Category Archives: religion

The Sayings of Charlie

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One side lionizes him. Another side vilifies him.  It should not be hard for both sides to agree that Charlie Kirk was a divisive figure, which is not altogether bad at times because properly-presented division should trigger properly presented discussion.

—In  an ideal world anyway.

n an ideal world anyway.Some speakers are provocative for the purposes of dividing people. Others speakers are provocative as a way to bring people together. Will the passage of time and the softening of partisan passions that time-borne perspective brings produce more productive understandings than these times now allow?

We present to you today a lengthy series of quotes from Charlie Kirk whose recent assassination is a national tragedy regardless of the spectrum with which we observe our political world. We have found some comments that we think apply to his side of the aisle as much as he applied them to the other side. We have found a few that almost sound a little liberal.

Put together from brainyquote.com and msn.com, these quotations, and a couple of others from Snopes, we think, gives us a peek at the character of the man. Some who read these entries will enthusiastically agree with everything he said. Some will enthusiastically disagree with everything he said.

Was he playing the game of divide and conquer?  Was he trying to encourage the other side to cross over into unity?

In the emotion that comes with tragedy, acknowledging greatness or acknowledging something far less is easy. The sharpness of the differences is a reflection on him as well as a reflection of us.

Perhaps the healthiest thing to do with Charlie Kirk’s verbal legacy is to ask ourselves why we react to his words as we did when he spoke them—-and how we can get beyond those differences, if we have the courage to look within ourselves to do so.

Five years from now, ten years from now, when the emotional response to tragedy had passed, how do you suppose we as individuals as well as we as a nation will think about the things he said—if we remember them at all?

When you reach the end, you might rightfully ask, “Did he really say all these things?”

Factcheck.org put out a lengthy piece asking the same question and answering it. We suggest it will be helpful if you read the article regardless of which Kirk side you are.

Viral Claims About Charlie Kirk’s Words – FactCheck.org

There also are other fact checking sites on the internet you might want to look at.

At the end of this long list, we will present some compelling thoughts of former Vice President Mike Pence who put the focus on these days after the assassination more on where it should be.

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If you believe in something, you need to have the courage to fight for those ideas – not run away from them or try and silence them.

We have to tell our babies to stop crying.

As government imposes the will of a few upon the many, the many begin to resist. Ultimately, it becomes necessary for the government to use force to make the people conform.

When you deliberately distort and selectively present the truth, you lie.

I’m urging all my millennial peers and the young people coming up behind us to look for signs and symptoms of them being in a Democrat-induced delusion. Don’t confuse the dream state of the socialists with any sort of reality. If you spot any signs of this politically terminal affliction within yourself, please seek help.

One of the most horrifying and surprising evolutions we have witnessed among our widespread campus network is the rapid movement away from tolerating opposing ideas and respectful debate to the deployment of obscene bully tactics from the left.

The truth is that while those on the left – particularly the far left – claim to be tolerant and welcoming of diversity, in reality many are quite intolerant of anyone not embracing their radical views.

Many textbooks fail to present students with both sides of an issue. Students are being pushed toward an education that demonizes free enterprise while advocating top-down government, deficit spending and class warfare.

I started a college campus-based nonprofit in June 2012 called Turning Point U.S.A. to target millennials in college. Our mission was to create a powerful conservative grassroots activist network on campuses and identify, educate, train and organize students to promote the principles of freedom, free markets and limited government.

Political correctness is the deadliest of political weaponry.

Liberal-socialist women generalize about women as if they are some sort of monolithic voting block of disenfranchised, victimized citizens.

For anyone who can only handle about 12-minutes-per-day of anything news related before needing to retreat into isolation, allow me to recommend spending those 12 minutes listening to the opening monologue of ‘The Rush Limbaugh Show.’

The Democrats want a pathway to citizenship for the illegal immigrants so they can become Democratic voters in a few years – and some Democrats even argue that non-citizens ought to be able to vote in U.S. elections.

You can’t watch Fox News without seeing five or six segments a day about the nuttiness on college campuses.

Liberals like to say there aren’t any limitations on speech, and it’s true that they can say or do just about anything. But conservatives apparently can’t even stand still while wearing a MAGA hat without crossing a line.

Say what you will about President Trump’s tone, tactics or tweeting, but even his most strident critics admit he’s at his best when on the offensive.

Conservatives are branded bigots and we are falsely accused of hate speech when we express traditional values and ideas that have made America the greatest country on Earth.

This silent majority are the Americans who love God, their family, and our amazing country. They don’t want their morals, their job, or their lifestyle threatened by the government or any candidates.

Cultural Marxism that has permeated all of Europe and has been the driving force that has brought France – the nation of Liberty, Fraternity and Equality – to the brink.

President Trump identifies the hatred and intolerance expressed by his radical opponents and names it for what it is.

I believe we’re broken by sin upon birth.

If there’s one thing Democrats are good at, it’s killing American jobs.

The perverse gift of the Chinese coronavirus is that it has given Americans an up close and personal look at the horrors of big government – and, by extension, socialism.

When students have access to low-interest loans and government aid, colleges have no incentive to cut costs. Why should a college lower tuition if more students are able to pay with subsidized loans from the government?

If you take away what a person owns, you control what that person can do.

It is part of our human nature to want to be liked. It is part of our human nature to worry about what others think of us. It is an attribute of greatness and of American exceptionalism to not surrender to our nature, but to be guided by an inner calling to persevere and to prevail, no matter the personal cost.

Democrats have long been the party of voter fraud.

Nothing in socialist doctrine argues for the abuse of power, from Thomas More, to Karl Marx, to Chavez, to Ocasio-Cortez. Historically, however, it has been the case that socialist countries often end up violently suppressing their citizens.

How can it possibly be that so many Americans are rallying to support Ocasio-Cortez, when all they need to do is look at Venezuela to see where she is leading them?

We have been indoctrinated to see the world through a politically correct lens.

There are young conservatives out there, and there have been for decades.

Many migrants awaiting asylum hearings in the U.S. never show up for their court dates. And the longer they stay in the U.S., the more sympathy they draw in the media and from many compassionate Americans.

Too often, teachers and professors misrepresent conservative viewpoints, and intentionally muddle what it means to be a conservative.

Whenever there has been a debate on the national stage, nobody has had to go looking to find me. I’ve been there. Always making the argument for free markets, first principles, and limited government.

It is extremely difficult to stand up for principles when many of your friends are automatically liberal or just do not care.

Trump is the first president in a generation who is willing to take political risks to secure our border.

In addition to making sense and serving the needs of justice, rehabilitating prisoners and releasing them when they are ready can save taxpayers money.

Tiger Woods experienced perhaps the greatest fall from grace of any celebrity in American history.

Entrepreneurs take measured risks, not hopeless gambles.

America’s young people deserve more than a mediocre future – and we now have demonstrated proof that President Trump is building a path for our success.

The United States has been turned into a mindless true-false test, instead of the complex essay exam, it should be. You are either for open borders, or you are racist and anti-immigration. It just doesn’t work that way.

There is no question that automation is – and has been since the start of the Industrial Revolution – displacing workers and creating disruption within the economy and labor market.

Young people in college – many living away from their parents for the first time in their lives – are particularly vulnerable to the leftist propaganda campaign designed to turn them away from supporting President Trump and turning them away from believing in American exceptionalism.

In politics as in sports, the best defense is a good offense.

Since the end of WWII, France’s steady movement away from Western ideas of individual liberty and self-determination – and toward collectivist action and conformance – has created a people overly dependent on government, hobbled by crippling taxes and lacking in individual initiative.

We’ve been conditioned to see a video of white people in MAGA hats standing in front of a Native American and assume that the white people are racists.

For years, elites in both political parties have ignored the illegal immigration crisis growing on America’s southern border.

The left has viewed the coronavirus pandemic as a political ‘opportunity’ from the start.

I know many young conservatives all across the country that are isolated and ostracized due to their beliefs. They are portrayed as bigots, misogynists and ignorant just because they are conservative.

A healthy economy is a foundation for a healthy future.

Yes, America is a nation of immigrants – but the immigrants have to enter legally.

Yes, college tuition is a problem for many young Americans, but it is a problem exacerbated by government subsidies and an overwhelming demand to get a college degree, despite high dropout rates.

I have been advocating in favor of free markets and against socialism since I was a teenager.

The case for socialism is always made based on an ideal and a promise. The ideal is that humans can lovingly coexist in a sharing and peaceful way. The promise is that this time, unlike failed attempts elsewhere, socialism will be implemented properly, and no citizen will suffer as a result.

The real reason Democrats are pushing for universal mail-in balloting has nothing to do with the global pandemic which originated in China; they simply believe it will help them win elections.

We have to teach goodness to our infants.

We live in a welfare state society – one that is already bloated and overburdened. We cannot continue to absorb and support an endless stream of people who will inevitably need legal residents to subsidize their lives.

Conservatives by and large believe in the corrective power of the free market above all. If we don’t like how private companies are doing business, we should just start our own to compete, right?

Once we lose our border protection, the road to citizenship, voting and welfare benefits for a flood of new immigrants will be all but paved.

I founded Turning Point U.S.A. to take the fight for ideological diversity directly to a progressive stronghold: the nation’s leading colleges and universities.

We must also be real. We must be honest with the population. Having an armed citizenry comes with a price, and that is part of liberty… We need to be very clear that you’re not going to get gun deaths to zero. It will not happen. But I think it’s worth it. I think it’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year, so that we can have the Second Amendment,

I can’t stand the word empathy, actually. I think empathy is a made-up, new age term that does a lot of damage.

Black women do not have brain processing power to be taken seriously. You have to go steal a white person’s slot.

This is something that I hope will make Taylor Swift more conservative: Engage in reality more… Reject feminism. Submit to your husband, Taylor. You’re not in charge.

Gun control, like vaccines and masks, is focused on making people feel ‘safe’ by taking freedoms away from others. Don’t fall for it.

Now, I will say that for future retirees, people under the age of 45, we should absolutely raise the retirement age. I’m going to say something very provocative. I’m not a fan of retirement. I don’t think retirement is biblical. You say, ‘Charlie, I’m just gonna retire and I’m just gonna go golf.’ I think, what a waste of the gifts that God has given you.

I have a very, very radical view on this, but I can defend it, and I’ve thought about it. We made a huge mistake when we passed the Civil Rights Act in the mid-1960s.

MLK was awful. He’s not a good person. He said one good thing he actually didn’t believe.

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Former Vice President Mike Pence, who had watched some of the angry words spoken in the wake of Kirk’s death, suggested we develop or keep a proper perspective on what had happened and what we should do and be next:

“I truly do pray for his family, commend law enforcement in the community. But you understand the anger in this moment? It’s understandable, but I think we’ve got to be careful about putting America on trial whenever we see evil overtake the hearts of any individual, and in this case, absent additional facts, it was one person responsible for Charlie Kirk’s assassination. He needs to be brought to justice, swift and certain.

“Can people in public life do better in the way that we speak with one another and about the issues facing the country? Of course, and democracy depends on heavy doses of civility. But Charlie Kirk was a champion of the First Amendment, a champion of free and open debate. He ultimately died defending it, and I think on that principle we should stand and ensure that it’s part of his legacy beyond one.”

—Regardless of whether we agree with what Charlie Kirk said, we must remember that he had a right to say what he said, just as critics have a right to express themselves. And all of us should oppose any efforts to end or limit that freedom.

A death might still the voice of one person but we cannot allow it to mute the voices of all of us.

Sellout

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The Missouri General Assembly has sold out the people of Missouri and more than two centuries of our heritage in following President Trump’s dictate on congressional elections.

The quick obedience of our legislature came less than a month after Trump issued a wholly unconstitutional rant on his social media page on August 18—

Remember, the States are merely an ‘agent’ for the Federal Government in counting and tabulating the votes. They must do what the Federal Government, as represented by the President of the United States, tells them, FOR THE GOOD OF OUR COUNTRY, to do.

While we might have had other presidents who THOUGHT that, only Donald Trump has said so clearly and unmistakably that he is a dictator, the Congress, the Courts, and the Constitution be damned. He, he claims, can order states to do his bidding.

It is nothing short of a political tragedy that our Governor and our Missouri General Assembly have so unabashedly acknowledged that he is what he says he is and they will take orders from him, to the detriment of their constituents.

The legislative journals will be testimony for decades to come how completely the people from our home towns that we chose to represent us have sold out to a president who respects no bounds, including those of the United States Constitution, as well as forfeiting the rights of independence asserted by our State Constitutions for more than two centuries.

To be clear: What Trump and our legislature have done is NOT for the good of our country or our state. Their actions are an abdication by the majority of their oath of office to defend the Constitutions of the United States and the State of Missouri:

“I do solemnly swear, or affirm, that I will support the Constitution of the United States and of the state of Missouri, and faithfully perform the duties of my office……”

The attitude by legislators who have endorsed the Trump congressional district map raises serious questions whether the people in the House and the Senate that we elected to serve and to protect US have “faithfully performed” the duties of their office—which do not include following the dictates of a President of the United States who demands service only for the good of Donald J. Trump, a man either ignorant of the Constitution HE swore to uphold or who flagrantly ignores Section Four, which reserves the power to the states to regulate elections and the counting of votes and they in no way must do what the President tells them to do.

The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of choosing Senators.

The loophole in the language, however, does allow the legislature to carry out a President’s wishes and there’s nothing to stop a power-hungry President from telling the legislature to do his bidding and the majority of the legislative members can rationalize reasons for doing so—which they have done although the legislature is under no legal obligation to do so.

The legislature also has ignored the wording of every Missouri Constitution in the 204-year history of our state by agreeing Missouri, and other states “are merely an ‘agent’ for the Federal Government in counting and tabulating the votes.”

States are not agents. They are independent subdivisions and Missouri has repeatedly claimed that distinction. Article Ten of the Bill of Rights, often cited—especially by Republicans—establishes that:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Missouri has always firmly claimed those powers, beginning with our first constitution.

1820: “We, the people of Missouri, inhabiting the limits hereinafter designated, by our representatives in convention assembled, at St. Louis, on Monday the 12th day of June, 1820, do mutually agree to form and establish a free and independent republic, by the name of ‘the State of Missouri;’ and for the government thereof, do ordain and establish this constitution.”

1865: Article 1, Section 5: That the people of this state have the inherent, sole, and exclusive right of regulating the internal government and police thereof, and of altering and abolishing their Constitution and form of government, whenever it may be necessary to their safety and happiness; but every such right should be exercised in pursuance of law, and consistently with the Constitution of the United States.

1875:  BILL OF RIGHTS. In order to assert our rights, acknowledge our duties, and proclaim the principles on which our government is founded, we declare-.

Section 1. Political power, origin of. —That all political power is vested in and derived from the people; that all government of right originates from the people, is founded upon their will only, and is instituted solely for the good of the whole. [Same as Const. 1865, Art. 1, Sec. 4.]

Sec. 2. Internal affairs, regulation of. —That the people of this State have the inherent, sole and exclusive right to regulate the internal government and police thereof, and to alter and abolish their Constitution and form of government whenever they may deem it necessary to their safety and happiness : Provided, Such change be not repugnant to the Constitution of the United States.  (same, in substance, as language from 1865 Constitution)

1945 Constitution: Bill of Rights:

Section 4. Independence of Missouri—submission of certain amendments to Constitution of the United States.—That Missouri is a free and independent state, subject only to the Constitution of the United States; that all proposed amendments to the Constitution of the United States qualifying or affecting the individual liberties of the people or which in any wise may impair the right of local self-government belonging to the people of this state, should be submitted to conventions of the people.

Free and Independent state?  Not anymore.  Not as long as a President can say “jump” and the Missouri legislature leaps.

How high would it leap?  Senator Lincoln Hough of Springfield is the answer. Hough has been a trusted figure among the Republican super majority. You don’t get much more trusted than by being put in charge of the committee that decided what gets how much of a $50 billion budget.

He and Senator Mike Moon of Ash Grove  voted against both the petition proposal and against Trump’s gerrymandered map.

Hough has told The Missouri Independent that Senate leader Cindy O’Laughlin within minutes of the vote removed him as the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee because he defied orders to vote for the petition and redistricting bills.

Hough told The Independent, “She said, ‘​w​e are tired of fighting with you.’  To which my response was, ‘did you fight with me this week, or did I just go out here and vote no on something that was handed down to the Missouri Senate and a bunch of elected members who are not allowed to talk?’”

“What I’ve seen at the end of last session, and what I saw this week, is a dismantling of what the Senate is supposed to be.”

The Senate as an institution nationally and in this state has always—until now—held itself to be the careful, deliberative chamber that allowed all voices to be heard, even if those voices tried to defeat or  modify legislation.  What happened in that chamber last week ended that important role in which one chamber of the Congress or of the legislature cooly evaluates the value and the honesty of legislation.

The Senate leadership, not even pretending to honor that tradition and that role in the system of government checks and balances that our nation’s creators gave us, destroyed that tradition. It twice voted to silence opposing voices and go straight to a vote, the outcome of which was guaranteed even with the two GOP defectors (Republicans control 2/3 of the seats in both chambers).

O’Laughlin several days ago fell back on the questionable excuse that the bills should be rammed through the special session to protect “Christian conservative values.” We are still waiting for her definition of them.

Whether the government should force Christian views—-or the perceived views of politicians who consider themselves Christians—on others seems clearly violative of the First Amendment’s establishment clause.

The Pew Research Center recently released its survey on religion in Missouri, showing 62% of Missourians identify themselves as Protestant Christians. Catholic Christians represent 14%.  Historically Black Protestants make up five percent. Four percent of adults identify with other religions—Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindus and other world religions.

One-third of the responding adults say they are “nones,” religiously-unaffiliated. Five percent are atheists and eight percent are agnostic. “Nothing in particular” adds up to 20%.

If our legislature was interested in a representative congressional map, especially one based on those “Christian Conservative Values,” the map would be 5-3 Republican based on the perentages in the Pew study. Instead, it has caved to political greed and created a 7-1 map that does away with the only ordained Christian in our delegation and one of only of two active Christian ministers in the U.S. House of Representatives. Then it punished one of the caucus’s own members for taking a principled stand while the rest of his party colleagues sold out.

Whether it is a matter of religion or just raw politics, the Senate by its actions, got far under the covers with our President, and—in effect—endorsed his great desire to be a dictator.

Ultimately, these actions will reach the federal courts. Sadly, we no longer have confidence that the ultimate federal court will find our legislature’s bowing to a President seeking total power is far out of Constitutional bounds.

Some of the protestors at the Capitol when the House voted pointed to the state motto, “Let the welfare of the people be the supreme law.”  Pretty clearly, the legislature has chosen the welfare of Donald Trump as its priority.

You and I have been sold out by those closest to us that we trust to defend our freedoms from a President who wants to become a tyrant.

Remember those who have done this to us. Remember it next year when they ask for your vote.

We do still have the right to vote for our legislators.

For now.

A REALLY Special Session

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Our lawmakers are back in Jefferson City to help decide what kind of a country we will have, and what kind of country we will be. That’s a pretty strong observation. But if we are honest, it is also pretty strongly true.

Governor Kehoe has called them back because President Trump worries he won’t have continued absolute power for the last half of his term unless legislatures in various states take unprecedented action to change congressional district lines to eliminate Democrats.

Forget what the voters decided in the 2024 Congressional elections. Make sure some of them can’t have the representative they elected because a President who brags about his popularity is worried that, in truth, he is so unpopular in poll after poll that Americans might vote in 2026 to impede his seizure of absolute power.

The Missouri legislature wants to take Representative Emanuel Cleaver’s elected job away from him by splitting his district so about half of his biggest supporters can’t vote for him in 2026.

It is interesting that Republicans, who have so many chest-thumping evangelical Christians supporting them, want to eliminate a member of Congress who is a Christian minister. Perhaps Emanuel Cleaver isn’t Christian enough. Perhaps they think he is spiritually lost or spiritually bankrupt because he’s a Methodist, a mainline Christian group that has split in a dispute about whether God creates gays.

Wouldn’t you think that a president who peddles Bibles, poses holding a Bible in front of a D. C. church, and says in commercials that he has several Bibles and it’s his favorite book would want someone like Congressman Cleaver in Washington as a moral force?

That’s Trump’s problem. He is not a moral force himself. In fact, there are plenty who wonder if he has any morals at all.

Donald Trump, who is so scared of losing power that he will disrupt the entire system of picking a representative government, wants the legislature to just turn over the keys to the democratic process in Missouri to him.

He talks about American exceptionalism but cares not for the government system that gives us that distinction and he will do anything to make sure his power goes unchecked for as long as he and his political offspring can keep it.

Have the people of Missouri asked for this change in who represents them?

No.  There has been no public outcry that our congressional delegation has betrayed the people who elected it. But those we have chosen to represent us at the state level are facing a demand that the legislature go against its own public’s wishes so Missouri can help keep a man in power who day after day advances policies that are antithetical to a heritage that millions have lived and died to defend and to perfect.

Now we have the spectacle of our chosen state representatives and our chosen state senators meeting to undermine our representatives in the national government that we voted to support less than one year ago, and in the process throw out a Black Methodist minister who has served our state with great honor and decency in Washington since January 3, 2005, a man dedicated to public service in the pulpit as well as in the places of power—a dozen years on the city council in our largest city, eight years as its mayor, and more than two decades representing Christian values and his district’s needs.

He rightfully threatens to fight this ill-conceived realignment in court: “It will render people in Kansas City essentially silent and powerless,” Cleaver said. “The reason I’m saying this is Kansas City is roughly 70-something percent Democratic. If you tear Kansas City apart — put one portion of the Kansas City area in one district, the other in another — the chances are they have no representation.”

He is correct although today’s majority party does not seem to care.

What hammer does Donald Trump hold over our lawmakers that makes them so craven in doing his bidding? It’s a big one. It’s the power to withhold or even take back the billions of dollars in federal funding that underwrite about half of the state budget.

It is awfully hard to look down the barrel of that gun and not wilt. Trump wants no defiance from Missouri and from other Republican states. He and those who are pulling his strings daily prove they care not one whit for most of us but expects our voices in government at state and federal levels to say only two words: “Yes, sir.”

Some key questions emerge: Is there time to make all of this happen?  Can opponents drag out the special session before the bill passes and the court battles begin and how long will that process take before it clears state courts and goes through the federal court system, which will take even more time?

When will filing for these offices begin if this issue is tied up in courts?  Candidates cannot file in districts that will not legally exist until the courts rule which map will be THE map. When will primary elections be held, ditto? When will lawsuits challenging the results begin and be processed? Will the court fights be  done  before time for a November election?

This is going to be a long and ugly process that will do nothing to improves public confidence in Missouri’s, and the nation’s, government.

One man wants to take away one of our members of Congress with a new map THAT IS UNLIKELY TO BE PUT OUT FOR VOTER APROVAL before an election is held specifically to oust a congressman who has been elected eleven times by people in a district that Trump wants the Missouri legislature to destroy.

Here is the final question:

How much does the Missouri General Assembly want to disgrace itself for a man who has been considered by almost 150 of the nation’s most distinguished historians one of the worst presidents in history—-eve before he started swinging a sledgehammer in his second term.

Despite the words of a long-ago popular song, Freedom IS a word for everything to lose.

Our legislators will tell us at the end of this special session if they think it is, as the song also says, “just another word.”

Sometimes—-

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I wish I was a reporter again. God! I used to love to ask important people, “What the Hell do you think you’re doing?” although I didn’t use those words. The point of the questions was the same.  I loved those moments, as good reporters do.  It’s what we are there for, actually.

Bloomberg News has quoted the leader of the Missouri Senate saying President Trump wants our congressional districts redrawn “to be sure Missouri’s representation matches Missouri’s Christian conservative majority.”

If I were still a reporter, I would have several questions. .

What are the values of a “Christian conservative majority” that are lacking in any of our present congressional districts—or members of Congress?  Is it just a matter of Democrats serving from two of those districts?  Does the election of Democrats indicate a majority of the people in a district lack Christian values, particularly “Christian conservative” values?

Given that our two Democratic controlled districts are centered in our biggest cities, is she suggesting St. Louis and Kansas City are to some degree not Christian?

Are these congressional districts that are not conservative Christian Muslim?  Shintoists? Buddhists? Sikhs?  Atheists?  One of the Congressmen is a Methodist Minister. Is he not Christian enough?  He’s the one in the crosshairs. How about Methodists generally?  The denomination has split recently. Which side is most Christian?

How does the Trump administration reflect the Christian values of being our brother’s keeper, of being the Good Samaritans, of helping the poor, of healing the sick? How does President Trump fit into that description of Christianity?

How is ICE and its behaviors a reflection of “Christian conservative values?”

How does she square Paul’s letter to the Galatians that proclaims, “There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

—Or even how well the leader of our government fits the admonition from the Old Testament Prophet Micah:

He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.

It seems from here that there are shortages in the justice and mercy categories. And humility is not a word in the Bible he’s peddling.

One of the joys of being a reporter is being curious about things and having access to people who can discuss answers to that curiosity.

I was away from the Capitol for about five years after I left my life in the newsroom and when I went back to the Capitol to try to convince the legislature to do things the casino industry won’t let it do, I realized how much I missed the intellectual give-and-take of the place. A reporter’s job is to question and questions by reporters should not be automatically interpreted as hostile as often as they are, especially today when some political skin seems horribly thin.

How can we understand the religious attitudes that are dividing us if we refuse to ask or refuse to answer questions that test what we believe. And how Christian is it to claim that there is no room for different interpretations whether they are personal, denominational, social, or political?

Religion is an especially touchy subject these days when it has become a political tool or weapon. I struggle to accept those who think differing views make someone less Christian.

As I have often remarked, “Nothing screws up faith more than religion.”

I’d like to know what religion has to do with congressional redistricting.  I doubt that Donald Trump has made that one of his reasons for trying to gerrymander-rig the 2026 elections.

Apparently, six Christian districts and two heathen districts isn’t good enough.  We’ll be watching how legislators suddenly take a heathen area and with a few strokes of their genuine Donald J. Trump Sharpie, legislators will turn a heathen part of the state into a Christian one.

I’m pretty sure that is not something James Madison and his fellow creators anticipated when they wrote the Constitution. And I’m also pretty sure the court system has never ruled that congressional districts must be drawn intentionally to reflect Christian values.

I’m just an observer now. But, man oh man, there are times when I wish I could walk up to someone who thinks they’re important and ask things like this.

One Christian to another.

 

The Pious Silence

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“With gratitude and humility, we pray for President Trump. You assigned him, you appointed him, you anointed him for such a time as this. We ask You to cover him with the blood of Jesus, empowering him to advance an agenda of righteousness and justice, truth and love.

Protect him from all evil as he undergirds our nation with the firewall of our Judeo-Christian value system. Fulfill Your purpose in his life.”

—Prayer given in the oval office, March 23, 2025, by Rev. Samuel Rodriguez of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, one of several evangelical pastors who laid hands on President Trump, a repeat of a ceremony at the start of his first term. The President appeared to be earnestly participating.

Shortly after, podcaster Todd Starnes attacked those who question Trump’s Christianity and the motives of those who regard him as a national savior: “The ‘Christians’ complaining about Christians praying over President Trump in the Oval Office are not Christians.”

Last year, just before the Iowa caucuses, a television add proclaimed: “And on 14 June 1946, God looked down on his planned paradise and said: ‘I need a caretaker.’ So God gave us Trump,

“God said I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, fix this country, work all day, fight the Marxists, eat supper, then go to the Oval Office and stay past midnight at a meeting of the heads of state. So God made Trump,”

When the similar group of Christian Nationalist preachers held a laying-on of hands ceremony in 2017, the Reverend Robert Jeffress, a Texas Southern Baptist preacher, told Trump, “Mr. President, we’re going to be your most loyal friends.”

Among all the voices protesting Medicaid Cuts, using government agencies to punish opponents, indiscriminate roundups of immigrants, the dismantling of government agencies and programs helping the poor with food and medicines, and—most recently—the burning of hundreds of thousands of pounds of food that could have kept thousands of African children alive, where are these preachers?

The silence of these pious ministers is thunderous.

Is THIS a President whose words and actions show he wants “to advance an agenda of righteousness and justice, truth and love?”

Is this President—who has jerked everybody around on the Epstein matter, who has deported people to nations far away from their own, who reportedly is jamming people into Florida cages, and who has cut Medicaid payments—undergirding the nation “with the firewall of our Judeo-Christian value system?”

Is he fulfilling God’s purpose?

Let’s hear it, preachers.  Tell us, God, that what we are seeing and getting—of which we have only scratched the surface in the lists above—fulfilling your purpose?

Tell us, most loyal friends, why you aren’t saying anything about all of this?  Do you believe a loving God is rooting for Trump to do all of the mean, cruel, unfeeling, un-loving things to others?

Can you watch what has happened since you prayed for him and still believe God “assigned him…appointed him (and) anointed him for such a time as this?”

Do you really believe his acts and statements truly represent our Judeo-Christian value system? Was Jesus a lying bully?

Is not Donald Trump exposing the falseness of the proclamations of pious faith leaders such as yourselves?

And what is it you have faith in?

Who’s not a Christian, Mr. Starnes—those who seek to serve others or those who seek power to serve themselves?

A lot of us are praying these days but not for Trump; for our country.

I lost a good friend this week, a gentle man who celebrated sixty years in the ministry just a few weeks ago with what became his last sermon. The Reverend John Bennett dedicated his life to social justice and told an interviewer a few years ago, “My guideposts as I move forward in my life and ministry are Micah, Chapter 6, verse 8.  ‘Do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with God,’ which is to walk in solidarity with all who hurt.”

And how did he hope others would remember him?

“He was a gentle and passionate man, on fire for social justice, rooted in his deep faith.”

I will take one John Bennett for 500 of those who would lay hands on Donald Trump.

(photo credit–Facebook)

Notes from a Quiet Hill 

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—-stuff we can’t resist commenting on but don’t want to spend time writing more about.

As we were about to file this piece last night, the New York Times reported that this country’s largest Protestant denomination, the Southern Baptists, had overwhelmingly voted to try to get the Supreme Court to overturn its ruling approving same-sex marriage.

I am a Protestant. And as is the case with the Southern Baptists, I consider myself a Christian. But I struggle to understand how those who also call themselves Christians can then dictate who other people can love, how they can love, and whether some are not permitted to love at all.

After all, love is at the core of Christianity.

Protestants and Catholics alike like to quote First Corinthians 13:13: “Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.” (New Living Translation,)

We are free to practice our religion however we wish in this country, even if it seems inconsistent with the great Love chapter of the Inspired Word. I think my faith (which is different from religion) is more in line with Paul’s letter to the Christians at Corinth.

Okay—-now that the heavy stuff is out of the way:

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If I was a reporter covering the White House, there are two words that I would say almost all the time when I’m talking to today’s President or other politicians, but especially the President whose statements are from here to Mars away from the truth:

“Prove It.”

He wouldn’t. But he’d call me “nasty” for suggesting something he has no interest in doing.

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Wonder what’s going to happen to the Tesla that President Trump bought from Elon Musk while they were still best buds.

Tell ya what I’m gonna do.  If there are any who view these entries who has the fevered ear of our president, tell him that I’ll give him $2,500 for it. I’ll even fly to Washington on my own dime and drive it back to Missouri, stopping for a relaxing recharge every 375 miles or so. I would like for him to sign it somewhere that won’t get lost in a rainstorm and to have it fully charged when I pick it up.

That’s my top offer. I could lower  the price it if the President thinks my offer is too high for showing his new disdain for Elon.  And I won’t object if he’d just give it to me.

If any of you have any connections that can accomplish this deal, let them know of this kind offer.

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We like Andy Borowitz, a satiric columnist and a serious observer of things.  He recently reported, tongue in cheek, that the President of Mexico—exercising the beyond-boundaries prerogatives our President thinks the world should honor—has exercised her own beyond-boundaries prerogative. She has renamed our Liberty Bell.

TACO Bell.

As in, “Trump Always Chickens Out” after his big tariff announcements.

Mr. Trump is real touchy on a lot of things and this one really is sand in his underwear. All the more reason to say it.  But I won’t remind him of that when I pick up the Tesla

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Missouri has an artists and athletes tax that requires the state income tax be deducted from payments made for concerts and professional sports event participants..  When the Cubs play in St. Louis, the players’ daily pay during the series is subject to the income tax.

I suggested to the House Ways and Means Committee earlier this year that we need to similarly tax highly-paid college athletes for their Name, Image, and Likeness incomes. They’re not amateurs anymore, nor are they student-athletes. We have athlete-students with the emphasis on the first word. You can’t have million-dollar amateurs.

Plus, the experience would be a good introduction to the real world of income taxes for these players.

The New Pope

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I remember as a young boy in downstate Illinois watching The Chicago Cardinals play their NFL games with Red Grange describing the action from the broadcast booth.

Finally, after all this time, we have a Chicago Cardinal as the head of the Roman Catholic Church.

The Chicago Cardinals later moved to St. Louis and became the St. Louis (Football) Cardinals.

It turns out that the new Pope did the same thing.  The football team lasted longer in St. Louis than he did. Today, they’re in Arizona. The man known to friends in St. Louis as Bob Prevost has moved to Vatican City, the world’s smallest nation.

We watched his speech, given in—I think—at least three languages, none of them English. Or French, of which I have a certain familiarity since I passed three of four semesters of it.

I was reminded of a story I once heard about professional baseball players who went out to battle areas during World War II to entertain the troops. We’re most familiar with stories of entertainers who did USO shows, but baseball players who were ineligible for the draft volunteered to cheer up the troops and would go out, about four at a time, and visit areas that were (mostly) recently cleared of the enemy.

One such troupe was made up of former Gashouse Gang shortstop Leo Durocher, then the manager of the Dodgers, Nick Etten who led the American League in 1944 in home runs and walks as a first baseman with the Yankees, New York sportswriter Tom Meany, and Joe “Ducky” Medwick, also a former Gashouse Gang guy but who was by then a member of the New York Giants.

They did at least four shows a day in Italy at a time when the Allies were taking the country town by town. Meany would be the emcee. A 22-minute film of the 1944 World Series (St. Louis vs. St. Louis with all six games in Sportsman’s Park) and then the three players would talk. There would be a true-false quiz show with the winners getting autographed baseballs, and then the guys would stick around for autographs and talks with the soldiers.

Eventually their tour took them to Rome where Medwick and Durocher got to meet Pope Pius XII. Durocher asked the Pope to bless his rosary, which he did. And then the Pope turned to Medwick and asked him about his background.  And Medwick supposedly answered:

“Your Holiness, I’m Joseph Medwick. I, too, used to be a Cardinal.”

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Three members of the 133-member Conclave also have ties to the St. Louis area. Wilson Gregory of Washington D. C. was the Archbishop of Belleville Illinois, and in 2020 became the first African-American Cardinal in 2020. Raymond Burke was the Archbishop in St. Louis, 2004-08 and became a Cardinal in 2010. Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, who became a Cardinal in 2012 was the Auxiliary Bishop in St. Louis 2001-02.

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In 1977, fresh Villanova University graduate Robert Prevost (the picture is from the 1977 college yearbook) joined the Augustinian order and went to the Compton Heights neighborhood of St. Louis and became took his first step in the priesthood as a novice at Immaculate Conception Catholic Church. He took his first vows a year later and four years after that, he took his final vows.

The Post-Dispatch interviewed St. Louis Zoo employee Steve Baker, a friend from those early days. “Never in my life did I think that someone that I knew was going to be the pope,” he told the PD. “I mean, I sat at a kitchen table and drank coffee with this man…This guy was a rock star. You cold tell even then he was destined to be great.”

Now, however, comes a critical question: Can the new Pope, a Chicago native, be a Cubs fan?

Breath a sigh of relief St. Louis Cardinals fans.  He’s a White Sox guy.

Whew!

The mental image of Pope Leo XIV leading the crowd in “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” at Wrigley Field would have been impossible to take.

(If you want a much better telling of the Medwick and the Pope story, go to Ducky and The Lip in Italy – Society for American Baseball Research)

The Golden Rule Today

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It use to be darkly humorous to note than in contemporary society, “He who has the gold rules.”

But today, in this country where egalitarianism is taking a beating from the super-oligarch behind the simple-oligarch, there is no humor in that twisting of the verse from the New Testament Book of Matthew, “All things whatsoever you would that men should do to you, do even so to them.”

Or in contemporary English, “Do unto Oohers and you would have the do unto you.”

The sentiment seems completely unfamiliar to our President or to his top henchmen and his Meat Cleaver Vigilantes.

The Golden Rule is not just a Christian instruction.  Other faiths have their versions of it.

Sathya Si Baba, a Hindu guru who claimed to be the reincarnation of 19th century spiritual master Sai Baba of Shirdi, whose teachings were a blend of the Christianity and Muslim faiths, wrote: “You must examine every act to find out if it will cause pain to others; if it does, withdraw from it. Don’t do to others what you do not like done unto you. This is called the Golden Rule. Yes, it is the best test for distinguishing right from wrong.”  (SSS 7:227

The equivalent for Buddhists from Udana-Varga 5:18is, “In five ways should a clansman minister to his friends and families by generosity, courtesy, and benevolence, by treting them as he treats himself and by being as good at his word.”

Judaism: “What is hurtful to yourself, do not do to your fellow man.” (Talmud, Shabbat 3id)

Muhammed told his followers, “No one of you is a believer until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself.” (Sunnah)

In The Great Learning, Ta Haio, Confucius comes pretty close to our contemporary language: “Do not unto others that you would not they should do until you.”

Mahabharta 5:17 tells Hindus, “Do not do to others that which if done to thee would cause thee pain.”

Followers of the Indian faith called Jainism, one of the world’s oldest religions, say, “In happiness and suffering, in joy and grief, we should regard “all creatures as we regard our own self.”

The lesson from Grantha Sahib in the Sikh faith is, “As thou deemest thyself, so deem others. Then shall thou become a partner in heaven.”

The Tao Tu Ching, The Book of the Way and Virtue teaches students of the Tao, “Regard your neighbor’s gain as your own gain and regard your neighbor’s loss as your own loss.”

Zoraster, who also is known as Zarathustra, was a teacher and preacher of an ancient religion that influenced the Abrahamic religions—Christianity, Muslim, and Judaism—and the great Greek philosophers. His teaching recorded in Dadisten-i-dinik 94:5 reads, “That nature only is good when it shall not do unto another whatever is not good for its own self.”

There also are Golden Rules from the writings of great philosophers:

About a century before the birth of Christ, Epictetus wrote, “What you would avoid suffering yourself, seek not to impose on others.”

Immanuel Kant, an 18th Century German Philosopher, wrote, “Act as if the maxim of thy action were to become by thy will a universal law of nature.”

The Greek philosopher Plato, in the 4th Century BCE wished, “May I do to others as I would that they should do unto me.”

About a century later, another Greek philosopher, Socrates, offered, “Do not do to others that which would anger you if others did it to you.”

And Rome’s Seneca in the First Century CE, said in his Epistle 47:11, “Treat your inferiors as you would be treated by your superiors.”

Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, who wrote his Meditations 2.1, said Nor can I be angry with my kinsman, nor hate him, for we are made for cooperation, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of the upper and lower teeth. To act against one another then is contrary to nature; and it is acting against one another to be vexed and to turn away. 

We’ll give American poet Edwin Markham the final observation:  “We have committed the Golden Rule to memory; let us now commit it to life.”

Markham might be best known for his simple poem, “Outwited”:

He drew a circle that shut me out
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in.

In Washington today, the Golden Rule is a tarnished gong, a clanging cymbal and the only circle is the one that shuts people out.

Wouldn’t a Christian Nation draw the circle that takes others in?

Another Nasty Woman Speaks Up

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Trumpworld has had a spasm—as expected—to a religious leader who had the nerve to call on the President to be a real religious person, not just someone who uses faith as a political crutch.

It started with the President himself, who has proclaimed that God saved him from an assassin’s bullet so he could become the nation’s leader. Washington, D.C. Episcopal Bishop Marianne Budde looked at the President in a national prayer service the day after his inauguration and told him,  “You have felt the providential hand of a loving God. In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy on the people in our country who are scared now.”

She really stirred the Trumpian bladder when she continued, “In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country. We’re scared now. The people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings, who labor in poultry farms and meatpacking plants, who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shifts in hospitals. They may not be citizens or have the proper documentation, but the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals. They pay taxes, and are good neighbors. They are faithful members of our churches and mosques, synagogues, gurdwara, and temples. I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away, and that you help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here.”

She also pleaded for him to be merciful to the LGBTQ+ community.

Trump can’t stand anyone who speaks truth to him, especially a woman. He was deeply offended: “She was nasty in tone, and not compelling or smart. She failed to mention the large number of illegal migrants that came into our Country and killed people. Many were deposited from jails and mental institutions. It is a giant crime wave that is taking place in the USA. Apart from her inappropriate statements, the service was a very boring and uninspiring one. She is not very good at her job! She and her church owe the public an apology!”

Long on invective. Short on facts. Donald being the usual Donald. Another “nasty” woman had confronted him. And the several studies that show the crime rate among immigrants is well below the crime rate of native-born Americans are of no interest to him. But don’t expect him to respect any facts other than those he creates.

The cutaways during the service showed someone who probably preferred to be anywhere but there.

One of the offended  parties is Congressman Josh Brecheen of Oklahoma. We’re going to challenge an opinion piece he wrote in the wake of the well-deserved pulpit remarks and we are going to take them apart piece by piece.

As a believer, I attended the service for the purpose of praying for our nation, President Trump, the president’s family, and the success of his administration.

(He obviously fails to understand that is exactly what most of us pray for these days, although our definition of “success” will differ from his. He wants success for Trump while others want success for our nation—the two not being alike.)

I purposely left the prayer service early after realizing how the pulpit was being used for left-wing activism and not for true worship unto God, to seek His will and wisdom. Mr. President, what accosted you at the prayer service was political–not biblical.

(Oh, really?  This is in contrast to a President and his supporters who have used religion for his right wing political purposes,  peddles grossly overpriced reprints of a 17th Century Bible and claims it is his favorite book but seldom darkens the door of a worship center and shows inclination to do unto others what he would want to be done unto him or—better—the reverse.

Congressman Brecheen likes to cite Bible verses to support his assertions. That’s one of the Bible’s problems; it can be cherry-picked to support any position.

We have or are thinking of a series of verses with which he and other Trumpians appear to be ignorant or choose to ignore, verses that Contributor Annette Griffin has written for Biblestudymaterials.com are a “series of blessings highlighting the qualities and attitudes valued in the Kingdom of Heaven.”

Matthew 5, 3-12:

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted.

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land.

Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.

Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

Blessed are the clean in heart, for they will see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

That seem to pretty well cover all of the people President Trump doesn’t like.

The congressman is correct. The Bishop made the mistake of building her remarks on the Sermon on the Mount when she should have fallen in line and accepted the Psalm of J6.)

We wonder if the scowling super-Christian President who shills for his personally-endorsed book where these simple statements are found can quote any of the Beatitudes.  Wonder if he can even spell the word.

Brecheen goes on:

“When we tolerate lies, we are empowering a distortion of the truth. It is time for every believer to take a stand, get in the exit row, and walk out of services where the full counsel of biblical truth is being distorted.”

(This is an important observation oozing hypocrisy.  If it were carried out elsewhere as the congressman suggests happened in this service, Mr. Trump would have been speaking to empty auditoriums throughout his campaign, to an empty Capitol Rotunda during his inauguration, and to an empty room at the luncheon afterward—not to mention the his speech on January 6, 2021 to his tourists/hostages.)

Why didn’t the other believers walk out of the “service” on January 6?  Because they tolerated lies, distorted truth, and then they savaged the Capitol.

Brecheen might be excused for some of this because he was not among members of the House and Senate who fled for their lives while the tourists were paying a peaceful visit. He joined the House in 2023.

Many know of the faith of our Founders and the biblical influence on our nation.

(Such as the Pilgrims and the Puritans banishing Roger Williams and other Baptists from Massachusetts Bay because they weren’t Puritan enough to present Rhode Island, which he founded as a place where “liberty of conscience” was allowed. Or maybe we should emulate those Christians who murdered women branded as witches in Salem, etc.  And who can overlook the deeply Christian beliefs claimed by the Ku Klux Klan decades later?)

Brecheen:

Even as recently as the 1950s, President Eisenhower and Congress declared “In God we Trust” our nation’s motto and added “one Nation under God” to our Pledge of Allegiance. 

(We wonder if we aren’t dealing with a little toleration of lies and distortion of truth here., too. The Pledge was originated  by former Union Army officer George Thatcher Balch in 1885 not as a religious statement but as a way to teach patriotism to school children.  Francis Bellamy, a Baptist minister—another trouble-making Baptists such as Roger Williams—is credited with modifying the pledge in 1892 to read most of the way we recite it today to promote the sale of American Flags. But here is something important to remember about Bellamy—he left out any religious references ON PURPOSE because he was an absolutist on the issue of church and state.

Bellamy was a self-proclaimed Christian Socialist, an interesting characterization in today’s political world.  But he might fit right in with The Gospel of Donald because he wrote, “Where all classes of society merge insensibly into one another every alien immigrant of inferior race may bring corruption to the stock. There are races more or less akin to our own whom we may admit freely and get nothing but advantage by the infusion of their wholesome blood. But there are other races, which we cannot assimilate without lowering our racial standard, which should be as sacred to us as the sanctity of our homes.”

Trump could love this guy after all.

Religion was not added as the result of any 20th Century Great Revival. It was added to make sure Americans knew we are superior to the “Godless Communists” of that time.

Brecheen seems to think the words “Under God” were added during the Eisenhower administration because Eisenhower had two legs:

A man of faith, President Eisenhower’s heart was set on this path from a young age when prayer saved him from death after his leg became infected and required amputation. The Lord answered these prayers, saving young Eisenhower’s leg, and thus, our future president was set on the trajectory of attending West Point and becoming the Supreme Allied Commander during World War II. This would have never happened had President Eisenhower’s leg been amputated.

What that has to do with the creation of the phrase in the pledge, we don’t know. History tells us Eisenhower had nothing to do with creating the phrase nor was he the biggest advocate for it. He got behind the political movement to include it and signed the bill creating it.

Brecheen asserts that Eisenhower approved the change after finding the greatness of America in church: “Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great!”

That latter reflection seems to argue against the point Brecheen is trying to make. It’s pretty hard to see the harsh attitude toward immigrants and the LGBTQ+ community—or even to the Episcopal Bishop of Washington —as being  “good.”  And a strong argument can be made that making American great again is the opposite of the message Trump uses to gin up his base.

Brecheen continues;

Unfortunately, a day after President Trump promised that his administration “will not forget our God,” Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde distorted the truth and used her position at the National Prayer Service to seek political fame and selfish gain. By ignoring biblical teachings that God made humans distinctly male and female (Genesis 1:27), that we must go to someone in private before accosting them in public (Matthew 18:15-17), and that we must obey the law of the land (Romans 13:1-3), Budde ignored biblical truth.

(The truth was sitting right in front of her. I read the lessons of the New Testament to be positive ones.  Is it not true, or more true than Brecheen wants us to accept, that Jesus’s message was one of inclusion rather than exclusion?  Is not the story of the Good Samaritan a core lesson? Is not the story of Cornelius, a centurion becoming a Chrisian an extreme example of loving one’s enemy?)

In her sermon, Budde cited a Bible verse commonly used in left-wing arguments, that “We are to be merciful to the stranger.” To understand this verse, we must understand the word stranger in its full meaning, as taken from the original Hebrew language.

This particular Hebrew word is specifically used to describe a foreigner who fully submits to the customs and culture of their country of refuge. Illegal aliens are not submitting to the laws of the land–they’re defying them.

(There he goes again.  He chooses one word and used it to distort the truth of the Sermon on the Mount. And the facts show a far different view of whether illegal aliens submit to the laws of the land. If Native-born Americans committed crimes at a rate as low as those committed illegals, would country would be much better off.)

Ecclesiastes 8:11 warns us against ignoring laws being broken, saying, in effect: When the law is not enforced, the people’s hearts are enticed to do more evil. Let’s not forget the murders, rapes, and gang violence that the lawless southern border has perpetuated. 

(Maybe Brecheen needs to get his nose out of the collected, selected verses from Trump’s favorite book and read numerous reports by federal agencies and private researchers indicating that comment simply is not true. And we won’t comment on the pardons of 1500 tourists when it comes to someone “ignoring laws being broken.”)

The left frequently ignores such teachings, taking Scripture out of context and using half-truths to justify their politics. Do not fall into this trap! A half-truth is always a full lie.

(Is he preaching to himself or to Trump here? To us, the truth in his statement applies more to the Trumpian empire than it does to those hated people on “the left.” Using half-truths to justify politics is something St.Donald uses far more effectively than St. Paull ever did.)

The pulpit did not flame with righteousness during Budde’s sermon but instead promoted principles that inherently contradict biblical truth. 

(If the pulpit did not flame with righteousness, why do the President and his supporters feel burned?)

If we are to return our country to one nation under God, we must speak the truth in love. Love without truth is not real love. 

(Now, THAT is profound.  But if we turn to Trump’s favorite book, we find a more expansive definition of love:)

“If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,  but do not have love, I gain nothing.

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

“Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

“And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

That’s from Paul’s first letter to the Christians at Corinth. Of course, the President says he doesn’t want to get into his favorite Bible verses because “its very personal.” He has modestly conceded that Jesus Christ is more famous than he is worldwide. He once did reveal that his favorite verse. It is the Old Testament’s “an eye for an eye.”

Brecheen:

Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.”

(Who can argue with that?  The problem is that the “love” chapter of the Bible is in First Corinthians and the “liberty” verse is from “Two Corinthians,” as the Bible scholar/President puts it. The question for the writer of this sentence is whether the spirit of the Lord resided in the pew with the stony-faced attendee (we shall not call him a worshiper) or whether it resided that day in the pulpit.

When it comes to quoting scripture, perhaps Trumpworld and its leader should ponder this passage from the 11th chapter of Luke’s Gospel:

“Then Jesus spoke to the crowds and to His disciples: ‘The scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat.  So practice and observe everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach.  They tie up heavy, burdensome loads and lay them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.

‘All their deeds are done for men to see. They broaden their phylacteries and lengthen their tassels. They love the places of honor at banquets, the chief seats in the synagogues,  the greetings in the marketplaces, and the title of ‘Rabbi’ by which they are addressed.

‘But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have one Teacher, and you are all brothers.  And do not call anyone on earth your father, for you have one Father, who is in heaven.  Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one Instructor, the Christ. The greatest among you shall be your servant. For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.’”

Too bad Trumpworld lacks the compassion to recognize that we are all brothers (and sisters).

Trumpworld’s follow-the-leader response won’t change Bishop Budde’s mind or standing. She told the Associated Press, “I don’t consider him an enemy. I believe we can disagree respectfully and put our ideas out there and continue to stand for the convictions we’ve been given without resorting to violence of speech.”

THAT is the Christian.

Trump showed his sincerity as a Christian by skipping church, as usual, yesterday.

(The knee-jerk reaction of Trumpworld went far beyond thc Congressman’s reaction.  I suggest you check out Bryan Kaylor’s column for A Public Witness:  (7) After Viral Sermon, GOP Threatens Religious Liberty

Bryan is a minister following in the footsteps of earlier troublesome Baptists. He is the co-author with Beau Underwood, a Christian Church/Disciples of Christ minister, of Baptizing America: How Mainline Protestants Helped Build Christian Nationalism

(Editorial Cartoon is from the Tribune Content  Agency)

 

LIGHT

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Just in time—–

The Christmas Cactus is blooming.

It’s called a Schlumberia in formal language.  The story is told of a Jesuit missionary, Father Jose, working Bolivia to convert the natives but failing.  He could not convince them of the Christmas story but as he was praying on Christmas eve, he heard them singing a hymn he had taught them, the children coming toward him with a plant with beautiful flowers that they gave him to decorate his altar.

It is summer in Bolivia now, in the southern hemisphere.

We checked the weather in the northern hemisphere, Bethlehem on the West Bank of Israel to be precise, a couple of day ago and we learned that it’s going to be in the upper 50s and lower 60s there today.  December is the third coldest month of the year there—generally damp and mild with highs of about 59 and average lows of 43.

Okay, that’s not bad.  A baby probably would be quite comfortable in a stable and many people in those days lived in the same house with their animals anyway.

We don’t know exactly when He was born; some celebrate it on December 25 but others celebrate it on January 7. In fact, there are those who study ancient history who think he was born in 4 BCE.

That’s an archaeological term that doesn’t try to pin things down too exactly in a time when there were no calendars from the bank or the insurance company or the university hanging on the wall. “BCE” is an archaeological term that denotes periods, not exact dates. It means, “Before the Christian Era,”  a secular starting point that lacks specificity but defines eras when events happened.

So, Jesus—some calculate—was born four years before the start of the Christian Era. BCE, therefore is a way of dating things in a way that works for Christians, Buddhists, followers of Shinto, the Hindus—whatever.

To most of those who peruse these lines, today is December 25, 2024, according to the Gregorian Calendar that we use, introduced in 1752.  In adjusting away from the Julian calendar, which dates to 45BCE, some days had to be eliminated—ten of them. We won’t go into all of the explanation except  to note the Gregorian Calendar is a more accurate way to measure the time it takes us to go around the sun.

But today, as it as well as we can determine, it’s 24 Kislev, 5785 on the Jewish calendar and Jumadal Akhira 16, 1446 AH on the Muslim calendar.

Scientists looking at other recorded events, Biblical references, and seasons suggest the birth happened in  mid to late September. The conception, they calculate, is what happened about now in the Jewish month of Kislev.

But really, it doesn’t matter, does it?  This is the day we celebrate the birth.

Have you noticed the days are getting longer now?  The winter solstice has passed and it’s getting lighter…..at the time we celebrate the birth of Him who is called “the light of the world”  There are more than 35 verses in the Bible using that phrase or something akin to it.

We celebrate His birth as light coming into the world.

Perhaps some time today there will a minute or two to think about that.  And about how His followers themselves can be lights to others.  Every day.

(photo credits:  Bob Priddy. The candle is a painting done by Sara Elizabeth Priddy for her Grandma Priddy a long time ago.)