Month: July 2024

My friend Cody said something that disturbed me deeply because I think he spoke for many people who have become disaffected from politics, especially at the federal level.   He said: “I think we would be  hard pressed to find any presidential candidate who would qualify on a moral sense. It doesn’t seem to be a quality of high political positions.”

I can understand how he might think that.  Public service as an elected official, especially at the federal level, is prone to corruption more than any other field I can think of, at least at the moment. Campaigns have become very expensive and candidates can feel obligated too the wishes of major donors.  Constituents and potential winners of federal contracts want favors and are willing to pay for them. Not bribery exactly, more a case of buyer and seller reaching a mutually satisfactory deal.  Lavish parties, receptions, fundraisers, and opportunities for sexual adventures are part of the mix. The temptations are many.

The Trump years have demonstrated that it’s possible for felonious crimes and new heights of corruption to be practiced with no real consequences, even after conviction if done boldly, blatantly, in the public eye and on the public record.  Of course it helps if the Supreme Court provides cover for office holders and themselves, which they have done with equal boldness and contempt for democratic virtues.  The news is filled with stories of more petty offenders in Congress and state houses.  They keep getting re-elected and the voting public doesn’t seem to care.  Is Cody right?  Moral standards for public office are so low that there is no difference between any of them?

I think not.  It’s been many decades since I had any involvement in the political arena, but when I did I encountered elected officials, in different places on the political spectrum, who knew how to play hardball but with integrity, believing that they were acting for the good of the nation and their constituents.  The sleazy characters stood out as bottom feeding opportunists, and everyone knew who they were.  

There is reason for today’s public to have a low regard for members of Congress and presidents.  The last twelve years have been nonstop Trump and the MAGA far right accusing everyone else of the unethical crimes of which they themselves are guilty.  I believe most of the current officials in high office are trying to do what they think is right for the nation and its people.  A continuous barrage of big lie propaganda painting everyone with the same immoral slime has convinced a large portion of the voting public that all politicians are alike.

My own member of Congress, Rep. Rob Whitman (VA, 1), is an example of someone doing what he thinks is right and good  On big issues he’s a far right conservative voting in lockstep with the MAGA crowd.  On the other hand, he’s dedicated to legislation important to the district no matter what right/left label is stuck on it.  I will never vote for him.  I think he is very wrong on major issues, but I also think he is a person of political integrity, as are many others in the House and Senate.  As for presidents and presidential candidates, Biden, Harris and the entire cabinet team have been clear examples of what political integrity looks like.  It saddens me deeply that if enough voters agree with Cody, there is no point in holding elected officials accountable for their ethical and moral words and deeds because that’s just he way they are. If Trump and Trumpism become normalized it will be a huge nail in the coffin of democracy. 

Given the choice of a notably ethical candidate and one whose entire life is a case study in unethical, immoral word and deeds, I can see only one way of voting this fall.

That there are things material and spiritual is as old in human thinking as there have been humanoids who could think.  While I can’t be certain, I don’t believe things spiritual were understood in the sort of woozy way it is today.  From what I can gather from the secular spiritual people I know, they have inconsistent, highly individualized mutant versions of something between Plato and Hogwarts. 

The bible is chock full of spirits and  spiritual beings. In any case, what is spiritual is popularly understood as non-material, without substance.  Jewish and Christian understanding goes in another direction. God is defined as pure spirit in whom and through whom all that is was created, whether seen or unseen. We believe the Holy Spirit is a way of understanding how God is active in our lives.

Early heresies tried to explain material as corrupt and bad, while spirit was incorruptible and good.  Some even proposed two Gods, one spiritual and good, the other the creator of an inferior, corrupt material world. Those understandings are still with us.  To be materialistic is almost synonymous with with egoistic greed. To be spiritual is to be someone above the rank disorder of the material world. It is a profound misunderstanding of inseparable connection between  material and spiritual  reality

We know that what is spiritual is substantial.  It has substance, perhaps not like the substance of our earthly experience, but substance just the same.  What of God is spiritual coexists with what is material in the universe.  Remember when Jesus entered a closed and shuttered room to greet his disciples late on Easter Day?  The doors and walls could not keep him out because he was more real than and with greater substance than wall or doors. 

Jesus demonstrated that in God what is spiritual and what is material are not opposites but elements in creation.  Like a hand moving through air, he entered the room. That is the substance of spirit.  Because God is the source of all that is, whether seen or unseen, everything has some element of spirit in it.  If God is pure love, pure goodness, then what is spiritual that comes from God is also good and loving.  If that can sometimes take the form of angels, and I believe it can, then they too are made present to us for our own good. 

So what about all the evil spirits recorded in scripture? Don’t get too hung up on the devil and fallen angels. Satan is not the devil in the Hebrew Scriptures; he is more of the professor Snipe of heaven whose assignment is to report wrong doing to God.  The evil devil and fallen angels do play a prominent role in the apocalyptic part of Christian scripture and have been a huge hit in Christian mythology ever since.  I’m pretty sure they were meant to be understood metaphorically, not literally, which means they have important lessons to teach and we should take them seriously, not literally. 

The source and reality of evil spirits is something else.  A good many of them we now recognize as ordinary diseases well known to medical science.  But that’s been true only for a few hundred years.  Before that they were a mystery and mysteries were often explained away as spiritual in some way.  If there are real evil spirits, where do they come from?

I think they come from us.  We create them. They come from what we have done and not done, whether intentional or not.   Most of you have heard of the Butterfly Effect where it is said that a butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon can lead to a thunderstorm in Seattle. Our words and deeds are like that. They have ripple effects that have influence for good or ill far beyond our time and place. Words and deeds that cause injury, destruction and death ripple out from the billions of people now alive, and the still rippling effects of past generations to create a storm of evil waves and wind that only Jesus can calm. Each of us has experienced its substantial reality when we have been in hostile work environments where the spirit of the place is filled with fear, anxiety and depression.  Consider such a minor example in the face of the greater evils of war, civil disorder, and blatant acts of criminality. Hitler and Stalin may be long dead but the evil spirits they unleashed are still with us.  In more ordinary ways, every cruel word, nasty bit of gossip, and slightly malicious deed nourishes the spirit of evil that encompasses humanity.

It sounds bleak, and we cannot undo the spiritual evil we have created by ourselves. . But we are not without hope and the ability to make things better. We also create good spirits. They can’t take the form of Jesus entering a closed room, nor are they like the godly spiritual presence that surrounds us at every moment.   But they do have a degree of substance and can last for a very long time. Paul said Christians must put on spiritual armor of belief and trust in Jesus as the one who can and has defeated the evil of our own creation. We may not have stopped creating spiritual evil, but in following Jesus we can and do create some of the spiritual substance that is the kingdom of God right here, right now.  It is the power of Christ working in us and through us.  

The truly spiritual person is one open to receiving the substantial presence of God’s Holy Spirit working in them, with them, for them and through them.  It’s something even the most spiritual can do only imperfectly and not always.  The rest of us are way behind, but it is enough. By following in the way of Jesus, Christian spirituality will always be turned away from self and toward the well being of others and the communities in which they live, no matter where or under what conditions. Spirituality that seeks an inner, private connection with nature unique to one’s self is a romantic chimera, and no more than that.  It has no spiritual substance. 

Lest this sound all too complicated to live into, consider  Paul’s admonition to the Romans for how to live ordinary lives in ordinary ways as material beings of spiritual substance:

Romans 12:…9 Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; 10 love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. 11 Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord.[e] 12 Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. 13 Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers. 14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. 15 Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. 16 Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly;[f] do not claim to be wiser than you are. 17 Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. 18 If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. 19 Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God;[g] for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’ 20 No, ‘if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.’ 21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

I’ve been thinking about the nature of rights in the context of current political conditions. I doubt that it’s anything original but the matter keeps rolling around in my brain anyway.

Let’s take civil rights for example.  I think they are understood in far different ways by two camps.  Civil rights are understood by one camp to have been granted  by the dominant culture out of their benevolent generosity to those who have earned approval of worthiness after a long period of testing.  There are some in the dominant culture who believe the granting of rights was a mistake, so they must be restricted, closely monitored, and perhaps taken away.   

This camp, taking its cue from the unamended Constitution, tends to build its understanding on property rights as the foundation for all other rights. Most founding fathers believed owning property was the key to dismantling the authority of the monarch. They had reason.  The Medieval monarch was owner of all and bestowed tenancy on those he chose in exchange for their loyalty.  The scheme had been modified by the time of the revolution so that only the landed had secure rights. Therefore, property rights had to be secured if property owners were to live freely in a republican democracy. Land was the most important property, followed closely by personal property including slaves. It created an interesting class structure unlike any in Europe.  Westward migration made it possible for any white man to join the ranks of property owners with rights if they could get hold of a piece of land and make use of it. It could be done by daring the frontier, hard work, perseverance and not much money.

The other camp takes its cue from the amendments to the Constitution and believes civil rights granted by law are simply the legitimization of rights others always had but were denied by the dominant culture as a way to retain power and status exclusive to themselves. The rights that had been denied to them are human rights and belong to everyone by virtue of their humanity.  The foundation for their claim is ancient, finding expression in Greek, Hebrew and Christian thought.  It is based on relationships, not property. What ensured true freedom was one’s relationship to God and to each other.  It was a freedom that imposed duties on each to do their part in sustaining and protecting the well being of the community however community was defined. It was the dominant understanding through the Middle Ages until the modern era. The feudal system was cruel in many ways but everyone understood the importance of relationships and the duties they imposed. It was a different kind of freedom that seems strange to modern ears.

The two camps can exist in any society, but only in democracies can they keep the question of rights in the public eye, moving toward a deeper understanding of the public good that has to accommodate both camps without resorting to violent revolution. Our democracy has been sometimes robust and sometimes fragile. Its health depends on an informed electorate and we have not done a good job of ensuring there is one.  The MAGA movement has gained enough momentum in a neofascist direction to make it appear fragile.  The election this November will let us know whether the nation will  survive as a robust democracy in the face of the most serious challenge since the Civil War.

Where does our shared Christian faith fit into all of this?  I must say first that Christian nationalism is not Christian and must be set aside. Today’s more secular world may pay scant attention to God but it is central for Christians.  Everything Jesus said and did was to restore right relationships with God and each other.  There is no higher authority than the record of what Jesus said and did.  The early church struggled with how to live into Jesus’ way, and we struggle too, guided in part by two thousand years of wisdom from our struggling ancestors. Rights defined by relationships and associated duties must take precedence.  Property rights, however important, must be subordinate to them. 

That will be hard to swallow for many faithful Christians because the myth of rugged individualism and the American dream are predicated on property rights.  It’s not easy to redefine an entrenched life long belief with a more orthodox  conformation to God’s commandment. It’s hard to convince someone they are not giving up rights, just putting them in the correct place. What baffles many is that the right place is discerned  through prayerful debate.  It changes with new conditions, new knowledge and new understanding of what God is saying now.  Moreover, it is not beholding in any way to accepted social norms. The task is made more difficult by the MAGA crowd insanely screaming Communism without the slightest idea of what they are talking about.   

Like you, I am deeply distressed over the attempted assassination of Donald Trump.  It doesn’t matter that he is disreputable in every way and totally unfit for elective office.  He is nevertheless human being, and for that reason alone is worthy of respect for his life. I’m grateful that he suffered no serous harm, and heartbroken over the senseless death and injury of others. 

I wish I could say there is no room for political violence in our democracy, but to our shame we have given it plenty. It’s nothing new to which our long history of political violence attests.  Trump has become the victim of the very violence he has encouraged among his followers, but there is no justice in that.  It was an evil act and must be condemned without allowance for any excuse.

There have been many calls for unity in this moment of national concern.  It’s the same call that goes unheeded after each mass shooting and episode of civil violence. Perhaps this time we might be unified, not behind a person, but in commitment to cease the rhetoric that justifies violence in the name of righteousness.  There is no righteousness in political violence no matter how necessary or justified it may appear to be. 

The 1980’s Reagan Revolution promised a smaller federal government and less regulation of business. Instead, the number of executive branch employees grew.  (The only period that it declined in the last half of the 20th century was during the Clinton years.)  As for regulations, the sheer number of them has become both astronomical and irrelevant. Reaganites wanted a free hand for big business to do as they pleased unfettered by demands to stop polluting the environment, to treat employees fairly, to provide safe working conditions, produce safe products, and not jeopardize public health. 

The problem with the federal government is not its size or the number of regulations.  A big, complicated nation like the U.S. needs a central government with enough resources to address national issues affecting the overall health and welfare of all persons in every place. I suspect the problem with regulations is not with the big ones, but the little ones that pick away at how to do something rather than allowing room for creative ways to accomplish desired ends with greater efficiency and effectiveness.   

For example, I once worked for an organization that operated from the top down, telling its staff what to do and how to do it.  My approach was to find out what top management wanted to accomplish and  make it happen. To do the job right, I used detailed instructions as guidelines not orders to be obeyed. The vast herd of little federal regulations do not allow that kind of response because the bureaucrats assigned to enforce them are not evaluated by desired end results but by how well they adhered to the method they were instructed to use. It creates an upside down picture of the clientele.  I suspect the client many federal employees are hired to serve is an exact method of little regulation enforcement.  They are hired to see that the right boxes are checked.  Is that true across the board? No. 

In firsthand experience with four different governmental departments, I’ve seen the Dept. of Interior people working cooperatively and creatively with local people for the good of everyone. The same is true for the Dept. of Agriculture. The local Social Security office in three different cities I’ve lived in was friendly, helpful and efficient. My experience with HUD was varied.: too much mindless box checking.

The little regulation gremlin is not exclusive to the federal government. Who among us has not had miserable experiences with insurance or cable companies?  Companies that seem to be among the most strident voices objecting to being regulated. 

As for big regulations, it’s abundantly clear that big business cannot be trusted to act in the public good. Left to their own devices, they are untrustworthy.   Large public corporations are not immoral or unethical  by nature.  They are amoral and will only live up to whatever ethical or moral standards are set for them.  Even privately owned corporations are beholden only to the unpredictable ethical standards of their owners.  The laissez faire dream of a Reaganite paradise is nothing but a fairy tale, a dystopian one at that. 

Things might be working better had far right libertarians not entered a decades long propaganda campaign warning the public that much needed regulation of business was only the first move of “Socialists”to regulate every aspect of public and personal life, depriving ordinary people of their treasured freedom and independence. In reality, that there were no Socialists to speak of was unimportant.  Anyone left of center was suspect, and it didn’t matter that liberals worked consistently for greater freedoms for more people. The right wingers knew that horror stories sold well and with a great horror story to tell — they told and sold it well. 

So here we are now with a would-be dictator in a close race for president running on a Heritage Foundation plan (Project 2025) to strip Americans of their freedoms and impose corporate statism on the nation. Were such a candidate and his Project 2025 plan to succeed in the presidential election, we would, in short, become more like China and Russia than the America of the constitutional democratic republic we’ve worked hard to build into a nation where the American Dream is a real possibility.  

So stop all the hand wringing and get on with seeing that NO MAGA candidate gets elected to ANY office, especially the presidency.

NOTE TO SUBSCRIBERS. BLIND GUY TYPING MADE A FEW FINAL CHANGES AFTER HIS EDITOR CORRECTED ALL HIS ERRORS. AS PREDICTED, HE CREATEED NEW ONES. THE TEXT HAS AGAIN BEEN CORRECTED. TO READ THE NEW VERSION GO TO THE SITE: STEVENWOOLLEY.COLM

Christians are called to follow in the way of Jesus Christ wherever they are, and  under whatever conditions they may live.   They are not called to create nations reserved for people who claim to be Christian.  The movement called Christian Nationalism bears no resemblance to the Christian way.  Jesus proclaimed his way by word and deed in the face of opposition from  religious leaders, civil authorities and their Roman overlords.  They crucified him but by his resurrection he demonstrated his power over  death because he is the source of  all life.  There is no higher authority.

The early church prospered even though under the hostile government of the Roman Empire. The Christians understood Jesus’ way was not a nationalist movement. By the fourth century Christianity had become a legal religion and sometime later the official religion of the empire. Its “official” status was a strategic decision the emperor made in an attempt to solidify the many nations of the empire under one religion. One can argue whether that was a good or bad thing for Christianity, but in the end it could not restrain inter-tribal and nationalistic violence. 

Christianity was the official religion in Europe throughout the middle ages and into modern times.  Kings, princes and nobles may have flown the Christian banner, but their lives, words and deeds were more often grievous assaults on everything in the way of following Jesus Christ.  Even the institutional church erred in its ways.  At the same time, faithful theologians, pastors and lay leaders continued to explore the depth and meaning of the Christian way, even at the cost of reputations and lives.  It is they who have bequeathed to us the wisdom guiding our direction toward a deeper more profound faith. 

In the meantime,  medieval Christians in other parts of the world, particularly in Islamic nations, continued to thrive as faithful followers of Jesus.  It wasn’t always easy.  There were hostile opponents, but they thrived nonetheless from North Africa down to Ethiopia, across Arabia and into India.   Modern times have changed that and not for the better. 

As for America, the Constitution was, among other things, a break from the failed attempt by colonists to create Christian states, each according to their own version of what it meant, and with hostile opposition to any other way of being Christian. The north was colonized mostly by religious communities who wanted freedom for themselves and no one else. Hardly a Christ like intention.  The South was colonized mostly by men seeking wealth by the surest and easiest way possible.  They dragged along Church of England clergy out of commitment to the way things were done in England rather than religious conviction.  They were intent that no Puritan or any other overly pious religious sort be allowed in their territory.  Again, not a way of being Christian Jesus would have recognized.  

We were not formed as a Christian nation but as a nation of Christians intolerant of each other. For all of it, Christian wisdom influenced the thinking of our founders, with the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution being greatly influenced by Christian wisdom.  A good deal of it was filtered through Enlightenment philosophy, itself influenced by the ancient stoics and other schools of Greek and Roman philosophy.   The highest and most enduring ideals of those documents echo God’s moral commandments.  Sadly, they are the very ones the nation has been least committed to following.  The struggle to make ideals into reality in everyday life has been long, sometimes violent, slow progress against entrenched opposition.  Opposition from whom?  From people who mainly professed to be Christian. 

Those who want to transform the U.S. into a Christian nation would end up with a land of intolerance enforced by laws that would be democratic only in the way Iran is democratic. I don’t think that’s what the nationalists want or expect, but it’s the inevitable result..

Jesus didn’t send his disciples out to build a nation, which is what they had expected of the Messiah.  No.  He sent them out with instructions to proclaim a new way of life, to be healed, to be reconciled with one another, to receive forgiveness.  He demonstrated his authority to proclaim that, in Christ, death is not the end of life but the entry into a new and greater life. The work of Christians, wherever they live, is not to create a nation in their own image but to live as followers of Jesus Christ. They are to affirm that all persons, whoever they are and from wherever they’ve come, are made in the image of God and are to be received with the respect due them.  Christians are, as they are able, to speak boldly for public practices and policies that embody godly justice. Most important to the Christian life is the examination of one’s own life, practices and prejudices, weighing that against the commandments to love God and others and to make appropriate amends.  Only then might they offer tentative judgments about the rightness or wrongness of others. 

Ozymandias 

BY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

I met a traveller from an antique land,

Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;

And on the pedestal, these words appear:

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

The United States is an odd nation, a democratic republic working an irregular way toward becoming more fully democratic with rights and privileges shared more equitably among its ethnically and culturally diverse population.  No other modern nation state has attempted such a feat.  True, it has become the world’s wealthiest nation with the largest military and its currency is the standard all other nations are measured against.  But it’s had a hard time maintaining internal cohesion.  Political thought and opinion leaders have for decades  strutted the public stage boasting that the U.S. is the greatest, freest, most successful nation in history and that its people are better off than any others.  We took arrogant pride  in being superior Americans as a right.  It has contributed to a very human result.  Not satisfied with everything they need, some significant part of the population demands they get everything they want.  Others who have most of everything they want, want more, and they can’t get it if the more they want goes to people who have less.  Still others who have been deliberately and systematically kept out of the competition for more of what they need and want have declared they will put up with it no more. It’s not a condition unique to the U.S.  It is common to all peoples in every nation.  What is unique to us is our enormous diversity of cultures and ethnicities that have not found it easy to live together in harmonious community. One reason is that what is socially normative for the nation has been defined by white middle and upper class men, and a few women, for most of our existence.  They have been quite honest in their belief that they have acted for the good of all and are more than reluctant to surrender their place to a rag-tag collection of others whom they believe incapable of responsible leadership.

It has brought us to an election nobody wanted.  One candidate is a not very bright, poorly educated, serial philanderer whose entire life is built on lies, deceptions and cheating.  But he has the swagger of a carnival barker with the polished skill to sell the unwary on how horrible life is, how rotten the nation is, and how he alone can make it better. His previous term a president was one of unparalleled chaos, ineptitude, and national humiliation, but to hear him tell it, it was the best of times ever in the history of the world.  He sells it effectively and well. It’s a bit surprising since he also complains and whines like a spoiled twelve  year old about how unfair people are to him, especially those who want to make him accountable for a life of criminal misbehavior. 

The other candidate is an affable wise old man inclined to tell long stories about days of yore that get more elaborate with each telling.   However, he is intelligent, well educated, knowledgeable and experienced in the ways of the world.  He understands the issues, facts and figures facing the nation, and like other wise elders, knows how to delegate responsibility to younger, able, honest people. The democratic virtue of negotiating in good faith to reach mutually satisfactory results has been his life long passion.  During the three years of his current presidency the nation has catapulted out of a deep COVID recession, led the world in reducing inflation, funded the rebuilding of the nation’s infrastructure, increased wages for workers, and set a path for global technological leadership.   It doesn’t mean all is well.  The southern border is a mess.  We need a new immigration system that works in as simple a way as possible.  Income inequities are a problem.  And we are far from being a nation of harmonious cohesion among ethnicities and cultures. 

To elect one candidate will lead us triumphantly into the sands of Ozymandias.  Not overnight but surely. Democracy will be the first to go, then personal freedom.  The U.S. would look a lot like today’s Hungary or pre-WWII Italy except that we would be ruled by a chaotic pretend despot untethered from reality – think of Mel Brooks playing Gov. William J. Le Patomane in Blazing Saddles.

To elect the other would preserve and strengthen our democratic republic as an engine of opportunity for all. We would move toward a fuller measure of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness with fewer obstacles placed in the way of anyone.  Not without difficulty, the U.S. could pioneer the way of harmonious cohesion of diverse peoples and set an example for a better way to global peace. It would retain its place of honor in the community of nations without strutting the stage declaring “We’re Number One.”

I don’t know how the election will turn out.  I do know that if a certain felon is elected we will enter a season of national humiliation, shedding the mantle of global leadership, and discovering the arrogance of American pride to have been an illusion.  It would be a steep price to pay to  learn that national pride and national humility are not opposites, and that surrendering freedom for security is a path to political slavery.  And let no one be so foolish as to claim it would make us a Christian nation.  Jesus Christ would have nothing to do with it.