9/13/2025

 Saturday, September 13, 2025

D+312/237/-1225

1224 Francis of Assisi was afflicted with stigmata after a vision while praying at La Verna

1993 Public unveiling of the Oslo Accords, an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement signed by Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Shimon Peres and PLO official Mahmoud Abbas

2001 US Civilian aircraft traffic resumes after the September 11 terrorist attacks; I caught a n almost empty redeye from Tampa back to Milwaukee with some flight crews moving to rendezvous with their aircraft

2015  Germany introduced temporary border controls to cope with huge migrant numbers

In bed at 9:30, up at 4:24,  64°, high of 73°, rain early, then partly cloudy, cloudy.  

Meds, etc.  Morning meds at 6:15 a.m.

I like this ancient graphic of the parable of the Good Samaritan.

My 6 a.m. thoughts center on radically competing understandings of Christianity or of Judeo-Christian values coinciding with radically competing political orientations, the thought that one kind of Christian and Jew votes Democratic and another votes Republican.  I stick with the Christians because it's the only religious tradition that I am deeply familiar with.  For some Christians, the heart of their personal religion is Matthew 25: 31-46 - What you did for the least of these, you did for me and the parable of the Good Samaritan at Luke 10:25-37.  For evangelical Christians, the most important biblical themes are salvation by grace through Faith alone, sin and the human need for redemption, and the divide between the 'saved' and the everyone else.  Faith, belief, being born again, a personal relationship with Jesus, all predominate over "good works" such as those described in Matthew 25: 31-46 and Luke 10:25-37.  I think it's accurate to say that evangelicals focus more on the inherent sinfulness of mankind, described by John Calvin in his Institutes of the Christian Religion:

“We are so vitiated and perverted in every part of our nature that by this great corruption we stand justly condemned and convicted before God.” 

“There is nothing in us that is not defiled.” 

“Our nature is not only utterly devoid of goodness, but so prolific in all kinds of evil that it can never be idle.” 

“The human heart is so steeped in sin, that it can breathe out nothing but corruption and rottenness.” 

“The will is so entirely vitiated and corrupted in every part, that it can produce nothing but evil.” 

These statements emphasize Calvin's belief in our species' utter depravity since the Original Sin in Eden.  On the other hand, he believed, with St. Paul, that governments were divinely instituted to preserve order, punish evil, promote justice, and also to organize, regulate, and enforce care for the poor.  Importantly, Calvin distinguished between those who were poor through no fault of their own (e.g., widows, orphans, the disabled, the unemployed through economic conditions) and those who were idle, disorderly, or willfully dependent.  In America, because of our long history of White Supremacy, the notion of the "unworthy" poor easily converted to "shiftless" Blacks, Mexicans, Asians, and Indians.  Among many evangelical Christians influenced by Calvinism, government programs designed to address and remedy our long history of invidious discrimination against racial minorities were disfavored as encouraging "shiftlessness" and dependency.  This was especially true of the Southern Baptists, who split from northern Baptists in 1845 over the issue of slavery.  It's Southern Baptists, and their religious kin, that I most identify with the term "Evangelical Christians," who favor personal responsibility, limited government, “states’ rights” and local control—language that cloaked resistance to racial equality.

Welfare and anti-poverty programs from Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society (e.g., Medicaid, food stamps, housing aid) were resisted in this culture because they were seen as disproportionately helping Black communities and expanding federal power.  By the late 1970s, the SBC was central to the rise of the Religious Right.  The turning point came when the IRS moved against the tax-exempt status of segregated “Christian academies” (private schools founded to avoid integration). Many Southern Baptists rallied to oppose this.  Leaders like Jerry Falwell (a Baptist pastor) and others framed the issue as government intrusion into religious freedom, but the context was often resistance to integration and programs benefiting Black Americans.  Over time, the SBC has become aligned strongly with the Republican Party and now with Donald Trump, emphasizing opposition to welfare programs, affirmative action, and race-based government interventions.  What we don't see emphasized among these Christians is Matthew 25: 31-46 and Luke 10: 25-37,   It is solely through Faith, Faith alone and not good works, that salvation comes.  The charitable, compassionate deeds described by Jesus in Matthew and Luke are not required to get into Heaven, and in any event, are deeds to be performed by individuals and perhaps by churches, not by governments.  The evangelicals oppose the governmental social programs supported by most mainline Protestants and by the Catholic Church.  Increasingly, however, Catholics are voting with the evangelicals, and right-wing Catholics hold important and powerful positions in the national government.

    Although I started writing these thoughts at  6 this morning, and added to them at different times during this day, which accounts at least in some part for its incoherence.😞

My Waking thoughts were about big changes: the basement flooding, worsening situation with my right hand and fingers,Dr. Chatt retiring, first time without a PCP since 1993 or 1994. risks of falling, Sarah in town after another of her many transoceanic flights.  As I write this note around 5 a.m., I'm surprised I didn't wake up thinking about the assassination of Charlie Kirk, the capture of his assassin, and the hell to come, but I did as soon as I made some coffee, sat down, and opened my laptop.  Big trouble ahead from our right wing, whacko, and already vengeful before the Kirk murder, government.  On Fox and Friends yesterday morning, Trump was asked by Ainsley Earhart, "How do we fix this country?  How do we come back together?"  He answered: 

"Well, I'll tell you something that's gonna get me into trouble. but I couldn't care less.  The radicals on the right oftentimes are radical because they don't want to see crime.  They don't want to see crime.  They're worried about the border.  They're saying, 'We don't want you people coming in.  We don't want you burning our shopping centers.  We don't want you shooting our people in the middle of the street.  The radicals on the left are the problem, and they're vicious and they're horrible and they're politically savvy.  Although they want men in women's sports.  They want transgender for everyone.  They want open borders."

Translated: The radicals on the right are justified.  They are for law and order.  The radicals on the left are vicious opponents of law and order who favor illegal border crossings, burning and looting, transgender rights, etc.  Barry Goldwater, in his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention on July 16, 1964: “Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue.”  That's where we are headed with this president.

Sarah and I started the day dropping off electronic recyclables at the Fox Point villange hall, and then flood-damaged stuff at the Bayside dump, followed by breakfast at First Watch in Mequon.  After that we visited until she left to return to her Mom's for a nap, which Geri and I also did.  Geri got home from her line dancing class and told a very funny story about discovering that her call was not country and Western line dancing, which she was expecting, but "urban line dancing," i.e., African-American line dancing.  The instructor was a young Black woman, and her classmates were two young Black women, another elderly White lady, and a young married White couple.  She thinks she'll try one more session but the class is definately not what she was bargaining for.