So good to hear from you, John Doe! I think about you just about every day because almost every day I see the gift you gave me.
I write the following with profound appreciation for your own message. There is, of course, no tone of voice or facial expression. I welcome ongoing conversation to hone the communication of our hopes.
You are the second person to write me concerned for my peace. I appreciate the concern. It is an odd thing that we worship the Prince of PEACE who said, “I did not come to bring peace … .” We must have a balance between being filled with the contentment of hope while having the passion of Jesus to flip tables of those who use religion to exploit the vulnerable. There is a reason that Jeremiah was called “the weeping prophet” and that Jesus prayed so hard he sweat blood. The odd paradox of peace is that it helps say unpopular things and grieve when folks follow a false god.
Brad Bull
I told my other friend: “You pray for my peace, and I will pray for the discomfort of those Christians who think that electing a litigated sex offender and a convicted felon is a positive witness for Christ. Maybe our prayers for peace and discomfort will average out to righteousness.”
I assure you, I’m not putting my faith in one party or another. I’ve been almost equally attacked by people in both parties. My concern is exactly that Christians are putting their faith in authoritarian power rather than following of the example of Christ.
The Phil Robertson video you sent is titled “Why I Don’t Get Worked Up About Joe Biden.” The implication seems to suggest that I need not be worked up about Donald Trump. That is an unequal comparison.
Robertson says people are all worked up about a man with a speech impediment “speaking incoherently.” It’s a very good idea not to get worked up about that. It’s a very different thing to suggest not being concerned about depravity (which is what it feels like people are saying when they express concern that I might be too concerned).
Robertson cites 1 Timothy 6. This is a problematic passage. Christians used it to defend the practice of enslaving. They used it this way because Paul didn’t condemn enslavement but told the enslaved to treat their masters with respect. We have since come to learn how heinous slavery is. But we today can still apply the message we need to treat even our oppressors with respect. Regardless of social context, the irreducible truth of the passage is the importance of treating others with respect.
“Trump uses the appearance of godliness for material gain — the very thing Paul speaks against.”
Phil goes on to quote what Paul says about those who do not act with respect:
Teach and urge these duties. Whoever teaches otherwise and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that is in accordance with godliness is conceited, understanding nothing, and has a morbid craving for controversy and for disputes about words. From these come envy, dissension, slander, base suspicions, and wrangling among those who are depraved in mind and bereft of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain.
Too many American Christians say they favor Trump because “he’s a great businessman who will be good for the economy” and because he’s opposed to abortion. Personally, I don’t know any great businesspeople who have filed for bankruptcy six times or run a “university” that was a scam. He’s a fraud.
Opposed to abortion? He just nominated a secretary of education who ran for Senate as a pro-choice Republican. He is not a person of any principle but loyalty to himself. By his association with power-hungry, money-grubbing pharisees like Franklin Graham, and by his saying he loves the Bible (from which he can’t cite a passage he finds meaningful) and by selling “The Trump Bible,” Trump uses the appearance of godliness for material gain — the very thing Paul speaks against.
His behavior is “depraved in mind bereft of the truth.”
He called John McCain — a tortured veteran — “a loser.” That is depraved. He claimed to have had the largest inauguration attendance. He spent four years claiming he won the 2020 election and that the system was rigged — right up until he won this year. But those are just incorrect facts. Truth is so much more. He childishly calls people derogatory names. This does not reflect enlightenment. To use Paul’s words from Scripture, Trump is bereft of the truth.
Paul had learned to be content in all things, but that did not stop him from exhorting people to stop using the appearance of godliness for gain. He also exhorted respect. I’ve seen folks wearing shirts that say, “Make a liberal cry: Vote Trump.” That wish for others’ pain is sadistic and disrespectful, not Christlike.
“I recently heard a veteran who was sexually assaulted weeping in agony that our nation elected someone like the person who raped her.”
I recently heard a veteran who was sexually assaulted weeping in agony that our nation elected someone like the person who raped her. What a horrible stain on Christianity that Christians helped this depraved demagogue achieve such a position.
Still, I pray for President-elect Trump. I love him and his supporters even as my parents loved me when they admonished me for immature behavior. Well-borne admonishment is not contrary to love, it is an expression of love.
Please don’t take my upset as a sign of an unhealthy lack of overarching peace. See it as the appropriate grief and exhortation from one striving to follow the path of Christ who both loved “the least of these” and flipped the tables of those who used religion for exploitive power.
Am I too upset? Maybe you think so. You wrote me about it. That does not make you too upset. But the overwhelming evidence shows American Christians are not upset enough about the very things about which Paul beseeched Christians to oppose: greed, depravity and dishonesty.
So, again, I appreciate your concern for my peace. I ask you to take this same passion for my peace and channel it to promoting a world that sees it as depraved to wound “the least of these” — like tortured veterans and victims of sexual assault; that sees it as a depraved to wound general civility; and that sees it as depraved for Christians to recklessly wound the witness of Christ’s church by supporting such behavior. Then, after helping those around us first take off the rose-colored glasses that prevent seeing the depravity, let’s give aid to those who are genuinely tormented.
That is not me; the truly tormented are the weeping rape victims, the immigrants struggling to breathe free rather than being called a person from a “shithole country,” and it is the child growing up in a nation drunk on MAGAhol. These also are the ones who need your conscientious care which I adore.
Reply: Thanks for the reply, I was definitely not defending Trump, or the extreme supports on either side, was just concerned about you. (Great news redacted.)
Me: Oh my. Please know I read your message through the lens of (recently) getting a barrage of (harsh) messages. (Congratulations on great news!!)
Brad Bull has served as a hospital chaplain, pastor, professor and therapist. He graduated from high school in 1984 and wrote his senior research paper on George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984. He resolved to oppose newspeak but expected it would be coming from the Red Dawn of the Soviet Union, not from the beloved denomination and the country that raised him.
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