rallies and the christian right

Please let me start this by saying that I am not a Democrat, and that this is not party affiliated or even influenced writing. Actually, this isn't really about most of you. Most of the Americans that I know that voted for Donald Trump did so because of political reasons. I don't agree with many of them, but I think I can go as far as saying that I understand the reasons that you did so. If I don't, you of course are welcome to tell me. My broad range of Facebook friends have given me all of the meme-driven propaganda, misinformed and otherwise, that I can handle. I don't subscribe to those quick jabs. When, for example, I just recently started seeing a bunch of clips from Betsy Devos' interview. I was immediately offended. This is after all my profession, and I am certainly heavily opinionated in this arena, but I didn't quickly shoot out a copied meme/clip of the type that flaps around the social media wing of the internet like flies. I went and listened to the whole three and a half hours of the hearing.  I also went and researched her background and her platform ( I still believe that she's not a good candidate btw). I do have political opinions. They tend to range in and out of both party affiliations. This isn't really about that. I don't agree with Trump. I do believe that he suckered a whole bunch of people in this country by playing on very valid fears ( in the name of industrial towns being driven into poverty) and also some invalid, such as a widespread lack of knowledge surrounding systemic racism (this in the name of a slipping majority who feels the rug being pulled out from under them in  a way that is gaining speed and intensity). Also, and this I can whole heartedly agree with, there is the whole corruption in politics card. I am so on board with this. There is an oligarchy in power that is becoming revealed. I believe it. I think Bernie Sanders, and Donald Trump both played on this. The difference between the two is that Bernie Sanders is legitimately upset by this, and Donald Trump actually is the oligarchy. (My vote was obviously cast for Bernie.) So, instead of trying to carefully walk down the rest of this twisting introduction, lets just sprint: I haven't bought into the rhetoric from either side. I am certainly influenced by it though, as it is impossible not to be, but I try hard to be informed and not bought out by quick reasoning. This is a difficult thing too. Just take a listen to the first two speakers in Devos' hearing for example, that truth is being spun like the wheel of fortune and it is hard to find where it finally stops.  So here is the crux of what I want to write about. Trump being elected for political reasons I kind of understand... My offense is nearly entirely with those Christians that voted him in and did so in the name of Christ. This, I cannot understand. 

Jenny is at the Boston Women March For America today. I am proud of her. She is participating in the very essence of our country, she is speaking out against a government leader that she feels not only does not represent her, but also explicitly attenuates the values that she holds dearest. This is the good aspects of our government in action. I am happy to see her go.

 I see so many people post things on the internet that amount to them just wanting to live in the positive. These come from well meaning people who, in my mind, are passively doing damage to others. To create a life for yourself that is insulated from the negative actions of others is certainly your right, but it isn't compassionate, it isn't done in love, and it is the opposite of living a selfless life. I am actually really drawn to this lifestyle. Let the world rage around me and you can find me in a little cabin with no road attached siting nicely out by a stream that no one knows how to find. Seriously, if you guys know of anywhere like this please let me know. I dream of places like this. But that is not what Christians are called to do. That is the entire opposite of what Jesus did. Lets remember here that he was tortured to death because of His actions. He didn't build an isolated cult and breathe in positivity and out negativity. He had nothing to do with the utopian lifestyle that I dream of. He was a man of sorrows and He did not want happiness. Hard to say that right? He did, however, promote pacifism. That pacifism is not a peaceful life, by any means. Those that sought him for that kind of peace were given answers that rocked them to the core. "Give everything you have to the poor." What? All I was looking for was meaning? Not poverty, not hurt, not the unbalancing of my own life. What about my kids? What about my house? He was not a man of happiness. What he did, was upset

oligarchies. And in truth, that is actually what the Jewish leaders of that day actually wanted, only they wanted desperately to be saved from the tyranny of a conquering foreign force, to finally be saved from a massively powerful and violent oppressor: Rome. They did not want what he offered: For their own strongholds to be scattered, and their own leaders to fall and break. He was not about building countries, about making countries great again, in truth he was about breaking political structures down and building up individual  people from the inside; a massively turbulent process. This he instructed was to be done by giving everything in their possession to help everyone else around them. Seems impossible for a government to run this way right? I totally agree. It would be chaotic, crazy, it might even create violence. Who would lead us? Wouldn't people, other countries, just march in and destroy us? Well, this was early Christianity. In the colosseum Christians were killed for the pre-game show, and this paradox is the real reason that Christianity spread like fire in the late throws of the Roman empire. What would happen if someone in your town was actively giving everything that they had, everything, to everyone else they knew in need. Even people that you knew. Maybe even your family. And they were killed by someone else because of it. You would maybe write them off as crazy right? But what if there were a bunch of them, and you saw the army come in completely mow them down, right in the center of town for everyone to see. Could you continue to support the army? Wouldn't you feel the draw to help them, to help others? This is the fire that consumed Rome. It was unrelenting and the greater the killing got, the bigger the fire grew until it finally became such a force that Rome was forced to bow, at least politically. Constantine, in true political genius, protected the Christians, and thus was born the underlying war between politics and Christianity. A subversion that has continued to this day and is so entrenched in our culture that it is almost impossible to see through.

So Trump. If someone wants to leave their Christianity at the doorstep and vote for political reasons, I totally get that. Actually, I respect it. At least they are agreeing that the two have very little to do with one another. But somehow justifying this man within the confines of Christ's teaching, I just do not understand, and it grates on me like crazy. You, my Christian Trump-voting friends, and I mean that literally if you are reading this, fall into three categories: 1. You have separated out your politics from your Christian world view. 2. You have been duped by a liar. or 3. You have either very little understanding of the basis of your religion or have completely lost sight of it. There is a culture that has been raised in the name of Christianity that is losing power. We call this the Religious Right or sometimes Right Wing Conservatives. This was a massive group of Christians that at one point represented the majority of people in this country. They had standards that were central to the said culture of our country, and they are now quickly losing ground. The ensuing panic is the wave the Trump rode to victory on. Make America Great Again harkens back to when this group held power, were supported financially, and controlled the outward showing morals of our country. Echoes can be heard everywhere. Listen to them bounce off of the empty streets of the midwest industrial towns: "Dear God, why do you allow violence in schools? Dear concerned student, I'm not allowed in school anymore." Heard that one? I just pulled it off of my Facebook wall. Can you hear the desire for an old, now passing, way of life? By the way, just because I just mentioned it, prayer has never been outlawed in school. Any student is absolutely able to both represent and practice their religion in public schools. Christianity is just not forced on students. This, also by the way, is the thing that Jesus fought against, and arguably what got Him killed: publicly enforced religious standards that only ever reach the surface of people and never ask of them to give and change from their heart. Ask a pharisee about public prayer and I bet they will tell you that they enforce it. Jesus said to pray in private, where no one could see you. Mathew 6:5-6.

The Christian Right's ability to back Trump is infuriating. He has used them to gain power for himself by hinting at, and sometimes actually straight out making, the impossible promise that they would be back on top again, and they lapped it up out of desperation.  They outrageously ignored any moral criteria that formed the entire basis of their own righteousness, a righteousness that was obnoxiously lorded over people, judging them as worthy and unworthy of God's own grace. This was the outward show of their own brand of Christianity, the central core of what solidified them as a people. Their abandoning of it was nothing short of straight-forward hypocrisy. Those of you that have been affected by it know it so well: Churches built upon moral ladders that isolated those that most needed their help and gathered the rest together in little private social clubs paid for by their own pride and misguided or false humility. Those church leaders still to this day turn their backs on people on the basis that they refuse to let go of their "sin" and with that same motion turned toward a man that flaunts his as the God-empowered savior of their country. It is the penultimate showing of a fake culture of Christianity that has finally turned up its ugly belly for the world to see... and it is horrendous to take in.

Within what I would see as true Christianity, Trump is typical.  He is corrupt. He is crude, sexually degenerate and aggressive in that corruption, a liar, intensely self-serving, and even dangerous in that pursuit. All of this however does not separate him even a hair's width from Christ who is able to see through all of that into his dark, convoluted, disgusting heart and find beauty. And, we should all be very thankful for that, as it is the same way Christ sees and knows us. Even as I am writing this I am starting to feel the angst that I feel toward Trump slowly drain out. He is like me and I have to come to terms with that if I am honest with myself and with what Christianity really represents. I have to... and it is hard because he embodies a lot of things that I hate, but I have to see in myself those things as well. I have to also see that I embody a lot of the things I hate. That is the knife's edge of Christ... the true two edged sword. The fault lies in all of us and God's grace is spread out evenly like a blanket. It isn't earned or even accepted most of the time, but it is there. That grace is sharp, because it is the undoing of every point of pride. It muffles everyone's right claims to privilege and will completely whittle away the private stores of your wealth and pride. If I am like every one else, why should I let some of them suffer? It can't be ok for me to build myself up at their expense. Making America Great Again might not be about building walls and wealth up in our own country, but in finally tearing down every wall and building up every one else around us. It hurts, because I have worked really hard for what I have, and that hasn't really amounted to much.  But, I think that it is the real way of Christ. Not blaming others, or benefiting from them, but by truly serving them and not myself. I honestly, as I am sitting here right now, want to write it off as impossible so I don't even have to think of it, but literally everything else is hypocrisy. This is the hard and narrow road of Christ, massively difficult not in its exclusivity, but counterintuitively in its acceptance of everyone. It asks for everything, just like He did with the rich young ruler, just like He always does. It is the opposite of what seems safe, and it is what is at the heart of what bothers me about Trumps platform. Because women and gays, Mexicans and illegal Aliens are all me, as important as I am, the intricacies of their lives are as valid as mine, and it is not my role to govern them, it isn't even my role to tell them right from wrong, it is Christ's only calling to help, and by that I mean self-sacrificially, where my only judgement is held for myself, and my only responsibility is to lessen the over-whelming weight of this world on their shoulders... and all of this at my own expense.

It is natural for me to want to wall up, leave all of the negativity on the outside of my own self-created and immaculately managed world, but Christ's eyes are wide open and his face is not turned away from them. Mine shouldn't be either.