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Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote The Cost of Discipleship in 1937, at a time when much of the German church had embraced a form of Christian nationalism compatible with Hitler’s vision for Germany’s future. In that book, Bonhoeffer reminded his students that they could not pledge allegiance to German nationalism and to the gospel of Jesus Christ at the same time. They had to choose—and there would be a cost. It was a cost worth paying.

Bonhoeffer later lamented that, at the time, he was more concerned with preserving the integrity of the gospel and the church than with directly confronting the dangers threatening Jews, other marginalized people, and the security of Europe itself. It is a lesson we must remember in our own day.

Conditions in the United States today are not the same, but they confront us with disturbingly similar dangers. Our president inhabits a world of his own imagination—one marked by obsessive grievances ricocheting against one another, combined with the demands of a spoiled child who expects every desire to be met immediately and without question. His claims to absolute authority, unrestricted by law and immune from accountability, coupled with a staggering ignorance of basic facts, place the nation and its legacy at serious risk.

The danger, however, does not reside in one person alone. He is surrounded by advisors and allies who have openly declared themselves hostile to democratic governance—authoritarian figures intent on dismantling American democracy in favor of a white, patriarchal regime enforced through the rule of a self-appointed few who believe they alone know what is good for the country.

Into this maelstrom, a portion of those who claim the name Christian have embraced a form of Christian nationalism that aligns neatly with the current administration’s program. They envision the United States as a nation with a single authorized religion—specifically, their version of Christianity. Other faiths, they assure us, would be “tolerated,” but only under restriction and surveillance to prevent so-called “un-American” activity.

This movement is sustained not only by its advocates, but by the silence of countless denominational and non-denominational congregations whose passive acquiescence amounts to implied consent. At best, there is an unwillingness to challenge the blatant idolatry of Christian nationalism and the clear, present reality of human rights being trampled by our own government.

The moment demands a response from the church—call it, if you will, the confessing church.

First, the church must fearlessly walk in the way of the cross, proclaiming the gospel through faithful discipleship. This will require clergy to speak words that make some members of their congregations deeply uncomfortable. Jesus did not abolish the law and the prophets; he fulfilled them. In him, the moral demands and political ethics proclaimed by God through the prophets are revealed in their fullest light. When Jesus called disciples to follow him, he called them to more than belief. He called them to a way of life in which God’s kingdom of peace and justice is made present here and now—even when doing so puts one at risk. It was into that danger that Peter, Paul, and countless others went, joyfully proclaiming the good news of God in Christ.

Second, congregational leaders who are able must be willing to confront—peacefully but courageously—the forces of oppression, persecution, and the suppression of human rights carried out under the cover of legal authority. “Resistance” is perhaps the wrong word. Resistance is defense. Proclamation of the gospel, at its deepest level, is offense—not in violence, but in radically peaceful, truth-telling love. It may require publicly rejecting the authority of Christian nationalist leaders and others complicit with them, naming clearly that they have strayed far from the way of the cross.

It is easy for me, as an elderly, mostly blind Episcopal priest, to write these words from the safety of my study. Still, I feel compelled to say plainly what the gospel demands and what the way of the cross requires—whether or not doing so comes at a cost.

Footnote:
The Confessing Church (Bekennende Kirche) was a movement within German Protestantism that arose in the early 1930s in opposition to the Nazi-aligned “German Christian” movement. It rejected the subordination of the church to state ideology and racial nationalism, insisting that the church’s sole allegiance belonged to Jesus Christ. Its theological center was the Barmen Declaration of 1934, which affirmed that no political authority could claim ultimate loyalty over the gospel. Figures such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Karl Barth were associated with the movement. Bonhoeffer later judged the Confessing Church with candor, acknowledging its moral courage while lamenting its failure, as a body, to confront directly the persecution of Jews and other victims of the regime.

My conservative friend Fred recently wrote that he is anxious about losing the values of our Western European heritage—values that have contributed so much not only to the development of America, but to the world as a whole. It is not an anxiety I share, but it is an anxiety worth taking seriously, because it did not arise out of nothing.

Western European history and philosophy are, undeniably, foundational to American politics, economics, social structures, and public values. Much has been built on that foundation, incorporating gifts from other cultures and traditions—though often reluctantly and imperfectly. Societies grounded in a single cultural worldview tend to experience the introduction of other heritages and perspectives as a threat rather than a gift. America was no exception. Its settlement involved the conquest and displacement of Indigenous peoples on the one hand, and determined resistance to non-Northern European cultures on the other—cultures brought here by immigrants and by enslaved Africans.

In recent decades, America’s dominant Eurocentric worldview has been challenged, particularly within the academy and among some liberals eager to demonstrate their open-mindedness. That challenge has sometimes gone badly off the rails. Western European civilization and learning have been caricatured, demonized, and dismissed in ways that are both intellectually lazy and politically foolish. Matters were made worse by the romanticization of other civilizations and Indigenous cultures as inherently wiser or morally superior, accompanied by a kind of self-righteous posturing that condemns one’s own inheritance while selectively appropriating the symbols and practices of others.

In some elite colleges and universities, the Western canon has been demoted to secondary status; in a few cases it has been eliminated altogether, replaced by histories and literatures chosen less for depth or influence than for their exotic appeal. That shift—highly publicized and poorly explained—has convinced people like Fred that there is an organized effort underway to erase everything they have held dear and replace it with alien cultures in which there will be no place for them. They are wrong—but not wrong without reason.

Western civilization has, in fact, brought light into the wilderness. It has opened pathways to greater freedom and greater prosperity for more people than any civilization before it. That achievement should be acknowledged and celebrated—but not canonized to the exclusion of all else. The Eurocentric worldview has too often been willfully ignorant of contributions made by the rest of the world and its many cultures. Learning about those contributions, honoring them, and welcoming new peoples and new ways into our multicultural nation are not betrayals of Western values. They are expressions of them.

America has been moving in this direction for a very long time. American English itself is filled with words, phrases, and ways of thinking drawn from Hispanic, African, and Asian cultures. Americans of European descent are slowly rediscovering the wisdom of Indigenous peoples and the indispensable insights they offer about environmental stewardship and ecological balance. Asian philosophy and literature are steadily entering the mainstream of our shared intellectual life. And we are only beginning to acknowledge that Africa was never “the darkest continent”—that its many peoples, histories, and traditions have much to teach us about who we are and where we came from.

What most impedes our ability to receive these gifts is not Western civilization itself, but the reluctance of the dominant white culture to allow others to speak clearly in their own voices—not as supplicants, not as symbols, but as equal members of society.

It would help if certain academics climbed down from their intellectual high horses and showed a little humility. Let the new be added to the old. Honor the virtues of both. It would also help if some liberal activists did the same. Too often, in both word and deed, they suggest that greater justice for some requires less justice for others—the same transactional nonsense they rightly condemn in conservatives.

America must be a nation capable of absorbing what is good and virtuous from every culture represented among its people. It must also be honest about what is unvirtuous in every culture, including its own. That honesty is not an act of betrayal; it is the knowledge necessary for a society that seeks to move forward toward ever greater justice—for all, without exception and without apology.

Martin Luther King Jr. Day is a national holiday that will be observed on January 19. Dr. King was assassinated fifty-eight years ago while engaged in the work of lifting up the lives of low-income sanitation workers in Memphis. That work was not incidental to his vocation; it was a natural extension of his lifelong commitment to the fulfillment of the American dream for all people, regardless of race or economic condition.

There will be news coverage of his life and legacy, and many of us will give it a brief glance or listen. For most, it will not receive much more attention than that.

This year, however—more than at any time in several decades—Martin Luther King Jr. Day ought to be a moment of deep national reflection on what it means to be a country whose government is of the people, by the people, and for the people, especially for those who have been marginalized by exclusion and institutionalized oppression. I do not know whether it will be.

Nineteen sixty-eight was a long time ago. For many Americans it is history barely remembered; for some it is unknown; and for others it is a chapter best left closed, because it presses too uncomfortably against the conditions of our present moment.

Today, the president has threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act against the people of Minnesota in order to force an end to public demonstrations protesting the ICE-armed occupation of their cities. That threat bears an eerie resemblance to the assault on civil-rights marchers at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in 1965, when Alabama governor George Wallace authorized state and local law-enforcement agencies to attack peaceful demonstrators—an event that came to be known as Bloody Sunday.

Then, as now, the civil-rights movement was a movement of, by, and for the people—people who had endured centuries of abuse, humiliation, and exclusion. Yet the state labeled them “insurrectionists,” accusing them of threatening public order and the legitimacy of law itself. That is precisely what President Trump has now accused the citizens of Minnesota of doing.

But in 1965, as today, the real insurrection was not carried out by ordinary citizens. In Alabama, it was a state-sponsored insurrection against the legitimacy and promise of American constitutional democracy. Today, the insurrectionists are armed, deputized gangs—operating under the color of law—who deploy military equipment and violent force against the foundations of American society and its long-standing commitment to justice for all in a free and democratic nation.

If Dr. King were alive today, I suspect he would be leading demonstrations in the Twin Cities—though perhaps in a different register. There would likely be more silence: more sitting, kneeling, and refusal to move. There would be a deliberate effort to make unmistakably clear that those dressed in military combat gear were the ones acting with violent intent.

Dr. King, of course, can be present now only in memory. The grassroots movement in Minnesota has developed its own methods—louder, more energetic, but still largely nonviolent—and they deserve to be understood on their own terms.

I do not want another Bloody Sunday. No truly patriotic American does. I hope it does not require such violence before the nation as a whole rises to restore the legitimacy of its federal government and to resume the long, unfinished work of moving toward an American dream that belongs to all our people, without discrimination.

The Gestapo-like invasion of Minnesota is an unmistakable sign that this administration intends to impose a draconian form of authoritarian rule on the United States. The failure of Republican congressional leadership to offer anything other than mumbled excuses reveals a profound absence of moral integrity.

Only history will fully unravel how the nation arrived at such an ignominious state of political depravity. To be sure, well-intentioned political leaders in decades past often failed to listen carefully to large segments of the population who felt ignored, displaced, and forgotten. That resentment was deliberately and malevolently stoked by right-wing talk radio and allied media. But whatever its origins, resentment does not justify the dishonorable loyalty the MAGA movement has given to an administration that holds its most ardent supporters in contempt.

There are, nonetheless, signs of hope. If we are able to emerge from this period with our democracy intact, we will do so chastened and humbled—no longer able to claim unquestioned leadership of the free world, no longer able to assume that our president stands as first among equals on the global stage. Any measure of restored credibility will have to be earned slowly and deliberately.

Let us begin with those signs of hope. They are evident in the people of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, who are courageously refusing to cooperate with ICE and actively seek to impede its operations. It is especially heartening that this resistance includes elected officials and law-enforcement agencies in the Twin Cities area.

Mass demonstrations in cities large and small are another sign of hope, as are polling numbers showing overwhelming public disapproval of the administration and its agenda. Courts, too, are beginning to assert their independence, thanks to lawsuits brought by concerned citizens. That hope would be strengthened further if mainstream journalists pressed administration representatives with direct, sustained, and probing questions instead of allowing them to escape accountability through rehearsed evasions and distractions.

I also look to the possibility that senior military officers may find ways to restrain the administration from indulging in chest-thumping military actions that serve no strategic purpose beyond satisfying the president’s ego and the neo-Nazi agendas of some of his subordinates.

Finally, I place hope in the resilience of the American people. We will never rid ourselves entirely of powerful interests determined to rule others as though it were their natural right—politically or economically. Human beings are notoriously susceptible to the selfish pursuit of power, status, and wealth, even at the expense of the common good. It is not a uniquely American failing, nor one confined to our time. It is a universal and perennial temptation.

Our brief 250 years of national life have been marked by a continuous struggle to restrain those forces and to subordinate them to the welfare of all. That effort was most successful in the decades following World War II and lasting into the mid-1980s. They were not “golden years,” but they were years in which the benefits of national prosperity were more broadly shared and in which we became increasingly conscious of those who had been excluded—and more determined to include them.

The same cannot be said today. Still, we should remember that the nation once overwhelmingly rejected the chaotic incompetence of Donald Trump’s first term. We are only a year into his second attempt. As dangerous as the present moment is, he can succeed only with the cooperation of compliant institutions and citizens. If we refuse that compliance—even in the face of armed ICE agents enforcing it—he cannot prevail.

Nonviolent noncompliance begins with ordinary people in ordinary neighborhoods living their ordinary lives with courage and resolve. It requires a willingness to endure confrontation and, at times, coercion. The people of Minnesota are showing us what such noncompliance looks like—and what it costs. My hope is that this is a cost people will be willing to bear in towns and cities across the country.

Perhaps the courage of grassroots, nonviolent resistance will also inspire those entrusted with high public office to act with similar resolve—not merely as individuals, but as members of institutions sworn to defend our constitutional democracy.

Great ideas and good intentions, followed by hard and diligent work, often fail because a critical distinction is overlooked. It is the distinction between doing things to others or for others, on the one hand, and doing things with others for others, on the other.

Doing things to others or for others is presumptive and, however well-intentioned, ultimately manipulative. It may produce the appearance of good results, but it almost never generates conviction, commitment, or conversion. There are rare occasions when actions taken “for one’s own good” must be obeyed without hesitation—situations that threaten life or limb, or laws that must be followed whether we like them or not. These examples are obvious and need no rehearsal here. That they are exceptions only confirms that they cannot be the rule.

Conviction, commitment, and conversion arise only through doing things with and for others. Working with others begins with listening—learning what others know, think, experience, and want. It requires humility: the willingness to offer one’s knowledge and skills as resources others may use for their own good. It is a demanding form of humility, especially for those in senior leadership, if long-term success is the goal.

That humility takes two forms. First, it creates conditions in which others are able to succeed in what they are doing. Second, it builds organizations capable of continuing and flourishing even without the presence of those who currently occupy positions of authority.

There is also a theological dimension to this distinction—one too often overlooked by Christians eager either to evangelize the world in the name of Jesus Christ or to confront injustice with forceful certainty.

The Word of God became incarnate in Christ Jesus to live with us and for us. The Gospel accounts of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness, following his baptism, portray his faithful rejection of the temptation to do things to or for others by force or spectacle. The way of the cross could prove its worth only if it were lived with and for others.

Jesus revealed a way of life that is not merely better, but best for humanity—a way in which persons, peoples, and nations might live together in flourishing harmony. He demonstrated this way of life by living it with us, as one of us, even as one of the least among us. He did so without coercion, and yet people said, “Never has anyone spoken with such authority.”

He did not drive people into conviction, commitment, or conversion. He led them. He listened patiently, engaged deeply, and offered gifts of healing and reconciliation that restored others to fullness of life. He never demanded perfection. He asked only that we keep trying, with the promise that he would always be with us.

This is the example Christians are called to follow, as best they can, as they work with others for others. The way of life Jesus taught must be proclaimed by being lived—however imperfectly—in public as well as private life. It cannot remain a purely personal faith. It must shape how we engage society, how we exercise authority, and how we pursue freedom, justice, rights, and equity.

In a time marked by fear, coercion, and an unrestrained lust for power, the way of Jesus—the way of the cross—calls Christians to resist complicity with injustice while refusing to mirror the methods of those who wield power irresponsibly. Faithful resistance need not be angry or violent to be firm. It must instead be grounded in disciplined nonviolence, truth-telling, and public witness—bearing signs of peace while standing courageously against abuse of authority. This is the way that still has the power to awaken conviction, inspire commitment, and invite genuine conversion.

Social norms that dominate the times and places of our youth tend to create a standard of acceptable beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors that we assume should apply to all times and all places. But social norms are rarely consistent from one place to another and are always in a state of change. To many of us, it appears that the rate of change has accelerated with the advent of the telephone, radio, television, and the internet. Each new development in our ability to communicate has expanded the universe of people with whom we can interact. That, in turn, has generated new opportunities to test and reshape social norms beyond the circle of our immediate surroundings.

It should not be surprising that this process has produced consequences often experienced as a backlash. A romanticized nostalgia for “the old ways”—better days that never really existed except in memory—helps fuel reactionary movements seeking to stop the present from mutating into an unwanted future. Because every place and every time has embraced a different set of norms as the desired standard, there can never be full agreement on a single worldview shared nationally. This makes it difficult for a nation to unite around a vision of a future that promises to be better for everyone.

Three brief, incomplete examples may help illustrate what I mean.

My formative years were shaped in the optimistic and energetic era of the 1950s. Peace and prosperity stood in sharp contrast to the hardships of the preceding two decades, and the future looked even brighter. I grew up in an all-white neighborhood of stay-at-home mothers, working fathers, and lots of children. Who we were and what we did defined the social norms that confidently produce beliefs attitudes and behaviors, norms assumed to be universal. We looked toward “the future” with eager anticipation.

A friend grew up in the turbulent 1960s and early 1970s. Vietnam, civil rights struggles, riots and demonstrations, the sexual revolution, women’s liberation, and rising divorce rates established norms deeply suspicious of inherited institutions and traditional ways. If the future was to be better, it would require new ways of thinking and new ways of organizing society, unconstrained by the old.

Teenagers in secondary education today have known nothing but a nation in which democratic values and institutions have been challenged by insurrection and the rise of authoritarian ideologies hostile to democracy itself. For many of them, the prospect of a better and more prosperous future appears reserved for the wealthy. Even the most capable cannot assume a future free from economic struggle or one that allows the full enjoyment of life’s possibilities. For many—though not all—the prevailing motto seems to be: do what you have to do to get by, and don’t expect anything better.

Perhaps I have painted too dark a picture, but several secondary-school educators have suggested that there is more than an element of truth in it.

My generation will soon be little more than a historical footnote, but I hope we can bequeath to those who follow a renewed sense of hope and optimism about what America and the American people can achieve through a commitment to liberal democracy and active participation in the community of nations.

The generation formed during the Vietnam and civil-rights era also has wisdom to offer rising leaders. They understand the importance of critically assessing institutions and challenging them on issues of justice and equity. They also learned—often painfully—about the consequences of unrestricted experimentation. Taking the time to do things well, and in the right way, is ultimately more effective than acting first and thinking later, even when intentions are good.

Those currently in secondary education may have grown up in politically dark times, but I have confidence in their resilience. I see evidence of it in the students of William & Mary who surround me at my local coffee shop. From what I hear from faculty, many students believe they need not be constrained by present conditions. They recognize that the current neo-fascist political environment is self-destructing. May their apparent optimism prove infectious for those who will soon join them in post-secondary education.

May they learn from the wisdom we have to offer—and from the greater wisdom born of our errors. They will have plenty of time to make their own mistakes, and, one hopes, a greater opportunity to set the nation on a renewed democratic course committed to the well-being of all. To do that they will have to dig into and learn from not only the few generations preceding them but the generations of centuries past who have much to offer.

A major news outlet has asked its readers to respond to a survey about how Americans should best remember the anniversary of January 6. I am sure there will be many thoughtful and worthwhile suggestions. My own preference would be to mark it as a day of recommitment to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, so that this day of national humiliation and shame might remain firmly in the past rather than endlessly reenacted.

Perhaps in another century or two it will be remembered in ways similar to how the English recall Guy Fawkes Day—with ritualized distance and historical irony. But that time has not yet come.

There is, however, another way to remember January 6 that is both older and more important—and it must not be made subordinate to the insurrection of five years ago. January 6 is the Christian Feast of the Epiphany, the day that closes the Christmas season. It commemorates the visit of the Magi, who came to the infant Jesus to do him homage and offer gifts, recognizing him as the rightful king of the Jews.

These foreigners from a distant land had read the signs and concluded that this newborn child would be the source of new life and new hope for all people, everywhere, in every time. They did not see that hope in its fullness, but what they perceived was enough to compel them to undertake a long and arduous journey.

Christians understand that dynamic well. We experience that new life and new hope only in part—not yet fully. The fullness lies ahead, to be revealed at another time and in a greater light. But even now it represents a new way of life, one that invites us to grow more fully into all that we are called to be.

It stands in stark contrast to a worldview recently articulated by Stephen Miller, one of the president’s top aides and an architect of the administration’s policies. He argued that we must be “realistic” and accept that the world is ruled by power and force—by those who possess sufficient strength to violently compel others to submit. It is a vision of reality in which greed, domination, and the lust for power are treated as the fundamental truths of human existence.

That worldview is not merely the opposite of God’s will for humanity and creation as revealed through the prophets and made manifest in Jesus Christ. It is an open rebellion against it. Indeed, it is a declaration that there is no God—only the temporary authority of men who seize power  and rule by force. In such a scheme, there is no genuine hope for new life, freely and fully shared.

Christians are commanded to reject this vision of reality. We are called instead to follow the way of Christ—a way that affirms the dignity of every human being, seeks healing rather than domination, and recognizes that the welfare of any one nation is inseparable from the welfare of all nations. One need not be a Christian to grasp this truth; it is recognized across faith traditions and philosophies throughout the world.

History itself makes the lesson plain. Every nation and empire built on conquest, coercion, and the lust for power has ultimately failed. There may be moments of apparent triumph, but they never last. Look around the globe today. No nation is without its struggles, but those societies in which personal freedom is balanced by a commitment to the common good—where citizens have reason to expect a stable and humane future—are markedly different from those crippled by corruption and despotism. The latter cannot lift themselves from the mire into which they have sunk.

As Christians, our calling is clear. We are to bear something of the Kingdom of God wherever we go and with whomever we encounter, regardless of circumstances. Our hope does not rest in the powers and principalities of this world, but in God—the maker and sustainer of all that is seen and unseen—who has revealed to us, and to all people, a better way of life..  We invite those of other faith traditions and those with none to join us reject Miller and those like him and walk in the better way.

Yes, I am one more voice expressing dismay and disappointment over Trump’s violent kidnapping of Maduro and his wife. Let us be clear: Maduro is a bad man. A recent headline described him as a “leftish dictator.” There is nothing leftish about him. He is simply an ordinary dictator, like every other dictator. Under his rule, the once-prosperous nation of Venezuela has become a decaying wreck of a country. Its people deserve better.

But let there be no confusion: there is no good guy in this event. Trump and his minions are not the virtuous rescuers of the Venezuelan people.

Trump does sometimes tell the truth, and he has truthfully said that his intention is to seize the oil and mineral assets of Venezuela as an imperial power declaring authority over the entire Western Hemisphere. If there were any doubt, he has now declared the “Donroe Doctrine.” I suspect he has only the vaguest idea of what that means and has merely been told it is related to the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, which warned European colonial powers to keep their hands off the newly independent states of the Western Hemisphere.

He may not understand it, but Stephen Miller and others who form the intellectual foundation of this administration do. I suspect their vision of a twenty-first-century American Western Hemisphere empire is modeled on ancient Rome. That empire asserted dominion over many semi-independent states by threatening—and when necessary using—military power whenever one of them fell out of line.

This is not the ancient Mediterranean world, and Trump is no  Caesar Augustus. What this administration has done is morally indefensible. It continues to corrupt and betray our democratic heritage and the values we hold dear as a free people who desire that others may enjoy the freedoms we do. Trump has attempted to rule by fear, intimidation, and misdirection for the benefit of his own wealth and the wealth of other very rich people willing to support him.

Particularly disappointing is the complicit culpability of Congress and of a voting public that chose to believe those who worked in their best interests were their enemies, and those who held ordinary people in contempt were their friends. As I have written before, this was no accident, and we cannot excuse the electorate as merely naïve or gullible. They have been subjected to decades of talk radio inciting them to live in a world of fear and suspicion. In the name of hyper-patriotism, talk radio hosts have deliberately undermined all that is truly patriotic. Whether they understood the consequences of their actions is beside the point. They bear a tremendous burden of accountability for our current political, social, and economic condition.

This brings me back to Venezuela, along with renewed threats against Colombia, Cuba, and even Greenland. Responsible news sources and hundreds of writers have expressed dismay and outrage over what Trump has done. My contribution is only one small voice, and if you are reading this, I encourage you to raise your own small voice and make it heard as loudly as you can.

That is how we will save our democracy, make life better for our people, and begin the hard work of restoring our global reputation.

A few conservative friends have said they wish the president would tone down his rhetoric, that it makes them uncomfortable. That isn’t going to happen. Tweets, texts, and public speeches reveal the authentic Trump. They are the most transparent representations of who Trump truly is—as the ancient philosophers might have said, behold the man.

Among the sad tragedies of our time is that his most ardently loyal followers are held in utter contempt by a man committed only to what benefits him and those who support him not with loyalty, but with cash. Now that their votes are no longer relevant, they have become disposable commodities—except for one lingering usefulness. As long as they are willing to swarm about him, lavishing him with praise and applause, they remain useful. When that ends, Trump will have no further use for them.

What about his policies? My guess is that he has none, other than the completion of transactions beneficial to himself. In the meantime, he is surrounded by toadies intent on remaking the United States in the neo-Nazi image of Project 2025. Toxic though they may be, they are not stupid. They are skilled at exploiting Trump’s vanity and his need for constant praise to their own advantage, fully aware that he has only a limited understanding of the work they are doing. Nor does he understand much of American or world history, the role of constitutional republican democracy, or the importance of the basic freedoms guaranteed by our Constitution and the rule of law. In short, I doubt he understands the difference between our democracy and the neo-Nazi authoritarianism being engineered by those who surround him.

I suspect the Trump era will be remembered as one of the most astonishing acts of legerdemain in political history. The magic act pulled off by Trump, the Project 2025 mob, and the billionaires who cluster at the center keeping the cash flowing is that they performed all their tricks in public view, hiding nothing. They are even public about what they intend to hide—but they rely on the public not seeing, or not wanting to know. The brazenness is so complete that they get away with it, aided by their influence over federal law-enforcement agencies and a majority on the Supreme Court.

The next administration will no doubt attempt to restore the rule of law and our beleaguered democracy, but what has been done is unlikely to have serious consequences for those responsible. Had former Senator Menendez been this publicly brazen with his schemes, he might not have ended up in prison. The same is probably true for other public figures who have served prison time under similar circumstances. Bribery conducted in plain sight appears to be less of a sin than bribery attempted in secret. Go figure.

It may seem counterintuitive, but I have some sympathy for what will happen to Trump after he leaves office. Once he has no further use for his most loyal true believers, the nation will have no further use for him. His name will be removed from public buildings. The billionaires and tech moguls who financed him will have no further use for him. The Project 2025 gang will have no further use for him. Heads of state around the world will have no further use for him. Mar-a-Lago will no longer be a magnet for those seeking influence or favors. Everything that has meant so much to him will have evaporated. He will become a broken, lonely man.

Perhaps it will not be too late for him to discover the wonderful gift of love—received and given, out of love and for love. I hope so.

May this holy night make known to you once again that the God whose help and presence we so urgently need has come to us—to live and die as one of us.

In our annual remembrance of his birth, we are reminded that he took on the body and blood of his mother Mary, that he might be born into this life, so that we might feed on him and be born into life eternal. In humility we remember that he lay homeless in a borrowed feeding trough, as helpless as any newborn child.

In his death and resurrection, he was revealed as the power through which the universe has its very existence—the power of abundant and steadfast love beyond all imagining.

There is little sentimental in our remembrance of this wondrous moment. Here the destiny of the world and all its creatures is revealed: in love and for love. There is no force of darkness that can overcome it, even as many forces of darkness continue to try.

Merry Christmas.

Country Parson