In Augusta County, good people are more afraid of our supposed protectors than our supposed lawbreakers. We have a MAGA Board of Supervisors turning back a MAGA initiative for fear of backlash.
We have a local church presenting polarizing political messengers rather than messages of God’s love of union. This while a national Republican leader chooses to correct the Pope on biblical interpretation choosing the rejection of others over love for all.
We have a President unwilling to attend the Olympics and the Super Bowl for fear of being booed. And he takes Olympians to task for sharing their discomfort representing a flag once universally honored now calling hate to mind.
The stock market surges while manufacturing jobs are being lost the fastest since the Great Recession. Farmers look to the government for hand-outs because tariffs have destroyed previously earned markets.
Licensed gun owners are being told where and when they can carry. Yet government masked vigilantes, in full battle rattle, are free roaming, feral, intimidating and killing because they can.
“Don’t Tread on Me” vanity plates are empty resolves as “Go Ahead, Kick Me” seems the way of the once defiant.
Today’s Republican hypocrisy is mind blowing. Simultaneously they have sought to end same-sex marriage while offering (quietly) John Reid, a married and same-sex husband and parent, as the Republican lieutenant governor nominee.
DEI is condemned but the three top Republican office seekers could have been called a rainbow coalition.
This weekend some longtime friends were mad as heck with me over my last Augusta Free Press column. It was, as I first mentioned, that they feared our government (ICE agents) more than arrested non-citizens. While my purpose was intended to bring some financial help to Craigsville, and more humane custody, I couldn’t win them over.
ICYMI
When I told my bride how unreasonable these ladies were; she remarked, “I understand their fear.” Oh, lordy, could I be wrong? Probably, but not surely. My proposal is defensible in normal times. But that is not America today.
My concern is akin to the right’s contention of the diminishment of true Christian morality in our nation. But they blame the left, I blame the pulpit.
Today, Christianity is being reviled. “There is no hate quite like Christian love” is a widely held belief. Church attendance has been steadily falling since Jerry Falwell, Jim and Tammy, Jimmy Swaggart and so many more, preyed on the chosen instead of praying with and for them.
This past week, at the National Prayer Breakfast, President Trump offered, “You can’t be a Christian and vote Democratic.” But I would tell him, I am a Democrat not despite being a Christian, but because I am one.
Jesus, today, might be called a radical progressive. Standard-issue conservatives don’t get crucified for “going along to get along.” Consider, biblically, just the resurrection, and a boy sharing his meager fish and loaves leading to abundance, are in each of the four Gospels — Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
The giving to others resulting in more for all, is a foreign element for the MAGA crowd, but a Christian principle. As is this passage from Matthew 25: 35-36 – “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.”
Pastors now preach as if the flocks are to be followed, not led. I have been to many churches and have enjoyed the coffee nooks, the contemporary music, and the comforting atmosphere.
But I miss the calling for us to get right with God. Sharing how bad other people are, may be good for business but not salvation. Some of us still have planks in our eyes, hating the stranger is one of them.
“Fear no evil” still comforts me, I hope it does you.
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