Monday Morning Music Ministry

6-19-17

The subject of this essay has been on my mind for some time, and was outlined before the assassination attempts at the Republican baseball practice this week. I will not intone about the “need for civility,” as many are doing and which of course I endorse. But I fear that such hopes are futile, and that was, and is, the sad conclusion I want to discuss.

First, what I substantially had written and still believe:

Donald Trump is likely to be assassinated. Of course I do not urge such I thing. I largely support him, and in fact am happy with his initiatives, and the president he has become. I will take one day – one hour – of his Administration to eight years of his predecessor.

So it is prudent for me to repeat that I do not favor nor encourage his assassination. Neither do I think that raising the topic will inspire any nutcase. To be precise, I am not even prophesying or predicting the heinous act. I am not in that business. I am only reckoning that a personal, physical attack is likely, given the arc of ugliness, violence, threats, and extremism – not infesting politics in general, which is the case, but specifically directed toward President Trump.

Not occasionally; not every day; but virtually every hour since his election. It grows uglier and bloodier. It serves no reason to claim that candidate Trump suggested that thugs at his rallies be given the bum’s rush, or other coarseness; everybody, even leftist protesters, were taught by their mommies that two wrongs don’t make a right. And blue-haired ladies at Tea Party rallies cannot be conflated with Antifas or Bernie and Hillary supporters who set cars on fire and smash store windows.

Ugly words that quickly turned to violence, and “satire” that transformed itself into an ISIS-like depiction of a decapitated President, or his bloody murder on a New York stage, inevitably will inspire weak minds to turn thoughts to deeds.

More, I fully believe that the despicable act can be committed not by an impressionable left-wing nitwit, but by a celebrity. An actor or actress, a “journalist,” a celebrity whose access to a president is easier to achieve than among normal, sane, folks.

John Wilkes Booth was a prominent actor in his day. The moment people heard of Lincoln’s assassination, they immediately recognized Booth’s name. Today, it could be a Baldwin brother, or a Maddow, or a Madonna. I suppose many leftists would be happy to do the deed and be considered martyrs. In a nation virtually free of the death penalty, the perpetrator would a) be considered a hero by half the country; and b) serve less than a life sentence.

Does any reader think this is implausible? Booth thought Lincoln a “baboon” who ruined the South (while the Reconstruction President would have been the defeated South’s best friend). Garfield’s assassin Guiteau was disappointed that he had not received a political appointment; the president represented a faction different than Guiteau’s. That was it.

McKinley’s assassin Czolgosz was an anarchist, plain and simple. Largely forgotten by history is the fact that between the 1880s and World War I there was a worldwide epidemic of bombings and political assassinations. Royalty; elected leaders; prominent businessmen – dozens were killed by anarchists and leftists, down to the “match” that lit the fires of the Great War in 1914: the murder of an Austrian archduke by a Serbian nationalist.

When Theodore Roosevelt was shot point-blank in the chest during the Bull Moose campaign (and, with the bullet in him and blood pouring from the wound, he insisted on delivering his 90-minute speech) it was by an unemployed bartender whose “mind” was inflamed by newspaper editorials calling TR a tyrant.

Given the fever-temperature of our political health these days, an attack on President Trump seems not unlikely.

So. This week an apparently average liberal activist and Bernie backer, after months of stalking, and preparing a written hit-list of Republicans found in his pocket, targeted an enclosed field of GOP politicians warming up for a charity baseball game. That his guns were legal and registered, and he was a liberal, there were few calls for the Second Amendment to be repealed. That nobody died, and only a few people maimed, liberals felt safe, outside the comments and prayers at second base during the game, to blame Trump’s “rhetoric” and other diversions.

The New York Times even wrote, immediately, about Gabby Gifford’s attack six years previous, citing a Sarah Palin campaign sheet with “targeted” Congressional districts. Aside from the canard, “equivalency” is losing its meaning in the United States of Alinsky.

Should we remind ourselves?

During the campaign (thanks for notes to The Daily Caller), anti-Trump protesters attacked, pushed, spit on, and verbally harassed attendees forced to walk a “gauntlet” as they left a Trump fundraiser in Minneapolis, and beat an elderly man. Protesters also attacked Trump’s motorcade;

Protesters in El Cajon CA, chased and beat up a Trump supporter;

A GOP office in North Carolina was firebombed and spray-painted with “Nazi Republicans get out of town or else”;

The president of Cornell University’s College Republicans was assaulted the night after Trump won the election;

Maryland high school students punched a student who was demonstrating in support of Trump, and then kicked him repeatedly while he was on the ground;

California GOP Rep. Tom McClintock had to be escorted to his car after a town hall because of angry protesters. The tires of at least four vehicles were slashed;

Protestors knocked a 71-year-old female staffer for California GOP Rep. Dana Rohrabacher unconscious during a protest outside the representative’s office;

Milo Yiannopoulos’ speech at the University of California-Berkeley was canceled after rioters set the campus on fire and threw rocks through windows. Milo tweeted that one of his supporters wearing a Trump hat was thrown to the ground and kicked. Ann Coulter and other speakers have been prevented from speaking on campuses;

Protesters at Middlebury College rushed the conservative Dr Charles Murray and Prof Allison Stranger, pushing and shoving Murray and grabbing Stranger by her hair and twisting her neck as they were leaving a campus building. Stranger suffered a concussion. Protesters then surrounded the car they got into, rocking it back and forth and jumping on the hood;

Republican Rep. Tom Garrett, his family, and his dog were targeted by a series of repeated death threats deemed credible by authorities;

-FBI agents arrested a person for threatening to shoot Republican Rep. Martha McSally over her support for Trump;

-Police in Tennessee charged a woman for allegedly trying to run Republican Rep. David Kustoff off the road;

After the shooting of Rep Steve Scalise and others, GOP Rep Claudia Tenney received an email threat that read, “One down, 216 to go.”

These were overt acts. Following is a list complied by Breitbart News of threats spoken and threatened by the celebrities I spoke of earlier. It is not unreasonable to foresee one of these people, or simple minds inflamed by them, to follow through:

Kathy Griffin “beheads” Trump in a graphic photo

Madonna – “I’ve thought a lot about blowing up the White House”

Snoop Dogg “shoots” Trump in the head in music video

Robert De Niro: “I’d like to punch him in the face”

Joss Whedon: “I want a rhino to [F—] Paul Ryan to death”

Shakespeare in the Park stabs “Trump” to death in performance of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar

Rapper YG threatens Trump in “[F—] Donald Trump” song

Marilyn Manson kills “Trump” in music video.

A New Jersey “Democratic Strategist” issued a statement the day after Rep Scalise’s shooting that the attack might have been deserved, echoing comments by elected Democrats across the country. Surely, there were many sincere offerings of regret by the political establishment. Nancy Pelosi’s impromptu comments from the House well were eloquent and heartfelt, about Scalise’s recovery, and about political amity.

Will these expressions bear fruit? They did not, after 9-11; the state of our nation grew bitterer.

Winston Churchill said that democracy is the worst form of government, until you consider every other. Democracy gone wild is what we have in America today, and the world, similar but worse than 125 years ago: akin to anarchy. The outrageous has become normal. People’s own agendas are considered not only more valid, but exclusively valid, over opponents… and “opponents” have become “enemies” today.

People throughout history have debated with opponents. But enemies are deemed deserving of being killed. This paradigm is what is unfolding in America today.

Welcome to the End Times. Your road map can be II Timothy 3: 1-5: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God — having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof. Have nothing to do with such people.

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click: Trauermusik (Funeral Music) Marche Funebre by Chopin

7-27-15

That America is no longer a Christian nation, the theme of our most recent message, struck a chord. Many people sense this sea-change in our culture.

A few people, we know, celebrate the facts that the church, and traditional values, no longer underpin our society. They are like maggots on a rotting corpse. But the vast majority of Americans today, the virtual silent majority, are troubled. They recognize the shifting sands; they despise the new morality; they reject the Brave New World.

America once bragged about being a pluralistic society. All forms of thought, all stripes of opinion, were welcome. No longer: Christian patriots are bring attacked. Cultural traditionalists are on the run, seeing nowhere to turn. A complete turnaround from what pluralism was supposed to preclude.

Where to turn? What options are there in a culture that has been hijacked, a nation that is no longer pluralistic, scarcely tolerant of our foundational principles? Threats of arrest for dissenting from homosexual marriage? A publicly funded agency caught discussing more efficient and profitable harvesting and sale of baby parts?

Traditionally, despite the “dirty” connotations, we turn to politics. Every mature society throughout history has, perforce, established rules, codes, and laws. When laws have been capricious (from dictators and mad monarchs) they have disappeared; sometimes quietly, sometimes bloodily. But the other societies, in natural if not always smooth evolution, codify the prevalent manners and morals, beliefs and byways, of the people. In recent centuries, this happened more and more (more or less!) through democracy.

Therefore, politics. Leaders and statesmen, for the most part, rise from the people… and represent them. Think Abraham Lincoln. When – not so long ago – our societies were more organic, it mattered little whether leaders reflected public opinion or molded it. In the main, it was the same thing, for our societies were organic. We knew our origins, we shared our faith, we accepted the same premises, we were unified, if not quite uniform.

That has all passed, hasn’t it? But I will put my pessimism aside and focus on the topic of politics – not to be partisan or to boost any candidate – but remembering the time when the public looked to leaders in their midst during crises.

I want to be specific about the topic of candidates and Christianity here. In the past, oh sure, some politicians were adulterers or drunks, but we are all sinners. In the past, most politicians clung to the principles of the Bible, dedicated themselves to Christian principles, honored the nation’s heritage. So voters could count on candidates, generally, to be of one mind on morality.

Today, we have examples of the Catholic Church, in various dioceses, denying Communion to politicians like Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi for their advocacy of abortion.

Today, we have a president who often has been dismissive of Christian beliefs, of Christian martyrs and hostages around the world, of persecuted Christians; and at the same time has been strangely tolerant of Islamic extremism, at home and abroad.

Today, we have a recent presidential candidate, Romney, a Mormon – member of a counterfeit Christian-sounding sect. I am not saying LDS should be outlawed or proscribed, but I had trouble voting for someone, not who would “take orders” from his church any more than John Kennedy did… but who could believe the mumbo-jumbo about figgy underwear and magic glasses and such. But, you know, President Taft was a Unitarian and denied the divinity of Christ, and America survived him.

But I want us to think more about candidates who fill our airwaves in the run-up to 2016. Again, will they represent the values of the broad public? As Christians, we have, and we should have, views on issues that our central to our lives. And, yes, our faith… because our faith is under attack.

We are losing our freedom of religion. The very first words enshrined in the Bill of Rights are: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech…”

Congress never has tried to establish an American denomination, and never will. But it – and the courts (and the press, and the educational complex, and the entertainment industry) – are trying to destroy organized religion, and the small-c church of Jesus Christ. Certainly, examples are numerous of the government prohibiting the free exercise of our faith these days.

We have some candidates indicating a perception of these threats, and a few sharing our (proper) alarm.

What will they do? We must watch. We must study. We must apply pressure. We must challenge. We must work. We must push back. We must speak out, or shout out. We must sacrifice. We must organize. We must… pray.

There is a high percentage, thank God, of candidates who have heard, or even rung, the alarm bells! Support them. Some are not afraid to share their faith, to pray in public, to invoke Jesus and the Bible. Join them. They are not saviors; only Jesus is our Savior. But they might be prophets: godly leaders.

I have avoided most names in the news here, but one news clip prompted this rant. Donald Trump was asked this week if he believed in God. “I am an Episcopalian,” he replied, as if it were a rhetorical question. It is not. And it would have been easy to confess Jesus Christ right there.

Then he was asked if he ever sought forgiveness from God. In his life. Trump said no; if he thought he did something wrong he would try to correct it on his own. He displayed no understanding of the basis of the entire Bible or the life, ministry, sacrifice, and resurrection of Jesus Christ: as much understanding of Christianity as the most ignorant aborigine from the dankest jungle somewhere. “I don’t bring God into that picture. I don’t.”

Then Trump volunteered: “When we go [to] church and when I drink my little wine – which is about the only wine I drink – and have my little cracker, I guess that’s a form of asking for forgiveness, and I do that as often as possible because I feel cleansed, OK?” My little wine? Cracker?

This is Christianity, according to one candidate.

I don’t want a Christian caliphate in America, but I do want us to support a candidate who shares our values, understands our bedrock beliefs, who embraces our heritage. Knowing what, in fact, to defend in these perilous days. This week’s opinion about immigrants should not be the only bell whose ring invigorates us. I was shocked at the appearance of a candidate who evidently feels on a par or superior to God, or irrelevant to Him, if he in fact does believe in Him.

One candidate or many candidates; one party or different factions; one nation or diverse communities – what ever happened to the idea, and the humble application, of One Nation Under God?

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Click: In God We Trust