Dear Evangelicals for Trump,
There is no use hiding. America knows who each and every last one of you are. Goodness knows as many times as some of you were so quick to appear in photo ops with Donald Trump, the country would have had to have been in a coma to not know how close you are to him.
I'm sure you've heard what happened at the Capitol on Wednesday and I know several you offered standard statements and comments such as "we are all sad" and we need to pray to God."
That's all well and good, except those statements will never do. You're gonna have to be a little bit more extra. And that's simply because you all contributed to the chaos yesterday.
Now I know what you're going to do. Don't pull that fake shocked routine. Don't pretend to be offended and don't even think about pulling out that cross from your closets which you intend to nail yourselves on while attempting to steal the role of the victim in this situation.
That role is already taken.
In the Bible, which I know you are aware, there was a king named David. He generally a upstanding God-fearing man. But once he messed up by lusting after a married woman he viewed bathing herself. He slept with her, she got pregnant, and to cover it up he had her husband killed.
The prophet Nathan, who advised David, came up to him after it was all over and said (I'm basically paraphrasing here): "You know you weren't right. What you did was wrong and you need to check yourself."
That's what an religious advisor to a leader should do - call him or her out when they are wrong.
But none of you ever did that with Trump.
Not when it came to prejudiced immigration policy,
not when it came to his constant lies,
not when it came to his absolute abysmal handling of the COVID pandemic,
not when it came to his lies about his election loss,
and finally not when it came to the storming of our Capitol on Wednesday, which he clearly instigated.
Over the past four years, you've taken time to tell everyone how much you loved him when he gave you things you wanted:
anoint him as a "great defender of Christianity:
Or generally kiss his ass:
And you also embarrassed yourselves making excuses for his behavior or declaring that you're giving him "mulligans."
Why didn't you call him out when he was wrong? Your deliberate inability to denounce Trump's past behavior got us to this point where a rampaging mob - a lot of them no doubt follow you - thought it was appropriate to storm the Capitol in his "defense." Why weren't you the moral voice before then when they needed you. You failed them because you portrayed Trump as an angel when you knew he was the devil.
Was it worth it? Did you stop abortion? What about LGBTQ rights? Have they been done away it yet?
Now that we are struggling in the aftermath of Wednesday, where are some of you now?
I will be honest. I never liked any of you. I've always viewed you as self-righteous, entitled hypocrites who are more concerned with scapegoating 'the other' and playing victims when the rest of us won't play your game. I've always believed that when you had to choose between your own interests and that of the country, America would lose.
That time is now. As much as I hate to admit it, I am very disappointed to be proven right.
America needs you to be honest for a change and denounce Donald Trump. How difficult can it be? If you find it hard, just pretend he passed a law helping LGBTQ people. You seem to never be a loss for words when denouncing things like that.
What are you scared of? Do you think he's going to rain fire from the sky on you? Do you think he's going turn you into a pillar of salt? Do you think in the last remaining days of his piss poor presidency, he's going to take away your access and privileges to the White House?
Or have you gotten everything you wanted from him and, like some cheap john, attempting to sneak away without leaving the money on the dresser.
America is waiting for you to say something.
In fairnes to the many progressive religious sisters and nuns who carry out the works of mercy and have been vocally against this hateful administration, my issue is with a few nuns (Children of Mary in Ohio) who attended a rally for 45; and I sent an email to the order reminding them of the admonition to "Render to God what is God's and to Caesar what is Caesar's"
ReplyDeleteToday I sent them this reminder:
Sisters:
As I stated in a previous correspondence: Remember, Render to God that which is God’s and to Caesar that which is Caesar’s.
Do reflect on your culpability for the horrendous violence that has disgraced our nation.
In profound sadness,
Frank DeFrancesco