Tag: politics

Is Trump or Harris Anti-Christ or Scapegoat?

Kamala Harris has been accused by Trump of being the “anti-Christ.” Subsequently, some of his followers have argued that Harris, if elected President of the United States, will be responsible for the slaughter of millions of children as she tries to get Roe vs Wade reinstated. She has also allowed millions of illegal aliens to flood across the US border, and they are all rapists and murderers.

    On the other hand, the Harris camp points out that, in the Christian scriptures, the devil is called the “Father of Lies,” and Trump is seen as an unrepentant liar. He has deceived half the population of the United States with his lies, spews racism and hatred, is obsessed with power, wants to be the most powerful person in the world, and tried to destroy democracy by inciting the January 6 attempt to overthrow the US government.

    In either case, although both claim to be Christian, they are promoting the exact opposite of Christ’s teaching to “love your enemies.” They both are preaching the anti-gospel by demonizing their opponents.

    Rene Girard (1923-2015), a French philosopher, claimed that whenever things go wrong in a society, the political leaders will try to gain or hold onto power by scapegoating some group, that is, proclaiming the group is the cause of all the society’s problems. Therefore, the solution is to banish or kill off that group, and then all will be well again. This was Hitler’s basic strategy in the Second World War: the Jewish race was the cause of all of Germany’s problems and, therefore, must be eliminated.

    “Scapegoat” is an interesting word. Its roots come from the ancient Jewish practice of, once a year, having the High Priest pray and lay his hands on the head of a goat, thus symbolically transferring all the sins of the Israelites from the previous year onto the goat, which was then banished to die in the desert. Then, everyone celebrates being cleansed of their sins – until their sins start to cause problems again.

    Scapegoating works in a perverse way in any culture because it allows all the pent-up fear, anger and hatred of that culture to be focused on a persecuted and usually defenceless and innocent minority group. It also conveniently allows the persecuting group to escape looking at their own sins as the cause of the culture’s problems and take responsibility for the culture’s flaws.

    The first step in scapegoating is to dehumanize your chosen enemy by calling them denigrating names such as ”anti-Christ.” So, they are both scapegoating the other party. Neither Trump nor Harris is the anti-Christ. They are limited human beings like the rest of us who are convinced their own point of view is right and simultaneously choosing not to see anything positive in their opponent. 

    The Trump camp has been emphasizing as their main argument that when Trump was president, there were no wars and no inflation, as if Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were personally responsible for the wars in Ukraine and Israel, and as if inflation was not a consequence of the government giving out billions of free dollars to keep the economy afloat during the Covid shutdown.

    The Harris camp has been pressing as their main argument that Trump is a fascist, and if he is elected with total legal immunity, it will be the end of women’s rights and of democracy.

    It is far too late, but it might have helped if both of them had meditated on and tried to follow Jesus, the ultimate scapegoat, who Christians claim took away the sins of the whole world by sacrificing himself on the cross. In this case, he is both the High Priest and victim of our scapegoating, both the G.O.A.T. (Greatest Of All Time) and the goat. 

    However, this approach only works if Christians do not use Christ’s redeeming work on the cross as an excuse to let themselves off the hook of owning their own sins and scapegoating as the cause of all their problems. God takes away our sins, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have to change our lives.

    Christians, and all of us, need to own how often we do not love our enemies.

Bruce Tallman is an educator of adults in religion. http://www.brucetallman.com

RECONNECTING SEXUALITY AND SPIRITUALITY

 In medieval times the Church made a theoretical separation

of the sacred and the secular which was a brilliant political move

to preserve the Church’s power in the “Investiture Conflict”

that is, the Church wanted priests and bishops chosen by the pope

whereas politicians wanted them chosen by kings and the state.

The state would then have been in control of the Church

with clerics kowtowing to the wishes of whatever politicians wanted.

 

However, this sharp separation meant the last thing seen as sacred

was sexuality. The word “sexual” comes from the root “secare”

which means to “cut off” – we are all cut off from the whole

and so we all have this constant longing for union and communion

with everything, which is the essence of sexual desire.

 

Sexual morality is a key concern of quantum theology

but not in terms of dualistic right and wrong behaviour

but rather how foundational values

like love/justice/freedom/peace/truth/equality

are socially and sexually incarnated.

 

Loneliness for humans is a taste of death

a form of solitary confinement

so no wonder the lonely sometimes lose themselves in violence

as a way to retaliate against the pain:

“No one loves me? I will show them how little I love them.”

 

Our shadow projections can make the world into a mirror

that shows us our own ugly face.

If we project our negative intentions/motives onto others

we will be hostile toward them

and they will be hostile toward us.

What we do to others will be done to us –

the Law of Karma/Consequences/Sowing and Reaping.

 

The only time to be enlightened/wise/kind/loving

is right now. So let us live in the Now

which does not separate the sacred and the secular

the union of body/heart/mind/soul

sexuality and spirituality –

both come from the desire to love and be loved.

 

“God has made us for great things – to love and be loved.”

– Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta

 

3 Big Ideas for March 28, 2019

  1. The codependent person is often a chronic worrier, a compulsive helper, suffers from a wounded inner child, and feels shamed in his or her essence. Surrendering to the grace of God in the intimacy of prayer can heal and transform these four maladies of codependents.
  2. The very first liberal Protestant, Friedrich Schleiermacher, wrote in the 1800s that “Religion does not come from fear of death or fear of God, as philosophers previously thought. Religion is neither a metaphysic (a grand philosophy of what is beyond the material world) nor a morality. In its essence, religion is an intuition, feeling, or direct experience of God. Even dogmas are not religion. Dogmas derive from religious experiences.” Religions that do not give people direct experiences of God, in spite of being strong on metaphysics, dogmas and morality, will gradually lose followers. This is what has happened most mainline churches.
  3. The Fourth Precept of Buddhism is about mindful speech. Accordingly, when it comes to conversation, we need to avoid four things: lying/exaggeration/’forked tongue’ (telling one person one thing and another person something different about the same event)/and ‘filthy talk’ (insulting or abusing others). Things haven’t changed much: politicians, lawyers, and athletes could learn a lot from Buddhism.