Civil Commotion

Bruce Gerencser writes a piece for the Clergy Project that describes living in Trump country.

In 2016, Donald Trump easily won the counties surrounding my home in Ney [Ohio]. Come November he will carry these counties again, likely by a higher margin than he did in 2016. The same will happen with the elections of local and state Republican candidates. Democratic candidates,

[ … ]

The aforementioned letter writer doesn’t say anything that I don’t hear locals say at ballgames, restaurants, or other public places, or write in letters to the editors of local papers or post on social media. I shoot photos upwards of a hundred local basketball/baseball/football games, volleyball matches, and track meets every year. I am retired, so I do this as a way to give back to our local school district and provide student-athletes and their families with quality photographs. Keeps me busy, allows me to meet new people, and takes my mind off the unrelenting chronic pain I battle each and every day. Doing so, however, exposes me to far more Trumpist Christian bullshit than I care to see or hear.

This rings true. I have family who live near Gerencser in Ohio, and I live in a Southern Baptist-dominated seminary town in North Carolina.

Remember: Christianity’s indispensable metaphysical claim is Original Sin, the claims that …

• You’re no damn good.

• You were born no damn good, and …

• You can never be any damn good, and …

• The only way to avoid the eternity of torture that you deserve is to join our club.

If you don’t believe those things, Christianity has nothing on offer.

Nobody alive has ever attended a Christian worship service without hearing some variation of that teaching. You probably heard it couched in more pleasant language, but it was there; after all, that’s the “Good News” that Christians are always bragging about.

Degradation and authoritarianism are baked into Christian thought; they are, ontologically, part of what Christianity is. Of course evangelicals love Donald Trump.

As Americans, we should be frightened — deeply afraid for the future of the nation. When good men and women can’t speak the truth, when facts are inconvenient, when integrity and character no longer matter, when presidential ego and self-preservation are more important than national security — then there is nothing left to stop the triumph of evil.

William McRaven, Washington Post

Fundamentalists may be unhappy that religious observance has declined over the decades, but the data shows that, by most measurements, life has gotten much better for most people. There is little evidence that a decline in religiosity leads to a decline in society — or that high levels of religiosity strengthen society. (Remember, Rome fell after it converted to Christianity.) If anything, the evidence suggests that too much religion is bad for a country.

Max Boot

This has been well-known for a long time, no matter the howls and bellows of Southern Baptists. Nor should it surprise anybody; after all, the rise of Christianity represented a decline in thought and ethics. The ancient world gave us philosophy (Socrates, Plato), the beginning of medicine (Galen), the beginning of science (Archimedes), and enduring literature (Sophocles). Christianity gave us the Dark Ages.

Last night’s Democratic debate in Las Vegas was the first in which we had a good opportunity to see who the candidates are when the pressure is on — and it was disappointing.

Mike Bloomberg: His advertising campaign is terrific, but in person he has no more personality than a cigar-store Indian. What is more, he plainly disliked having to be at the debate, with the regular folk, and field questions. He’d probably be a competent chief executive, but I don’t think there is any way on earth he can win the general election; after all, he’s going to have cameras pointed at him 24/7.

Elizabeth Warren: She is unmistakably smart, and as sincere and earnest as any high school do-gooder organizing a pep-rally. It was she, after all, who spearheaded the drive to create the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau so hated by large financial services firms because it slowed-down their systematic theft. She is tough, too, neatly slicing and dicing Bloomberg. She is thoroughly unpretentious middle-class, and it’s hard not to like that in a field that includes 2-billionaires (maybe). There is a sense of wild-eyed zealot about her, though, and I’m having a difficult time picturing her prevailing through the rough-and-tumble of a long campaign. In that respect, the best thing going for her is that Donald Trump is such an utterly repellent human being. On the down side, she is a bona fide Harvard intellectual, and there are a lot of people who will hold her ‘elitism’ against her.

Joe Biden: Poor guy.

Bernie Sanders: There’s a no-nonsense directness about Sanders that is likable, but it always seems to be accompanied by barely-suppressed anger. He’s not truly a socialist as I understand the word, but nobody who self-identifies as a socialist is likely to be elected in this country for a long, long time.

Pete Buttigieg: He’s another over-achieving intellectual, but ex-military and projects an affable, centrist mindset without the ‘elite’ baggage. There was a whiff of persnickety, querulous teenager in the go-round with Amy Klobuchar over the President of Mexico, I thought, and it was off-putting. And there are people disgusted by Trump who won’t care much for Buttigieg, either, because he’s gay.

Amy Klobuchar: Busybody P.T.A. mom. She’s good with rehearsed talking-points, but doesn’t improvise well; she definitely needs to attend some Toastmaster classes.

As awful as Trump is, the debate ended with me wondering if he could, after all, win a second term. Four of the leading Democrat candidates are ready for pinochle at a retirement home in Florida, and neither of the two youngest is ready for prime time. Buttigieg is probably the most plausible president of the two — but only when the opposition is Trump; otherwise, I’d encourage him to sit out a couple of elections and grow-up some more. But the way things look just now … Go, Mayor Pete!

It’s been clear for the past few years, as the Conservative Resurgence generation of leadership passes or falls into disrepute (Paige Patterson, Paul Pressler), that the folk in the pews are ready for a less conservative, less crazy, less malicious and straight-jacketed denomination. I thought the fight would be joined last year, but … No.

It’s going to happen this year.

Wade is among the most decent, generous-spirited pastors in the SBC; he is one of the very few whose church I could picture myself sitting-in without feeling that I had soiled myself. We disagree about some important things, obviously, but he isn’t one of those pastors who is so stupid and mean-spirited that his mere presence is painful.

So: What is he tweeting about?

Every year, in connection with the annual meeting, there is something called the Pastor’s Conference. Nominally, it is administered separately from the annual meeting, but it is funded and controlled by the Southern Baptist Convention. It’s kind of like the children’s table at Thanksgiving; they’re apart, but there is still oversight by the parent organization.

What do you know? This year, the Pastor’s Conference decided to invite a woman speaker. It’s like the boys at the children’s table inviting the free-spirited teenaged girl from down the street, the one who causes the mommies to cluck about how she dresses.

You can see the problem, I’m sure. Naturally, the ‘adults’ stepped-in and told the boys to disinvite her or there’d be no Pastor’s Conference at all.

Heh.

This invite, y’all should understand, is not the entire source of friction; it’s a proxy for a wide range of disagreements. The Old Guard wants to hold the line against gays, cohabiting couples, acknowledging sexual abuse, trans-racial couples, on and on. The younger pastors want to be more welcoming and do church in society as they find it.

The icing on the cake is that Albert the Pious, the dullest mind of the 16th-century, is running for SBC President this year.

It’s going to be a great meeting. I swear, if I belonged to a church I’d try to get credentials to be there.