Mr. Trump is Beating the Fear Drum

photo by Roberto Taddeo / flickr

"No one seems to have an unkind word to say about fear these days, unchristian as it surely is..."--Marilynne Robinson

Jim Wallis makes me mad sometimes because he says it so much better than I can. But we are on the same wave length. He has a great article in Sojourner's Magazine which I wish all Americans could read. Especially Christian Americans. As the mid-term election grows closer and closer the President it seems is getting more and more frantic.

The lies continually pile up. His theme everywhere these days is fear. Fear of Caravans carrying scary, scary people. Mid-Easteners hidden among those thousands making their way toward America. Fear of "Fake News." Fear of everyone that does not agree with him--hence the name-calling which is seemingly endless. He wants us to be afraid not only of Mexicans and Muslims. But some of the foundational institutions of our government: Judges, FBI, CIA, Foreign competition. This list too seems endless. He wants us to think somebody is going to "stamp out Christmas." Huh? That Christians are being terribly persecuted in this country. His conspiracy theories abound. The Democrats are behind the Caravan. George Soros is footing the bill. And then the list of names: some which have received bombs in their mail-boxes and homes.

Where will this end I do not know. But I do know this: Any preacher who builds his messages on fear cripples any church. It works, of course. Hell, Judgment, The Second Coming and you better be ready. You have to pay for your sins. Punishment for your sins. Are you ready for Heaven? If you don't tithe God will get his anyway. Most of my childhood was a spent scared that Jesus would come back and catch me: In the Pastime Theatre on Sunday, smoking a cigarette--well, other things--you can fill in your own blanks.

Jesus spent a lot of time telling folk "do not be afraid." The message of the angels to the Shepherds was: "Do not be afraid." "Fear not..." is the tom-tom beat that runs throughout the Bible.

Yet we know how powerful fear is. Mr. Trump it appears is celebrating Halloween these days every day. These are ghosts everywhere. Especially Democrats. Especially all those folk that did not vote for him--the enemy of the people he calls so many.

His fear-tactics have been pretty successful for the time being. But fear does not unite a people. Fear does not bring health to all--not just to his base. His base is important but they are only part of the country and more voted against him than for him in the last election. He can't get over that.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer once preached a sermon on the dangers of fear. "It crouches in people's hearts...it hollows out their insides...and secretly gnaws and eats away at all the ties that bind a person to God and to others."

Paul wrote to his young friend Timothy: "God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power and of love, and of a sound mind." (II Timothy1.7) But on my  better days I remember the great vision of the prophet Micah: "...They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more; for they shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees, and no one shall make them afraid..."(Micah 4. 3b-4a)

Let it be, dear Lord, let it be!

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blgogspot.com