Thread by @jeffblack945

#RevThread # 124
Angels Dancing

1/ Here comes a full-on sermon-length thread.

Leave it to a guy named Elijah to help us see angels dancing in this moment of national shame. On the one-in-a-billion chance that he ever sees this thread -- thank you so much, Sir!

2/ We’re caught up in something so new most of us can’t begin to get it -- cyber warfare waged against us by a Mafiya State. And wow are we losing! Russia has installed a useful idiot in our White House.

3/ But we’re also caught up in something that is simultaneously very ancient -- spiritual warfare. That is ultimately what Mr. Cummings was alluding to.

4/ Here’s the classic text about spiritual warfare: “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”(Eph. 6: 12)

5/ Notice that Paul uses a combination of political and spiritual language. Paul, and all the Jews of the 1st Century Israel, knew about rulers, about the authorities, about those who were in high places trying to defeat God’s will...

6/.. First century Israel was ruled by foreigners, by an empire that claimed divine authority to rob them blind and to crucify them for resisting. That was their “present darkness”.

7/ From Matthew through Revelations, the whole battle between light and dark, all the imagery of spiritual warfare, is a way of processing their experience of Israel’s oppression by Rome and the hope that God would deliver them.

8/ The call to spiritual warfare is code for contending against the Empire. “Caesar” is the same word as “Christ”. Augustus and his successors, the emperors of the first and second centuries, had the same title that Jesus’ followers wanted to give Jesus. These are the rivals.

9/ The title means “The anointed One”. Augustus claimed to be Son of God and to hold, as a gift from God, all authority on earth. Jesus’ teachings, his actions, and above all his non-violent resistance of the empire...

9/..--even to the cross- are all about his re-shaping of religion into a soul force of redemptive power. Jesus was opening a different future on this planet, a future of freedom and life fit for all God’s creation, a sacred community fit for creatures who bear the image of God.

10/ Moreover, Paul and all the New Testament writers believed that there was something universal, something unseen, that imposed the greed and the cruelty and the injustice they endured. “The cosmic powers over this present darkness” is how Paul describes that in our text.

11/ Let’s apply that to what we are living through. Who is Trump? Trump is a man claiming to be a Christian but displaying open hostility to both law and Gospel. He is a man of violence, and the truth is simply not in him -- hence his endless lies...

12/.. Trump is a violator -- of women, of his own oath of office, of hard-won treaties, of family relations, of loyalties. He is a man who, in his mad quest for infinite wealth, betrays his country.

13/ How did he get this way? Trump absorbed the way of greed and the skills of skating at the edge of the law from his father, and from their association with mafia companions...

14/.. In Trump's rearing he absorbed a sense of superiority from “his genes and his ‘good German blood’”. (It’s shocking to listen to Trump himself on all this -- you can find the interviews on YouTube).

15/ Somehow Trump slid through high dollar schools without acquiring a sense of history or art or philosophy or science. His expertise is in sensing the mood of a room, how to dominate it, how to seduce both men & women. Everyone he captivates thinks they alone understand him.

16/ The best label I know of for him is “malignant narcissist”, the label Erich Fromm created in his study of such 20th century monsters as Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Mussolini. That means that behind Trump’s charismatic charm lurk...

17/.. paranoia, no capacity for empathy, sadism, and narcissism. Quite the brew. (See my thread, “Four Quadrants”.)

18/ The primary and superficial appeal of Trump and other containers of darkness, is a promise of freedom from the constraints of order and of law, and of the norms of decency....

19... For instance, the constraint of respecting the equal humanity of all humans is too much for many -- they whine about being forced to be “politically correct.”

20/ They flocked to Trump because he is, they think, “authentic”, by which they mean he confides in them that he feels the way they secretly feel, he resents “elites” looking down on him. But he defeats the snobs and flaunts his wealth as evidence of his genius. They buy it.

21/ What’s spiritual about all this? Well, “spiritual” is not the same as “good.” There are devils as well as angels. Devils are spirits, which is why they alone immediately recognize Jesus in the early chapters of the Gospels (Mark 5: 6-10)...

22/... I can be both spiritual and evil. Essential morality is therefore prior to spirituality. A pedophile clergyman can say his prayers and read his bible, but he’s still a monster.

23/ In theology, spirituality generally refers to the energy of the relationship between a person or a group and God. More broadly, we can and do speak of spirituality in terms of the energy of relationships between people and between people and a group..

24/.. In this sense a social spirituality, for good or for evil, begins its journey by initial attraction and develops by imitation.

25/ Here’s a pretty clear example of this social spirituality moving for good: George Washington had developed his leadership skills, his understanding of the possibilities of democracy, his courage and his honor by his 40’s...

26/..That required a lot of growth for a man starting out as a wannabe British Aristocrat. He spotted a young and bright immigrant and enfolded him into his circle of influence.

27/ Alexander Hamilton began his spiritual journey as the chief aide to General Washington in the revolution. Hamilton now had his role model. He was absorbing that spirit. By the time he and Madison and Jay had finished the Federalist papers...

28/.. we had a country-wide acceptance of the Constitution, and Washington had his first Secretary of the Treasury, the man who was the most influential force for economic development for the ensuing centuries. Good stuff.

29/ But spiritual contagion can move towards evil as well. Enter Trump, a compound of breezy charm, greed, violence, and vanity, with a core of rage. Outwardly he’s confident, with a once-good-looking appearance. He projects being oh-so-rich, free and spontaneous.

30/ Michael Cohen saw all that and the great towers with Trump’s name on them, and he wanted it. Michael wanted that strut. He wanted the money. He wanted what looked like fun. He joined the wannabe rich bad boy coterie of Roger Stone and the other now famous creeps.

31/ But the contagion -- that combination of attraction and imitation -- did not stop there.

32/ Once Trump had succeeded in becoming the object of envy and desire in “The Apprentice”, then the party whose vulnerability had always been greed and white male superiority,...

33/.. began sending each Republican presidential nominee to the Tower to meet with and receive the blessing of the great one. Bush, McCain, Romney all had to kiss Mammon’s acolyte’s ring.

34/ And then the destroyer pulverized the 16 lesser champions of greed, teamed up with his Russian Rich Ruler and they seized the White House.

35/ By now the contagion had spread to scores of millions out in the land. And the ruin Trump bore within himself communicated out and entered them -- especially the office holders.

36/ Did you see, in that hearing, what a brood of vipers those Republicans are becoming?

37/ That’s what spiritual evil looks like, and it’s why Jesus warned us so solemnly, “You cannot serve God and Mammon” (Matthew 6:24). We are in the situation of those early Jewish followers of Jesus, and we are up against a Nero in our own land.

38/ How will we get from Trumplandia to Elijah’s vision of dancing with angels? What to do? The word of God has some wisdom for us:

39/ Paul urges us to stand firm, protected by the armor of God. What’s that? First it’s the “Belt of Truth”--put it on. Get the facts. Listen to Elijah and to Adam. (This is such a Biblical moment!) There’s more armor St. Paul speaks of, but I’ll just deal with one more piece.

40/ Imagine the “Helmet of Salvation”--put it on: Protect your head. The liar in chief and the party he took over (it could have been the Democrats, but in this case it was the GOP) are spewing propaganda; Russian Trolls are targeting FaceBook and probably Twitter...

41/..Do not let their flaming lies into your brain. Jesus called Herod the Great, “That Fox” -- don’t get your news from that horrid source.

42/ Make your helmet out of the Declaration and the Preamble and the Gettysburg, and yes, even the Pledge of Allegiance.

43/ We have just seen a refugee from the hell of Trumplandia stagger out into the light of day and hear him warn us that just as his life was ruined by following this criminal, so will this corrupt President harm the soul of anyone who welcomes his contagion into their own soul.

44/ Listen to Michael. Pray for his redemption, and for our nation’s.
Cc: @RepCummings, @RepAdamSchiff