#RevThread # 108
The Sign of the Times
I1/ In the last few weeks I’ve done about ten threads re Trumplandia, and spared you by not sending them out. My questions have been, “What’s going on?” “What is God up to?” “What are we revealing about ourselves?”
The Sign of the Times
I1/ In the last few weeks I’ve done about ten threads re Trumplandia, and spared you by not sending them out. My questions have been, “What’s going on?” “What is God up to?” “What are we revealing about ourselves?”
2/ To watch it all on TV gets really tedious. Then I think of my grandchildren and how I want them to be free citizens in a free country and I try again.
3/ I know that something big is going on, and I believe that God wants us to cooperate in God’s purposes. So this text (Matthew 16:1-3) came to mind:
“And the Pharisees and Sadducees came, and to test him they asked him to show them a sign from heaven...
“And the Pharisees and Sadducees came, and to test him they asked him to show them a sign from heaven...
4/"..He answered them,“When it is evening you say, ‘It will be fair weather for the sky is red.’ And in the morning, ‘It will be stormy today, for the sky is red & threatening'. You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times.”
5/ Jesus was after something big - so big we have yet to fully absorb it. He was, I believe, determined to redirect humanity away from human on human violence, a violence unknown in all the other species of God’s creation.
6/ Jesus' chosen vehicle for his project was the way of the cross. Violent religious and political men killed Him in His innocence.
7/ I believe God ratified Jesus’ agenda by the resurrection event. That sign -- the sign of nonviolent resistance -- remains only dimly perceived by many folks who claim to be following Him; but I don’t give up, and neither does He.
8/ What’s the sign that we might perceive in the events of Trumplandia, especially in that wretchedly governed Senate Judiciary hearing? To get that, I need to digress for a bit of history and a term that will help us.
9/ The American project begins with a declaration that we are all created equal and equally endowed by our creator with inalienable rights, including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Big.
10/ But even within the original phrasing of that Declaration, let alone within the original phrasing of the Constitution, the assumption was that the humans to which this applies, the candidates for freedom, are white, propertied males.
11/ The struggle of American history is to make real the Declaration - not just for white propertied males but for all humans. There’s an idealistic goal, and then there’s the actual culture.
12/ Hegemony is a word describing unofficial yet real power over. Russia over Eastern Europe; the US over South America [aka The Monroe Doctrine]; whites over all other races; men over women.
13/ Every effort to undo White Patriarchal hegemony has been met with fierce resistance from white entitled males.
14/ Back to our question: What have we been watching? What is Trump all about? What was that hearing about? What are the next two national elections about? It’s all about White male hegemony.
15/ What is God saying? I believe God is saying the same thing God has been saying since at least the calling of Abraham:
16/ “You are all my creation, my children -- equally the desire of my heart, equally deserving of justice, equally sacred within your body, equally the object of my mercy.”
17/ Since my spiritual boss is a first century rabbi, I suspect He’s watching things like that hearing and saying, “Enough with the rich entitled white males already!”
18/ Listen to the women. They are done with white male hegemony. Trumplandia is a last gasp. This is going to be the biggest change in many centuries. It’s time.
