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Diary of a (Maybe) Retired Pastor

Tag: US politics

  • The Strongest Democracy?

    mayberetiredpastor

    The Strongest Democracy?

    First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings should be made for everyone, for kings and all who are in high positions, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity.

    1 Timothy 2:1-2 New Testament, The Bible

    We have been in the US since the beginning of the January on grandparent duties. Consequently, we have had a ringside seat as President Trump began his second term as president. It has been like watching a horror show – deeply disturbing yet fascinating at the same time! He has already done many things that have left us open-mouthed,  but the  most disturbing was the very first thing he did on taking office: the pardoning of those who had been convicted and sentenced for their actions in the January 6th attack on the Capitol building at the beginning of Biden’s presidency.

    I was astonished to realise that an American President apparently has untrammelled powers of pardon. Previously, I had assumed there were strict conditions on who could be pardoned and that this only happened rarely. But President Trump in an unceremonious flaunting of untrammelled power set aside mass convictions and sentences that had been imposed after due process of law. What we see here is the unravelling of the rule of law. The law is not perfect but it ensures that everyone is held equally accountable (in principle) before it. This was severely undermined by the Supreme Court ruling that a president cannot be held legally accountable for actions taken in the capacity of president and now, Trump, by overturning convictions he doesn’t like, has made the law subject to the personal whims of the president and there is nothing that can be done about it.

    This seems to me to be a major turning point in American democracy. Americans have delighted in boasting about the strength of their model of democracy. But now we see that, at its core, it is weak and, perhaps, now is crippled. Unspoken convention has been the thing that has held American democracy together, but now there is a president who pays no heed to unspoken convention and who is supported by a Congress that likewise has abandoned convention. The consequence is the crumbling of democratic rule. In it’s place we have the rule of a dictator – although I suspect Trump would prefer the title “King”. Which is ironic given the history of the US.

    Christians are commanded to pray for kings, governors and governments. This is sometimes read as simply praying for the well-being of the ruler(s). It is, in fact, a holding to account of all human rule. We ask that they be held to account and conformed to the standard of the heavenly court. Certainly, this is a time for prayer for Americans.

  • The Beast Ascendant

    mayberetiredpastor

    The Beast Ascendant

    19 Then I saw the beast and the kings of the earth with their armies gathered to make war against the rider on the horse and against his army. 20 And the beast was captured, and with it the false prophet who had performed in its presence the signs by which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and those who worshipped its image. These two were thrown alive into the lake of fire that burns with sulphur.

    Revelation 19:19-20

    The attempted assassination of Donald Trump, disturbing in itself, has led to disturbing reactions from the Christian Conservative Right. He was spoken of in Messianic terms, hailed as God’s chosen one and as the anointed. Were people truly confusing Him with the Messiah? Perhaps not definitively, but the closeness in word and emotion is troubling. Can they not see that in character, word, and deed, Donald Trump is the very antithesis of everything that Christians hold as noble, true and just – that he is the very opposite of Christ?

    People argue that, for the sake of ensuring certain policies are adopted, Donald Trump should be supported despite his distasteful character and history, and that no politician is perfect and all of them lie and can’t be trusted. It is, perhaps, this calculation that Mike Pence made when agreeing to serve as his Vice President. But Donald Trump is qualitatively different from other politicians. We know there is literally nothing he will not say or do to ensure that he wins and gets his way – as long as he can get away with it. Truth and objectivity are simply irrelevant in his universe whereas for most other politicians they still matter even if they seek to bend or twist them to their advantage.

    Christians should be the very ones able to discern this fundamental difference between Trump and other politicians, but it seems that the Christian Right (at least in the US) fails completely to do so and instead fêtes him as the Messiah (or as near as you can without actually saying so). The Bible warns us repeatedly against the serpents, the wolves in sheep’s clothing, the Beast that would lead the world and God’s people astray. But it seems no heed is paid to the terrible warnings of judgment against those who follow the lies and deceits of the Beast and his acolytes.

    The Christian Right seems to have fallen for the lie that the end justifies the means. No serious reading of the Bible could ever lead to such a conclusion. How something happens is just as important, even more important than the result (after all, the result is in God’s hands, but how we seek to achieve it is in our hands). The very nature of Christian salvation demonstrates this – the Cross could not, by any earthly calculation have been the means to salvation, but it was exactly this way that God chose for His Son for the sake of humanity. In siding with Trump, the Christian Right seems to have forgotten this and to have forgotten who they are and to what they have been called.