Claiming the mantle of Christ in politics. Addressing politicians in desperate times, part 3.

Ave Maria, gratia plena,

Dominus tecum.

Benedicta tu in mulieribus,

et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Iesus.

Sancta Maria, Mater Dei,

ora pro nobis peccatoribus,

nunc et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen.

This series was kicked off on a companion blog, and followed up upon in another one that has a more limited focus.  That's why we're posting this one here.  I.e., we acknowledge that questions that are important to hunters, fishermen, campers, etc., may not be to the sincerely religious.*

I fear, gentle reader, that this will have a rather long winded introduction, but there's no real way to avoid that.

More than any other era in my lifetime, religion is in the public sphere.  In Wyoming, the least religious state in the country, decades went by in which politicians never openly stated anything about their faith.  I knew very sincere Catholic politicians who never mentioned that in a race, or while in office.¹ The same is true of two deeply Mormon politicians I know.  If you knew them, you knew that they were Mormons, but they never mentioned it even once in their campaigns.

The same was true of Congressional candidates.  There were longserving Congressmen from Wyoming whom I could not tell you anything about their religions.  I assume that they were Christians, but it's just an assumption. I'm sure I could look it up, but it's not something you automatically knew.

Well, those days are over, and they're over because radical Calvinists of the New Apostolic Reformation are waging a holy war on American culture, and by extension, effectively on other faiths, including the main of the  Christian faith.  They're franky fairly open about it.  

As part of this, a lot of politicians now wrap themselves in the mantle or religion, claiming Christ and Christianity, and directly interjecting questions of faith and morals into their politics.  Prime examples today are people like Mike Johnson, who is some sort of Evangelical Christian and who has the Christian Nationalist Pinetree Flag outside of his office.² The election of Donald Trump brought to the forefront Christian Nationalist and National Conservatives, movements that were around before Trump but who see Trump as their once in a millenium opportunity.  

In that group, moreover, there are two distinct camps.  One one hand, you have National Conservatives, a movement defined by people like Patrick Dineen and Rod Dreher and who are often Apostolic Christians looking back basically to the 19th Century.  They distrust democracy entirely, and therefore espouse a sort of democracy that can only exist within cultural guiderails.  Adherents to their views who are in the Administration or who have close influences on it are J. D. Vance and Kevin Roberts.³ 

These people are influential, but not as much as the second group.

The second group are radical Evangelicals who are often part of the New Apostolic Reformation.  They really only barely tolerate Apostolic Christians and some of them, who are pretty ignorant as a rule on Church history and the early history of the Church, do not regard Apostolic Christians, particularly Catholics, as Christians at all.  The standard bearer for people of this mindset was Charlie Kirk, although he seemed to have been evolving steadily towards Apostolic Christianity.  Paula White, whom most Apostolic Christians and Mainline Protestants would fine to be a little weird, is the "faith advisor" from this camp who is very close to the Trump Administration.  Franklin Graham seems to be in this circle as well.⁴

The NAR people believe in a theology in which the United States sort of has a status roughly analogous to Israel in the Old Testament.  That is, they believe the US has a Devine mission.  They're serious about it, and they see the country as a Calvinist country, which is distinctly different from seeing it as a Christian country.  The U.S. is definitely a Protestant Country, even though many Americans don't' realize that, and Puritanism still influences it heavily.  Teh NAR people would bring Puritanism roaring back.

Christianity has had splits and different views right from the onset.  There were early heracies, of course, but there were also local expressions of Catholicism that gave rise to different rights.  World events separated the churches from each other, and some of the divisions meant that distant branches of the Church spent long periods in isolation from other Christians.  I note that to counter what is so often generally supposed, that being that Christianity was completely uniform at first.  That was never true.  Christians could certainly recognize each other, and even when long separated Churches came back into exposure with the main they often instantly recognized that they were in contact with other Apostolic Christians, but there were local different.  Such differences gave rise to the Great Schism and then, more radically, to the Reformation.

I don't note all of this to try to set out a history of the Church, but to further note here a set of additional divides.

The Catholic Church has divides between orthodox, traditional, radically traditional, and liberal, with the latter camp really falling rapidly away.  We won't deal much with the liberal here, as its basically a Baby Boom thing and a product of a misunderstanding of Vatican II.  Over time, orthodox thinking has really returned to the Church, to the relief of almost all, and presently orthodoxy is the mainstream of the Catholic demographic, with liberalism sort of an old Priest and old Bishop hold out sort of thing.  Orthodox Catholics take their Faith seriously, and look inward at the Church, rather than expect all that much of society as rule.  Trads take that one step further, reincorporating some of the things that disappeared with the "spirt of Vatican II".  Rad Trads go even further than that, with hostility towards the modern Church.

Politically, sincere Catholics are hard to peg down.  Even the Trump administration gives us a glimpse of that.  I doubt that Rubio joins Vance for Mass, even though they both go each Sunday and Holy Days.  Anyhow, Catholics that aren't protestantized, and many are protestantized, tend towards the middle of things politically, being very conservative on most social issues involving life or gender, but potentially all over the map on other issues, save for one thing. They can't be "America First" or any nation first on anything.  They hold Christ first and everything else second, some things a distant second.  There's no such thing, for educated Catholics, as an "American church".  In that, they hold the same view as St. Thomas More as expressed in his last words before his martyrdom:

I die the king's good servant, but God's first.

St. Thomas More before his execution on July 6, 1535.

The Orthodox are much the same, save for the fact that there really aren't "liberal" Orthodox, although there certainly are unobservant ones due to a loose understanding of mortal sin in Orthodoxy. The interesting thing here is that the Orthodox, who are very traditional on things, have been experiencing an unanticipated influx into their ranks which is changing the Orthodox Churches.  

For decades, Orthodox Churches were ethnic in a way that Catholic Churches could not be.  Now, many people will note that somebody was "Polish Catholic" or "Irish Catholic", and indeed that meant and means something.  But at the time at which such phrases meant the most, it was also the case that the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church said its Masses in Latin, and that meant that the Church was always very much International in nature.  Any Catholic Church anywhere, no matter how ethnic its parishioners may have been, always had members who were converts or members of other ethnicities, in the United States as well as elsewhere, and CAtholics were always conscience of that.  Orthodox Churches, however, were often extremely ethnic.

The Eastern Rites of the Catholic Church and the Orthodox have, however, seen quite the influx of others in recent decades.  In the case of the Eastern Rites of the Catholic Church, the influx started off with Trad Catholics who were seeking a traditional service. That may have continued on, but frankly at the present time the entire Latin Rite is much more traditional than it was even fifteen years ago.  Put another way, if you are seeking the traditional in the Latin Rite, it's not very hard to find it.⁵. 

But some Protestants who are fleeing their mainline Protestant Churches as those churches decline, and moreover as they've embraced liberalism, can't bring themselves to go all the way across the Tiber.  Many, many do, but some do not.  Some of those swim the metaphorical Bosphorus instead.

As they've done that they've brought a much needed widening to the Orthodox Churches, although not always in a way that ethnic parishioners have always welcomed.  Churches that were Greek Orthodox or Russian Orthodox have started to become American Orthodox, both figurately and early literally.

Holy Apostles Orthodox Christian Church, Cheyenne Wyoming.

In Protestantism, we see some similar things going on.

In the Mainline Protestant Churches we've seen some that have gravitated towards liberalism, and empty pews.  Usually in the same denomination there's a pull away back toward their Catholic origin.  One of the most Catholic wedding homilies I've ever heard, for example, was delivered by a Lutheran pastor.  It was blisteringly orthodox. Entire groups of the Anglican Communion had waded into the middle of the Tiber and waded there.

As that has happened, liberal branches of Mainline Protestant Churches have simply started to die.  Indeed, the entire Protestant Reformation is pretty clearly in its death throes.  The Catholic Church in much of the ground captured by rebels of the Reformation is gaining ground, including in the United States and United Kingdom.  In the same territory, the churches of the Reformation are dying away.

As that happens, however, the radical Reformation churches, those that were the reformation of the Reformation, have held on in their own unique ways.  In some instances, they've done so through having a very lightweight adherence to Christ's message.  Entire branches of Protestantism don't take seriously much of Christ's message on multiple things, the sanctity of marriage, and its enduring nature, in particular.  Most Protestant churches have come around to being completely comfortable with divorce and remarriage, and even multiple mirages, as well as birth control and living together outside of marriage.  

While that's happened, on the far political right we now have a revival of hardcore Calvinism, the sort of Calvinism that's really intolerant of anything else.  And that's the branch of Protestantism that has the most influence on the Second Trump administration.  It's basically at war with American culture.

A Pastor's Warning: We're Not in a Civil War, But a Christian Nationalist Holy War—And They Must Not Win.

What those who are religious, or who take religion seriously must do, or even those who simply take the topic seriously must do, is to ask candidates a series of questions, or ask yourself a series.  We'll start off, after this very long introduction, with those.

1.  Does a candidate who clothes himself in the mantle of religion, in any fashion, live according to the tenants of the religion?

We are seeing a lot of claims by politicians now days that they are religious, or that perhaps some other candidate is.  But what's the evidence for this?

The prime example is frankly Donald Trump. Claims that he is a Godly man are simply absurd.  The claims that he's some sort of Cyrus the Great are less absurd, but still absurd.  He's a genuinely bad man.

You really can't practice serial polygamy and claim that you are some kind of adherent Christian. And while all things are possible with God, having extreme wealth and being focused on it likewise make a person quite unlikely to be any sort of sincere Christian.

I'd start in part with Trump here, not because Trump claims to be a sincere Christian, although he comes pretty close, but because of those who seek to wrap him in the mantle of Christianity.  It's simply not credible, and people who assert that seriously shouldn't be taken seriously.  In contrast, thsoe who take a more cynical view, that they're advancing some kind of Christianity through an irreligious man, are more credible.

This question is a very sincere one.  We have, right now, J. D. Vance, a Catholic, on record supporting IFV, which is condemned by the Church.  How can he do that?  And  he's certainly not the only Catholic politicians who has strayed massively from the tenants of the Faith.

But its not just Catholic politicians.  Plenty of Protestant politicians right now claim to be deeply religious, but are they?  If they are opently not living according to the tenants of their Faith, what is the reason?

2. What religion are they?

This may sound like an odd one, but right now there's a lot of politicians who cite "faith", or claim a relationship with God, or who broadly claim to be Christian, without saying what they really are.  If they make the open claim they need to be asked this question.

The reason is that there are significant differences in the world outlook of various Christian religions.  The Wyoming Freedom Caucus, for example, seems to be heavily influenced by NAR type views, which most Christians are not, and which most do not support.

What about Trump, again.  He was raised a Presbyterian but has disavowed that, interestingly, as an adult.  What is he?

On this, the answer "Christian" doesn't cut it except in the case of the non observant member of the American Civil Religion, who are just sort of vaguely aware that most people in the US are Christians and they are too.

3. Do they actually attend a Church?

There are politicians who might never attend a church. We don't know, for example, if Tammy Duckworth does.⁶ But we also know that Duckworth does not make her religion an issue.  Likewise, we mentioned the other day that one of conservative members of the legislature is Episcopalians, but he doesn't mention religion at all on his legislative biography.

It is not, we'd note, that we're encouraging people to be irreligious. Quite the contrary. But if a person makes being a "Christian" a banner in their campaign, what kind of Christianity do they espouse? The same would be true for any other religions. The new mayor of New York, for example, is a Muslim, but clearly of the branch of Islam, now rare in the Middle East, that was of the progressive tolerant variety.⁷

The long and the short of this is ,that if politician claim to be a devout member of "Fill In Church" here, but doesn't go, well, that says all you need to know about him.⁸

4. Do they adhere to the tenants of their religion?

This is a big one, and you are entitled to ask.

It's one thing for a person to say "I'm a ____________". But all religions  have the concept of a greater entity.  If a person claims, for example, to be a Muslim but slams down a fifth of Jim Beam every night, well. . . 

That is, of course, a bad example. But to give more concrete ones Joe Biden was often cited as a Catholic, but supported the seas of blood that abortion results in, as well as the biological abomination of transgenderism.  This might make more sense (well actually it wouldn't) if you did not claim to be part of a religion that condemns them, but if you do, it shows that you have weak moral character that you may betray for convenience.

Lest it seems like we are endorsing Republicans by default, Donald Trump, who claims sorme loose association with Christianity, is a moral sewer.

Vance has claimed Catholicism, but backs IVF, which the Church condemns.

But what about your local politician?  They may be ramrod straight claiming that they are a member of _______________, but do they live their lives that way? If they claim a faith, you have the right to ask, and demand that they do.  Indeed, part of the problem with modern politics is that politicians are allowed to claim a religion on a tribal, but not practice basis.

5. Have they changed religions?

Religious conversions can be sincere or insincere.  In contemporary American conversions for convenience are less common than they once were, but they still exist.

Something to consider here is that conversion from no religion into a religion, and then practicing it, indicates sincerity.  Also, conversion into a religion that carries they byproduct of contempt for conversion does as well.

For this reason, while I have lots of problems with J. D. Vance, I sincerely credit his conversion into Catholicism.  This isn't something that you do lightly, and it isn't like just showing up at a service.    To be a Catholic is to endure contempt.

I'll also note that as a Catholic, while I feel that joining a Protestant faith if you are a baptized Catholic endangers your soul, I'll credit sincerity with some who have done so.  Mike Pence, who was a baptized Catholic is sich an example. While I feel that his faith journey has been deluded, and I hoep for his return, I believe he's sincere.

On the other hand, a conversion that was one of convenience shows a defect in moral character.  Without naming names, I can cite one local politicians who had a Catholic education and marriage, and then became a Presbyterian when a marriage situation suited that.  He's probably about as sincere Presbyterian as he was a Catholic, but that's the point.  A person whose attachment to the existential is so thin has no attachment to anything that matters at all, as is exemplified by the person I mentioned, who went from middle of the road conservative, to conservative, to MAGA, all with a stern look as if he was paying any attention at all.

5.  Why are they citing their religion?

If they are, why?

There's only two possibilities. Either they think it really matters, or they think it matters to you. 

That's it.

If they think it matters to you, they're claiming a tribal affiliation, not a moral one, and that should be problematic.

6. Do they think that: 1) this is a Christian nation and 2) it should be a theocracy?

The answer matters.

This is a Christian nation.  People who say otherwise are fooling themselves.  More than that, this ia a Puritan nation, although that's dying before our eyes.⁹   Accepting one, without the other, is significant.

Truth be known, this country stopped being 100% Puritan about a week after the Plymouth Rock landing, but it's been a long haul.  It wasn't until the Kennedy election that Catholic's really became part of the country.  Things continue to evolve.

This being the case, the weltanchaung of the NAR is fundamentally adverse to American culture and, oddly enough, the American Civil Religion.  We're not going back, and we're not going back as the NAR is fundamentally wrong.  

We're headed in a new direction. That direction can be conservative, but the NAR doesn't reflectd Christian reality, or the message of Christ. 

7. Does the candidate advocate or excuse bad things?

It's one thing to be irreligious and advocate a bad thing.  It's another to be a Christian.

Invading countries and killing people outside of self dense if deeply immoral. 

Killing people, including the unborn, is gravely wrong.

I'd argue avoiding the natural result of human intercourse is as well.

Theft, including of lands, is immoral

Avaracie is immoral.

Right makes might has been a proven failure since day one. Our current President seems to have adopted it. Does your candidate"

8. Does their embrace of religion make you 100% comfortable?

This would depend upon the faith, of course, but basically if you are sitting behind the candidate at Mass and wondering, 'how can he?", well, ask him?

Footnotes

*Although we would argue that if you are not out enjoying and experiencing God's creation in nature, in some fashion, you should be.

1.  Highly successful sheep rancher and politician Patrick J. Sullivan, who was Irish born, and a Catholic in Natrona County, supposedly tried to keep his distance from being too publicly Catholic, although that would have been due to the outright hostility to Catholicism in the first half of the 20th Century.  He served one year, more or less, as Wyoming's U.S. Senator upon the death of Francis E. Warren.

The unrelated Gov. Mike Sullivan is a devout Catholic who was ambassador to Ireland under Bill Clinton.  While his Irish heritage was very well known, pretty much nothing was every said about it while he was in office.

2.  Johnson provides an interesting example of what we're discussing here, in that he's from Louisiana.  Louisianans will often sort of wrap themselves around a faux Cajun personality to outsiders, but there are really five cultures that are basically naive to the state, Cajun, Creole, Black Creole and Southern White.  Johnson is Southern White.  This is quite significant in that Cajuns are descendants of Acadians transported there and have a strong French culture, including within it Catholicism.  Creole's and Black Creole's are  a"mixed" ethnicity in Louisiana, descendants of Cajuns, Spanish colonist, and African slaves.  They too have a culture that's heavily impacted by the French, through the Cajuns, but they are not Cajuns.  They are also often Catholic.  The third group, Deep South Whites, are descendants of English and Scottish colonist in the Southeast, and they're uniformly Protestant, and reflect the post Civil War shift from the Episcopal Church toward the Baptist Church and related Evangelical Christian faiths.

I've only known three Louisianans, and of them, only two fairly well.  Two of them were Creole, and one of them was a native French speaker.  One was a Cajun and could speak French, and interestingly was a Catholic with a French Jewish background.

As a total aside, these culture are really distinct and have distinct music and even distinct style of dancing.  

3. Vance wrote the forward to Robert's book  Dawn's Early Light: Taking Back Washington to Save America. Vance and Roberts are both Catholic.

So, of course, is Marco Rubio, who is a fairly devout Catholic  But he's not a National Conservative.

4.  I find White to be a little weird, and I have questions about how Christian she really is, given her personal life.  I can't stand Graham, and couldn't stand his father either, for reasons I really can't define.

I've been this way, I'll note, since I was a child.  One are where I really differ from my father, who grew up without television of course, is that I, who did, basically will never turn a television on until the evening and I never watch TV during the day.  Never.  My father pretty much turned the TV on as soon as he was in the house.  It was just sort of background noise, really.  As there were only three television channels locally when I was a kid, that means he'd sometimes turn hte TV on and there'd be some Billy Graham revival, and he'd just leave it on.  I couldn't stand Billy Graham and I didn't like him being on, even though I probably was only ten years old or younger at the time.

5.  Thirty years ago I probably could have counted the women I'd see at Mass wearing a mantilla with one hand and have fingers to spare.  Now it's becoming common, and even with preteen girls.  There have been restrictions on the Traditional Latin Mass, but most typical Catholic Masses now would rival any High Church service that Episcopalians might choose to hold.

6. She was raised a Baptist, but is intensely private about her religious beliefs.

7. The world's most oppressed religion, Judaism, seems uniquely exempt from this in some ways.  Secular Jews get tarred with the same brush as highly religious ones, while on the flip side, at least in contemporary America, opposing somebody simply because they are Jewish remains intolerable. Having said that, the prejudices that have resurfaced under the Trump Administration now make this statement suspect, as openly hating Jews because heya re Jews has returned (openly hating Catholics because they are Catholic will not be far behind).  

I'll also note that I've heard open contempt for the Mayor of New York, simply because he's Muslim. But then, at the same time, at least two members of Congress have received open contempt for the same thing, with one receiving contempt from Donald Trump seemingly because she's a black African.

8. I'll note that Mike Johnson, who at one time compared himself to a Biblical Patriarch, is on record as being too busy to alway attend church.

This is baloney. I've, to my regret, often worked seven days a week, but I make Mass.  I'd gladly exchange my role with Mike's.

9. Within a generation, for multiple reasons, this will be a Catholic country.

Prior editions:

Questions hunters, fishermen, and public lands users need to ask political candidates. Addressing politicians in desperate times, part 2.

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Addressing politicians in desperate times. A series.

Labels: 2026 Election, 2028 Election, Commentary, Democratic Party, Politics, Questions for politicians, Republican Party, Trailing thread

The Dawn Patrol: Alex Pretti, my brother in Christ

The Dawn Patrol: Alex Pretti, my brother in Christ: I want to tell you about Alex Pretti, my fellow Catholic, my brother in Christ;  Alex Pretti, the good Samaritan who stopped to help his i...

I noticed a Mass was said for Pretti the day of after his death.  That could be a bit deceptive, Masses are offered for people who aren't Catholic, and a Jewish congregation offered the Kaddish.

But somebody had hung a rosary on a photograph of him at a private memorial.  

My suspicion proved correct.

Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace. 

Amen.

I try not to interject politics into this blog, and my two other blogs about churches.  But it has, frankly, become impossible.  Donald Trump and his fellow travelers have made it impossible.  The populist far right contingent of the Evangelical churches and their New Apostolic Reformation have introduced a perverted brand of Christianity into what was already a Puritan country, bringing back the worst sort of attitudes that were every improperly associated with Christianity.  As an Apostolic Christian, a Catholic, I've been afraid the entire time that this would serve to be used against all Christians, but most particularly the Apostolic Christians, the Catholic and the Orthodox, whose religion has an unbroken 2,000 year history untainted by the theological innovations of men.  Street level Americans, including those who loosely consider themselves Christian, do not really know the difference between Evangelicals and Catholics, let alone between Evangelicals and Oriental Orthodox, but we're all going to get tarred with the same brush.  "Why did you Christians. . . " we'll be asked, both because some of us went along and participated (Vance, for example), but also because those same people don't realize that Christian denominations that only barely tolerate Catholicism, if tolerate it at all, really have a much different worldview than we did.

Indeed, it'd serve us well to remember that these same groups actively oppressed us not all that long ago, and their intellectual ancestors were willing, in many instances, to see us dead.

In the face of this some of us have to do what Jewish intellectual Victor Klemperer did and titled his book about the Nazis with, "I will bear witness".

Pretti was bearing witness.

And then he went to help, as we who are real Christians are obligated to do.  He was pepper sprayed, disarmed, put on the ground, and shot multiple times.

We should all bear witness to that.

Lex Anteinternet: Donald Trump and wolves in sheep's clothing. Attacking actual Christian beliefs and practices. The White House Faith Office and Paula Michelle White-Cain. We warned you.

Lex Anteinternet: Donald Trump and wolves in sheep's clothing. Atta...: 

Donald Trump and wolves in sheep's clothing. Attacking actual Christian beliefs and practices. The White House Faith Office and Paula Michelle White-Cain. We warned you.

We warned on this site that Catholics who were supporting Donald Trump as the more Christian of supposedly two options were being short sighted, particularly as there were other options that any Catholic could square with.  Part of the reason that we warned of this is that we were convinced that the "Christianity" of Donald Trump was the fringe of Evangelicalism that doesn't square with Catholic, Orthodox, Episcopal and Lutheran faiths. . . i.e. almost all of Christianity, at all.

We also warned that because of that, the entire set of events would turn on us.

Well, we were right.  We just didn't anticipate how right we'd be, and how fast it would occur.  

It started off with Trump's deportation efforts, which brought out the Catholic Bishops who really should have been out before.  Be that as it may, as soon as that occurred the Trump Interregnum hauled out Catholic convert, and adherent to a sort of Rod Dreher type of Catholicism (yes, Dreher is Orthodox) to attack the Bishops.  Vance had already morally compromised himself during the election by taking views that the Catholic Church condemns, so he was on the well trod, and ironically liberal, Catholic politician path of taking an off ramp to Hell in order to keep their political career alive.

"But for Wales?"

Anyhow, plenty of right wing Catholics who had a hefty glass of Trump Prune Juice already downed pulled up for another one and backed Vance's statements, just as plenty of English parliamentarians schismed when King Henry VIII was having dating troubles.  

Somewhat ironically, it was the church that King Henry caused to come about that next received the ire of Trump, that being the Episcopal Church when their bishop in D.C. had the guts to address Trump from the pulpit.  I don't know that Trump even noticed at the time, but plenty of Trump backers did, and Trump jointed in.  Her "liberal", or perhaps "progressive", or perhaps "woke" offense was noting the same things that Christ had in his addresses to the masses.

We all know what happened to Christ.

Well, I guess we don't all know, but more on that in a moment.

The Lutherans, being that body of Catholics originally whom German, and later Scandinavian, princes dragged out of the Catholic Church to follow Martin Luther, who originally only hoped for some reforms himself but then got carried away with himself, found themselves rejoined with Catholics in a way when Trump went after both groups for aiding immigrants without regard to their nationality.  Big branches of hit Lutheran faith have become almost more Catholic than the Catholics in some places and now have real difficulty in explaining what they believe that's different, norther than they know that they don't follow the Bishop of Rome.

Anyhow, what's going on here should be obvious.

Over half the Christians in the world are Catholic, the oldest and original branch of Christianity.  About 12%, supposedly, are Orthodox, but I'd guess that its higher than that, maybe 15% or even 20%.  The balance are Protestants.

Protestantism is dying worldwide and particularly in the west, but the "Evangelical" branch has rising enormously in the US and also around the world.  It's easy to believe in.  It doesn't ask you to confess your sins, it doesn't really grasp the concept of mortal sins, it rejects nearly everything the Church Fathers said except that Christ was divine.

It's perfectly comfortable with sexual sins, at least as the plumbing is correct.  And it really doesn't care too much if you "go to church" on Sunday, or at all for that matter.

And in the US, the real fringe of it, believes that the US is a divinely charged nation with a mission to become, basically, a new, and Evangelical Israel.

So this gives you a figure like Paula Michelle White-Cain.

Married three times, she's a proponent of the "prosperity gospel" which is the antithesis of real Christianity.  Christ promised his followers that they'd be persecuted, despised and even killed for following him.

The health and wealth people promise that believing their brand of Christianity will make you rich.

Not one of the original twelve Bishops of the Church, the Apostles, got rich.  Indeed, they were universally treated horribly.  We don't completely know all of their fates, but from tradition and what we do know, this is what occurred:

James (the Greater), the son of Zebedee, was martyred by King Herod Agrippa I (Acts 12:1-3).

St. Peter was martyred around twenty years later in Rome, along with St. Paul.

St. James (the Lesser) was who martyred by stoning in Jerusalem in the A.D. 60s.

St. Thomas was martyred in India.

St. Bartholomew was martyred by beheading or being flayed alive.

St. Philip may have been martyred in Hierapolis, we're not sure on that one.

St. Matthew was martyred, although the manner of his death is disputed.

St. Simon (the Zealot)was martyred, with St. Jude (Thaddeus).

White, in contrast, is very much alive and apparently quite well off financially.  She's been married three times, which Apostolic Christianity would condemn, but which the American Civil Religion is okay with.  Her third husband is a member of the band Journey.

White is a practitioner of the yell reaffirming things at the congregation school of preaching.  Her followers aren't going to be hearing the "Four Things God Hates" sermon and be shifting in their seats.  Nor are they going to hear that when Christ said it was harder for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven than a camel to pass through the eye of a needles, our Savior was not being metaphorical.  

Indeed, they're going to hear that God is going to make them rich.  If they listen to White-Cain, who is living a lifestyle that might make be presenting her with needles to pass through at the end of her life, and which at least facially has her living in adultery according to Apostolic faiths, they hearing that serial polygamist and apparently wealthy man Donald Trump is "Godly".

White has drawn the ire of Protestant Christian pastor rapper Shai Linne in a song called "Fal$e Teacher$", whose lyrics are as follows:

Let me begin, while there is still ink left in my pen

I am set to contend for Truth you can bet will offend

Deception within the church man, who's letting them in?

We talked about this years ago, let's address it again (Yeh)

And I ain't really trying to start beef

But some who claim to be part of His sheep got some sharp teeth (they're wolves)

You cast at me when you criticize them

But Jesus told us: Matthew 7:16, we can recognize them!

And God forbid that for the love of some fans

I keep quiet and watch them die with their blood on my hands!

So, there's nothing left for me to do except to speak to you

In the spirit of Jude 3 and 2nd Peter 2

And I know that some would label me a Pharisee

Because today the only heresy is saying that there's heresy:

"How dare they be specific and drop some clarity

On the popularity of the gospel of Prosperity"

Turn off TBN, that channel is overrated

The pastors speak bogus statements, financially motivated

It's kind of like a pyramid scheme

Visualize Heretics Christianizing the American dream

It's foul and deceitful, they're lying to people

Teaching that camels squeeze through the eye of a needle!

Ungodly and wicked, ask yourself how can they not be convicted

Treating Jesus like a lottery ticket

And you're thinking they're not the dangerous type

Because some of their statements are right

That only proves that Satan comes as an angel of light

This teaching can't be believed without a cost

The lie is you can achieve a crown without a cross

And I hear it all the time when they speak on the block

Even unbelievers are shocked how they're fleecing the flock

It should be obvious then, yet I'll explain why it's in

Peep the Bible, it's in 1 Timothy 6:9-10

It talks about how the desire for riches

Has left many souls on fire and stitches, mired in ditches

Tell me, who would teach you to pursue as a goal

The very thing that the Bible said will ruin your soul, huh?

Yet they're encouraging the love of money

To make it worse, they've exported this garbage into other countries!

My heart breaks even now as I'm rhyming

You wanna know what all false teachers have in common? (what?)

It's called selfism the fastest growing religion

They just dress it up and call it "Christian"

Don't be deceived by this funny biz

If you come to Jesus for money, then He's not your God, money is!

Jesus is not a means to an end

The Gospel is He came to redeem us from sin

And that is the message forever I yell

If you're living your best life now you're headed for hell!

Pretty much nails it.

So, those of you who are actually Christian, this is going to get much worse.

Trump went to the National Prayer Breakfast.

I'm going to note off the top that I'm a sort of cynical person about events like the National Prayer Breakfast.  Frankly, I tend to be a bit uneasy by prayers at big events as it is, as this is a Protestant country and I'm, by nature, a very reserved and shy man.  Indeed, one of my resolutions this Lent is going to be to try to shed that in regards to public displays of religion.

That may be an odd way to start this off, but for example, almost every Catholic crosses themselves before prayer. . . unless you are here in the United States and at a the annual gathering of the Community Moose and Improvement Society in which case you might not, as you'll stand out.

You probably should.

Anyhow, the association of Donald Trump with religion in general is laughable.  He doesn't appear to have observed any notable tenant of real Christianity, in so far as I can tell, at all.  And yet here he is at the National Prayer Breakfast.  It's like having W C Fields address the Temperance Union. 

Anyhow, here's what he said.

REMARKS BY PRESIDENT TRUMP

AT THE NATIONAL PRAYER BREAKFAST

February 6, 2025

THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of Communications

______________________________________________________________

THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you very much.  This is very beautiful, I must say.  This is a beautiful place.  And our country is starting to do very well again.  It’s happening fast — a little faster than people thought. 

Thank you especially to Senator Marshall for the beautiful introduction.  Appreciate it very much.  Thank you.  Great senator you are. 

I also want to thank a friend and a man of profound faith and tremendous patriotism who’s also become a great friend.  You become much friendlier when you have a majority of two or three or four.  Could even be five pretty soon.  (Laughter.)  But for a little while, it was one.  That’s Mike Johnson, speaker.  Thank you very much, Mike — very much.  (Applause.)

And thanks, as well to somebody who’s doing a fantastic job: Senator Thune.  Thank you very much, Senator.  (Applause.)  It’s not easy.  It’s not easy.  It’s really great. 

And Leader Scalise — Steve, wherever you may be.  I think you’re here someplace.  There he is.  A brave guy, too.  A brave guy.  I always say it. 

And Senator Chuck Schumer.  Chuck, thank you very much.  Thank you.

Senator Hassan, thank you very much.  Thank you.  Very nice to see you. 

Congressman Jeffries, thank you.

And many other very distinguished leaders in the room.  Great, great group of people.  If we could ever come together, it would be unbelievable.  It may not happen, but it should and maybe it will. 

From the earliest days of our republic, faith in God has always been the ultimate source of the strength that beats in the hearts of our nation. 

We have to bring religion back.  We have to bring it back much stronger.  It’s one of the biggest problems that we’ve had over the last fairly long period of time.  We have to bring it back.

Thomas Jefferson himself once attended Sunday services held in the old House Chamber on the very ground where I stand today, so there could be nothing more beautiful than for us to gather in this majistic place — it is majestic — and reaffirm that America is and will always be “one nation under God.” 

At every stage of the American story, our country has drawn hope and courage and inspiration from our trust in the Almighty.  Deep in the soul of every patriot is the knowledge that God has a special plan and a glorious mission for America.  And that plan is going to happen.  It’s going to happen.  I hope it happens sooner rather than later.  It’s going to happen. 

And it’s His hand that guides us every single step of the way.  And all of you and the things we have to do is to see the defining role that faith and prayer have played in the life of our nation.  And you just have to look at this building, and you can look at each other.  You can really look at each other.  It’s defined almost everyone in this room.  I think faith has been very strong with the people in this room. 

Just steps away from here, in the Hall of Columns, is the statue of John Winthrop, who famously proclaimed that America would stand as “a city upon a hill, a light to all nations with the eyes of all people upon us.”

Today, almost 400 years after that famous sermon, we see that with the Lord’s help, the city stands taller and shines brighter than ever before — or at least it soon will. 

In that same hall, we also find the statue of the great Roger Williams, who founded the state of Rhode Island, named its capital city Providence, and built the First Baptist Church in America. 

It’s Williams that we have to thank for making religious liberty part of the bedrock of American life.  And today we must protect the fundamental freedom with absolute devotion.  We must stand strong, just like generations of Americans have done on the battlefields all around the world. 

Feet away from the magnificent rotunda, another statue watches over visitors to the Capitol.  George Washington, the founder of our country, often called for Americans to join together in prayer — very often.  And more than two centuries later, this morning, we heed President Washington’s wisdom and follow in his mighty footsteps.  He was a strong man and of great religious strength. 

The stories of legends like Washington, Winthrop, and Williams remind us that without faith in God, there would be no American story.  Every citizen should be proud of this exceptional heritage.  We have an unbelievable heritage, and we have to use that and make life better for everyone. 

That’s why, as we approach the 25th-times-10 anniversary — think of that, 250; 250 years we’ll be celebrating next year — of our country’s founding, I have signed an executive order to resume the process of creating a new national park full of statues of the greatest Americans who ever lived. 

We’re going to be honoring our heroes, honoring the greatest people from our country.  We’re not going to be tearing down.  We’re going to be building up. 

It will be called the National Garden of American Heroes.  Some of you will be on that soon-to-be hallowed ground — some of you.  Let’s see.  I can pick a few of you right now by looking — (laughter) — because there’s a couple of you right now, I can see.  Let’s see.  (Laughter.)  It’s the president’s sole opinion.  (Laughter.)  And I’ve given myself a 25-year period — (laughter) — and then somebody else.  By that time, it will be very, very built up.  (Laughter.)

No, it will be something very special, and I hope that Congress will fully fund this wonderfully unifying project at the first possible opportunity — it’s not going to be a lot of money; going to be very important, however — so that more of our people can be inspired by the faith and courage of patriots like those who we honor in these halls.  One of the incredible Americans whose memory my order will celebrate is also recognized with a statue in the Capitol, representing the great state of North Carolina, and that’s a man known — who everybody loved: Reverend Billy Graham. He was something.  My father used to take me to watch the “Crusades.”  He would take me to Yankee Stadium.  I remember it so well.  I remember it more than I remember any Yankee game, and I’ve seen a lot of Yankee games.  (Laughter.)  Can you believe it?  And Billy didn’t have a bat, so, you know, he’s pretty good.  It was amazing.  You’d have 60- or 70,000 people, and they loved him.  They loved him.    I saw him with Franklin.  I don’t know if Franklin is here.  I just don’t know, but I’ve gotten to know Franklin.  He’s done a great job with helping on tragedies, on problems like in North Carolina, California.  He’s always the first one there.  The work he does is — his father is very proud of him, I can tell you that.  But Billy Graham was very special.     One floor below us, Reverend Graham’s statue stands with an open Bible, the page turned to a letter from the apostle Paul, which reads, “Let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season, we will reap if we do not give up.”  Never give up.  Never ever give up.  You can’t.     How about me?  If I would have given up, I would not be here right now.  Who the hell knows where I’d be?  (Laughter.)  It might not be a good place.  If it was up to the Democrats, it would not be a good place at all.  (Laughter.)      Never ever give up.  There could be no better message for the leaders gathered here — and you are real leaders — that we must never give up, and we must never grow tired.  We must never grow weary, and we always must practice good.     As you know, last week, only a few miles from here, our nation witnessed a terrible tragedy when 67 people were killed in a horrible accident near Reagan Airport.  As one nation, we take solace in the knowledge that their journey that night did not end in the icy waters of the Potomac, but in the warm embrace of a very loving God.  None of us knows exactly when our time on Earth will be over.  You never know.   A truth I confronted a few short months ago when there was an incident that wasn’t — it was not fun.  It was not a good thing.  But God was watching me.  The chances of me being here — my sons are shooters.  They’re really good shooters, Don and Eric.  And they said the chances of missing from that range with that gun are — but Don equated it to a one-foot putt.  That’s pretty bad.  Two feet I can see missing.  (Laughter.)  But one foot you can’t miss.  It was the equivalent of a one-foot putt, is what he told me.    He said — in fact, he gained some religion.  He gained — he went up 25 percent.  (Laughter.)  And if you know him, that’s a lot.  (Laughter.)  But he said, “There had to be somebody that saved you, and I think I know who it is.”  And he looked up.  And I said, “Whoa, Don, that’s come — you’ve come a long way.”  (Laughter.)  He’s a good guy.     But they my two sons just really couldn’t believe it.  Had I not turned that right turn just at that time — and the audience — 55,000 people standing this way.  There were just a few people in the back on the bleachers.  There was nobody over there, except for my all-time favorite chart in history, a chart on immigration.  Immigration saved my life.  See?  So, we’re going to be good for immigration, okay? 

But had I not made that turn — boom — and quickly.  It was almost as though a deer bolted.  You know, they say the only way you miss when you’re a good shot is if it bolts?  I bolted.  I turned to the right to look at the chart, and I said, “Wow, what was that?  What was that?” So, you never know, but God did that.  I mean, it had to be.  The chances of turning, because there’s no reason to turn to the right.  You know, the chart is rarely brought down.  I brought it down maybe 20 percent and — 20 percent of the time.  And it’s never on my right.  It’s always on my left.  And it’s always at the end of the speech, never the beginning of the speech. 

And if I was a little more than that 90-degree angle, it would be no good.  And if I was a little less, it would be no good.  It had to be perfect.  The thing went “shhh” right along the edge.  It didn’t affect my hair.  Can you believe that?    (Laughter.)  It might’ve touched it.  Might have touched it, but not where it counts, not — (laughter) — not the skin part. But it changed something in me, I feel.  I feel even stronger.  I believed in God, but I feel much more strongly about it.  Something happened.  And so — (applause) — thank you.  Thank you. But that event, like the tragedy last week, should remind us all that we have to make the most out of every single day that we have.  Who would think that you’re in space and two things collide?  The odds of that happening are so small, even without proper control. 

We should have had the proper control.  We should have had better equipment.  We don’t.  We have obsolete equipment.  They were understaffed, for whatever reason.  I guess the helicopter was high, and we’ll find out exactly what happened.  But the odds, even if you had nothing — if you had nobody, the odds of that happening are extremely small. 

     It’s like, did you ever see — you go to a driving range in golf and you’re hitting balls, hundreds of balls, thousands of hours.  I never see a ball hit another ball.  Balls going up all over the place.  You never see them hit. 

 It was amazing that that could happen.  There was a lot of mistakes made, and it should have never happened.  But regardless of that, it’s amazing that it happened. 

 And I think that’s going to be used for good.  I think what is going to happen is we’re all going to sit down and do a great computerized system for our control towers, brand-new — not pieced together, obsolete, like it is — land-based — trying to hook up a land-based system to a satellite system. 

And the first thing that some experts told me when this happened is you can’t hook up land to satellites, and you can’t hook up satellites to land.  It doesn’t work.  And we spent billions and billions of dollars trying to renovate an old, broken system, instead of just saying, “Cut it loose, and let’s spend less money and build a great system.”  Done by two or three companies — very s- — good companies, specialists.  That’s all it is. They used 39 companies.  That means that 39 different hookups have to happen.  And I don’t know how many people of you are good in terms of all of the kind of things necessary for that — and it’s very complex stuff — but when you have 39 different companies working on hooking up different cities and different people — you need one company with one set of equipment. 

And there are some countries that have unbelievable air controller systems, and they would have — bells would have gone off when that helicopter literally even hit the same height, because it traveled a long distance before it hit.  It was just like — just wouldn’t stop — you follow the line.  But bells and whistles would have gone off.  They have them where it actually could virtually turn the thing around.  It would have just never happened if we had the right equipment. 

And one of the things that’s going to be — I’m going to be speaking to John and to Mike and to Chuck and to everybody.  We have to get together and just — as a single bill, just pass where we get the — the best control system.

When I land in my plane, privately, I use a system from another country, because my captain tells me — I’m landing in New York, and I’m using — I won’t tell you what country, but I use a system from another country, because the captain says, “This thing is so bad.  It’s so obsolete.”  And we can’t have that. 

So, we’re going to have the best system and it’s a lot of money, but it’s not that much money.  And it’ll happen fast, and it’ll be done by total professionals.  And when it’s done, you’re not going to have accidents.  It’s just not — they’re not — they’re virtually not possible to have. 

Each of us is blessed with a precious chance to help lead America to renew our pledges of faith and everything else and bring us to new heights and create a future of promise for our people and for ourselves. 

You know, we have the most important people in the country, in a true sense, here, because you’re the ones that are going to make the decision.  You’re the ones that are leading us into so many different things, whether it’s the right air control system or the right size military or what to do and what not to do — most important people.

And many of you are very religious.  I know so many of you are very religious.  And I just think that our country has been so badly hurt.  We’re very hurt by what COVID did to religion.  It really hurt it badly.  People couldn’t go to church for a long period of time.  Even going outside, they were given a hard time.  And I’m not blaming anybody for that, but — but it was very hard to gather. 

So, they start using computers, if that.  And when they come back, it’s just, you know, a whole new experience they have to get used to.  But it is starting to come back. 

We had a fantastic thing happen yesterday.  The Army had the best recruitment numbers that they’ve had in more than 15 years.  They think it could be 25 years, actually — they’re going to probably put that out — but more than 15 years just now.  (Applause.)

And we were worried about it.  We were talking about it numerous times that, you know, we don’t have people joining our military services.  We don’t have people joining our police force.  We have to cherish our police. 

It’s so dangerous.  You open a car and somebody starts shooting.  They have blackened windows.  You don’t even have any idea who’s in the car.  Oftentimes, they have the dark windows — which they’re not, in theory, supposed to have, but they have them.  The door opens and a gun is pointed at your face, and you can’t do a thing about it.  It’s just nothing you’re going to do about it.  Your friends will take them out, and it’s happened so many times, but you just — it’s so — such a dangerous thing.  We have to cherish these people. 

So, today, we join our hearts and prayers in recommitting to putting our country first.  We have to put our country first, making America stronger and greater and more exceptional than ever before.

And we have to make religion a much more important factor now.  We have to make it an important factor.  And if we do that, it’s going to be — our job is just going to be much easier.  It unifies people.  It brings people together.  Democrats are going to be able to have lunch again and dinner with Republicans. 

And I remember, just as — growing up, I’d see — you know, I revered senators and congressmen as something very special, but they were out to dinner all the time.  We had an old congressman, maybe some of — Sey Halpern from Queens, and he was a friend of my father.  But he’d have dinner with — he was a Democrat, but he would have dinner with Republicans, and he’d be at it.  It wouldn’t even make a difference.

Today, it’s like shocking.  And it shouldn’t be.  You have to get together.  We really have to get together. 

We all know what’s right and what’s wrong, and there’s going to be compromise on both sides, but we have to just do the right thing, and we have to get together.  

You did it with Marco Rubio.  He got everybody who was — 99 votes.  And the only vote was our VP, who — who maybe we should have been there just to make it a hundred, but I think I would have been angered if it was a hundred.  That might be a step too far, right?  (Laughter.)  But, no, it was great to see a vote. 

Pam Bondi had support from Democrats, and some of the others had some pretty good support.  So, you know, it’s doable.

We had a recent bill having to do with a very beautiful young lady who was killed from Georgia, and that bill was very bipartisan.  It was a very beautiful thing to watch, actually.  And so, I think we just have to — if possible, we have to unify.

There’s big division.  I mean, some people want an open border and some people want a closed border.  We want it closed, and they want it open.  Now, that’s a big difference.  How do you solve that problem?  It’s a big difference. 

Some people want men in women’s sports and some people don’t.  And I was with somebody yesterday who was so upset that the bill was signed, where men cannot participate in women’s sports.  And I said — he’s a very smart guy --went to a great school, was a great student.  And he actually feels, you know, that that should happen: Men should be able to play — meaning transition into women sports.

And you talk to him, and it’s just — you know, I don’t understand it. I think it — I don’t understand how the problem ever got started in the first place.  It just seems so simple.

But he’s a good person and just believes it.  He just believes it.  Not going to be easy to convince him otherwise. 

So, where is a middle ground?  It’s just hard to have a middle ground if there’s two ways.  I mean, you can either do it or you can’t. 

But I think a lot of good things are going to happen.  You know, a lot of people might be surprised to hear me say that, of all people, but I think a lot of good things are going to happen.  Because our country has got some big headaches, but we have tremendous spirit right now. 

The spirit is as high as it’s been.  It was up 49 points this morning — 49 points.  That’s the biggest increase in the history of whatever the poll was. 

So, the spirit is there.  That’s a big factor.  That’s probably the hardest thing to get back, to be honest.  The rest is easy.  The rest is easy. 

So, I want to just thank you all.  I want to congratulate a lot of the new members.  I see so many of you that ran great races.  David, that was a great race.  But so many that ran great races.  And on both sides, you ran some incredible races.  So, it’s good to be with you. 

And God bless everybody.  We want to come together.  And the happiest — the person, the element, the everything that’s going to be happy.  People of religion are going to be happy again. 

And I really believe you can’t be happy without religion, without that belief.  I really believe it.  I just don’t see how you can be.  (Applause.)

So, let’s bring religion back.  Let’s bring God back into our lives. 

Thank you all very much.  Thank you very much.  Great honor.  Thank you.  (Applause.)

Some Catholic traditionalist have been warning for years now that we (Catholics) are on the verge of being persecuted in ways we have not been for a couple of centuries.  A couple of centuries seems like a long time to most people, but it really isn't.  Anyhow, they warned, we are going to find ourselves being in the same position as Catholics in Protestant England were, or perhaps like Catholics in early Rome.

It all seemed rather extreme.

Well, prosecution is coming.  And not from secular "woke" America like they/we feared, but rather from the hardcore Protestant Evangelical right that never believed we were Christians anyway, because they're ignorant of history in general and the history of Christianity in particular.  

This time, somewhat ironically, we're going to be joined by those branches of Christianity from which we're barely separated.  Anglicans and Lutherans have mostly gotten over their beef with us, even if they have not reunited with us, and now they're going to share the hatred that we've received pretty much from day one.

But the branch of Christianity that is going to suffer the most, long term, are the Evangelicals.  No whopping set of absurdities can be maintained forever, and fairly soon the Protestant going to church once or twice per year and otherwise watch football while shacked up Christians are going to turn on them, when things turn bad on them.  Actual devout Evangelicals of other branches are going to get hit as well.  We're going to see a drop off in Evangelical community at a huge rate.

One of the answers to the mystery of evil is that God never permits an evil that he can't bring a good out of.  I can't see the future, nor can you, but we can often discern patterns and make predictions, many of which, indeed most of which, will be wrong (although I was right here).  One thing that seems clear is that the Reformation has been passing away in front of us.  It's too hard for people to accept it anymore if they know anything.  It made more sense, in the US, when a backwoods preacher lived in the backwoods with backwoods people.  A lot of Evangelical Protestantism is still that way in the US, localized either in communities or demographics.  But the knowledge isn't.  The bulwark of the Christian defense against false modern beliefs has been the Catholic Church, which is joined with the Orthodox and conservative Anglicans and Lutherans in that.  But it's also the bulwark against the American Civil Religion.  The European Protestant Reformation is already dead.  This may be the last stage of the end of the Reformation playing out in front of us.

But it won't be fun to watch at all or enjoyable to suffer in.

Having said that, Catholicism has always done well as an oppressed faith.  We might finally be waking up from the slumber that John F. Kennedy induced us into.

Lex Anteinternet: The American "Christian" Civil Religion meets real Christianity, and doesn't like it.

Lex Anteinternet: The American "Christian" Civil Religion meets real...:  

The American "Christian" Civil Religion meets real Christianity, and doesn't like it.

 

Episcopal Bishop Budde

You shall treat the alien who resides with you no differently than the natives born among you; have the same love for him as for yourself; for you too were once aliens in the land of Egypt.

Leviticus  19:33-34.

This comes out on a Sunday morning.  

Faithful Catholics are going to Mass today, as required by the Church, or went last night.  These are the readings for the day, which will also be read in some "main line" Protestant Churches that use the Catholic lectionary:

Reading 1

Nehemiah 8:2-4a, 5-6, 8-10

Ezra the priest brought the law before the assembly, which consisted of men, women, and those children old enough to understand.

Standing at one end of the open place that was before the Water Gate, he read out of the book from daybreak till midday, in the presence of the men, the women, and those children old enough to understand; and all the people listened attentively to the book of the law.

Ezra the scribe stood on a wooden platform that had been made for the occasion.

He opened the scroll so that all the people might see it— for he was standing higher up than any of the people —; and, as he opened it, all the people rose.

Ezra blessed the LORD, the great God, and all the people, their hands raised high, answered, "Amen, amen!" Then they bowed down and prostrated themselves before the LORD, their faces to the ground. Ezra read plainly from the book of the law of God, interpreting it so that all could understand what was read. Then Nehemiah, that is, His Excellency, and Ezra the priest-scribe and the Levites who were instructing the people said to all the people: "Today is holy to the LORD your God. Do not be sad, and do not weep"— for all the people were weeping as they heard the words of the law. He said further: "Go, eat rich foods and drink sweet drinks, and allot portions to those who had nothing prepared; for today is holy to our LORD. Do not be saddened this day, for rejoicing in the LORD must be your strength!"

Reading 2

1 Corinthians 12:12-30

Brothers and sisters: As a body is one though it has many parts, and all the parts of the body, though many, are one body, so also Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or free persons, and we were all given to drink of one Spirit.

Now the body is not a single part, but many. If a foot should say, "Because I am not a hand I do not belong to the body, "it does not for this reason belong any less to the body. Or if an ear should say, "Because I am not an eye I do not belong to the body, " it does not for this reason belong any less to the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? But as it is, God placed the parts, each one of them, in the body as he intended. If they were all one part, where would the body be? But as it is, there are many parts, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, "I do not need you, " nor again the head to the feet, "I do not need you." Indeed, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are all the more necessary, and those parts of the body that we consider less honorable we surround with greater honor, and our less presentable parts are treated with greater propriety, whereas our more presentable parts do not need this. 

But God has so constructed the body as to give greater honor to a part that is without it, so that there may be no division in the body, but that the parts may have the same concern for one another. If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it; if one part is honored, all the parts share its joy.

Now you are Christ's body, and individually parts of it. Some people God has designated in the church to be, first, apostles; second, prophets; third, teachers; then, mighty deeds; then gifts of healing, assistance, administration, and varieties of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work mighty deeds? Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret?

Gospel

Luke 1:1-4; 4:14-21

Since many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the events that have been fulfilled among us, just as those who were eyewitnesses from the beginning and ministers of the word have handed them down to us, I too have decided, after investigating everything accurately anew, to write it down in an orderly sequence for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may realize the certainty of the teachings you have received.

Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news of him spread throughout the whole region. He taught in their synagogues and was praised by all.

He came to Nazareth, where he had grown up, and went according to his custom into the synagogue on the sabbath day. He stood up to read and was handed a scroll of the prophet Isaiah. He unrolled the scroll and found the passage where it was written: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord. Rolling up the scroll, he handed it back to the attendant and sat down, and the eyes of all in the synagogue looked intently at him.

He said to them, "Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing."

Faithful Orthodox using a different calendar will hear three readings as well, those being John 20:19-31, 1 Timothy 1:15-17 and  Matthew 15:21-28.

Donald and Melania Trump, and their son Barron, aren't going to hear any readings today, as they're not going to Church.  Melania is a non observant Catholic (her marriage to Donald Trump is invalid in the eyes of the Church) and Trump is from all observances non religious, in spite of Evangelicals having proclaimed him, with no evidence to support it, a man of God.

I find myself in a peculiar situation, in that as a Catholic who firmly believes that Episcopal holy orders are "completely null and utterly void", I'm rising to defend an Episcopal Bishop, and moreover one that I don't really know about in general.¹  

Moreover, as a Catholic who also believes that women may not be ordained to the priesthood, I'm rising to defend a female Episcopal cleric.

And in doing this, I'm recalling a homily delivered by a local young, highly orthodox, Catholic priest, that the being the "four things God hates homily".

Let's start off by recalling that, highlighting the part that applies here:

The Four Things.

Because I've referenced it more than one time, but apparently never posted it (cowardice at work) I'm going to post here the topic of "the four sins God hates".  I'm also doing this as I'm getting to a political thread about this years elections and the candidates, in the context of the argument of "Christians must. . . " or "Christians can. . . "

First I'll note using the word "hate", in the context  of the Divine, is a truncation for a much larger concept.  "Condemns" might have been a better choice of words, but then making an effective delivery in about ten minutes or less is tough, and truncations probably hit home more than other things.

Additionally, and very importantly, sins and sinners are different.  In Christian theology, and certainly in Catholic theology, God loves everyone, including those who have committed any one of these sins, or all of them.

This topic references a remarkably short and effective sermon I heard some time ago. The way my 61 year old brain now works, that probably means it was a few years ago.  At any rate, it was a homily based on all three of the day's readings, which is remarkable in and of itself, and probably left every member of the parish squirming a bit.  It should have, as people entrenched in their views politically and/or economically would have had to found something to disagree with, or rather be hit by.

The first sin was an easy one that seemingly everyone agrees is horrific, but which in fact people excuse continually, murder.

Murder is of course the unjust taking of a life, and seemingly nobody could disagree with that being a horrific sin. But in fact, we hear people excuse the taking of innocent life all the time.  Abortion is the taking of an innocent life.  Even "conservatives", however, and liberals as a false flag, will being up "except in the case of rape and incest".

Rape and incest are horrific sins in and of itself, but compounding it with murder doesn't really make things go away, but rather makes one horror into two.  Yes, bearing a child in these circumstances would be a horrific burden.  Killing the child would be too.

The second sin the Priest noted was sodomy.  He noted it in the readings and in spite of what people might like to say, neither the Old or New Testaments excuse unnatural sex. They just don't.  St. Paul is particularly open about this, so much so that a local female lesbian minister stated that this was just "St. Paul's opinion", which pretty much undercuts the entire Canon of Scripture.  

A person can get into Natural Law from here, which used to be widely accepted, and which has been cited by a United States Supreme Court justice as recently as fifty or so years ago, and the Wyoming Supreme Court more recently than that, and both in this context, but we'll forgo that in depth here. Suffice it to say that people burdened with such desires carry a heavy burden to say the least, but that doesn't make it a natural inclination.  In the modern Western World we've come to excuse most such burdens, however, so that where we now draw lines is pretty arbitrary. 

Okay, those are two "conservative" items.

The next wasn't.

That was mistreating immigrants.  

This sort of speaks for itself, but there it is. Scripture condemns mistreating immigrants.  You can't go around, as a Christian, hating immigrants or abusing them because of their plight.  

Abusing immigrants, right now, seems to be part of the Conservative "must do" list.

And the final one was failing to pay workmen a just wage.  Not exactly taking the natural economy/free market approach in the homily.

Two conservatives, and two liberal.

That's because Christianity is neither liberal or conservative, but Christianity.  People claiming it for their political battles this year might well think out their overall positions.

As I noted, two conservative items, and two liberal.

No murdering, no sodomy, no abusing immigrants, and no cheating people on their pay.

A homily nearly guaranteed to make everyone uncomfortable or angry.

Seems like everyone claiming to carry some sort of Christian banner in the deep Trump camp is only comfortable with one of those, now days.²

Bishop Budde directly addressed Donald Trump, and for that matter J. D. Vance.  You may have read what she said, but invoking the Jimmy Akin Citation Rule, you'll let you hear it for yourself.

This is homily is profoundly Christian.  There's nothing in it that any Christian can condemn.  So why are people condemning it.

Well, because it is profoundly Christian. She asks for mercy for the different, downtrodden, and immigrants.

Gasp!

Donald Trump, who is trying to yank citizenship from the "natural born", is taking exception to a Christian cleric's plea for mercy for everyone his policies impact.^3 4    Of course, he also ignored her comments about calling people names, accusing her of not being "smart", a frequent accusation by Trump (who might not be comfortable with his own smarts).

Well, this gets directly at the hypocrisy of some supporters of Trump who continually evoke religion, and particularly those who are in a certain evangelical camp.

For years now, we've been told by these people, including a fair number of clerics, that Trump, who has no discernable connection to any religion as an adult, doesn't seem to practice any religion, who is a serial polygamist with a horrific history towards women, and who is a member of the class that Christ warned less of a chance of getting to Heaven than a camel through an "eye of a needle", was a "Godly man". 

This has been a complete fraud.  There's no evidence that Trump is religious.  He attended Church only fourteen times during his first term of office.  He was confirmed a Presbyterian when he was young, a denomination he says he's no longer part of, but John Calvin would give him a dope slap for his personal conduct if he came back from the grave.⁵ 

What they really mean is they see him as somebody who going to restore and invoke a certain John Brown view of muscular evangelical Christianity.  Their religion is heavily mixed with right wing politics, and they see themselves as leading a march out of a metaphorical immoral Kansas.⁶  Trump is just, in their view, a God sent vehicle to get this done.

Put another way, as I've mentioned before, they see Trump as a sort of Cyrus the Great.⁷ They don't care that he isn't a Christian, as he's going to back their "Christian values".

And their values, frankly, express a deficit of Christianity. 

This is something we've seen before in the United States and it dates back, really, to the country being a protestant nation founded by migrating, and often dissenting, protestant sects.  If you looked at the "Pilgrims", for example, they really weren't all that nice.  Oliver Cromwell's Calvinism formed a background to a lot of the early religious history of the US, and Cromwell definitely wasn't nice.  Indeed, he ended up being so hated in his own country that the location of his head remains a secret, something imposed to prevent people from digging it up in anger.

In the past, Southern "evangelicals" were often backers of segregation.  Carrying forward to the current times, they see many of the descents from Christian moral standards, such as the intrusion of homosexuality into society in general and the pulpit in particular, as abominations.  At the same time, however, they continue to see things that they've widely accommodated as not much of a problem, at least not openly.  You aren't going to hear, for example, any evangelicals condemn divorce.  Locally I know at least two people who "lived in sin" and were really active members of a major evangelical church.  I've sort of known one person carrying the banner of Christian morality who is married to a divorced woman who is herself extremely right wing, which while common in the US, is something Christ specifically prohibited.

You really don't get the pick and choose option here.

The New Apostolic Reformation has embraced Trump in spades.  They feel that he'll, to put it in an old fashioned fashion, drive the Sodomites from the land and restore and impose a Evangelical Christian order.  A lot of them seem perfectly comfortable with policies that will hurt, at a human level, a group of people who are largely darked skinned, even if they don't hold personally racist views.

To be perfectly fair, a lot of American Catholics, completely dim on the nature of the New Apostolic Reformation, are going right along with this and supporting it, so we are far, far from being free of accusation here ourselves.^7b

That fact in and of itself will have some infesting implications.  The Episcopal Church is a "main line" Protestant religion that was once a major force in the country, but which accommodated itself to an ever growing list of things Christians have always considered sinful.  In the 1930s the Anglican Communion remained so close to Christian tradition, and close the Apostolic Christian tradition at that, that it caused a king to resign his thrown over divorce.  Now it doesn't worry much about divorce and is okay, in many places with homosexual "marriage".  Hence the accusation of "woke" aimed at the Bishop, even though she did not say a single thing that could be regarded as being woke in her homily.

I note this as Hispanics have come into the country they have been attracted to protestant and quasi Christian faiths in some numbers.  This isn't hugely surprising, even though the majority of Hispanics are cultural, if not practicing, Catholics, as these faiths seem more "American".  It's notable that in the novel, but not the movie adaptation of it, The Godfather Michael Corleone figure was disappointed when his protestant wife converted to Catholicism and started raising the children in that faith, as he hoped that they'd be members of the more "American", at that time, Episcopal Church.  Indeed, Catholics aspiring to be in the upper middle class in fact often did that until the 1960s, when Kennedy made being American and Catholic seemingly okay.⁸

In reality, it never actually became okay, as the Church will not accommodate itself to the culture of anyone nation, something that became increasingly obvious after 1973's Roe v. Wade decision.

It's been noted that Hispanics voted for Trump in large numbers this last election, a shift in political alignments that we predicated here quite awhile back. That reflects their cultural conservatism, which is to say that it reflects their cultural Catholicism.⁹   What they probably were not ready for is the degree of outright hatred a significant number of the Maga crowed have to anyone who isn't a White nominal protestant.  This started to become evident when Anne Coulter, a serious Presbyterian told Vivek Ramaswamy recently that she'd vote for him, but he isn't white.  Indeed, he's an Indian American Hindu.  Ramaswamy got the message and bailed out of the doggy agency, realizing that there was no future for him there.  He's going to run for the Governorship of Rust Belt Ohio where voters will likely inform him that he's not white, as its okay apparently to say that once again.

Indeed, there are a lot of under the breath mutterings about Usha Vance who isn't white, and who is a Hindu.   Oh my.

Chances are good that the Trump interregnum will have an impact on the Evangelicals in a major way, starting with this.  There isn't really a home in a lot of those churches for Christians who hail from a culture that didn't arise in Great Britain during the English Civil War.  When the disaster of Trump blows up, it's going to take the wind out of the sails of a lot of things associated with his movement, and most likely a lot of Hispanics out of the pews.

To be a real Christian, of course, has always meant that you didn't have a home in the world, and it still does.  It has also always meant that you'd be hated.  People want to hear that they can get rich on Earth and that its a sign of approval from Heaven.  They want to hear that some people don't really count, up to the point of their deaths, whether that be through neglect or judicial execution.  They want to be told that unnatural sexual unions are hated by God, but shacking up and affairs, as long as the plumbing is correct, aren't really a big deal.  They want to be told they can pay as little to their employees as they can get away with, and that's just God's plan.  And they want to be told they can hate the stranger, even the infant ones, if they weren't born in the right place.

They want "Christian values", as long a they weren't the ones Christians were martyerd for, and they're easy to do.  They're okay with the Sermon on the Mount, as long as it doesn't mean they really have to go to Church to hear it, and can stay home and watch football.

Now, does this apply to all Evangelicals?  Certainly not, and not by a long shot.  About 80% of white Evangelicals voted for Trump, but not all of them hold such views by any means.  58% of Catholics voted for Trump, that being a majority.  A lot of that may be explained in both instances by Democrats hugging the bloody body of abortion, which should be a lesson to them and one which we warned here was a mistake to do. And quite frankly much of what has come about was due to the developments brought about by Obergefell, which we warned would occur.¹⁰

So, horrified by a moral decay that became obvious with Obergefell, but having accommodated itself to a flood of moral decay that came before that, the American Civil Religion turned to an irreligious man who has no capacity for deep thought at all and who started whining, but only after some of his backers whined first, that a "woke" minister was interjecting religion into politics.

Politics and morality are inseparable. And as morality's foundation is religion, religion and politics are necessarily related. We need religion as a guide. We need it because we are imperfect, and our government needs the church, because only those humble enough to admit they're sinners can bring to democracy the tolerance it requires in order to survive.

Ronald Reagan.

Footnotes:

1.  The phrase is from Pope Leo XIII's encyclical Apostolicae Curae holding  Anglican ordinations to be invalid. 

I'm not hostile to Episcopalians, I'd note, I just agree that Pope Leo XIII was correct.  Apparently a lot of Episcopalians have over the years as there's been efforts to convey validity by cross ordinations from other churches that can demonstrate Apostolic succession, something the Methodist have done as well.  Some Anglican male priests do have valid holy orders, however, particularly if they were formerly Catholics.

2.  Trump reinstated the death penal for certain Federal offenses.  The Catholic Church generally takes the view that its obsolete and while the state is allowed to impose it under certain conditions, those conditions no longer exist in the modern world.

3. This is clearly a legally deficient argument and has been stayed by a court.

4.  Of interest, already there's been arguments that Trump's proclamation also deprives Native Americans of citizenship, a nasty shocking proposition.  This because Trump's AG office holds the view that birthright means "subject to the jurisdiction" of the US.

Of interest, if that's correct, Ted Cruz is not a U.S. citizen.  He was born in Canada.

5.  Presbyterians do allow for divorce, as a last resort, in cases of adultery, which Trump has experience with, or abandonment.

6.  Catholics that have been backing this best fear, as this camp is traditionally highly hostile to Catholicism, and many of its members wouldn't regard Catholics as Christians at all, even though Catholics are the original Christians.

7.  This analogy really fails. Cyrus the Great wasn't a bad man, in the context of his times and station.  He wasn't Jewish, and of course he lived well before the time of Christ, but he was charged with freeing the captive Jews under his dominion.

That's why some Evangelical Christians see Trump as a Cyrus.  Cyrus enormously benefitted the Jew, but he wasn't Jewish.  So, to those in the New Apostolic Reformation, Trump will be a Cyrus who lets them bring forth a new Evangelical Protestant nation.

Well, Cyrus would regard Trump as a pussy.  Moreover, Trump is just making us look like clowns and stands a much better chance of tainting Evangelical Christianity irredeemably.

7b.  Having said that,yanking the citizenship of the native born was the topic of an address by Catholic Cardinal Cupich.

Blog Mirror: Remarks of Cardinal Blase Cupich, archbishop of Chicago, regarding immigration at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City

Remarks of Cardinal Blase Cupich, archbishop of Chicago, regarding immigration at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City

Jan. 19, 2025

Español | Polski

While we wish the new administration success in promoting the common good, the reports being circulated of planned mass deportations targeting the Chicago area are not only profoundly disturbing but also wound us deeply. We are proud of our legacy of immigration that continues in our day to renew the city we love. This is a moment to be honest about who we are. There is not a person in Chicago, save the Indigenous people, who has not benefited from this legacy.

The Catholic community stands with the people of Chicago in speaking out in defense of the rights of immigrants and asylum seekers. Similarly, if the reports are true, it should be known that we would oppose any plan that includes a mass deportation of U.S. citizens born of undocumented parents.  

Government has the responsibility to secure our borders and keep us safe. We support the legitimate efforts of law enforcement to protect the safety and security of our communities—criminality cannot be countenanced, when committed by immigrants or longtime citizens. But we also are committed to defending the rights of all people, and protecting their human dignity. As such, we vigorously support local and state legislation to protect the rights of immigrants in Illinois. In keeping with the Sensitive Locations policy, in effect since 2011, we would also oppose all efforts by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other government agencies to enter  places of worship for any enforcement activities. 

The choice is not simply between strict enforcement and open borders, as some commentators would have us believe. Speaking this year to ambassadors accredited to the Holy See, for example, Pope Francis spoke of the need to balance migration governance with regard for human rights and dignity. “We are quick to forget that we are dealing with people with faces and names.” The Holy Father has also been clear that “no one should be repatriated to a country where they could face severe human rights violations or even death.” This is not idle speculation. Millions of migrants flee their homelands for safer shores precisely because it is a life or death issue for them and their children.

For members of faith communities, the threatened mass deportations also leave us with the searing question “What is God telling us in this moment?” People of faith are called to speak for the rights of others and to remind society of its obligation to care for those in need.  If the indiscriminate mass deportation being reported were to be carried out,  this would be an affront to the dignity of all people and communities, and deny the legacy of what it means to be an American.

He's not alone in this.  Other US Catholic bishops have made statements on this issue, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops condemned Trump's actions on immigration as well.

The Church does not maintain there should be "open borders", as some on the far left do.  Rather, it holds that immigration should be governed by four principles:

First Principle: People have the right to migrate to sustain their lives and the lives of their families.

Second Principle: A country has the right to regulate its borders and to control immigration. 

Third Principle: A country must regulate its borders with justice and mercy. 

8.  There was also a trend like this that followed World War Two with some returning US servicemen joining the (ironically) Lutheran Church as well as the Episcopal Church which seemed more American and local.

While widely missed, there's a counter trend today with young conservatives and traditionalist joining the Catholic and Orthodox churches, and some very devout Evangelicals joining the Orthodox Church after being exposed to the early history of the Church.

9.  I've already seen one video clip by a Hispanic Trump voter horrified over the deportations, claiming he promised to do no such thing.

No he didn't.  But this is an interesting example of how people convince themselves a politician holds their own views because he holds some views that they like.

10.  We specifically stated:  These justices have perhaps assumed too much if they've assumed that they can now act so far that Marshall would be horrified, and I'd be surprised if, long term, this decision doesn't either mark the beginning of a Cesarian court and a retreat of American democracy, or the point at which the roles of the Court began to massively erode in favor of a more Athenian democracy.

Either result is really scary.

Related threads:

The Four Things.

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist. XLV. At War With Nature and the Metaphysical

What's wrong with the (modern, western) world, part 2. Care, lack of care, and an existential lack of focus.

The Agrarian's Lament: A sort of Agrarian Manifesto. What's wrong with the world (and how to fix it). Part 1. How the barbarians took over the city.

Something in the wind, part 2 of 3. The rise of the radical populist right. A second look at the Italian election. . . and a bunch of other stuff.

Something in the wind, part 3 of 3. The rise of the radical populist right. Getting what you wish for.

The line from Kennedy to Trump. . and from democracy to the reeducation camp. Judicial blundering and its impact.

Why Americans, irrespective of position, ought to cringe over Obergefell