Today (January 5) is the end of the Christmas season and today and tomorrow mark the end of a long and contentious election season in the U.S. Tomorrow is Epiphany, the beginning of the post-Christmas era, and tomorrow also should be the beginning of the return to normalcy in the U.S.
The End of the Christmas Season
For many people,
the celebration of Christmas ends on December 25 and attention is then focused
on other things. In some traditions, though, Christmas Day is the beginning of
a lengthy celebration and today is the twelfth and last day of Christmas.
In this tradition, Epiphany is celebrated on January 6. The Gospel writer Matthew tells the story of the first gentiles to receive the revelation (epiphany) of Christ. That is the account of the Wise Men of the East who came to revere Jesus, the newborn king.
In the fifth
chapter of his 2019 book Postcards from Babylon (which is being made into a documentary available for viewing, for a price,
on Jan. 21), author Brian Zahnd writes about “the dark side of Christmas,” King
Herod’s massacre of the baby boys in Bethlehem.*
Because the
Persian magi (magicians) were looking for the new king, “it made sense,” as
Zahnd writes, “for them to inquire in the capital city of Jerusalem, but by
doing so they unwittingly set in motion terrible events” (p. 68). Herod, the
tyrant King of Judea, tried to destroy the new king-to-be.
So, as the
celebration of Jesus’ birth ends today on the twelfth day of Christmas, we
recognize the epiphany of the Wise Men tomorrow. Epiphany, sometimes called
“Three Kings Day,” marks the beginning of the universal appeal of Christianity.
Even though their
desire to see the new king triggered cruel action by King Herod, “the baby king
escaped the gruesome infanticide ordered by the paranoid king” (Zahnd, p. 72). So,
we celebrate Jesus’ escape but grieve over all the “collateral damage” caused
by tyrannical King Herod.
Today, people
around the world are still compelled to choose whether to follow those known
for their love of power, such as Herod and others who aspire to be autocrats,
or to follow Jesus, the one whose life and teachings were characterized by the
power of love.
The End of the Election Season
The important
presidential and congressional elections in the U.S. took place on November 3,
but they are not ending until today and tomorrow is the designated day for the
final certification of the winner of the presidential election.
The election
season ends with voting today for both of Georgia’s U.S. Senators, and seldom
have senatorial elections been of greater significance.
Then tomorrow
should (finally!) be the end of the presidential election, but never has that
formal congressional certification of the electoral college votes been under so
much attack.
What should be a
routine day tomorrow in Congress is now fraught with uncertainty because as
esteemed opinion writer Colbert King of the Washington Post writes,
“President Trump, a buffoonish one-term wannabe autocrat, will not accept his
election loss.”
King further
predicts that tomorrow (Jan. 6) “will be a day of acrimony, probably to Trump’s
delight.” As early as Dec. 19, DJT
tweeted: “Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be
wild!”
Embarrassingly
for many of us Missourians, last Wednesday Sen. Josh Hawley announced his
intention to object to the certification of Joe Biden’s electoral
college victory, which will lead to hours of debate tomorrow on what should be
merely a routine matter.
Then
on January 2, Sen. Ted Cruz and 10 other GOP senators announced that they would
join Hawley in opposing certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory.
That
same day, DJT made a ludicrous, and most likely illegal, telephone call to
Georgia election officials asking (demanding?) them to change the voting
results in that state.
But
tomorrow should, thankfully, end the contentious election season and begin a new
day in which the Biden administration will vigorously seek to Build Back
Better.
May
it be so!
+++++
* That was one of
the massacres I wrote about in my 12/26 blog post.
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An excellent and important blog for today, Leroy! I'm pleased you made the connection between Herod and trump. I thought about this during the Sunday sermon at my church when the pastor was discussing the "Murder of the Innocents." It's quite telling.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Anton, for responding so early this morning, and I was pleased to hear that you did see the connection I made between Herod and DJT. I didn't want to say that blatantly, but I was afraid that maybe the point was made too subtly. I hope others grasp(ed) that as you did.
DeleteThe closest modern-day equivalent of Herod's slaughter of the innocents would be today's abortion industry, which Trump has opposed more vehemently than any other president, so the Trump/Herod comparison fails in that regard.
DeleteI don't know who you are, "Anonymous," but please read Lydia's comments below.
DeleteOh. I see I didn't read far enough down before posting, as this is all being discussed below. Lydia's comment is interesting. I've definitely come across the 'abortion is just a ploy' argument, and used to follow that line of thinking myself. I used to be very liberal in my political leanings; but reading Dorothy Day, Peter Maurin, E.F. Schumacher, Wendell Berry, Masanobu Fukuoka, Chesterton and others started to gradually change my thinking. I was becoming a distributist. So, I once believed that the right government programs could do away with every social ill, but I no longer believe that, because even the best programs have unintented consequences. In 1955, Dorothy Day wrote:
Delete‘Peter Maurin in his peasant love of the land, in his dealing with the problems of unemployment, family life, mental health and physical health, always taught “farming communes.” He called attention to the attempts at community of goods in our time in the cooperatives in Nova Scotia, in the Kibbutzim of Palestine, early attempts at community of families throughout the United States. He urged study of religious community, especially of Benedictine monasteries as models of community life, and urged that families come together to live in this way, making a living by a diversity of talents, as well as by farming. This of course pointed to the development of crafts as a means of earning a living. He never actually made blue prints of the kind of community that would suit our day and age, but he looked for leaders and skilled workers to lead the way.’
This is very much the distributist vision; if you want a better world, start building one in your own home, or with good friends on a plot of land somewhere. This can only succeed, though under a government that allows its citizens some freedom to experiment with such things. In other words, a government that doesn't micro-manage every detail of everyone's lives, that allows a measure of religious freedom, that doesn't regulate small businsses out of existence, that supports the idea of natural family, perhaps with some harsh anti-trust measures against monopolistic corporations thron in there too (since corporations can also act like tyrants). Obviously, neither party fits this description perfectly, but I'd say the GOP has been moving closer to such an ideal, while the dems have been moving away from it. Many of my progresive friends have been blinded to this fact by an extreme dislike for Donald Trump, but I think that misses the point. What is the point?
'The opposite of fascism isn’t a democratic form of socialism; it’s localism.' — Nassim Taleb
I'm not rying to troll here, I'm just really interested how people arrive at the worldviews that they have. And I like your blog, even if I disagree with some parts of it.
About an hour ago I received an email with these comments from Thinking Friend Eric Dollard in Chicago:
ReplyDelete"Thanks, Leroy, for sharing your observations. Although Herod the Great became increasingly paranoid and cruel as he aged, I am more inclined to compare Mr. Trump to Henry VIII. Herod and Henry were both monsters, however, and that is how I view Mr. Trump.
"My fervent hope is that once Mr. Trump has left the White House, we will no longer hear from him. He has been exhausting with almost daily outrageous statements or actions. He has had a toxic influence on America and I hope the Trump aura simply fades away.
"It is dismaying that so many Congresspersons still support him and that 74 million people voted for him. Changing the political atmosphere will be challenging."
Thanks, as always, for your thoughtful comments, Eric.
DeleteAs I have said several times over the past couple of months, even though Trump will be gone after January 20, his tens of millions of devoted followers will still be around, and that is certainly a major problem going forward.
My Facebook friend Charlie Fillingham posted the following comments on my Facebook link to today's blog post:
ReplyDelete"Since I can’t figure how to comment directly on your blog I will here. Many when they hear murder of the innocence will automatically go to the abortion question. In the past it was the single issue that often determined my vote. I have come to believe it has become an idol issue over riding all the many other points of the gospel.
"I too can hardly wait until we no longer hear from Mr. Trump. I’m afraid he has changed the Republican Party so much it will take a generation if ever to wash out his influence."
Reflecting on Charlie's (above) association of the Murder of the Innocents with the abortion issue, I confess, being in the pro-choice camp, that I have never heard that interpretation before. That the murder of 2-year-olds and younger would bring to mind abortion rather than children in cages, likely permanently psychologically damaged, or threats to the well-being of such children by reducing support for WIC, SNAP, or school lunch programs continues to boggle my mind. I could only pray that many others, like Charlie, could come to see the whole abortion issue as a ploy so many years ago to manipulate conservative Christians into voting Republican.
ReplyDeleteVery sobering topic, re American politics, Leroy. Your remarks about the election reminds me of how different your democracy and elections are from ours in Canada.
ReplyDeleteAs for Epiphany and the magi, they were not kings (scholars think they may have been a combination of magicians, priests, and astrologers (the latter more akin to what we regard as astronomy). Of course Matthew does not mention how many of them visited Jesus either. Travel could be dangerous in those days, hence it was safer to travel in larger numbers. Reference to 'three kings' likely comes from Matthew's mention of three gifts.
Your contrasting the love of power of Herod and other political leaders with the power of love of Jesus reminds me of a quote attributed to Jimi Hendrix: "When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace." May it be so.
I was wondering what to say when I finished reading the blog, but after reading the comments, now I know. Abortion is an issue about which Christians have pontificated greatly, but it actually is a biblical non-issue. There is no overt reference to abortion in the entire Bible. The Catholic position was spun out of theological speculations, and the Evangelical position was created out of thin air as a political wedge issue.
ReplyDeleteAs Frank Schaeffer put it in the Prologue to "Sex, Mom, and God," where he wrote, "My late father, Francis Schaeffer, was a key founder and leader of the Religious Right. . . . For a time I joined my Dad in pioneering the Evangelical antiabortion Religious Right movement. . . . I changed my mind." (page xi) Schaeffer went on throughout the book exploring what that change meant, as he tried to find a way to balance being pro-life and pro-choice. He ended up wanting a sliding scale, that came close enough to simply being pro-choice that it seemed that would have been a more coherent position. Still, he made a good point that we need to calm down and find common ground. He also pointed out that a large percentage of abortions are sought by women in desperate poverty, indicating that real pro-life would need to do far more than simply ban abortion.
While the Bible does not explicitly discuss abortion, it does at times hint at the status of the unborn, and it does not match up well with pro-life rhetoric. Among those few hints, I have felt called to claim as my abortion stand these words of Jesus, "If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out. . ." (Matthew 18:9) I interpret this to mean that only a pregnant woman should have a say in whether to have an abortion. Hopefully she would consult with family, friends, and doctors; but that is her choice, and her responsibility. For the rest of us, Jesus has a different message about planks in our eyes. (Matthew 7:1-5) I do not think Jesus wants us to judge pregnant women. Loving support would seem to be more in order.