ACROSS THE LINES - Archive (2006-2020)

I closed my last post   by asking:   at what point should our moral qualms about a politician's character outweigh our other reasons for lending them our support?    Given the current environment, it's very hard to entertain this question as a matter of principle, without getting dragged down in partisan politics.  To assist us in this endeavor, let's imagine, for just a moment,  that Donald Trump is President ... and a Democrat.  Imagine that Donald Trump, the Democrat, defeated an unpopular Republican in the 2016 presidential election - for convenience, let's say Newt Gingrich.   Imagine that President Trump (D) has a Congress controlled by Democrats, and is attempting to pursue an almost entirely blue political platform. Imagine he is nominating liberals to the Supreme Court, pursuing single-payer healthcare legislation, advocating for comprehensive immigration reform, and so on.  Imagine, in short, that his Presidency seems  to hold at least some slight promis

In  my last post , I shared my struggle with the question of whether, as a pastor, I should post about politics in the age of Donald Trump.  Many of the responses included comments like this: "How can people who call themselves Christian support that man?"  I have decided to take this question literally, and, as a spiritual exercise, I will try to answer it.  In reading these answers, I suspect some of my liberal friends may find their blood boiling.  But I am not trying to articulate these arguments because I agree with them.  Neither am I denying that less noble reasons also drive many people - including many Christians - to support Trump.  Those I will address on another occasion. In this post, I am simply  trying to articulate some of the reasons that good, Christian people I know and love support Donald Trump . Perhaps you know someone  perfectly decent and honorable like this, too - a cousin, a grandfather, an old friend from childhood..  Maybe you will want t

For the past many weeks, I have posted things "privately" to my Facebook account, so that only I can see them. On occasion, I have placed security settings on other posts so that only my wife,  Jennifer , can see what I'm thinking. This helped me feel like I was getting things off my chest, without stirring up unnecessary controversy among my friends. I have been conflicted because a number of people I love and respect feel I would do better to refrain from posting anythin g "political," given that I have returned to the position of pastor at a church that people of many different political persuasions call home. Other people I love and respect - including many from that same church - have thanked me for speaking out, and have encouraged me to continue.* As I browse my private posts of these last few weeks, I see a pattern: I have refrained from commenting about matters of policy and political opinion, and have instead commented on those occasions where I