Author: Abigail

Betrayal, Insanity, and Destruction

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Historian Niall Ferguson once said “Civilization operates on the edge of chaos”. That truth has made a permanent home in my soul.

When I first heard him say this, I cringed and barely believed him. But I’ve come around. A people group never knows when they will lose their democracy, political autonomy, physical security, or financial security. All empires fall.

A smaller truth is “all movements move”. I suppose we could say if a movement moves far enough, or fast enough, it will topple the empire it occupies. For the purpose of this article, the two movements I’m interested in are American Evangelicalism and American Republicanism. 

Why these two movements? This was me. These were my identities. I was an Evangelical and I was a Republican. This is not a theoretical exercise.

Over the last ~nine years, American Evangelicalism and American Republicanism have betrayed their core values, behaved insanely, and destroyed themselves. 

It’s an understatement to say these movements have moved. 

Betrayal

I feel betrayed by the Evangelical movement and by the Republican party. 

This has been shocking, bewildering, alienating, and disorienting. These were my two major identities. And I don’t know of anything harder than an identity shift.

For the longest time I’ve said: I haven’t changed, the Republican party has. I’m really not that informed on individual political details, so I could be wrong on some details. I remember as a kid noticing that Republicans didn’t seem to control spending any more than Democrats, so I observed hypocrisy on the Republicans’ parts. They always said they were fiscal conservatives! This was part of the reason I never bonded emotionally with the party; I didn’t trust them that much. They were violating their word regularly on a major platform claim. But this is nothing, this is absolute peanuts compared to violating principles of much higher significance, such as embracing lies, authoritarianism, and violence. 

But the way of Jesus is my biggest concern. There has been a respectable force for good in the US for decades, possibly centuries, known as Evangelicalism. Professor Randall Balmer reviews that history of goodness here 1 (minute 7:00) in part to demonstrate how far the movement has fallen. I think it’s beautiful to bask for a minute in the past goodness of this movement or to appreciate it for the first time, if you did not already know. 

In more recent years, Evangelicalism produced the political movement called the “Moral Majority”. But I have to stop there. If the cultural children of the “Moral Majority” have since produced nearly unwavering support (~80%) for the least-moral political leader in living memory (Mr. Trump), then the joke is on them. The joke is on Evangelicals! And thus the joke is on Jesus. 

The “Moral Majority” was a pretty presumptuous name to start with (effectively condemning everyone outside the group), but at least they were publicly pointing themselves to a beautiful thing we call “morality”. Obviously the morality of Evangelicalism is now a laughing stock, which most people aren’t laughing at, because it is not funny. It’s betrayal. And unfortunately all of this is tied to the mission of Jesus. How is a person outside of the way of Jesus supposed to take seriously the faith, when a loud majority of his followers can not be taken seriously?

Losing Our Religion

Leading Evangelical Russel Moore recently published Losing our Religion (a book which Skye Jethani gives quick, helpful insight into in the first few paragraphs of his article). Moore believes Evangelicalism is changing so significantly that we are losing our religion. To me the phrase “losing our religion” is a nice way of saying “betrayal”. 

This short clip from The Mehdi Hasan Show is also a helpful look into Mr. Russel’s book and experiences. Russel Moore says “We have arrived at the point at which, for many people who name the name of Jesus Christ, Christlikeness is compromise.” If that’s not betrayal, I don’t know what is.

Mr. Moore also says “Jesus taught his disciples to ‘count the cost’ of following him. We should know, he said, where we’re going and what we’re leaving behind. We should also count the cost of following Donald Trump… To do so would mean that we’ve decided to join the other side of the culture war, that image and celebrity and money and power and social Darwinist ‘winning’ trump the conservation of moral principles and a just society.” This Evangelical leader believes that we’ve “joined the other side”. If that’s not betrayal, I don’t know what it is. 

Speaking of sides, which I don’t usually like to do because that tends to require problematic oversimplification, Professor Randall Balmer points out in his talk (minute 41:24) that, when he was a young Evangelical, “we had a very strong sense of ourselves not merely as a subculture but as a counter culture. …We were standing against the larger culture.” Now, as Russel Moore points out, we’ve “joined the other side” and we are no longer countering that culture at all. Looks like betrayal to me. 

“What I can say, regarding white Evangelicals, is, yes, political passion is consuming American Evangelicalism, and yes, the Republican Party platform has become more important than the Gospel for many who identify as Evangelicals.” Marvin Olasky says in The Sixty Years’ War: Evangelical Christianity in the Age of Trump.

In the same article Olasky says: “In 2011, the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) found only 30 percent of Evangelicals saying character didn’t count much in political leaders. In 2016, in a PRRI poll conducted soon after Trump’s infamous Access Hollywood tape became public, that proportion jumped to 72 percent. Many white Republican Evangelicals faced a quandary: change your view of Trump or change your view of acceptable ethics. Many did the latter.”

Doing the latter is betraying core values. 

And from the same article: “Religious-studies professor Stephen Haynes notes that Trump’s ‘evangelical supporters may have given up on Christianizing Trump; yet no one can dispute that he has succeeded in Trumpifying American Christianity.’”

Marvin Olasky largely closes out his article with “Becoming a Christian in 1976 and then having a pen-pal relationship with World readers let me interact for 40 years with great people, compassionate and self-sacrificing. Since 2016, I’ve seen the slow growth of callous conservatism among some politicized Evangelicals — and since 2020 it’s metastasized. Will Evangelicals who said character didn’t count now also say craziness doesn’t count?”2

He is being much nicer than I am. To me this is betrayal of core values. 

On a personal level, I have two friends, a married couple, who are big MAGA supporters. While I haven’t personally witnessed this (because I don’t hang out with this couple enough), a couple of trusted friends shared with me that this couple has gotten increasingly angry and profane over the last handful of years. In other words, they are changing. These are not the friends we knew. Many of their friends, including me, have been forced to spend less and less time with them due to their angry, profane political outbursts.  

My neighbor across the street has a giant Trump flag in her garage. (Not outside, just inside on the garage wall.) It is huge, looks official, and it says “Trump 2024. Fuck your Feelings”. I don’t really know what that means – it is incomprehensible to me – but she has entirely managed to convey unending anger and tremendous hostility, with room for other potential deeply-negative motivations and feelings.

There’s a cost to “losing our religion” and betraying core values, which I think these two examples above demonstrate.  

Sacred text addresses morality, not policy

I’ve appreciated others who’ve pointed out to me that the sacred text of the Christian faith does not speak to governmental policy, but it does speak to morality. Practically the point of the Old Testament was to show that ancient Israel had no morally-good political leaders. The leaders it did have were always roundly criticized for their immorality. I believe only two were considered morally good. So the one thing our Scriptures talk about with force and clarity is the morality of the political leader. 

And that is the one thing we’ve ignored. 

So I hear betrayal when someone says they support Mr. Trump for “biblical” reasons. The sacred text speaks clearly and forcefully on morality in leaders and says nothing of policy.

A Primary Purpose of the Church within Society

I understand a primary purpose of the church within society is to call it to morality, to call out the immorality of its leaders. This is the idea of “speaking truth to power”. The Evangelical movement has literally done the opposite. 

This is betrayal. 

In case I’m not being clear, I’m referring to the myriad of times Evangelicals could have said “while we continue to support Mr. Trump politically, we condemn X behavior or Y statement” but did not. That is speaking truth to power. 

According to my memory, the only instance in which Evangelicals spoke truth to power was when Mr. Trump bragged about his ability to sexually assault women. This was condemned for a brief time, but that’s it. His myriad of other abusive behaviors were left uncondemned (and ultimately Evangelicals indirectly supported these abusive behaviors by voting him back into office).  

And it’s easy to say words! Condemning should have been the easy part!

This is betraying a basic responsibility. 

We used to think morality and power go together

I haven’t seen the Oppenheimer movie, but I would like to. In experiencing a review of the movie I learned that Mr. Oppenheimer – who was ultimately filled with horrible psychological regret for his help to harness nuclear power – was motivated to spearhead this morally-questionable endeavor because he thought this kind of power should be in the hands of good people before it gets into the hands of bad people, i.e the Nazis. In other words, morality and power go together. In fact, this was our entire view of World War II. It was good to fight because we were the good guys and they were the bad guys. So where has the morality gone? And why? Why is it okay for us to have nuclear codes now? How can we fight a just war without actually being just? Since morality was so important to us at one time, on what basis can we let go of it now?

How is this not betrayal?

If Mr. Trump can’t even be trusted to follow simple rules like “leave classified documents at the White House”, why should he be trusted with anything else? If he can’t even be trusted to work in concert with his own government on a simple and essential matter like who won an election, how can he be trusted with anything?

Immoral people do immoral things. It seems to me a betrayal of logic to trust someone like Mr. Trump and, as I said earlier, a betrayal of an American belief that only the moral should have great power.3

Family Values

Professor Balmer, during the question and answer part of his talk (minute 56:55) said “The 2016 election allowed the religious right finally to drop the pretense that this was a movement about family values. You can not make that argument and vote for Donald Trump. I mean if somebody wants to make that argument I’ll listen to it but it’s hard for me to imagine how that would be persuasive. And it allowed the religious right finally to circle back to its charter principle which was racism.”4

I wonder. What will the Republican party’s platform be after Mr. Trump leaves? They obviously can’t go back to “family values”. That’s been shattered. Especially with others like Matt Gaetz being part of the Republican club. 

It doesn’t make sense for me to list Mr. Trump’s many violations of family life and love. The whole world knows his violations. And I think his base is tired of hearing it. So, isn’t that a betrayal? The people who once came from the “Moral Majority” and from Jesus (who condemns divorce and supports women) instantly dismiss the entire litany of Mr. Trump’s violations? 

This is betrayal of a core value shared by both Evangelicalism and the Republican party.  

I don’t understand. 

Also, if this isn’t normalizing, I don’t know what is. How can we ask future leaders of our country to be moral if we bent the knee so badly to Mr. Trump? This was the ONE thing the church could do: speak truth to power. And, Evangelicals literally did the opposite. 

The Conventions are Changing, extremely

I watched parts of the DNC (Democratic National Convention) and RNC (Republican National Convention) this past year.

You know what I thought after I finished watching a good chunk of the DNC? “Sanity and goodness.” That’s all. That’s all I want and it sometimes feels like that’s all I can ask for anymore. Isn’t “sanity and goodness” the bare minimum? How did we degrade so far that this is all I can ask for? And yet “sanity and goodness” are beautiful things and I’m grateful they still exist.

I watched part of the RNC and I thought: “deranged”. I don’t even recognize this group anymore. The RNC doesn’t invite or attract former Republican presidents to speak anymore. Mr. Trump largely does not praise former Republican leaders. Forget Republican leaders. He largely never even praises former American leaders. Forget praising. Mr. Trump doesn’t largely even acknowledge the existence of former American leaders. Washington! Jefferson! Lincoln! Roosevelt! Reagan! (He positively mentioned Reagan once in his RNC speech.) Is this lineage nothing to him? Have you noticed he instead praises authortians? How can I do anything other than conclude that Mr. Trump is remaking the RNC in his own authoritarian image? Of course he must oust the memory of all that is democratic. As former Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan says he’s no conservative, he’s authoritarian.

This is betrayal. 

It was the DNC that invited former Presidents to speak. The DNC that referenced Reagan, positively! The DNC is praising Republican leadership and the RNC largely no longer can?! The RNC barely even acknowledges the existence of former Republican leaders! But the RNC leader, Mr. Trump, is happy to praise authoritarians! It seems there is only one party right now that is still in touch with our democratic past and that is the Democratic party. 

On the other hand, the RNC brought Hulk Hogan, an entertainer in the fake wrestling industry who ripped his shirt off. No former-President George W. Bush. Just Hulk Hogan ripping his shirt.

After watching the DNC I realized the DNC was effectively the traditional Republican party + abortion. And the traditional Republican party? Where is it? Obliterated. The MAGA Republican party has obliterated it and in its place is an unrecognizable group. Well, sadly, they are recognizable: these are the people who stormed the capital, are comfortable with violent language, and don’t get shivers down their spine when Mr. Trump talks about terminating the constitution, using the military against political opponents, terminating media outlets, shooting protesters in the legs, silencing late night hosts, and shooting Liz Cheney in the face.

This is betrayal.

Dissidents Are Not Allowed

I want to be clear about one thing: I stand with the media outlets, I stand with late night hosts, I stand with Liz Cheney, I stand with all of Mr. Trump’s political opponents, and I stand with the Constitution. Not because I agree with a thing they say. But because I agree with their right to freely say it. I’m an American. This is what Americans do. But Mr. Trump is an authoritarian, i.e. someone opposed to historically-American ideals. 

So let me be even more clear: Mr. Trump wants to jail me.  

I will continue doing everything in my power to protect what I was taught from childhood was so beautiful: freedom of speech, freedom of thought, the marketplace of free ideas, the rule of law and thus the value of the court system, dedication to a constitution, NOT to a man. 

I’m only one person, but I will continue giving my money to outlets which support historic American ideals. And I will be marching in the streets with them.  

Because Mr. Trump wants to use the military against his political opponents and wants to jail and silence those who disagree with him, I proudly oppose him, so Mr. Trump wants to jail me. 

As a democrat – meaning a person who supports people being able to freely and safely voice their values and vote for who they want – I am not telling anyone who to vote for. I am instead only trying to paint the picture of corrupted democracy. In a corrupted democracy, dissidents are threatened. Well I am a dissident and I feel the threat.

And I hate it.

I have lived in peace and safety and security, even in happiness, my entire life. 

This is betrayal. 

Navalny is no longer with us, murdered by the dictator Putin, whom Mr. Trump praises. The Navalany documentary is one I haven’t watched but would like to. This was a dissident with real power in a society with less freedoms and safety than ours. He’s dead now. Murdered. I honor men like Navalny over men like Trump. That is how I was raised. 

Rule of Law

A major support to Democracy is the rule of law. Part of this idea is that no person is above the law. It is painfully and unendingly ironic to me that the Republican party, who has been so anti-elitist, is now doing the most elitist-loving thing it can possibly do: let our greatest elite off the hook, the criminal Mr. Trump. He is a criminal whether anyone agrees with section 175.10 of New York state law. He is a felon, whether anyone agrees with section 175.10 of New York state law. I watched this court case unfold every single day. It was conducted professionally and with great deference to Mr. Trump. Any other defendant would have been jailed early on based on his continual violations of court requirements, requirements simply meant to keep all participants safe and the verdict untainted. He violated these orders at least ten times. Most defendants are jailed after the first or second violation, but they never jailed him. 

That our people have elected a criminal and a felon to the highest position of the land is further evidence of the decay of our democracy. Why would we trust an unrepentant law-breaker with upholding the law?

This is crazy.

I really like the law. It keeps us safe. It keeps order.

This is betrayal. 

Abortion

Mr. Trump has flipped on abortion. I wonder how many people have noticed. He overtly supported the pro-life cause earlier. Now, he provides no overt support. He simply says “states can decide”. Leadership is taking a position. He is no longer taking a position. Leaders carry weight. He is not using his weight. Now it’s all about “states can decide”. Does he care? Did he ever care?

I am pro-life. This is a betrayal of a core Republican value. 

Multiple public thinkers have pointed out that there is no pro-life party anymore. Not only does it look like the pro-life value was betrayed, but the pro-life movement got used and is now politically homeless. 

Insanity

“The threat [on January 6] against our republic is different than any we’ve faced before. Unlike the Nazis or Islamic terrorists, the threat is not driven by foreign fanatics. And unlike the Civil War or the Cold War, today’s danger is not led by those with evil, but sincerely held beliefs. We are witnessing a new kind of danger utterly detached from reality, fueled by cynicism, and capable of inciting terrible violence at a stunning speed. Because this fight is between truth and lies, America’s pastors and Christian leaders have a vital part to play—one we dare not neglect because what we witnessed on January 6 wasn’t just an attack on America’s democracy. It was an attack on America’s sanity.” This is how Skye Jethani concludes his article titled America Has Seen Political Violence Before. Here’s Why the MAGA Attack Is More Dangerous.

I recommend that entire article.

In addition to Mr. Trump and his Republican enablers spreading the lie that the 2020 election was stolen, Mr. Trump has overtly lied to our faces over and over again. Just as standard operating procedure.

It feels insane to trust a person like this. 

It feels insane to honor a person like this.

And it feels insane to dishonor the Presidency by putting a man of his character in that role.

He is abusing us. He can do no other. He is an abusive person, most likely because he was abused. (One of his main biographers refers to Mr. Trump’s father as a “monster”.) 

I have no problem with Mr. Trump personally. Our nation is large enough to hold a wide variety of people (i.e. every family has a crazy uncle) and has always valued diversity and freedom. What I have a problem with is a person like this holding power. He is not deserving. Because he is abusive, he will abuse that power. 

And a primary way he has abused that power is by lying to our faces about the most basic of things – an election – and enabling what Mr. Jethani calls insanity. 

God?

Mr. Trump has been showing this clip at his rallies.

If the above video were a joke, it would be terrifying and not very funny. But it’s real. And that makes it insane. 

I believe his campaign is serious in showing this. Or at least they are seriously comfortable abusing God, religion, and the goodness and intelligence of their constituency. Note: more abuse. If there’s one word I would associate with Mr. Trump and MAGA it is abuse. 

Destruction

“After a long and lingering illness, Evangelicalism died on November 8th, 2016. On that day, 81% of white American evangelicals, who for decades claimed to be concerned about family values, registered their vote for a twice-divorced, thrice-married, self-confessed sexual predator whose understanding of the faith is so truncated that he can’t even fake religious literacy.” This is Dartmouth Professor Randall Balmer kicking off a speech at the University of Florida. 

His words make me want to cry. Why would we do this?

Movements move. 

In the 1800s, Republicans were liberal and Democrats were staunch conservatives. Today it’s the opposite.

Movements move. 

But their names don’t always change. 

I believe by betraying core values of Evangelicalism, the leaders of that movement have killed that movement. The name is still here, but we know it’s a different movement now. “…either Trump is one of the greatest proselytizers of the past 2,000 years or the definition of “Evangelical” has changed.” Marvin Olasky says in his article The Sixty Years’ War: Evangelical Christianity in the Age of Trump. His point is Evangelicalism has changed, i.e. moved. And if we believe an authority on Evangelicalism, Professor Balmer, then the movement has not just moved, it has died. In its stead is a different movement of the same name. 

I mourn this death. 

I remember when Mr. Trump was elected the first time. I was dumbfounded. Not because he was elected, but because my people did it. 

I considered it immoral to vote for him! Voting for him was immediately and obviously impossible for me. He was a known quantity! I practically had nothing to think about. Not because I didn’t think, but because the equation was so easy. 

And yet not only did some do so, millions did. 

Betrayal.

Betrayal of core values which has led to the destruction of the Evangelical movement. 

Trump Has Changed What it Means to be Evangelical 

Shadi Hamid at The Washington Post wrote the following in June of 2024. (Bolding and underlining is mine). Because this article is so helpful and also behind a paywall, I’ve included most of it below. It is titled Trump Has Changed what it Means to be Evangelical.

Despite an effort to overthrow an election and a bevy of criminal charges, Donald Trump has managed to solidify and even expand his support among core demographics. It remains the eternal Trump question: Who are his supporters and why are they so devoted to him?

The voters most loyal to the former president are White evangelicals. More than 80 percent backed him in the 2020 elections. And this has long presented a puzzle: How can people who prize moral rectitude and personal witness to Jesus so faithfully support the most secular president in American history, someone who seems by his behavior at best indifferent to Christianity?

Part of the answer is that Trump has been able to change the meaning of “evangelical.” This is no small feat.

…

After evangelicals embraced Trump, something odd happened. As other Christian denominations hemorrhaged members, evangelicals saw their ranks grow; from 2016 to 2020, their share of the White adult population increased to 29 percent, from 25 percent, according to the Pew Research Center. The catch was many of these new evangelicals didn’t go to church. They became evangelicals because of what it meant politically, most of all because it was a way to signal support for Donald Trump. Among White Trump supporters who were not evangelicals in 2016, 16 percent began to identify as evangelical by 2020, suggesting again that politics rather than religion was the driving factor.

The idea of evangelicals who don’t go to church was once unusual. Now, it is surprisingly common. In 2008, only 16 percent of evangelicals said they never or seldom attended church. By 2020, 27 percent did.

Evangelicalism, in short, has become about shared political convictions. In one survey of Christian attitudes, for example, 43 percent of evangelicals said they did not believe in the divinity of Christ. But it gets even more bizarre. According to the 2022 Cooperative Election Study, 14 percent of Muslims (and 12 percent of Hindus and 5 percent of Jews) described themselves as “born-again” or evangelical Christians. This is not a joke.

If we look more closely at the numbers, what’s happening becomes clearer — and it’s fascinating. About three times more Republican Muslims and Republican Jews identify as “evangelical” than their Democratic counterparts, according to an analysis of the data by political scientist Ryan Burge. In an America that is rapidly secularizing — in just two decades, church membership has plummeted to under 50 percent, from about 70 percent — partisan commitments are replacing religious affiliation as people’s overarching source of identity.

This has unsettling implications for U.S. politics and the presidential campaign to come. It means we will see more intense political polarization around religion. Now that White evangelicals are so disproportionally and unapologetically Trump-supporting, the share of Democrats who view Christianity negatively is likely to remain high or perhaps even increase.

…

Americans are becoming less religious, but more of them are becoming evangelicals — or at least claiming the label as a badge of partisan identity. Trump’s ability to turn out evangelicals, both religious and nonreligious — including the growing ranks of Muslim, Jewish and Hindu “evangelicals” — to the same overwhelming degree that he did in 2020 could very well decide a close race. Religion matters, even when it’s not really about religion.

By betraying core values, Evangelicalism has allowed itself to be redefined and specifically redefined by those whose motivation is not Jesus. Evangelicalism is becoming a cultural religion, which Jesus had a thing or two to say about. This is “God and country” thinking, which Jesus notably was really not into because he didn’t help his own people get their land back, not one iota. He didn’t display a drop of nationalism. In fact, he did the opposite; his message of hope was meant for all countries; the boundaries of the Israeli border he made meaningless.  

Redefinition is a form of destruction.

White Evangelicalism’s New “Lost Cause”

Skye Jethani also sees destruction, but for him it’s a bit more on the horizon rather than something fully realized. In his article White Evangelicalism’s New “Lost Cause”, he makes an interesting comparison between the theologically-warring Christians during the Civil War (Christians in the south and the north who held opposing “biblical” viewpoints on slavery) to the theologically-opposed Christians of today (Christians who hold opposing “biblical” viewpoints on Christian Nationalism). 

Republicanism Gone

Of secondary importance is the destruction of the Republican party. It is a corrupt party. Its core values, norms, and behaviors are gone; I’m thinking of family values, morality in leadership, the ability to hold a leader to task (i.e. Nixon), the desire to uphold elections under all circumstances including loss, treating political opponents with respect, treating dissidents (including internal dissidents) with respect, completely avoiding violence in language, defending NATO, aiding other democracies around the world, valuing bi-partisanship when it serves the people, valuing free trade, being pro-life, etc. I call that destruction. 

Again, movements move. They may keep the same name, but it’s a different movement. 

Making it Real

I want to share a personal story. Last year I worked very hard for my company on a particular project. I went above and beyond. I was praised by everyone who knew about it. This project could have helped reshape part of one of the industries my company is part of. Pretty cool credentials for my company, right? 

Instead, I ran into a person of power and she put a stop to the whole thing. No one will ever know exactly why. 

I very carefully had all the right people involved in the project, and I made the decision making of the project as transparent as possible. It could not have been better documented. I literally did everything right and got praised for it repeatedly.

Then this person of power decided I was threatening her (by including people of a higher rank than herself in the conversation) and she ended my entire project. That’s not so bad, right? It’s really not. What is really bad is what happened when I conversed with my manager’s manager. He made it abundantly clear that pursuing this project further would threaten my career. 

What?! Threaten my career?

By going above and beyond and by doing everything right and by doing something that would have greatly enhanced the reputation of my company, I was threatening my own career? The missing element was that, underneath it all, I was being unjustly threatened by this person of power. 

Here’s the point: she is only a Director within one company. But she’s abusive. Guess what the most powerful person in the world, who is also abusive, can do? (Remember, he wanted to shoot the legs of American protesters. His own people!) 

It’s destructive to give power to abusive people. You never know which direction they’re going to go because they simply abuse what’s in their way. Mike Pence? A good man? He’s gone. He was in the way. 

It vaguely makes me think of two people who risked their careers to say something negative about Mr. Trump: the woman who revealed that Mr. Trump was abusing America’s relationship with Ukraine to find “dirt” on his political competitor Mr. Biden (an act for which Mr. Trump was impeached) and the Director of CISA, Christopher Krebs, who stated in advance that he would lose his job if he said the 2020 election was secure. He went on to say that (in conjunction with many other federal agencies) and then, sure enough, he lost his job.

I don’t have reason to believe Mr. Trump will restrain himself. An abusive person with power is the worst thing, and I’ve experienced it personally. It is impossible to control and it is terrifying. 

My Biggest Concern: wide-scale destruction through the most powerful means possible which is culture

My biggest concern is the cultural change Mr. Trump is producing. I have shared most of that concern in this post: To My Dear Dad: Why I Place Country Over Party. Policies are relatively easy to revert or change. But cultures take years and decades and sometimes centuries to revert or change. There is no greater power than the power of culture. And Mr. Trump is changing culture by normalizing overt lying, normalizing abuse to our democratic systems, sowing doubt in our court system, sowing doubt in our electoral system, and simply normalizing abuse in general; I see a deep and disgusting cynicism underneath his abusiveness. He is changing our culture. Which is exactly what a leader should do. Except we usually elect moral leaders. This one is anything but. 

Character really is destiny.

Wrapping it Up

Mourning

Kris and Charlie wore black the day after the election. For them that day was a day of mourning. My cousin Rick (the only U.S. diplomat in our family) views Mr. Trump as a threat to democracy and for this reason no longer recognizes America. Mike from Britain (a former British diplomat) tells me every single time I speak with him that he and Europe are so afraid Mr. Trump will be elected5 and he understands Mr. Trump to be a threat to democracy. All of these people see what I see.

I don’t need myself and my former identity groups, Evangelicals and Republicans, to agree on fundamental policy. Forget policy. At this point, we’re just talking about style of government: do we want a democracy or an autocracy? Is Mr. Trump untrustworthy or is he trustworthy? Did Mr. Trump try to steal an election or didn’t he? Is Mr. Trump immoral or is he acceptably moral? Is Mr. Trump above the law? Is the culture of MAGA poisonous or is it acceptably moral? 

From my perspective, Republicans and Evanglicals sold their core values for power, a cheap orange power which will turn on them any time it wants. Do we have reason to think Mr. Trump cares for Republicans? Do we have reason to think Mr. Trump cares for Evangelicals? He was a registered Democrat for 8 years and, I am sure, if a voting block larger than Evangelicals emerged, he would ditch Evangelicals like he ditched Mike Pence.

Republicans and Evangelicals made a deal with the devil, and they’re losing their souls. 

But I’m not writing this to point fingers. I am writing this because I pay a high cost for these groups “losing their soul” because these were my identities. This was my soul.

The corruption of both these groups is proof of what abusers can accomplish with speed. Mr. Trump is abusing the evangelical community like abuse is going out of style; the Trump Bible? Or what about Trump coins? Trump sneakers? Apparently he will sell anything to make a buck. Coins, sneakers, the Bible. It appears to be all the same to him: a way to make money. (I am not aware of any other politician selling things. Shouldn’t a politician have more substantial things to be thinking about and accomplishing?)

And the Republican Party is no more. What we have now is authoritarian leaning and allows no significant internal dissent and is hideous for its refusal to condemn Mr. Trump’s claim that Asians and Africans are poisoning the blood of America, his public fantasy of shooting Liz Cheney in the face, and his desire to use violent force against Americans who disagree with him. 

Yes, we have a Republican Party, but it is MAGA, it is not the traditional Republican Party. And while that party was imperfect, at least it believed in democracy. And a group named “Evangelical” still exists but a significant portion of that group is not motivated by Jesus, but is motivated by “God and country” thinking and, worse, a subset of that group accepts violence. (This makes me think of C.S. Lewis’s observation: “Of all bad men, religious bad men are the worst”.)

Home and Hope

I need a home. And what I mean by “home” is a place where I feel safe and where I feel me and my communities are within range of each other ideologically. Not in agreement. Just within range of each other. 

I mourn that we do not mourn the same things. 

We’ve elected a criminal and it breaks my heart that the heart of my former communities isn’t broken.

Like Professor Randall Balmer says at the end of his lecture (minute 30:30), as a believer in Christ I believe in resurrection! I know that a healthy spiritual community could replace Evangelicalism6 and that our country may have two healthy political parties someday, rather than only one. Hope remains. Balmer says “The death of evangelicalism is not irreversible. Evangelicals after all believe in the power of conversion. They also believe that Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead.” Hope remains. 

But sadness covers me now. And I mourn.

Footnotes

  1. Donald Trump and the Death of Evangelical Christianity is a talk Professor Randall Balmer gave in 2020 at the University of Florida. He is the son of an Evangelical minister, is either a current/past Evangelical, is a Historian and religion writer, teaches at Dartmouth, and due to his decades of study in the field is an authority on Evangelicalism. The video of the lecture is at the bottom of that page or can be accessed here. His talk starts at minute 6:20. ↩︎
  2. Olasky’s article is excellent. It was published in 2022 by the politically-conservative publication the National Review. He presents support for his above conclusions from interactions with hundreds of readers. That support/evidence is fascinating and revealing. ↩︎
  3. I recognize this is an abusable belief, potentially incredibly self-serving, and worthy of plenty of investigation at how this has played out over time. ↩︎
  4. I hadn’t been aware until the last five or so years of the racist origins of the movement (specifically segregationist academies). This is not a slur. It’s just history. Feel free to listen to the rest of his talk for clarity on the historicity of that claim or to the Holy Post’s explanation of Evangelicalism. Both address this origin. ↩︎
  5. I completed writing most of this before the election (November 2024). Personal circumstances blocked me from publishing this until several months after the election. ↩︎
  6. I say “replace” rather than “revive” because I think the word “Evangelicalism” is damaged beyond repair. Even if the movement contained all the same people, in a revived state, using a different word seems wise and necessary to me. ↩︎

Drive: A Review

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This is Ryan Gosling at his finest. I have long thought his most defining characteristic, both as an actor and as a human, is understatement. In this story, the main character barely says anything throughout the entire movie yet you love him in the end. You bond with him. He is the hero. 

Drive is both fairy tale and morality tale. There’s our hero (the Driver), a damsel in distress (the woman he comes to love), and bad guys he has to fight off to protect her (the criminal underworld). To top it off, in all fairy tales I know, “the Prince” never has a name: Cinderella falls in love with “the Prince”, Sleeping Beauty is saved by “the Prince”, and Snow White falls in love with “the Prince”. It wasn’t until I got to the end of Drive that I thought “wait, did we ever get his name?”. No, we didn’t. 

But it’s as a morality tale that this movie comes into its own. No one needs another fairy tale. Instead, the Driver is like us: a study in contradictions, a being still becoming. No one is like “the Prince” of fairy tales: perfect, boring, and static. No, the Driver is a stylized version of us, writ large so we can see the complexities in unforgettable fashion. 

Like all of us, he thinks of himself as a good person. He wants to be good. And, yet, he’s not good all the time. About halfway through the movie you realize he must have a criminal past because no one could be that good at crime without having done it before. So, yeah, he’s kinda not good at all, brutally violent in fact, possibly psychotic. Or, wait. Is that the point? We are all a study in contradictions? He IS very good and very bad. 

The beating heart of this movie is the question: can you be a hero when you are deeply stained?

The movie answers this definitively, but let’s not jump ahead.

What we first learn about the Driver is that he’s a professional, albeit in the criminal world. He’s meticulous and in control. He’s impressive. And he’s the alpha male. But next, well, all the things that happen next written words can’t communicate. So, sorry my friend. You truly should watch this flick. It’s the music that takes over from here. And the night scenes. This is some of the most perfectly-chosen music I’ve ever experienced. The Director said fairy tales primarily evoke emotions. And that’s what this film knocks out of the park. Its plot line is not that interesting or complex. And while the Driver is a fascinating character, the rest are rather standard. Also no one watches this film for its action or spectacle; the budget was too low for that (thank God). No, instead, this movie does something far more challenging and worthwhile, which is to evoke a very specific emotion: dark, silent, empty, lonely, melancholy, pointless, brooding, and euphoric. Who knew 80’s synth could be so powerful?

What I just described is the Driver’s internal world. We realize very quickly that he’s lonely, empty, melancholy. He may be an alpha male, but his world is miserable. Next, the damsel appears and you see a smile on his face for the first time. They fall in love. In fact, he falls in love with her little boy as much as he does her. We get to see “the family man” version of this lonely, broken man who commits light crime.  

Their story is beautiful and it’s my favorite part of the movie. If you want a happy movie, watch only the first half. If you’re a typical male (sorry guys) watch the second half. It is brutally violent. And I still haven’t seen all the scenes – I refuse to put myself through that – I look away and I believe my life is better for that – but to each their own. 

The element that ties the first half of the movie to the second half is the jacket the Driver wears. Or more specifically it’s the scorpion on the jacket. The scorpion comes to have meaning towards the end when the Driver asks one of the criminals if he knows the tale of the scorpion and the frog. I hadn’t known the story. Fascinatingly, as a fairy tale, Drive actually pivots off of another fairy tale, that of the scorpion and the frog. While the Driver wants to be a good guy (the frog) he has not been able to escape his violent tendencies (the scorpion), and, well, what do scorpions do but sting? It’s in their nature. They can’t help it. Scorpions sting because they’re a scorpion, even when it’s to their detriment. It turns out, the Driver is a scorpion.

So, we see a needy, vulnerable man finding human warmth and then having his own violent nature (i.e. the scorpion) block him from experiencing any more of that warmth. He is his own greatest problem. It’s an inside job. (Don’t we all recognize this dilemma?) He goes to great lengths to protect the woman and boy he’s come to love only to have his violent nature, which she witnesses, push her away from him. We also experience a heartbreaking moment where he realizes, that, from the little boy’s perspective, he’s a bad guy.  

The Driver kills criminal after criminal to protect the family he wants to be part of. A regular Joe would have just called the cops. So a moral of the story is that the criminal world is insidious: once you’ve joined, you can’t leave. Since the Driver himself regularly commits light crimes, he couldn’t go to the police without possibly getting caught himself. (And, of course the plot line of this movie would be lame if he did that.) So think of this story as a thought experiment to explore a morally complex question. Does a wrong thing become right if done for the right reason? Can our brutally violent, and vulnerable, loving main character be a hero?

I don’t have an answer to that question but the movie unequivocally believes it does. The music towards the beginning and throughout the final, pivotal scene melodically belts out “a hero and a real human being”. You can’t miss it. Because he saved Irene and the boy, dumped the one million dollars on the ground, and sacrificed himself for them, he was a real hero. I would add that he became a real human being by finally experiencing human warmth: the scenes of him on the couch with the little boy watching cartoons, of him fixing Irene’s car, of them at the river throwing rocks in as the sun goes down, of him passionately kissing Irene (only once) are what life’s about. Connection and meaning were his for a short time. Then he drove off into the night, exactly as the movie started, without Irene and the boy, having sacrificed almost everything to protect them. The melancholy and the euphoria return.

A real hero. And a real human being.   

My rating: 10 out of 10

Other Reviews

The best video review I’ve seen is Nature Versus Desire In Drive. Please note that it contains a few scenes of brutal violence (which again, I refuse to watch).

Not Fundamentalist Anymore

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When I was a kiddo I heard my Mom talk about being a 1fundamentalist. This was clearly a good thing. Doesn’t everyone want to get the fundamentals right? As I grew, I also grew uneasy. I could see the other big people around me were using “fundamentalist” negatively, pejoratively. I didn’t know why. And when I became an adult, I realized “fundamentalism” was a nearly 100%-bad thing. How did something which was clearly a good thing become nearly 100% bad? 

It seems to me this is a language problem. Language evolves. Or, really, our thinking evolves and language sometimes does not keep up. 

Anyway, both uses of the term are legit. However, it wasn’t until I heard Skye Jethani say the following that things really clicked: “fundamentalism” (in the way he uses the term) is believing that your highest goal is to maintain the purity of core truths. 

So “fundamentalism” can mean several things. It surely starts out as meaning “1” below and sometimes becomes meaning “2”:

  1. I am committed to core truths.
  2. The most important thing I can do is maintain the purity of core truths. 

Definition one is positive. Who would argue with being committed to core truths? Everyone should do this in every setting.

Definition two contains the hint of a problem. And it is surely an offshoot of definition one! So it begins well. But it does not usually end well. I take definition two and expand it below. (This is all just my opinion. But I hope you find it enjoyable and helpful. It has certainly helped me to process all of this.)

Diving Into Definition Two

“The most important thing I can do” is the key part of this phrase. Surely people agree that maintaining core truths is important. But, is it always the most important thing a person can do? The only way for this to always be the most important thing is if the people who made the list of core truths never made mistakes. That seems unlikely. The reason there’s a “backspace” button on my keyboard is that people make mistakes all the time. (I literally just backspaced.) It seems to me that the major problem with definition two is that it does not make room for human fallibility. To be a bit mean about it, it lacks humility.   

Second, and possibly the most important, “maintain” puts the adherent in the position of defense which is a combat position. This requires that this person’s focus becomes all that is bad, wrong, and untrue. If a person is to keep something pure, that person must be on the lookout for all that is impure! And fight it! Thus this position likely creates a dark, negative, even fearful mindset. This contributes to the “us vs them” mindset of fundamentalists which is their most salient characteristic and, in my mind, the most damaging result of the paradigm.

Third, “purity” is an expression of perfection and the way we usually think of “perfection” is as something static. This results in an unchangeable set of core truths for all time. And while that may be perfectly reasonable for “core truths” the problem is that what is “core” and what is not “core” is not always clear, can be different from person to person, and can change over time. The real problem occurs when “core truths” are expanded to include all sorts of peripheral truths and so now practically everything is unchangeable, producing a rigid, fragile, and urgent culture. Two other thoughts that I think are relevant are 1) “perfect” and “human” don’t usually go together and 2) you should not make the perfect the enemy of the good, i.e. the pursuit of perfection often results in the destruction of not just the desired perfect result but also all good possible results; you are left only with disaster. 

And fourth, fundamentalism inadvertently encourages reductionist, overly-simplistic thinking because how can you defend great complexity? The cosmos must be reduced and made formulaic so we can defend it and maintain its purity. 

Application of Definition Two

Within the context of American Protestant conservative Christianity, I use “fundamentalist” in the “definition two” sense for the rest of this essay. In fundamentalism’s attempt to maintain the purity of its set of core truths, this often means it teaches most of the following: 

  1. Truth can be statically contained in words and even systematized.
  2. The Bible is in all ways 100% reliable, and the Bible should be interpreted literally as much as possible.
  3. There is only one correct way to interpret the first few chapters of Genesis.
  4. Women can not lead over men in church.
  5. The United States of America has a special place in “God’s plan”.
  6. The contemporary state of Israel is God’s chosen people whom we should treat with deference.
  7. The world is out to get you so keep yourself as pure and unstained from them as possible and, if you really want to help the world, fight culture wars (also, fight all the non-fundamentalists).

Comparison/Responses to the Seven Positions Listed Above

  1. Philosophy of Theology and Knowledge
    1. Two Views of Theology
  2. Inerrancy of the Bible
    1. Response
  3. Origins of the Universe
    1. Origins Today: Genesis through Ancient Eyes with John Walton
    2. The Bible For Normal People, Episode 17: Denis Lamoureux – The Bible, Evolution, & Christian Faith
  4. Women in Church Leadership
    1. Women in Ministry: A Biblical Basis for Equal Partnership
  5. Christian Nationalism
    1. Statement from Christians Against Christian Nationalism
    2. Thoughts On “The Light and The Glory”
  6. Christian Zionism
    1. What is Christian Zionism?
    2. What are our problems with Christian Zionism?
    3. Munther Isaac: Christian Zionism as Imperial Theology
    4. The Historical Roots of Christian Zionism, it’s Theological Basis and Political Agenda
  7. View of Culture: Us vs Them
    1. If You’re Fighting the Culture War, You’re Losing
    2. The Voting Booth

The resources I link to are not necessarily the best (although they’re very good) but instead are simply ones I’ve found and appreciated in my journey. (I will likely amend these resources over time. If you’ve got one, send it my way!)

Explanation of Order of Items

The order of the above list is mostly conceptual. A particular position on number one – a static view of theology – leads directly to number two. And number two leads to numbers three and four. 

The rest do not necessarily flow from number one. But the rigidity that number one creates reinforces the rigidity and militancy with which many hold numbers five, six, and seven.

Primacy of Number Seven

While conceptually number one is the most important – i.e. most things flow from it – most of us are not even aware of these ideas let alone the domino effect from one idea to the next. So, for those operating more at a cultural level and less at the level of intellectual investigation, number seven is the most important. Many conservative Protestants hold to many ideas within numbers one through six, but they do not hold to seven. Item seven most strongly marks an individual or group as fundamentalist. It is combat mentality, which is often paired with doomsday thinking. 

Conclusion

I really love the “definition one” sense of “fundamentalism”, which is positive and all people would agree with. I mean, it’s so simple it’s practically a tautology. But language is not under my control and the vast majority of people use “fundamentalism” in a pejorative way, so I must use it that way too. Since I’ve never heard anyone be as precise as Skye Jethani in defining a pejorative use of this term, I’m going with his use, i.e. I’m going with “definition two” above. 

Using “definition two”, I imagine it’s obvious that I choose to keep human fallibility ever before my eyes, don’t ever want to occupy a combat position towards my fellow human beings – I choose to pursue peace, and I don’t want to make the perfect the enemy of the good. Last, due to the fact that I’m a blasted intellectual, I usually do not fall into the ditch of over-simplifying; instead, my likely mistake is over-complicating matters or forgetting to take breaks as I try to process something very complicated. So, on this one count, I make for a pretty bad fundamentalist, and I feel good about that.  

Regarding the seven topics which I chose to highlight as fundamentalist, I truly support all those (and myself!) who, in good faith, pursue persuasions which are opposite from our own in order to test our own persuasions and increase the chance of getting closer to the truth and closer to health. 

Footnotes

  1. This is within the realm of American Protestant Christianity and culture. Obviously you could be a fundamentalist about knitting or being a political conservative/liberal or anything else. Maybe I  should do a knitting post after this… But it’s worth noting that “fundamentalism” is most frequently used within religion and that, according to what I read online, its most well-known expression (perhaps even the place it originates from) is, well, this one: American Protestant Christianity. ↩︎

Why I am Not Evangelical and What I am Instead

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Evangelical is a bad word in American society right now. People associate it with Trump. And people associate immorality, corruption, and abuse with Trump. 

Not too long ago, I remember a young American woman sitting at my table, at a resort on a tropical island, sharing with us what she knew about “evangelics”. After a while, I realized she meant “Evangelicals”. She had read in the news about an “evanglic” pastor who had millions of dollars; presumably he obtained these funds immorally. 

More recently, a 30-year male who I went on a date with shared with me his understanding of an Evangelical: it was purely political. He had zero theological, religious, or spiritual connotation for the term. He also shared with me that he hated the Republican Party and the Democratic Party equally. So, I imagine he had significant distaste for Evangelicals. 

Probably the best description I’ve found of “Evangelical” is this 30-minute entertaining and dense info-video produced by the Holy Post. 

So, “Evangelical” means different things to different people, as it should, because there is no governing body for this movement. It is more grass roots. This makes conversing about such an amorphous reality challenging. I once heard Skye Jethani say, when you attempt to understand a group of people, keep in mind that implied beliefs carry more weight than stated beliefs. Which is great! Because this movement has no stated beliefs! At least no stated beliefs stored in a central location that spiritual communities adhere to. The closest thing is Bebbington’s Quadrilateral (with an enjoyable rejoinder here). 

But implied beliefs are not much better than non-existent stated beliefs to help us understand a group of people. This is because, by definition, implied beliefs are never written down. Instead, they are in the air. They are in the water people “swim in”. It’s like looking through a window to see the tree. You never notice the window, although it may color your view and it will both frame and limit your view. So who is qualified to do the inherently difficult and imprecise work of finding out what is “in the air”? 

I think I am, as would anyone with my experience. For the first ~35 years of my life, I often attended (Evangelical) church more than once per week, but always at least once a week. And I attended an Evangelical college. My beloved Grandpa was a Grace Brethren (Evangelical) church planter and lover of Jesus (and all humans he met!). And never in a million years would I have imagined I would write something like this; I was among the most dedicated. Worth noting is that this ~35 years included my formative years. So there is a sense in which I will always be Evangelical because no one can fully escape the culture of their formative years. A residue remains, for better or for worse. 

So I will present implied beliefs of Evangelicalism, based on my experience, which I no longer find justified in order to explain why it would be completely inaccurate to call me an Evangelical now. Perhaps if we both tried to define Evangelicalism by listing implied beliefs, my list would not match yours, but at least you’ll know exactly what I am referring to when I say “I’m not an Evangelical”.  

But, why now? I am writing this now due to a confluence of three factors 1) Mr. Trump was recently elected a second time to our highest office 2) I understand Mr. Trump’s political reality to be a great stain on American history, and both a threat to American democracy and to the stability of the world, and 3) there would be no President Trump without Evangelicals. I think they form the largest cohesive voting block in the country, and their support of him has amazingly and alarmingly waned only slightly. To slightly oversimplify and yet speak accurately, Evanglicals gave us Mr. Trump. 

And yet, even with the above disaster, it is for primarily theological reasons that I am not Evangelical. The political reasons were secondary to me and remain secondary to me. But I include this brief aside so you know the fuller context for my thinking, and so we both do not forget an important new reality: Evangelicalism is no longer purely a spiritual movement, it is also and/or primarily a political movement.

But, back to how it used to be, when this movement was primarily spiritual. 

Here are the implied beliefs of Evangelicalism which are now wholly unpersuasive to me. 

1. Our sacred text, the Bible, is easy to interpret

My Grandpa used to say “God said it! I believe it!”. This well-known phrase, within the conservative/Evangelical end of the Protestant spectrum, both expresses faithfulness and implies that knowing what God said through the sacred text is relatively straightforward. 

In fact, not only is the sacred text easy to interpret, but everyone knows there’s only one legitimate way to interpret the sacred text and we, Evangelicals, know what that way is. Further, because the sacred text is easy to interpret, we also kinda know that everyone who doesn’t interpret it the way we do is sinful and rebellious; they just want to make the sacred text mean whatever they want (cue some evil music). The best example of this? Liberal Christians. 

I do not believe this. I am not sure I ever believed it, but I certainly felt pressure to be clear about my understanding of the sacred text (which in turn implies that that is possible) and, because I was never significantly exposed to alternate views on the sacred text in a good-faith way, I had no way of knowing that the sacred text is actually very hard to interpret. 

If you are only given one side of an issue, of course you think the issue is obvious!

My current understanding would more match the Eastern Orthodox, the Catholic Church, and those awful no-good “worst-group-ever!” Liberal Christians. All three of those groups view the sacred text as hard to interpret. In fact, the first group has a term for this: perspicuity (just a fancy word for “clarity”). The sacred text lacks “perspicuity”. The first two groups partially solve this problem by creating an official body which interprets the sacred text to everyone else. The last group enables people to authentically explore and ask questions and also values orthopraxy over orthodoxy (so, your exact interpretation doesn’t matter that much) which leads directly to my next point. 

2. Orthodoxy is more important than orthopraxy

Orthodoxy means “right beliefs”. Orthopraxy means “right living”.

That orthodoxy is more important than orthopraxy is absolutely undoubted and central. And it’s held with great urgency. No good Evangelical would say “well, understanding the Bible doesn’t matter as much as living like Jesus”. And, yet, that’s exactly what I believe. So, this is another reason why I don’t qualify anymore as an Evangelical. 

A prime example of Evangelicals’ emphasis on Orthodoxy is their statements of belief. Each church has one. They are frequently detailed, very specific, and sometimes long. And, most importantly, it’s how you know you’re a good Christian: getting all those beliefs and details right. Right living – caring for the poor, the oppressed, the widow, and helping to reform society – is secondary. 

Arguing about said beliefs is a natural outflow of this emphasis on ideology. Interestingly, because I am so intellectual, it took me decades to realize this emphasis on Orthodoxy was out of whack. Arguing is one of the things I do best! And that made me a good Christian! Or, at least it made me a good Evangelical Christian. (And, keep in mind, we knew all the other Christians were doing it wrong, so there was no chance I could be rescued from our poor thinking because, well, we had to stay away from bad Christians and their bad theology.) 

3. The sacred text is inerrant

This one is practically the litmus test of whether you are Evangelical, or more broadly conservative. No one knows exactly what inerrancy means (except for a few eggheads in an academic institution, and they don’t even agree with each other), but everyone has to say this. You have to say these exact words. (Well, maybe “infallibity” too – no one really knows the difference). I spent a year and a half studying this issue and wrote a carefully-researched 27-page paper explaining why the idea of inerrancy is well intentioned, deeply flawed, and damaging.  

So, yeah, I ain’t no Evangelical. 

4. The sacred text is primary and acts as a trump card

This is an awfully complicated topic. But it’s one of my favorites. It’s what I refer to as the “epistemology of theology”. Epistemology simply asks “how do we know what we know?”. And “theology” is sometimes called “God talk” or if you prefer “talking about God”. 

So, how can a creature bound by space and time talk with any authority or credibility on God, assuming God exists? Yeah, that’s way too broad of a topic. Not sure why I brought that up. Let’s move onto the next topic. Assuming that a finite creature can credibly speak about God, on what basis would that creature do so?

Protestant Christianity historically says “sola scriptura”, which actually does not mean “Scripture alone” but instead means “Scripture primarily”. Catholic Christianity says: tradition (i.e. oral tradition) + church + Scripture, with the Church acting as the trump card. One branch of Christian Protestantism has more recently said Scripture + church + experience + reason, with no trump card at all. This is the famous Wesleyan Quadrilateral. There are other formulations. Alarmingly, only the Eastern Orthodox tradition includes the Spirit of God.

I call these “the pillars of decision making”. How many pillars a tradition has and which pillars trump others, if any do at all, is what distinguishes more than anything else these traditions from each other.  

Evangelicals are “sola scriptura” people which, in my experience usually means “Scripture alone” (which is historically incorrect), which plays out as “whatever the leaders of my movement say is the correct interpretation of the sacred text”. I first began to feel how severe and unusual the Evangelical persuasion was when I ran into some Christians on the internet. They described the Evangelical/conservative view as making the sacred text into “the fourth member of the trinity”. More recently a variant I’ve heard is that Evangelicals believe in Father, Son, and Holy Scriptures (i.e. the Holy Spirit has been deleted). In either case, we get the point: the emphasis on the sacred text is so high as to redefine God himself, which is blasphemy.

For me, there are five pillars and there is no trump card: Scriptures + church + experience + reason + the Spirit. Given I am persuaded to have 5 pillars, and persuaded that one no pillar is greater than the other, this means I am not Evangelical.    

(Note: “church” includes “tradition”, i.e. wisdom passed down.)

5. Not only is certainty about ultimate reality possible but it is required

This is a deeply complex topic with unending importance. And this gets into psychology. I mean what doesn’t get into psychology? But, this topic noticeably does more than others.

In my head, there’s a spectrum with certainty on the right and mystery on the left, and of course a whole healthy gradation in the middle. The Evangelical movement, surely with other spiritual communities, is on the certainty-end of the spectrum. For Evangelicals, not only is certainty possible but it is required! It is a sign of faith that you are certain! It is proof of your dedication and commitment that you are certain. (Note: this is certainty about ultimate reality only. Obviously being certain about day-to-day reality is healthy and good. This section is not about day-to-day reality.)

I have only one question about this: how can someone be certain about ultimate reality? On this question, I was born on the left end of this spectrum. I don’t know how not to ask questions. And I’m perfectly happy to ask them about the most foundational things: God, reality, the nature of knowledge, morality, Jesus, religion and philosophy. Absolutely nothing is off limits. I start hyperventilating inside if someone tells me to stop asking questions. The long and short of it is if you ask enough questions in the Evangelical/conservative world, many important ideas fall apart. (Inerrancy is one. The Scriptures being easy to interpret is another. Reference this article for more.) I was saved by the Catholic church. That movement embraces mystery and has a love for mystery. I remember reading about one Catholic idea called “the hiddenness of God”. You know what no Evangelical would even be able to comfortably admit: that God might sometimes be hidden. That’s because we’re all too busy being certain! Or at least being told* that you must be certain. (*Perhaps not directly, but indirectly – again, these are implied beliefs). 

Large amounts of certainty means there is no room for mystery. Is it not unfaithful to be unsure? 

Interestingly, many people of faith believe the opposite. For many, doubt is an integral part of the faith journey! But not so in Evangelical-land. Certainty is almost the greatest virtue.

It was the push for certainty that nearly killed me. Literally. I’ll write about that another time. 

Many have written about the problems of pushing for certainty. I’ve read The Myth of Certainty, and many recommend The Sin of Certainty. I couldn’t possibly recommend Lesslie Newbigin’s book Proper Confidence: Faith, Doubt, and Certainty in Christian Discipleship enough. This also makes me think of Ann Lamott’s statement: “The opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty.” And finally it makes me think of Paul Tillich’s comment: “Doubt is not the opposite of faith; it is one element of faith”.

For me, faith very recently has been redefined (yet again). It is now “risk with a direction” (source) but I feel sure that a previous version of me would have defined faith as “certainty with a direction” because that’s what Evangelicalism told me. These things are opposites. One must be false.

A tremendous resource which traces the development of and interrelationships between certainty, inerrancy, foundationalism, and the Enlightenment (among other things) is this four-part podcast series titled “The Making of the Modern Mindset”: Part 1, Part 2 (episode starts at 10:47), Part 3, Part 4.

Certainty unfortunately also frequently involves staticness, meaning, things never change! Do NOT move a muscle! Which leads us directly to the next topic.

6. Belief is static and does not exist on a spectrum

This is a truly fascinating belief. And as I’ve already implied it is best friends with certainty. If you’re certain, there can be no change, right? To change something certain and/or inerrant is to choose something uncertain or wrong, and who would ever want that?

As a child, I heard the big people around me talk about “belief” a lot. A lot lot lot. But, over time, I realized no one was taking the time to define “belief”. And it wasn’t until I was well into my adulthood that I realized all of us were assuming that belief was static when, I saw, it must be dynamic. 

This vaguely makes me think of newer parts of the sacred text which says “the Spirit will lead you into all truth”. It doesn’t say only once, and it doesn’t say “all truth for all time”. I get the feeling that this is instead progressive, continuous, ongoing. And this definitely makes me think of a powerful phrase coming out of the Protestant Reformation: they wanted to be “reformed and always reforming”. I am guessing we lost the second part of that phrase a long time ago and rather quickly. This reminds me of what the historian Hannah Arendt says: “The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day after the revolution”.

During what will hopefully be the only time in my life when I experience a church split (which was largely over inerrancy), I realized the two groups broke neatly across one line. One group would happily and unhesitatingly say “my theology is in flux” while the other group would never utter such words. And which group would never say their theology was in flux? The inerrantists. Those whose faith has been shaped by the requirement for certainty. 

It’s a fundamentally different mindset. I realized during this time that the faith I had been given in my childhood felt static because, well, it was; we were not invited to change anything or to engage in a meaningful way. Instead, because all truth related to ultimate reality and related to becoming right with God had already been determined in a certain way and from an inerrant sacred text, to budge any muscle was to “do it wrong”. This meant that our job was to be parrots; the authorities tell us the truth, and we parrot it back. And unfortunately that results in a lack of love and life. How can you love something which is lifelessly inflexible and invites no engagement, and more than that, directly repels engagement?

What this belief in the static nature of belief results in, among many things, is a denial of the ebbs and flows of life and of being human. There are days where I more believe in God and days where I less believe. No one in the Evangelical world could say that without getting pulled into the pastor’s office “for help”. But are we really to parrot beliefs? Must we be silent about our internal worlds which are largely outside of our control, which are organic, which grow and change over time? A person can not “flip a switch” and suddenly believe everything in the Nicene creed. That is nonsense! And yet that is what Evangelicalism effectively demands. Because belief is static. Belief is a 0 or a 1 (i.e. binary). You believe or you don’t. But, that’s nonsense. Belief exists on a spectrum. Wouldn’t it make a whole lot of sense for an authentically honest person to wake up one day and say “I’m not so sure about this resurrection business”? And yet, for sure!, you won’t hear anyone say that in Evangelical/conservative land. It’s not allowed. Believe or go to hell. 

I am grateful to have realized belief does exist on a spectrum and to realize that God’s primary characteristic in the sacred text is mercy. His most embodied characteristic is empathy. How could there be greater empathy than to become the creature you made? I know that if the Christian story is true that this God is not only good but they have mercy and empathy and love for my journey, patience as I become, and even delight in me. 

7. Emotion is the enemy

A friend of mine, also raised in the Evangelical world, once shared that he was told “emotion is the enemy”. I experienced the same thing. I was told that the sacred text was true and that it didn’t matter what I felt. From our inerrant sacred text we got inerrant theology (surely!) and, well, you know what would mess that up? Your feelings. 

It wasn’t until I read Rachel Held Evans’ thoughts on this that my thoughts became crystal clear. Out of her Evangelical upbringing and the pain it brought, she realized she was being told to disintegrate herself. Only your intellect and will are welcome when you theologize. Emotions? Leave them at home. They are not reliable. They are not true. (And doesn’t this all sound like thinking coming straight out of the Enlightenment, a period which gave us good things but also bad, as all periods do? Again, the four-part series I linked to above on how reason/rationalism has affected particularly the Fundamentalist Evangelical church is brilliant.) 

The fact is we live out of our emotions far more than our intellect. So Evangelicalism has constructed a false world for themselves, one very disconnected from reality. 

I am certain that God wants all of me, not part of me. And they want me, doubts, questions, uncertainty, emotions, lament and all! God wants me authentically. And I authentically want this God back. 

I am becoming. All people are becoming. This “continuous-change” factor is what modernity/rationalism is too overly-simplistic to handle. My theology should change because I am learning. And, given that emotion is “a signal of something important” then you bet I better bring my emotions to the table. I bring all of me to God and to this world. And it feels better that way. 

8. Defend the Fortress!

Items 1-7 contribute to what I call “fortress mentality”. This is the belief that, when I “got saved”, I entered a fortress and now I must defend it. There is a specific and precarious stack of ideas which we call “our theology”; it is reflected in the church’s statement of faith and even more than that in the implied beliefs. This structure, or fortress, about which we are certain, must be defended. And, guess what you’re largely not doing if you’re defending? Questioning or engaging deeply. 

“Journey mentality” is the opposite. There is no fortress to defend. We are not certain of everything, or sometimes even of that much. God is merciful, so seasons of conviction are expected to ebb and flow and seasons of growth often require digging up old understandings and replacing them with new. Belief is not static; and it does exist on a spectrum. Change is expected and even desired. The Spirit moves. And we move with the Spirit. 

I left the fortress a long time ago, primarily because it crumbled around me – there was no fortress left – I’ll write about that another time – and have become a pilgrim on a journey, somewhat scared, somewhat excited. 

9. Hell is a central part of the good news

This gets back to the reality that my Evangelical upbringing did not expose us to alternate interpretations of the sacred text in a good faith way. What am I saying? I had no idea until I was in my late 30s that the idea of Eternal Conscious Torment (ECT) hell actually has no explicit support in our sacred text. When I found out, I felt misled! Lied to! Important information was withheld. Or, maybe, no one knew? Could an entire movement deceive itself so badly out of bias? (The answer to that is “yes”. Any and all movements can do this to themselves. It’s hard being human. Fascinatingly, I believe the Catholic Church also holds to ECT hell, so I think it’s entirely possible that part of the Protestant movement is more Catholic than it realizes.) It was a set of devotionals that exposed me to a more-supported view. I must say, there are few things I am more grateful for than this gentle, carefully-reasoned, and thorough set of devotionals.

Not only do I no longer find ECT hell a likelihood, but the Good News has changed. For the first time in my life, the good news is actually good! Because, let’s be clear, it’s not good news to tell someone “God loves you, and if you don’t love him back you’re going to hell for all eternity”. I literally laughed out loud one day in my kitchen when I realized the ludicrousness of this. Yet, it is this massive and, I would say damaging, cognitive dissonance that Evangelicals live and breathe every day (and never talk about!) that I do not anymore! I am free. Praise God! The good news is actually good! 

In the devotional above, Skye Jethani points out that in the most Evangelical book of the Bible, the book of Acts, hell is never mentioned. Not once. Instead, evangelizers speak of heaven and earth being joined together. This is the good news! Heaven, the domain of God, being joined to earth, the domain of men. Not only did God start to be a little bit loveable to me, but the entirety of the world gained a brighter hugh! Colors were more vivid. Life was better. And, again, the good news was, for the first time ever, good news. 

10. Emphasize push over pull

It wasn’t until I experienced other traditions that I felt this difference. In the Evangelical/conservative world, you believe because you should. It’s duty. Good people are Christians. Bad people are not. It is literally the right thing to do. But what if you actually do not believe? Doesn’t matter. It is the right thing to do. Thus participating in this tradition is frequently the result of being “pushed” in.

What does “pull” look like? I am still learning. But, I am moved by this passage from Desiring the Kingdom. In this book, philosopher and theologian James K. A. Smith says: 

“Our ultimate love moves and motivates us because we are lured by this picture of human flourishing. Rather than being pushed by beliefs, we are pulled by a telos that we desire. It’s not so much that we’re intellectually convinced and then muster the willpower to pursue what we ought; rather, at a precognitive level, we are attracted to a vision of the good life that has been painted for us in stories and myths, images and icons. It is not primarily our minds that are captivated, but rather our imaginations that are captured, and when our imaginations are hooked, we’re hooked (and sometimes our imaginations can be hooked by very different visions than what we’re feeding into our minds).” 

An ongoing and old political question asks, what is a greater motivator: fear or love? For long-term motivation and for true buy-in (i.e. deeper motivation), it is love. And Jesus acted in gentleness and love. I am not Evangelical in the sense that I am fully convinced the good news should be presented in a “pull” manner, not a “push” manner.

11. Emphasize triumph over lament

The Evangelicalism I experienced was American Evangelicalism. And that is a different beast than what exists in most other countries. (Example: in most other countries “Evangelical” means nothing more than “Protestant”, i.e. “not Catholic”.) And what else is wholly unique to America? We are the undoubted world’s superpower. 

“Superpower” is a term only somewhat-recently coined by historians. It required that a power existed that was so far beyond any other power on earth that, well, there’s really only one game in town. The first country to qualify for this was the United Kingdom, back when it was Earth’s largest empire. Since WWII, the United States has taken over that mantle. (There’s a fascinating history here which I’m stopping myself from sharing. I’m also stopping myself from making a tennis analogy involving Roger Federer.)

All this to say that any people-group with this kind of power and security, and even glory, is going to have a very unique psychological state. While I’m no psychologist and while I haven’t conducted research to allow me to conclude as I’m about to, I think a simple thought experiment will be convincing to both of us. What do all people want? Security. (And certainty! Certainty is a form of security.) Power. (Because power is a way to get that security.) And what else might all people want? Happiness. Undoubtedly. Do we need to conduct research to know this? No. So, we are biased towards happiness and away from sadness, and security and certainty and power act as drugs for us. We love them; they intoxicate us. Guess what being the world’s superpower gets you? The last three things I listed. And guess what we are powerfully biased towards? Happiness! 

Out of this psychological mix, I believe the American Evangelical community has come to emphasize triumph over lament. No one wants to lament. Isn’t it just more fun to pretend there are no problems? Doesn’t a perfect (i.e. inerrant) text call for a perfect people? Doesn’t a perfect God desire a perfect people? So, we pretend to be perfect and happy. We wallow in our triumph, no matter how forced and farcical it is. “God’s got it.” “It will all work out.” “God has a plan for your life, for good.”

My life hurts like hell. For the most part, I would wish it on no one. I have suffered. And I continue to suffer. Where is there a home and healing for me in Evangelical land? There is none. Because, generally speaking, Evangalicals don’t lament. 

I have learned to lament. Our sacred text is full of lament. And it brings healing. And other traditions have brought me healing by embracing lament and suffering. (One of which was also technically Evangelical but it was the weirdest Evangelical church I ever attended because it was also Anglican, liturgical, and charismatic. I will forever be grateful to this church for its health in this one way, an embrace of lament.) 

So this is the final way in which I am not Evangelical: lament and openness about my suffering is a central and public part of my life and faith. 

Can’t you say anything good at all about Evangelicalism?

Yes, I most certainly can and it would be my delight. I feel the need to highlight why I have not so far. The purpose of this piece is to explain why I am not an Evangelical (and what I am instead). My purpose is not to provide a comprehensive view of Evangelicalism; I am not trying to portray all the goods and all the bads of Evangelicalism. Instead I am only trying to list its implied beliefs which are no longer persuasive to me, so I can share why I no longer identify as part of this group. 

So, what is beautiful about this group?

Fervor is the number one thing I associate with this movement. People care so much! People care so badly! This is dedication. This is commitment. And that is loved in any movement! I see emotional integrity! I honor this in the Evangelical movement.

In turn, that’s why I think of this movement as the Peter of contemporary Christian traditions: loud (it is the largest voting block in the country!), well-intentioned, and not always so wise. But certainly loveable. We know Peter’s heart. It is good.  

One of my dear friends who was raised in Evangelicalism pointed out to me that items 5 (certainty) and 10 (push vs pull) were not always as I described. He is right. In defense of the spiritual communities who identify as Evangelical and who support growth and doubt and who present the Good News in a “pull” way, yes, I also experienced this on rare occasions. Exceptions to a rule almost always exist and should be called out! 

Last, what I love most about this tradition is its love for the sacred text. While I recognize that that love may be partially unjustly founded (by believing that each word of the sacred text came directly from the “mouth” of God), this love is a model for all other traditions. Again, this is Peter-like! So much passion!

I am certain that if the Christian story is true, God loves all his children.  

What I am Instead

I am on a journey. And where that goes, I don’t know in detail. I do know the direction: I am mimicking Jesus. That’s what a Christian is, right? A little Christ? A little Jesus. 

The sacred text is hard to interpret. Its origins are unclear. God is mysterious. Deeply, deeply mysterious. We aren’t given one picture of him/them. We are given many, and they contradict sometimes. Put more simply: both the sacred text and God are mysterious. I feel God’s goodness in the sense that I’ve been invited to explore, ask questions, and be unendingly authentic. If that involves me leaving the faith, then that is good. That is how free I am. While freedom is one of the most terrifying things, it’s also one of the most loving and beautiful. I know at my current church if I were to walk in a Buddhist tomorrow they wouldn’t blink an eye and they would love me just as much. That’s how God loves me. I am free. I am growing. I am becoming. My own perspective and development matter. And I am safe. No one is tortured for all eternity in hell. The sacred text is significantly human and that is good. I don’t need certainty which is awesome ‘cause certainty ain’t possible! I can contribute to theology because it is actually changing and it should change; this thing is alive! And most cosmic-level truth lives in poetry, not prose, anyway. I hope my life is a poem reflecting the gentle, self-sacrificial, power-rejecting, and beautiful Jesus.

To My Dear Dad: Why I Place Country Over Party

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Dad, you and I talked the other night. You, a lifelong Republican who is still dedicated and me a lifelong Republican who ditched the party the moment Mr. Trump came down the escalator. 

There are few honors as deep as being heard. Thursday night you heard me. And, even after you listened to me for about an hour, I’ve got more to say. Do you mind? It’s just the evidence. I’m gonna provide a few links. And share my most important point, which astonishingly I didn’t previously share: the cultural impact of Mr. Trump.

So I’ll start with said cultural impact. While the abandonment of Ukraine and NATO is hard to top (especially for traditional Republicans) and while the attack on our electoral system is hard to top (for traditional Republicans, due to their love of freedom), the biggest threat from Mr. Trump is cultural. 

I used to think of the President of the United States as the lead policy guy. All that mattered was his position on this topic or that topic. Not so much his personal morality or, say, his effect on culture. I’ve since realized how deeply backwards that thinking is. I have David French to thank in part for this. Mr. French says his criteria for judging a political candidate is as follows – and the order of the items in this list matters, i.e. one trumps two and two trumps three – 1) morality 2) competency and 3) policy. He’s right. He’s dang right. In a democracy – which is code for “power sharing” – morality is essential. No morality is needed in an autocracy because no sharing is happening, only grabbing and taking; there all you need is guns, manipulation, and raw power. 

So I’ve slowly realized The President is not the lead policy guy. Instead he is our lead culture shaper (and only secondarily is he the lead policy guy). This is why people get so up in arms about who’s President. Unconsciously or semi-consciously we all know this. Cultural power – the ability to shape our fundamental values and preferences and beliefs, our very view of the world! – is the greatest power. This includes the power to normalize what has never been normal before. It is the power to shape us. 

This is ever more true with someone as charismatic as Mr. Trump. His personality is power. But – and this is a very big “but” – Mr. Trump is amoral. (I’m not even going to try to defend this point. I hope it is obvious to everyone.) Amorality is the natural state of a narcissist. Amorality obliterates morality. An amoral person is one who says morality doesn’t matter but instead power does. Evidence: Mr. Trump telling family and friends before the results of the 2020 election that it doesn’t matter if he lost or won, he still has to fight like hell. This proves he has no dedication to our electoral system and only has dedication to his own interests. To put it another way, what his fellow citizens want, demonstrated by their votes, is worthless compared to what he wants. In other words, power trumps morality. And, because he offers no defense for this kind of thinking, that is why I call him amoral. He doesn’t even try to be moral. He simply does what he wants. Further evidence: Paul Ryan, former Republican Speaker of the House describes him as an Authoritarian Narcissist (and not a political conservative). 

And yet further evidence, this from J.D. Vance himself. Within the last few years, Mr. Vance referred to Mr. Trump as “America’s Hitler”. While I try to be incredibly careful about ever using the “bomb” of calling someone “Hitler”, we get Mr. Vance’s point: Mr. Trump is no democrat (or Republican). Instead, he is Authoritarian. I appreciate Mr. Vance’s candor and am amazed at the transition that has occurred since his statement. Like the rest of the Republican party, he has sold his soul. 

As Liz Cheney points out, a political conservative is someone who first, foremost, last, and finally defends the constitution. But Mr. Trump has called for the termination of our constitution. No matter how much he may have sincerely believed he won the 2020 election (and he didn’t sincerely believe that – he told Mike Pence “you’re too honest”), a human deserving of the Presidency and of calling himself a political conservative wouldn’t even be able to dream of terminating the constitution, let alone say it. Yet he had no trouble making this politically horrific statement. He’s no political conservative. 

Mr. Trump has suggested our nation’s highest military leader should be executed. What? What?! What universe am I living in? Russia? Maybe we all moved to Russia and I just found out. Nobody should be executed until they’ve been tried and found guilty! We have a criminal justice system! Why hasn’t Mr. Trump submitted evidence so that General Mark Milley can appropriately be tried in court? Mr. Trump demonstrates no faith in or joy over our system; instead he ignores it, does what he wants, sets an example of disregarding our system, and brings darkness on us all. Wouldn’t a good leader… praise our nation’s highest military leader? Why is he using violent language at all?! Execution?! As the most visible person in our nation, people watch him and he has been modeling violence for a long (and unacceptable) time. 

So, where is this going? What’s it matter if the President’s role is felt most supremely in its cultural effect? Mr. Trump is sick. Fundamentally sick, amoral, underdeveloped, authoritarian, not politically conservative (refer to Paul Ryan and J.D. Vance), and not American (refer to Mr. Trump’s words about fighting like hell if he lost an election and J.D. Vance). Here’s the deal: sicknesses spread. Exhibit A: Mark Robbinson. Exhibit B: Kari Lake. Exhibit C: Marjorie Taylor Greene. Any democratic party would be embarrassed to have these people in their party, and yet the Republicans have attracted all of these people. Exhibit D and the Most Important Exhibit: Republican leadership at the federal level. What happens when they are asked: Did Mr. Trump lose the 2020 election? They repeatedly refuse to answer the question. You know what? If Mr. Trump fraudulently lost the election, meaning he actually won but significant fraud occurred, then every Republican answering this question should pounce on the question with a “no” followed by a “let me tell you why”. Why don’t they do that? There is no one who should want this question more than they! If they know of a crime so serious, there is nothing more important than airing that knowledge! Tell us! You are being asked! Just tell us! The fact is Mr. Trump fairly lost that election – which he has stated – so the only explanation for these Republican leaders refusals to say “yes he lost” or “no and here’s why” is that Mr. Trump’s sickness has corrupted the Republican party so badly that its leaders feel the need to lie for Mr. Trump. Sick deference to a sick leader. 

But even more sinister than corrupting a major political party is the effects on the American people. Only once in recent memory did American citizens attack the capital. I am unable to  believe those people would have attacked if Mr. Trump had not said “if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore”. In fact, we know this was their reasoning because, in court case after court case, they have said so; they were fighting at the capital because the election was stolen from Mr. Trump. And Mr. Trump fully validates their view: he has said the people fighting at the capital were doing so because they believed the election had been stolen from him. Why did they believe that? Mr. Trump was the only leading politician making this claim. His sickness is spreading. “Just lie and you can create reality” appears to be his assumption. This is narcissism. This is authoritarianism. This is reality by fiat. This is sickness, spreading. 

Asians and Africans (and others) are “poisoning the blood of America”. This is the sickest phrase I’ve heard from any politician in living memory. I had defended Mr. Trump against charges of racism before he said this. But this statement, which he has made zero apology for, is indefensible. And it is sick. And his sickness is spreading. In Florida, there are pictures of citizens waving Trump flags directly next to their Nazi swastika flags. You want to know which party doesn’t have a single one of its flags waving next to Nazy flags? The Democratic party! Why? Harris has never made an overtly racist statement. In terms of the “culture war” (i.e. our values), Harris is an angel and Trump is a demon. 

The only reason that “pussey” is now part of the national conversation is that Mr. Trump bragged that he could do whatever he wanted to women such as grab their “pussey”. Do I need to say anything more? Is this not horrific enough? We now have to explain this word to children, and Mr. Trump’s behavior surely emboldens people who have not yet been able to or chosen to appropriately manage their sexuality. Here are just two testimonials from the twenty six women who have accused him of sexual assault. Given he has bragged about his ability to assault women, we have cause for believing that most or all of these twenty six women are telling the truth. 

“I will be your protector”. Why does he think this statement to women is believable? 

When I look at Mr. Trump, I see a man who is so narcissistic that the insult of telling me an overt lie – one which can be disproven in under five minutes – doesn’t register as a bad idea in his head. It’s a horrible idea! If he wants my trust, he can not insult me to my face! But, he has, repeatedly. One example is the size of the crowd at his inauguration speech. There were pictures! Why, oh why, did he think we would believe his words over pictures! Not only are these overt lies insulting, but they prove he thinks we’re stupid. He did the same thing recently with Kamala’s crowd size when she got off a plane. (He’s really got a thing with crowd sizes. Maybe someone should give him some virtual reality goggles filled with adoring crowds and he’ll happily wander off and leave us alone forever?) There were hundreds of people there, cheering. They had their phones out. (So guess how many photos from a wide number of sources were available to prove the crowd size?) Yet Mr. Trump goes on to sincerely say that that crowd was AI generated. If there was only one photo of the group this could be possible. But there were hundreds! He insults us and assumes we are stupid. Only narcissism can produce this sort of deranged behavior. 

The group of people he lies to the most are his own followers. I understand him to be an abused man, so I have some compassion. One of his biographers describes Mr. Trump’s father as a “monster”. Abused people frequently go on to abuse others. As a cultural leader, Mr. Trump is doing exactly that.  

During Mr. Trump’s Porn Actress Election Interference court case, the clerk of that court received the equivalent of two hundred and seventy five pages of threats. Why? Mr. Trump hopped on social media, shared this clerk’s name, said (I believe) some damning, untrue things, and her life was turned upside down. She was receiving emails, phone calls, etc filled with threats. What kind of man inspires threats?! What kind of man picks on the weakest member of a group (the clerk! – why didn’t he pick the judge?!). A weak man. And look what he’s inspired in his followers: threats, hatred, words of violence. That clerk’s life was torn apart for a while because America’s greatest leader, well, wasn’t very great. He’s spreading his sickness. A good leader would say “let’s do this court case, so I can prove my innocence to everyone” and would not choose to bully the weakest (and possibly most innocent) person in the room. My point is his sickness inspired 275 pages of sickness. It’s spreading. 

People in my own country now believe an election was stolen when the highest, most knowledgeable person in our country who was specifically hired to oversee the election and who was appointed by Republicans, CISA director Christopher Krebs, said this was the “most secure and fair election in history”. He made this official statement in conjunction with a hoard of other American government agencies (refer to previous link). He lost his job over this. He knew he was going to. He did it anyway. People in my own country now believe an election was stolen – and that probably the next will be too! – despite 60 courts unanimously saying that no evidence was provided to justify the claim that the election was stolen. So Mr. Trump’s sickness has spread to the country in a way in which the sickness will keep on metastasizing: our people now doubt our very courts! Our people now doubt our very elections! Doubting the things that give you your freedoms means beginning to lose your freedoms. This sickness, manifesting in this way, undermines our very democracy. 

And I kinda like democracy. 

Almost the most damning thing I can say about this man is that the people who know him best have publicly stated “don’t vote for him”. These are our nation’s highest leaders who worked directly with Mr. Trump; in other words, no one would know better than they. Some are his aids. Mr. Trump’s right-hand men who have publicly stated they do not endorse Mr. Trump for President include two Defense Secretaries, a National Security Advisor, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (the United State’s highest ranking military officer), oh, and you know, his former VP Mike Pence who almost got killed. Does this seem normal? Or even ok? Also his longest-serving Chief of Staff, who refuses to officially endorse any candidate, says Mr. Trump is a fascist. Look, if I went to a new job, and they interviewed my former colleagues – the ones who directly worked with me – and nearly all of them said “she’s terrible”, you think I’d get the job? Then why are we considering this for the most important job on the planet?!

What has become even more sinister is his recent, repeated claims that the “enemy within” is greater than the enemy without. Let’s be clear. After nearly a decade of him filling the American people’s hearts with fear and horror about the “murderers and rapists” coming across the border, he now says the “enemy within” is worse than that?! There is something worse than the worst thing he has ever talked about? Yes. And he names who they are: the political left. He names Adam Schiff and Nancy Pelosi and many others and will use the United States military against them as needed. If this is not Authoritarianism, I don’t know what is. This is also manipulation: I scare the living daylights out of you, then I tell you “only I can rescue you”. This is gaslighting. First scary immigrants, now the scary left. Let’s be very clear about one thing: Mr. Trump was the left for eight years! He was a registered Democrat until 2009. Does he really have a problem with the left? Or is he simply an Authoritarian who wants to jail anyone who disagrees with him? He has talked repeatedly of wanting to silence talk show hosts. Can I just say that’s petty? Why does he care about folks with little to no real power? Although not being able to handle criticism is a common trait of Authoritarians. (Finally, I should mention he always conveniently leaves out that crime is lower among immigrants than it is among our citizens. But it’s hard to scare folks with that truth.)

He has called for a military tribunal for Liz Cheney! All I have to say is if she gets jailed I want to be jailed too. She is a hero who has sacrificed her career to fight the corruption within the Republican Party. We don’t jail folks without going through a court case first! And before that you must have evidence! Liz Cheney is fully within her rights as an American citizen to voice her views. Mr. Trump doesn’t seem to know that, or more likely he doesn’t care. 

Mr. Trump has suggested our nation’s leading military general should be executed and has repeatedly called for prosecution of his political opponents including using the military against them. THIS is authoritarianism. And even if he is not re-elected, or if he is re-elected and he never gets to realize his darker dreams, his calls for violence (execution, death) and using the military against the American people (more violence) must surely affect the American people. His sickness will continue to spread; he is normalizing violence. 

Mr. Trump’s cultural influence is my greatest concern. He has a dark view of reality, is convinced everyone cheats all the time, in response he feels justified to cheat all the time, believes everything is rigged, its dog-eat-dog, has a dislike for democracy, and an unending love for himself. Evidence of his self-love: 1) manipulating a foreign power, Ukraine, to help him get reelected (this triggered his first impeachment) and 2) getting Republicans to vote down a carefully crafted bi-partisan Border bill heavily championed by Mitch McConnel which would have done what he has said he wanted for years. But Mr. Biden was President at the time so Biden would have gotten the credit! It appears Mr. Trump cares more for himself than he does the American people he “serves”.

By virtue of who he is, he will call more people into political power who are like himself and he will continue corrupting the Republican party. Liz Cheney here speaks from her global experience about how quickly a democracy can devolve. My greatest long-term fear is that he will return to power, will have some success, and the Democratic party in its frustration will begin to think that it must fight fire with fire, i.e. it must become corrupt in order to successfully compete with the corrupt Republican party. He is not only making both the Republican party darker (and kicking out Romney and McCain Republicans) but he is making the entire country darker (inspiring bomb threats in Springfield Ohio because of his false claims that Haitian migrant workers are eating pets, saying that Asians and Africans poison the blood of America, etc).

Voting this November is easy. Cultural changes which pit us against each other (“some groups” are “poisoning the blood of America”, the military should be used against American citizens whom Mr. Trump disagrees with) and away from our usual allies (Ukraine and NATO), and which threaten democracy (inspiring unfounded doubt in our electoral system and in our court system), means any political candidate which doesn’t do these things is better. Harris doesn’t do these things. She has my vote. I call on all Republicans to put Country over Party, as Republican Adam Kinzinger does here.  

Sweet Papa, I know this was long, but I just want to close with this: I will cry for weeks if Mr. Trump is elected. His values are the opposite of mine. I believe in a good world, not a dark world. He is bringing darkness and I abhor the idea of living inside his dark world. I believe I will have children someday, and I want them to live in a world of hope and democracy, one in which no matter what they believe politically, the President will not use violent force against them and in which peaceful transfers of power are once again normalized. Oh, and one in which the Constitution is still revered and political violence is denormalized. 

That’s all. That’s what I want.

I love you.

Resonance

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White on white
      A white girl
      In a white room
      Being pushed into a white machine

Kindly pushed I should add
     Paul is my MRI tech
     I hate MRIs
     I get through this MRI by thinking about my man   
     I call him the beautiful man
     He’s gone now. Gone forever.
     His name means too much
           so I can’t say it
     He has simply become 
          The Beautiful Man

Beeps and buzzes bombard me 
      Enter me
White walls entomb me
      It’s hard to believe these machines don’t cause cancer
           Terror comes nearer
      I repeat every beautiful thing he ever told me
      Time with you is a precious gift
            He said
      I remember his kisses
           His eyes shut
      I remember asking him how I did
           After our first kiss
           Magnificent he said
      I remember my read resting awkwardly on his arm
           Our backs on the grass 
                outside Garfield Conservatory
          Leaves against the clouds 
               filling my view above
          His lean face filling my view to the right
      I remember him skating backwards
           Grinning and relaxed
           At the outdoor skating rink
           Me skating towards him
                Chatting about his two boys
                Wearing his extra hat on my head
      What should I call you?
           He asked
           Playfully working to find the best pet name for me
           I never needed a pet name
           I just needed him
           He could have called me catface
                and my heart would have melted
      My beautiful Abigail
           Is the last thing he ever called me
           And the best
           Because he said “my”

Who knew
      Someday he would be gone
      And his memories would rescue me from an MRI machine

   

Barcelona Day 13: La Sagrada Familia

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Light and color. These two words best describe experiencing the inside of La Sagrada Familia. It almost feels sacrilegious to put my experience into words. I was in a large tour group. Our delightful and gregarious tour guide let us know that around 10,000 visitors experience the basilica in a day. So, my friends, I am 1 in 10,000. And that is only today! Here is my experience: I was moved to tears. I held them back, but the atmosphere was so intensely joyful and like no other I had experienced. I am struggling to find the words. To enter a cathedral of, what felt like, boundless rays of color filling the vaulted space overhead was like, well, it was like how I colored as a child: I used every crayon in the box. Or it was like the stickers I chose as a child: wild colors! All of them! There is something playful about using all the colors. Something festive. It says we’re throwing all the doors open! No holds barred!

I’ve learned color and light are intertwined: increased light means increased vibrancy of color. Gaudi restructured the main sanctuary twice in order to get more light, which in turn allows more color. I am a grateful recipient of his work.

I was surrounded by hundreds and thousands of people but the moments in the sanctuary still felt special and intimate. I have never experienced a piece of architecture in my life that made me feel so enveloped in color. So, loved! Gaudi attended church twice daily. He was devout. He was Catholic. If I remember correctly, he refused to be paid for his work on the basilica. He worked on it 42 years. He believed he had God-given skills that he was meant to share with the world. It appears he was right!

La Sagrada Familia is a story book. And fascinatingly much of the story is on the outside of the building. Historically, people could not read, so the Catholic church told the events of the faith to its people through sculptures inside the building. Gaudi reversed that: the sculptures are on the outside. And given how mammoth his structure is, he can tell much of the Bible! There’s the passion facade, the nativity facade, the resurrection, and I don’t remember the other.

His work is an inviting retelling of the faith. Who doesn’t want to be enveloped in light and color?! Surrounded in awe. Stunned if but for a while. Feeling small inside what may be the tallest religious building in the world. Gaudi tells the story of Jesus in a way that people want to hear it: the excellence of his piece of work calls us and the story is “told” through light, color, and statue after statue.

I get the idea that coming as sunset is arriving is best. I was there between 3:45 and 6:30. There are hundreds more things to be said on this work of art, the passion of its maker (Gaudi), the philosophy of Gaudi, and the love between man and God. But, my time is up! I will most likely edit this piece over time to make it what it should be.

I will always remember Barcelona for its vibrancy!

Barcelona Day 12: Flamenco

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This is the penultimate day! (I usually use that word to make fun of that word. Doesn’t it sound so much more important than it is? It almost sounds more important than “ultimate” but all it really means is second to last!)

Today I experienced flamenco dancing for the first time. And I’ve largely concluded it’s angry tap dancing. Ha. Angry tap dancing with some finger flair (i.e. finger movements are part of the dance!) and only one type of emotion: intense urgent focus, nearly aggressive. Early on in the performance I couldn’t help but think they must be dancing about catastrophes or the apocalypse. Or failed romances. Those are essentially the same to most of us, right? In fact, when I asked the sweet German lady who sat next to me (whose Spanish was better than mine), the words she was able to pick up from the lyrics were about love, failed romances, and waiting 20 years. I’m pretty certain the performance would have made more sense to me had I known the language.

Either way, I am extremely entertained that flamenco dancing is so, uhm, serious! Have you ever had anyone accuse you of taking yourself too seriously? Well, never fear! There is at least one group of people who take themselves more seriously than you do: flamenco dancers. It’s intense! Makes me wonder what has happened in a group’s history to produce an art form like this. All groups suffer. But only the Spanish have produced flamenco dancing.

The guitar was my favorite part. I love Spanish guitar. Rich and sultry. The singing plus the guitar plus the percussion which the flamenco dancer contributes through tap dancing was what surprised and delighted me. There’s more to flamenco dancing than I had known!

In reading about Franco yesterday I learned that he declared flamenco dancing and bull fighting to be Spanish things. Does that make any sense? A human can not directly create culture. More than anything culture creates us. Anyway, the Catalons (more than any other Spanish group I know of) would not necessarily be on board with all the typical Spanish things. In fact, Catalonia has banned bull fighting and the old bull fighting rings are now used for other purposes. (This is in order not to torment and kill an innocent animal.) The rest of Spain… bull fighting continues!

I also experienced Casa Battlo today and ate at a Georgian restaurant. Gaudi’s work, Casa Battlo, is hard to explain. As much as I understand him better now in that he was trying to mimic nature, elements of his work still remind me of Dr. Seuss. And elements of his work are so playful that they’re almost hard for me to take seriously. I can completely commiserate with the Catalons of his time who were disoriented and distressed by his work. And, at the same time, I was thoroughly inspired by the spirit of this house. It felt playful and playful can feel hopeful. Perhaps I can learn from Gaudi and be more childlike? The audio guide made a very similar mistake to what I think I’m seeing in myself. The Battlo’s were devout Catholics and, in their stunning living room they would either worship (using a Catholic set of symbols which were contained in a wardrobe-like piece of furniture) or enjoy leisure time. The audio guide observed that it is ironic to use the same room for worship as for rest, play. Is it? This makes me think of the counterpoint I raised early in my trip where I observed that I was going to play in Spain while simultaneously my cousin was going to work and serve a church in Egypt. To the best of my understanding, work and play are of equal value in God’s sight. Just like there is no tension between leisure and worship. And, perhaps I have taken parts of adult life too seriously and can not feel fully comfortable with playful elements in aesthetic design. I’ll ponder Gaudi more as I get time…

The Georgian restaurant was a surprise! I had to look up Georgia on a map. It is north east of Turkey. So I ate at a delightful, thoroughly sophisticated middle eastern restaurant which specializes in coriander. The restaurant’s name, Kinza, means coriander. My meal was tremendous; I remember pomegranate seeds resting on top of onion slices on top of an amazingly spiced meat with a lovely sauce. Unique and well-balanced flavors. And then a woman came out and sang! I had no idea I was getting two performances in one night. She was young, small-ish, rather perfectly beautiful, and her voice was truly unforgettable. A rich, sultry voice sang for the four of us in the restaurant. What a gift! I hope she “gets found”. She has a talent!

Below is one moment, like all the rest, in the flamenco show: intense!

Barcelona Day 11: Costa Brava

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Costa Brava means “wild coast”. And it is considered wild due to the rockiness of the coast. (See picture below.)

I traveled with a group of random humans and one handsome tour guide up this coast today. “Catalonia”, I learned, means land of castles. Apparently Catalonia has an unusual number of castles, and according to our tour guide, Xavier, one season of Game of Thrones was filmed here. Further rounding out my knowledge of Catalonia is that it was an independent country for 700 years! I believe from the 9th century to 1714. That significantly explains today’s demands for independence! And this makes me think of Scotland.

I had music for dessert! Meaning, my dessert was a word in Catalon that sounds exactly like “music” in English: it was made of mixed nuts and very sweet wine. These two things came separately. It was pleasant.

Yesterday I had intriguing conversations with Singaporeans about their country and geopolitics and today I had entertaining conversations with the tour guide on his efforts to divert (and end!) political conversations in his tour groups. The current American political scene is diverting to people from other countries, but does not always lead to the vibe that a tour guide may want. Ha! I watched in concern yesterday as one American sat looking down, very still and silent, around the lunch table, as other Americans and many other nationalities voiced loud disapproval of the previous American president. I changed the topic. (I was sitting across from five Texans. Apparently they did not all share the same views!)

Over dinner tonight I researched the Moors and Franco. I was not able to validate the claims of yesterday’s tour guide that the Moors generally valued freedom of conscience or that they were largely welcomed by the Iberians. I was able to confirm that Franco did force Catholicism on his people. Amazingly, one historian claims Franco’s power over his own people far exceeded the height of power that Hitler or Stalin ever had over their own people.

I sincerely want to know: what governments have valued freedom of conscience and why? This dovetails with the question of how church and state should relate. From the little I’ve gathered, for most of history these two entities (church and state) have been an indivisible unit and suggesting that they should be separate would be illogical to the peoples of that time. I know Queen Elizabeth I valued freedom of conscience at a time when this was not particularly common. I like to think the Moors did but can’t yet validate this claim. It’s not natural for someone to give away power, and for a government to say “believe what you like about the most important things” is a massive giving-away of power. I think this is going to rattle around my brain for a while longer…

I wish to close with an important culinary formula I learned today: rucula = rocket = arugula. Just how many words get applied to the same plant?! I need some reason in the universe… perhaps I ask too late?

Barcelona Day 10: Montserrat

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I have 10 minutes to write this post!

Experienced Montserrat (the serrated mountains), had a subpar tour guide (which I had to watch my attitude over all day because a quality tour guide is a thing of beauty), and learned the most interesting things on the way to Montserrat when a different tour guide was speaking.

I will share a total of one for now: Barcelona is the only city I’ve ever heard of that actually capitalized financially from hosting the Olympics. I’ve always heard this is such a financial loss! Not for Barcelona. They took their opportunity, in 1992, to simply refurbish old stadiums and the like and then (with the leftover money!) they built up various parts of Barcelona. Example, they took some of the money and imported sand from the Sahara and palm trees from the Caribbean to create the excellent beaches they have now!

I learned fascinating things about Franco and the Moors and will be pondering these things much longer. (Am starting to wonder about “culture wars” and how common the need is to “control culture” throughout human history and exactly how this has tended to play out. What I learned about Franco triggered this thought. The Moors, fascinatingly, seemed to display the opposite tendency.)

Below is the view from the monastery of Montserrat, and a distant view of Montserrat.