Happy New Year of the Snake (again)

Although it is still December 31 here in the U.S., rather than making this post at around 5:30 a.m., as I normally do, I am posting it at 9:00 (CST). This later time is midnight, the beginning of 2025, in Japan where I lived for so long. So it is now the Year of the Snake there, the same as in 2013.*¹  

People who are born in the Year of the Snake have positive character traits according to the Japanese (Chinese) zodiac. They are “deep thinkers, speak very little, and possess tremendous wisdom. They are fortunate in money matters and will always be able to obtain it.”*²

June and I are delighted to be expecting our third great-grandchild in May. We hope she will have the characteristics associated with those noted in the previous paragraph. Of course, there are also a few negative characteristics associated with each zodiac sign, so she will have to work to overcome those.

Consider what has happened in the Year of the Snake previously. While the snake does not have the strong negative connotations in Japan/China as it does in the West, awful things happened in the world in the Year of the Snake four times in the first half of the twentieth century.

The first Year of the Snake in the 1900s was in 1905. The Russo-Japanese War, which began in 1904, ended in a victory for Japan in September 1905. That war, fought between the Russian Empire and the Empire of Japan, resulted in 130,000 (or more) deaths, about 2/3 of them Japanese. 

Twelve years later, in 1917, the United States declared war on Germany and became embroiled in what was called the Great War then and World War I later.  As many as 8,000,000 soldiers and 13 million civilians died as a result of that war, although U.S. deaths were fewer than 120,000.

The next Year of the Snake was 1929. On October 29^th of that year, the Wall Street Crash marked the beginning of the worldwide Great Depression. The Dow Jones Industrial Average did not return to its peak close of September 1929 until November 1954. 

And then in 1941, twelve years later, the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7 occurred. The next day President Roosevelt called that a “date which will live in infamy,” and the U.S. declared war on Japan. There were at least 60 million deaths in that war, about 3/4 of them civilians.*³

Fortunately, the years 1953, 1965, 1977, and 1989 were years with no notably horrific world events. But the first Year of the Snake in this century, 2001, was certainly a traumatic one for the U.S.

2025 will be a different sort of “year of the snake” in the U.S. “Snake in the grass” is a common English expression. Since in Japan snakes do not have a “bad” reputation, though, there is no similar Japanese phrase. A Japanese website says the English idiom means “an enemy disguised as a friend,” or “someone you can’t trust.”

On January 20, the 47^th POTUS will be inaugurated. While I am generally careful not to use unkind, pejorative language, I am only one among many who think that he and several of his Cabinet nominees can be legitimately characterized as “snakes in the grass.”

Candace Osmond is a “grammarist writer,” and she says (here) that a “snake in the grass” personality type refers to “someone who appears friendly and likable on the surface but has hidden agendas and will do anything to get what they want. They usually manipulate and deceive others to achieve their goals.”

Ms. Osmond gives no examples, but sadly, it seems hard to deny that the incoming President clearly exhibits that sort of personality, and some if not many of his nominees seem to have that trait also.

So, I wish you all the very best in the Year of the Snake, but I also urge you who are U.S. citizens to be careful not to be deceived by the “snakes in the grass” who will constitute what may well be a kakistocracy, that is, “a government run by the worst, least qualified, or most unscrupulous citizens.”

Since snakes repeatedly shed their skins, they are often seen as a symbol of regeneration in Japan. May this Year of the Snake be the beginning of the regeneration of good government here in the U.S.!

_____

*¹ I have written this article with little overlap to what I said in the post with the same name I made that year. Some of you may want to read that post (here) since many of you were not on my Thinking Friends mailing list then. The only comments on that post were from Craig Dempsey and Anton Jacobs, who are two of the three or four TFs who have commented most often over the past twelve years, and I much appreciate their many meaningful, thought-provoking comments.

*² From “The Twelve Signs of the Japanese Zodiac,” posted by Ms. Namiko Abe in June 2024 at this link. That article gives an explanation of all twelve of the animals included in the zodiac cycle in Japan. The same zodiac is used in China where the traditional lunar calendar is used, so the Chinese New Year won’t begin until January 29.

*³ These statistics come from the website of the National World War II Museum in New Orleans (see here). According to that source, the number of U.S. WWII deaths was under 420,000.

Tarnishing the Name of Jesus

It was a week ago tonight that Pres. Biden delivered the annual State of the Union (SOTU) message. His address was widely applauded by Democrats and by the mainstream media—and, not surprisingly, panned by Republicans and by right-wing news outlets who castigate the “lamestream” media.

This post, though, is about the Republican rebuttal speech given by Alabama Senator Katie Britt. 

Katie Boyd Britt (b. 1982) was elected the junior Senator from Alabama in 2022, defeating Democrat Will Boyd, a Black Baptist pastor. She received nearly 67% of the vote.

I didn’t remember hearing the name of Sen. Britt before I saw that she would give the rebuttal after the SOTU address, so I looked her up on Wikipedia and elsewhere.

In a July 2021 interview, Britt stated, “Jesus Christ is the most important thing in life, and that should be the foundation that everything else comes around.” I certainly would not disagree with that, but surely such a statement should include telling the truth and not bearing false witness.

Earlier this week, the Los Angeles Times candidly stated that “the woman sitting in the kitchen with the cross glittering on her neck lied.” After listening (on Friday) to her Thursday night rebuttal speech, that clearly seems to be the case.

And given what she has said about Jesus Christ and the sparkling (diamond-studded?) cross around her neck as she gave her speech, it seemed to me that she was tarnishing the name of Jesus.

No wonder more and more people in the U.S. are leaving the Christian faith and joining the “nones.”

Sen. Boyd’s rebuttal speech was criticized and critiqued by a wide variety of voices. For example, here is part of what historian Heather Cox Richardson (HCR) wrote about Katie’s talk in her March 8 newsletter:

Sitting in a kitchen rather than in a setting that reflected her position in one of the nation’s highest elected offices, Britt conspicuously wore a necklace with a cross and spoke in a breathy, childlike voice as she wavered between smiles and the suggestion she was on the verge of tears. 

At the close of HRC’s letter, I first learned about Jess Piper and her Substack posts under the name “The View from Rural Missouri.” Her March 8 “view” was titled “The Fundie Baby Voice.”*

But it wasn’t the voice that most disturbed me. It was the lies that Sen. Britt told in that problematic voice.

In his remarks at the Academy Awards ceremony on Sunday evening, Jimmy Kimmel made these remarks about Emma Stone, who had just been awarded the Best Actress Oscar: “Emma, you are so unbelievably great in Poor Things. Emma played an adult woman with the brain of a child, like the lady who gave the rebuttal to the State of the Union on Thursday night.”**

Sen. Boyd did her best to harm Pres. Biden and to lessen his chances of winning a second term as POTUS. She may have done the Republicans more harm than good, however.

I was saddened by the touching story she told of talking last year with the girl who had been a victim of sex trafficking—and then off-put by her blaming the President for that tragic event. And then I was incensed when it turned out the incident in question took place when George W. Bush was President!

On Monday, Washington Post associate editor and columnist Karen Tumulty wrote that the “horrific story” Katie told, “at least by implication, turned out to be a big fat lie.”

Tumulty went on to note that the “Post’s fact-checker Glenn Kessler awarded Britt four Pinocchios for the way she twisted this tragic story to make a cravenly partisan point.”

Despite her later efforts to walk back what she had said, there was no way her listeners could have known she was talking about an incident that took place more than a decade ago. Even if it wasn’t a blatant lie, it was highly deceitful and told with the intent of harming the President.

It is quite clear, though, that in spite of her prominent display of a cross on a necklace and pious talk, she tarnished the name of Jesus and did the cause of Christ far more harm than good.

_____

  * Jess Piper lives in (or near) Maryville, Missouri, which is about 35 miles from my hometown. In 2022 she ran as a progressive Democrat to become a Representative in the Missouri legislature, but she was soundly defeated in the district that twice voted for Trump by 80% or so. I am now receiving her Substack posts and have had email exchanges with her this week.

** This was a powerful putdown of Sen. Britt’s rebuttal speech to those who had seen Emma Stone's Oscar-winning performance in Poor Things, but I do not recommend that movie except to insightful, mature adults.

Crises within Crises

For this blog post, I originally intended to write only about COP28, the international meeting dealing with the ever-growing environmental crisis. Then, I read powerful opinion pieces by Robert Kagan and became alarmed at the expanding political crisis in the U.S.

But how can we neglect to consider the crises in Gaza, Ukraine, and other countries where warfare continues, such as in Myanmar and Sudan that get far less press coverage? In addition, there are millions of individuals in our world who are facing personal crises of various sorts.

Indeed, there are crises within crises that threaten the well-being and even the survival of individuals, nations, and the world civilization as a whole. Please think with me about these crises, beginning with the outer circle that includes the whole world and moving down to the inner circle of individuals. 

The ever-growing environmental crisis was the central concern of COP28, which met in Dubai, the largest city in the United Arab Emirates, from Nov. 30 to Dec. 12.*¹ The first COP meeting, convened in Berlin, was in 1995 and there have been yearly meetings since then.

As I have repeatedly pointed out over the last two years, the current ecological predicament is a crisis that threatens the very existence of the world as we know it (TWAWKI). Some progress was made toward alleviating the global environmental crisis at COP28, but it’s probably too little too late.*²

There will be dire consequences for most of the world’s population if drastic changes are not made soon, which is highly unlikely. This is the existential crisis in which all the other crises exist.

The wars in Ukraine and Israel/Gaza are crises for people living in those areas of the world. But there is an ongoing possibility that they will expand into larger wars. In the worst-case scenario, either of these wars could conceivably escalate into World War III.

These crises are rather localized now, but they might conceivably enlarge to rival the ecological crisis as an existential threat to TWAWKI.

Within these two larger crises is the political crisis in the United States. While this crisis is only brewing at present, there is a real and present danger of democracy being replaced in the U.S. with a form of fascism.

I had not been aware of scholar and journalist Robert Kagan until this month, but he is an editor at large for The Washington Post (WaPo) and has been a foreign policy adviser to U.S. Republican presidential candidates as well as to Democratic administrations via the Foreign Affairs Policy Board.

During the 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign, Kagan (b. 1958) left the Republican Party due to the party's nomination of Donald Trump and endorsed Hillary Clinton for president.

Kagan’s Nov. 30 and Dec. 7 WaPo articles were titled “A Trump dictatorship is increasingly inevitable. We should stop pretending,” and “The Trump dictator-ship: How to stop it.” (These are long pieces, but well worth reading and reflecting on.)

Some Republican politicians are sounding the same warning. For example, former Congresswoman Liz Cheney's new book (released Dec. 5) is titled Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning. (Hear her talk about that in this Dec. 4 interview on NPR.)

On Dec. 10, Sen. Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential candidate in 2012, expressed the same sentiment, although more mildly, on “Meet the Press.”*³

There is a lot that can happen between now and Election Day next November, but USAmericans must be aware of the danger of losing their democracy—and minorities, the poor, and the underprivileged are the ones who would suffer most under a non-democratic government.

We common people may not be able to do much about the ecological crisis or the crisis in Ukraine or Gaza, but we do have the power to vote and to encourage our friends and neighbors to be informed and to vote accordingly.

The inner circle is the crisis of individuals who are suffering from illness, poverty, discrimination, or personal tragedies. We pray that many of these people will experience new hope during this Christmas season. Who is one such person you can help between now and December 25?

_____

*¹ COP stands for the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. (Click here to access the UNFCCC website.)

*² Here is the link to a helpful summary of the mixed results of COP28 on The Guardian’s Dec. 14 website.

*³ See here; Romney’s discussion of this matter begins at about 7 min. 45 sec. into the program. 

The “Holy War” Has Begun, When/How Will It End?

Recently I have been reading/thinking about the ReAwaken America Tour (RAT) here in the U.S. I have become even more alarmed about RAT after watching the PBS documentary “Michael Flynn’s Holy War.” I highly encourage you to take the time to watch that October 18 production.* 

The same thing looks vastly different because of aspect perception. That was the main point of my previous blog post, using the widely-known duck-rabbit illusion. In that article I referred to religious ramifications of aspect perception. This post is about political ramifications.

What you see in the duck-rabbit illusion depends on whether you look to the right or the left of the image. In the political world, there is a huge difference in how the Republican right or the Democratic left sees this nation.

As is clearly shown here, in the Oct. 23 edition of Meet the Press, a recent NBC poll indicates that 79% of Republicans and 81% of Democrats think that the “other Party’s agenda will destroy America.”

What a huge and crucial difference aspect perception makes! The two political parties just see and interpret the current situation in the U.S. in radically diverse ways.

According to Michael Flynn’s perception of America, the future of the country is in grave danger and can only be saved by “spiritual warfare.” He is now leading a “holy war” to save the nation.

As you probably know, Flynn (b. 1958) was a prominent U.S. general, active especially during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In February 2016 Flynn became an advisor to Trump for his presidential campaign, and in January 2017 he was sworn in as Pres. Trump’s first National Security Advisor (NSA).

Soon after being forced to resign as NSA, in December 2017 Flynn pled guilty to a felony charge of “willfully and knowingly” making false statements to the FBI. In November 2020, however, he was issued a presidential pardon by Trump.

Since then, Flynn has been active as one of the most prominent leaders of Christian nationalism. As one of the main speakers at the ReAwaken America Tours, since April of last year he has spoken to numerous enthusiastic audiences of thousands. On Nov. 4-5 he will be with RAT in Branson, Mo.

Perceptions of Michael Flynn vary greatly. In the PBS documentary, pastor Jacqui Lewis is shown as a staunch opponent of Flynn. She exclaims, “It’s our calling to disrupt fake Christianity. And we're not going to be nice about it.” Lewis also declares, “It is a battle for the soul of America.”**

The interviewer, Michelle Smith, comments, “Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis is part of a coalition of religious leaders that opposes what they see as a hijacking of Christianity by figures like Flynn.”

While not included in the documentary, a group known as Faithful America is also actively opposing what they perceive to be the false Christianity of Flynn and his supporters. On their website they identify 20 Christian nationalists whom they say are “false prophets.” Flynn is one of them.

Flynn’s supporters, though, perceive things quite differently. This week I checked out journalist Dave Erickson’s book Framing Flynn: The Scandalous Takedown of an American General (2021) from my local library.

The blurb on the back of the book says that it is an “eye-opening and shocking look at the Obama administration’s scandalous set up of an innocent man—General Michael Flynn—to destroy his livelihood, reputation, and job with the incoming Trump administration.”

Author Erickson obviously perceives the same man in a drastically different way than pastor Lewis and Faithful America. They represent the two sides of Flynn’s “holy war.” The November 8—and Nov. 2024—elections will give some indication of how that “war” will end.

Which side of the “holy war” are you on, and why?

Please note: I am not in the least suggesting that one “side” is as true or viable as the other. My use of the rabbit/duck illusion is only to illustrate how the same thing can be seen in diverse ways, not how each is equally correct.

_____

* This program was produced by PBS in cooperation with The Associated Press (AP), and the main interviewer throughout is AP correspondent Michelle Smith. On their website, AP, founded in 1846, claims to be “an independent global news organization dedicated to factual reporting.”

** Lewis is the pastor of Middle Collegiate Church in Manhattan. Here is the link to her informative website.

The Dignity of Rural Life: In Appreciation of Millet

Last year I learned more about, and was impressed by, Jean-François Millet when I read “To Plow His Furrow in Peace: Jean-François Millet’s art taps his peasant roots to honor the dignity of rural life,” a major article in the Spring 2021 issue of Plough Quarterly.** That became the seed for this blog post.

Millet (1814~75) was born in rural northwestern France, and his most famous work is “The Angelus,” an oil painting completed between 1857 and 1859.

The painting, which the Plough author says you may have seen “hanging in some grandma’s living room,” depicts two peasants bowing in a potato field to say a prayer, the Angelus, that together with the ringing of the bell from the church on the horizon marks the end of a day’s work. 

I don’t remember when I first saw a reproduction of this painting, but I’m sure it was when I was still a Missouri farmboy.

Two earlier paintings by Millet are also widely known and appreciated, perhaps especially by rural people: “The Sower” (1850) and “The Gleaners” (1857).

What I did not know until I read the Plough article is how Millet was criticized. The author says that Millet’s “rustic paintings met with a great deal of negativity from critics and Parisian society. The truthfulness with which they depicted rural people and rural life was labeled mere ugliness.”

The sophisticated city folks thought that art should depict “dignified things, like lords and ladies and historical events and Greek myths and things like that. It was not for poor people.”

But by his paintings, Millet continued to depict the sacredness to be found in ordinary rural life. And in the concluding words of the Plough essay, to this day Millet’s “works remain a reminder of the worthiness of the ordinary worker who lives an ordinary life.”

My father was born in rural northwestern Missouri 101 years after Millet’s birth in France, and while not a “peasant” such as those depicted in Millet’s paintings, he—and his father—were “common” farmers, and from them I learned, and came to appreciate, the dignity of rural life.

On Aug. 15, 2020 (my 82^nd birthday), I posted a blog article titled “My Old Missouri Home,” and I won’t reiterate here what I wrote then, but it was in part about “the benefits of being a farmboy.”

What I didn’t say in that article is that I learned about the dignity of rural life from my father and his father. Grandpa George lived on a farm in Worth County (Mo.) all of his life except for a brief period in the early 1910s, and my father (d. 2007) did the same except for the years from 1935 to 1945.

There were exceptions, but they and most other farmers like them, were good, honest men who worked hard to provide for their families, who were kind and helpful to their neighbors, and who didn’t get into harsh verbal conflicts with anyone (except maybe on a few rare occasions).

Yes, 80~100 years after Millet, they embodied the dignity of rural life that the French artist painted so beautifully, and I remain grateful for what I learned from them.

But what about now? The world is much different now than when Millet painted “The Angelus” in 1857—or when my father bought his farm in 1945. I am afraid, though, that the dignity of rural life has deteriorated in the last forty years.

“Talk radio” (such as The Rush Limbaugh Show from 1988 until Limbaugh’s death in 2021) and, to a lesser extent since it requires cable, Fox News augmented the polarization of the general public, including and perhaps especially rural Americans.

When 80% of the people vote the same way, as they did in many of Missouri’s (and other states’) rural counties in 2016 and 2020, perhaps that indicates a notable loss of the dignity of rural life to the polarizing forces in contemporary society.

That dignity has been tarnished in recent years by the MAGA majority demonizing those with opposing political views and many of those in the minority 20% feeling alienated from their neighbors/friends.

_____

** Back in 2016, I posted “Following the Plough” on a Blogger.com page. Few have accessed that page, so if you would like to know more about Plough Quarterly and the Bruderhof community that produces it, click on this link.

Hopeful, But Not Optimistic

A good friend recently wrote, “My usual optimism is fading.” I responded, “I am sorry to hear that your optimism is waning—but that is not necessarily a bad thing, for it is better to be realistic than optimistic. And don’t give up hope; there is a difference between hope and optimism.”

So, what is that difference, and can a person actually be hopeful but not optimistic?

Defining Terms

Some definitions of optimism and hope sound as if they are synonyms. Here is the definition from Dictionary.com for optimism: “a disposition or tendency to look on the more favorable side of events or conditions and to expect the most favorable outcome.”

By contrast, hope means to work for and to wait for something with the confident expectation and anticipation that it will at some point, sooner or later, be fulfilled.

Optimism is an aspect of a person’s disposition or temperament. People with a sunny temperament are usually optimists, people with dark dispositions are mostly pessimists.

Hope, though, is a theological virtue. As Jim Wallis writes in his 2019 book Christ in Crisis, hope “is not simply a feeling, or a mood . . . . It is a choice, a decision, an action based on faith. . . . Hope is the engine of change. Hope is the energy of transformation” (p. 264).

Later in that book, Wallis reiterates what he has often said: “Hope means believing in spite of the evidence, then watching the evidence change” (p. 281).

And here are wise words from an Irish poet: 

So, yes, a person can be hopeful even if he/she is not optimistic. Thus, I like what Black theologian/philosopher Cornel West tweeted back in January 2013: “I cannot be optimistic but I am a prisoner of hope.”

Emphasizing Action

A key difference between optimism and hope, as defined/described above, is this: optimism doesn’t demand anything of us (everything is going to be all right!), but hope entails effort as we endeavor to actualize that for which we hope.

Like the Kingdom of God, hope also demands that we work for what we hope for, knowing that it might well be a long time before that hope will be realized.

The New Testament says that “now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love” (1 Cor. 13:13, NRSV). But faith and hope are a close third and second.

Further, the New Testament also declares that “faith without actions is dead” (James 2:26, Common English Bible). But isn’t it true to say that not just faith, but both love and hope without actions are also dead?

Love is not simply a feeling or an emotion. It is often said that "love is a verb,” and I believe that is true. Love is something that is best expressed not in words, but in action.

And so it is with hope.

Assessing the Future

So, linking this to my 10/25 post, what about the future of this country under the current President and Congress?

To be honest, I am not very optimistic about this year’s pending legislation or about the elections of 2022 or 2024. But I am hopeful for the future. If this year’s legislation doesn’t turn out well, I will do what little I can to help elect better members of Congress in 2022.

And if the elections of 2022 turn out to be a disappointment, again I will do what little I can to elect the best President and Congress possible in 2024.

If the latter is also a disappointment, then I will begin working for 2028 (although there may be little I can do, for that is the year I turn 90, if I make it that far).

Regardless of what happens, though, I will continue to be hopeful, believing that things will get better later, if not sooner. That is because I trust in the “God of hope.” Accordingly, these words from Romans 15:13 (NIV) is my prayer for all of you. 

Peril in the Pursuit of Political Power

Peril is defined as “serious and immediate danger.” I think it is not hyperbolical to say that at the present time, the U.S. is facing serious and immediate danger because of the way some politicians and their supporters are pursuing political power to the detriment of democracy. 

Perils of the Past

This nation was founded after the colonists proved to be a peril to the rule of Great Britain’s King George III. The way they pursued and achieved political power may not have been the best way they could have done it, but that is how the U.S. was founded 245 years ago.

The biggest challenge to the admittedly limited democracy established in 1776 was by the formation of the Confederate States of America 160 years ago and the Civil War that began a couple of months later in April 1861.

Then, the democratic rights of formerly enslaved American citizens came under peril again after the end of Reconstruction in 1877 and the enforcement of Jim Crow laws that persisted until 1965.

Perils in the Present

Pursuing political power by violent means is prevalent in several countries at present. On Feb. 1 there was a coup, described as a “military power grab,” in the beleaguered Asian country of Myanmar.

More recently, Haitian President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated on July 7. There is also ongoing military conflict between the rebel forces in the Ethiopian region of Tigray and the central government led by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed.

Fortunately, in the U.S. there has not recently been pursuit of political power by means of assassination or physical violence—with the notable exception of the horrendous events at the national Capitol on January 6.

The present peril in the U.S. is largely because of the Republicans currently pursuing political power by dubious means. That, at least, is the considered opinion of the conservative writer and historian Max Boot, who in 2015-16 was a campaign advisor for Marco Rubio.

Boot (b. 1969) contended in a July 15 opinion piece for The Washington Post that “Republicans are increasingly willing to resort to undemocratic, even violent, means to defend conservative, White hegemony.”

Dana Milbank, who also writes for The Post but is definitely not a conservative, also posted on July 15 an opinion piece titled “American democracy survived its Reichstag fire on Jan. 6. But the threat has not subsided.” He asserts that history “warns of greater violence” ahead.

Milbank (b. 1968) quotes words spoken to him recently by Timothy Snyder: “We’re looking almost certainly at an attempt in 2024 to take power without winning elections.”

A noted Yale historian, Snyder (b. 1969) also said,

If people are excluded from voting rights, then naturally they’re going to start to think about other options, on the one side. But, on the other side, the people who are benefiting because their vote counts for more think of themselves as entitled—and when things don’t go their way, they’re also more likely to be violent.

Promoting the Peril of the Present

The serious and immediate danger of the present is exacerbated not only by Republican politicians, especially by the previous President, but also by the right-wing news media, primarily Fox News and, to a lesser degree, Newsmax and OAN.

There are also numerous websites and broadcasts of people promoting the pursuit of political power by lies and misleading statements.

Recently, I learned of Candace Owens when one of my cousins posted a tweet of hers on Facebook. Owens (b. 1989), who now has her own weekly broadcast on The Daily Wire, tweeted on July 13:

Nobody believes that January 6th was a domestic terrorist attack executed by Trump supporters. It’s outright pathetic that the Democrats keep playing pretend. The conservative movement grows every single day because with time, all of their lies and motives are uncovered.

My cousin and millions like her accept such untruths as well as the perilous propaganda about a stolen election and about the dangers of critical race theory and Covid-19 vaccinations.

And yes, when conservative Republicans cheer because the President’s covid-19 vaccination goal was not met, we know we are living in perilous times. 

Tyranny of the Majority or Tyranny of the Minority?

Do you believe in majority rule? That is, should a 51% (or even 50.1%) affirmative vote decide who wins an election or what decisions pass a legislative body? That’s how we usually expect democracy to work. But 41 Senators can keep Senate bills from passing. Is that right?  

Protection from the Tyranny of the Majority?

As the “filibuster rule” now stands, 41 Senators can keep most Senate bills from coming to a vote. That is, it takes 60 Senators to vote cloture of a filibuster, and without that “super-majority” vote, the bill under question is not voted on.

The main argument in favor of the present system is that it protects the minority from the “tyranny” of the majority, which now, by the slimmest of margins, are Democrats.

Ross K. Baker, a distinguished professor of political science at Rutgers University, wrote an opinion piece published last week in USA Today. His point was that “it is not a good idea to get rid of the filibuster and thus enfeeble minorities and empower very slim majorities.”

Even when the bellicose language of “tyranny” is not used, the filibuster rule is seen by some, such as Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), as a way to encourage bipartisanship and cooperation in passing bills for the greater good of the country.

That may well have been largely true when Manchin (b. 1947) was a young man. But most probably it is, sadly, not effective now at this time of toxic polarity.

The views of the minority should, certainly, be listened to carefully and taken seriously. But should the minority have the power to determine what bills are voted on?

Protection from the Tyranny of the Minority?

As most of you readers know, I lived in Japan for 38 years and was a regular participant in university faculty meetings and in church business meetings.

Japanese culture places great emphasis on wa (group harmony). Thus, decisions were, ideally, made by consensus rather than by a vote—or by a vote after consensus had largely been reached.

Even in meetings of more than 100 faculty members, strong opposition from just a few vocal opponents of some motion on the floor could lead to postponing a decision or even withdrawing the motion.

One of my closest faculty colleagues complained more than once about such situations. That, perhaps, is when I first heard the term, “the tyranny of the minority.”

With the recalcitrance of the current 50 Republican U.S. Senators, it seems as though the U.S. Senate can often be aptly charged with being “guilty” of the tyranny of the minority.

What Can/Should Be Done?

The U.S. House this year passed, by the narrowest of margins but by a majority vote, the For the People Act (H.R. 1), which “addresses voter access, election integrity and security, campaign finance, and ethics for the three branches of government.”

Currently, unless the filibuster rule is changed, that bill is likely not to come to a Senate vote. The minority Party will kill the bill.

As it stands now, the same is true for the Equality Act (H.R. 5), the bill that “prohibits discrimination based on sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity . . . .”

Both of those bills not only procured the majority vote in the House, but public opinion polls also indicate that a majority of the adults in the U.S. agree with the provisions of those bills.

Those who advocate doing away with the filibuster have a strong case. But those who think the filibuster should be preserved, have arguments that must not be taken lightly. Something between all or nothing is called for.

In considering the matter of equality for all and protecting voting rights, though, surely the tyranny of the minority should not be seen as an acceptable course of action.

For the good of the country, the Senate must soon find a suitable position between the tyranny of the majority and the tyranny of the minority.

_____

In addition to Baker’s article linked to above, here are some of the opinion pieces I found to be instructive. (Some of these may be behind a paywall for non-subscribers.)

** Ruth Marcus, “Kill the filibuster — and reap what you sow” (The Washington Post, March 19)

** Zack Beauchamp, “The filibuster’s racist history, explained” (Vox, March 25)

** Jennifer Rubin, “Republicans’ big lie about the filibuster” (The Washington Post, March 25)

** John Fea, “The longest filibusters in U.S. history were launched to stop the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1964” (Current, March 28)

Voting Rights vs. Voting Wrongs

Ten days ago, I posted an article about the disagreement between the U.S. Democrats who stress social equality and the Republicans who stress religious freedom. This post is about the Republicans’ emphasis on “voting integrity” and the Democrats’ emphasis on voting rights.  

The Ongoing Charge of Voting “Wrongs”

As you all know, the vast majority of Republicans, led by the former President, claim that President Biden was elected because of voter fraud. They insist that the election was “stolen” and the voting “wrongs” of 2020 must be corrected by new voting legislation.

In an Economist/YouGov poll taken two weeks after last November’s election, 88% of Trump voters said that Biden did not legitimately win the election. He won because of voter fraud, which I am calling voting wrongs.

Perhaps that percentage is lower now, four months after the election, but a poll taken of the CPAC attendees at the end of February indicated that 62% of them thought the most important issue facing the nation is “election integrity,” that is, elections free from fraud.

Accordingly, more than 250 bills have been introduced in state legislatures to revise voting laws. All of these are ostensibly for the purpose of eliminating voting wrongs such as were seen, it is claimed, in the 2020 election.

The March 13 issue of The Economist has a major article about the “election wars” in the U.S. It is titled, “Heads we win, tails you cheated,” expressing their view of the Republican position.

Incontrovertibly, a large segment of U.S. citizens is far more concerned with eliminating voting wrongs than protecting voting rights. This widespread concern must be taken seriously.

The Ongoing Demand for Voting Rights

In spite of the charges of voting wrongs by the Republicans and largely because of what is seen as a concerted effort to constrict/suppress voting rights, the Democrats in Congress are actively working for expanding those rights.

In the House, the For the People Act of 2021 (H.R. 1) was passed on March 3 by a vote of 220-210, with all the Republicans and one Democrat voting Nay.

To no one’s surprise, President Biden is in favor of the House-passed bill becoming the law of the land. He stated, “The right to vote is sacred and fundamental—it is the right from which all of our other rights as Americans spring. This landmark legislation is urgently needed to protect that right.”

On March 4, the inimitable Heather Cox Richardson summarized major provisions of H.R. 1:

The measure streamlines voter registration with automatic and same-day voter registration. It restores the protections of the 1965 Voting Rights Act gutted in 2013 by the Supreme Court’s Shelby County v. Holder decision. It allows early voting and mail-in voting. It curbs dark money in elections and ends partisan gerrymandering by requiring independent redistricting commissions to draw state districts. It gets rid of insecure paperless voting.

Nevertheless, on March 3 before the House vote, former Vice President Pence wrote in a piece titled “Election Integrity Is a National Imperative” that H.R. 1 “would increase opportunities for election fraud, trample the First Amendment, further erode confidence in our elections, and forever dilute the votes of legally qualified eligible voters.”

Citing Pence, among others, the editorial board of the Washington Post wrote on March 4, “Republicans’ rhetoric on H.R. 1 is apocalyptic. Are they that afraid of democracy?”

It certainly seems so. The next day, Dana Milbank, a noted Washington Post opinion journalist, posted “Republicans aren’t fighting Democrats. They’re fighting democracy.”

The Ongoing Need to Protect Democracy

Make no mistake about it: the Democrats who passed H.R. 1 are mainly seeking to protect democracy. They are NOT for any sort of election fraud, such as  

                 * people voting more than once in the same election   
                 * dead people voting  
                 * non-citizens voting for nationwide or statewide candidates 
                 * some ballots being destroyed or not counted 
                 * some ballots being counted more than once 
                 * voters being registered in illegal ways or more than once

They just want every citizen to have the right to vote. That is foundational for democracy.

_____

* Here is the link to the maiden speech of Senator Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) on March 17. In that address, he speaks out strongly in support of H.R. 1, which is now S. 1, and ardently appeals for the protection of democracy by the passage of the voting rights bill. I hope you will take the time to listen to Sen. Warnock.

“Good” White Evangelical Politicians

There has been considerable criticism of white evangelicals—and I have posted critical remarks myself (such as in my 2/4 blog post). But putting labels on people and saying everyone with that label is the same is a problem—and I wrote about “evangeliphobia” in my 1/30/16 blog post.

In this article, I am thinking particularly of two white evangelical politicians: Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) and Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.). I am referring to them as “good” because of their taking politically unpopular stances partly or largely because of their Christian faith.

Applauding Rep. Kinzinger

Adam Daniel Kinzinger (b. 1978) has served as a U.S. Congressman from Illinois since 2011. Recently, he has been in the news largely because he was one of the ten Republicans in the House to vote for the impeachment of President Trump.

A Jan. 29 piece posted on Christianity Today’s website is entitled “Meet the Republican Congressman Who Says His Faith Led Him to Vote for Impeachment.” 

According to this Jan. 28 article in The Atlantic, Kinzinger was a kid who grew up in a Baptist Church, and now, they write,

As someone who identifies as a born-again Christian, he believes he has to tell the truth. What has been painful, though, is seeing how many people who share his faith have chosen to support Trump at all costs, fervently declaring that the election was stolen.

“The courage of Adam Kinzinger,” an article in the Feb. 6 issue of The Economist, reports on the “angry pushback” Kinzinger is getting and even how a “fellow evangelical Christian accused him of being possessed by the devil.”

Surely, though, many evangelical Christians—and most of those who are not—have to be impressed with not only the courage but also the integrity of Rep. Kinzinger.

Applauding Sen. Sasse

Benjamin Eric Sasse (b. 1972) is the junior U.S. Senator for Nebraska, having won his second term in the Nov. 2020 election.

Born in Nebraska as the son of a high school teacher and football coach, Sasse graduated from Harvard in 1994 and went on to earn a Ph.D. degree (in history) from Yale University. Currently, he is the only Republican Senator with a Ph.D. (There are three Democrats with that degree.)   

Sasse was baptized in the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod. As a college student in the 1990s, he began to embrace the "reformed faith" (Calvinism). And during his college years, Sasse was active in Campus Crusade for Christ (now Cru). Later he became an elder in the United Reformed Churches.

Sen. Sasse has long been a critic of the 45^th POTUS, and on Tuesday (Feb. 8), Sasse was one of only six Republicans (out of 50) who voted that the second impeachment trial of Trump is constitutional. And (perhaps today) he is likely to vote for Trump’s conviction.

His opposition to the Republican President has led to him being censured by Republicans in Nebraska, but he has persisted in doing and saying what he thinks is right.

Like Rep. Kinzinger, Sasse’s faith has led him also to be a man of courage and integrity.

Criticizing Rep. Kinzinger and Sen. Sasse

Applauding the evangelical Christian faith which has led Rep. Kinzinger and Sen. Sasse to be men of courage and integrity—and, as such, outspoken in their opposition to DJT—does not mean general agreement with their political ideas.

It is possible to respect and to admire people of integrity who embody and express goodwill while still disagreeing with their ideas and their political position on important issues.

And it is unfair to allow dislike for some white conservative evangelical politicians, such as Sen. Josh Hawley and Sen. Ted Cruz, to lump all conservative evangelical politicians together and to castigate them all.

Thankfully, there are “good” white evangelical politicians, and even though I am critical of some or many of their political positions, I am thankful for Rep. Kinzinger and Sen. Sasse.

Which Christian Values Do You Endorse?

Jack Hibbs, whom I have not known of until recently, is the founder and senior pastor of Calvary Chapel Chino Hills in Southern California and has a daily half-hour program on Bott Radio. This post was sparked by a Jan. 21 article by Hibbs on The Christian Post’s website.  

The “Christian Values” of Conservative White Evangelicals

In the just-mentioned piece, titled “What’s next for evangelicals post-Trump,” Hibbs (b. 1958) declares that “President Biden is clearly not interested in the concerns of evangelicals.”

“So,” Hibbs asks, “what are we to do, now that Trump is leaving office and we have a new president who goes against our values?”

The “we” he refers to, I assume, are most of the readers of The Christian Post and those who attend his church, said to be about five thousand adults each Sunday, not including teens and children.

Hibbs concludes that “we need to look to 2024 with an eye towards finding the next president whose policies will be in line with our values.”

What, though, are the values of this conservative evangelical pastor? Well, we have some clue in the last five of the 15 points in Hibbs’s church’s “statement of faith” (see here).

Those “Christian values” were succinctly expressed in a Facebook post of West Virginia singer David Ferrell (shared by one of my FB friends earlier this week): “No pastor can support same sex marriage, homosexuality, transgender, abortion and preach the gospel of Jesus Christ.”

But, where in the Gospels do we find Jesus condemning same-sex marriage, homosexuality, transgender, or abortion? The values that Jesus emphasized seem to be quite different.

Jesus’ values are largely affirmed by progressive Christians, including many prominent Black pastors, most of whom were strongly opposed to President Trump—in spite of his being extensively supported by conservative White evangelicals because of his championing “Christian values.”

The Values of Progressive Christians

Last month I read The Fierce Urgency of Prophetic Hope (2017), a powerful book by Wendell Griffen, who is both a pastor and a circuit judge in Arkansas. He also wrote a provocative Jan. 21 article titled “The end of Trump’s presidency does not end America’s root problem.”

In stark contrast to Pastor Hibbs, Pastor Griffen asserts,

Trump will forever be remembered as the most vicious, politically incompetent and corrupt president in U.S. history. He left office dishonored, defeated and despised by most people who value justice, truth, integrity, peace and hope.

Griffen also extols the Christian values of MLK, Jr., including his condemnation of racism, materialism, and militarism.

The same emphasis on the Christian values articulated by Griffen—and ignored by Hibbs—is prominently seen in other noted Black pastors, such as William Barber, Jr., of North Carolina; Raphael Warnock, our new Senator from Georgia; and Episcopal Bishop Michael Curry, among many others.

What gall to suggest that these Black pastors—and the many progressive Christians, White and Black, who agree with them—all of whom spoke out in opposition to President Trump, are opposed to Christian values!

Which Christian Values Do You Endorse?

In his January 3 sermon, a prominent Southern Baptist pastor of a church near Dallas said that President-elect Biden would be a “cognitively dysfunctional president” and then asked: “what if something happens to him and Jezebel has to take over? Jezebel Harris, isn’t that her name?”

According to this 1/29 article, that pastor, Steve Swofford, also said that the Biden-Harris administration would not likely be “doing things our way,” so he urged his congregation to maintain their “convictions for Christ”—or, in other words, to stand firm for the “Christian values” of evangelicals.

On the other hand, in the Conclusion of his book Griffen challenges his hearers to “prophetic citizenship,” which, he says, focuses “on the needs of the people God cares most about.” That is, “people who are hungry, thirsty, homeless, frail, imprisoned, and unwelcomed.”

So, in reflecting on these different sets of values, which do you endorse as the more important and most in harmony with the teachings of Jesus?