, subliminally. It is incendiary to spiritual activists, Christian soldiers, as the hymn identifies us. It is odious, we are persuaded, to God Almighty, whose Word commands that we not conform to this world.

The nature of friendship has changed, or rather has been changed. Once upon a time if you fell out of affection with an associate, you discussed the problem. In the misty past, and in extreme cases, opponents would fight duels… but only then after elaborate notices, challenges, appointments, nominations of “seconds,” and scheduling. Swords or pistols must have seemed virtually inconsequential after all those preliminaries.

Fast forward to today, when people Unfriend others on Facebook. It is the equivalent.

Inherent in Unfriending, except when clearing one’s In-Box (or re-establishing order and sanity to the daily grind, another topic) is condescension, disapproval, and exclusion. Safer than swords or pistols, the e-version of casting someone from your social circle and yelling “unclean!!!” is to Unfriend.

It has happened to me lately, although not specifically. I have been gathered, like a happy fish minding my own business, in wide nets cast in the waters by people who demand that folks who voted the way I did recently remove myself from their site. Anathema! – we are denounced, condemned, excommunicated.

In a few cases I have taken the trouble to say, in effect, “It’s been swell; have a nice life.” In every case the response has been that their outburst was not personal, and, gee, we can still talk and Message (now a verb, ugh) but simply avoid politics. My cheek should become Unslapped by the glove.

Beyond the evidence of a culture hurtling toward terminal superficiality, there is a deeper and more disquieting trend at work here at the nexus of Politeness and Politics. Relevant Magazine recently published an article about the dangers of social isolation and the resulting indifference to other people and their needs. It is true that Internet Etiquette has transformed our computer and smart phone screens into virtual shields, or allows us that option.

I think it is an objection without full force; apart from spiritual regrets we might have, it is largely a mechanistic argument. In any event, what is more alarming to me is the visceral effect: it is a condition, not a theory, that confronts us.

The election of Donald Trump – I would say the America of both Obama and Trump – has our society in a more contentious state than at any time since the Civil War. This is a major malady, no longer a possible passing case of civic indigestion. We are headed for some form of crack-up; it is inevitable.

As in the Civil War, families are split, arguments are heated, friendships are… Undone. I have not one single (or married) friend who does not have a story about dinner-table arguments, holiday disruptions, emotional scenes, snide insults, rolling eyes, snarky comments, about politics in general and the election specifically. Liberals AND conservatives. In person, and online.

Before and during the Civil War this was the case, despite the issues being deeper and the bloodshed flowing redder. But every family and every neighborhood was affected, and tensions were high; friendships ended.

I cannot think of other civic strife in America that tore the social fabric more. Civil Rights? The Vietnam War? Prohibition? Perhaps back to Senator John Calhoun’s calls for Nullification (which I lump with Slavery issues) or Andrew Jackson’s dissolution of the National Bank… no. New England’s threats of Secession in the 1810’s? Not likely. Those issues fomented debates, not divorces. Maybe the Revolution itself, when Loyalists, Revolutionaries, and the indifferent split the Colonial population into thirds.

Now there is a national nastiness, and the word proudly has been appropriated by the women and “others” who marched on the day after the Inauguration. Despite protestations, the national media largely has waged an ideological war on the public, and the public’s awakening to the assault is branded illegitimate – so says the man behind the curtain in the Emerald City.

My daughter Heather, thinking about this dilemma in our midst, wishes for a National Game Night that might re-set the meter of comity and amity. But she knows that dream is a metaphor: unrealizable wishful thinking.

The Bible’s words to be “in this world, but not of this world” shout to us more than ever before. I have shared the impulses, for years, of gathering the communion of saints around us; encouraging one another; joining home schools and small groups. Yes, we should witness. No, we should not leave the non-believers outside the camps. Christians are withdrawing into spiritual cocoons. Good or bad?

I understand that God is our real Friend, an ever-present help in time of trouble, and in every other aspect of life. When we are Unfriended by a hostile world, are we to sigh Relief? Or find new friends? Or Re-friend? It is not an Internet “meme” yet, but might become one: Refriending.

“Hear ye now what the Lord says; Arise, contend thou before the mountains, and let the hills hear thy voice” (Micah 6:1).

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Click: Prayer

1-23-17

A quick, virtual GPS for some readers: this essay will be entre nous – between us, assuming some common ground; not arguing to change minds or convert anyone. Nor even to persuade; only some observations.

The title is a paraphrase of a description of Grover Cleveland when he was nominated for president in the 1884 Democrat convention. Gen Edward S Bragg of Wisconsin complimented the reform governor of New York with those words. Cleveland was little know nationally, having served as governor fewer than two years; and had been mayor of Buffalo just as briefly.

In an era of cesspool-corruption – in 1880, President James Abram Garfield was assassinated by a frustrated office-seeker from a different party faction – Cleveland was what supporters called “ugly honest.” Rock-ribbed integrity, and the sort of man who could, and did, hang convicted criminals himself when executioners were squeamish.

As a New York Democrat, it took courage and daring to buck the corrupt Tammany Hall political machine in New York City. But Cleveland did, and gained approval from more and more voters in his state and around the nation.

“We love him for the enemies he has made.”

My observations today are about President Trump, and very much about the status of faith in America; even, possibly, the politics of faith.

Early in the campaign season, I was skeptical of some of Trump’s pronouncements (if not testimonies) and expositions of his faith. Attempting to “judge not, lest I be judged,” believe me, it caught my attention when he spoke of “Two Corinthians” and thinking he never needed forgiveness, and not wanting to bother God with such things. And so forth.

But readers know that my opinions of Trump changed over the course of the campaign. He named Mike Pence, a sincere, consistent, and bold Christian public servant. He grew more sincere, forceful, and detailed about conservative policy positions… as, oddly, his opponents grew imprecise and rudderless. Toward the end of his campaign, and certainly since election day, he rebuilt his platform of solid oak, so to speak, and, one by one, incorporated the long-held goals of conservatives, nationalists, non-interventionists, libertarians, laborers, home-schoolers. And Christians.

Among many “surprising” voter groups who came as if from nowhere to support Trump was the so-called “evangelical” bloc. They did not, in fact, come from nowhere. They have been in the ideological heartland – not merely the geographical heartland – of America, a sleeping giant. We do not riot; we do not burn cars or smash windows. We do not scream obscenities at every opportunity. But we did launch, spontaneously, the Tea Party movement. A sleeping giant that stirred.

Well… fast-forward to Inauguration Week, just concluded. We awakened; we stopped caring what the elites called us; we are happy – wherever we came from – to have a leader who is willing, maybe eager, to break some china.

“We love him for the friends he has made.”

It is as dangerous to judge, even definitively assess, someone when you agree with them, as when you dissent. It is risky, and it is wrong. So I am not claiming that President Trump is a tongue-talking, snake-handling Fundamentalist. I do not know his soul, or how he is versed in scripture now or in his past.

But it is worthwhile for us to look at details of recent days, otherwise easy to overlook. The Trump inauguration featured more prayers and invocations than any in history. Many of the ministers were not “mainstream” clergy but strong Evangelicals, Pentecostal, some fundamentalist.

The same with the Saturday service at the National Cathedral. More dedicated, notable, evangelical and Pentecostal figures, many of them. As the National Cathedral requires a broad range of faiths at such services, over the two days the nation, and the President, heard from Franklin Graham and his daughter Cissie, Paula White, Greg Laurie, David Jeremiah, Alveda King (Dr MLK’s niece), Robert Jeffress, Jack Graham of Prestonwood Baptist, and Darrell Scott.

President Trump is a onetime disciple of Norman Vincent Peale, the famous pastor of New York’s Marble Collegiate Church, but an exponent of “Christianity Lite.” He could have invited fewer faith leaders, or ones blander in their faith expressions. But he did not. He did not have to form an Evangelical Advisory Board, with whom he meets and prays regularly. But he did; and does. And… watch for the nature, character, and, yes, “litmus test” of the person he will soon nominate as Supreme Court Justice.

Again, I am not presuming anything about the President’s faith, or his relationship with Jesus Christ. I do not believe he surrounds himself with people of faith out of superstition or artifice or camouflage. I am not inured to his evident, or manifest, flaws. But he could be presenting himself as a different man who has evolved in recent months. In certain ways, this man of huge ego is as transparent as could be.

And we can love him for the friends he has made.

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A few words of thanks, and a medical bulletin, for those friends who have been praying about the procedure performed this morning on my forehead. Yes, Suturday morning. My trusted doctor was pretty snippy with me, but he saw a little spot the other day, and advised that we take care of it right away. “We” is term that always makes me chuckle – “This won’t hurt us…” – but, no matter how you slice it, I followed his advice.

What was it? What was it? I didn’t take note of the medical term the other day, but friends demanded I give them a name. So I named it “Spot,” just like a pet in my childhood. I had so many friends talking about Basal, I thought I was in the Spice Market. No, it was the Slice Market.

Needles to say, I first received anesthesia. The whole procedure reminded me of when I walked into a baseball bat way back in my skull days, in third grade. Fortunately Doc has a great sense of humor – you know I will say he had me in stitches. Honestly, I could not tell how many stitches the old sew-and-sew used, but he did a head-count. Four.

The meat he excavated looks like a cherry Hershey’s mini-kiss, as I saw it floating in a vial ready for biopsy. What’s even more vile is the splitting headache I have now, probably to be expected. But if he had gouged an inch or two deeper, I would have a splitting-head ache now instead.

Seriously (?) all this was rather minor and Doc assured me that it likely was nothing for worry (there we go again: it wasn’t his forehead) but precautionary. Really minor… but these descriptions are easier fare for puns. I followed our Savior’s command to Render unto scissors the things that are scissors’. And very seriously, thanks to all for your concern and prayers.

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Click: Tell Me the Story of Jesus / I Love To Tell the Story

1-16-17

Four years ago this week my wife lay dying. She had been sick for a long time – all her life, really – but in recent years the diabetes and heart attacks and strokes and cancers and heart and kidney transplants and amputations and much else, had taken their toll. She suffered a hemorrhage, lost most of her blood before transfusion, and was in a coma for a week. Our children flew in from far and wide – half an hour away; from across the continent; from Ireland.

It was on Monday, January 21. In the hallways of the hospital, and from other rooms, we could hear the TVs turned to news: Inauguration Day. It was pushed back from January 20, as the Constitution respects Sundays. We stood around Nancy’s bed, with monitors blinking, and we faintly could hear the pomp and circumstance, the music and announcers, from the Capitol steps, echoing in shiny hospital hallways.

At the moment, the very moment, that Obama took the oath of office, Nancy died. The monitor flat-lined. The first of us to break the silence was my son Ted: “Mom always said that if Obama actually became president a second time, she’d just die.”

Families have different ways of coping. Seeped in humor and politics for years, we evidently found ours. Lest we be thought cold, my daughter Emily will tell people that we had grieved for Nancy in many ways for many previous years.

“My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord
(Isaiah 55:8-9). Thank God.

This anniversary of sorts has me thinking of the upcoming inauguration, also. Meditating upon God’s ways, I thought about that famous unpredictable, larger-than-life character; intemperate and over the top in uncountable ways; notable for prowess and strong actions, but also for womanizing and crazy hair. Well known to history. An unlikely person to be chosen by God to lead and perhaps redeem His people.

Donald Trump?

No, actually I was thinking of Samson.

We can find parallels, antecedents, and foreshadows wherever we look, if we look hard enough; affinities as well as exceptions to rules that tempt us to draw lessons. So I will only go so far. I mean, Samson was flawed, yet ultimately obeyed the commands of righteousness. He tore down the temple; yet to reform the system he deigned to destroy its artifice.

With Trump a new era begins – and I think this is, for once, not a quadrennial cliché. At the beginning of the campaign I opposed him, wrote against him, saying that I would not want to vote for someone whom I would not want as a neighbor. I still am not reconciled to his coarseness… but I have learned to discern between scatology and straight talk. The vocabulary of hard truths and agenda of bold solutions.

As the campaign progressed, he defined his message and platform, even to enumerating specific grievances and remedies, while his opponents in the primaries and general election actually grew less explicit about their own views. Week by week, citizens in living rooms and kitchens, churches and taverns, offices and factories, started to think that things they had complained about last week – and even since the ‘60s – were finally being articulated. And by someone who they seemed to trust would not forget them, as politicians always do.

The silent revolt of the Silent Majority is thus explained. No mystery. People with grievances; evangelicals; disillusioned working people; long-suffering victims of stagnation and rising crime rates and economic insecurity and public corruption… did not stay home this year. No mystery. People who had become too cynical to vote for president, for years, trekked to the voting booths. I know. I was one of them.

But, now what? Who knows? A man as unpredictable as Donald Trump might wind up disappointing his legions. But I don’t think so. More likely, he will disappoint nervous Republican politicians who are hoping he will revert to form in Washington DC – to be the same old, do the same old.

But the entrenched interests – those within his own party; and those who thirst for his blood, even before the inauguration, from the Disloyal Opposition – sense their possible doom, and they will fight like wounded rats. Return to this essay in a year, in four years, in a decade, if the nation and the world last that long. Let’s see: I say that myriad things will never be the same. We are at a turning point.

Civility; good will; public discourse; genuine bipartisanship; legislative compromise; political traditions… all are now virtually extinct. Those geniis will never return to those bottles. And if your first mental response to this was, “Yes, but remember what so-and-so did…” inserting the name of your favorite enemy, you have proven my point.

Samson tore down the temple, a necessary act of obedience. Daniel calmed vicious lions. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego endured the fiery furnace. David was a horrid and lustful sinner who yet was anointed of God for great works. Review the heroes of faith and history, and pray that President Trump may be found not wanting.

Get ready for a ride. Whether Donald Trump is a committed Christian I know not. But he can receive, as any of us can, and act upon, God’s call. Buckle up your prayer sandals: the new president will need our prayers, as does the nation, as do we all, every one of us.

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Click: Battle Hymn Of the Republic

1-1-17

Our secular world inherited a lot of things from ancient cultures and societies that have gone before. This is logical, as life is a continuum, not a shoebox of snapshots. History is ongoing. This is also proper, because we learn from history (or should) and, at the other end of the spectrum, it is interesting to learn what trappings have remained of customs, beliefs, names, and traditions.

Even the Christian religion owes much to ancient and pagan religions. The name of Easter; the dates of Christmas and Easter; the veneration or invention of some saints, are among the inspirations or compromises that made Christianity palatable to pagan peoples.

Christ’s Resurrection speaks of New Life; Springtime does too; ancient tribes used to celebrate nature’s regeneration in the Spring and face East, where the sun rises. “Branding” Resurrection observances with the associations of Spring – if not taken too far – does not violate any theological truth, and in fact seems virtuous.

… which is a long way around to invite a consideration of January, this January. The month is named for the Roman god Janus, the representation of endings and beginnings; the past and the future; of gates and doorways; of old and new; of transitions; of changes. Janus is called the Two-Faced god not because he was a hypocrite, but as his representations show, the fellow looked backward and forward. Our modern world has inherited more than a month’s name from him. For instance, understanding his traditional characteristics, we know better why New Year’s Resolutions are made in his month.

He bequeathed much, from special stones at the doors of Roman houses, to all manner of traditions and names. When in Bologna, Italy, I stay at the magnificent ancient villa named Torre di Iano – literally, the Towers of Janus. (Twin emotions, of sorts: I love to go; I hate to leave!

Here we are at another January, as always an invitation to contemplate the Old and New. We will welcome a new administration which, partisanship aside, bids fair to be a momentous and history-making (or -changing) presidency. Janus-like events ahead. An inordinate number of prominent people have died this year. But overall, and in deference to ol’ Janus, the numbers of deaths probably will be the same next year as last year. The more things change, the more they stay the same? Sounds wise and likely is wise, as it reflects Ecclesiastes’ “nothing new under the sun.”

Questions about Old and New invite profound thoughts, or trails toward them. They might mostly be variations on glasses “half empty or half full,” which I have never precisely understood; but I know what people grapple with. In nature, we see Janus-attributions everywhere, every day – and how we regard them says less about nature than ourselves.

Things die: flowers, trees, animals, people, theories, civilizations. If you choose to see death all around you, there are myriad examples.

Yet things live! Plants regenerate; succeeding generations of animals and people arise. Even seedlings fight their way between cracks in ugly urban jungles; after the worst of wildfires, “dead” trees grow buds, little animals appear, seemingly from nowhere; even the driest of deserts occasionally bloom – and with the most colorful flowers imaginable.

A variation of the sameness and dullness of life – to those who choose to be gloomy – is the belief that the world of people and the flora and fauna around us, plod on and on and on. Herds of dumb beasts; the bleakness of winter snow; the dulled masses of people.

Yet, facing the opposite direction, we see – and we serve – a different God. The animal and plant world He has created with infinite variety! No zebra nor giraffe has the same markings. Wild animals are different and sound different, one from another in the most populous of species. A rose is not a rose is not a rose!

And, for good or ill, people are different too. That is not only a cliché: we would not it any other way, would we? Approaching seven billion people on earth, there are doppelgangers – our “doubles” exist only in fiction. We miss loved ones, we regret the passing of favorites celebrities, but time marches on. When a harsh dictator or a brutal terrorist, say, dies, those people are almost instantly succeeded in the mortal coil by a baby whose smiles can make the hardest person feel new too… whose innocence blots out any imputed evil record… who is, again and again and again, a symbol of the Newness in life.

The Newness OF life.

We need to be reminded – from ancient traditions if we see them aright, to the vibrancy of the Gospel of Jesus Christ – that things die “unto” life. That for every old and even regrettable thing, there are second chances, U-turns, and life more abundant. That God is a god of New Life.

Happy January!
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Click: St Patrick’s Breastplate

11-7-16

For a few weeks here, I have been pointing my usual concerns to the presidential election. It has been a legitimate detour because the choices – the crises – we face are more momentous than any in memory. Also, the nature of our regular topics, including spiritual and patriotic matters, are dispositive this year. That is, the nation is about to reconfirm our standards and values, or depart into uncharted territories. Everyone senses it.

Many people will think that Hillary represents continuity, and Trump will bring the Unknown to office. I argue, in these days before the election, that the situation is precisely the opposite.

I have urged friends and readers who, like most citizens, are enthusiastic about neither candidate, to ignore the candidates as much as possible, and vote for the policy outcomes most important to them. This is why parties have platforms, why congressional caucuses compose manifestoes, why candidates offer “contracts with voters.” Officeholders, once elected, often break their pledges, but we still have yardsticks to measure and hold them accountable.

In this regard, “I hate them both” becomes a fatuous position. Generally, people dislike Trump but distrust Hillary: reason enough for a thoughtful choice. Personally, my view of Trump as a vulgarian of malleable principles has evolved – mostly because, during the campaign, he has evolved, and actually has articulated a set of positions. These positions are strong, consistent, and far more detailed than of any presidential candidate since Reagan.

Oddly, his manifesto has come under the radar – not, for instance, with the PR fanfare of Gingrich’s “Contract with America” in 1994 – and, ironically, subsequent to the primaries and his nomination. Yet on immigration (moderated), international trade, school choice, abortion, Constitutional issues, taxes, judicial appointments, health care, regulation, and other issues, he has become this generation’s issues-oriented candidate. Who would have thought?

Moreover, his positions, especially for a man of chameleonlike attitudes and ideological U-turns through the years, are consistent with longstanding goals of Christian activists, right-wing loyalists, and “movement conservatives.” Many of these goals have been frustrating failures to activists, but Trump trumpets them. Not timid because of past failures of the governing class, he doubles down. Liberals decry these stands, but Establishment Republicans, in whose hot-houses these views were hatched, strangely are silent. Why?

Well, Trump is not one of “them.”

Surely he is not, and that is one reason he has caught the imagination of the electorate. Many prominent elected Republicans have not endorsed him; and only one major newspaper has. He has, by traditional standards, repeatedly committed political suicide; but he refuses to die. Scandals, gaffes, embarrassments… and he rises in the polls. The “world” “hates” him, but he is dead-even in polls now; and I believe will prevail.

There is something extremely profound at work. For all of Trump’s brand of charisma or his unorthodox appeal, it is not about him. And it is only partly what he says. It is what he represents. Almost despite of himself. He is giving voice to an inchoate but tsunami-like Spirit of the Age. He is the inheritor of a bubbling brew of protest figures. Barry Goldwater; Howard Beale, the maverick TV newsman in the movie Network (“I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it any more!”); George Wallace; Spiro Agnew; Ronald Reagan; Pat Buchanan; Ralph Nader; Pat Robertson; Ross Perot; and various columnists, talk radio hosts, and cable news people.

Beyond that, Trump represents the same, or similar, packages of discontents that have fueled the Le Pens in France; UKIP and Brexit in England; Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, and anti-immigrant, small-government, nationalist leaders in Italy, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Sweden, and even Iceland.

Given the tide of right-wing populist passions throughout the West – none of it coordinated, not yet – it is evident that if Donald Trump had not emerged, the Silent Majority would have manufactured someone like him.

What kind of president would he make? Hillary, as noted above, surely would be a continuation… of Obama, of Bill, of ObamaCare, of endless and purposeless wars in the Middle East, of endless and purposeless bureaucrats, of the familiar old faces and tired old policies. Trump might come to office, with no baggage and few commitments, and run the government as a CEO would. He could appoint powerhouses to Cabinet posts; would formulate programs and deadlines to deal with priority issues; and hold periodic board meetings to check the progress on his agenda. How refreshing a prospect; what a difference.

Or… he could appoint lackeys; bluster his way through controversies, and relish arguments more than solutions. Unlikely, but a possibility. But hour by hour, Americans are willing to take the chance rather than vote for Hillary. And that is apart from the larcenous and perhaps treasonous future of Clinton Inc., about which facts are being revealed, also virtually hour by hour.

As in other parts of the world, “the old order changeth.” Citizens are now eager to break with their old parties, to punish and abandon old politicians. Apart from the over-arching issues I listed above, I can explain the flight from Hillary and Democrats, and the tide toward Trump, in a way I have not seen analyzed elsewhere.

In recent years, many social conservatives often remained loyal to Democrats – at least their House members; or because of unions’ appeals; or with sympathy for Obama as a Black, or other ethnic concerns. This year I politely have eavesdropped in areas of Michigan and Pennsylvania and Colorado. In factory and suburban and executive neighborhoods. And I have heard people who used to caricature Republicans now bitterly complain about Democrats and leaders like Hillary. Why? Their priorities of unrestricted immigration, sanctuary cities, LBTGBTQ (sorry) “rights,” and pedophiles’ access to Women’s rest rooms. Candidate aside, the Party has changed.

On one less inflammatory issue, liberals like Obama and Hillary boast about the increased numbers of people on food stamps. Conservatives, and, once upon a time, even Democrats, used to work toward the day when nobody needed to be on welfare assistance.

The coming populist wave is easy to understand.

If the wave is postponed, Canute-like, four or eight years, or fails in its essentials, ugly things might happen in America. I already anticipate violence in the streets, looting, and other such “civic protests,” if Trump wins. Count on it.

If Trump loses, many of us, patriots and Christians, will recognize that our country is lost. Suburbanites, shopkeepers, and churchgoers might not take it to the streets, maybe not, but many of us will be ready for radical action and fundamental change. We will say “thank you” to the old system, keep portions of it, and work, really work, to build something new. There will be opposition to us; we will have to accept the rejection of friends and family members; and we will turn to civil disobedience.
All of which, counterintuitively, would be a very traditional reaction to our current crisis. Thomas Jefferson himself said that in each generation, the Tree of Liberty might have to be nourished with the blood of patriots.

I will enlist. But it is my belief, with a couple days to go, that Enthusiasm and Momentum are building, as they always do, toward an election wave. Let us pray.

In any case.

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Click: Turn the Tide – A Prayer for America – Abigail Miller

10-31-16

One of the opportunities afforded blog essayists is to see how many “hits” we
attract; how readers find you; and what links they wander to. Some people respond with messages; some to the blog’s address, some to my personal address; some readers appreciate the music tie-ins; many ignore them.

And I can tell when people click on messages from years past. That is satisfying to me, because I intend that most messages be “evergreen” – as pertinent today as, say, seven years ago. Just (I hope) as the Bible’s lessons have the same relevance to God’s children as they did in millennia past.

Over the past week I have purposely focused on the presidential election, not a typical pattern here. But I think the issues are so critical that we should take special notice. Moreover, the issues (as in the larger American culture) relate to biblical principles, biblical warnings, and horrible consequences of “biblical proportions.”

I have read some of my essays from years ago, and I think that most still are relevant. Even points I shared during the previous presidential campaign seem to me (as I attempt to be objective) neither moldy nor mistaken. But in the 2016 election cycle, things – not only facts but factors – change in days. Or hours. This is a campaign that is unprecedented for vituperation, lies, irrelevancies, numerous endorsements and abandonments, and, of course, scandals.

I might enter the previous sentence in the sweepstakes for Greatest Understatement Of the Year.

Through this political year I have written articles, as a historian, for national newspaper about previous political controversies – where bigamy, murder (Jackson); drunkenness (Andrew Johnson and Grant); an illegitimate child (Cleveland); an illegitimate child while president (Harding); sexual affairs (FDR, Kennedy, Clinton) – were commonly discussed. Et cetera. In other words: “Nothing new here.” And I never got close to the frequent charges of imbecility over 240 years.

Early in our campaign, this was a valid set of reminders; pacifiers, perhaps. But things are different, very different right now.

I am not being an alarmist. One who legitimately rings an alarm technically is not alarmist. An alarmist is a Chicken Little, one who falsely spreads fear and unnecessary warnings of impending doom. No, there is doom. It impends.

America has become two – or more – nations. I truly think that whether Trump or Hillary is elected, there will be riots here or there; no, here AND there. And not only on election night, but on Inauguration Day. And when major initiatives are undertaken by either putative president. (I use the word “putative” carefully – not “eventual” or “likely” president, but “generally assumed” president, because the legitimacy of Trump or Clinton surely will be challenged.)

Major questions, serious scandals, and hitherto disqualifying revelations have been commonplace this year. Our heads spin. Seismic civic explosions are forgotten scandal after scandal, because they are eclipsed by worse ones – always more bizarre. I believe that we long ago passed the point of a Hollywood studio accepting any recent news stories as possible treatments for a political thriller… or comedy: too unlikely!

OK, you know all this. I must remember to get over the astonishing and unprecedented events (partly because the two remaining weeks are bound to drop more bombshells). We must, all of us, come to grips that we very possibly are coming face-to- face with a constitutional criss.

Can a president pardon herself? Possibly… but, then, would the hundreds of millions of the “governed” be governable?

Can institutions once regarded as sacrosanct (the “most scared of holies”), for example the FBI and great charities, ever redeem their integrity?

Will personal probity ever return as a standard of public officials, or be demanded by a moral public?

Look at what has happened to us in this campaign. Except for the lurid flashes in the pan, the “breaking news,” the debates have largely centered on polls, trends, voting blocs, daily charts – in other words, the game more than the issues. Surely, the three “debates” centered more on name-calling than national challenges. We have come to assume the worst, including the worst motives, to our opponents. Hence, the two Americas: we have come to assume hatred… and adopt hatred.

I have suggested we Americans have deserved all this, and surely we do. What are we supposed to do, blame it on the Russians? We held primaries and caucuses (interminable, at that) and the voters spoke. At least in the Republican primaries there was a huge crop to choose from and a clear winner, and unlike elsewhere, no charges of rigging. So the system worked like systems do. To challenge the winner is to insult the voters.

As I also have suggested, Christians ought to look at likely results – desirable policy outcomes – instead of candidates’ personality tics or appearances.

Very slowly, but surely, Donald Trump’s speeches have featured fewer boasts and paranoid fantasies. More and more he ticks off his checklist: opposition to abortion; defending Christians overseas; reaffirming the First Amendment (freedom of religion) and Second (the right to bear arms); championing home schools, parochial schools, charter schools; ending Federal Government interference in education; and so forth.

He has fine-tuned his policy on immigrants. Not that all Mexicans are thieves and rapists, but unchecked floods of people at the borders might allow such to enter. The same with unvetted Muslim immigrants vis a vis terrorism. And so forth. Eventually, he has made sense.

This weekend Phil Robertson of Duck Dynasty spoke directly of how he recently witnessed to Donald Trump. Explained the Gospel as nobody else has done. He believes that Trump accepted Christ, and he sees a work in progress.

But no matter how the election goes, voters must remember that the “perfect might be the enemy of the good.” In any event, as vital as this election is… there are many, many, many deep, deep, deep problems with this society. From schoolyards to the Supreme Court; from those who make movies to those who watch them; from those who reject Christ to… those who are faithful church-goers. One man cannot change all, so we should work with those who will try. And One who knows.

How far have we drifted? Are “damned if we do and damned if we don’t” – is it that late? Have we slept through our alarms?

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Click: Where Did America Go?

10-24-16

Democrat Vice-presidential candidate Tim Kaine grew up in Kansas City KS. Recently, that city’s Archbishop, Joseph F Naumann, described the senator as a “Cafeteria Catholic” for picking and choosing the Church doctrines he chose to respect.

Kaine, who has a rare lifetime Zero rating from the American Conservative Union – which I realize is not a religious organization – favors abortion, and voted for its legality, extension, and federal funding; among opposing other teachings of the Church.

There are Protestants who have conflicts, too – claiming belief in the God of the Bible, but denying large portions of the Bible of God. “Pick and choose Christianity” is a cancer in Protestant (and Evangelical and Pentecostal and mainstream and post-modern) churches too; a cancer that metastasizes rapidly.

Kaine, and others, predictably fall back on the crutch of Relativism and say, “I am personally opposed to abortion, but I will not impose my view on others.” You have heard such things. Maybe you have said such things.

Some Day, these nominal Christians will answer for their hypocrisy. Abortion, death penalty, whatever the issue, if you believe something… stand up for it. If, further, your opinion is informed by your faith – if you believe it involves God’s will – then I worry for your soul if you fail to share His truth in public.

“Whoever disowns Me before others, I will disown before my Father in heaven.” That’s Jesus, quoted in Matthew 10:33.

Hey, politician – Hey, neighbor; Hey, person in the mirror – if you “personally oppose” abortion but tolerate it in society, how were people wrong to “personally oppose” slavery back in the day, but permit its practice? Slaves were private property, it was argued – who would you have been to interfere? Hey – what about the persecution and slaughter of Jews during World War II? It was argued that Jews were sub-human, after all; and how would have it affected you? Was it your business?

Since babies who are murdered up to hours before natural birth cannot speak for themselves, I will make their plea: Why are their lives less important than babies one day old? Or two years old and disabled? Or… why are their lives less important than your life?

The administration and party whose power Mr Kaine wants to perpetuate frequently has shown less compassion, and expended less political capital, on behalf of little victims of infanticide, and uncountable Christians martyred for their faith around the world, than toward trans-sexual persons who claim that landlords don’t like them; or sexual predators who demand free access to women’s restrooms in malls.

America, 2016.

Republicans are not off the spiritual hook. The Supreme Court that has written offensive rulings, and “discovered” rights that were not enumerated in the Constitution, have largely been Republican courts. Republican Congresses have been Big-Brother enablers since the 1930s. Conservatives, let’s admit it, have become mere foot-dragging liberals.

Speaking personally – c’mon, that’s what we all do – when Donald Trump, for all his many flaws, said that he is opposed to abortion; describes “late-term” abortions in graphic detail; and promises that any Supreme Court nomination he makes will be committed to overturn Roe vs Wade… that did it for me. No matter what other promise he makes or breaks; no matter what Hillary advocates and pledges… Trump deserves the vote of Christians and those who respect life (including descendents of slavery and holocausts).

Can we step back and realize that as few as four years ago, even most Republicans, conservatives, and “faith-based” candidates, refused to voice approval of Roe vs Wade being overturned? to dare to admit that they had a “litmus test” for judicial nominees? Mr Trump does. It is a political earthquake few have noted. In his Gettysburg speech, he further committed to positions — school choice, for instance — that conservatives and people of faith have wished for in living-room discussions and Republican “leaders” have failed to commit.

To those many people of faith, so-called, who lament our spiritual crisis, and the moral swamp wherein we slog: I am often among you, and hear many prayers for God to “bring revival to this land.”

I am not optimistic about a response that you people pray for. God could send revival; He is sovereign. Of course. But just as He did not send ten thousand angels to pluck Jesus from the cross… so He will not cause the Supreme Court building to spontaneously combust; or The New York Times building to float into the Hudson River and sink.

True revival comes less from God, and more from the hearts of His people.

And, when it comes, things are directed to Him, and not to rulers or candidates or politicians.

Everything else – everything – will fall into place when we seek revival as a people. Be not deceived, God is not mocked (Galatians 6:7). Do you believe God wants a relationship with a people who snap their fingers so He can clean up their holy mess?

Until and unless true revival comes, we deserve the mess we have created. I will support any candidate who commits to core biblical principles (apart from generic “caring” and compassion” as even the heathen do), and who is forthright about it.

We have sunk so low in America that I actually am grateful to have spiritual straws to grasp.

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Click this Johnny Cash performance: Help Me, Lord

10-17-16

Once upon a time there was a president named Franklin Delano Roosevelt. No… I will start this story earlier, and in another way.

Once upon a time there was a different America. Different than we know now. Not only different presidents and candidates, but different manners and morals. Different standards. You and I could go back in time and might recognize places and relate to interactions. But it is possible that Americans of earlier times, if they could materialize in our midst today, would be lost and bewildered.

U. S. Grant, the superior general and inferior president, was known to like his cigars and whisky. After a dinner with a group of generals or politicians – those details are lost; but a group of men who enjoyed after-dinner cigars and whisky – one man rose and proposed to tell a story or two. He signaled that the humor would be bawdy (“purple,” in the day’s parlance, meaning naughty) by announcing, “I see there are no ladies present.”

Grant reportedly said, “No, but there are gentlemen present”; and told the man to leave. The good old days. Can you imagine?

Theodore Roosevelt, exuberant hunter and woodsman and cowboy, was sometimes photographed and frequently caricatured in informal attire, however was respectful of the dignity of the presidency. He chose frock coats and top hats. He hated newsreel cameras.

But almost every day the weather allowed, he played tennis on White House courts. Other presidents had “kitchen cabinets” – unofficial advisers and confidants who met in friendship or for policy brainstorming. TR’s was on the tennis court. Yet not one photograph exists of TR playing in his tennis whites.

At the end of his term the Tennis Cabinet met for one last time, and TR was presented with a gift from the assembled friends. Finally they were photographed as a group… in formal attire. Dignity (even if readers from 2016 think it was irrelevant) was important.

Now I will mention TR’s distant cousin, FDR. The nation knew that Franklin Roosevelt suffered from polio; that he was in braces, unable to walk, barely able to stand. He had run – sometimes literally – for vice president in 1920, hale, hearty, handsome. But then polio struck.

Common knowledge it was, but he seldom was photographed struggling with crutches or arm-braces. Occasionally a news photo showed him tightly, and awkwardly, gripping a podium. Or when sitting with Churchill and Stalin at a wartime conference, his leg-braces could be seen peeking between his pants-cuffs and his shoes.

Dignity on his part; respect on the part of photographers and newsreel cameramen.

Fast-forward to 1976. I covered a George Wallace rally in suburban Chicago during the Democrat primaries. “The Fighting Judge” was the victim of an assassin’s bullet four years previous. Paralyzed from the waist down, he was dependent upon wheelchairs and assistants.

In those days the press’s role had changed – on a track toward today’s blatant partisanship. Wallace was viewed with opprobrium by most of the liberal media for his earlier segregationist stands, as was the incumbent president, Nixon, for a variety of excuses and justifications.

At that rally, a few photos were snapped during the speech. And then reporters and news photographers gathered at the hall’s exit, where a car would meet Wallace, who waited in his wheelchair. When the car pulled up and opened its door, Wallace’s aides did what was necessary and routine. Nowadays these maneuvers can be effected differently, but that night, two men joined arms to raise Gov. Wallace like a bundle of bones, from underneath, and awkwardly trundled him into the seat of the car.

It was inelegant. Embarrassing, clearly, to Wallace. Which is why the assembled photographers of the press corps instantly snapped their flash photos for every nano-second of that clumsy scene. I never did see any such photos on front pages… but the reporters seemed intent on making Wallace uncomfortable.

My point is not so much about presidential dignity, itself (remember that Lyndon Johnson surprisingly lifted his shirt to show a gall-bladder scar; and Jimmy Carter chatted about his hemorrhoids), but more about society, that it has changed. Our culture is cheapened; we have lower standards; manners and morals are endangered species.

“F Bombs” are dropped with total-war intensity. Movies are replete with filthy language and filthier behavior. Young girls in malls are heard talking in ways that once would have embarrassed stevedores. Plotlines of TV shows deal in topics once too “delicate” to raise in family or social circles; that is, in private. Athletes who denigrate the flag are stoutly defended; athletes who affix slogans to their shoes, supporting the police, are threatened with suspension. An upside-down world.

In politics, which, traditionally, closely follows and carefully leads the normative values and aspirations of society, cutting-edge outrages now are indulged. Onetime taboos – for instance, allowing men into any public restroom where little girls might be – is suddenly decreed to be a Constitutional Right. And, as with monarchs or tyrants of old, is allowed with a stroke the pen, a punishable crime if violated.

In this year’s politics we have a candidate who is endorsed by “Evangelical” leaders and immediately salts his speeches with hells and damns. Instead of issues, we hear discussions of sex allegations about him, and about a former president. The latter’s wife, a current candidate herself, is cast as an enabler, almost a harridan persecuting the putative victims. Whether true or half-true, these become part of the evening news, press conferences, dinner-table conversations.

That other candidate continues the march toward re-defining customarily deviant behavior. Discovering “rights” in the same manner as the incumbent president, her new discoveries routinely offend traditions, always under fraudulent banners. Inventing “rights” for sexual deviants or criminal aliens is to dishonor those who fought for racial justice, female suffrage, and other civil rights.

So Hillary would enshrine privileges for “women” with male accessories, and pedophiles, into the Constitution. She would continue her predecessor’s crusade to denigrate Christians at home and abroad. She frequently boasts of her early, and continuing, passion for vulnerable children, yet evinces no second thoughts about the killing of viable children sucked from wombs in their ninth months, and murdered by a blade to the bases of their skulls. Suddenly, in Hillaryland, these children are “formerly vulnerable.”

Debates and speeches seem to be ghost-written, now, by headline-writers of supermarket tabloids. What, in 2020? Spitballs and water-balloons at 20 paces?

Our current level of discourse has been cheapened, I believe irretrievably. All these things I have mentioned – and myriad others – are, none of them, splotches of toothpaste that possibly can be put back in their tubes.

Are we on a slippery slope?

Rather, a vortex in the unfortunate toilet-bowl of contemporary life, almost flushed away completely. And deserving of it.

Anyone who teaches something different is arrogant and lacks understanding. Such a person has an unhealthy desire to quibble over the meaning of words. This stirs up arguments ending in jealousy, division, slander, and evil suspicions. These people always cause trouble. Their minds are corrupt, and they have turned their backs on the truth.
I Timothy 6: 4,5a NLT

They prove the truth of this Proverb: “A dog returns to its vomit.” And another says, “A washed pig returns to the mud.”
II Peter 2: 22 NLT

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Click: Sin City

10-10-16

This week an enormous storm brushed by the United States. It was a long time building, it moves deliberately, and forecasters say that it likely will circle around and hit again, causing even more distress and severe adjustments to a fearful population.

In other news, Hurricane Matthew pummeled the East Coast.

But back to the election campaign.

The Election of 2016 is a plain illustration of how bankrupt our political system – our culture – is. A nation of a third of a billion people, and these two are the best we can do? Trump might be the “citizen politician” that the Framers hoped for; but scarcely of the caliber they envisioned. He is a messenger: a mailman carrying the accumulated complaints of a restive population. Many people love him for it… understandably, for all his faults. It seems like everyone else has failed us.

Hillary’s rise – or, rather, her decades-long hovering presence – is disturbing evidence of our civic insolvency. Once again, a population as large (and, supposedly, as diverse and resourceful) as ours, and we lately subsist on dynasties? The Kennedy royalty? Bush – Clinton – Bush – Obama – maybe Clinton / almost another Bush / talk of Michelle Obama / Chelsea Clinton / George P Bush / … and more Kennedys being spawned?

Incest. It results in mutants and defects, in politics as well as genetics.

In this interminable campaign, Donald Trump has had more lives than a litter of cats. Part of his relative stability in the polls is his strong (and, to me, inexplicable) support from “Evangelicals.” Christians, following Christian celebrities, have chosen, endorsed, and largely remained loyal to, Donald Trump.

His agenda, largely nationalist if not nativist, and generally in the tradition of economic royalists, Manchester Liberalism, and an America-First foreign policy – at the least the most recent iteration of his positions – is an agenda with which I generally am comfortable. Many conservative Christians feel the same way, at least manifested by an inchoate attraction.

Trump has given voice, or more appropriately speaks with the same voice, as those of the Goldwater-Wallace-Agnew tremors across our political landscape in the ‘60s and ‘70s. Of the Reagan Revolution’s foot-soldiers. Of the Tea Party insurgencies. Of the decentralization earthquakes in the Europe of Thatcher and UKIP and Brexit; the LePens in France; Geert Wilders in Holland; of anti-immigrant and nationalist movements in Germany, Italy, Austria, Spain, Hungary, Poland, Denmark, Switzerland, and elsewhere.

He is not unique… except for his unique baggage. His “evolving” positions (for instance, on abortion) might be more encouraging than troubling. His boorish social skills might be overlooked by supporters who think there are many butts that need kicking here and abroad.

That his morals, seemingly those of a pig, should surprise anybody is absurd.
Least of all should Christians be startled by the words in the tape that recently surfaced. Like other supporters and politicians, some of whom are now abandoning ship, they should not be discomfited, because nothing new is on display. Merely a new soundbite.

When James A Garfield was elected president, he left his position as an elder in his church, saying, “I resign the highest office in the land to become president of the United States.”

In William McKinley’s first inaugural address he said: “Our faith teaches that there is no safer reliance than upon the God of our fathers, who has so singularly favored the American people in every national trial, and who will not forsake us so long as we obey His commandments and walk humbly in His footsteps.”

Is Trump or Hillary capable of saying, or believing, such words? Especially the “humbly” component?

The real crisis in America is not deficient candidates. They are the symptoms, not the disease. To focus too much on these individuals is like a weatherman pointing to humidity levels in Arizona but ignoring Hurricane Matthew.

Ah, back to the Hurricane. An act of God, so-called. Our political storms, however, are man-made. We get what deserve, and what we have constructed. The fault, dear Brutus, is not in the stars, but in ourselves that we are underlings. Look in our mirrors for the authors of this current mess.

Meanwhile, Trump’s major political sin is not what he bragged about doing on the tape; nor in being careless to speak when being recorded. To me the political (that is, not only personal) sin was bragging, even fabricating, to a nobody. Trying to impress a Hollywood hack. Sounding like a wolf in cheap clothing. That manner of discretion, that twisted sort of probity, is spoken by loose lips that sink ships.

To apologize “to those who are offended” is a weasel-worded deflection. To claim that Bill Clinton did worse things, or at a faster rate, is the very opposite of contrition; more jealousy than remorse. To condemn Hillary for persecuting Bill’s mistresses and girlfriends is almost irrelevant, when Trump needs to reassure his supporters. To say that other world leaders (France, Italy, Russia) have had affairs, is a startling reversal of his attitude about foreign leaders. Those justifications are irresponsible efforts to distract people. It is an insult to his followers. It is cynical exploitation of the “Evangelical” “leaders” who support him.

Should Christians or patriots therefore abandon Trump and vote for Hillary? I think that the worst that can said about Trump – politics, integrity, probity – is insignificant compared to her resume, which is half sordid and half empty.

Is a third party (“What’s a Leppo?”) or a write-in a viable option? I think that these are virtual ballots for Hillary. She will have enough dead voters, illegals, and multiple fraudulent ballots already.

Should Christian patriots “grow up” and realize the world is “that way,” as some friends who decry what they see as a self-defeating rise of Neo-Puritanism argue? Nonsense. Most of us are loath to accept “things as they are” in any other sphere; political activism, even mere commentary, is (as Omar wrote) to smash the world to bits “and then re-mold it nearer the heart’s desire.”

What should Christians do? I am asked this frequently, a month from Election Day.

Once upon a time, the president was a minor part of the campaign. The PLATFORM was what attracted, or repelled, voters. Vote for the representatives of the positions you favor.

Myself, I think that if Hillary does everything she promises we are in a very bad place. If Trump fulfills only 25 per cent of his promises, we are in a much better place.

Christians, patriots, all voters: If this candidate is horrible; if that candidate is disgusting; if the other candidate seems like a dope; if others seem clearly dangerous… look at the policy options. Vote for likely outcomes, the best bundle of policies you can hope for.

Then, pray.

And vote.

And pray.

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Click: Funeral March

10-3-16

Ever since as I was a young boy, I heard adults talking about elections, and resignedly saying that they would, sigh, be voting for the lesser of two evils.

I picked up the mantra when I achieved majority, not as a matter of patrimony, but because the choices invariably were and are crummy. There were exceptions – I enthusiastically supported Ronald Reagan – but I frequently have voted for third-party candidates or skipped presidential ballots.

For a while I would not vote at all, local or national elections, on the premise that doing so would just encourage the scoundrels.

Eventually I realized that a wisecrack is an inadequate substitute for civic responsibility. Slightly more sophisticated was my objection that illiterate welfare scammers had the same “say” that I did… but abdication in the game we call democracy only enhances the self-defeating aspects of my inchoate protest.

Now I am fully engaged, voting and debating and writing columns and drawing political cartoons and glued to C-SPAN like a dog in heat. But, the more engaged I am, the more enraged I am.

That a nation of approximately one-third of a billion people cannot produce better presidential candidates then the two (or four) major candidates we are stuck with… is demoralizing. With troubling implications for the future – heck, the present state – of our republic. We have a flawed system, surely; but we also are in a tailspin in almost every sphere of national life. Politics is merely the mostly visible symptom. In this season, the nearest whipping-boy.

As I have evolved to a Christian Patriot, and as an essayist in this realm, the choices would seem to be clearer, the decisions easier to make. We all have checklists and litmus tests, whether clearly biblical or informed by our faith. Even secular voters have criteria, perhaps more so.

So why do so many Christian patriots – “value voters” – feel seriously conflicted this year? Being on the horns of a dilemma has never been so uncomfortable!

This week the author of books in Christian field Philip Yancey said in an interview that he was “baffled” that “Evangelicals” (a term of deliberate ambiguity, but that is another topic) could support a Donald Trump. He defined Trump as a “bully” who has taken positions contrary to the Bible and has been thrice-married and has built casinos.

Yancey is correct on the resume of Trump. I do not disagree. Personally, I don’t think I would like Trump as a neighbor, much less as a president.

There was a relative firestorm of response on social media, and Yancey quickly stated that he was not implicitly endorsing Hillary Clinton. In fact, without the clarification, of course the “implicit” endorsement was inferred by his many followers. To me, his greater offense was pretending to be “baffled” by “Evangelical” support for Trump. Our angst, our debates, our essays, our, yes, social-media posts are legion. Everywhere. For many people – many Christians, even many Yancey acolytes – support for Trump has been discussed endlessly.

For some, support is reluctant. For some, it might be automatic. For some, it is painful and anguished. Two prominent names in Christianity (neither of them ministers, by the way) have reached different positions: Falwell Junior, Yay; Yancey, Nay.

Christians in a democracy must realize the implications of supporting Hillary Clinton. She has also lied, is corrupt, doesn’t act like Jesus in myriad ways. Her hands arguably are dirtier, or bloodier, from her militant support of abortions. Lying to Benghazi parents. Spinning new absurdities about her e-mails, servers, and Foundation shenanigans. Start there.

Any (and every) candidate is going to be flawed. Does Yancey think “Evangelicals” should not vote for anyone? Of course not. He now says he will not vote for any presidential candidate this year. For my part, “been there, done that.” I think the only thing that Christian voters can be sure of about this election, about the choices facing us, is that there is no easy choice. You will not wake up tomorrow morning, slap your forehead in a V-8 moment, and realize that you have missed the obvious answer.

Another thing I did when I was a kid was to go to Union Square Park in lower Manhattan and listen to the speakers, most of them crackpot and most of them Communist, spout off to ersatz audiences of transients and passersby. A dying phenomenon, really – maybe the young Obama, on ghetto street corners of Chicago, was among the last – but I considered them to redolent of earlier days, and London’s Hyde Park. (I honed my debate skills, such as they are, in Union Square. Also my talent for heckling.) Like so many other things, this phenomenon has not so much disappeared as it has morphed into electronic social media. Now, gasbags (save yourself the Comments) float on electrons instead of standing on soap boxes.

… which is either democracy at work, or a pressure-valve from more serious dissatisfaction and dissent. I think violent days of protest and civil disobedience are coming soon, from sides of the political spectrum. But that, too, is for another time here.

In the meantime, we still are face-to-face with a seething, ugly, menacing dilemma. And we cannot escape it. We are in a horrible place — we Christians in this “democracy” — and nothing will save us but One thing. We know that Person. But other things can guide us, good, bad, and “Mister In Between.” Am I going to vote, once again in my life, while holding my nose?

Yes. I am going to hold my nose and vote. Any well-intentioned Christian patriot wanting to stay home, or abide a Clinton presidency, explicitly endorses an extremist Supreme Court, further erosion of Constitutional rights, more regulations favoring abortion and the homosexual agenda, uncountable immigration numbers from Mexico and from terrorist lands. Et cetera. That can sound like my opinion, but Hillary would thank me for stating her positions succinctly.

If Christians stay home, they should be consistent, and withdraw from all government activities and programs; all schools and institutions; all media… because everything is corrupted. “Let the Supreme Court [a response might say] go wacko. God is in control; He will see us through; His eye is on the sparrow and He watches over us.”

I agree. But He is watching us kill ourselves, too.

Under a sovereign God, Christianity is not a democracy. Conversely, once the Founders accepted pluralism, this is not a theocracy. I hate the thought of voting for “the lesser of two evils”… because that implies that both choices are evil. Neither Christianity nor a republic are roulette-tables, either. But I will take my chances.

One candidate is certain to continue the secular agenda, the war on believers, and a Frightening New World. The other has, among other things, promised to maintain Constitutional guarantees, restore traditional values, reverse governmental overreach, respect Christian expressions in school, courtrooms, public squares… If Trump keeps only a quarter of such promises, we will be better off.

One is the Lesser of two evils.
The other is the Evil of two Lessers.

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God DOES watch over us. That should bring us comfort! Here is the wonderful Ethel Waters, near the end of her life, singing the great song about God’s Eye on the Sparrow, at a Billy Graham crusade. BUT, as we take comfort from these lyrics, let us remember that He feeds the sparrows… but as He watches, we are accountable for how we respond to His care.

Click: His Eye Is On the Sparrow

7-25-16

“Pray.”

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Click: Oh, God Our Help in Ages Past

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7-18-16

Our recent essay “Welcome To the Revolution” has excited a bit of discussion, some readers claiming I am an alarmist, and others granting that I might be predicting the future instead of, as I believe, reporting on the present. To the charge that I am an alarmist, I would reply that doctors operate when there is disease; firemen rush to houses on fire; when I see alarming things, I sound the alarm.

There are many subjects that American schools do not teach any more, and we generally are an anti-intellectual society. In that vein – specifically, the danger of even right-thinking Americans being ignorant of the Current Crisis – I recall what Alexander Boot wrote about Hellenistic Man, that “he was not ignorant of history; he simply did not see how it affected his life.”

For the immediate future, I believe we are headed for the Summer of Our Discontent. Where once a polite diving-line was drawn between Democrats and Republicans, even liberals and conservatives, now there are bottomless chasms between family members. Ugly schisms divide former friends. “Occupy” and “Black Lives Matter” partisans ascribe blood libels to Tea Partiers, and vice-versa.

Those who think murdered soldiers and policemen are victims of random gunfire, and those who think we are seeing war in the streets. Now, Baton Rouge. Next?

The conventions and campaigns will be ugly – and the Thanksgiving dinners and Christmas parties of many families likely will be bloodier. These rifts will slowly – if ever – heal: people must first desire healing; and for all the empty clichés about Getting Along, the contemporary American is quite happy to excoriate his opponent. Hate Thy Neighbor.

So this is a classic case of “inability to see the forest for the trees,” America’s fatal state of decline. We have gone from decadence to destruction, and when we catch a glimpse of the “forest” – an active society where things continue to happen, where we still wake up, go to sleep, and scurry about our affairs – it is rather a case of inertia that masks the crisis.

Our fall has not been the result of a sudden explosion, but gradual poisons in our cultural water supplies.

One of the favorite Bible verses of Christians in recent years has been II Chronicles 7:14: “If My people, which are called by My name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”

How many of us are guilty of quoting that verse, even applying it, superficially? For one thing, it seems, in a forest-for-the-trees manner, like a fortune-cookie aphorism. “Straighten up your act, people,” to be followed by spontaneous revival and Heaven on earth.

But the verse needs to be parsed – examined phrase by phrase. In the first place, linguistically, it strictly is not a promise of God. It is a conditional statement: “If… then.” The Bible is filled with many such conditions, warnings, threats, and yes, promises. But God requires things of His people. Humility. Prayer. Seeking Him. Repentance. All of them “big time.”

THEN He will forgive transgressions and heal the land.

“If.” That is the condition – a big “if.”

“My people.” Not necessarily the entire population, but the Children of God. The saved; today, Christ-followers.

“Who are called.” All of us must be open to the specific call of God on our lives: His will for us.

“Humble themselves.” This does not mean to stop being haughty in church, but to adopt true servants’ hearts.

“Pray.” Jesus Himself prayed fervently before every important act. How less should we?

“Seek My face.” Request guidance and acknowledge God as the source of all good things.

“Turn from their wicked ways.” Here God means true repentance… transformative changes in our personal lives.

Then you “will hear from heaven.” Prayers will be answered.

Then He will “Forgive your sins.”

Then He will “heal your land.”

That makes this verse more than “words to live by.” Or something for Christians to claim in agreement or to memorize for a Bible study or Sunday School class. Not those things alone – good start – but incomplete. Even the famous verse is incomplete! It is the second half of a sentence, not a new sentence in Two Chronicles, as Donald Trump would call it.

Can we, o average American and Christian Patriot, read the context, and learn what the Lord was really saying? Starting with Chapter 7, verse 11:

Thus Solomon finished the house of the Lord, and the king’s house: and all that came into Solomon’s heart to make in the house of the Lord, and in his own house, He prosperously effected.
12 And the Lord appeared to Solomon by night, and said unto him, I have heard thy prayer, and have chosen this place to Myself for an house of sacrifice.
13 If I shut up heaven that there be no rain, or if I command the locusts to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among my people;
14 If My people, which are called by My name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.
15 Now Mine eyes shall be open, and Mine ears attent unto the prayer that is made in this place.

First, that is a lot of IFs. Second, there are severe warnings. A third point might be that these are specific instructions to David’s son Solomon and the people of ancient Israel. However, it is valid for us to draw lessons.

The most sobering of lessons, chastisements, and warnings of punishment (indeed, God’s promise) is a few verses later:

19 …If ye turn away, and forsake my statutes and my commandments, which I have set before you, and shall go and serve other gods, and worship them;
20 Then will I pluck them up by the roots out of My land which I have given them; and this house, which I have sanctified for my name, will I cast out of My sight, and will make it to be a proverb and a byword among all nations.
21 And this house, which is high, shall be an astonishment to everyone that passeth by it; so that he shall say, Why hath the LORD done thus unto this land, and unto this house?
22 And it shall be answered, Because they forsook the Lord God of their fathers, which brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, and laid hold on other gods, and worshipped them, and served them: therefore hath He brought all this evil upon them.

In effect: We bring this evil upon ourselves.

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Click: Leaning On the Everlasting Arms

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7-11-16

Next week the next chapter of the political season commences, a national political convention. Otherworldly events, horrible and startling, have intruded on the already turbulent political news of recent weeks. We scarcely can catch a breath.

Nevertheless the conventions will come. Partisans and opponents prepare for a summer of conflict and confrontation, claims and calumny. And these things seem to be the mode à la mode for most people. Reasonable discourse is obsolete; debates are extinct; persuasion has been replaced by insults and invective.

We are in the midst of a revolution in America.

Of this there is no doubt. It is one of those revolutions, as approximately half of history’s examples, that did not begin with a Lexington and Concord or 95 Theses; that is, one seminal moment or event. Some profound revolutions have commenced with general discontents and scattered protests. Cultural angst usually derives from myriad sources, and then manifests itself in myriad ways. And when the dust settles (as ephemeral as dust is, things slowly come into focus), societies have been transformed.

To consider the ironies of many cultural revolutions, and citing the two examples above, Lexington and Concord led to a military confrontation, bloodshed, and a course-change among nation states. Yet the United States, newly free and independent, was in most ways indistinguishable from Great Britain. But Martin Luther’s mere petition and modest hammer and nails resulted in convulsive changes to Christian theology and worship, the political alignment of the European continent, literacy of the masses, and democracy.

We can also look to the Protestant Reformation – properly, Revolution – and see why it is difficult to distinguish between hard and soft revolutions in their midst. The Counter-Reformation’s Council of Trent was so intent on proving the reformers incorrect that it doubled down on dogma, rather than meeting minds and answering questions. Galileo’s requirement to make the sun stand still, so to speak, was a result of the revolutionaries’ challenges and the church’s orthodoxy. The Inquisition resulted. Ironic, but so goes the course of intellectual effects.

Even in anti-intellectual periods of history (and they outweigh the sober, rational times) intellectualism directs the affairs of humankind, like Archimedes’s fulcrum. So: by these criteria, I claim we are in the midst, not on the verge, of a revolution in America. And likely in all of the West: Europe also.

The breakdown of social order hurtles along with compounding velocity. We can fool ourselves that it is otherwise. Or that “incidents are merely more reported than in the past.” Or that this is a passing phase. No, the tentacles of Islamic terrorism have reached into the American and European heartlands, and, scarcely rebuffed, are met with excuses and “tolerance” as unique welcome mats. Domestic terrorism, in the guise of Black Lives Matter, gangs of illegal drug and gun lords, and other PC-protected thugs, inflict fright on the homeland.

In the Land of the Free, legal abortions have killed more babies than all the “holocausts” of recent history combined. Among Blacks, unwed mothers account for 80 per cent of the babies who are not snuffed. Urban-school dropout rates are at all-time highs, and increasingly so. Academic test scores fall, despite constantly lowering definitions of passable scores. (I think the math competency of American students currently is behind that of Chad.) (Which is a country, not a high-school kid in the next town.) Borders, the security of which is a historical marker for statehood, are a joke. The flow of drugs is less a function of porous borders than a perverse population of addicts and moral zombies who provide lucrative markets. Failed marriages; homosexuality; spousal abuse; human trafficking; political corruption; sexual perversion; kids into cutting; poverty; violence; prejudice; child predators; suicide among veterans…

Et cetera. Ad infinitum. Ad nauseam.

And the church. Supposed to be a bulwark, in this supposedly Christian nation. The church – you and I, may I presume? – has been the Great Enabler. The church has compromised its standards. Christians became so deadened to Peter Abelard’s warning (in Expositiones) against “the world, flesh, and the devil” that it surrendered. It became so “tolerant” of alien beliefs that it lost its own. It was so centered on contemporary culture that it morphed from roaring lion to timid chameleon. We have lost our faith in faith.

The great historian of culture Jacques Barzun wrote in his monumental book From Dawn to Decadence that “the cultural predicament after a revolution is how to reinstate community, how to live with those you have execrated and fought against with all imaginable cruelty.” His use of the world “community” is dispositive in this discussion, the canary in the mineshaft of our cultural abyss.

For a generation we have been hearing of “community”; in fact the popular culture harangues us with the word. “The African-American community.” “The gay community.” “Community organizers…” Where are these communities? Are there boundaries and welcome signs? No, today, “community” is a concept of diffusion and disruption, not comfort and cohesion.

“Diversity” is the deceptive enemy of unity… the camouflaged term, like “community,” that divides America. For years, America exercised goodwill to build a unified nation, a melting pot. To cherish traditions but eliminating differences. But forces today work to divide and separate us one from another. To incite resentment instead of fostering fellowship.

The Entitlement Society celebrated by the enemies in our midst force-feeds Identity Politics as the new American creed. Divide; hate our heritage; destroy not only the ideals but the people themselves who cling, yes, to their Bibles and guns. Glorify Diversity even if might offend you in any way; but accept Community with those who might hate you.

“Do not put your confidence in powerful people; there is no help for you there,” is our reminder from Psalm 146:3 (NLT). As the political conventions draw nigh, we have this command, not necessarily to reject all leaders and potential leaders… but to not put confidence in them. Psalm 46:1 – The LORD is our refuge and our strength, our ever-present help in times of trouble.

And these ARE times of trouble.

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Click: Bruce Springsteen – Satan’s Jewel Crown

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Real Clear Religion, on whose site many readers have followed Monday Music Ministry, has been for many people an indispensible part of their daily fare. It is going through changes right now after almost seven years.

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6-27-16

The UK has sued for divorce from the European Union. In fact the United Kingdom was not fully united, because England and Wales voted Go; Scotland and Northern Ireland voted Stay. Whether this will be a trial separation or an ugly split cannot be forecast. The proponents of every shade of Brexit’s arguments failed to anticipate consequences and adjustments attendant upon any result.

Trade will continue and probably thrive. Regulations – one of the onerous justifications for the revolt – might, or might not, continue, as Whitehall so chooses. And the same for the challenges posed by immigration, the other major irritant. There are myriad issues, small in the metanarrative but major in everyday life: what about sports leagues; the re-imposition of passport and customs policies; pensions of Brits who worked in Brussels; the status of long-term EU residents, for instance the numerous Polish workers who have lived in the UK and Ireland.

In fact the European Experiment always has been an uneasy arrangement. The countries that flocked to join, as they did to NATO, often were motivated by fear of the Russian bear that lingered outside their territories. And just as often, many countries flocked toward an EU trough of subsidies and debt forgiveness, a continent-wide and endless (they hoped) Christmas party.

As time marches on, and historians dissect this failed experiment (as I assume it will be – further disintegrating), the EU will be perceived as designed and nurtured as much from negative as positive impulses. Back during Churchill’s propositions, a United States of Europe was seen either as a non-military NATO or a muscle-flexing counterbalance to the USA. Countries that were non-Atlantic, marginally European, and congenital mendicants scurried into the tent, as Common Market, common-currency factors, and bizarre regulations on Slavic rutabagas and Greenland’s fish; annoying rules for chefs and smokers and vacationers; smothered the Euroquality of life.

The confusion about a thousand things, and (I predict) the rush of similar referenda in (pause for breath) France, Italy, Netherlands, Austria, Denmark, Sweden, Spain, Portugal, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and elsewhere – all suggest that this Brexit vote was an effect, not a cause. A symptom, not (as some allege) a disease. An electoral tantrum of deep-seated legitimacy, no less valid for its flailing and dramatic aspects.

Brexit thrived not in a vacuum. This same week, the populist, anti-statist Five Star Movement in Italy elected a young female mayor of Rome; a mayor of Turin; and strengthened the separatist Northern League – a quiet but significant revolution. Italy has as many course changes as gelato flavors, so let us take that pulse in 12 months. However, the LePens of France’s Front National have knocked on the door of power. Holland’s Geert Wilders is poised to become leader of the Netherlands.

Formerly “fringe” political leaders now are charting the courses of nations. The establishment is losing its power of imprimatur. If Lech Walesa was a credible leader after a life spent as a shipyard worker, or Václav Havel could turn from writing plays to writing policies… so can Beppe Grillo, a former comedian, lead a popular movement in Italy; or a lifelong college teacher, anti-establishment, be elected president of Iceland (this week); or a businessman and media celebrity possibly become president of the United States.

Do Americans “have a dog in the fight” of Euro-politics? Surely. We are still one big family, if not happy. Western Civilization is one of the remarkable stories – remarkable achievements – of world history. I generally applaud any people’s impulses toward self-identity, cultural pride, folkish traditions, and robust independence. Everywhere in the world, every moment in history’s timeline, it has led to vibrant expressions in art and music, literature and poetry, fashion and cuisine.

Nationalism is a positive virtue. When it has mutated into bullying, that problem should be addressed by means other than imposed homogenization and bureaucratic strait-jackets. One size does NOT fit all. Suppression can cause as many ills as indulgence.

And so… Brexit. The common people – the middle classes, working people, the so-called (thanks again, mass media) “non sophisticates” – are fueling the revolt in every one of the nations listed above, for instance in Brexit’s margins, the Midlands and working communities. Also the core of Marine LePen’s support, and the essence of Donald Trump’s victories.

Our media savants treat Brexit as a seismic crisis, as they will describe the dominoes that will fall across Europe. “Anemic PR; bad salesmanship; voters’ ignorance.” But there is a much, much larger picture.

We are not in a major place, but rather a virtual snapshot, maybe a mere moment in a vast continuum, of Western history. Perhaps (only perhaps) the first inklings of pulling back from deadly secular statism. Does Kafka live, or continue to loom? A major aspect of this continuum has been nation-state politics. In succeeding centuries, Spain, the Netherlands, France, and Great Britain, virtually ruled the virtual world. When Germany united 150 years ago and gained similar strength, the party largely was over: prospective colonies gone, the seven seas jealously retained by Her Majesty’s navy. World War I can be seen as the attempt of the Entente countries to deny the Central Powers hegemony, or even much economic mobility, in Europe. The subsequent war can be seen as Germany’s attempt, aided by brutality and bigotry, to assert itself again.

With the EU, it is possible that the industrious and resourceful Germans will be seen by history as having discovered the optimum method of gaining lebensraum after all, their place in the sun, only by economic and peaceful means. And not incidentally, beneficial to almost everyone affected, natives and neighbors alike.

Notice that, for all the nations agitating to leave the European Community, Germany is not one of them. That is because Germany, for all intents and purposes, is the EU. Its nationalistic Pegida movement (also on the rise, certainly) is more concerned with migrants than with seats at EU tables in Brussels. Vladimir Putin has praised the Brexit vote, and the West ought to realize that recent developments have realigned the interests, no longer automatically antagonistic, of Russia and the West.

Continuums? In the more significant sweeps of history, Europe has successfully resisted scores of determined invasions by Muslims since the 700s. This is a major theme in Western history; as are unchecked migrations in many global settings. Whether European resistance and that of Christendom is now flaccid animates the fervent debates of our recent times.

In another meta-narrative, socialism has been viewed as a panacea, or a curse, hatched by Marx in the 1840s; but paternalistic schemes and associations were in fact the foundations of serfdom, feudalism, and the beneficent Craftmen’s associations, guilds, and enterprises like that of the Fuggers of Augsburg, in the Renaissance.

As the world has become more complex, state socialism has become a seductive solution to social problems; so has state capitalism. Centralization. Anne Morrow Lindbergh, in a naïve but prescient description, foresaw centralization as the wave of the future – “every wave has scum on its crest, but a wave of the future nonetheless.” Waves recede after they crash… but are also followed by other waves. Where are we now?

And what is next in the headlines? As Communist states fell and Germany reunited, so might Ireland, especially in the wake of Brexit’s anomalies. Unthinkable, a generation ago. Scotland finally might (re)achive independence. London, a “Remain” island within an island – because of internationalist elites and many immigrants – might become a city-state like the Vatican. Improbable, but borders possess dimished sanctity in this changing world. A multitude of speculation: if rampant democracy had seized the world earlier than it did, the Declaration of Independence might have been a Referendum instead. Imagine.

And as the world has become more complex, so too do Christians find themselves in a new place. Or at least in place they have read about, and when equipped by study of the scriptures, ready for. Really? Are we ready? Not really. Even the most studious eschatologist cannot anticipate the twists and turns of history… of the enemy… even of the Lord. We are watchmen at the gate.

End Times obsessions sometimes are counter-productive. To be an apocalyptic sometimes can persuade people to abandon not just temporal hope, but defenses and self-defenses as well. We have been advised for a long time (at least since the 17th chapter of John’s Gospel, quoting Jesus) that we should be “in this world, but not of this world.”

Do we withdraw? … from everything? Political parties, schools, associations, alliances? No, but we must be willing to assert spiritual as well as civic independence. “If the world hates you, remember that it hated Me first. The world would love you as one of its own if you belonged to it, but you are no longer part of the world. I chose you to come out of the world, so it hates you” (John 15:18-19).

Despite many Christians surrendering the prerogatives, every day is Independence Day for believers. Don’t hesitate to vote NO; vote “Leave”; vote “exit” for many of the things of this world.

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Click: I Don’t Want To get Adjusted

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Real Clear Religion, on whose site many readers have followed Monday Music Ministry, has been for many people an indispensible part of their daily fare. It is going through changes right now after almost seven years.

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5-9-16

I have been asked many questions these days about the proper attitude and informed decisions to be made by Christians and people of faith about the elections this year. To be more precise, I have been asked the same question by many people: Is Donald Trump someone to be trusted; does he know or understand biblical principles and basic Christian creedal tenets; is he someone who will “make deals” with the devil – so to speak – once in office?

I am asked those questions by a variety of folks, in my putative role as a social critic, political commentator, and Christian writer. I have no special insights, not holy ones I claim, anyway. Among those who ask me these burning questions is… myself.

A crazy political season. A crazy world, crazier and more ominous by the day. If it is not the advent of End Times, we might wish it were. We all should be primarily seeking spiritual, moral, and ethical answers – because our major challenges in America are, and have been caused by, spiritual, moral, and ethical lapses.

I will don another one my hats, my actual training as a historian, and posit some observations. Those who make stark critiques and censure are Jeremiahs. Most of us historians, as Gibbon and Macaulay did, wait millennia to make sense of history, to discern missteps.

There is an aspect of the human spirit that tends to think that contemporary crises are unprecedented, perhaps apocalyptic. It cannot always be true; but someday it will be. Oddly, we occasionally adopt the attitude of Dr Pangloss, that “this is the best of all possible worlds,” and in certain ways it too sometimes is correct.

But has our society, in our days, begun its ultimate dissolution? Is it possible that we are past “sliding down the slippery slope” and, rather, in the maelstrom of the flushing toilet of history, a vortex going “down the tubes”?

I think it is reasonable to think so. Too many of our foundations are crumbling, too many moral traditions are denigrated or ignored. But our political season, as crazy as it is, is not unprecedented.

We can look back at other crises in presidential contests. In 1800 the election was deadlocked – at the time, the House of Representatives, not the general populace, voted for president and vice-president, separate votes for each of two candidates; all later adjusted by a Constitutional amendment. Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr each had more votes than the incumbent president John Adams, but a secret deal withheld some of Burr’s electoral support and resulted in his defeat. The invective, chicanery, and dirty dealing all led to what history calls the “Revolution of 1800.” A few years later, Burr killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel, and eventually fled west where he reportedly attempted to organize an uprising against the United States and/or Mexico.

Let us gloss over the social aspects of Andrew Jackson’s presidency, bereft by scandals, charges of “loose women” in the White House kitchen, and White House events where the president invited the general public, leading to shredding of carpets, destruction of furnishings, and theft of property. Jackson’s presidential campaigns led to the “spoils system” of trading votes for jobs.

In the 1860 election, the Republican Party, then only six years old, gained the White House as beneficiary of four candidates in the field. Abraham Lincoln’s nomination was secured by his manager who forbad Honest Abe from attending or knowing anything about their machinations – such as promising the same federal offices and cabinet positions to more than one person. The campaign was dirty (Secession was imminent) and dangerous (Lincoln reportedly travelled through pro-slavery Baltimore on his way to the inauguration in a plaid cloak and Scottish cap to evade assassins).

In 1896 a virtual unknown, William Jennings Bryan, delivered a speech (the “Cross of Gold”) to the Democrat convention that stampeded the delegates to nominate him in a frenzy. Barely old enough to serve as president, Bryan’s radical, socialist agenda split the party in two and had Americans, those who were not seduced by the firebrand, fearful of blood in the streets.

Theodore Roosevelt, wildly popular on his retirement in 1909, went on an African safari and tour of Europe for a year, partly to grant the spotlight to his hand-picked successor William Howard Taft. But during Taft’s term, there were personal slights of TR; reversal of many Roosevelt policies; serious broken promises; and a calamitous decline in the GOP’s popularity, including the loss of Congress. Severe affronts to Roosevelt, and an irresistible demand from many Republicans, persuaded him to challenge Taft for the nomination.

An ex-president versus a sitting president. Friends became enemies. “Liar” and “Fathead” were among the many epithets. There were mass defections from the GOP after the nomination was wrested from TR, who had won most of the new-fangled primaries. The speakers’ platform at the Republican convention had barbed wire under the bunting, in fear that riots would break out. TR’s bolt of the convention led to the independent Bull Moose party, which soundly trounced the GOP; Taft won only two states. A Socialist, Eugene Debs, polled nearly a million votes. In late October, a bartender who had been persuaded against a Third Term shot Roosevelt point-blank in the chest. TR insisted on continuing to his speech; with blood streaming down his shirt, he spoke for almost 90 minutes. Democrat Woodrow Wilson won the four-way election.

Another year of the gun, 1968: Martin Luther King Jr and Bobby Kennedy, after a primary victory in California, were killed. A sitting president, Lyndon Johnson, was forced from running again when he could not endure widespread protests and a rebellious Democrat Party. Millions in the streets and campuses; a bitter primary; riots outside the convention; the anarchist Yippies; a candidate nominated (VP Humphrey) who had not even run in the primaries; the return of the has-been Richard Nixon; and the amazing grass-roots revolt of third-party candidate George Wallace. The story of 1968.

So… does this year’s election cycle seem tame yet? For all the elements that foreshadowed our current season of discontent, I think the campaign of 1884 has the most parallels. So far. The GOP, in the White House for 24 straight years, was rife with divisions. Factions called “Half-Breeds” and “Stalwarts” hated each other and vied for power. An office-seeker of one faction had assassinated President James Garfield, of another, when he was frustrated in securing a federal job. Bosses continually attempted a comeback for ex-president Ulysses Grant, whom they could control.

Sen. James G Blaine was the favorite for the nomination. A former Speaker of the House, he had been involved numerous. He sold influence; he had solicited bribes. He arrogantly admitted many of these discretions, but he was a magnetic speaker who swayed crowds and inspired devotion. He faced opposition, however, not so much from strong candidates, but a field of lesser names.

The major threat to Blaine instead was from the reform movement in the GOP, a gaggle of veterans and newcomers. Among the former were George William Curtis and Carl Schurz, whose political careers went back to the Civil War. Leaders of the latter group were young Henry Cabot Lodge and 24-year-old Theodore Roosevelt, a major force in the convention. Their efforts to advance reform candidates failed on the floor.

There was public revulsion against Blaine (“Blaine, Blaine; James G Blaine! The continental liar from the state of Maine!” street crowds chanted) but a lot of GOP voters fell in line. Grover Cleveland, the Democrat candidate, was “ugly honest,” a good reputation for 1884; but midway through the campaign it was revealed that Cleveland had fathered an illegitimate child – remember, this in the staid Victorian era. (“Ma! Ma! Where’s my pa? Gone to the White House, ha ha ha!” rival crowds chanted.) THAT was some campaign.

As in 2016, a large number of Republican politicians and activists faced moral and practical dilemmas. Many of them sincerely believed that Blaine was toxic for the party’s self-esteem and for its future; and they had made threats – or promises – never to vote for Blaine. Excruciating.

There was, collectively, a Solomonic decision. Reformers like Curtis and Schurz and Henry Ward Beecher, America’s most prominent pastor, whose sister had written “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” left the Republican Party, and supported Cleveland. They were dubbed “Mugwumps.”

Reformers like Roosevelt and Lodge, however, reluctantly remained within the party. Never endorsing Blaine, they “supported the ticket,” stating that the only way to influence the party was from within the party. Young TR, whose wife and mother had died a few months earlier (on the same day), left for an understandable “sabbatical” on his cattle ranch in the Dakotas. For two years he was a cowboy, out of the public eye. He made one or two campaign speeches for down-ticket candidates, including Lodge who ran for Congress.

Lodge lost. He and Roosevelt both considered their political futures ruined.

Both were mistaken, of course. Many of the Mugwumps eventually returned to the GOP, which thereafter always had – has had – a reform wing. Cleveland won, but a dozen years later he and many establishment Democrats boycotted the agrarian radical Bryan. Blaine lost the 1884 election, but by a whisker.

The final detail of the final moments of that crazy 1884 campaign might be relevant if not dispositive to troubled Republicans weathering Hurricane Donald this year: a moral, specifically a religious, aspect.

Just before election eve, Blaine attended a dinner of industrialists and monopolists at Delmonico’s in New York. One of the speakers, a nonentity minister, in his speech described the Democrats as the “party of Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion.” Rum was a smear on lowlife aspects of stereotyped Democrat voters; Rebellion was a reminder of the Democrats’ association with Secession.

Romanism, however, was a word that touched social and religious nerves. It was a direct reference to Catholicism, imputing a congenital association between Democrats and the Pope; and was not meant as a compliment. The consequent furor over the insult (which Blaine had ignored) energized New York City’s Irish immigrants. New York City went Democrat; New York State and its electoral votes narrowly went for Cleveland… enough to tip the national outcome away from the GOP.

The scenario is a different animal than whether to endorse a candidate you distrust or despise in 2016 – but it reminds us that religion is never far from the larger debate. Our civic consciences might still roil over whether to Trump, or not to Trump. Life has gone on in America despite, as Kipling wrote, “The tumult and the shouting dies.”

Myself, I greet with dubiety Trump’s assurances that he is familiar with the Bible, understands doctrine, and has a saving knowledge, as we say, of Jesus Christ. But we are not to judge: I question, however. “God judges the man; voters judge the candidate” is, this year, less of a maxim and feels like more of an excuse.

Many of us have the nagging feeling that things are different this time, that past is less than prologue. The Captains and the Kings may depart, yet we seem closer to our destiny, maybe an apocalypse.

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Real Clear Religion, on whose site many readers have followed Monday Music Ministry, has been to many people an indispensible part of their daily fare. It is going through changes right now after almost seven years.

For those who have followed us on RCR, please be sure to continue receiving our weekly essays by Subscribing to Monday Morning Music Ministry. (See link under “Pages” at right.)

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Click: I Am a Pilgrim

3-14-16

The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”

This was written by David, the “sweet singer of Israel,” who, given his lifelong relationship with the Almighty and his activities as Psalmist, warrior, and king, could be considered prejudiced on the matter. He was described in I Samuel as “a man after God’s own heart.” He was a blood ancestor of Jesus. He is even revered as a prophet by Islam.

So this citation from Psalm 14:1 is not a fortune-cookie slogan. David knew whereof he spake, if I may. And I invite us to meditate on the fact that the statement says as much about fools as it does about God.

It is the natural inclination of human beings to say “there is no God.” Sometimes, deep in our dark hearts, we wish it to be so. I think that many sociologists and anthropologists – even atheists among them – recognize that everyone is, nonetheless, born with innate desires to worship… to sense that there is something “greater” than ourselves… that we are coded with something commonly called a conscience.

Believers in the God of the Bible – “People of the Book” as our archaeogenetic spiritual ancestors are called – acknowledge One God. The Father Almighty, maker of heaven and of earth. We believe by faith, and reassure ourselves, and sometimes instruct people, or debate with others, on various bases of logic, history, revelation, the mathematical probability of prophecies and fulfillments, archaeological records, and so forth. We can cite miracle – miracles written about, and miracles we have experienced or witnessed.

But mostly, and ultimately, we rely on faith. The testimony of inner conviction is stronger than any rational formula or reasoned assurance. Truth is not subject to qualification or modification, except ratifications like “Absolute Truth.” What’s true is true. It invites, but cannot be reworked, adjusted, or amended, by arguments or theories; even those of science. Truth is truth. Otherwise, it is like being “sort of pregnant” or “relatively dead.”

The question comes when one asks, “What is Truth?” Ah. That question is also part of the human race’s DNA, so to speak. At some point, at some time, we all ask it. The most famous positing was by Pontius Pilate. I have never been sure whether he asked in genuine humility, or mocking. In any event, Jesus answered, “I am the Truth,” and that wasn’t enough for Pilate nor the rabid Jews whose rebellion he feared.

We will not wander into high weeds or deep swamps here. Accepting the existence of God, or denying Absolute Truth, are both matters of faith to every person.

What does interest me, and should concern us all no matter what our views on these elemental topics, is how quickly and substantially our culture has changed its views on these matters. We cannot see the forest for the trees that are right in our faces, but in the broad sweep of history, the reversal of attitudes about the existence of God and the reality of Absolute Truth is tantamount to intellectual whiplash.

It was my perception, when I was a young student, that all of society (European Christendom as well as the American culture) assumed the existence of God, the immutable nature of His laws, and the biblical foundation of customs and laws. Non-believers, in our democracies, were tolerated, even cordially so, and largely unmolested. Today – in one long generation or two, that’s all – those attitudes have been reversed.

And almost savagely so, with hostility toward Christians replacing cordial tolerance of secularists.

This is the real crisis of our age. It is not a question of being “welcoming” to those with different views; it is more: an entire people denying their intellectual birthrights, surrendering their spiritual inheritance. It is not a matter of favoring “pluralism,” because that dubious term has never meant abandoning one’s own heritage.

We have become a soulless society. Polls say that citizens feel adrift… but average Americans have loosed their anchor-chains, torn up their navigation charts, and long ago set sail away from Home Ports. Well-meaning Christians who have invited this cultural drift (to continue the nautical analogy) then wonder why they have spiritual sea-sickness.

Everyone in this rotting old boat known as America, be they Christians or the new pilots, secularists, can argue, or not, about “values.” In the current political campaign, Christians have been co-opted by spokesmen who “guarantee that in department stores you will be able to put up Merry Christmas signs” (Mr Trump) and have been pigeon-holed as “evangelical” voting blocs, to be delivered to the loudest panderers. This is why Jesus came to earth?

However. Take heart. Take heart for your soul, and the kingdom of God; even if we lose heart over our nation’s well-being and our culture’s future. The waters that roil have been calmed by a Savior before. Above those storm clouds is a heaven, and lodestars by which to navigate. Past the darkest storm clouds is God’s bright sunshine.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Psalm 111:10).

Let us remember that the God of mercy is still a God of justice. Many will call it vengeance when God’s justice comes. No matter: God’s will is going to prevail, and His Word will be manifest.

“Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.
Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn’t worship him as God, or even give him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. As a result, their minds became dark and confused. Claiming to be wise, they instead became utter fools…. They traded the truth about God for a lie. So they worshiped and served the things God created instead of the Creator himself, who is worthy of eternal praise! Amen.” (Romans 1: 20b-22, 25)

How can anyone continue in unbelief, rebellion, and hostility to His Truth? They would be fools. But their actions – or inactions – are worse, more dangerous, than foolishness.

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“The Silver Swan” was published in composer Orlando Gibbons’s “First Set of Madrigals and Motets of Five Parts,” 1612. A beautiful and challenging poem built on the legend that geese might honk all their lives, but swans let out one note just before death: “More Geese than Swans now live, more Fools than Wise.”

The silver swan, who, living, had no Note,
when Death approached, unlocked her silent throat.
Leaning her breast upon the reedy shore,
thus sang her first and last, and sang no more:
“Farewell, all joys! O Death, come close mine eyes!
More Geese than Swans now live, more Fools than Wise.”

Click: The Silver Swan

2-22-16

Some of the most pleasant travel experiences of my life have been atop the ancient wall surrounding the small city of Lucca in Tuscany. I have stayed in the Medieval town a number of times in my life, perhaps a dozen Autumns. High, thick walls once surrounded many Italian city-states. Built for safety, as boundaries, some even encasing apartments; today many are gone or survive as random portions, as relics of previous times and expired functions. But Lucca has Italy’s only complete and intact ancient wall.

On its top, it is wide enough for several lanes of traffic, but it strictly is for pedestrians, who encounter cobblestones and bricks, with many old trees and inviting benches. A favored restaurant is built into the wall at one of its road-portals – La Mura (“The Wall”). On many Autumnal mornings I betake myself to the wall’s long, circumferential boulevard – “Passegiata della Mura” – and jog. More often, stroll. Invariably, see the mists rise from plowed fields as the morning sun kisses them; listen to the city of red-tiled roofs come to life; smell the stoking fireplaces of wood and chestnut shells.

Such thoughts came back to me recently with the latest chapter of the controversy over a possible wall to be built, or not, along America’s southern border. On the endless carousel of debaters, the surprise figure on the horse this week was none other than Pope Francis.

He issued a version of President Reagan’s eloquent defiance of Communism in Berlin (however, before a structure scarcely begun): “Mr Trump, tear down that wall!”

While we are paraphrasing, I will borrow from Gertrude Stein and suggest that “a wall is a wall is wall.” And just as Theodore Roosevelt said that a vote is just like a rifle – that its usefulness depends on the character of the user – we surely can say that walls, throughout history, are functional, of course, but are totally neutral apart from their architectural purpose… which can be transformed anyway, as Lucca’s wall has been.

So, Lucca’s wall, once a standard architectural defense, then a symbol of independence in more political and trade-oriented times, is now a tourist attraction. The Great Wall of China, a Wonder of the Old World and a rare man-made structure that can be seen from outer space, likewise now attracts more photographers than invaders. On the other hand, the Berlin Wall, mentioned above, was a literal city-wide outdoor prison wall, trapping a population in Communist East Berlin. And seldom spoken about in America is Israel’s crude, and effective, cement curtain that cuts through the West Bank.

American objections to porous borders and uncountable illegals incited a papal protest that presumably was metaphorical (walls of separation in our hearts vs. bridges of understanding); presumably. The Pope did not mention Donald Trump by name, but said that “any man” who would propose such walls “is not a Christian.”

Many Christians and conservatives rushed to document the 50-foot high walls that surround the Vatican, which is, though small, a city-state, an independent country. Surrounded by a wall, and with some of the toughest citizenship requirements in the world. And the same folks scurried to Bible concordances and found examples of God sanctioning, even commanding, construction of walls.

Throughout the Bible: walls for defense; walls as parts of temples; walls to interrupt migrations and preserve spaces. Not much different from the sweep of history’s other religions, societies, cultures. So this sudden turn in the immigration debate directs us to far more logical place… and a far more pertinent question than Francis asked.

The Pope declared that people who “build walls and not bridges” are not Christians. No one, least of all Francis, is talking about the essential issue, the real offense. The Jesuit pope should understand, and emphasize, that what makes someone a Christian is belief in Jesus Christ as the Son of God. Since he addressed the theological aspect.

What makes someone “not a Christian” is rejection of Christ’s incarnation, substitutionary death, Resurrection, and Ascension. NOT somebody’s opinions on immigration laws, walls on the US border (or the Vatican’s), or other political issues.

With all due respect, one can be a Christian and have bad ideas, Francis. I believe it is your dogma that having “good” (?) ideas, doing good deeds, yet not professing Christ is yet a pathway to salvation, according to recent press reports. But it is not the Bible’s teaching. The Church, by such statements, is opening itself up to charges of asserting the Works Doctrine. Is approval of a California border fence enough to qualify to “be a Christian”?

Aside from, excuse me, anti- or extra-biblical theology, there are practical questions. If the Pope is concerned about conditions in Mexico, so horrible that millions flee northward in desperation, would not the better act as a Church be to help alleviate poverty and misery in Mexico? There are few Catholic countries with more extreme anti-clerical histories, aside from the excesses of the French Revolution. Insurgents blamed centuries of Church corruption and oppression.

Make things right WITHIN Mexico! So that people will want to stay in places where they were born… and the Church can fulfill its mission… and the US not be threatened and burdened. I have also been to the Vatican many times; the immense wall is about the ONLY thing there that is not opulent, extravagant, even gaudy. There are funds available, I am sure, in the Vatican Bank.

Back, however, to the main point, of pivotal importance: “The man who says such a thing is not a Christian.”

The man who said THAT clearly places his politically correct definition of good deeds ahead of what Jesus and the Disciples and the Holy Bible say about the requirements for salvation. Did the Pope mean, “That’s not how Jesus would act”? or even “That man is a bad Christian”? Very different matters. The Pope usually is aware of his words even when not Ex Cathedra or Infallible. The border towns that suffer violations, the victims of financial burdens and crimes in America – I used to live in San Diego; ask me about them – are they to be defined as “not Christians” when they resist invasions of their neighborhoods and homes?

This Pope did not recognize the metaphorical wall built around the island of Cuba when he hugged its leaders and ignored the Christians in Cuban jails. Or when he was on US soil and was quieter about the issue of the proposed border fence. And he somehow missed the opportunity to scold political leaders he met here about the ongoing horror of abortions, the killing of babies. Mother Teresa had done so… right to the faces of Clinton and Gore, when they were in office and they met her.

Or was Mother Teresa “not a Christian”?

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Click: A Mighty Fortress Is Our God

7-27-15

That America is no longer a Christian nation, the theme of our most recent message, struck a chord. Many people sense this sea-change in our culture.

A few people, we know, celebrate the facts that the church, and traditional values, no longer underpin our society. They are like maggots on a rotting corpse. But the vast majority of Americans today, the virtual silent majority, are troubled. They recognize the shifting sands; they despise the new morality; they reject the Brave New World.

America once bragged about being a pluralistic society. All forms of thought, all stripes of opinion, were welcome. No longer: Christian patriots are bring attacked. Cultural traditionalists are on the run, seeing nowhere to turn. A complete turnaround from what pluralism was supposed to preclude.

Where to turn? What options are there in a culture that has been hijacked, a nation that is no longer pluralistic, scarcely tolerant of our foundational principles? Threats of arrest for dissenting from homosexual marriage? A publicly funded agency caught discussing more efficient and profitable harvesting and sale of baby parts?

Traditionally, despite the “dirty” connotations, we turn to politics. Every mature society throughout history has, perforce, established rules, codes, and laws. When laws have been capricious (from dictators and mad monarchs) they have disappeared; sometimes quietly, sometimes bloodily. But the other societies, in natural if not always smooth evolution, codify the prevalent manners and morals, beliefs and byways, of the people. In recent centuries, this happened more and more (more or less!) through democracy.

Therefore, politics. Leaders and statesmen, for the most part, rise from the people… and represent them. Think Abraham Lincoln. When – not so long ago – our societies were more organic, it mattered little whether leaders reflected public opinion or molded it. In the main, it was the same thing, for our societies were organic. We knew our origins, we shared our faith, we accepted the same premises, we were unified, if not quite uniform.

That has all passed, hasn’t it? But I will put my pessimism aside and focus on the topic of politics – not to be partisan or to boost any candidate – but remembering the time when the public looked to leaders in their midst during crises.

I want to be specific about the topic of candidates and Christianity here. In the past, oh sure, some politicians were adulterers or drunks, but we are all sinners. In the past, most politicians clung to the principles of the Bible, dedicated themselves to Christian principles, honored the nation’s heritage. So voters could count on candidates, generally, to be of one mind on morality.

Today, we have examples of the Catholic Church, in various dioceses, denying Communion to politicians like Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi for their advocacy of abortion.

Today, we have a president who often has been dismissive of Christian beliefs, of Christian martyrs and hostages around the world, of persecuted Christians; and at the same time has been strangely tolerant of Islamic extremism, at home and abroad.

Today, we have a recent presidential candidate, Romney, a Mormon – member of a counterfeit Christian-sounding sect. I am not saying LDS should be outlawed or proscribed, but I had trouble voting for someone, not who would “take orders” from his church any more than John Kennedy did… but who could believe the mumbo-jumbo about figgy underwear and magic glasses and such. But, you know, President Taft was a Unitarian and denied the divinity of Christ, and America survived him.

But I want us to think more about candidates who fill our airwaves in the run-up to 2016. Again, will they represent the values of the broad public? As Christians, we have, and we should have, views on issues that our central to our lives. And, yes, our faith… because our faith is under attack.

We are losing our freedom of religion. The very first words enshrined in the Bill of Rights are: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech…”

Congress never has tried to establish an American denomination, and never will. But it – and the courts (and the press, and the educational complex, and the entertainment industry) – are trying to destroy organized religion, and the small-c church of Jesus Christ. Certainly, examples are numerous of the government prohibiting the free exercise of our faith these days.

We have some candidates indicating a perception of these threats, and a few sharing our (proper) alarm.

What will they do? We must watch. We must study. We must apply pressure. We must challenge. We must work. We must push back. We must speak out, or shout out. We must sacrifice. We must organize. We must… pray.

There is a high percentage, thank God, of candidates who have heard, or even rung, the alarm bells! Support them. Some are not afraid to share their faith, to pray in public, to invoke Jesus and the Bible. Join them. They are not saviors; only Jesus is our Savior. But they might be prophets: godly leaders.

I have avoided most names in the news here, but one news clip prompted this rant. Donald Trump was asked this week if he believed in God. “I am an Episcopalian,” he replied, as if it were a rhetorical question. It is not. And it would have been easy to confess Jesus Christ right there.

Then he was asked if he ever sought forgiveness from God. In his life. Trump said no; if he thought he did something wrong he would try to correct it on his own. He displayed no understanding of the basis of the entire Bible or the life, ministry, sacrifice, and resurrection of Jesus Christ: as much understanding of Christianity as the most ignorant aborigine from the dankest jungle somewhere. “I don’t bring God into that picture. I don’t.”

Then Trump volunteered: “When we go [to] church and when I drink my little wine – which is about the only wine I drink – and have my little cracker, I guess that’s a form of asking for forgiveness, and I do that as often as possible because I feel cleansed, OK?” My little wine? Cracker?

This is Christianity, according to one candidate.

I don’t want a Christian caliphate in America, but I do want us to support a candidate who shares our values, understands our bedrock beliefs, who embraces our heritage. Knowing what, in fact, to defend in these perilous days. This week’s opinion about immigrants should not be the only bell whose ring invigorates us. I was shocked at the appearance of a candidate who evidently feels on a par or superior to God, or irrelevant to Him, if he in fact does believe in Him.

One candidate or many candidates; one party or different factions; one nation or diverse communities – what ever happened to the idea, and the humble application, of One Nation Under God?

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Click: In God We Trust