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This Month's Scripture Verse:

For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.
I Timothy 6:10

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Friday, April 4, 2025

Views From The Outside For April 4, 2025

 Views From The Outside

The purpose of this page is to list news stories and reports from Western sources outside of the U.S. and from Ukraine. You can use Google Translate to translate articles that are printed in another language. Some articles posted from Der Spiegel and NZZ will be German and some will be in English.

April 4, 2025

From Canada

From England

From France

From Germany

From Switzerland

From Ukraine








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Wednesday, April 2, 2025

Views From The Left For April 2, 2025

Views From The Left 

Below is a list of articles from a sampling of leftist websites. Except for the Democracy At Work website, each leftist site listed below has a high reliable reporting rating according to MediaBiasFactCheck.com. The articles listed below express views that will sometimes be divergent from the views of the owner of this blog.

Martin Luther King statement made when speaking against the Vietnam War (click here for source):

'I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin...we must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.'









 

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Tuesday, April 1, 2025

What Can We Realistically Expect From American Evangelicals Now?

As I compare Trump's 2nd Presidency with opinion polls, I see a great disparity. Why aren't more people disapproving of Trump? From what I see, Democracy is not just in a mere crisis, it should be placed in hospice. For at the current pace, it won't take long for Democracy to be irreparably harmed and destroyed. But Trump supporters are reacting to his Presidency as if their house was launched by a tornado and landed over the rainbow. 

And so why don't today's Repubs see the danger that our Democracy is facing? For some it is because they prefer a conservative autocratic regime to Democracy. One reason for that is because they didn't like all of the groups that were emerging from the margins to move into the equality neighborhood with them. For according to them, such people bring the value of their own property down. These Republicans are wearing such tinted glasses that they can't see the harm that Trump is causing.

Since over 80% for my fellow Evangelicals have played a key role in not just electing Trump, but in maintaining support for his regime, I thought I would share my views on why this is happening.

IMO, a main, but not only, reason why so many of my fellow Evangelicals have voted for and continue to support Trump is due to their penchant for authoritarianism. Dr Russell Razzaque has identified how many Christian parents raised their children as the reason for that tendency to embrace authoritarianism. And though he has some excellent points to make and to consider, he reduces the cause for their authoritarianism to be anger over how they were raised. Though that can come into play, it isn't the only factor involved here. I think that another factor that so contributes either with or without how children were raised which has caused my fellow Evangelicals to lean toward authoritarianism is the culture that religiously conservative churches promote. BTW, despite some of the reasoning that Dr Razzaque employs in his talk (seen below) and how some of what he says  challenges a Biblical understanding of the Old Testament God (see his short talk below), he is well worth listening to.


What first needs to be said here is a meaningful definition of authoritarianism. This is needed, especially by my fellow Evangelicals, because Evangelical churches so often teach us that we are always under authority structures and thus under people in authority so that we could easily conflate the Biblical submission to authority figures with authoritarianism. Authoritarianism, as it applies to our personalities, was originally identified and defined  by the Frankfurt School. Its interest in the subject was due to rise of Nazism and the German response to it. Authoritarian personality types refer to specific ways by which authoritarian leaders lead and authoritarian followers follow their leaders. BTW, here is a big disclaimer on my views on authoritarian personality types. I am speaking as a common person, NOT AN EXPERT. 

And because Evangelical churches tend to so heavily emphasize the authority structures that we live under and our Biblical obligation to respect all who are in authority, many Evangelicals are confused as to how to interpret what an authoritarian personality type is. What authoritarian leaders want is to have authoritarian followers. And what authoritarian followers want are unimpeachable sources of instructions and worldviews. What such followers want from their leaders are those with whom they can reflexively agree. In a sense, they are looking for a pope-like parent who is relatively or absolutely infallible. They want nanny thinkers to lead them. Their leaders speak and they follow. And what drives them toward wanting such a leader is fear. And because they expect so much from their leaders, they tend to employ black/white thinking. And the fear that drives them to expect so much from their leaders also acts as a defense from attacks from all sides. All of that causes authoritarian followers to put their leaders on too high a pedestal, whether their leaders have real expertise to offer or not.

It is the inordinate desire to follow authority figures that causes many Evangelicals to be unable to distinguish a Biblical way of following those who have authority over us from an authoritarian way. And so they conflate both ways. In addition, many of my fellow believers develop an inability to distinguish situations when we do not need to follow an authority figure because we are surrounded by peers, by equals.

But why do I mention all of this about authoritarian personalities? One reason is that it realistically helps explain why many of my fellow Evangelicals are following Trump the way they are. It isn't the only reason though I see few other reasons why they would. And all that indicates are the limits of my own intelligence and thinking. The other reason why I mention all of this about authoritarianism is because it helps provide explanations on why many Germans remained so loyal to Hitler despite what was happening to them and their nation. We should note that the resistance group, the White Rose, was looked on as traitors to Germany by many of their fellow countrymen for years after the war because that group challenged the legitimacy of their leader.

And so if being authoritarian made many Germans reluctant to turn on Hitler and Evangelicals have a penchant for authoritarianism, then how should we expect Evangelicals to react to Trump's Presidency and its failures and challenges to Democracy? The poll numbers are providing a partial answer. With Trump's attacks on Democracy and people, independents seem to be changing their minds about Trump, but many Evangelicals are not and we should expect them to be very reluctant to for at least the short term.

The above is my take on what we should expect from many of my fellow Evangelicals. Now again, when I am talking about authoritarianism and the authoritarian personality, I am not talking as an expert. But that does not imply that everything I wrote is false. And so one could, and should, study the subject of authoritarianism and the authoritarian personality types and see what one can agree with in this article and what one thinks is wrong.





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Friday, March 28, 2025

Views From The Outside For March 28, 2025

Views From The Outside

The purpose of this page is to list news stories and reports from Western sources outside of the U.S. and from Ukraine. You can use Google Translate to translate articles that are printed in another language. Some articles posted from Der Spiegel will be German and some will be in English until I better understand its website.

March 28, 2025

From Canada

From England

From France

From Germany

From Switzerland

From Ukraine

 





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Wednesday, March 26, 2025

Views From The Left For March 26, 2025

 Views From The Left 

Below is a list of articles from a sampling of leftist websites. Except for the Democracy At Work website, each leftist site listed below has a high reliable reporting rating according to MediaBiasFactCheck.com. The articles listed below express views that will sometimes be divergent from the views of the owner of this blog.

Martin Luther King statement made when speaking against the Vietnam War (click here for source):

'I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin...we must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.'


For March 26








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Tuesday, March 25, 2025

Evangelicals Need A Bonhoeffer Movement To Redeem The Church For Voting For Trump

I have two ways to look at Donald Trump. I can look at him as a person and thus as a peer. And I can look at him as the President of the nation in which I live.

What I can't afford to do in looking at him as a peer is to judge and look down on him. I can't do that as a Christian because the Scriptures tell me when I judge a person, Donald Trump for example, I am calling on God to apply His standards and laws on me in the same way as I want Him to apply it on a given person, like Donald Trump. And that would be like being out in the middle of the ocean and sinking the boat I am in. That is because Trump and I are in the same boat. I have my own sins and faults with which I struggle and without the forgiveness that is provided for those who believe in Christ, I'm lost. It matters not that Trump and I do not share the same set of sins. We both deserve the same fate. And so when I look at Trump as a person, I pray that he repents.

But what I can't afford to do when looking at him in the latter way is to be silent about the injustices he's visiting on others and the extraordinary government authority he is seeking. And so I have to speak out against and protest what he is doing. But according to the Golden Rule, Christ requires that when I speak out against and protest him, I need to do so in ways in which I would want people to protest me if I was acting like Trump is. Spoiler alert, I very much struggle with applying the Golden Rule here.

And so I believe that my fellow Evangelicals need to oppose what Trump is doing. But we need to oppose Trump's actions in ways in which we would want people to oppose us if we were in Trump's position and they were protesting us. But let me restate part of what I just wrote. We Evangelicals MUST oppose what Trump is doing. And one reason why we must oppose him is because of our past.

What past am I talking about? The past of the last 3 Presidential elections. At least 80% of us Evangelicals voted for him in each of those elections. At least 80% did so. And many of us still support him despite the present suffering he has caused, the future suffering that will be caused by his policies, and the power grab he is making.

The Apostles wrote and told us to submit to the governing authorities. They told us to lead quiet lives and to not stir the pot because God has ordained our leaders and to protect the reputation of the Gospel. But times have changed since the days of the Apostles and so how we submit to the governing authorities becomes somewhat different and more complicated. One issue here is that we have to factor in how we submit to the governing authorities is that the Gospel is now well known and has been preached in almost all of the earth. In fact, because the Gospel has been strongly associated with different governments, the Gospel now has a track record when it comes to government. And that track record includes when the Church was silently complicit in the sins committed by governments as well as when the Church was actively promoting or involved in committing atrocities. When the Apostles started sharing the Gospel, the Gospel had no track record to either point to  or be ashamed of. 

In addition, unlike today, the citizens of a given nation conquered by Rome had no say in how their government acted and thus they bore far less responsibility than we do now. But when Trump was last campaigning to be President, our nation was a democracy to a significant enough extent in that we employed democratic procedures for determining who runs our government. And in such a system, the people bear much responsibility for what their government does. That is another difference between our situation and the times of the Apostles. But even when that is not the case, like the  Old Testament prophets did before us, we have an obligation to call out social injustices and to appeal to oppressors to repent. James does that in his epistle, especially in chapter 5 where he starts to sound somewhat like Marx.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer felt the burden to speak out  against Hitler. Though he personally was not responsible for Hitler's rise to power, he knew that he must speak out for the oppressed. 

And so we Evangelicals need to create a Bonhoeffer Movement. It is a movement that opposes the autocratic desires and actions of President Trump. The goal is to stop his power grab in its tracks and to restore to our government's implementation of the 3 coequal branches of government as well as to restore those gutted agencies and former employees which was part of our government's programs of social uplift. 

We need to create a Bonhoeffer movement but with one difference. While Bonhoeffer eventually worked to remove Hitler from power, we only need to stop Trump from doing what he is doing. 

And so we need to limit the damage Trump does to our government. We need to do this to limit the number of victims of Trump's desired policies. And, we need to do this for the reputation of the Gospel. The last reason is because the percentage of us Evangelicals who voted for Trump has indisputably tied his Presidency with the reputation of the Gospel.

Because we have supported Trump with such overwhelming numbers, people will link our faith with his policies. In the past few centuries,  there were too many times when we saw the dominant branch of the Church in a given country support those with wealth and oppressive power. That was true during the pre-revolutionary times of France, Russia, and Spain. And after those oppressive regimes were overthrown, the Church unnecessarily suffered various levels of significant persecution. And not only that, the reputation of the Gospel was harmed. And in addition to that, we might consider how Post Modernism, with its view of Christianity, was a reaction to all of the atrocities that occurred under Christendom. 

One more point should be made here. We have sound examples of how we Christians can oppose Trump policies while honoring the position of those in government. Two prominent examples of how to oppose policies and laws while honoring the position of those in government are provided by Martin Luther King Jr. and the SCLC in the 1960s and by Otpor in Serbia from 1998 to 2000 (click here for a brief description of the latter).

The main lesson that we can learn from both groups is the nonviolent approach by which they accomplished their goals. We should stress the nonviolent approaches not just because they are morally right, but also there are groups in our nation that desire that we fall prey to a Civil War. And so if our resistance to Trump's policies involves violence, we could very well be playing into their hands as well as committing atrocities of our own. And though we might have to employ some different tactics than what both previously mentioned peace groups used, maintaining a strict nonviolent approach is an absolute necessity. 

Why do we need a Bonhoeffer Movement? It is because, like Bonhoeffer, we are facing a very similar leader who is driven by hate,  love of money, and the lust for power. And he is wantonly sacrificing programs of social uplift to accomplish his goals. How can we Christians support his actions?

But, again, there must be a difference between the goal of our Bonhoeffer Movement and what Bonhoeffer attempted to. While Bonhoeffer tried to remove Hitler, we must work to merely stop Trump from what he is doing. 

And so it is up to us Evangelicals to do our part in stopping the direction that our nation is on which we have helped enable. We have legitimate reasons for opposing Trump's power grabs and we have a history of nonviolent approaches in opposing a government that visits injustices on people. It is now time to pray, study, speak, and act out. What would be optimal is if we could get Trump to repent and change. But if that doesn't happen, then we must move the other 2 branches of our government to stop the steal. 




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