Title? I guess I would call it a declaration?

Or the ramblings of my mind when there is no distraction

It is a fantasy to call either of Trump’s Presidential terms ordinary or normal. For those who support him, they say this is why they support him. For those who try to point out the dangers, it this aberration from all historical precedent that alarms them.

While most everyone is polarized into two camps of what hope or despair the future may hold, they agree with certainly his past decade has been transitional, marking the end of one America, and the beginning of something else.

Even the architects of Project 2025 have made this clear. They called it a revolution, and while treasonous, one must give them credit for the accurate description of their agenda. I believe with strong conviction and detailed observation and study that unless it is interrupted, It marks the beginning of the end of our constitutional republic.

We need to appreciate the future we have in front of us; one in which we no longer have due process, as seen with so many people arrested and even deported without their day in court. It marks the end of free speech as seen with Jimmy Kimmel. It marks the end of rule of law, as seen in the executive orders which target law firms that the president doesn’t like.

It marks the end of freedom of the press, as news outlets face consequences from reporting facts that the Trump administration just doesn’t like. It marks the end of free and fair trade, as the administration has started trade wars which have decimated so many of our farmers. This list could justifiably be added to but what is already listed is sufficient to cause alarm or denial.

At our present course we all will face an America and a system we have no experience with, one we have no idea how to function in and we have no internal mechanisms that steer us in how to have hope in whatever autocracy we find ourselves in.

It is within this backdrop, the current GOP and the Christian right have painted themselves into a corner. Even if they are alarmed or have regret, they are past the point of no return for themselves. They MUST hope and pray that the Trump revolution (a movement meant to do away with the freedoms and protections Americans have long enjoyed) succeeds, because if it does NOT, as Steve Bannon declared, the consequences for many of its leaders will probably treason charges at worst, and ostracization at best.

Failure will also expose many “Christian” leaders and sects as little more than pseudo-political cults. This much is crystal clear: Both the leaders of this Trump takeover, and the thinly veiled “Christian” cults, primarily, want to gain power, they desire influence and they will grow rich, or they will have these things for so long as they are useful to those who drive this agenda. They want to be in charge, at the expense of anyone with the wrong religion, background, or skin color, and they will lie, cheat, and steal to gain the power they so desperately crave.

As the apostle Paul said, “they are preaching a different sort of Jesus”.

Though claiming Him as the One they worship and serve, they can’t comprehend the humility of Christ. They shun his demands for service to others, and they reject his call that we love one another. They have chosen to follow Trump and if they have searched inwardly for character… for goodness… they have found none. They push their agendas, both covert and overt, upon the American people, and they do it under the guise of patriotism and wisdom. They delude themselves, that what they back and preach with their votes isn’t racism and xenophobia.

When one is in a community of thieves they should expect to be robbed, when one is in a community of “God’s Chosen” (AKA we have the ONLY truth) one should expect to be declared a heretic.

Their communion grape juice (after all it wasn’t really wine in the biblical account) is a poison that creates an altered state of consciousness in which they are the holy ones, and all others are wrong (even some of the other holy ones with whom they now feign tolerance).

They have abandoned the Good News of Jesus’ life and teaching for a counterfeit. They have broken faith with their ordinations, followers, congregations and faith all to gain control.

They have broken their covenant with the Creator of the Universe.

In Politics promises are broken, we are use to political rhetoric and words only as sincere as needed to be elected. But I am not just referencing those. It is not just campaign promises but oaths sworn before having the privilege of serving our nation.

Presidential:

Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:— “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

The Judicial branch:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm), that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent on me, according to the best of my abilities and understanding, agreeably to the Constitution, and laws of the United States. So help me God.

Congress:

I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.

The leaders of this silent and, for some, seductive coup are attempting to end the Constitutional Republic and the democratic values it stands for. This is the exact definition of TREASON, and those who took an oath to defend the constitution against all enemies both abroad and at home, have broken their oath. Their oath meant nothing when faced with the siren song of near absolute power, and control over those at the margins.

In Christianity there too is an oath, it is called an ordination. So many seem to have forgotten to Whom they are accountable to, or it seems more and more, they saw it as an annoying step on their way to power.

Evangelical churches may have to answer one day, for their supplication to an authoritarian strong-man. They may have to explain why they traded the values of the humble carpenter from Nazareth, values which included love, goodness, kindness, faithfulness and self-control, for the brazen cruelty of a serial liar and abuser of men, women, and children. Accountability might come for the preachers and pastors, both rich and poor, who cheered as this cruel revolution unfolded before our eyes.

We have thus far been under our mandate to be a nation of the people. It is the people who are where the proverbial ‘buck’ stops when it comes to the course of our nation. This system has worked very well, this system has always carried with the human element of imperfection as well. But now, I genuinely believe that there will be an accounting for how we have voted. Just as the Southern states paid a price for their votes from 1775 through 1861 after the Civil War, so too will the “Red” states.

And like the Civil War, those on the right side of history will have also paid a price for the blindness of their c countrymen.

The MAGA voter, secure in his position as a common man, may be forced one day, to reckon with the fact that he has betrayed both his country, and his own best interests. Having been seduced with promises of an America he will like even more than the one he inhabits now, he’ll see too clearly one day, if the Trump revolution fails, that for all claims of patriotism, he was instead, an unwitting accessory to treason.

And should the traitors succeed for even a season, he’ll be forced to live in a country that promised white success, and delivered a decimated economy, and a downtrodden populace. He will find himself as emptyhanded as the gamble leaving Las Vegas, who only in hindsight may see his folly.

The Bible calls this one a ‘fool’, and biblically, the fool never ends up being anything but a person in pain and shame. He will discover that he is no more than an indentured servant, just as the Prodigal Son he once judged a fool. That MAGA voter was promised freedoms untold, while he lost the freedom to pursue whatever religion he liked.

He was promised freedoms untold, but he lost the freedom of the press.

He was promised success and prosperity, but he became poorer, and he lost the freedom of speech.

One day he will have to look in the mirror and acknowledge… I did this. That Trump voter, along with pastors, priests, deacons, and ministers will one day have to face the fact that THEY were the ones Jesus was talking to in Matthew 7 when he said “depart from me, I never knew you”.

We must address also, the way we get our news. Outlets on the right, financed by men with an agenda are little more than propaganda machines, and the outlets on the left are no better.

Fox news was revealed to be a motherlode of lies and disinformation, and they were sued for hundreds of MILLIONS due to this fact…and they never missed a beat.

Abundant money that makes an abundance of money absorbs getting caught. They will continue the formula that worked so well and accept the loss of a few hundred million for the hundreds of millions they still will make in profit and the influence they exert over a hales fools in the nation. The ones who consume the snake oil will still tune in because they are addicted to the heroin-like euphoria validating their every failure as the fault of others.

They will find abundant fuel to sustain their ancestorial and generational biases of fear of anyone who wasn’t white (liker them) Christian (as they define it) or more successful in 5 years after immigrating than they have been, having seen their peaked at the county championship game their senior year.

The fact that they were proven to be liars didn’t cost them their audience. Because their accusations of others were exposed as projections of self, Fox viewers would be cornered into drawing none-sensical comparisons of “Well, MSNBC…”

We need reliable news sources. We must have courage to process the real news as opposed to selecting what justifies our ignorance.

Our nation needs people with the intellectual integrity to stand up, use their voice and, as the late John Lewis said, “cause good trouble.” We as a nation must take personal the division and divisiveness that now threatens our very existence. We need better Americans, because there is no substance in basing our trust on “good Republicans or good Democrats”. We need leaders who serve and citizens that are willing to disrupt the new status quo and build a better nation for all.

We faced this sort of crisis in the past but we had a real leader at the helm, one who was not self-serving, weak or fragile. He was a person of integrity and knew it was his responsibility to take the helm when this happened. He didn’t blame others and demand attention or credit.

Abraham Lincoln saved us from becoming two nations at odds with one another. It was an issue that previous Presidents and classes of Congress pushed down the road, even before we were a nation.

Men of power desired their affluence to be superior to their nation, and their entitlement superior to their responsibilities. The result was the topic of slavery became the topic politely quelled in conversation. Their perceived ‘right’ to own other humans was an exception to the Declaration they wrote and the Constitution that would try to unify.

But instead, like a dead body left in the street for someone else to clean up it, it went putrid. Instead of addressing the stench, they simply bought more flowers hoping to mask the obvious sin and scent.

The smell of death and decay fell to Lincoln and he placed nation above popularity, believing a single term done with integrity was more important that two terms of popularity. He loved his nation enough to be hated. And he was hated enough to be killed.

We can only wonder what would have happened had he been allowed to complete his mission. Instead, he was followed by Presidents that kept up the same cowardice, instead of slavery it was now Jim Crow. The white man loved his nation and its constitution (so long as he didn’t have to accept niggers as equals).

The church was both a hero and villain in this era too. People claimed to love Jesus so long as they didn’t have to love everyone. They loved to see enslavement as God’s way to bring the gospel to savages, and if they grew rich on it all the better, that was after all providence. Their theology was interpreted in light of their biases and prejudice; they would not allow the Bible to tell them how they should define events or their own character. Like today, they loved the label and inclusion in the community called Christian but had little desire and too much pride and arrogance to allow the teachings of Jesus to shape them.

Others in what seemed a world away saw the evil of slavery and they advocated for its end but would also grow uncomfortable when the former slave came to be their neighbor. They insisted the southerner change but when the brown skinned man immigrated to their world, the gap between their idealism and what they would willingly do for justice would be exposed.

We see in this paradox, that following Jesus is most assuredly an imperfect absolute. When one preaches or one rationalizes that it is neither, we find both delusional arrogance and unwarranted confidence along with a compromised and projected fake identity as deplorable as stolen valor.

Lincoln put action to his oath in the Constitution and never lost sight of who was American, he included those who committed rebellion in the identity of American every bit as much as those who fought for unity of the nation.

He understood that we were better together, and he united us. He didn’t divide us. He was sane, clear thinking, and capable of critical thought. We need to own and rediscover those characteristics in ourselves, and we need to praise them when we see them in others.

We today, need to be sane, clear thinking, and we need to be HONEST with ourselves. The thing we’re saying… would we accept it from someone on the other side? Are we being duplicitous? Do we have one standard for them, but another standard for our group? Can we be honest, or do we just want to be right? Do we feel that our double-standard is justified? Duplicity and dishonesty are destroying our nation, and we must identify it, and pull it out by the roots.

When “I” do it, it is human, but when “you” do it, it is heinous.

Men and women who would rise and take this on must recognize that this is their moment. This is their time to shine. This is their Bonhoeffer moment, and if they seize it and are tenacious, they can bring this country back from the brink of fascism, or dictatorship. They would also face the reality is that there is not another more convenient moment in the future. Few people have known in the moment that this moment they were in was THE moment history would highlight.

We must understand that to all who follow us, this is the moment that they will see as THE moment that gave them hope because of what we did.

Like WW2 there will be heroes in the spotlight, but it will the man or woman with the camera, the goofy Portlander in the blown up frog suit, the protester marching and the person cares for the humans of both sides and chooses to bring an ice chest with water bottles for ANYONE who thirsts, they are the ones who lived to the moment.

The reporter or network that will absorb the threats and still report accurately. The staff member who is sick of their own duplicity in helping a politician and resigns and decides to tell the truth of what they have seen and heard, this is the hero.

The lady in the walker that stands defiantly in the face of the ICE rent a cop and dares him to violate her. The pastor who will preach the truth, the photographer that will record the moment, the teacher who will shelter her students. These are the heroes. In real time they will be called the ‘resistance’, haters of America and get fired, arrested, threatened, doxed, and vandalized. These are the ones who will be remembered with gratitude by the next generations.

The US Constitution defined three formal branches of government operating in checks and balances. It ensured the protection of another group that also function as a check of power, the press. And it assumed another supreme element of checks and power in the voter.

It is undeniable that we have witnessed in 10 years the degradation and capitulation of 2 of the constitutional branches to the executive branch. We also have witness the executive branch wage war on the Press and voting.

Of the checks and balances in our nation, the only barrier protecting the United States from collapse is the informed, honest, American citizen. We must be willing to call out lies and half-truths when we encounter them. We must invest our time…our energy in our nation, for she is the cradle that raised us.

We must vote in a way that’s good for ourselves, AND for our neighbors. This is the American tradition. Freedom for EVERY person to pursue happiness and prosperity. We must seek freedom for EVERY person to practice the religion of their choice, and the government needs to stay separate from religious life and personal lives in America. That’s not only our custom or fine idea, but it is also a core precept made clear by the Founding Fathers.

Some today would lie and say that it’s not true. They say that government is to stay out of the church, but that the church can invade government… are lying every bit as much as the snake in the garden.

What we are witnessing today is a lie over 50 years in the making. There is no way to dismiss it in light of the open declaration of it; Chrisitan Nationalism goes by many names, it is like the hammer head worm. It is invasive, to see one part of it fade is to see the birth of two or three parts of it from the remains. It goes by many names; The Seven Mountain Mandate, Dominion Theology, New Apostolic Reformation, Calvinist Reconstructionism, Christian Reconstructionism, Kingdom Now Theology, Latter Rain Movement and some others or variations within each of these.

These movements parasitically attached themselves to the Republican party at a time the party was desperate. Post Nixon, post Ford and having witnessed the loss of the 1976 election to an unknown peanut farmer from Georgia, the GOP needed some miracle. Their strategy was to win one voting bloc from the Democrats and they landed on making a topic of abortion and grabbing the Catholic vote.

But and grifter and confidence man in Virginia named Falwell who was making money hand over fist as a radio preacher and pastor of a large Baptist church wanted to make more money so he decided to add a school, schools make money, they are guaranteed to succeed due to state and federal money in a addition to tuition. When the government told him, no integration, no money he was very upset. How dare they tell him he can’t be a racist and throttle his plan for riches.

He heard from a friend what the GOP’s plan was. He went to the GOP and told them that if they worked with him he would deliver the southern states. In exchange he didn’t want the government telling him or any other southerner that they had to accept niggers.

The GOP agreed, he got his other Christian buddies to form what would be called the Moral Majority and they delivered the south. The GOP platformed “state’s rights” to move the enforcement of civil rights back to the states and they embraced the anti-abortion position to get the catholic vote as well. Well once the evangelicals saw the favor the Catholics were getting for their abortion stance, they changed their theology from its historic position of slightly pro or neutral on abortion to anti-abortion.

This position would gradually with each successive major election morph more and more as one extreme part of the evangelical church saw the power they could exert. This group embraced the Chrisitan Nationalism not so much in belief or principle but in unity of numbers for GOP favor.

So the GOP would court this voting block and platform issues that were important to a fraction of evangelicals but would be presented as the whole of evangelical voters. For any person today who grew up evangelical or anyone today who came into evangelical churches after 1980, this was what they were indoctrinated into.

In the Seven Mountain Mandate they believe they are called to control EVERY aspect of society. This includes social issues like sexuality, abortion, aspects of society like education, courts, political office, banks/businesses, press, arts and family. Do all the executive orders make sense now? How about school vouchers that redirect public money to private schools? How about the courting and transfer of wealth to the top 1%? The role of women, their education, career and baby making? Suing the press and bullying them into submission? All the “christian” family oriented candidates that run for office? Purges in federal civil and military agencies?

Today they are backed into a corner for 5 decades of false teaching. Or more accurately, teaching selected topics as absolutes when there are numerous ways to view them through a Biblical world view. These things became assumed characteristics of evangelicalism to the point that the church that didn’t endorse them was considered heretical.

So in essence they lied. They weren’t mistaken, pastors, qualified pastors have been to graduate school, accredited graduate schools that are held to a standard of accurate teaching. Any pastor who came from one of these schools knows how to and how not to interpret the Bible. Like a good debater, they can take various positions of Biblical topics and present them each with their evidence and their liabilities. To teach a non-absolute as an absolute for popularity to job protect is lying.

They’re lying to protect their jobs, if their congregants don’t like what they hear, the pastor is fired by a vote or by the elder board. Too many because they crave control, money and power… and Jesus didn’t command us to acquire control and power. He told us to feed his sheep. He told us to love one another. He established His kingdom without them, how delusional does one have to be to believe that the Creator of the universe need an assist from a preacher or Europeanized religion that would deport Jesus himself.

A clear-headed approach to big issues must be employed despite our emotions, traditions, and biases.

We must soberly recognize the impact we will have on the generations of Americans that follow us. This will apply to issues like the environment, national debt, patriotism, compassion, and the desire to genuinely seek the best not only for ourselves, but for our neighbor.

We must begin to treat others, the way we want to be treated. This isn’t optional. It is one of the most often quoted Biblical teachings, the ‘Golden Rule”, even atheists will tip their cap in acknowledgment of this one. It is a part of the teachings of Jesus, and those who claim him as their own will rationalize many times over why this doesn’t apply to a global open definitions of “others” but only to the those they want to be nice to.

This will involve us in a mindful approach to our privilege and placing checks on our arrogance and entitlement. We should endeavor to approach all public policy with a sense of humility and gratitude, while striving to see that none of us suffers needlessly… that the least of us never goes without, in our nation there is seldom one who can’t help another.

We embodied these values at one time, imperfectly but it was who we were. It seems now however that we have lost our way, if only temporarily. We have in our DNA, the essence of what America really is. I believe we can find her again. I hope this decade of stupidity is just an aberration, and not our legacy.

God help our children and grandchildren if I’m wrong or too optimistic. Our national heritage is marked by the benefits of diversity, and though it sounds almost cliché, our diversity really is our strength. Our diversity points to what our founding fathers called the common good, and it has nothing to do with physical DNA, culture, creed, or religion.

It is diversity that made the US standout from all other nations. There is only one place in history that could compare to the United States as we became who we are today; that is Palestine in the time of Jesus. The book of Acts of the Apostles tells us that it was a crossroads of three continents and shortly after Pentecost, the followers of Jesus spoke in the languages of all the people who were in Jerusalem.

Oh, the blind arrogant hypocrisy of being deluded in a narrative of elitism, while claiming to be saved by a grace reveled in a place of diversity. (SARCASIM WARNING) (and a silence as awkward as Pete Hegseth waiting for a cheer envelopes the American churches with an absence of “Amen”)

From our own privilege and apathy, we are at the cross-roads, and like the old blues legend Robert Johnson, we have a choice to make.

I pray in the most resolute way that we choose to honor those who came before us…the men who birthed this wonderful nation. I pray we choose to follow in the footsteps of those brave men who stood against invasion and then stood against death by division. My greatest fear is to ask; are we up to the task.

I fear that like a fat man grown complacent by abundance, we have forgotten hunger and the need to collaborate and cooperate with others…what it means to be an American. Whereas our grandfathers knew how to feed themselves, we are generations into the belief that food just appears. Freedom just appears, fuel just appears, the environment will always be one we can thrive in.

In our ignorance and arrogance, we have been seduced by a snake-oil salesman, promising sunshine and unicorns year round. This promise isn’t America. It’s a counterfeit marked by a fear of a boogeyman that doesn’t even exist. All humans believe stupid things, but stupid people are doomed to never see their error.

We talk of blood and sacrifice, and we rightly thank those who served, and yet we seem to believe that out of uniform, or as common citizens, we have no obligation beyond that that would what sooth our false patriotism to live with the oath they swore for ourselves.

In this we betray all the warriors, protesters, civil servants, police officers, firefighters, and ordinary humans who built this nation with their blood, sweat, and tears. It incumbent on every American to understand they DO have an obligation and responsibility, and to also understand that to play fast and loose with the United States constitution, with our freedoms, is not only cavalier… it’s reckless to the point of gross malfeasance.

Sadly, we ignore the dark realities of our own history, written by flawed humans, just like us.

We ignore the genocide committed by us. We ignore how we were built by enslaved peoples.

We are rightly uncomfortable to face the imperfections of our own past, and would rather cover it up, and deny it, than face it and learn from it.

We stand today, in the here and now, with an opportunity to build a community of people, steadfastly committed to building, to saving, a nation. Make no mistake, we need rescue right now, because if we stay the current course, America as we’ve known it, is lost.

It is left to us, to save us, and it will demand all of us to realize we are nothing if we feel insulted by being included in the community of us or to say another American is not as much a part of us as another.

Our ancestors met the moment and built a great nation.

And by our ancestors I mean all of those who came before us, before this was even a colony. I mean the indigenous, the Spanish, the Mexican, the African, the European, and the Asian. In our apathy, cowardice, immaturity, entitlement, arrogance and laziness, many have found it easier to play the victim and blame others, than to admit that they are not made of the stuff of those who provided us their legacy in this nation and the opportunity we have pissed away and would be so self-righteous as to deny others.

Jesus had to die for all our sins, but more for that one’s sins more than my own.

There are those who have abandoned the core of their faith and instead have endeavored to impose their religion on others, believing it to be their mission. A delusion of fragility that makes them believe that they are one of God’s chosen more so than they are benefactors of mercy and grace.

They have long since minimized or even abandoned the work of Christ on earth, as well as his biblical teachings. Instead, the church in America has found comfort in what it’s comfortable with: A European Jesus and a protestant model as broken as the Catholic model it claims to have liberated us from. Christian leaders of today, just as the religious elite of Jesus day, have instead chosen man made institutions and a false theology that allow them control of others, protection for their fragile egos, and accommodation for their weakness.

They do this to give the illusion of their success in the gospel, but the gospel they promote is an ugly counterfeit… a fraud. If only they had the courage to be honest about their own humanity, and the limits of their knowledge they’d then be comfortable living with the fact that they don’t have all the answers.

Then they’d able to live in faithful humility, and to love as Jesus commanded. It is after all, a faith. In their stubbornness and pride, the refuse to see that following Jesus is faith and instead treat the subjective and unknown as an absolute, arriving a place today where they have built a cathedral of cards.

They’re so entrenched in this that they have to defend their creation and they can only generate more lies, and treat those lies as absolutes. Otherwise, they would be exposed just as the man was in the garden after he broke trust with his creator.

As a dog returns to his vomit, so does a fool to his folly.

I fear that the sages were right when they said, “time isn’t linear, it’s a flat circle.” For anyone not familiar with this bit of wisdom, it implies that essentially all things come ‘round’ again. The Roman Empire rises, then falls. The Spanish Empire rises, then falls. England rules the world… then is humbled and falls. The Mongols are feared throughout Europe and then become insignificant as a military force. A holocaust happens, and everyone swears never again… and then it happens again. I only hope we can continue to be what John Fitzgerald Kennedy and Ronald Reagan called a shining city on a hill, for another century or two, so that my own grandkids can know her sweet goodness.

What is the point of my disconnected ramblings? For all my countrymen to wake up. I want people to face the truth with courage, humility and to know they are not alone. I want to at least know in my dying breath that I spoke up. I didn’t ignore, I didn’t turn away and I didn’t rationalize. Like many today, I also have done that in the past. I also have enabled the corruption in the name of unity in the church and a blind hope that America will always be America.

I desperately want to leave a nation and a world that my kids, grandkids and so forth feel safe. I want Christians to return to the real Jesus, the hope contained in His life, teachings and sacrifice. I want them to return to the role we had been entrusted with, that of speaking life, love and hope over others. I HATE that we and our counterfeit theology would cause one who is made by God and in the image of God to question their worth or who they are.

I want a nation that IS what we claim to be, not a Hollywood prop of plywood and camera angles with actor’s faces caked with morticians’ makeup and polished lines. We are Americans and for this moment we are who and what America is, if we choose it. We are alive, we are the ones to whom the world looks to for hope. We are blessed and we have been, and should return to, being stewards of the grace we drown in. I want us to get off our asses and lock arms to create a better nation and world.

I want us to be the ones who, because we can, will stand up to bullies. I hate that the White House has been led by the most narcissistic, weak, fragile ego’d bully since Nixon. This isn’t who we are. We are not fragile, weak and we can repent of our arrogance and become grateful and humble again.
We can be brave and selfless; we can embrace the words of our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution. This is what I hope any reader will consider.

What I expect more realistically is that many will see themselves in these words and become defensive, rationalize and did into their delusions further. They will become disoriented at the truth of how we got here and are too prideful or ashamed to redirect their energies.

I expect Christians to defend their flaw theology and positions. Not because they have a possibility of being correct but because they fear the cascade of truth. “If I was taught this, and since I have taught it to my kids, then to believe this will mean everything I beleive is wrong.” The life and teachings of Jesus do not count on your belief. They are your faith. They are a faith. And a core precept to our faith is that it is a faith, not a fact. I am sorry that pastors have used your questions and common sense to shame the innocence of your relationship with God. But God is big enough to handle your questions and doubts.

I also think there will be some who are Christians or were raised in it who will say “Yes! I knew I wasn’t crazy!” They will realize that they can be human, follow Jesus and not bow to political rhetoric. I have a lot of hope for them and I want them to know they aren’t alone.

I expect that many will read this and agree wholeheartedly, encouraged that they are not alone. But I also hope that they feel that intangible thing inside of them to embrace that this is THE moment. I hope they will be who they are and live it on the outside, not with grief and fear internally. I hope that their love of people extends to the ones they feel frustrated with right now. That they can respond with grace to those who are exuding hate.

I hope for encouragement from person to person.

I am staking all my hope in my faith. My faith tells me that the core characteristic is that I love others. I am hoping others will step out in faith (no pun intended) and carry on the core of our faith. Even one who doesn’t identify as a Christian or is agnostic or even atheist is capable of a love that can be selfless and compassionate.

This is what I hope and separately what I expect in temperance of my hope.

If you look in the mirror, this was worth it. If you come away humble, this was worth it. If you are encouraged and don’t feel alone, this was worth it. Even if we fail in what I hope, it was worth it.

But what I want is all of this and a better nation.

When a couple comes in to me as a life coach or therapist, they want some variation of “can we save our marriage?” I ask why they would want to save it, look where it ended up.

I tell them we want to build a new marriage, one that still allows our marriage certificate to be correct but is able to take everything right and redeemable about this marriage into the new one and allow the toxic stuff to wither and die. They are shocked at first and then their faces light up with hope.

This is how I view THIS moment. We are not returning to a previous place, we are building a new one. We will become the NEXT iteration of the nation our founding fathers started and we will do it with a greater precision and loyalty to the Constitution.

And I hope that the American church will look in the mirror. They will see their sin and duplicity. They will see their idolatry and selfishness and repent. They will return to the teachings of Jesus and the model of his life.

I hope you won’t unfriend me. I hope you will share this and make it viral. I hope you will be offended by truth if needed, but understand this isn’t a personal attack. I hope you will decide to cease a handwringing spectatorship and become an active part of the story. Yes, frightened, yes, uncertain and most assuredly yes unfamiliar, but alive, and the experience of coming alive.

Here is my parting story.

When the Jews were in captivity in Babylon a woman named Esther had become a Queen, now, before you are super impressed, the Queen meant you were married to the King, you weren’t really a powerful person in this court. But she was a Jew and was in an important role. She had an advisor who wrote to her regarding THIS MOMENT and a plot against her people, the Jews:

‘Then Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, “Do not imagine that you in the king’s palace can escape (death) any more than all the Jews. For if you remain silent at this time, liberation and rescue will arise for the Jews from another place, and you and your father’s house will perish [since you did not help when you had the chance]. And who knows whether you have attained royalty for such a time as this [and for this very purpose]?” ‘

Esther 4:13-14