Persnickety

photo by Daniel Horacio Agostini Amanda Taub, in a recent Vox article ( The rise of American authoritarianism ) details an interesting theory regarding the popularity of Trump. It dovetails very nicely with something I've often said (to myself, as one never quite knows to whom one is speaking nowadays), that is to say that it is not Trump we all should be so concerned about, but rather it is the people who are supporting Trump who should demand our attention. [An aside: I do love Vox, but why, Oh why must nearly every paragraph be two sentences or less? Is this the norm now in digitized articles? Can we not handle large paragraphs with a development of  a thesis? Perhaps I am merely too Faulknerian...or persnickety.] I've read an article or two, or three, from the odd reporter who dared to visit a Trump rally. The reports are a bit on the scary side. How can people act this way? What way? Well, picture a convention in 1968 and you'll get a fairly nice portrait. It ...

Although evangelical protestants like to invoke as their model the early church of the New Testament, one that consisted of small fervent congregations holding worship ceremonies in homes or wherever, it increasingly seems to be jettisoning foundational theology for simple political ideology. To wit: A political position on the topic of poverty would, to a Christian concerned chiefly with Christ's Word, attempt to square the individual's responsibility and response to the poor with the conservative position that the poor are poor due to their own lax moral compass and laziness, that is, due to the individual's faulty preparation to modern life. This hypothetical Christian would have to ask himself what would Jesus do and say on the topic? There is ample proofs for this unfortunate researcher: the New Testament shows Jesus constantly concerned with the poor. The entire Bible contains over 300 references to helping the poor and needy. Indeed this may well be the central pur...