Trump’s Extraordinary Poland Speech (edited for you)

"...let us all fight...for family, for freedom, for country, and for God."

Do you think this is “racist” and “white nationalist”? Do you think it’s Biblical to be this proud of Western history and values? Speaking in Warsaw last week, Trump vilified Soviet Russia and celebrated the sacrifices of the Polish people’s fight for freedom. He also celebrated the culture and achievements of Western Civilization, especially the way we value freedom, God and family. For all that he has been widely criticized.  I’ve edited this very important speech for quicker reading and encourage you to read it for yourself…What do you think?

“…This is a nation more than one thousand years old.  Your borders were erased for more than a century and only restored just one century ago.

In 1920, in the Miracle of Vistula, Poland stopped the Soviet army bent on European conquest.  Then, 19 years later in 1939, you were invaded yet again, this time by Nazi Germany from the west and the Soviet Union from the east.

Under a double occupation the Polish people endured evils beyond description: the Katyn forest massacre, the occupations, the Holocaust, the Warsaw Ghetto and the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, the destruction of this beautiful capital city, and the deaths of nearly one in five Polish people.  A vibrant Jewish population — the largest in Europe — was reduced to almost nothing after the Nazis systematically murdered millions of Poland’s Jewish citizens, along with countless others, during that brutal occupation.

In the summer of 1944, the Nazi and Soviet armies were preparing for a terrible and bloody battle right here in Warsaw….

Do you support Trump’s travel ban on refugees?

FAQ’s to help clarify where Christians disagree

Recently I was asked to sign a Lutheran Ministry’s petition protesting President Trump’s executive order on refugees. Frankly I felt very conflicted, unsure of how to respond.

Rarely has a national conversation about social justice been so loaded with appeals to the Bible and a Christian worldview. And yet rarely have Christian leaders been so divided in their response. Even Christian ministries to refugees and foreigners. Franklin Graham, head of Samaritan’s Purse, is defending the order and our need for national security, World Vision and World Relief are protesting it.

So I’ve been digging into the issue, both biblically and with Christian thought leaders, and here are answers I’ve found to my own questions that might be helpful to you:

Hitting Back. Lying. How this election makes Jesus look good.

Donald Trump lives by the advice he dispensed in his best-selling business book The Art of the Deal: “Fight Back–always hit back against critics and adversaries, even if it looks bad.”                           It’s looking bad.

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A gold-star Muslim father, Khizr Kahn, whose son was killed in Iraq, challenged Mr. Trump from the podium of the Democratic Convention. “Have you even read the Constitution?…You have sacrificed nothing and no one.”

True to his own advice, Trump hit back and keeps hitting back. He even attacked Kahn’s wife. (No surprise to Heidi Cruz.)

The Star Trek movie Into Darkness ends with a moving eulogy from a young Captain Kirk, “There will always be those who mean to do us harm…Our first instinct is to seek revenge…. But that’s not who we are.”  Who would have thought that a Star Trek movie would express a nobility that seems beyond the reach of Election 2016?

A Lament in the Wake of the Republican Convention

Four Things I’m Sad About

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While many were cheering and excited as the Republican convention drew to a close, my heart was heavy. An election is a real-time window on our values in today’s culture.

The communal psalms of lament “express deep sorrow for the travails of a nation.” So, like the psalmist, I open my heart to God and others in response to our pageant of values in play–both what I see being lost and what I see coming.

How Donald Trump (and all of us) Can Write a Better Story. With his campaign. With his life.

love-superhero-on-urban-city-background_fyAzLiOu_LImagine going to a Captain America movie where Steve Rogers is being sued. Regardless of the merits, which are never clear, he has reason to suspect the judge is biased and is treating his case unfairly. So the Avengers spend the entire movie plotting his demise.

They use their special powers to investigate the judge. Finally, they use their celebrity to stage a huge reveal: the judge’s grandfather was German and a member of Hydra. The judge is a member of a local German legal community. On that community’s website they found a link to a group sympathetic to Hydra.

Even though the judge has put away many German drug cartel leaders, even though there is absolutely no evidence in his record that he has ever favored Germans in his courtroom, Rogers insists, “He’s a German. And he’s Hydra. We still fight Hydra. We still fight some Germans. It’s an inherent conflict of interest.”

The end.

We don’t find out how the judge rules on the court case. It doesn’t matter. The outcome would be so politicized that the verdict would be irrelevant. Captain America wins again.

What would you think of the movie? What’s wrong with it and why does it matter?

After Indiana…Trump or Hillary? Four practical ways to respond with faith and strength

Trump vs Clinton

If you listened closely on Tuesday night, you could hear the collective exhale, the sssighing deflation of many who had hoped for Donald Trump’s mojo to grind to a Midwestern red-state halt. Instead, the concern faded to resignation and the quieting of the contested convention tambourines.

Those of us who supported sixteen other candidates are faced with a rock-and-a-hard-place decision. How do we respond? Here are four practical suggestions:

United: Getting Over Our Differences

eg_shopicon_36Everyone interested in the Republican presidential primary hopes that at some point we can pull together. But at this point, it’s getting harder and harder to see how that will happen.

The challenge to resolve deep differences tears up families, churches and workplaces as well as political parties. The differences can feel as visceral as a punch in the gut.

For example, when Ben Carson, whom I respect so much, endorsed Donald Trump for president, I joined millions of evangelicals in a collective gasp.

eg_shopicon_36I called a friend of mine who has worked in support of his candidacy. “What has Dr. Carson done?” I moaned. “What?” she replied, “I haven’t heard.” “He’s endorsed Trump.” I informed her, “I feel like the world is tilting on its axis. How can this be?” She moaned with me.

When it comes to faith and politics, we wrap our opinions in heavy blankets of emotion. Beginning with our very first perception of any person, especially a political candidate, we’re not just taking in a scene.

Seeing and evaluating are not two separate processes. They are linked and basically simultaneous. We see something and immediately evaluate it and enfold it into an emotional response.