In the eyes of QAnon and Christian fundamentalism, I’m a heretic. I don’t believe in Satan. Not that Satan, the devilish opponent of God. But trying to make some sense of life these days has led me to take another look at Satan.
The biblical Satan is the personification of trickery and the reptilian impulses that lie in wait in every mortal psyche. Satan is a con artist. “You will not die,” whispers the serpent to the mortals in the Genesis story of humanity’s fall from paradisaical innocence. Likewise, in the wilderness temptations of Matthew and Luke, it is Satan who lures “the man for others” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s description of Christ) to being a man who cares only for himself. Satin is the personification of the lies that flips reality on its head. Satan is a Con Artist.
Con artistry is never far away. Sometimes we come face-to-face with it. I see it inside the courtroom in New York City where a jury wrestles to disentangling truth from falsehood, evidence from sham, honesty from fraudulence, in full view national figures, members of the U.S. House of Representatives take their seats in room as visiting dignitaries who are surely recognizable to at least one member of the jury. Their physical presence is intimidating; it strikes me as its own kind of witness and jury tampering, a violation of the defendant’s gag order.
Outside the courtroom, I see these same Members of the United States House of Representatives, each of whom has sworn the Constitutional oath of office, line up take their turns behind the microphone and media cameras to denounce the judicial system, malign court personnel, the judge, prosecutors and their families, and read aloud. Up is down and down is up; right is wrong and wrong is right; truth-telling is out; conning is in. I hear Pinocchio’s surrogates betray their oaths of office in hopes of becoming Pinocchio’s right hand. Jiminy Cricket is a distant memory. Conscience is nowhere to be found.
Yesterday confirmed what I know of the biblical Satan who never was but always is wherever there’s an Achilles’ Heel – the vulnerability of mortals to the Con that I and we can do no wrong.
Gordon C. Stewart, public theologian, host of Views from the Edge, author of Be Still! Departure from Collective Madness (2017 Wipf and Stock), Brooklyn Park, MN, May15, 2024.
I didn’t feel like shouting Hosannas and waving palm branches this Palm Sunday. So I did something else. Harry Emerson Fosdick’s hymn, “God of Grace and God of Glory,” written in 1930, a time as uncertain as this, cried out for attention. “Grant us wisdom, grant us courage, for the facing of this hour.” The title of this sermon was ready before the sermon had been written. Fosdick’s lyrics led me to Psalm 82 addressing “the great assembly of the gods . . . by which all the foundations of the earth are shaken.” Here’s the sermon at Shepherd of the Hill Presbyterian Church in Chaska, MN, the loving congregation that welcomed me for nine years (2005-2014) on the way to retirement.
Thanks to Shepherd of the Hill Elder Chuck Lieber for taping this long-winded sermon on Palm Sunday at Shepherd of the Hill Presbyterian Church in Chaska, MN.
PSALM 82 NIV
God presides in the great assembly; he renders judgment among the “gods”:
“How long will you defend the unjust and show partiality to the wicked?
Defend the weak and the fatherless; uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed. Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.
“The ‘gods’ know nothing, they understand nothing. They walk about in darkness; all the foundations of the earth are shaken.
“I said, ‘You are “gods”; you are all sons of the Most High.’ But you will die like mere mortals; you will fall like every other ruler.”
Arise, God, judge the world, for all nations belong to you.
Psalm 82 niv
Rev. Gordon C. Stewart, public theologian and social commentator, author of Be Still! Departure from Collective Madness (2017, Wipf and Stock Publishers), 49 brief (2-4 pages) on faith and life; Brooklyn Park, MN, April 7, 2024.
The greeting struck me as peculiar. “Happy Holy Week” is more than a little strange. Something didn’t smell right.
Rev. Al Sharpton response to the “God Bless the USA Bible”
Preying on Praying
Only a person ignorant or defiant of the heart-wrenching events of Jesus’ last days — Peter’s deceitful denials (“I do not know the man”) in the High Priest’s courtyard; the self-serving betrayals and abandonment of Jesus’ closest ‘friends’ and students; Jesus braiding a whip and driving out the money-changers in a fit of rage, turning over the money-changers’ tables for making his Father’s house into a den of robbers; Judas Iscariot, the apostle entrusted with the group’s purse, exchanging intelligence identifying Jesus’ whereabouts; an apostle drawing a dagger at his arrest, cutting off the High Priest servant’s ear, followed by Jesus’ rebuke of the way of violence; the release of one Jesus (Jesus Barabbas), the nationalist insurrectionist prisoner awaiting execution in place of the other (Jesus of Nazareth) in whom Pilate finds no guilt); Jesus’ final meal in an upper room of an unidentified dwelling; the invitation to “Take, eat. This is my body, broken for you” — would wish Christians a happy Holy Week.
Mark Twain Advice
I feel a bit like Mark Twain the day he responded to a sanctimonious businessman notoriously for his unscrupulous business practices.
“Before I die,” said the shyster, “I mean to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. I will climb Mount Sinai and read the Ten Commandments aloud from the top.”
“I have a better idea,” said Twain. “You could stay home in Boston and keep them.”
The Way to Easter
You can get to the Easter Bunny without walking through the events of Holy Week, but you can’t get to Easter without walking through the valley of the shadow of death. It’s all there in Christian Scripture. It makes no difference how many Bibles you have —”I have many;” “it’s my favorite book,” or how much you love it — if you’ve never opened one.
Rev. Gordon C. Stewart, public theologian, host of Views from the Edge, author of "Be Still! Departure from Collective Madness" (2017 Wipf and Stock Publishers), 49 two to four-page meditations on faith and public life, Brooklyn Park, MN, April 4, 2024.
Who but a sociopath on his way to trial on charges of buying a porn star’s silence would think the American people would fall for a stunt like this? It’s a short step from selling gold sneakers for $399/ pair to selling another first of its kind, the “God Bless the USA Bible,” complete with a copy of the U.S. Constitution.
Happy Holy Week! Let’s Make America Pray Again. As we lead into Good Friday and Easter, I encourage you to get a copy of the God Bless The USA Bible….
All Americans need a Bible in their home, and I have many. It’s my favorite book,” Trump said in his video posted on Truth Social. “I’m proud to endorse and encourage you to get this Bible. We must make America pray again.”
Donald J. Trump,
Those who practice their Christian faith know that “Happy Holy Week!” is a sign of the greeter’s unfamiliarity with the faith. We don’t wish each other a “Happy Holy Week.” Tears of joy (not happiness) well up only after tears of our own participation in the horror and sadness of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and in the haunting silence of god-forsakenness on Holy Saturday.
What Jesus Saw from the Cross by James Tissot
“Then said Jesus, ‘Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.’ And they parted his raiment, and cast lots.”
Gospel of Luke 23:34 NRSV
Rev. Gordon C. Stewart, Presbyterian pastor (H.R.), public theologian, author of Be Still! Departure from Collective Madness (2017 Wipf and Stock Publishers), Brooklyn Park, MN, March 27, 2024, Wednesday of Holy Week.
This 2020 commentary has stayed hidden in Views' draft file for reasons perhaps as obvious as the reasons for posting it now.
Every deed in the grand manner on this earth will in general be the fulfillment of a desire which had long since been present in millions of people, a longing silently harbored by many. Yes, it can come about that centuries wish and yearn for the solution of a certain question, because they are sighing beneath the intolerable burden of an existing condition and the fulfillment of this general longing does not materialize.
These words are not Donald Trump’s. “The intolerable burden that yearns for a solution” did not refer to the continuing dispossession of America’s First People, or the descendants of men, women children whose labor produced the wealth of their white kidnappers.
They are the words of Adolf Hitler in Mein Kampf, the book Ivana Trump said her husband kept in his bedroom.
Nations which no longer find any heroic solution for such distress can be designated as impotent, while we see the vitality of a people, and the predestination for life guaranteed by this vitality, most strikingly demonstrated when, for a people’s liberation from a great oppression, or for the elimination of a bitter distress, or for the satisfaction of its soul, restless because it has grown insecure – Fate some day bestows upon it the man endowed for this purpose, who finally brings the long yearned-for fulfillment.
Adolf Hitler, Chapter 8, The Strong Man Is Mightier Alone, Mein Kamp
A Man Endowed for this Purpose: To Save the Nation
The president is a moral predator who feeds on fear of “the other.” Predators show no respect or compassion. Not for the sick and dying during the new coronavirus pandemic. Not for African Americans disproportionately affected by COVID-19. Not for at-risk first responders: doctors, nurses, orderlies, and hospital custodians and kitchen staffs begging for more masks and ventilators. Not for journalists who bring facts to disinformation press conferences. They show no respect for anyone or anything and hold nothing as sacred. They pose with Bibles in front of churches, but never read them.
Is it unreasonable to suppose that a president at risk of losing his fight to keep his tax returns from public scrutiny, fearful of losing his bid for re-election in November, and facing multiple criminal charges after leaving office would use the playbooks his first ex-wife and ghost writer alleged to have been by his bedside?
Hermann Goebbels, Minister without Portfolio Joseph Göring, Minister of Public Enlightenment and PropagandaErnst Röhm, SA co-founder and Chief of Staff
The Supreme Judge of the ________People
As news of the covert operation began to leak, Reich “Minister Without Portfolio” Joseph Göring ordered police stations to burn “all documents concerning the action of the past two days.” Newspapers were told not to publish the names of the dead. Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda Joseph Goring took to the airwaves to announce to the nation that Hitler had prevented traitors from overthrowing the government and throwing the country into turmoil. Eleven days later (July 13, 1934) Hitler gave the nationally broadcast speech to the Reichstag (the German equivalent of the U.S. Congress) in which he conflated the nation and himself. The strong man who made Germany great again proclaimed himself “the Supreme Judge of the German people” and threatened opponents as traitors.
If anyone reproaches me and asks why I did not resort to the regular courts of justice, then all I can say is this. In this hour I was responsible for the fate of the German people, and thereby I became the supreme judge of the German people. I gave the order to shoot the ringleaders in this treason, and I further gave the order to cauterise down to the raw flesh the ulcers of this poisoning of the wells in our domestic life. Let the nation know that its existence—which depends on its internal order and security—cannot be threatened with impunity by anyone! And let it be known for all time to come that if anyone raises his hand to strike the State, then certain death is his lot.
Adolf Hitler speech to the Reichstag, July 13, 1934.
Concerned with potential objection from the Reichstag and the courts, Hitler acted quickly to push official approval by the Reichstag the expansion of his powers. The change was approved immediately and retroactively, serving as official justification for the massacre of the Night of the Long Knives. On July 3rd his administration’s cabinet approve a measure that declared, “The measures taken on June 30, July 1 and 2 to suppress treasonous assaults are legal as acts of self-defense by the State.”
The Blossoms of Disrespect
Had journalists asked former civil rights and peacemaking activist William Sloane Coffin what he would say about the self-proclaiming law-and-order U.S. president and his loyal partisans in Congress, I imagine he might repeat what he said years ago of public figures who insist their language bears no responsibility for hate and violence.
“Trent Lott, Gary Bauer, Pat Robertson, and Jerry Falwell– all insist their words contribute nothing to an atmosphere that might legitimate anti-gay violence. Don’t they know that the seed of disrespect often blossoms into hatred?”
William Sloane Coffin Jr., Credo (WJK)
All who seek a respectful future do well to remember how quickly good gets twisted into evil, and how even a society’s best intentions for a just society can fall prey to the law of unintended consequences: the end of a Constitutional democratic republic by little men with little mustaches and deranged men with orange hair.
The terroristic threats of Ms. Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, in Fulton County, Georgia did not come directly from Rudy Giuliani. “America’s Mayor” of 9/11 fame did not tell anyone in particular to do anything in any particular way at any particular time or place. He neither directed nor suggested the phone calls, emails, and text messages that threatened the two Georgia election workers he claimed were “surreptitiously passing around USB ports as if they’re vials of heroin or cocaine.” They were “engaged in surreptitious illegal activity.”
It was, in fact, America’s Mayor who was engaged in surreptitious illegal activity. Mr. Giuliani admitted under oath that his story about the USB port was false but, moments later, speaking publicly to reporters outside the courtroom, he switched back to the old story, saying it was real. He had just shot himself in the foot, handing fresh evidence to the prosecution’s case and undermining his lawyers’ defense strategy. Rudy Giuliani seemed confused.
Perhaps it’s his age. He’s lost a step or two. Maybe dementia, maybe not. Maybe just the memory loss that comes with getting older. Whatever lay behind the switch from admission to denial, the result was the same. Under oath, he was guilty; outside the courtroom, in the court of public opinion, he claimed innocence, and said his statements were protected under the First Amendment right to free speech.
Could America’s Mayor be held accountable for the terroristic threats that sent a mother and daughter to live in fear for their lives? Appearing before the House special committee on January 6, what happened and what didn’t happen was summed up in two questions and answers. Question: “Ms. Moss, what was it that passed between you and your mother that day?” Answer: “A ginger mint.” Describing how their lives have been affected, the answer was clear. “I don’t feel safe anywhere.”
Stochastic Terrorism
There is a name for what took place in Georgia and what is happening now across the country. Stochastic terrorism, as Author David Neiwert defined it in a 2018 interview with Salon, is a form of domestic terrorism that evades being held responsible for the violence it prompts by others.
Scripted violence is where a person who has a national platform describes the kind of violence that they want to be carried out. He identifies the targets and leaves it up to the listeners to carry out this violence. It is a form of terrorism. It is an act and a social phenomenon where there is an agreement to inflict massive violence on a whole segment of society. Again, this violence is led by people in high-profile positions in the media and the government. They’re the ones who do the scripting, and it is ordinary people who carry it out.
“Proud Boys, if you’re listening, stay back and stand down.” The Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers stayed back and stood down until the president’s tweet invited patriotic American to the Capitol January 6 to “Stop the Steal”. “Be there! It will be wild!”
“There’s a lot of people here willing to take orders. If the orders are given, the people will rise up.” “Our president wants us here,” says a man from a livestream video standing within the Capitol building, “we wait and take orders from our president.’” “We have to have peace,” says President Trump to the January 6 marauders, “So go home, we love you, you’re very special.”
Most people storming the US Capitol on January 6 were “ordinary people” led to confuse violence with protest, insurrection with patriotism, scapegoating with allegiance to the constitution and the rule of law –- unwitting agents of a scheme of violence scripted “by people in high-profile positions in the media and government,” sometimes against others in high-profile positions. “Hang Mike Pence! Hang Mike Pence!” “Stop the steal! Stop the Steal!”
Within hours the noose came down; the threat of domestic terrorism did not. Indicted and scheduled for trial in Florida, New York, Georgia and Washington, D.C., the former president mocks court orders to refrain from targeting judges, prosecutors, court staff, grand jury members, witnesses, potential witnesses, and poisoning the jury pool. Four of the 19 criminal codefendants in the Georgia RICO case (Scott Hall, Kenneth Cheseboro, Sydney Powell, and Jenna Ellis) have pleaded guilty and become witnesses for the prosecution. In Washington, D.C., former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows has agreed to immunity after testifying before the federal grand jury in the case prosecuted by DOJ special counsel Jack Smith regarding efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
Meanwhile, the defeated former president stays on script promoting the sham of innocence and claiming his First Amendment rights have been violated by gag orders issued to protect others from harm, while misleading “ordinary people” to confuse the right to free speech with a duty to take it upon themselves to carry out Mr. Trump’s will in whatever ways they choose to make America great again
The genius of stochastic terrorism is that it bumps up against laws re: incitement to riot but doesn’t step across the line that holds people accountable. The way stochastic terrorism talks is a bit like the serpent in the Garden of Eden story. It sows the seeds of confusion and chaos. When Michael Cohen, President Trump’s long-time fixer and lawyer, testified before congress, he said that Donald Trump doesn’t talk like other people. “Donald speaks in code,” he said. Like a Mob boss, he doesn’t speak directly. He tells you what he wants without telling you.
Stochastic terrorism does not end in a courtroom. It walks the streets. It huddles in the basement of the U.S. Capitol. It speaks of law and order while eroding public trust in the legitimacy of the courts and the rule of law. It puts the squeeze on a Speaker of the House, ensuring his failure, and turns the Speaker’s gavel over to a little-known Christian nationalist, a member of the insurrection pack who cheers for the Alpha wolf as he rides the wave of stochastic terrorism to the Oval Office.
— Gordon C. Stewart, Views from the Edge, Dec. 14, 2023
While brewing the coffee this morning, I remembered writing a commentary on the power of language. “The Language of Demagoguery” first appeared on Views from the Edge in 2012, long before the word ‘weaponization’ muscled its way into American public discourse. Here’s the piece. Though no longer in the pulpit, It still speaks for me.
Words are POWERFUL! Sometimes those who preach wonder whether our words matter. But reading this paragraph in Timothy Egan’s NYT, “Deconstructing a Demagogue,”reminded me of just how powerful they are:
Back in 1994, while plotting his takeover of the House, [Newt] Gingrich circulated a memo on how to use words as a weapon. It was called “Language: A Key Mechanism of Control.” Republicans were advised to use certain words in describing opponents — sick, pathetic, lie, decay, failure, destroy. That was the year, of course, when Gingrich showed there was no floor to his descent into a dignity-free zone, equating Democratic Party values with the drowning of two young children by their mother, Susan Smith, in South Carolina.
Today, if you listen carefully to any Gingrich takedown, you’ll usually hear words from the control memo.
Timothy Egan, “Deconstructing a Demagogue,” New York Times, 01/26/2012
And that’s just the beginning of the story of how language is used and abused for purposes of social manipulation. Gingrich knew that language is “A Key Mechanism of Control.” Those who are well-schooled in theology and politics know that language is the primary mechanism of mind control: truth becomes falsehood and falsehood becomes truth; beauty becomes ugliness and ugliness becomes beauty; goodness becomes evil and evil becomes goodness, twisted by the language of innuendo and word association.
Growing Cynicism
The cynicism that pervades the American electorate is due, in part, to this demagogic use of language. Words are precious things. Holy things. Sacred things. When they get twisted, they become vulgar and profane, one might even say ‘demonic’ in the sense in which Paul Tillich defined ‘demonic’: the twisting of the good. “The claim of something finite to infinity or to divine greatness is the characteristic of the demonic” (Paul Tillich, “Life and It’s Ambiguities,” Systematic Theology, Vol. 1, p. 102).
Paul Tillich, “The Courage to Be”
Words are sacred. And those who abuse them enter into the darkness of the demonic twisting that led James Russell Lowell to write the hymn lyrics I sang as a child:
Once to every man and nation Comes the moment to decide, In the strife of truth with falsehood…. Though the cause of evil prosper, Yet t’is truth alone is strong; Though her portion be the scaffold, And upon the throne be wrong , Yet that scaffold sways the future, And, behind the dim unknown, Standeth God within the shadows, Keeping watch above His own.
Hymn “Once to every man and nation,” James Russell Lowell
Gordon C. Stewart public theologian, Brooklyn Park, MN, author of Be Still! Departure from Collective Madness (2017 Wipf and Stock), December 5, 2023.
Every once in awhile, reflecting on a moment of time leads me to look for what I may have said in a sermon at Shepherd of the Hill. I post “Assurance in the Storm” in hope it may speak a word of assurance while living through the storm.
Gordon C. Stewart, sermon “Assurance in the Storm,” Brooklyn Park, MN, Sunday, November 12, 2023.
As far back as I can remember, I’ve said that if, God forbid, what happened in Germany would ever happen in America, I would stand up and speak out. It’s always been part of who I am. I made that commitment early on as a fledgling Christian who saw the flag and cross as the warp and woof of the same cloth. To be a disciple of Jesus was to be an American patriot, to take up my cross on behalf of democracy and freedom. As I saw it then, there was little, if any, distinction between standing for the Hallelujah Chorus on Easter and standing for the national anthem on the Fourth of July. Every school day began standing with hands over our hearts to face the flag and say the Pledge of Allegiance. When we finished the pledge, we took our seats for the Bible reading and a prayer. Once a week we ducked under our desks in fear the Russians would hit Marple Elementary School with a nuclear strike.
American Civil Religion
That was a long time ago, but not so long ago to have forgotten. Flawed though it was, there an unspoken code which Robert Bellah later called the “American civil religion,” a societal consensus that knit us together in one commonwealth, an aspirational commitment to goodness, however strong the forces that threatened to shred it.
Humility was a virtue; arrogance was not. Pride goeth before the fall — don’t get too big for your britches — the foolish man built his house upon the sand, and the rains came down and the floods came up….When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down in the place of honor . . . For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted. Honesty was a virtue; lying was not. Revenge was not a virtue. Blessed are the merciful . . . . You have heard that it was said, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, but I say to you . . . . Glamour, greed, and wealth were not virtues. Blessed are the meek . . . .Your rich men are full of violence; your inhabitants speak lies, and their tongue is deceitful.Blessed are the poor. The rich man went away sorrowfully. The parable of the rich man and Lazarus. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are the poor…. Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust consume, and thieves break in and steal… For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also; you cannot serve both God and wealth.
The Golden Mean between Extremes
Robert Fulgrum’s Everything I Learned in Kindergarten gives insight into a social ethic akin to Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, by which, in the pursuit of happiness (eudaimonia), one navigates the “golden mean” between the opposites. The virtue of courage, for example, is the middle way between cowardice and recklessness. Generosity is the golden mean between the extremes of stinginess and profligacy. Confidence avoids the opposing extremes of arrogance and self-loathing.
Robert Fulgrum’s Everything I Learned in Kindergarten offers practical insight into a social ethic like Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, by which, in the pursuit of happiness (eudaimonia), one navigates the “golden mean” between the opposites. The virtue of courage, for example, is the middle way between cowardice and recklessness. Generosity is the golden mean between the extremes of stinginess and profligacy. Confidence avoids the opposing extremes of self-loathing and arrogance.
A Social Consensus
This moral consensus is rooted in classical Greek and Roman philosophy and culture every bit as much as it is in the Judeo-Christian tradition and scripture. A Thesaurus lists the following adjectives to describe the most egregious extremes of unacceptable behavior and character to be avoided:
big-headed
boastful
braggin
cocky
conceited
condescending
egomaniacal
haughty
high and mighty
hoity-toity
nose in the air
ostentatious
patronizing
pretentious
self-admiring
self-centered
snippy
snooty
snotty
stuck-up
superior
uppity
vain.
The social code at Marple Elementary
At Marple Elementary we feared bullies, but we did not respect them. Though we were often rude, crude, cruel, and mean, we knew better. We were taught that all of us are responsible to each other. We were accountable for our behavior. We were taught to be good sports. We didn’t like sore losers. Getting revenge was not a virtue.
“I am your revenge”
What is happening to us? “I am your revenge.” When did vengeance become a virtue, while truth-telling, honesty, and personal accountability went out of style? How did it become acceptable to insult another person with belittling nicknames? How did attacks on courts, judges, prosecutors, and grand juries (ordinary people exercising their civic duty without favor or prejudice) become accepted practice in American daily life? How did it happen that the party of Abraham Lincoln has become the party of Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Goetz, and a Freedom Caucus cowering in fear of the bully? How did criminal indictment become a Medal of Honor?
Legitimacy and a Mist that Vanishes
“I’m a legitimate person. I’ve done nothing wrong. It’s all a hoax.” Legitimacy is the question now. Can it honestly be said that a former president and the Grand Old Party are still legitimate players in a constitutional republic? I’m old now, but not too old to forget the promise I made as a child.
“What is your life?” asked the writer of the Epistle of James. “You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes…. As it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil. Anyone, then, who knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, commits sin.” (from the Letter of James 3:13-17 NRSV.)
Marple Elementary School vanished. The wrecking ball of time demolished it, but some of its old students are still here to fulfill the promise we made to our young selves. If ever there was a time to stand up and speak out, that moment is now.
Gordon C. Stewart, Presbyterian Minister (HR), author of Be Still! Departure from Collective Madness (49 two-four page meditations of faith and public events), host of Views from the Edge: To See More Clearly (gordoncstewart.com); Brooklyn Park, MN, September 13, 2023.
“Nothing strengthens authority as much as silence.” Leonardo da Vinci
Breaking the Silence
“I think he absolutely needs to tell all Americans to stand down and allow the judicial system to take its course,” said Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO), member of the House Freedom Caucus that continues to keep silent about the Big Lie. “We trust judges, we trust juries, we trust appellate courts. This isn’t over until it’s over…. I think that sending a very clear message, and also having a surrogate send a very clear message, that violence will not be tolerated, is appropriate.”
Rep. KEN BUCK (R -CO), SPEAKING WITH ANDREA MITCHELL
The Poetry of Politics
Poets often shine a different light into the darkness. Adrienne Rich is one of them. In her poem “Rape” she takes us inside the minds of a victim and a rapist.
You hardly know him but now he thinks he knows you: … he knows, or thinks he knows, what you secretly wanted.
ADRIENNE RICH, “RAPE,” DIVING INTO THE WRECK: POEMS 1971–1972
The Politics of Rape
In America today a rapist who knows, or thinks he knows, what Americans secretly want, has been indicted on criminal charges four times. No one wants to be raped. Ever! Yet, there is something about American culture that leaves us vulnerable to charmers and thieves who pose as Robin Hood.
The indictments of Donald Trump allege that rape has been committed repeatedly. Members of Congress who fail to “stand down” prove themselves unfaithful to their oaths of office. In spoken words and scheming silence they become accomplices who know, or think they know, what the country secretly want. Some might call it the politics of silence. The politics of silence is the politics of sedition. The politics of sedition is the politics of rape.
Gordon C. Stewart, Public Theologian, social commentator, author of Be Still! Departure from Collective Madness (2017 Wipf and Stock), Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, August 30, 2023.
Views from the Edge 