Take a look at what Beth has written about All Souls Day over on her blog. She’s a young medic who works in the local cancer hospital by day and by night and who works at the altar of the Lord as a server by night and by day.
15 responses to “The Trump of Judgement for Liberals”
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I heard someone talking on the radio who had looked at actual voting data (wherever such people get that from). Predictors of whether someone was a Trump voter, though by no means decisive ones, were whether someone earned more than $50000, had never gone to college or had done so but dropped out, was male, and over 44 years old. But there were people in those categories who had voted for Clinton as well. Even the much spoken of Hispanic vote was not as big a predictor of voting preference as thought and there were too many women who hated Hilary Clinton for misogyny to be the overarching factor.
The stand out predictor which went across all categories was colour, whites going for Trump, up to %58.
This vote was an anti-Obama backlash from people who couldn’t quite forgive the fact that an African-American had been running the show for eight years, whether the racism was of the vitriolic nasty sort or the more urbane sort that says that some of the other lot are probably ok, but only as long as we don’t have to actually mix with them and they’re somewhere else, it amounts to the same thing. The analyst speaking referred to a sort of nostalgia for when whites seemed to be in overall charge of everything.
As to our response: as far as I can see the reason American politics is so vitriolic is because Liberals and Conservatives hate each other and also want to remake the other side in their own image.
Love the other: well very gospel, but pretty darned hard when you struggle to even like xenophobic misogynistic lgbt-haters, let alone love them!
Love might be the attitude that those of us who call ourselves Christians have to struggle towards, but I’m less sanguine than Kelvin is on this one and the verse that keeps going through my mind is the bit in Ecclesiastes about there being a time for this a time for that.
Sometimes conflict is inevitable and has to be fought to a finish. You can’t react to the kind of person who shouted out at Trump’s victory speech “jail Obama” on the basis of well, six of one and half a dozen of the other. And such people aren’t exactly amenable to sweet reason.
On the other hand sometimes people have just to be left alone. Forceably trying to remake the other in your own image just antagonises.
I think our response has to be to discern the difference between the two situations. And to redouble our efforts to make sure that a Trump can’t become Prime Minister in the UK.
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A prophetic and timely warning, Kelvin. What Trump represents is on the way to becoming a global phenomenon. The tone of his rallies, and the chanting of mindless slogans, is all too reminiscent of Germany in the 1930s. The fact that his election has been welcomed by Marine le Pen and other far-right leaders in Europe speaks volumes.
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Something to think about: when it penetrates the general consciousness that the majority of white conservative evangelicals voted for Donald Trump, what if anything will be the fall out for Christianity as a whole?
Previous Posts
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Still in the C of S corner
Can’t remember whether I gave a link to the C of S report that will be discussed at the Assembly next week. Anyway, here it is, and well worth reading.
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And over in the C of S corner…
Heads up everyone and have a look at Ron Ferguson’s column in the Herald today.
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Radio Scotland
“Good morning and welcome to St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral in Great Western Road in Glasgow.” So began yesterday’s early service on Radio Scotland. I recorded it ages ago and this was a rerun. Indeed, I didn’t know that it had been on again until folk told me as they came into church. The service yesterday…
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Meanwhile…
Meanwhile, whilst the debate is going on about Collaborative Ministry vs ministry that is collaborative on the post below, Chris Blethers seems to be shaking her head in weary sadness, noting the difference between her education bloggers and church bloggers. She characterises the latter as ‘self-aware, sometimes outrageous, often critical, and the comments snippy, defensive,…
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