A
Microcosm of the USA and Christianity
by Pastor
Paul J. Bern
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The
events of this past week have left the office of the American
presidency in shambles, made the US the laughingstock of the world,
and I – for one – am appalled at the state of my country.
President Donald Trump – or at least so long as he remains
president – has left all of Washington in disarray from the
presidency on down. He is also proving once again, as president
George W. Bush did after September 2001 and especially after March
2003, that those who vote straight conservative every election have
very short memories. It is the Republican party who, prior to Bush
43, brought us endless wars, the 1995 government shutdown, Iran
Contra, the Drug War, president Nixon and Watergate, and the Vietnam
War and the phony “Gulf of Tonkin Incident” that started that
war. They are also indirectly responsible for the assassinations of
Rev. Dr. King and the Kennedy brothers, which makes them accessories
to murder.
President
Donald Trump is a microcosm of America because he represents what
America represents, and as such is someone who is admired by many.
Donald Trump represents the American dream of becoming wealthy from a
capitalist economic system that allegedly gives everyone a fair shot
at becoming a rich businessman or real estate tycoon like Donald
Trump. But president Trump is finding out the hard way that being
president of the United States is nothing at all like running a real
estate empire! When he ran for election last year, he wanted a job
that he wasn't prepared to take on. Worse yet, he failed to
appreciate the difficulty and long hours of being the US president.
His assumption of the office of the President was poorly planned and
is still being poorly executed. When it comes to the presidency, it
appears that Donald Trump is a fish out of water. Our country,
therefore, is in serious trouble, and this situation is serious
enough to warrant our undivided attention.
So
president Trump is more than a microcosm of America, he represents a
microcosm of capitalism. As such, Trump represents everything that is
wrong with America, and everything that is wrong with capitalism. The
ugly truth is that Donald Trump didn't become a mega-billionaire
because he is an exceptionally shrewd individual, or because he has
some kind of inside track in the business world. Donald Trump got
rich by screwing people every chance he got. Since Donald Trump has
been elected president, he has been sued 134 times, according
to the Boston Globe. He has reportedly filed bankruptcy at least
4 times since the 1980's, evidently for the sole express purpose of
stiffing his creditors while short-selling the property(s) in
question. Donald Trump is a human shark, and a big, menacing “great
white” at that! He reveals capitalism for the essentially predatory
economic system that it truly is. Trump is also a perfect example of
the fact that, in a capitalist economy where everything is organized
in a hierarchical manner, there are only a handful who end up at the
top of the heap, just like Donald Trump. Everyone else winds up
underneath, where many of them get financially crushed without mercy.
Moreover,
Donald Trump represents all that is corrupt with Washington, D.C.
Washington is overburdened with corruption from within, and crushing
debt from without. In fact, Washington is so heavily laden with debt
and corruption that it is slowly sinking into the soil it sits on.
Not only that, but the entire District of Columbia is literally
sinking, according to the US Geological Survey named in a 2015
article from CNN.com:
Washington, D.C. Has a 'Fore-bulge' Problem
By Jareen Imam, CNN, Updated Sat. August 1, 2015
(CNN)
“Washington,
D.C., where the powers that reign over the United States reside, is
sinking into the ocean.
Scientists
predict that the land underneath the nation's capital will drop more
than 6 inches in the next 100 years, according to new
research from the University of Vermont and the U.S. Geological
Survey (USGS).
Surprisingly
though, Washington's sinking land is an entirely independent
phenomenon from the rising sea levels, which scientists have
attributed to climate
change in the past.
For this
study, researchers examined the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge,
one of the most rapidly subsiding and lowest-elevation surfaces,
which borders the Chesapeake Bay.
The area
is going through what geologists call a "fore-bulge collapse,"
also known as the reason for many of Washington's foreseeable
geological woes. During the last ice age, a mile-high ice sheet
pushed the land under the Chesapeake Bay region up. When the ice
sheet melted 20,000 years ago, the bulging land began to settle back
down.
"It's
a bit like sitting on one side of a water bed filled with very thick
honey... when you stand, the bulge comes down again," said
former USGS geologist Ben DeJong, one of the lead authors on the
study, who conducted the research at University of Vermont's
Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources.”
President
Trump is also a microcosm of the current state of mainstream
Christianity, whether denominational or otherwise. In spite of doing
all the things I already wrote about, president Trump is a regular
churchgoer. President Trump, like much of the rest of America, seems
to think he can do whatever is expedient for himself and his family
real estate empire, and he undoubtedly calls himself 'blessed'
because of it all. Well-to-do mainstream Christians are filled with
people just like that every Sunday morning, believing God has blessed
them when all they really did was to help themselves to all they
could carry away from the 'negotiating table'. Or sometimes, whatever
they can take by force, it happens every day. They go to church every
Sunday as a token of acknowledging their sinful natures and
professing their devout beliefs, but then they go back to doing the
same things the following week! Jesus had something to say about this
issue, and I quote: “Looking at his disciples he said, 'Blessed
are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are
you who weep now, for you will laugh. Blessed are you who hunger, for
you will be satisfied. Blessed are you when men hate you, and when
they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil, because
of the Son of Man.” (Luke chapter 6, verses 20-22)
But
then Jesus continues: “But woe to you who are rich, for
you have already received your comfort. Woe to you who are well fed
now, for you will go hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will
mourn and weep. Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for that
is how their fathers treated the false prophets.”
(Luke 6, verses 24-26) So based on this quote from our Lord and
Savior, those who think they are richly blessed by God are actually
on their way to hell! These are the people who think life is all
about accumulating as much as we can, when in fact life is all about
the legacy we leave behind. Instead of being focused on ourselves,
we're supposed to be focused on Christ and the blood he shed for us
all! But what are today's churches focused on? The bottom line, which
is propelled by church membership and the money those members donate!
Christianity isn't about Christ at all; Jesus is more of an
afterthought than anything else, and this is wrong!
Pulitzer
prize winning author Chris Hedges was asked about corruption in
churches during a forum with Mr. Robert Scheer, who said of Mr.
Hedges, “There’s a complexity to your view. You come out of the
mainstream Protestant Church. Your father, who is a minister, is a
man you had enormous respect for, championed gay rights, civil rights
when it was not popular. And I just wonder, and I know you resent
when I say you have a prophetic voice, since I know nothing about
scripture I probably don’t know anything about prophetic voices,
but nonetheless it does seem to me your strength and clarity comes
out of your Christian background.”
Chris
Hedges responded, “Yeah, without question. And what I’m willing
to do, which the mainstream church is not, is to denounce the
Christian right as Christian heretics [applause]. You don’t have
to, as I did, spend three years at Harvard Divinity School to realize
that Jesus didn’t come to make us rich [laughter]. And he certainly
didn’t come to make Pat Robertson and Joel Osteen rich. And what
they have done is acculturate the worst aspects of American
imperialism, capitalism, chauvinism, violence and bigotry into the
Christian religion. And again let’s go back to Wiemar and the rise
of Nazism. We saw the same thing in the so-called German Christian
Church, which fused the iconography and language of Christianity with
Nazism. It’s not a new phenomenon. It was the minority within that
church, Bonhoeffer, Niemoller, Karl Barth, Schweizer who created the
underground Confessing Church. And my great mentor at Harvard
Divinity School, James Luther Adams [applause], was at the University
of Heidelberg in 1935 and 1936 and dropped out and joined the
Confessing Church. And when I had him in the early ’80s at Harvard,
he used to tell us that when we were his age we would all be fighting
the Christian fascists. Because, he understood that the Weimarization
of the American working class, essentially pushing (America's)
working population into utter despair and hopelessness, coupled with
a religious movement that fused national and religious symbols, was a
recipe for fascism. And I think the great failure of the liberal
tradition that I come out of is they were too frightened and too
timid to stand up. I don’t know why they spent all the years in
seminary if they didn’t realize that when they walked out the door
they were going to have to fight for it. And they didn’t fight for
it.”
Jesus
said it, the apostle Paul wrote it, and I still believe it: There
will be no cowards in heaven. Period, end of story! We as Christians
have a moral obligation to stand up to tyranny, and to oppose greed
and materialism as being the very antithesis of what it truly means
to be an authentic follower of Jesus Christ, the Son of God!
Moreover, the Bible has a few other things to say about rich people
who are obsessed with obtaining even more wealth, just like president
Trump, and I quote just a few of the many examples in the Bible:
Keep your life free
from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has
said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”
1
Timothy 6:10
For the love of money
is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some
have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many
pangs.
Matthew
6:19-21
“Do not lay up for
yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where
thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in
heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not
break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will
be also.
Luke
12:33-34
Sell your
possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags
that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not
fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. For where your
treasure is, there will your heart be also.
1
Timothy 6:17-19
As for the rich in
this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their
hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides
us with everything to enjoy. They are to do good, to be rich in good
works, to be generous and ready to share, thus storing up treasure
for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may
take hold of that which is truly life.
As
you all can see, the above quotes, combined with the farcical nature
of the Trump presidency and the corrupt nature of America's political
and economic systems, are a microcosm of what is wrong with America,
capitalism and Christianity. I'm trying to sound the alarm about this
because I see danger ahead, and we had better begin preparing for it
now while we still have a little time left. Better hurry, too, or it
will be too late.
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