Tag: Donald Trump

What Good Can Come from Nazareth?

The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” 44 Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. 45 Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.” 46 Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” John 1:43b-46

Can anything good come from a shithole like Nazareth? Can anything good come from a shithole like Haiti, or El Salvador, or Tanzania, or Chad?

Or, maybe a better question is, can anything good come from a shithole like 5th Avenue, Manhattan?

26219510_10214854747462811_269950785460915258_nThe sad little man serving as President of the United States confirmed everything we already know about him, calling Latin American and African countries “shitholes,” and asking why the people from there are allowed in our country. By doing so, he confirmed that he is completely without empathy or knowledge of anything outside his own tiny bigoted worldview. He is unable to feel respect for any human being who does nor have direct utilitarian value for him in whatever moment he is in. He is unable to imagine why countries like Haiti or El Savador might be so-called “shitholes,” how U.S. and European colonialism and hegemony led directly to the high poverty and abysmal living conditions of people in those places.

And, he is completely unable to imagine anything good coming from those places, other than maybe bananas or chocolate or beaches or something. He has a stunted moral imagination, limited to utilitarian conceptions of money-making potential for himself.

Similarly, in John’s Gospel, Nathanael expresses a sentiment towards small, impoverished places, far from the glitz and glamor of the city. Nazareth is an out-of-the-way village, never mentioned in any ancient sources aside from the Bible. It is, to use the phrase of our President, a “shithole.” The prevailing attitude was that nothing good, certianly not a prophet or messiah would come from a place like Nazareth. Nazareth had value in as far as it could continue proving disposable laborers for Herod’s building projects in nearby Sephoris. Prophets and messiahs would come from Jerusalem or Caesarea Maritima, surely. Never a shithole like Nazareth.

When our president dismisses places like Haiti as “shitholes,” he dismisses a whole history, culture and, most importantly, a people, as unworthy of respect or thought. He helps lay the ideological groundwork that makes those people and places disposable and unworthy of our time or money. He contributes, in short, to dehumanization and hate, things as un-Christlike as you can possibly imagine.

God chose to appear in the world via the shithole of Nazareth, in the form of Jesus of Nazareth. Likewise, God today makes God’s self known in the shitholes of the world, not in the places of power and beauty and prestige. God is found in Haiti. God is found in El Salvador. God is found in Africa, in the form of every human being denigrated and disrespected by the likes of Donald Trump and every one else who thinks those places unworthy. God chooses shitholes as God’s home on earth, rendering them instead holy and beautiful. God eschews the boardroom for the hut.

Maybe, the next time our president wants to throw rocks at the least and the forgotten of the world, he should be mindful of his own glass house.

Al Franken Should Resign. So Should Donald Trump and Roy Moore.

News broke this week that Sen. Al Franken (Min-D) sexually harassed a sleeping female reporter on a flight 11 years ago. There are even pictures showing him mimicking groping her while she slept.

Since a certain segment of our population (Republicans, to be exact) seem to be struggling with this, let me show you how to respond.

I’m a liberal Democrat and I think Al Franken should step down. The people of Minnesota deserve a Senator who has not harassed or assaulted women; what he did was wrong and he should face serious consequences for it. That’s how we show future people inclined to commit these acts that they are inexcusable and intolerable.

Yes, I am aware this impacts Democrats’ chances of holding that seat in a special election next year. Yes, I understand this threatens to imperil Democrats in less safe seats who will be under scrutiny from Republicans who will be looking hard for this stuff to flip seats.

I don’t care. The dignity of women and their right to go about their lives without harassment is way more important than any electoral or political situation.

Al Franken should resign. Donald Trump should resign. Roy Moore should step down. Any future politician who implicated or seriously accused should leave office. Sexual assault is unacceptable and consequences should be serious. Politics be damned. Basic human decency is more important.

Patriotism is Overrated

Here is my unpopular opinion for the day: Patriotism is an overrated value. Especially for Christians.

colinBefore I tell you what I mean by this, let me tell you what I don’t mean. I don’t mean that the United States doesn’t have much that is great and wonderful to offer me. I don’t mean that I wish I had been born elsewhere. I don’t mean that I hate my country, or don’t appreciate the role it has played in my having the opportunities I have. I acknowledge all that.

Here is what I do mean: As a Christian, allegiance to country is a lot less important to me than allegiance to the Kingdom shown by Jesus, a kingdom focused on love for people, not flags or anthems. I take very seriously Paul’s universal message from Galatians, that there is no longer Jew or Greek, that we are all one. It’s the same reason I don’t say the Pledge of Allegiance: because I don’t pledge the allegiance of my heart to an earthly empire. I don’t put love of country over my duty to God, which is to love other people. America first? No no, human beings first.

That is why I kneel in solidarity with black and brown America right now. Because the very same United States that has given me -a straight, white, middle class male- such wonderful opportunities, has not done so consistently for Americans of other races and nationalities throughout history. Instead, it had enslaved them, murdered them, forcibly removed them, segregated them, sought to ban them, lynched them, redlined them, arrested them, shot them, scorned them, hated them, forgotten them, made them second-class citizens, and killed them. Not as a by-product of some other goal, but as the primary goal of dealing with their existence. All the while, Old Glory was waved about and they were told it represented the very country that was oppressing them. So yeah, they probably don’t have good, positive associations about the flag.

This is why courageous powerful individuals like Colin Kaepernick kneel. For four hundred years, black, brown, and immigrant America has been trying to get the attention of white America, to get us to respect their humanity, admit our wrongs, and treat them as full human beings. They couldn’t get our attention by crying out, by marching, by sitting in, by writing, by singing, by showcasing their humanity to us. But they figured out how to get our attention, by interrupting our own gladiator games, by kneeling in front of the opium we use to ignore the injustice of the world. They got your attention. And yet you think this is about a flag, or a song. News flash: it’s not. But it was the only damn way to get your attention. Wake up America.

Patriotism is overrated because patriotism has done very little to improve the lives of the human beings who have for too long been under the heels of the powerful. And so when I say patriotism is overrated, what I mean is, I put myself on the side of my fellow human beings well before I put myself on the side of a flag. No matter what that flag has done for me. Because every advantage it brings me rings hollow as long as I know that somewhere, someone else is getting worn down by it, that my success comes at their expense and that flag tries to tell me that’s ok. Nope, it’s not. I’ll be a proud patriot when that flag admits the wrongs it has done and does real, tangible work to rectify and repair them.

That’s why I kneel in solidarity with those across the country who are sick of seeing black and brown bodies bleeding out in the street, who are sick of hearing the president defend white supremacists while calling athletes “sons of bitches.” Make me choose between the flag and other humans, and I’m gonna pick humans every time, and I don’t even feel the least bit bad about that. Jesus didn’t teach me that the greatest commandment was to love my country. It is to love my neighbor as myself.

Note: I wrote this on Facebook the other day, and get an overwhelmingly positive response. I’m happy to share it here for those I’m connected with on Facebook.