What follows is 1) an article that appeared in USA Today by Tom Krattenmaker, a member of USA TODAY’s Board of Contributors, and
communications director at Yale Divinity School)m 2) my e-mail response to him, and 3) his e-mail response to me.
Friday, 26 August 2016
What Jesus would do:
Love Donald Trump
Love Donald Trump
Tom Krattemaker
“Love your
enemies,” Jesus said.
But does the
daunting concept really apply to our hostile politics today? Can Democrats love
conservatives? Is it possible for Hillary Clinton supporters to — gasp — love
Donald Trump? Can Trump be loved even by Republicans who are convinced he is
destroying their party?
Yes, actually.
As a staff member
at Yale Divinity School and as a secular person who has been unpacking the
central teachings of Jesus for an upcoming book, I have come to see ways in
which this principle can be applied today. Even to the inveterate
commandment-breaker and bad-behavior-modeler Donald Trump.
It helps if we
get clear about the meaning of “love” in the biblical context. John Collins, a
prolific Yale scholar who teaches a popular class on biblical values and their
application to public issues today, reminds me that the word conveys something
quite different from what comes to mind for most of us.
This biblical
love, Collins points out, is not a surge of affection or a romantic
attraction to someone (feelings, not incidentally, that can change and fade).
Rather, it can be thought of as a commitment to and regard for our fellow human
beings — even those not like us and not on our side, politically or culturally
speaking — and refusing to reduce them to their worst ideas and behavior.
Does “loving”
one’s political rivals mean ceding elections to them, or abandoning our own
principles and policies to push theirs instead? Of course not. If we believe
Trump’s values and politics would harm the country and the people who populate
it, love compels us to resist his election and the advancement of what he
stands for.
What does
this love of enemy imply? I find it’s easier to answer that with respect to
Trump supporters than Trump himself. This is not to endorse the bigotry
frequently on display at his rallies, or the “lock her up!” vitriol and
threats of violence against Clinton. There is no place for these. But an
empathetic look at Trump supporters surfaces the frustration and bewilderment
of a subset of the country that has felt abandoned by rapid economic and social
upheaval and politics as usual.
To love them
is to tease out what might be legitimate about their grievances and to want
them to have decent, dignified lives. It means relating to them in a way
conducive to a change of heart whereby that heart might eventually change —
might store more than resentment against immigrants, minorities and “politically
correct” liberals.
What of Trump
himself? Bible scholars will tell you that an important aspect of Jesus-style
love is wanting the best for others, even those you label “enemy.” In Collins’
view, this suggests wanting for Trump a newfound ability to resist firing off
mean-spirited tweets and ill-conceived ideas that malign other people and
reveal his own lack of knowledge and character.
Loving Trump
also implies wanting the best for him personally even as we thwart his
political desires. For a narcissistic power seeker, winning the
presidential election would only feed his worst tendencies. His massive and
problematic ego — “I alone can fix it,” as he boasts when discussing the
country’s problems—would likely soar to destructive new heights were he to
occupy the most powerful office in the land.
Better for
Trump’s character — better for his soul, if you will — that he
experience and accept a very public loss in this biggest contest of his life
and spend his remaining years devoting himself to ends more edifying than
inflating his superiority and degrading his rivals.
Loving Trump
means resisting any urge to clamor for his imprisonment or execution, as some
of his supporters have demanded for Clinton. No need for any symbolic walk of
shame like that endured by Cersei Lannister in Game of Thrones. (We know
what that led to: She sought and got revenge on a massively destructive scale.)
The funny thing
about loving our political enemies is that the minute we change our regard for
them, they morph before our eyes. They remain our political opponents, but they
are no longer our enemies — and no longer deserving of the treatment the
word implies.
They become,
instead, human, and deserving of all that implies. Even if their name is Donald
Trump.
# # #
Saturday, 27
August 2016
Der Tom,
I am so grateful
for your article, “What Jesus would do:
Love Donald Trump.” Several
million readers will be reminded that Jesus taught us to love our neighbor.
Following your
example, I am going to express to you what loving your neighbor means to me.
First, when I
think of Jesus, what comes to mind is His resurrection, not his
crucifixion. His resurrection demonstrates
His Divinity, his eternal Spirit.
While He was
waking on this earth, He underwent a transformation, an illumination, so that
he experienced his eternal Spirit, and his resurrection demonstrated it to the
world.
When He taught, love
thy neighbor as thy Self, He meant to recognize in your neighbor the eternal
Spirit. When you experience your Self,
you can see this Self, this Spirit, in your brother. You are seeing your brother with the eyes of
Christ.
An example of
this is greeting your brother, saying, “Namaste,” the Christ in me greets the
Christ in you.
Therefore,
“Namaste, Donald Trump.”
Obviously, in the
past two thousand years, there has been ample evidence that Jesus is Spirt;
Jesus is present with us in every moment.
Here is my
favorite example. In October of 1965, He
said to Helen Schucman, a Psychology Professor at Columbia, “This is A Course
in Miracles, please take notes,” and she dutifully did for seven years, and A
Course in Miracles was published in 1975.
It consists of a Text with 31 Chapters, a Workbook for Students,
consisting of 365 Lessons, one for each day of the year, and a Manual for
Teachers.
This Course
provides an opportunity to transform our minds, so that we can fulfill our only
function of being on this earth, coming into awareness that we are Spirit.
Since we are
Spirit, we are the Sons of God, we are as He created us. The Course constantly teaches us this holy
truth.
My wife,
Christine, and I begin again with Lesson 1 on January 1 of each year.
For example,
today’s Lesson is 240, Fear is not justified in any form.
Here is a
passage from the Lesson:
We are the Sons of God. There is no
fear in us,
for we are each a part of Love Itself.
How
foolish are our fears! Would You allow
Your
Son to suffer? Give us faith today
to
recognize Your Son, and set him free.
Let
us forgive him in Your Name, that we
may
understand his holiness, and feel
the
love for him which is Your Own as well.
When
we recognize God’s Son in our neighbor, we set him free.
Sincerely,
Ray
Comeau, Ph.D.
Here
is a little bit about myself. I received
my BA from Kalamazoo College in 1963, my MA from the University of Chicago in
1965, and my Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1973.
I
have written four books:
1. Through a Mirror, Brightly: Reflections of a Mind Illuminated Trough A
Course in Miracles, 2000.
2. There Must Be Another Way, 2008.
3. 100 Haiku:
Inspired by the Mind Training of A Course in Miracles, 2015.
4. 100 Haiku:
Book Two, 2016.
# # #
Sunday,
28 August 2016
Dear
Ray,
Wow,
what a great message. Thank you so much for getting in touch and sharing this
wisdom with me.
I'm
familiar with the Course in Miracles! Can't say I have done it or know much
about it, but it sounds like a transformative set of teachings.
Thanks
again for being in touch. All the best to you,
Tom
P.S.
Four books, eh? Hats off to you. Books are a lot of work! My third is coming
out in just over a month.
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