Martin Luther King, Jr., Ronald Reagan, and the Conservative Sleight-of-Hand

(This is Martin Luther King, Jr., with my mentor, D. Elton Trueblood, in Stout Meetinghouse on the campus of Earlham College.)

A recent conversation led me to do some thinking about the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr.  I have come to the conclusion that it is in a deliberately disingenuous manner that conservatives invoke Dr. King's legacy to support causes which the great Baptist preacher and prophet would have himself opposed.  Vivek Ramaswamy and Mike Pence have both name-checked Dr. King recently to advocate policies which King himself would have denounced as unjust, if not evil.  I happen to live in Mike Pence's hometown, and am aware that he and his brother, Congressman Greg Pence, both have made statements which they either knew, or should have known, were not true.

I asked Greg Pence, on his Facebook page, why he voted to overturn the 2020 election, which would have rewarded the very criminals who sought to kill his own brother.  I said to him, "If you are willing to sell-out your own brother, how do we, as your own constituents, have any assurance you will not sell us out as well?"  For the record, Rep. Pence never got back to me on that!

A friend recently pushed back on me, which should always be welcomed, when I said the idea of a colorblind society was heinous.  The exchange made me think about where the phrase colorblind society came from.  I looked into that, and I found the phrase came, not from Dr. King himself, but from Ronald Reagan.

I personally think Reagan was an enemy of morality.  No moral person would cut the tax rate of billionaires from 70% to 28% and then try to make up the lost revenue by taxing people's Social Security benefits!  Not to mention the "Iran/Contra affair."  For all his talk of law and order, Reagan was a corrupt and lawless man.  I believe the difference between him and Donald Trump is almost negligible.  Reagan had an affable personality which covered him like a  white sheet.  Members of the KKK do not even use white sheets any more.  I believe Donald Trump is Reagan without the sheet, figuratively speaking.  It was not by accident that Reagan began his presidential campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi.

Dr. King never used the phrase colorblind society.  What he said is that he wanted a society where people are judged by the content of their character, not by the color of their skin.  Ronald Reagan misappropriated and distorted King's message when he said we should be a "colorblind society."  Colorblindness negates an important part of who people are. It says to people of color, "we do not want to see you for who you are."  The idea of a colorblind society wounds many people of color.  You can read about what that phrase says to them here.

Colorblindness is a disability.  It makes absolutely no sense to use a disability as a metaphor for what one desires a society to be.  And for those of us in the disability community, that is a completely separate cause of offense.  No one holds other disabilities up as a paradigm for a societal ideal.  The idea of society as colorblind is as reprehensible as saying you want a society where there are no wheelchair ramps.  It is also quite curious to me that, those who argue for the ideal of a colorblind society are quite heated over transgender issues and use rather lame excuses for that like unfair competition in sports.  They want a colorblind society but not a  genderblind society.  That is telling.

I am suggesting here that anybody who would use the phrase colorblind society has either been hoodwinked into believing conservatives care about racial justice, or they are a party to the effort to do the hoodwinking.  Those who use the phrase and try to pass it off as King's idea have sought to undermine the very policies he gave his life for by pretending to use his own words.  They are not his words.  I have found no instance where Dr. King used the phrase colorblind society.  The dismantling of the Voting Rights Act and Affirmative Action in his name is damnable to say the least.  I believe he would forcefully denounce how conservatives have co-opted him,  Martin Luther King III discusses that here.

Christopher Petrella and Justin Gomer wrote in the Boston Review about how conservatives have completely distorted King's words.  You can read that here, but I love one paragraph from their piece.

"The inaccurate conflation of King’s activism with the ideology of colorblindness—in which ignoring race is positioned as the only way to end racism—began in earnest during the Reagan administration. Reagan, who thought little of King, ultimately used the creation of a national holiday honoring King as a way to co-opt his legacy, enabling Reagan ironically to oppose key civil rights laws in the name of aligning himself with King’s supposedly colorblind dream. In so doing, Reagan became one of the most successful proselytes of what sociologist Eduardo Bonilla-Silva terms “colorblind racism,” and Reagan’s frequent citation of King marked the beatification of King not as a champion of racial justice but of colorblind ideology."

I think the phrase colorblind racism is a powerful one, and it seems to me to be part of the raison d'être of  modern conservatism.

There is simply no way on God's green earth Dr. King would have supported the way conservatives co-opt his memory to undo his legacy.  It is disgusting to even entertain that thought.  What King wanted was not a colorblind society, he wanted  a society where your color did not consign you to injustice.  In no way would he have supported the dismantling of things like Affirmative Action.  He wanted us to see color.  We cannot hold people accountable for racial injustice if we are blind to color.  Conservatives know that, and they know they already have the upper hand.  A colorblind society keeps them in the driver's seat. Appeals to a colorblind society are a moral and political sleight-of-hand.

We do not need a colorblind society.  That makes some persons invisible.  We need to see and celebrate color, and celebrate it equally.  Colorblindness does not require anything of the white person, but it requires the person of color to not be who they are.  Perish the thought of a colorblind society.

Two Different Kinds of Suffering

I am no fan of attorney Jenna Ellis.  I have written to her before and told her that her claim to be a Christian is completely undermined by her work for and support of Donald Trump.  I do not think a follower of Jesus Christ can support Trump at all.  I wrote about that here.   Ms. Ellis posted her mugshot from her arrest in Georgia yesterday with these comments.

Personally, I do not consider Christianity and conservatism compatible.  As far as I can tell, Christianity and conservatism, if they were depicted on a Venn diagram, are two circles which do not even touch, let alone overlap. Conservatism has repudiated everything Jesus taught, especially in the Sermon on the Mount.  I think Ms. Ellis is a pseudo-Christian at best.

But let's say I am totally wrong about her.  The fact remains she did not get arrested for doing anything a Christian should do.  She talks about a weaponized government and yet she got arrested for trying to weaponize government.

1 Peter chapter 4 (I almost always quote from NRSV) describes two ways people can get into suffering.

12 Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that is taking place among you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. 13 But rejoice insofar as you are sharing Christ’s sufferings, so that you may also be glad and shout for joy when his glory is revealed. 14 If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the spirit of glory, which is the Spirit of God, is resting on you. 15 But let none of you suffer as a murderer, a thief, a criminal, or even as a mischief maker. 16 Yet if any of you suffers as a Christian, do not consider it a disgrace, but glorify God because you bear this name. 

So we read there are two kinds of suffering here.  (1) Suffering for being a follower of Jesus Christ.  (2) Suffering because you did something criminal.  Jenna Ellis is suffering for reason (2), not reason (1).  There can be no doubt about it.  A follower of Jesus would not go before a legislative body and knowingly make false statements.

Jenna Ellis DID NOT GET INDICTED BECAUSE SHE IS A CHRISTIAN.  I admit I have a difficult time considering those who share her political views to be Christian.  But let's say I am wrong. Let's say she is a Christian. THE FACT REMAINS that she got indicted for racketeering, the racket being to steal the votes of the voters in Georgia.  So she got indicted as a thief!!  Again, Jenna Ellis DID NOT GET INDICTED BECAUSE SHE IS A CHRISTIAN.

I think it is incumbent on everyone who is concerned that Christians live out the values Jesus taught TO CALL THIS OUT.

A Holy Conjunction and the Call to Live with Tensions

Today I am remembering my mentor, Elton Trueblood, and how he emphasized the holy conjunction "AND." "I will pray in the Spirit AND with my mind." "Love the Lord your God with your heart, soul, AND mind." After the resurrection, the disciples remembered the Scriptures AND the words Jesus had spoken to them.

Jesus is fully divine AND fully human.

Elton talked about the clear head AND the warm heart. He said the Christian life is a life of devotion AND a life of service.

The Gospel is both forgiveness for our sins AND a call to social justice.

One of the times this holy conjunction comes into play is when we think about how the Scriptures point us toward the kingdom of God in the eschaton and yet we live in that kingdom now. Already...AND not yet.

And I lament that American Christianity has seemed to lose sight of this holy conjunction and how the Gospel calls us to live exactly with such tensions.

I can think of several examples. I have a fellow ethicist, also Catholic, who told me one time, prior to the overturn of Roe v. Wade, that if a hypothetical young girl was raped and impregnated by a family member, she would incarcerate the girl until she had the baby to make sure she gave birth.

I am not making this one up! This lady is a Ph.D. medical ethicist in Texas. I put this hypothetical question to her, and then last year the exact scenario happened in the state of Indiana, where I live. The only difference was the young girl was 10 instead of 14. She came to Indiana to have an abortion because she could not get one in Ohio. Conservatives in both states expressed their outrage and wanted the doctor jailed. Some politician in Ohio said she was not even raped and then the guy who did it was convicted of this rape!

Living with tensions is not easy. But I believe it is important. I believe in both personal responsibility and social responsibility. I have tried to practice both, in both my professional and personal lives. It is not easy at all. But it is necessary because life is full of contingency, relativity, and nuance.

I am not an ethical relativist. I do believe in absolutes, but I do not think it is healthy to see everything as absolute. It is also not healthy to see everything as relative. I do not believe it is ever morally right to take a human life. I also think anyone who tells you they know when life begins is overestimating their own knowledge. I explained why here.

People face terrible complexities, contingencies and uncertainties. So grace is vital, and locking up a young pregnant lady for being pregnant against her will, forcing her to give birth against her will, is like raping her a second time. It is reprehensible to me that a professional ethicist would even think about that.

I have told this story a few times. But in the past few days I have thought about it in terms of the idea of "the holy conjunction." In light of that I want to make a proposal.

I think it is possible to be pro-life AND pro-choice. I think it is not one bit incoherent to find abortion to be hideous and awful, AND still believe it should be legal, and that no one but the woman should make the decision about when a pregnancy should be terminated. It seems to me to be decidedly anti-life to take her agency away from her, even if we oppose abortion, precisely because we do not know when life begins, and we do not know how the pregnancy is or will be affecting her physically or emotionally.

I believe it is possible to believe in free enterprise AND believe in limits on how much wealth and income one can have. I think it is possible to believe in personal responsibility AND believe there is a basic minimum income level below which we will let no one fall. I believe it is possible to believe there are people who should not have guns AND believe there are guns no private citizen should have.

I believe it is possible to believe in freedom of conscience AND believe their are times when someone's individual convictions are outweighed by the common good.

We do not have to sacrifice our convictions on either side of the AND, as long as we approach one another with grace. I think my own Catholic faith does this well sometimes and fails at other times. Canon law can turn Catholics into Pharisees.

But as I said, this is not easy. Living out the holy conjunction AND is fraught with difficulties. It reminds me of what GK Chesterton said about Christianity itself. He said, "Christianity has not been tried and found wanting, it has been found difficult and not tried!"

We are called to live in this tension but so often we resist it.

"Irresistible Grace" is Incompatible with Divine Love

Irresistible grace is incompatible with divine love. The bottom line is "irresistible" and "grace" do not belong together. It is as oxymoronic as:

Voluntary force

Hateful love

Cruel kindness

Grace is gift. Irresistible is force. God, if God is love, is not going to force anyone into belief. God did not create us with moral agency just to turn around and strip us of it. Jesus fed Judas when he knew Judas had sold him out. Jesus let the rich young man walk away.

The angel Gabriel did not say, "Hey there, Mary, guess what? You are now pregnant!" Gabriel said Jesus would be conceived by the Holy Spirit IN FUTURE TENSE, not in past tense like we do in the creed, because it had not yet happened at the annunciation. We do not know exactly when it did happen, but it seems to me to make sense that if Gabriel was sent by God, and the tradition was that Gabriel was one of the angels who stands perpetually in God's presence, that Gabe had some idea of what was going down. He at least knew enough in the account of the Annunciation (Luke 1:26-38) to use past tense in verses 26-30, (for example in verse 30, "You HAVE found favor with God") and future tense in verses 31-37 ("You WILL conceive...You WILL name him Jesus...The Holy Spirit WILL come upon you..." I think it is reasonable to assume the conception did not occur until after his announcement, and her acceptance of this assignment. Mary consented, she was not forced.

Our "YES" means nothing if we are not able to say "NO." Grace, which comes from love, is not irresistible, it is not forced.

While I am at it, let me add that I think if Jesus' own birth announcement took place in this way, God is not pleased with forced birth. Mary was a teenage girl at this point. If God did not force her to give birth, God is not honored when "Christians" in this country force women to give birth.

"Not here, not now. No."

 I am going to make a confession here. I am not always in the most charitable of moods. I saw a couple of interviews today with the common theme of relating respectfully with one another in spite of our differences. I have always tried to do that, but I did get, at one point, to the place where I could not do that with anybody in the group where I had my religious trauma, not because I held everybody in the group guilty or responsible. No, it was because it was just so damned painful and at times I withdrew from people just so I would not pour my own pain on them. Sometimes I still do this. I have "unfriended" people I like before because I distrust my ability to refrain from obnoxiousness.

At this point in my life, relating with people on the other end of the political spectrum does not feel safe for me. There is a scene in the movie WE ARE MARSHALL, which took place basically in my backyard, which describes how I feel.

There is a place in the movie where this dialogue takes place:

Later, in a scene between Jack and assistant coach, Red Dawson (Matthew Fox), the former team’s only remaining coach who had switched out with someone else just prior to the crash. Jack tries to change Red’s mind about quitting the team.

Just before the plane crash, Red had earlier recalled Coach Tolley’s final words to his team that had just lost on the field. He said, “Winning is everything.” In a scene that took place in a church, where Jack found Red, Jack says, “He was right, you know.” Red asks, “Who was right?” Jack says …

Your boy Tolley. Winning is everything and nothing else matters. I mean, I’ve said that so many times myself I’ve lost count. You know? And it doesn’t matter what sport, and it doesn’t matter what country, any coach who is worth a darn in this business believes those words. Fact. And then I came here. For the first time in my life, hell, maybe for the first time in the history of sports, suddenly, it’s just not true anymore. At least not here, not now. No. You see, Red, it doesn’t matter if we win or if we lose. It’s not even about how we play the game. What matters is that we play the game. That we take the field, that we suit up on Saturdays, and we keep this program alive. We play the game, Red, and I’m telling you, one day, not today, not tomorrow, not this season, probably not next season either, but one day, you and I are gonna wake up and suddenly we’re gonna be like every other team in every other sport where winning is everything and nothing else matters. And when that days comes, well, that’s when we’ll honor them.

https://www.williswired.com/2007/11/03/marshall/

That is how I feel now. People who knew me as a Quaker pastor often told me they respected me because I was always willing to sit and talk with people on all sides of any issues. I was called upon at times to try to broker peace and reconciliation between Quaker folks on different sides of issues.

But as I think about the possibility of a second Trump presidency, I am finding I have no interest in such brokering. To me it is like being a divorced person having to negotiate how much unsupervised visitation time the other parent gets with your child who they abused. It feels like saying to the Nazis, "Six million is too much but we can split the difference and let you kill three million."

I know some people will find that offensive. But I do believe we are in that kind of territory and everyone is endangered if this crowd gets anything they want. It breaks my heart to say that. IT BREAKS MY HEART FAR, FAR MORE that my friends and colleagues are not saying it enough. (My dear brother Rev. Rob Schenck is.) I do not think most professional religious types realize the danger we are in. OR they fear the people in the pews more than they desire to avoid displeasing God.

Find common ground? "Not here, not now. No."

For years this country has said we do not negotiate with terrorists. But calls for centrism, as I see it, commit us to negotiating with terrorists. I hope I am wrong.

As much as I oppose most tax cuts, you can compromise there. If one side wants the top rate at 40%, and the other wants 30%, you can meet in the middle at 35%. There are areas where compromise is a sign of maturity. But there are areas where not compromising is a sign of morality.

You cannot find common ground with racism.

You cannot find common ground with misogyny.

You cannot find common ground with ableism.

You cannot find common ground with people who are anti-LGBT+.

You cannot find common ground with those who do not want religiously pluralistic society.

I think there are two things we must do, no matter what:

BE NON-VIOLENT because that is what Christ-followers do.

BE NON-COMPROMISING OR NON-NEGOTIATING because the well-being of everyone depends on refusing to compromise with those who dehumanize or denigrate others.

And this is painful!

Told Through the Eyes of the Winners

In 1998, I left the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, and the Church of the Nazarene where I had been a staff member, to assume the pastorate of Motor and Ackworth Friends Churches near Indianola, Iowa. We stayed there 4.5 years.  These two Quaker meetings loved and encouraged us as I learned how to be a pastor.  Motor was the church where my mentor D. Elton Trueblood spent his childhood years, and we went there because of his recommendation.

Southern Seminary very graciously permitted me to take the remaining three courses I needed (for a MA degree--but I had enough hours for an M. Div., the problem was Southern had a stingy registrar who only took 8 of my 27 hours from Earlham School of Religion) at the University of Iowa.  Iowa was, as far as  I knew, the only state university with a School of Religion.  I transferred the credits back to Southern Seminary and graduated there in 1991,  even though I was recorded, Quaker speak for ordination, in 1990.

I took a church history course at Iowa.  My professor was a Catholic. Of course, I had no clue I would someday be Catholic myself.  The course was one of those where you could take it for undergraduate or graduate credit, and if you took it for graduate credit you had to  do extra work, but the lectures were the same.   I was the only graduate student in the class.

The extra assignments involved reading and writing response papers to a couple of books. One of them was Walter Bauer's Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity.     

Bauer's thesis was that history is told through the eyes of the winners.  If the views which the early church declared heresies had prevailed, we would now call them orthodoxy and the views we now consider orthodox would be heresy.  I imagine that is basically right but I also wrote in my paper that I do think the Holy Spirit guided the church to get it right.

But for 30+ years, his basic thesis has rolled around in my head and I have come to believe he is correct and that ought to give American Christians pause about a couple of things.

FIRST, I think this thesis should give us pause about how we read Scripture.  I figured out in seminary that the Bible was not 100% scientifically or historically accurate. As I have written, it cannot be because the first two chapters of Genesis actually contradict one another.  But as an old man now I also think the Bible contains some moral points of error.  And the reason for that is that history is told through the eyes of the winners.

I do not believe God wanted anyone killed, ever.  I do not believe God wanted blood sacrifice--not even Jesus' blood.  The Psalmist tells us 

For you have no delight in sacrifice;
    if I were to give a burnt offering, you would not be pleased.
17 The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit;
    a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. (Psalm 51:16-17 NRSV)

God is not a wrathful being demanding blood, but the father standing at the end of the road, waiting for the prodigal to come home.  The father in the story embraces and welcomes and forgives the prodigal before they slaughter the fattened  calf.

I do not think God wanted women to be under the authority of men, ever.  And I do not think God EVER FAVORED ONE NATION MORE THAN ANOTHER.  God promised to make a great nation of Ishmael as well as Israel.  Our scriptures tell the story through the eyes of only one side of the family.  There is simply no way they can present the total truth.  One of the best books I ever read was the womanist theology of Delores Williams and her book, Sisters in the Wilderness which speaks theologically to black women and their plight, using the story of Hagar, the mother of Ishmael, and God's providential care for Hagar and Ishmael as a case study in how the majority view is not necessarily the whole truth.

Because the Hebrew and Christian scriptures come from only one side of the family, I think we should not necessary conclude that the holy books of our Islamic relatives are based on falsities.  I have had students get irate with me when I told them, "Yes, Islamic people DO worship the same God Christians and Jews do."  We might not like it, but it is a fact.  Realizing that we only have our familial version of the story, even if we never seek out the other side of the story, ought to give us pause when we think we have the whole truth.

SECOND, I think this awareness that history is told only through the eyes of the winners should compel us to cry out against what Gov. Ron Desantis and those working with him in Florida are doing to how history is taught.  I think every Christian thinker should denounce the so-called PragerU. PragerU is a website owned by a guy named Dennis Prager, who produces five-minute videos which tell American history in such a way that it is extremely skewed to the right.  The idea that slavery had beneficial aspects is part of the worldview which Prager articulates.

I think before anyone even entertains the idea that slaves benefitted from slavery, or that the story of Rosa Parks and the bus boycotts can be told without reference to race, we should ask them, through their writings and through their descendants.  History which is told in a way which is beneficial to majorities, whether ethnic, religious, gender or otherwise, cannot be accepted as accurate.  It would be like saying the Holocaust was good for the Jews, homosexuals and others.  It is despicable to even entertain such ideas.

Because history is told through the eyes of the winners,   Americans, Christians,  and American Christians specifically, should be profoundly skeptical of the truth of their world view.  I have a saying at the top of my Facebook page which I think could be placed here.

TRUTH IS FOUND IN THE  VOICES OF THE MARGINALIZED.

"IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I AM COMING AFTER YOU!"

 "IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I AM COMING AFTER YOU!"

These are the words of the 45th President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, this week on his social media site which he calls Truth Social. I find it humorous that a man who told 32,000 documented lies in four years' time calls his website Truth Social. Mr. Trump's words this week should haunt anyone of good conscience. I have maintained for seven years now that someone cannot support him and make any credible claim to be a follower of Jesus Christ at the same time. I renew my objection and will explain why later in this piece. But at this point I want to say I do not think anyone can be morally justified in supporting him. January 6, 2021 should have made it clear to the world, but this post makes it doubly clear.

Mr. Trump and those who are working for him are already working on plans to dismantle civil service in government as we know it and make all workers in the executive branch make a promise of loyalty to him personally and to his goals. That means the person at your local Social Security Office, or the Department of Agriculture, or any other agency of the Federal government will have to in essence pledge allegiance to the president in order to keep their jobs. In the past, only top leadership at these agencies has been political, and the lower level employees have been civil servants, who did their job with no reference to their own political preferences. They have had the protection of unionization and collective bargaining, which Trump intends to remove, making them at-will employees instead of civil servants. The plans for this are already being laid and can be Googled at:

PROJECT 2025

What this means is that Mr. Trump will transform every person in the executive branch from a professional who serves the public to a pawn who serves the President. This is disturbing enough.

Mr. Trump has repeatedly said that his indictments are politically motivated (they are not) and that he is innocent (he is not) and that President Biden is pursuing political prosecutions like happens in a Banana Republic. It is not true. Mr. Biden has not played any part in any of these indictments and has not even commented on them. I think past history would give credence to the idea that Mr. Trump follows the old line of Hermann Göring, namely to accuse the other guy of what you are doing. I believe a big part of PROJECT 2025 will be politically based prosecutions and the settling of personal scores. In Mr. Trump's case, however, he has not (as of yet) committed any crimes against Mr. Biden. Mr. Trump's crimes are crimes against the American People. PROJECT 2025 will bring more such crimes, I believe, if they are given a chance.

I said above I think it is impossible to follow Jesus Christ and support Donald Trump at the same time. I do think that. I believe Mr. Trump has an antichrist spirit. His fruit is the exact opposite of that of a follower of Jesus. I will get to that, but first, I want to suggest that not even a person who makes no profession of faith at all should support Mr. Trump. The reason is simple. Anyone who says

 "IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I AM COMING AFTER YOU!"

has completely disqualified herself or himself from being the leader of a civil society. We know both from the January 6 committee, and from the most recent indictment of Mr. Trump, he already has shown a willingness and a desire to use the US Department of Justice--which belongs to US--as his personal law firm, to be his personal fixers, to pull the levers of the justice system solely for his own ends. Again, like Göring, when he has called it the Injustice Department, Mr. Trump is giving us a tell as to what he will make it. By saying,  "IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I AM COMING AFTER YOU!", he is promising a second Trump administration will be one based on political vindictiveness. He promised "retribution." I am saying here and now no moral person can support that.

But his words,  "IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I AM COMING AFTER YOU!" also reinforce what I have said about how no Christ-follower can support Mr. Trump.

I have used this analogy to explain why no Jesus-follower can support Mr. Trump. We have family in the Kansas City area. To go visit them, from Columbus, Indiana, we drive about 45 minutes north to Indianapolis and take Interstate 70 to Kansas City. St. Louis is about half way. The closer we get to Kansas City, the farther we are from Indianapolis. The closer we are to Indianapolis, the farther we are from Kansas City. Jesus and Mr. Trump are like that. It is inevitable that, the closer one is to one, the farther one is from the other. The values of Jesus and the values of Trump are so totally contradictory to one another that one cannot be pursuing both at the same time. The closer one is to Trump, the farther one is from Jesus, and the closer one is to Jesus, the farther one is from Trump. I think this is true of more than their personal behavior and morals. I think this was true, even in the last administration. I cannot think of a single Trump policy which can be reconciled with the teaching and example of Jesus. It is simply not logically possible.

But nowhere is that more clear than when one contrasts the non-violent message of Jesus with  "IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I AM COMING AFTER YOU!"

I was pleased to be asked to write this for the blog of the Cobb Institute.

I was pleased to be asked to write this for the blog of the Cobb Institute.

https://cobb.institute/blog/process-in-praxis/a-work-in-process-seeing-possibilities-instead-of-roadblocks/?p=20720&fbclid=IwAR0nWQl8oC-ZKZ-2hvU-zQPPxJkRnPfUWGwC8sKsf9_3MbCQ2C37UwdzBWQ