Tried With Fire

In the light of President Trump's recent dinner with "evangelical" leaders , this quote from How the Nations Rage is remarkably prescient: "The [religious right] movement stood up for good things, but its language tended to be apocalyptic. It gave earthly political outcomes - a vote on a law, an election, or a Supreme Court case - an outsized importance. Too many exclamation points and all cap sentences tell our non-Christian fellow citizens that our policy agenda is more important than the gospel itself. It says THIS ELECTION IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN THE WORLD! It communicates that we're really just a branch of this or that party. It says that God is not so big after all. That is why we have to scream." 1 And to quote another book, "Fear is the political language conservative evangelicals know best." 2 In contrast: Jesus responded to them, “Do you now believe? Indeed, an hour is coming, and has come, when each of you will be scatter...

This is an excerpt from Tempting Faith by David Kuo, quoted in Believe Me    by John Fea. Kuo served in George W. Bush's Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. As a conservative, pro-life Christian, he wanted to serve the poor and believed this political position would help him influence policy towards a more "compassionate conservatism." Kuo quickly learned that power and compassion do not mix very well. His efforts were largely ignored unless there was political gain to be had, and any influence from Christian leaders was token. "Making politically active Christians personally happy meant having to worry far less about the Christian political agenda." This involved inviting them to events as part of the crowd and giving them "little trinkets like cufflinks or pens or pads of paper" to take home and show "just how influential they were." For... the White House staff, evangelical leaders were people to be tolerated, not peo...

Believe Me: The Evangelical Road to Donald Trump , John Fea, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2018, 238 pages. Early in the morning on November 9, 2016, I was on my way to pick up the day's work. I turned on the radio and braced myself for the announcement that Hillary Clinton was elected. It would be an understatement to say that I was stunned when I learned that the next president would be Donald Trump. I think I pulled the car over to the side of the road. I was that shocked. My first major election was 1980, so I am not a new voter. Yet I don't remember there ever being an election where both candidates had so much ethical and moral baggage to disqualify them. For the record, I did not vote for Clinton or Trump. I understand holding one's nose in the voting booth (or in this case with an  SCBA  on) and choosing to be pragmatic even while being internally conflicted. However, it is another thing to rubber-stamp God's approval on a morally questionable candid...

When people talk about the "good old days," when was that? What made them good and for whom? I haven't asked those questions out loud when people wax nostalgic, although I am thinking them in my head. Maybe I should start voicing my questions. With respect, of course, but consider yourself forewarned. The following are several quotes by three historians on the problem of substituting nostalgia for an honest evaluation of the past. Nostalgia evokes warm emotions for times gone by. Depending on the data available, the basis of these feelings may or may not be historically accurate. But no matter how you spin it, a false narrative is still false. Even if it makes us feel good. I would also venture to guess that the power of nostalgia is indirectly proportional to our knowledge base. The more we know, the less there is to imagine and less opportunity for ourselves and others to fill in the blanks with what satisfies our emotions. Nostalgia then becomes less of a too...