Musings on the Increasing Irrelevance of Christianity to Politics and the Economy

By Rudy Barnes, Jr., April 26, 2025

On April 9 the stock market rose by 3,000 points based on Trump’s decision to pause most of his tariffs.  It confirmed materialism and greed as priorities in American politics and religion, with Trump seeking to take credit for cleaning up his tariff mess ahead of the midterm elections.  Any altruistic moral priorities have been lost over economic concerns.

The stock market has remained unstable, and for the first time polls indicate a majority no longer support Trump’s economic policies.  Trump has since threatened to fire the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell--even though the President doesn’t have the authority to fire him.  Trump seems determined to ignore the law in his efforts to control the economy.

It seems that Trump staged the dramatic comeback of the stock market on April 9 with a planned pause of his ill-conceived tariffs, just what you would expect from a shyster showman, and Trump has always been a showman.  Thomas Friedman said it well: “When you hire a bunch of clowns to run the government, You can expect to have a political circus.” 

Most of Trump’s supporters claim to be Christians, but they ignore the altruistic teachings of Jesus in the greatest commandment to love God and our neighbors as we love ourselves.  It summarizes the altruistic teachings of Jesus and the moral imperative to provide for the common  good in politics.  While Christianity has long shaped American politics, it has not overcome the pervasive greed that feeds the materialism and hedonism of American culture. 

America’s Constitution represents the foundation of the rule of law that has been ignored by Trump and his Republican regime.  The Constitutional rule of law must be enforced to provide the universal altruism essential for good governance: We can only love God by loving others as we love ourselves, including those of other races and religions.

As the world’s myriad religions continue to evolve, they must become more universal and altruistic to conform with reason and advances in knowledge.  When ancient religions cling to the inerrancy and infallibility of ancient scriptures they are doomed to the dustbin of history, as are fundamentalist church doctrines never taught by Jesus.  For Christianity to survive, its  exclusivist church doctrines must be subordinated to the universal altruism taught by Jesus.

For Christianity to become relevant to our times, the church must promote the common good over partisan objectives.  That will require Americans to diversify their current polarized Congress with more partisan diversity to promote the common good.  That will require the church to promote the universal and altruistic moral teachings of Jesus.

Trump, Netanyahu and Putin are demagogues who have exploited their nationalized religions to promote their political power.  Jesus never asserted his divinity, or that God favored one religion or nation over others.  He called his disciples to follow him as God’s universal Word, not to worship him as a Trinitarian God; and the Crusades illustrated how Christian religious exclusivity has promoted religious hatred and violence among Jews, Christians and Muslims.   

Notes:

On Trump and Netanyahu Steering Toward an Ugly World, Together, see  https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/08/opinion/trump-netanyahu-united-states-israel-autocracy.html.

On Musings of a Maverick Methodist on a Journey of Faith to Universalism, see  https://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2025/01/musings-of-maverick-methodist-on.html.

On How Trump is turning American politics into a circus, see What Trump Cost America at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/09/opinion/trump-tariffs-pause-china.html.

On Why Criticism of Netanyahu’s Militant Zionism is not Antisemitic see

https://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2023/12/musings-on-why-criticism-of-netanyahus.html.

Richard Rohr is a universalist who has described “the horrible impact the doctrines of original sin and blood atonement of Jesus have had on Christian faith, including how God is depicted as a sadistic deity that needs payment before He can love His creation, and that nothing Jesus said, did, or taught in his lifetime means anything because his death is all that matters for our salvation.”  Rohr asserts that “we must reject any theory of salvation that is based on violence, exclusion, social pressure, or moral coercion.” See Christian Universalism, meet The Universal Christ at https://christianuniversalist.org/2021/02/christian-universalism-meet-the-universal-christ/ 

On the Greatest Commandment as a Common Word of Faith, for Jews, Christains and Muslims, see

http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2015/01/the-greatest-commandment-common-word-of.html.

Universalism can reconcile progressive Christians, Jews and Muslims.  While universalists are a minority in competing Abrahamic religions, they could be a reconciling force in promoting a universalist common word of faith.  On universalism, see Universalism: A theology for the 21st century, by Forrest Church, November 5, 2001, at Universalism: A theology for the 21st century | UU World Magazine.

The Teachings of Jesus and Muhammad on Morality and Law is an interfaith study guide based on the teachings of Jesus and Muhammad taken from  the Jefferson Bible.  It’s  posted in its entirety in the  Resources at  https://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com.

Thomas Jefferson considered “the teachings of Jesus as the most sublime moral code ever designed by man,” and Jefferson detested exclusivist church doctrines.   https://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com.

In 1831 Alexis deTocqueville toured America and observed that its many Christian sects shared a “Christian morality” that produced common standards of political legitimacy that defined what is right, and imbued American politics with its moral authority.  On the views of Thomas Jefferson and Alexis deTocqueville on the moral values of religion in American politics, see Religion, Moral Authority and Conflicting Concepts of Legitimacy (July 1, 2017) at http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2017/07/religion-moral-authority-and.html. See also Musings of a Maverick Methodist on a Universal and Altruistic Jesus, August 19, 2023, at http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2023/08/musings-of-maverick-methodist-on.html.

Carl Krieg has distinguished between The Political [exclusivist] Jesus and The Real [universal] Jesus at https://progressivechristianity.org/resource/the-political-jesus-and-the-real-jesus/.

The title of Robin Meyers’ book says it all: Saving Jesus from the Church: How to Stop Worshiping Christ and Start Following Jesus (HarperCollins Publishers, 2009).  Meyers spoke on this topic at the Barnes Symposium at the University of South Carolina on April 12, 2019. While Meyers is critical of the church, he was pastor of Mayflower Church, a large UCC congregation in Oklahoma City, for over 30 years.  

For more emphasis on following the teachings of Jesus as the Logos and the universal word of God rather than limiting salvation to exclusivist Chritian beliefs in Christ as the alter ego of God and the atonement supports religious universalism and reconciliation.  See Musings of a Maverick Methodist on Jesus as the Logos in John’s Gospel at http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2023/02/musings-of-maverick-methodist-on-jesus.html; see also, Musings of a Maverick Methodist on the Irony of the Logos in John’s Gospel at http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2023/02/musings-of-maverick-methodist-on-irony.html.

Dr. Rick Herrick has opined that “Jesus and God are one in the Gospel of John.”  Most Christians believe that salvation is limited to those who believe that Jesus Christ was God in the flesh.  It’s a deal most Christians can’t pass up since correct belief is all that’s required.  “The first problem with this approach is that it’s an invention of the first century church with no ties to the Jesus of history; yet for 2,000 years the vast majority of Christians have based their faith on such exclusivist beliefs as the only means of salvation; but it has no historical validity.”  An even bigger problem is that it’s an ideology with no connection to the heart.”  It’s all about me, me, me and feeds the ego rather than helping to transform it to make it more open to the needs of others. Jesus is worshiped as a God, but not followed.  This has made the church more a part of the world’s problems than a solution to them.” See https://progressivechristianity.org/resources/sadly-the-bible-is-the-problem/.

The Apostles’ Creed is taken from church doctrine and affirms exclusivist belief in the divinity of Jesus Christ as a requirement for salvation.  A Modern Affirmation is based on the universal and altruistic teachings of Jesus and emphasizes the service of love as God’s Word:

The Apostles’ Creed affirms belief in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord: who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; the third day he rose from the dead; he ascended into heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.

A Modern Affirmation affirms belief in God the Father, infinite in wisdom, power and love, whose mercy is over all his works, and whose will is ever directed to his children’s good. We believe in Jesus Christ, Son of God and Son of man, the gift of the Father’s unfailing grace, the ground of our hope, and the promise of our deliverance from sin and death. We believe in the Holy Spirit as the divine presence in our lives, whereby we are kept in perpetual remembrance of the truth of Christ, and find strength and help in time of need. We believe that this faith should manifest itself in the service of love as set forth in the example of our blessed Lord, to the end that the kingdom of God may come upon the earth. Amen.

On Musings on Whether the Atonement Doctrine Is God’s Word, or a Christian Myth, see  

https://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2024/09/musings-on-whether-atonement-doctrine.html (9/21/24). If Jesus didn’t sacrifice himself to atone for our sins or to appease the Father, what did he sacrifice for?  I think Jesus sacrificed for the same causes or values as did other prophets over the centuries.  For what MLK Jr. died for; or Mahatma Gandhi; or Abraham Lincoln; or Sojourner Truth; or other victims of war defending one’s family or community:  For the cause of justice; for the cause of compassion.  Jesus was killed by the Roman Empire (as were thousands who opposed its values) and with the help of some people in his religious tribe who were in cahoots with the Empire.  He was inviting people and especially the poor to their own dignity and nobility; and Empires as a rule do not remind the subjugated how noble they are, and how to love themselves deeply, and others as well. 

Jesus was aligning himself with the prophets of old who talked about justice flowing like a river and the coming together of all peoples, rich and poor alike.  He sacrificed for the sake of awakening us all to our powers of compassion, a divine attribute and the “secret name for God” in Judaism.  Thus, “Be you compassionate as your Father in heaven is compassionate” (Lk 6:36).  He was calling us to our divinity therefore and looking ahead to a time when humans would choose to be god-like, to be lovers, to practice forgiveness and moving beyond hatred and vengeance and war and power-over into a realm (a “kingdom”) of power-with, of caring and of creativity, another god-like attribute that humans share as “images of God.” He obviously resisted his premature death, his prayers in the Garden of Gethsemane prove that.  So he did not choose to make himself a sacrifice but he was committed to bringing about a new realm, a new vision, a new “kingdom/queendom” of the divine and he was not naïve enough to think it would be welcomed by all, least of all by the powers that be in politics (the Roman empire) or in religion insofar as they sided with the empire. The Last Supper demonstrates how he linked his coming death to the great stories of his ancestors around Passover and Exodus and liberation which come at a price.  His (or the gospel writers or both) invoking Psalm 22 on the cross testify to this. As Gustavo Gutierrez puts it in the Conclusion of his book On Job: God-Talk and the Suffering of the Innocent: “The final words of Jesus—‘My God, my God, why hast though forsaken me?’ (Matt.27:46; Mark 15:34)—speak of the suffering and loneliness of one who feels abandoned by the hand of God.”  He “makes the rest of the psalm his own and one can search the whole psalm to understand the meaning of his lament.”  The psalm “expresses the cruel loneliness experienced by a man of deep faith....an innocent man  who has been treated unjustly.  ...Jesus did not compose this psalm, he inherited it....The important thing is that Jesus made it his own and, while nailed to the cross, offered to the Father the suffering and abandonment of all humankind.  This radical communion with the suffering of human beings brought him down to the deepest level of history at the very moment when his life was ending.” (pp. 97-101) 

The promise of Resurrection puts him and us on the side of hope overcoming despair and on the side of Resurrection, not death, having the last word.  (Dr. Matthew Fox)

Musings on Preventing the Trump Regime from becoming a Nazi Regime

By Rudy Barnes, Jr., April 19, 2025

Religions have influenced and shaped politics, none have neutralized nationalism and demagoguery like that promoted by Donald Trump.  I’m convinced that God does not support Trump despite the assertions of his misguided supporters; and recent editorials by David Brooks and Thomas Friedman reflect an urgency to end his corrupt regime.

Trump is a 21st century vestige of Hitler, and the religious and political demographics of Germany during the rise of Hitler were similar to those of America today; but the church and German people failed to stop Hitler’s corrupt regime.  It took a World War to end Hitler’s Nazi regime, and it may take another civil war in America to end Trump’s immoral and corrupt regime.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a Christian leader who gave his life opposing Hitler, who was never elected Germany’s leader, but who skillfully maneuvered his Nazi regime around Christian opposition to Hitler’s Third Reich and gained absolute political power as Germany’s chancellor.  I don’t know of any dictator more relevant to Trump’s politics today than Hitler.

The success of Trump’s regime in the midterm elections of 2026 would end libertarian democracy in America and affirm Trump’s objective to end the rule of law in the Constitution.  He has already made Congress impotent as a check and balance on Trump’s power, and has appointed cabinet members who are more loyal to Trump than to the Constitution.

Democracy is only as strong as the people in it; and when an unprincipled politician like Trump finds a willing audience for his political abominations they can end freedom and democracy, much like Putin and Netanyahu did in Russia and Israel.  While God is not known for political and military interventions, the church has been party to many of them.

America already had a Civil War, but it was based on the noble goal to end slavery.  There is nothing noble about giving billionaires like Trump and Musk the power to berate their political opponents and exploit the public with their narcissistic policies.  Democracy and freedom don’t have a future if public officials fail to support and defend the Constitution.

I’m a retired Army lawyer who wore a green beret and taught the Law of War and international humanitarian law.  I deeply grieve over Trump’s tendencies to follow Putin’s despotic policies, and I have witnessed an impotent church put popularity above moral principle.  I’m not optimistic that a morally complacent public can terminate Trump’s power. 

     

But America has two more elections to save America’s Constitutional democracy from ourselves and Trump’s corrupt regime.  I’m an old man who has seen too much evil in the world, and too many complacent voters who have accepted Trump’s immoral regime in our democracy; but I’m not ready to accept the end of American freedom and democracy.  Wake up America!  Let’s elect Trump nullifiers in 2026 who can restore Constitutional democracy before it’s too late.  

Notes:

Trump’s danger to Constitutional democracy is nothing new: In 2016 Richard Cohen predicted a similar scary scenario: “Weimar is the charming German city that gave its name to the parliamentary democracy that was created following World War I and which Hitler crushed in 1933. It was never a robust democracy, but it nevertheless was the government of Europe’s most important — and, in many ways, advanced — country.  Berlin in the early 1930s was a tolerant and liberal city. Many a Hollywood filmmaker got a start in Berlin. In a relative snap of the fingers, all that changed. Weimar’s intellectuals, artists, actors, writers, architects (Bauhaus) and others fled. The precipitating event was, of course, Hitler’s appointment as German chancellor. That was Jan. 30, 1933. Almost exactly a month later, the German parliament building, the Reichstag, was consumed by fire. A Dutch communist, Marinus van der Lubbe, was accused of setting it. (He was subsequently guillotined.) Hitler, declaring a vast communist threat, asked President Paul von Hindenburg for emergency powers. He got them. He kept them until he died.  Here is the relevance of Weimar. Trump has shown a daunting disregard or ignorance of the Constitution and of law. Regarding the use of torture, he has said that the military must follow his orders — even if they are illegal. More recently, he declared that flag-burning should be a crime and that flag burners be punished by “perhaps loss of citizenship or year in jail.” The remark was one of his off-the-cuff inanities — since 1989, flag-burning has been protected political speech, and citizenship, we’d like to think, is forever. The tweet — so few words, so much meaning — spoke to Trump’s abysmal lack of knowledge but, more important, contained an emotional truth. Trump despises dissent and often reacts emotionally to setbacks or challenges. Yet, I wonder if a compliant Congress and an even more compliant American people would balk at giving Trump any emergency power he seeks. His election was a stunner — an eruption of anger and resentment that is putting an epochally unqualified man in the White House. So great was the urge to trash the status quo that Trump’s lying, bragging, cheating, insulting and breathtaking ignorance did not disqualify him.  Indeed, his very unsuitableness for the presidency immensely credentialed him. He is loved by many because he is loathed by others.  I have too much faith in America and its institutions to think that Weimar is the future. It is, however, a warning, not something that shouldn’t be discussed, but something that should be mulled. The differences between Weimar Germany and contemporary America are significant but so, increasingly, are the similarities.” See Trump isn’t Hitler. But the United States could be another Germany at 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-isnt-hitler-but-the-united-states-could-be-another-germany/2016/12/05/9f026004-bb15-11e6-91ee-1adddfe36cbe_story.html?

David Brooks and Thomas L. Friedman are two mainstream and respected  columnists for the NYTimes who have written current opinions that echo Cohen’s concern. David Brooks has said, “What’s happening Is not Normal.  It’s time for an Uprising.  That’s not Normal.”  Brooks went on  to say, “It’s time for “a mass civic movement.” https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/17/opinion/trump-harvard-law-firms.html.

Thomas L. Friedman said “I have never been so afraid for America’s future in my life.” See https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/15/opinion/trump-administration-china.html.

William L. Shirer has written a comprehensive history of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany, copyright 1959, 1960 by William L. Shirer. 

Denise Giardina has written a historical fiction account of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s German activities opposing Hitler that’s more fact than fiction.  Saints and Villains, W.W. Norton, NY, NY, 1998.  

On Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s theology, see The Cost of Discipleship, 1966, Mamilan Paperbacks.

The Search for Wisdom in Politics and Religon

By Rudy Barnes, Jr.,April 12, 2025

Wisdom is closely related to intelligence, but it’s more than that.  Wisdom combines intelligence learned through an academic education together with our values and common sense learned from a lifetime of experience; and it includes normative standards that shape a person’s ability to survive and succeed in a competitive world.

Higher standards of education do not necessarily provide more wisdom.  Wise people, like Jesus and Abraham Lincoln, had great wisdom but little formal education; but most people need a formal education and altruistic values to have enough wisdom to be productive citizens.  A.I., or artificial intelligence, can’t provide all the ingredients for wisdom.

Donald Trump calls himself a smart man.  That’s debatable; but few wise people would consider Trump a wise man; and he has clearly demonstrated a lack of wisdom to be President.  David Brooks considers Trump’s performance so far to be “something so stupid it’s the achievement of a lifetime.”

Remember, though, that Trump was elected to be our President--not once but twice.  All who voted for him are culpable for whatever he’s done, and that Trump’s “stupid” policies were predictable.  Trump is an unprincipled, nasty and narcissistic man intent on gaining political power, and he made his intent so obvious that all who voted for him share his guilt.

David Brooks correctly condemns the failure to maintain educational standards, but remember that all voters have to be 18 years old.  The church and families bear responsibility for the values of adult voters who claim to be Christians, and they got what they voted for; and the rest of us have to live with their immoral political judgment.

Our flawed cultural values of greed, hedonism, and materialism have corrupted our democracy, and it will take years, if ever, to reverse those values with the universal and altruistic moral values taught by Jesus.  But we live in a democracy, so we deserve what a majority of our people have supported, and I don’t see a dramatic change in values in the near future.

           With wisdom, values are more important than intelligence.  Trump’s narcissistic values are despicable and show little sign of changing for the better.  Trump is giving democracy and Christianity a bad name in America with his tariffs spreading the misery of his despotic reign around the world.  Trump’s real stupidity is not being able to see himself as others see him.

Trump has already undermined Christianity with stupid assertions about how great his oppressive policies are.  If Trump’s MAGA were a universal virtue, Trump would be worshipped as the god his supporters think he is; but Satan does a convincing imitation of God in politics and the church, and often wins elections in democracies like America, Russia and even Israel.      

Notes:

David Brooks said his biggest worry is that behavioral change is leading to cultural change; but cultural change and the erosion of wisdom are already upon us. “We’re abandoning a value that used to be pretty central to our culture — the idea that you should work hard to improve your capacity for wisdom and judgment all the days of your life. That education, including lifelong out-of-school learning, is really valuable.

Americans had less schooling in decades past, but out of this urge for intellectual self-improvement, they bought encyclopedias for their homes, subscribed to the Book of the Month Club and sat, with much longer attention spans, through long lectures or three-hour Lincoln-Douglas debates. Once you start using your mind, you find that learning isn’t merely calisthenics for your ability to render judgment; it’s intrinsically fun.

But today one gets the sense that a lot of people are disengaging from the whole idea of mental effort and mental training. Absenteeism rates soared during the pandemic and have remained high since. If American parents truly valued education would 26 percent of students have been chronically absent during the 2022-23 school year?

Last year The Atlantic published an essay by Rose Horowitch titled “The Elite College Students Who Can’t Read Books.” One professor recalled the lively classroom discussions of books like “Crime and Punishment.” Now the students say they can’t handle that kind of reading load.

The philosophy professor Troy Jollimore wrote in The Walrus: “I once believed my students and I were in this together, engaged in a shared intellectual pursuit. That faith has been obliterated over the past few semesters. It’s not just the sheer volume of assignments that appear to be entirely generated by A.I. — papers that show no sign the student has listened to a lecture, done any of the assigned reading or even briefly entertained a single concept from the course.”

Older people have always complained about “kids these days,” but this time we have empirical data to show that the observations are true.

What happens when people lose the ability to reason or render good judgments? Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Donald Trump’s tariff policy. I’ve covered a lot of policies over the decades, some of which I supported and some of which I opposed. But I have never seen a policy as stupid as this one. It is based on false assumptions. It rests on no coherent argument in its favor. It relies on no empirical evidence. It has almost no experts on its side — from left, right or center. It is jumble-headedness exemplified. Trump himself personifies stupidity’s essential feature — self-satisfaction, an inability to recognize the flaws in your thinking. And of course when the approach led to absolutely predictable mayhem, Trump, lacking any coherent plan, backtracked, flip-flopped, responding impulsively to the pressures of the moment as his team struggled to keep up.

Producing something this stupid is not the work of a day; it is the achievement of a lifetime — relying on decades of incuriosity, decades of not cracking a book, decades of being impervious to evidence. Back in Homer’s day, people lived within an oral culture, then humans slowly developed a literate culture. Now we seem to be moving to a screen culture. Civilization was fun while it lasted.” On Trump Producing Something This Stupid Is the Achievement of a Lifetime https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/10/opinion/education-smart-thinking-reading-tariffs.html.