Silence from Southern Baptists and Other Conservative Evangelicals Condemns Them

As Christian Leaders Decry Pretti's Murder, the Southern Baptist Convention President is Silent 

In 1845, the Northern Baptist Missionary Society of the Triennial Baptist Convention refused to ordain James Reeve, of Georgia, as a missionary because he owned slaves.  As a result, Baptists from churches in the southern states where slavery was legal gathered in Augusta, Georgia that same year to withdraw from the Triennial Convention, which, in spite of attempts to remain neutral on the issue of slavery, took action that increasingly favored its abolition.  

So it was that the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation's largest Protestant denomination, was founded as a result of theological error and doctrine formed from a grave, serious misinterpretation of the Christian gospel that rested on racist bigotry.  That's not unusual in American Christianity, where the combination of a lack of seminary trained ministers with the emotionalism of frontier revivals led to the formation of many denominations, including cults that departed completely from the teaching of the Christian gospel.  But there's more to this story that characterizes Southern Baptists as a denomination and explains their insensitivity to human equality and social justice that is at the core foundation of the Christian gospel. 

The rest of this story is that the Southern Baptist denomination, as a whole, did not apologize for their promoting and supporting of slavery in the south until 1995, one hundred and fifty years after their founding, based on the approval of the practice of slavery.  One hundred fifty years of history, during which most of its affiliated congregations practiced segregation and discrimination in their membership requirements, and during which most of their churches opposed the Civil Rights movement and took an active role in attempts to stop it.  

That says a lot about why, in the face of racial bigotry, injustice and the struggle for equality, Southern Baptists are either silent, or they come out on the side that is contrary to the principles and teachings of the Christian gospel.  They are blind to the fact that MAGA Trumpism and the faithful and truthful practice of the Christian gospel are mutually exclusive.  

God's Last and Only Hope

Dr. Bill Leonard, current dean of the Wake Forest University School of Divinity, and a long time Baptist history professor at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, says that Southern Baptists have a "scandalous past and an uncertain future," which is the subtitle of his book, The Challenge of Being Baptist.  Leonard is one of a relatively large group of seminary and university professors at Southern Baptist affiliated schools who, after years of attempting to bring reform based on the principles of the Christian gospel into the denomination, were forced out when fundamentalists used political manipulation to take over the denomination for the purpose of using it to advance right wing Republican politics.  

Dr. Leonard writes with impeccable honesty about the denomination's history, including the use of power and influence in the provincial manner in which the denomination is structured to keep reform from occurring.  This not only included the continued influence of white supremacy and active resistance of the denomination and its prominent leaders to the civil rights movement and integration of public schools in the south, but also the altering of the Baptist Faith and Message, the denomination's doctrinal statement, to include stronger wording that restricts women from ordination or vocational ministry in the church.  Controversy has been specifically sharp in recent years over calling women to serve in positions considered to be a "pastor," or in pastoral type leadership.  The denomination had no qualms and gave little consideration before removing its largest and most evangelistic congregation, Saddleback Valley Community Church in Mission Viejo, California, because it listed three women among its pastoral staff.  

I grew up in a small, Southern Baptist church where I was taught, among other things, that Southern Baptists were "closer" to the truth of the gospel than other denominations because we were the only ones who really believed and took the Bible seriously.  That included the other Baptist congregation in town, affiliated with the American Baptist Churches in the USA, labelled as "liberal."  No one ever said anything about being founded to support the owning of slaves, or why our church had no black people or latinos as members.  

Dr. Leonard traces the history of the fundamentalist takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention, which also includes hijacking its loyalty to the Christian gospel by far right wing politics, in a book he titled, God's Last and Only Hope.  It's ironic that a group which thinks of itself this way is silent in the face of some of the greatest injustice we've seen in this country since the Civil War and post-Reconstruction while those they have branded "Liberals," the Episcopalians, Presbyterian Church USA, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the United Methodist Church, the Disciples of Christ, the United Church of Christ, the Quakers and the Unitarians have become the loudest voices for loving one's neighbor and bringing about social justice.  

To be fair, there are churches that were once affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention that have rejected past history in favor of welcoming everyone, without exclusion, into their churches and are working to support justice and freedom for those who are now being oppressed.  Leaders of a couple of these Baptist groups--The Alliance of Baptists and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship--have complained to the justice department about ICE raids during their worship service to sieze people they are attempting to arrest.  Two Southern Baptist seminary professors made hypocrites out of themselves last week when they hollered about Cities Church in St. Paul being the subject of an anti-ICE protest, because one of their pastors works for ICE, but they were silent on ICE disturbing church services to arrest people.  

Silence is a Loud Statement

Conservative Evangelicals, Southern Baptists among them, are separating themselves from the mainline Protestant clergy and churches who are showing their love for their neighbors by standing against the injustice being done to them.  The American people can see who the real Christians are by their love and their actions.  Silence is condemning those who are complicit.  

Silence Adds to Hypocrisy and a Past History of Racism in Conservative Actions Regarding Cities Church Protests

Three Arrested in Cities Church Protest 

Cities Church Considers Legal Action Against Protesters

The real question that needs to be asked, and answered, regarding the protest which took place inside Cities Church in St. Paul during a recent worship service is just exactly how far outside of the gospel of Jesus this congretation is willing to go.  There's a lot of hypocrisy here, including the silence of the congregation regarding the suffering being inflicted on their neighbors by ICE and having one of their own pastors involved in it.  And even more in the complaining and whining about protesters disrupting their church service, while ICE agents are barging into church worship services in multiple locations in order to drag worshippers out.  

Pam Bondi's shrieking and lip flapping about not tolerating the disruption of church services is an empty, hypocritical lie.  She is well aware, from complaints filed by multiple church denominations and congregations, that ICE agents are disrupting worship services to enter churches, and drag worshippers out of their pews to arrest them without specific warrants or authority to do so, in violation of the first amendment.  This particular protest, calling out a church with a pastor who is a supervisor for ICE for its hypocritical silence and failure to act in a manner consistent with the Christian gospel, was caught on camera to counter the lies of conservative Evangelicals, and Pam Bondi.  It was not comparable to the sometimes violent removal of worshippers by ICE agents from other churches,   

Let's Be Hypocrites

I was raised in a Southern Baptist church, and went through a period of deconstruction and rethinking my faith perspective while a student at a denominationally-affiliated university that was considered to be "on the left" of the theological spectrum of Baptists.  During graduate school, the church I joined was a mid-sized congregation that had made some historic marks among Southern Baptists, like having welcomed blacks as members since it was first formed, and being one of the first to ordain women to serve as deacons and pastors.  

It was not uncommon for protesters to be gathered with ugly signs and ugly words on the sidewalk and street between the parking lot and the church to protest the fact that we welcomed gays and lesbians to worship.  Fact is, we welcomed everyone to worship.  And there were occasions when people would protest from inside the auditorium, chanting slogans, raising signs or being otherwise disruptive.  Many congregations that were affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention, but which either didn't support, or actively resisted, the intrusion of the fundamentalist takeover known as the "Conservative Resurgence" experienced this.  

Most of those churches have long since severed their ties with the Southern Baptists, and have formed a couple of groups, more of the nature of fellowships with common beliefs and goals, rather than denominations, but they are among those whose churches have had services interrupted by ICE for the purpose of dragging members of the congregation out of the service and off to arrest.  The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, the largest group made up of former Southern Baptist churches, has formally protested to the Department of Homeland Security.  

Cities Church in St. Paul is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention, so it's not surprising that the church would not have any conscience when it comes to social justice or that it would value right wing MAGA Trumpism over the Christian gospel.  The kind of political perspective and loyalty that would be required of someone to be in a supervisory capacity at ICE is something I consider equivalent to being a member of the Ku Klux Klan.  Both of those things require doing things which run contrary to the values and practices of the Christian gospel.  Whether or not that justifies a protest inside the church worship service is a matter of conscience, not law. 

This is the same Southern Baptist Convention that was formed in 1845 because the Triennial Baptist Convention, the main body of Baptists in the United States, refused to appoint a slave owner as a missionary.  It was not until 1995, 150 years later, that the denomination officially apologized for its role in promoting the enslavement of human beings.  The racism which drove the Confederacy and was written into its Constitution, that black persons are inferior to white persons, also drove the Southern Baptist Convention and it was a theological and doctrinal error that they allowed to stand for 150 years before correcting it.  

That is a clear indication that it can make theological, doctrinal and Christian practice errors in other areas, too.  And they are making them in the realm of social justice, especially when it comes to immigration.  They are silent in the face of injustice and in the violation of individual human rights.  

This is the same Southern Baptist Convention that has failed to find any kind of sympathy or resolution for the victims of hundreds of incidents of sexual abuse perpetrated by pastors, vocational ministers, missionaries and seminary professors, exposed by the Houston Chronicle and The San Antonio Express News in 2019.  What has transpired is the perpetuation of a cover-up, and the "largest Protestant denomination in America" being stymied as to how to handle allegations of sexual abuse by church pastors and denominational employees like missionaries or seminary professors.  And, the impression that has been left is one of blaming the victims for trying to ruin the ministry of these supposedly "godly" men. 

Was This A Christian Worship Service or the Gathering of a Pseudo-Christian Political Cult?

We have to look at this for what it is.  I haven't seen any complaint or outrage about the disruption of church services by ICE agents from the Southern Baptists like Al Mohler and Danny Akin, the two seminary Presidents who arrogantly defended the pastor employed by ICE and shrieked and lip flapped about the protest inside the church which was recorded on camera and does not in any way show any confusion, frightened children, or chaos that they described.  I have to wonder if they were watching the same video that I did. 

Frankly, I am still opposed to protests disrupting church worship services.  However, given the attitudes in this case, and the manner in which this is being handled by both the church, and by the Justice Department, I believe this protest was perfectly acceptable.  This wasn't a Christian church service that was interrupted, it was a gathering of a pseudo-Christian cult and considering the issue at the heart of the protest, it was simply a constitutionally protected act of free speech and conscience.

None of the protesters should have been arrested, since they did not break any laws, and I hope the judge in this case realized that no crime was committed.  

With Polling Data Heavily in Favor of Democrats Winning the Midterms, the Party Must Make a Clear Decision on Where it Stands

Is the Democratic party going to be fully committed to opposing Trump, claiming that he is the greatest threat to American Democracy in history, or is it going to focus most of its attention on helping the party prominents feather their nests, hold on to their seats and stay out of the more risky line of fire as the elections approach?  

In light of how some elected members of the party have been responding to everything that's happening, I think this is a legitimate question that deserves and answer.  

Primaries Are Just Around the Corner So Watch What Democrats in Congress Do, Carefully

I'm a lifelong Democrat, the son of a labor union member who grew up in a working class household.  I've always been registered to vote, and I've always voted, including in local elections at the city and county level.  In all of the time I've been eligible to vote, I've never missed an election if I could help it, including voting absentee and by mail when circumstances dictated it.  I've also always been a contributor.  I'm not wealthy, by any means, but I can give candidates a little bit of a boost with  a small contribution to their campaign, and a regular gift to the DNC  

I've dropped the DNC gift, as a practical matter, and because I no longer see the value of doing so.  I'm open to revisiting the possibility but I need to see something a whole lot different than what I see now.  And a lot more bold and aggressive when it comes to opposing Trump.  That contribution now goes to Leaders We Deserve  which is where I think it will do the most good for the Democratic party in electing the best candidates who aren't afraid to stand up and be Trump opposition.  

Keep a close eye on the Democrats in Congress, because at a time like this, when a tiny GOP majority is on its back heels trying to keep up its agenda and Democrats have more power than they want you to know that they do, their votes will tell you how sincere their lips are being when it comes to Trump opposition.  They're not getting my vote unless they're 100% anti-MAGA.  

Raja Krishnamoorthi lost this Illinois Democrat's vote this week, when he voted along with the Republicans, to censure the Clintons for their refusal to testify before Congress.  I was already not impressed by some of the money he has taken for his campaign, and he demonstrated the fact  that he's a nest-featherer, not a bold, risk taking opposition member, in several ways.  I'm still not sure who I will vote for in the primary, but it won't be Krishnamoorthi.  Democrats elsewhere need to look at the candidates in their states, and pick the more progressive, liberal, aggressive and bold candidates who will use the power to crush Trump when they have it in their hands.  

I'm now naturally gravitating toward high level resistance participants, candidates who, while some may seem like longshots now, because in the sea of big money politics they are not taking any PAC money, or corporate dollars with eventual strings attached, but are running on their own.  Many of them are exactly the kind of leaders we need, with the kind of convictions candidates who take PAC money can't stand up to defend at the point where it interferes with their PAC's interest, and I think some of them are going to find their way through the flood of cash to a seat in the House.  Then they will represent my interests without compromise or a sudden back down, which we have seen too often. 

Though I live a little bit further north than Illinois district 7, I've been at a couple of gatherings where the level of satisfaction with the members who represent several Chicago districts is lukewarm, mainly because those who are gathering and marching and protesting are way ahead of where their congressional representatives are operating.  I'm happy with what my representative, Delia Ramirez, has done, and she's earned my support and contribution.  But I'm willing to give to a neighbor, Reid Showalter, who is a longshot candidate in neighboring district 7.  Go to his site and see why he is the kind of Democrat we need to be on ballots everywhere. It would be great having them both represent a large chunk of Chicago in the House.  

With the loss of a couple of their seats recently, one due to the resignation of one of the worst MAGA cultists in the House, there's a lot of pressure on the GOP leadership to hold the fort.  And there's a lot of money destined for the mid-terms that might buy some weakness on the part of Democrats, because they think they can hide it or get away with it.  I hope the voters are smart enough to detect that kind of nest-feathering until we can get big money out of politics completely.  Until then, unfortunately, we will have to keep a close eye out and keep careful watch over who is writing campaign contribution checks, and to whom they are writing them.  

Recovery From The Trump Disaster Won't Be Quick or Easy

Frankly, as a former civics and history instructor, I am not sure that we can ever actually recover from the damage that Trump has done to American Democracy.   The residue of the fascist ideology and the racism and bigotry he tapped into in order to divide the nation so he could win elections isn't going away just because he does.  One of the biggest political mistakes ever made by a sitting President of the United States was Gerald Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon.  Had Nixon been prosecuted and sentenced to the full extent of the law, I doubt Trump would have even dared run for election.  He bases his lawless, anti-patriotic, anti-American practice on the fact that Nixon got away with it and he's said as much.  

That's going to take Democrats with the boldness to take risks when they're back in power, and this time, use it to enforce the law, not to drag feet, slow processes down and "garlandize" criminal indictments in order to nullify their effect.  We need a party full of Jack Smiths, and David Hoggs.  They're out there.  We just need to filter through the muck of the money flood to find them and elect them.  

This time, when we control Congress and the White House at the same time, we need leaders who see the necessity of packing the Supreme Court with liberal progressives who will neutralize the corrupt conservatives and make their votes irrelevant, even if we have to keep paying them their undeserved salaries.  We could have done that any time between 2021 and 2023, but for the complaints and whining from those who thought that might look political.  They knew what was coming if they didn't, so that tells me there wasn't a whole lot of genuine conviction about Trump's threat to democray, and too much nest-feathering going on.  

The Challenge is This

Any Democratic candidate for office must earn my support by their boldness, their willingness to take risks, and their desire to see Trump and MAGA gone, by the actions they take now to ratchet the pressure up on Republicans as much as they can, and given what Republicans have done to Democrats when they weren't in power, the fact of the matter is that this can be done, and not ignore what's happening to get to their next fundraising luncheon at the club.  

Real resistance, a real fight and the willingness to use the power of office in every possible way against Trump earns my vote and my donation.  Anything less than that, and I will find someone who is willing to be bolder and more of a risk taker for whom to vote.  

Whining About the Disruption of Worship Services at St. Paul's Cities Church Needs to be Put in Perspective

 Rick Pidcock: Let's Talk About How Cities Church Treats Women

Let's take a look at the perspectives here.  

Southern Baptist Seminary President Al Mohler was, in 2016, opposed to Trump's nomination.  He, along with Russell Moore, who was President of the Southern Baptists' Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission at the time, were the only two Southern Baptist leaders who showed any Christian conviction, or backbone at all in refusing to support an agenda and candidate who was so openly antichrist, and diametrically opposed to any Christian practice or values.  That, in a conservative Evangelical denomination that has completely lost its way because it cannot discern that right wing politics is antichristian, was highly unusual.  

But if the Southern Baptist Convention ever had any characteristics of the Christian gospel, and having been raised in a Southern Baptist church, I would say that it never really did, it has lost every vestige of it with its turn toward support for right wing politics.  Mohler wanted to be President of the Southern Baptist convention, and realized that being a Trumper was the key, not only to winning elected office in the denomination that is more of a political power structure than a Christian ministry organization, but to hanging on to his well feathered and financed nest as President of the denomination's flagship theological school.  

So he flipped.  But the fact that he wasn't committed enough to the Trump cult at any point cost him the Presidency of the Southern Baptist Convention, though it may have saved him from being forced to retire as President at SBTS.  But this makes his comments on the disruption of worship at Cities Church by protesters worthless.  So, then, are the comments made by another Southern Baptist seminary President, Danny Akin, of the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina.  

But, this is to be expected.  Cities Church is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention.  So they don't see the complete inconsistency in a pastor who works for ICE, and who participates in the immoral injustice that they are perpetrating.   Nor do they see that Biblical Christianity and being a supporter of MAGA Trumpism are mutually exclusive.  It is not possible to be faithful to the principles of the Christian gospel, and a supporter of MAGA, and Trump.  

And that's not a judgment.  It's simply an observation.  

But, what is to be expected in a denomination that was founded for the purpose of defending slavery, rebelling against the biblically founded restrictions on sending slaveowners out on their behalf as missionaries, adopted by the Triennial Baptist Convention of Philadelphia.  And, one that did not repudiate or apologize for its role in promoting the evil, ungodly practice until 1995, 150 years after it was founded because of its support for slavery.  

I didn't hear either one of these seminary presidents speak out against the murder of Renee Good.  Nor have they spoken up against the brutal treatment we have all seen that has been a trademark of ICE raids and alleged "enforcement" of immigration law everywhere they've been.  To be fair, I've never heard Akin preach, nor have I read anything he's written.  I have heard Mohler, his podcast, and his pompous pontifications on everything he thinks his audience needs informing from his perspective.  And I can't find any reference to their complaining about ICE agents interrupting church services to abduct worshippers.  

If this protest, calling out the hypocrisy of this church, is a problem, then so is ICE entering a church to drag off and arrest people in the congregation.  Why not speak up about disrupting worship in general, instead of whining about this calling out of hypocrites?  The leader of the protest was arrested, and the attorney general, Pam Bondi, stated, "We will not tolerate attacks on places of worship."  

Really, Pam?  So you are a two faced liar, and hypocrite too, as if we didn't already know this, given your bottomless corruption.  Does this mean you will not tolerate ICE agents entering churches to drag out congregants and send them to detention camps?  Will we hear, from your office, orders prohibiting ICE agents from attacking houses of worship?  

I'm not really in favor of a church becoming a place of protest, or at least, not in favor of disrpting a worship service.  If it's outside, I don't have a problem with it.  The hypocrisy we are seeing from so many of these conservative Evangelicals needs to be called out, for the sake of those inside who don't want their church over-run by right wing, anti-patriotic, unAmerican, anti-Christian ideology.  Calling out a pastor who is in error is the responsibility of those who are members of the church.  But there's nothing wrong about an outdoor display that doesn't disrupt worship, but makes the point clear, especially to the congregation.  

But as long as ICE agents are invading churches and dragging off people just because of suspicion, and without proof, then a church that has a direct connection to ICE, via its pastor, is at risk for being called out.  

One Year Into a Second Trump Term and This is Where We Are

No, I did not listen to the rambling, disjointed, incoherent, fumbling, bumbling, and frankly, boring to comatose press conference given by Trump to mark his first full year in office of his second term.  I can't stand to watch or listen to him, knowing that every word that comes out of his mouth has no connection to the real world, is not true, and is nothing more than another symptom of his narcissism and dysfunctional ego, mixed with a good measure of dementia.  

Donald Trump was, in his first term, one of the worst presidents in American history.  His term in office was predictably bad, the fact that he had trouble demonstrating competence working the drive in window at a McDonalds a precursor for the manner in which he handled the job as President.  This is a man who, honestly, could not pass an eighth grade constitution or history test.  And as far as his personal morality and character go, well, not everyone who has occupied the White House has had character that matches its exterior color, and Trump's womanizing, affairs, including the tryst he tried to cover up with a porn star, cheating in business, added to the recent rape convictions, seditious attack on the Capitol and what he may have done with Jeffrey Epstein are pretty bad compared to just about anyone else who has served as President.  

We knew we were getting this when the Republicans nominated him.  And Democrats, the ones who, when we had control of Congress would not break the senate filibuster to amend the judiciary act and pack the Supreme Court, which would have eliminated the possibility of a second Trump term, sort of botched the possibility to run someone who could have easily beaten him if they'd had two years and a full campaign to do it.  They knew what a second Trump term would bring. The way that was handled wasn't my mistake.  

All that has happened this past year has simply confirmed what was known prior to the election.  Trump is an incompetent boob, an imbecil, an incapable, inept con artist and grifter who is the single worst President in American history.  That is an undisputable fact.  It is also a problem that we must deal with before we lose the ability to recover what has been lost or destroyed.  The founding fathers apparently never envisioned partisan animosity and hatred so bad that overturning the principles of the nation, and its Constitution, would be worth it for one side to get its way and "win."  

There's a lot of rumbling among the protesters who have shown up in record numbers to send the message of just how unpopular this President is, about using the 25th Amendment. He's hitting poll numbers showing disapproval not seen before, but not necessarily so distressing to a party that no longer values the integrity or accuracy of the American ballot box.  They are willing to bring that down too, to keep this orange headed thug in office, rendering the Constitutional means of removing him from office moot. Well, good luck getting this cabinet, most of whom are crazier, more corrupt and immoral than he is, to give that a shot. 

The partisan divide in the United States has rendered impeachment and removal from office virtually impossible. I don't believe there is a politician in the United States in either party who would vote against their own party's interest, though  Democrats generally seem to be more aligned with Constitutional Democracy than the GOP has ever been.  It does not look like this constitutional means of removing a sitting President will work, either.  

I'm not opposed to giving either one a try, though I have serious doubts whether any Democratic party politician is willing to lead the public pressure charge that would be required.  I'm not going to apologize for thinking that the Democrats, as a party, are just not up to being the kind of opposition that those of us who are participating in peacful demonstrations or marches are looking for.  Point to an example of someone who would be willing to lead the charge, and take the force of massive protests right inside the Capitol, making enough Republicans feel the pressure to either get out of the way and resign, or participate in the President's removal from office.  

We can even get someone who is willing to keep putting this up in front of the media, and helping to fan the flames of resistance in order to use the energy of massive discontent to bring enough pressure to bear to make Republicans experience the political consequences of their abandonment of American idealism and patriotism.  

This cannot continue with any hope of America emerging from this nightmare with the ability to recover. It's the worst year of any Presidential term we've had in the history of this country.   

Constitutional Ignorance Abounds in America, and I'll Tell You Why

Bakery Owner, Facing Death Threats Over Anti-Ice Cookies, Refuses to Back Down 

I've taught the Constitution to eighth graders and Civics to high school students for almost 40 years.  The requirements for passing these courses in order to graduate from either eighth grade or high school are not enough.  For one thing, the standards used to measure what students must achieve in order to graduate are frankly, a joke.  So is the classroom order and management in the vast majority of schools in this country, to the point where the few students who are engaged and interested enough to learn are passed through because passing requirements have to be dumbed down so that the majority of students don't fail.  

Argue against that, and I will bring out the test data and scores, and organize a tour of schools to prove otherwise.  

But the biggest test of the effectiveness of this kind of coursework is what happens in our society when every value we understand as Americans, every Constitutional right and principle, every limit on the power of the federal government against the rights of the people is challenged by ignorant, stupid, violent people just because they don't agree with the idea that is being expressed.  

Death threats to a bakery owner for expressing something that is a matter of conscience, protected by the first amendment is a real life test that demonstrates the failure of our educational system, at least as far as having taught anything of value to the hateful ignoramuses who make the threats.  It also shows that mental health care in this country is failing to treat the high level of insecurity that such behavior represents.  

The response of this bakery owner is the right one.  Don't back down.  Move ahead.  Cowards make those kind of threats, cowards and stupid people.  The response of the community was massive repudiation of ignorance.  Good for them.  

Political Weakness and Insecurity Fears Free Speech and a Free Conscience

Politicians who can't stand protest against their ideology and the decisions they make are weak and insecure.  Basically, their response not only betrays this fear and insecurity, but it also demonstrates their own incompetence and ignorance, and their own cowardice and weakness.  

The first time we really saw this in American history was during the Presidency of John Adams.  Adams was one of America's founding fathers.  He had served in multiple capacities on behalf of the United States, including being part of the Constitutional convention in Philadelphia that drafted the current document along with the Bill of Rights, and worked to secure its ratification.  

But when critics challenged his decisions, especially regarding his handling of the United States and its relationship with France, he went over the edge.  And, in fact, Adams going down in history as one of the least effective, most inept Presidents is due to his instigation of support for a set of laws  known as the Alien and Sedition Acts.  Basically this made it a crime to write or say things critical of the President or of Congress, and it gave the President the power to deport foreigners he didn't like, and were critical of his position on immigration and citizenship. 

Then, if that wasn't bad enough, Adams went on a court-packing frenzy.  As a lame duck, he tried to fill every judicial seat with Federalists who would rule against challenges to the acts.  Known as the "Midnight Judges Act," it was repealed by Jefferson before the appointees could take office and eventually led to the court's establishing Judiciary Review. 

Even founding fathers were subject to partisan temptation.  In this case, it damaged, and practically destroyed, Adam's reputation, and the good work he did.  It also ended any chance he would ever have at being re-elected President, and it destroyed the Federalist Party, which lost the next five elections in increasingly large landslides and would disappear completely during the Monroe Administration.  

The suppression of the first amendment that Trump so blatantly advocates and tries to implement should be driving the GOP to extinction.  Though it does appear to be doing some real damage to Republican chances at holding a Congressional majority, it isn't having the widespread effect that the Alien and Sedition Acts did 225 years ago.  Is it because more Americans today are so completely ignorant of the Constitution, and lack the critical thinking skills to associate Trump's attempt to subvert the free press with a violation of this most sacred Constitutional protection?  

Yes. 

So What Do We Do About It? 

Leaving public education in the hands of the states, in the balance of power, has been a huge mistake.  It has led to a huge gap in the student outcomes experienced from state to state.  In states where education is regarded as an essential for the preservation of democracy, and valued as a means of raising the standard of living, the test scores, graduation rates and overall quality of the schools are all high.  And generally, the voters in those states tend to favor the Democrats.  In states where education is seen as a glorified babysitting service, budgets are cut whenever there's a tax reduction, and they'd rather spend millions on football stadiums with artificial turf where they can watch their kids bash each other's brains out than on learning math, or how to read, or, God forbid, how to correctly interpret the Constitution in a way that the differences in skin color, or ethnicity, or religious beliefs, gender, or political perspective don't matter when it comes to individual rights. 

There is a reason why a President who uses the dumb-ass interpretation of politics to scam for votes wants to dismantle the Department of Education.  And that is exactly why one of the first things any future Democratic majority needs to do is to double its budget, and make public education a power under the federal government.  Students in places like Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Texas or West Virginia should not be denied the opportunity to get the same kind of quality education that those in Minnesota, Massachusetts, Rhode Island,  Connecticut, New Hampshire, Illinois, Maryland or California get.  

Once that's complete, then the number of courses students receive throughout their grade school and high school years in American History, government, the Constitution and other Civics-related subjects should be implemented every single year, starting with Kindergarten.  Common Core and the revamping of schools to increase instruction in technology, science and mathematics hasn't worked.  The math and science scores are getting worse nationally, not better, and the time has crowded out the ability to teach important subjects like American history and government.  

Look at the course requirements for university bound, professional students in high schools in European countries like Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, and now even most of the Eastern European countries.  Their school day doesn't end at 2:15, it goes to 4:30 or 5:00 and it includes double the amount of social studies that American schools do.  Most European countries won't even give any coursework credit to their students who participate in a foreign exchange program in the US, because they have no respect for the quality of American education and they know the students get far less than they would in their European school.  

This is not the place for an apologetic on behalf of our hard working, underpaid school teachers.  Any teacher in American public education who is doing their job, and knows what education is supposed to look like will say that the quality of education in most of our public schools is substandard and I know this, because I'm engaged in those kinds of discussions almost every day.  I taught in a public, inner city high school in Houston, in a program aimed at recovering drop-outs who wanted to come back, and I saw teachers make do with few resources, sometimes spending their own money, in  a state where teacher salaries already rank in the bottom 10% nationally, to try and provide students with opportunities.  Many of them lined up at the private schools, when a job opened up, to take less pay and fewer benefits, but where the quality of education was higher.  

And we see this poor quality social studies education manifest itself in the media, where reporters and commentators are either completely ignorant about the Constitution, or are told by management not to bring it up when the President or one of his cronies says something that they know is anti-Constitutional, anti-Democratic and anti-American.  I wonder how we'd feel if we're facing charges in court, and our lawyer is a millennial who doesn't know the Constitution.  

This is why over 70 million Americans cast a ballot for the incompetent, inept, demented and insane man now living in the White House, and why another 30 million who would have potentially voted the other way just stayed home.  

  

Trump is Going After the Hegemony Just Like Hitler Did

In his fictonal works The Winds of War and War and Remembrance written by author Herman Wouk, which take place in the years prior to World War 2 and which end at war's end, one of the leading characters, Dr. Aaron Jastrow, is a Polish Jew who emigrated to the United States as a teenager, during the turmoil of the aftermath of the First World War, and becomes a history professor at Yale, and subsequently an author whose writings center on his Jewish identity and the perspective that gives him as he observes world events leading up to the war.  

He retires, and resides in Italy, initially writing about the Jewish origins of Christianity, and the sharp turn in history under the Roman Emperor Constantine, whose sudden conversion experience, including a vision that contradicts everything the Christian gospel taught, leading to the advancement of the institutional Christian church by political power which shaped European history and, according to Dr. Jastrow, two thousand years of anti-Semtism.  

Wouk uses the character of Jastrow to introduce the concept of hegemony as an explanation for the suddent rise of European Fascism, in which, prior to the war beginning, is focused on Lenin and Stalin in Russia, lumped together with Mussolini and then, after some refinement and adjustment, Hitler, who sets out to conquer Europe, grabbing, in the fictional professors words, the hegemony.  

Jastrow's character is written to take the more fatalistic position of the time, in the aftermath of war weariness from World War 1, that the dictators rise is due in part to Allied policy laying the blame for the war on Germany and demanding unreasonable reparations which kicked over European economies, leading to the Great Depression.  Money is at the bottom of political upheaval, and Jastrow, in a political discussion, uses the phrase, "The hegemony can be shared, and it must be shared with the Soviets, at any rate," he says.  

So when I look at the mutterings, rumblings and ramblings of Trump about Venezuela, Greenland, Canada, Mexico, my memory gets jogged, my historical interest is generated and I went back through Wouk's books and re-read both of them.  Yes, they are works of fiction, but they're based on historical facts and his research providing accurate settings and insights of the politics of the time is an excellent way to learn about all of the political perspectives in play prior to and during World War 2.  And much of  what Trump says, not only wanting to take over sovereign nations, but in the motivation and reasoning he gives for doing so, he sounds exactly like the European Fascists did, prior to the war.  He is just another politician hungry for money and the power it brings, trying to win the hegemony.  His ego is the driving force, and we have Mary Trump and her books to confirm that.  

We've Done This Before

Threats made to neighboring countries, and attempts to dominate them are not new in American history.  There are some hints of it in the Monroe Doctrine, and grabbing a share of the hegemony was behind a lot of that rhetoric, especially as the rivalry between the United States and the European powers, especially Great Britain and Spain, and to a lesser degree France, had heated up after the American Revolution and then Napoleon's rampage.  

Then there was the whole Texas Independence, Mexican War debacle, where pretenses led to grabbing most of what was then the northern third of Mexico, mainly because we could, and because there was also hegemony involved, mainly American economic interests and the aquisition of national wealth and power.  We did it again against Spain, during another burst of attempted control and domination of Latin America.  

If we're honest, the impression America's grab at the hegemony has left with those who had to endure it doesn't really look a whole lot different to the victims of it than Hitler's grab did to his victims.  There's one big difference.  The Germans, after being beaten to the ground, and their country bombed to ruins, seem to have learned their lesson, and have practiced what they learned over the course of the past seven decades.  Most Americans know better, too, but the uptick in Facist, neo-Nazi ideology in this country that lies under the surface of support for Trump is behind the violence and hatred that is pushing this.  

Hypocrisy That Knows No Bounds

Trump expected widespread jubilation and dancing in the streets when he extracted Maduro from Caracas, and brought him to the United States.  A lot of Venezuelans did dance and celebrate, for a few minutes, until they learned that Maduro's hand picked Vice-President was in charge, and that absolutely nothing had changed except the direction of their oil tankers.  Hegemony.   The Venezuelans I know here, and because I'm in Chicago, I have gotten to know several, are taking a more "wait and see" attitude, not really seeing much of a difference between Maduro, and Trump, who is hunting them down and deporting them, some to prison in El Salvador, when ICE finds them.  

And I'm frustrated, not surprised, at the blithering ignorance displayed in this country when it comes to these events.  Maybe ignorance is a root cause of hypocrisy, or maybe it has become the trademark of a country in which the education system has failed miserably to provide basic instruction in history, poltics and government.  It's pretty inconsistent and stupid, and I don't mind using that word, to cheer and support Trump's removal of Maduro, while his bootlicking, bowing and cuddling up to Kim Jong Un, a much more brutal dictator in North Korea, is still a fresh memory from his first term.  

Why not send some helicopters, shock paratroopers and air support into Pyongyang, and extract the North Korean dictator, and try him alongside Maduro?  Why not go after Putin,, for that matter, or Bashar al-Assad?  

The last time the United States went to war to remove a dictator, Saddam Hussein, and simultaneously supported the rebels in Syria, it didn't turn out well.  As a result, ISIS swelled up into the vacuum, capable of doing so because, in Syria, they were well financed by the Bush administration funneling money to them because of their opposition to al-Assad.  Maduro's political faction is still solidly in control in Caracas, in spite of Trump's gaslighting, and that's not going to go well for the Venezuelanos who were celebrating his downfall.  

Constitutional Failure

Here's what we have to ask ourselves at this point.  How stupid has this country become?  How ignorant are we, and how many Americans have absolutely no idea whatsoever what attacking or attempting to take over Greenland would mean?  How many ignorant and stupid people do we have, that all of this rherotic spills out of the mouths of the Trump administration and it doesn't appear that Americans even know where Greenland is or why Trump wants it or why it would be totally unpatriotic and anti-American to be aggressive in demanding it come under our jurisdiction?  

Somewhere, in our Constitution, the limits on Presidential authority exist for someone somewhere to tell Trump "NO!" and then countermand any orders to militarily occupy Greenland.  The limits on Presidential authority have been there since this demagogue took office, but no one, especially among his oposition, seems to know what can be done, or they are too interested in feathering their own nests to do it.  

The United States is now a predator among smaller, weaker nations, much smaller and much weaker, in  a quest to gain the hegemony, which is Trump's life purpose, grab and grift for money.  He's dragging our country, and its values, into the abyss of his own demented mind and disfunctional ego.  And while we march, and protest, and complain, he keeps getting away with it and we keep letting him.  We are now a threat to a world that we helped rebuild and turn toward our values following World War 2, simply because no one will do anything about the man who claimed he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and no one would do anything about it.  

God help us.   

Let's Help Zach Shrewsbury Win a Senate Seat

When it comes to national politics, West Virginia rarely shows up on the radar screen.  Unless an election is running close, or a primary, little attention is paid to what goes on in this small state that once was a Democratic party stronghold because of organzed labor in the coal industry, but which, because of the culture war, a lot of ignorance, and no one really caring much, has become one of the reddest states in the union.  And as coal has collapsed, which Republicans falsely and deceptively blamed on Democrats when it was their own doing, under Bush and under Trump during his first term, the population has declined, the state lost a congressional seat, and the voter turnout in elections has plummeted to all time lows as the opioid crisis roared and people who could still afford to do so moved elsewhere. 

I have a personal stake in what goes on in West Virginia politics.  My family roots are there.  My parents, grandparents, great grandparents and ancestors came from Irish and Scottish immigrants who moved into the mountains when it was still part of Virginia.  For them, the attraction was the jobs, in the coal mines and in the industries that use it.  And I spent some time there myself, working at door to door sales jobs in the summer to earn money for college.  The coal fields were prosperous back then, and I was able to pay for tuition and fees by walking the hollers in Mingo, Logan and Wyoming counties, where I think I probably knocked on every door to every house.  

Hospital Closing is a Sign of Political Malaise 

So a few years back, browsing the online edition of the Williamson Daily News, I noticed that the Williamson Memorial Hospital had closed, a victim of the opioid crisis that hit rural West Virginia hard, and of the COVID pandemic.  The high rates of poverty in the county, high unemployment, and low numbers of people with adequate insurance, left the hospital short of operating capital, and it was forced to close.  

It was the only hospital and emergency room in Mingo County, serving 25,000 residents, many in remote rural areas.  It was not the only rural hospital in West Virginia that was struggling.  More than a dozen rural hospitals closed in the state as a result of the debt they incurred having to treat so many uninsured patients who were victims of the opioid crisis or COVID.  

West Virginia's state legislature, and governor, have done little to nothing to provide help to allieviate the opioid issue, or to keep accesss to medical care in rural areas open, in spite of the fact that there's no profit to be made off health care facilities in communities where as many as 40% of the residents are on medicare, medicaid, or do not have insurance at all.  And if anything happens to the ACA, it will have a devastating effect on medical care in rural West Virginia.  

There was some hope for WIlliamson Memorial Hospital, when it closed.  When the Biden Administratin was in power, West Virginia's Democratic Senator, Joe Manchin, worked to bring local resources together with federal money, and secured enough help from the federal government to combine with what was available from local physicians and local resources to renovate the facility, bring it up to standard, and eventually, after several years, get it open and operating again.  The state government was largely absent from the process.  

So was the state's other Senator, Shelley Moore Capito.  She stands out in contrast to her constituents, the daugher of a family that made their money exploiting the people of West Virginia, and of a governor whose record is one of the worst when it comes to doing what state governments are supposed to do for their constituents.  Even among some of my more conservative family members who still live in West Virginia, the name "Archie Moore" can't be mentioned without generating some anger and expressions of derision.  

So how does this, one of the most ineffective, inept members of the United States Senate, get re-elected?  The apathy among West Virginia voters, when it comes to their faith in their own leaders and government, is at an all time high.   Turnout is low, people are more focused on day to day survival than on who will represent them in the US Senate, and money buys elections in West Virginia in a way that it doesn't do so anywhere else.  

Moore-Capito did absolutely nothing to help the hospital in Williamson re-open, but she was there, once Senator Manchin was gone, to help claim credit.  I have done reasearch, through the news reports from the local newspaper, and from television  stations in Huntington and Charleston that carried the stories about the hospital, and cannot find a single reference to Moore-Capito in all that was done to secure federal funding, over $2 million, for the hospital.  Nothing.  

A Long Shot That Might Not be so Long

I am encouraging Democrats and independents I know to help Zach Shrewsbury beat Moore-Capito in his challenge to win this Senate seat.  I've written to every family member I have in West Virginia encouraging them to take a look at this guy and get out and vote for him.  For many of them, who consider themselves Republican, that was a shocking request, but all I asked of them was to give him a fair consideration.  I found that several of them, including the ones who still live in Mingo County, are planning to break their fast from voting, one cousin and his wife not having been to the polls in over 20 years, and will vote for Zach.  They've been beneficiaries of his work, and they know about him and what he does, and his care and concern for the people of West Virginia.  That, frankly, was more than I expected. 

But he's apparently getting his message out.  I've heard from other family members, mostly in my own generation, who are planning to support him.  That's progress.  Politics was off the discussion table in my extended family, and I'm kind of an outsider, not growing up in West Virginia, but this discussion got more acceptance than I thought it would.  People are paying attention, and Shrewsbury's message is clearly resonating, unlike the gaslighting they hear from Moore-Capito and the GOP.  

Shrewsbury's message is aimed at West Virginians who have, in surprisingly large numbers, stayed away from the polls over the years.  I remember hearing my mother and father, and my grandmother, express their doubts about whether any politician was honest enough or sincere enough to be concerned about their life and their needs, and that it really didn't matter who they voted for, nothing would change.  That came from their own experience.  How many other people think that way is a clear factor in election outcomes, since more people don't register or vote than those who actually do.  

West Virginia, especially its southern counties, deep in the Appalachian Mountains, is feeling the effects of the affordability crisis more than most places.  A high percentage of the population, those who haven't moved to find better jobs, are on fixed incomes, like black lung pensions, or social security, so when the local grocery store, or Wal-Mart, or hospital, closes, they have the expense of long drives added to the higher prices of goods.  Try to find what Moore-Capito is doing, anything, to help.  You won't find a thing.  She's more interested in being a good Trumpie than she is in helping the people of  West Virginia, she's just using them for her own political career.  

Shrewsbury is Running the Kind of Campaign It Takes to Win an Election Like This

Committed not to take corporate, dirty money, and to run an "on the ground" campaign, Shrewsbury has a chance to win this election, if he can do what he is aiming to do, and that is to activate apathetic voters.  It's pretty clear from what he already does for the people of West Virginia, that he's not going to sit around and do nothing.  Of course, what politicians say they are going to do and what they wind up doing are usually two different things, but Shewsbury is an advocate for the people already.  He is clearly worth the financial support he will need to unexpectedly flip this seat, help people understand that voting for Moore-Capito is voting against their own interests, and win this election.  

This is not a politician who is feathering his own nest.  This is someone who is making a difference without being a politician.  

Join me in sending your contribution to Zach Shrewsbury for Senate, in West Virginia.  This is a guy who can win.  

Political Expediency is Not Going To Save American Democracy

One of the things I really try to avoid, especially when it comes to politics, is cynicism.  However, as we start into this 2026 midterm election season, things being the way they are, I am struggling to avoid doing so.  It comes from the impression I get that opposition to Trump is considered by some politicians, to be more of an opportunity to feather their own nest, and advance their own political career than it is to save American democracy from the biggest threat it has faced since the Civil War, or Richard Nixon.  

I've committed not to cast ballots for fence-sitters, compromisers, or weak-willed wafflers.  I'm already a third of the way into a notebook I'm keeping with comments made by politicians and potential candidates which try to leave the impression that this is just another midtern election with business as usual.  That's not going to get my vote.  So politicians, especially those running in Illinois, in the Chicago area, beware.  I'm looking for boldness and a willingness to go to the point of taking big risks politically to end the Trump nightmare and who are willing to use the power of Congress to get rid of him and send him packing.  If I don't see that you don't get my vote.  

If--and that is still a very small word for a very big possibility--we do win a majority in the Congress, including the Senate or not, there are those who will restrain their actions against Trump because of the fear of not being re-elected, or not wanting to look too "political," then we will not stop what is happening to our country.  

We could have put a stop to this right after the 2020 election, when we had the majority in both houses, but many of our seasoned, veteran politicians caved.  The biggest obstacle to preserving Democracy at this point is the Supreme Court, who write blank checks to the President to do what he wishes.  Their Presidential Immunity ruling was the biggest load of crap a Supreme Court has ever spewed out, and in our legal system, which is as crooked as it can be, that's saying something. 

More than one progressive Democrat put forth the idea of packing the court, since they had the power to do so.  That would have required breaking the stupid, undemocratic Senate filibuster, which can be a risk after all.  But sometimes, that kind of risk is necessary to protect the freedom that is provided by our democracy.  It just seemed that the President and some of his advisors, including members of the senate, were far too concerned about the appearance of an obvious political move.  

So what?  

Isn't saving the country more important?  Isn't justice more important?  They all said that it was but their actions are what makes me cynical.  They didn't do what they could have done.  

Think about it.  One justice could have ripped down all of the attempted road blocks and delays Trump was relying on to postpone his criminal indictments for January 6th and stealing documents indefinitely, set trial dates, and got those trials moving toward landing him in jail where he belongs.  And the bonus would have been saving Roe, and overturning Citizens United.  That is what Democrats who claim that they believed Trump was the greatest threat to American Democracy since the civil war should have done.  

But we let the foot dragging and delays go on and on, and this ridiculously unqualified court continue to be dominated by stupid conservatives.  

That made me cynical. 

Well, after all, the Democrats had the power.  Observing what Republicans, Trump, and MAGA are doing with the power they have, and a lot that they don't really have if those responsible for making sure they remain within the limits of the Constitution were doing their job, the Democratic party failed miserably to achieve its ends during the first two years of Biden's term, when they had majorities in both houses.  Yeah, there were risks involved.  And there was too much nest-feathering for that power to work to our advantage.  

Hence, this may be why I get this cynical feeling now.  I should be hearing sharper rhetoric from candidates running for office.  And frankly, what I'm hearing doesn't help shake the cynicism.  

There are a few exceptions to this, of course.  There's Zack Shrewsbury, running for Senate against incumbent Shelly Moorre Capito, a do-nothing Republican from West Virginia whose personal interests do not align in any way with the needs or desires of her constituents, many of whom are too uninformed and prejudiced to know that voting for her is voting against every single one of their interests.  And I have the ultimate respect and admiration for Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, who does not mince words and who is rising to the top of my list of Presidential hopefuls.  I'd like to see him run for senate first, and knock Fetterman out of his seat, the worthless ass.  

Maybe there is something I'm missing, but the attitude and the political discussion, from Democratic party politicians, doesn't seem to be reachng the level of where the growing protests and marches are going.  Maybe I'm expecting too much, and expecting people to disobey illegal orders, or make it impossible for them to be carried out is more than what is possible in this passive, blissfully ignorant, inattentive, duped country.  

I've been an active enough participant in government to know that my frustration, and my cynicism, are not unwarranted in this particular situation.  When the Republicans have been in the minority, they have shut down the government and have brought progress to a standstill, largely because Democrats wouldn't push past stupid things like the filibuster.  But the only thing we get when Republicans are in charge is the whine that "We aren't the majority so we can't do anything."  I've seen some good examples of when we could have put that stupid filibuster to use, and couldn't get enough Democrats to do it.  

Too much nest feathering, I guess.

Christianity and MAGA Trumpism are Mutually Exclusive

Most of the time, in discussions with conservative Evangelicals regarding the alignment of right wing political extremism with conservative, politicized Evangelicalism, I will get a reference to Charlie Kirk and Turning Point USA, which seems to have become the religious apologist for the MAGA cult.  The problem with that is that the late Kirk, along with the collection of speakers he used to draw crowds to his rallies, follows the same faulty interpretation and perspective of the Bible, making the same errors as the Evangelical branch of the American church does, falling victim to the same pseudo-Christian doctrine and theology.  

Is Heresy Too Harsh a Word to Apply to Kirk and Turning Point? 

Baptist News Global: Here's the Real Context for Understanding Charlie Kirk

Kirk was a Christian nationalist.  And as the linked article above points out, his religious perspective was tailored to fit with Trumpism, and without Trump, there's no Charlie Kirk.  It's hard to use the word heresy here, since what Kirk preached and debated was not really Christian faith, in any context of that being a means by which humans relate to God, but more of a means to align politics with a form of pseudo-Christian religious practice that elimnates Christian principles which are in diametric opposition to MAGA political positions to give those who care more about the political side of the religious right than the religious side of it the means to ignore the Christian gospel and still feel good about it. 

Whew!  That was a long sentence, but it makes the point.  Turning Point USA is pseudo-Christian.  It won't lead you to salvation by grace through faith in Christ, it will lead you to religious sounding justification for right wing Trump politics that are not consistent in any way with real Christian faith. 

In his recent book, The Bible According to Christian Nationalists, Baptist minister Brian Kaylor points out the errors of Christian nationalists, including Kirk, who cherry-pick Bible verses, leaving out both historical context and original meaning, and any other supporting scripture, to aim their message at those who are already steeped in Evangelical presuppositions.  Kaylor eliminates the erroneous conservative Evangelical presuppositions as an interpretive basis by correctly referencing the "Jesus Criterion," as the starting point for interpreting scripture according to the Christian gospel.  

For those not familiar with this Evangelical error, Evangelical Christians claim that the sixty-six books of the Protestant Bible are inerrant, and infallible in the original manuscripts.  This leads to making a grave interpretive error of making all of its contents equal in both their inspiration and their authority.  But that contradicts the nature and person of Jesus, who was, according to the Christian tradition, the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God.  This is not only affirmed in the gospels themselves, but also by the apostolic authors of the New Testament's other works, including Paul and Peter.  Paul, in fact, makes a dramatic affirmation of the supremacy of Christ in Colossians.  

So if Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God, then his words, recorded in the gospels, are the climax of Christian revelation and are the standard by which all of the Bible is to be interpreted.  And he makes several very clear claims when it comes to inspiration and interpretation, including the claim that the law and the prophets are fulfilled in him (Matthew 5:17-18) and that no one comes to God unless it is through him (John 14:6).  So Jesus himself establishes his revelation as the interpretive standard for the rest of the Bible.  

That's where most conservative Evangelicals get off the track.  They interpret in a "verse by verse" kind of way, equating the whole text, which takes it out of context and ignores the original meaning in favor of a "dualist" approach that is not supported anywhere in the Bible.  The Christian gospel begins with the Beatitudes, in Matthew 5, not the Ten Commandments.  Christian practice isn't intellectual assent to a set of doctrinal standards discerned mostly from presuppositions, it is a lifestyle exhibiting the values which Jesus revealed as coming from the nature of God, in whose image humans are created.  

None of those values can be found in MAGA Trumpism.  Not one.  

As Trump's Presidency Exposes Conservative Evangelicalism as a Political-Religious Cult, There Are American Christians Who Remain Faithful to the Bible, and the Christian Gospel

And none of them are conservative Evangelicals.  

Those Christians who are remaining faithful to the gospel message of Jesus Christ, and to a biblically guided, doctrinally and theologically honest practice of Christian principles are labelled as liberal, progressive, moderate, or some other descriptive adjectives used by conservatives to cast derision and disrespect, and accuse those they are labelling of apostasy and heresy.  But it's the conservative Evangelicals, the "religious right," the fundamentalists, Pentecostals, Charismatics and other right wing pseudo-Christians who have distorted and misinterpreted the Bible, and attempted to use it to advance a cause it was never intended to advance, including the Heritage Foundation's "Project 2025" that have become a godless cult. 

Speaking Truth to Power

Bishop Marian Budde had Trump in her sights, in the front row, as she spoke truth to power.  His response resembled the spinning head, green pea-soup spitting character of Regan MacNeil, played by Linda Blair, in The Exorcist.  She stood her ground, backing up her words with Biblical support.  The fact that she is exactly the opposite of what any conservative Evangelical would consider to be an ordained messenger from God--an ordained woman, and a liberal Episcopalian--just underlined the truthfulness of her words and the conviction that they brought.  

That certainly got my attention.  

Growing up Southern Baptist, I've had to work on getting an awful lot of bigotry and prejudice out of my own life.  The absolute nature of the fundamentalism in which I was raised never sat very well with me, but I wasn't in a position to dispute much of it, since the preacher's words were considered as equal with the Bible when he preached, especially from the pulpit.  And the explanation given to attempt to reconcile the contradictions I was hearing from college professors at the Baptist university was that the school had been "taken over by the liberals," and what the professors taught was heresy.  

But that turned out not to be the case at all.  In fact, I discovered, much to my own personal satisfaction, that there are theologically educated Baptists who remain true to the core values and doctrines originally preached and taught by founders of the Baptist faith, in its original confessions, that are rooted in the gospel of Jesus Christ, and are labelled "flaming liberal heresy" by the fundamentalists of the extreme right, who have abandoned the early Baptist confessions.  

I really wish I would have been more decisive in moving away from the cult of conservative Evangelical identity toward the more liberal, Quaker values that are a natural extension of intellectual acceptance of the Christian gospel which is much more centered in living out the core values of Christ's teaching than accepting dogmatic statements about what must be professed and confessed in order to be "saved."  I might have avoided a lot of the frustrations and disappointments I've experienced, even in my career choices, if I had simply walked away.  

Boldness Pre-Dates Bishop Budde's Sermon

It's difficult for many people on the political left to embrace any kind of alliance with any group that identifies as Christian.  Many American political liberals see any kind of Christian practice as intellectual failure, and a betrayal of rational thought.  I would think that pure progressive liberalism would embrace free conscience, regardless of what it produces, and would see those who have made the connection between one of the most powerful cultural influences in the world, and its alignment with their own political views in a way that has the power to protect and preserve American Democracy, and there are many who do see it this way.  

The Episcopal Church has, for a long time, stood squarely on the core values of the Christian gospel.  I remember, when I was a high school student, seeing a sign outside of an Episcopal church building in Tucson, Arizona that proclaimed, "It is a sin to build a nuclear bomb," and directly linking that message to Matthew 5:9, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God."  When I asked my Sunday School teacher in the Baptist church where I grew up about it, I was told that dropping the atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were necessary actions to bring about God's will, and was told that the Episcopalians were in error when it came to understanding and interpreting the Bible.  

It would have been a very bold move for me at the time, when I left home and went off to college, to find, and join an Episcopalian church.  I was a student at a Baptist university after all, and I didn't want to cause my parents more grief than the whole leaving home experience already had caused.  But during that first semester, when the university held a "spiritual emphasis week" with church services held in the middle of each day, the guest speaker was the pastor of a Baptist congregation in Houston that was much different than the one in which I grew up.  In fact, in both preaching and in practice, it sounded and looked much more Episcopalian than Baptist.  

On the Sunday following his last sermon at the university chapel, he was the guest speaker at a Baptist church not far from campus that was much like the one in Texas where he was pastor, and I discovered it, much to my own delight, and joined it.  The preaching and teaching opened up a world of liberal, progressive Christianity to me, along with what I was learning in the required Bible classes at the university, that I didn't know even existed among Baptists who, by remaining true to the original Baptist confessions of faith dating back to the early 1600's, identified them as "flaming liberals."  

Doctrinal purity is not only impossible to achieve, it's a major distraction from the point of the Christian gospel, which is not intellectual assent to correct doctrine and theology, but living a lifestyle influenced by values which enhance human existence and link people together, believing that we are all created in God's image.  We're capable of rational thought, so that we do not become subject to blind obedience.  Some American Christians, because of their tradition and their past, have learned from their history and avoid repeating it.  And I am particularly grateful for all of the clergy, Protestant and Catholic, who are now rising up and pointing out the contrast between the selfishness of MAGA and the grace of the Christian gospel.  

The two things are mutually exclusive.  Embracing MAGA is abandoning Christianity, and embracing Christianity requires complete abandonment of MAGA.  

It's the "Liberal" Mainline Protestants Who Remain Faithful to the Christian Gospel

It would be redundant to repeat the themes from the corruption of conservative Evangelicalism by extremist right wing politics.  John Fugelsang does an excellent job of that in his book, Separation of Church and Hate, in which he points out the contrast between the Christian gospel and the MAGA political objectives as incompatible.  There are others who have also pointed this out, among them liberal Missouri Baptist journalist Brian Kaylor, editor of an independent Baptist news journal, Word and Way, and author of The Bible According to Christian Nationalists: Exploiting Scripture for Political Power  who does an excellent job of documenting the errors of conservative Evangelicals in interpreting the Bible when it comes to far right wing politics.  

Starting with Bishop Marian Budde, the Episcopal Church is zeroing in on the flaws in the theology and doctrine that has been produced by mixing right wing Trumpism with conservative Evangelicalism.  When the Bible is used to justify practices in politics that are contradictory to the principles of the Christian gospel, that's an abuse of what conservative Evangelicals claim is the core issue which separates them from liberals, the doctrine of Biblical authority.  Separating the scripture into "verses," and then considering the meaning in a "verse by verse" manner robs the text of its authority, and its context, which, according to conservative Evangelicals, is theoretically infallible.  

If the Biblical text is infallible, then it cannot have dual meanings for different eras and periods of time, or it would not be infallible.  

The fact that there are American Christians who have a strong grasp of the context of the Bible, and how that has impacted American history, helps them point out error when they see it.    

Yes, I Have a Lot of Regrets

We get caught up in our own lives, which narrows our focus, and we live within the scope of our existence.  I was moving in a particular direction, with family, established friendships, even career choices, and I never really thought about whether what I really believed could be perceived through that, even though I was intentional about my left wing politics and about my efforts to focus what I believed to be true about Christianity, as I expressed it, so that I distinguished myself from conservative Evangelicalism enough to make a difference.  

I don't regret the loss of some relationships I've had that have more or less freed me from the obligation I feel to set people straight when I have had enough of listening to the twisted, illogical and blatantly distorted attempts to justify the departure from Christianity that supporting Trump's MAGA cult requires.  I have enjoyed discussions in which I can watch the horror come over the face of a MAGA conservative Evangelical who realizes that I've built a Biblical case for a liberal doctrinal point or theological concept that makes them look like a heretic arguing against it.  I've had former friends give me knowing looks when they tell me, "I told you going to that seminary would cause you to become a flaming liberal," or try to cite some scripture verse to trash education and reason that they can't actually argue against convincingly.  

I regret that for about half of my adult life, because of family and peer pressure, I let myself be bored to tears every Sunday morning, trying to occupy my mind productively during a harangue attempting to pass as a sermon.  I finally got to the point where I could turn the time over to something enjoyable, and I've filled several notebooks with notes contradicting points made by the preacher in the pulpit.  

After one sermon that provided a particular abundance of theological and doctrinal error to challenge, I got a call during the week from the pastor who had preached it.  We went to lunch, where he disclosed to me his own dissatisfaction at having to insert right wing political points into the sermon to please the congregation who had been growing discontent at his attempt to keep politics out of the church.  He had chosen career over conscience.  Well, he earned a six-figure salary in a Baptist church of fewer than 250 active members, and that was an easier job than being a funeral director.  

I got a couple of great points out of that conversation.  One, that's when I determined that I did not want to find myself in the same position, and I made a commitment to be completely open about how my Christianity leads me to support candidates who are, for lack of a better way to describe them, "woke."  The other was that a church where the pastor must violate his own concience in order to tickle the ears of the MAGA majority among its membership is not a Christian church.  That is, in fact, a denial of one of the core doctrines of Christian faith, which is that humans are created in God's image, demonstrated by their having a free will and a free conscience, and should be subject to no coercion.  

Though I think the labels that give different Christians separate identity can sometimes stand in the way of unity, I appreciate the fact that it has been the Episcopal Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America [ELCA] and the United Methodist Church, the United Church of Christ, the Presbyterian Church United States of America [PCUSA], and the left wing, flaming liberal Baptist churches that have severed ties with the Southern Baptist Convention, joined hands with their African America brethren, and other like minded Baptists who are pointing out, clearly, that Christianity and Trump's MAGA cult are mutually exclusive.  

I do not regret identifying as a Christian, one who experience has helped grow into understanding that this is a faith more about lifestyle than it is about getting the doctrine right and registering on the clipboard passed down each  row every Sunday.  The corrupt, constitution-violating, law-breaking, human disrespect that we see from our current administration is neither patriotic American, nor Christian.  Our free conscience is worth fighting for, and I won't reget identifying as a Patriot and a Peacemaker.   

Turning Point Event Where Speakers Took Swipes at Each Other Shows Fragmentation and Lack of Purpose Among Conservative Evangelicals

Baptist Standard: Turning Point Event Exposes Rifts in Religious Right 

Any possible respect I might have had for Charlie Kirk and his Turning Point USA political organizartion disappeared when, early on, he had Donald Trump Jr. as a speaker.  At one of their rallies in Phoenix, held in the auditorium of an Assembly of God church, Don Jr. criticized one of the core principles preached and taught by Jesus himself when he declared that following Jesus' example, to "turn the other cheek" was an ineffective strategy for "getting anywhere in this world."  

That's a disqualifying comment for any group labelling itself "Christian."  If you look at Turning Point's core values, and what Kirk has said over the course of his involvement with the organization, there is a whole lot more, among his assertions, statements, and comments made in speeches and public appearances, that removes any doubt as to the fact that "Turning Point" and "Christian" are oxymorons.  Kirk is pseudo-Christian, using a lot of language familiar to conservative Christians but, as the Apostle Paul warned Timothy, "having the form of Godliness, but denying its power."  

It's not surprising that a political group with its roots in conservative Evangelical theology and doctrine would miss the mark when it comes to discerning Christian truth.  Evangelicalism's theological and doctrinal structure is built on core beliefs that are not accurate interpretations of true Christian faith, but are, instead, a modern aberration that fails to consider the historical and cultural context in which scripture was written before trying to interpret it.  The literal "verse by verse" approach to interpretation, along with the claim, not made by any of the Bible's writers, that it is without error in its original manuscripts, and that it is infallible in its content, skews the actual meaning behind what was written.  Verses are reference points, not complete thoughts in some kind of order.  

The recent AmeriFest event in Phoenix, an annual event sponsored by Turning Point USA, shows how confused and fragmented those Kirk pulled into the organization have become since his death, if they ever were really interested in anything more than hanging on to his coattails.  

According to Kathryn Post, of Religion News Service, "The movement's cohesion has been tested in recent months by Tucker Carlson's controversial interview with antisemitic internet influencer Nick Fuentes and by disputes over America's support for Israel."  

"It's also been shaken," she said, "over ongoing revelations of tying Trump world figures to sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein and by roiling conspiracy theories, such as former Trump advisor Candace Owens' suggestion that Turning Point USA is complicit in its own co-founder's murder."  

Post noted that Erica Kirk acknowledged these rifts in her opening remarks, warning about their effect on the organization, but that these warnings largely went unheeded by the array of speakers, like Ben Shapiro, Carlson, former White House strategist Steve Bannon and journalist Megyn Kelly who each took turns in their speaking slots swiping at each other.  

Well, thieves do have a tendency to fall out, you know.  

And if you're billing yourself as a theologically correct, conservative, Christian organization, shouldn't the speaking line-up reflect this perspective?  None of those speakers have credentials connecting them to Christian theology and practice, only conservative political beliefs, on the extreme edges of MAGA, at that.  There's nothing Christian about any of them, or the content of their regular harrangues.  

But then, there wasn't much orthodox, Biblical Christianity in anything Kirk spoke about, or debated, or argued, or asserted, either.  Pseudo-Christian is an accurate description of both Kirk and Turning Point.  It completely ignores the cultural and historical contexts necessary to interpret the Bible accurately in order to discern its meaning.  And that's deliberate, I think, because they're not interested in orthodox, Biblical Christian belief, principle or practice.  They are only interested in using its followers to advance their own politics.  

And this December AmeriFest gathering is an excellent illustration of that, along with the fact that there is no longer any real leadership in the organization focused on its mission and purpose.