Image by Laura Seaman.

In Miracles and Wonder – the Historical Mystery of Jesus, Princeton historian and professor of religion, Elaine Pagels, explains how and why Christianity appealed to so many people. After 2,000 years, it still captivates some 28 percent of the world population–more than any other faith or declared secularists. Unlike religious leaders before him, Jesus’s message brought hope to the masses, hope that, through love and mercy, they too could find happiness, if not in this world, then certainly in an afterlife.

Yet his message was nuanced, and there was, and still is, much disagreement among his followers over the true meaning of his words. Today, there are thousands of Christian sects. Most agree that the focus of his philosophy was mercy, peace, and love.

It is ironic that Christian fundamentalists have so corrupted this essential teaching that they no longer want his promise fulfilled. Ironically, that task has fallen to the liberal Democrats, for it is they who support government programs that promote mercy, peace, and love; the programs that feed the hungry, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless and care for the sick. The inexplicable reality is that the MAGA Republicans and Christian Nationalists, who support and wrote the Project 2025, actively work to destroy those programs.

After Democrats voted against his “Big Beautiful Bill,” Trump fumed saying, “I hate them. I cannot stand them, because I really believe they hate our country.” Democrats do not hate our country, but they do hate what he and the Christian Nationalists want our country to become – a country that pampers the rich and punishes the poor. Democrats do, however, love the America they knew before Trump. And while they may not praise Jesus, they embrace his message. In the upcoming mid-term elections, Christians need to think WWJD. Which party would Jesus choose?

As the Christian nationalists have corrupted Christ’s teaching, so Trump has corrupted America’s dedication to its founding principles – equality, freedom, and democracy. Trump and his minions wave the American Flag and quote the Constitution but understand neither one; both are liberal.

Liberalism

“Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, the right to private property, and equality before the law.” America was founded as the world’s first liberal democracy. Liberalism is the essence of the United States’ political and moral philosophy…at least it was until Trump.

He and the Christian Nationalist detest liberals and liberalism. Their goal is to deny rights of the LGBT community, to deny them the freedom to live life as they choose. These fundamentalists also want to deny the right of women to control their own bodies especially their freedom to abort a pregnancy before viability. And with the massive deportation scheme trumped up by Steven Miller, they openly defy the Constitution’s guarantee of the right to due process, for legal and undocumented immigrants alike.

What is more, the Christian majority on our partisan Supreme Court enabled this disgraceful subversion of the Constitution. Their decision to give Trump extraordinary immunity clearly violates the foundational tenet of equality before the law and is especially egregious for it endangers our democratic republic.

Democracy

In a democracy, power is held by the people. In American democracy, power is exercised through the people’s elected representatives, the president and members of the House of Representatives and the Senate. Traditionally opposing parties in both the Senate and the House found compromise through open debate that was based on reason and fact, and the nation progressed.

But the Republican Party has become the Christian Theocratic Party. Sixty-one percent of its members want to declare America a Christian Nation, even though that would violate our Constitution. Members of the party are conflicted by their oath to the Constitution and their reverence for the Christian bible. They accept without evidence that their Bible is the word of God and therefore supersedes the Constitution – the word of man.

The upshot of this dichotomy is that the Republican theocrats are unable to govern. They no longer participate in rational debate and are unable to reach a compromise. In April of this year, for example, nine Montana Republican State Senators were censured by their own party for simply working with Democrats! Rather than governing through compromise, they are hell-bent on ruling. Trump may not share their reverence for sacred scripture, but he does admire autocrats and autocracies and so shares in their need to rule.

Holding razor-thin margins in both the House and Senate, and fearing Trump’s wrath, Republican theocrats allow no compromise. And now they have enacted one of the most destructive bills in history; legislation that reduces taxes on the wealthy; cuts, health care, nutrition, and housing; slashes medical and scientific research; eliminates climate change funding and allocates $170 billion to deportation, detention facilities, border wall construction, and increased staffing of DHS. To salt these wounds, their bill will increase our national debt by five trillion.

It must not go unnoticed that Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” is the embodiment of the Christian Nationalists’ Project 2025.

Polls indicate that the legislation is highly unpopular, with some showing support by only 27 percent. And so, by corrupting our government processes, Donald Trump and the Republican theocrats have indeed replaced democratic governance with minority rule. The idea that this could happen in the country that invented modern liberal democracy was unimaginable before Trump, or before MAGA and Christian extremists poisoned Congress.

Still, there is hope. The majority of Americans, true patriots, still embrace democracy, equality, and freedom. Similarly, the majority of Christians, genuine followers of Christ, continue to uphold his teachings of love, mercy, and peace. In the mid-terms, they can vote these misguided Christian imposters and MAGA fanatics out of office, return sanity to the House and Senate, and rein in an irrational president.

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