Musings on How Reason Can Counter Human Depravity in Religion and Politics

By Rudy Barnes, Jr., March 22, 2025

Human depravity is a theological concept that originated with original sin.  John Calvin believed that depravity plagued everyone and could only be overcome with God’s grace.  I don’t pretend to understand the nature of God’s amazing grace, but I have lived long enough to know that humans have corrupted both their religion and politics with their depravity.

Depravity is not just a theological concept.  It’s the result of popularity being the measure of success in both our religion and democratic politics.  Popularity doesn’t confer either legitimacy or virtue in either domain, and it has corrupted American religion and politics.  It’s now essential that America rely on reason to restore legitimacy to both our religion and politics.

History has proven that power corrupts, and that absolute power corrupts absolutely.  That has been self-evident in the political regimes of Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and Benjamin Netanyahu.  They have nationalized their religions with radical right politics that lack legitimacy and deny the moral imperative to provide for the common good.

Arrogance may be acceptable in politics, but not in religion where the teachings of Jesus make altruistic morality and reason joint priorities for political legitimacy.  Narcissism is now the norm, with human depravity corrupting both democracy and religion.  An emphasis on altruistic morality and reason is needed to save Christianity from the dustbin of history.

The Catholic church has made that moral distinction, but it has failed to condemn narcissistic politicians like Trump.  The Constitution provides legal standards, but it cannot prohibit the voluntary immoral standards of politicians.  Since pastors are reluctant to criticize the morality of popular politicians, the church has lost its power to influence voters.

Thomas Jefferson exemplified the fusion of reason and morality.  He was a Founding Father who drafted the Declaration of Independence, and considered the teachings of Jesus “the most sublime moral code ever designed by man.”  The scholars of The Jesus Seminar recognized Jefferson as “a son of the Enlightenment who scrutinized the gospels to separate the teachings of Jesus as a figure of history from the encrustations of Christian doctrine.”  

Churches have ignored Jefferson’s heterodox views and promoted Christian doctrines never taught by Jesus that trump the teachings of Jesus.  The Jefferson Bible emphasizes the teachings of Jesus that are compatible with reason as the primary standard of legitimacy for Jefferson and the other Founding Fathers who drafted the Constitution.

Most of the miracles of Jesus can be explained by the transforming power of God’s love, and were compatible with reason rather than divine magic.  If the church were to focus on the transforming power of God’s altruistic love taught by Jesus, the church could become a moral steward of democracy and counter human depravity in religion and politics.    

     

Notes:

On John Calvin and human depravity, see Wilkipdia at   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_depravity#:~:text=John%20Calvin%20used%20terms%20like,of%20fallen%20humanity%20than%20Calvin.

On the teachings of Jesus being subordinated to church doctrines never taught by Jesus, see The Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus, The Five Gospels: What Did Jesus Really Say? New Translation and Commentary By Robert W. Fink, Roy W. Hoover and The Jesus Seminar,  The Seven Pillars of Scholarly Wisdom, pages 2-5, A Polebridge Press Book, Macmillan Publishing Company, New York, 1993.

         

On The Jefferson Bible compiled by Thomas Jefferson while he was President, see The Preface to the Jefferson Bible, The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth, by Thomas Jefferson, The Beacon Press, 1989. Peter Manseau, the curator of American religious history at the Smithsonian, offers his definitive description of Jefferson’s peculiar book toward the end of his account of the work’s reception: “Jefferson did edit and arrange verses from the Gospels to craft a unified account of the life and teachings of Jesus with which he [Jefferson himself] could agree, and which would comport with the dictates of reason. No good faith reckoning with the book itself could lead to any other conclusion.” Jefferson chose each word. Each cut-and-paste of Scripture, including the slicing off of parts of verses, represented a choice, a deliberation that reflected his understanding of Jesus as a man of the Enlightenment—and his sharp dismissal of anything that seemed to violate the laws of nature or communicate claims for Jesus’ divinity. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1120Y_2KWrXoMAoWtS6ACezLMv-HOLhybWmI_JDU4sIU/edit?tabSee also, When Thomas Jefferson rewrote the Bible at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1120Y_2KWrXoMAoWtS6ACezLMv-HOLhybWmI_JDU4sIU/edit?

See earlier commentaries on religion, morality, legitimacy and reason, see Religion and Reason, at https://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2014/12/religion-and-reason.html; also on 

Legitimacy as a Context and a Paradigm to Resolve Religious Conflict at

https://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2015/08/legitimacy-as-context-and-paradigm-to.html; and on What Is Truth? at https://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2015/08/what-is-truth.html, also,          The Politics of Loving Our Neighbors as Ourselves, at 

http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2016/01/the-politics-of-loving-our-neighbors-as.html, also  Religion, Democracy, Diversity and Demagoguery at

http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2016/03/religion-democracy-diversity-and.html.

Legitimacy as a Context and a Paradigm to Resolve Religious Conflict at

https://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2015/08/legitimacy-as-context-and-paradigm-to.html; and What Is Truth? at https://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2015/08/what-is-truth.html; also The Politics of Loving Our Neighbors as Ourselves, at http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2016/01/the-politics-of-loving-our-neighbors-as.html; also  Religion, Democracy, Diversity and Demagoguery at

http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2016/03/religion-democracy-diversity-and.html.

also, Saving America from the Church at   https://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2017/01/saving-america-from-church.html; 

also, Is Religion Reasonable and Relevant or Is It Ridiculous and Corrupts Our Politics?,  https://www.religionlegitimacyandpoliticscom/2017/01/religion-and-reason-redux-religion-is.html.

Also, Legitimacy as a Context and a Paradigm to Resolve Religious Conflict at

https://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2015/08/legitimacy-as-context-and-paradigm-to.html; and Musings on Christian Nationalism: A Plague on the Church and Democracy, at http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2019/08/musings-on-christian-nationalism-plague.html.

Musings on How Congress Has Abdicated Its Constitutional Powers to President Trump

By Rudy Barnes, Jr.

Members of Congress are sworn to support and defend the Constitution with its separation of powers as political checks and balances.  A  New York Times article on March 14 reported that those in Trump’s Republican Congress ignored their Constitutional obligations and “enthusiastically turned over its powers to Trump’s White House.” See  https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/14/us/politics/trump-republicans-congress-power.html. 

In 2020 I wrote a commentary on the Demise of American Democracy: Is It Deja Vu All Over Again?  And on March 8, 2025 I wrote on How Trump Has Undermined Trust in America.   https://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2025/03/musings-on-how-trump-has-undermined.html.  In February 2025 I opined that if a new majority in Congress is not elected in the 2026 elections, Trump will have the power to end Constitutional democracy as we know it.  A March 14,  2025 article in The NYTimes article indicates that our worst fears may now be realized. https://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2025/02/musings-on-demise-of-american-democracy.html. 

 

After Trump’s first term and his campaign promises in the 2024 election We should have seen this Constitutional crisis coming.  Democracy is only as strong as a majority of its voters make it; and it appears that a majority of American voters are split between Trump’s Republican regime.  NBC news reported on February 15 that 53% of voters support the Trump regime.

Polarized partisan politics have corrupted American democracy since the 1850’s, when  Abraham Lincoln led the fledgling Republican Party to assume power before the Civil War.  That terrible war merely reversed the parties in power.  Until the 1960’s South Carolina was a one- party Democratic (blue) state; today it’s a one-party Republican (red) state.

American politics are a two-party duopoly.  Third party candidates cannot compete with institutional partisan political structures, and candidates won’t run for office unless they have a reasonable chance of winning.  That limits candidates to the two major parties; and both parties attract demagogues like Trump and Musk.

 Voters share culpability with Trump and Musk for the Constitutional crisis.  It’s as much about the loss of political legitimacy among voters as it is about Trump and Musk.  Without voters affirming the primacy of the Constitution over autocracy in 2026, the Constitution is in real danger.  The political devastation of Trump’s Republican Congress could be a requiem for the end of American democracy. 

https://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2025/02/musings-on-demise-of-american-democracy.html. 

Notes:

How a GOP Congress that Ceded its Constitutional Power to Trump Eroded Its Influence https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/14/us/politics/trump-republicans-congress-power.html.

By Carl Ulse and Catie Edmondson, NYTimes, March 14, 2025.  

The Republican-led Congress isn’t just watching the Trump administration gobble up its constitutional powers. It’s enthusiastically turning them over to the White House.

GOP lawmakers are doing so this week by embracing a stopgap spending bill that gives the administration wide discretion over how federal dollars are distributed, in effect handing off the legislative branch’s spending authority to President Trump. But that is just one example of how Congress, under unified Republican control, is proactively relinquishing some of its critical authority on oversight, economic issues, and more.

As they cleared the way for passing the spending measure on Tuesday, House Republicans leaders also quietly surrendered their chamber’s ability to undo Mr. Trump’s tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China in an effort to shield their Republican cohorts from having to take a politically tough vote. That ended the only legislative recourse that Congress had to challenge the tariffs that are all but certain to have a major impact on their constituents.  Republicans have also stood by, many of them cheering, as the administration has upended federal departments and programs funded by Congress and fired thousands of workers with no notice to or consultation with the lawmakers charged with overseeing federal agencies.

So far, no congressional committee has held an oversight hearing to scrutinize the moves or demand answers that would typically be expected when an administration undertakes such major changes.  “This is us, in a sense, giving the keys to the president to be able to continue to do the great work that they’re doing.” Those were the words of Representative Michael Cloud (R-Tex) explaining his support for the stopgap funding the House passed this week and that is pending in the Senate.  This is us, in a sense, giving the keys to the president,” said Cloud.

But the sentiment he described encapsulates the overarching attitude of Republicans in Congress at the dawn of Mr. Trump’s second term, as they happily acknowledge they are turning control over to the president, who in turn is benefiting from perhaps the most compliant Congress in history, congratulating his supporters and condemning his opponents.

“They are actively giving it away,” Senator Martin Heinrich, Democrat of New Mexico, said of his Republican colleagues’ attitude toward congressional authority. “And they are doing so in an atmosphere where it’s clear this administration is willing to abuse the power they already have.”

In the past, lawmakers of both parties have fiercely protected their turf, pushing back strongly at moments when presidents have attempted to usurp congressional prerogatives. They saw Article I of the Constitution as reflecting their branch’s primary importance in a system of checks and balances.  They saw the executive branch as meaning to administer their designs. Presidents came and went, members would often say, while Congress remained a constant. With the House and Senate so polarized and legislative success so difficult to achieve in recent years, power has been inexorably gravitating down Capitol Hill toward the White House, which has been more than willing to try and exercise it with executive orders and other unilateral action. But Trump is taking the shift to new levels with his iron grip on congressional Republicans exercised through a combination of cultivating warm personal relationships with them and the constant threat that they will pay a hefty political price for crossing him.

“This is the Super Bowl,” Speaker Mike Johnson told Fox News in describing how Congress would work with Mr. Trump to change the way government functions. “This is the moment we’ve all been waiting for our entire careers, and finally, the stars have aligned so we can do that better.” But Trump, Musk and other top administration officials have already made it clear that they have little regard for Congress’s authority, and Mr. Johnson has positioned himself more as a subordinate to the president than the leader of a coequal branch of government with its own power. And once lawmakers have yielded their authority, they will find it hard to claw it back.

“For the moment, Republicans do not appear to be concerned with the precedent they are setting. Conservative House G.O.P. lawmakers who typically oppose appropriations bills backed this week’s short-term spending bill precisely because it would hand Mr. Trump much of the authority for funding decisions that Congress would usually reserve for itself. They said they were reversing themselves in part because the Trump administration had already demonstrated it would disregard congressional instructions to allocate money for programs lawmakers voted to fund. Democrats cited that as a reason to reject the bill, but Republicans said it gave them confidence that the administration would withhold money and reduce spending no matter what Congress said.

Republicans’ willingness to allow Trump and Musk to snatch away Congress’s vaunted power of the purse has inflamed Democrats with the power grab for a blank check short-term spending bill. “House Republicans didn’t merely refuse to address the lawlessness we have seen from Trump and Musk,” said Senator Patty Murray of Washington, the senior Democrat on the Appropriations Committee. “They would actually empower it with this bill, because the House Republicans’ bill fails to include the typical detailed spending directives, the basic guardrails that Congress provides each year in our funding bills.”

Still, Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, moved on Thursday to line up Democratic votes to allow the stopgap funding bill to move forward in the Senate, arguing that a shutdown would actually cede even more power to Trump and Musk.

Congressional Republicans have also relinquished some of their power on economic issues. They gave up any possibility of holding a House vote this year to overturn tariffs enacted by the president. The power to impose such levies was originally vested with the legislative branch, but lawmakers over time have increasingly delegated it to the executive. Still, under current law, Congress can vote to undo tariffs imposed by the president.  Under language that GOP leaders tucked into a procedural measure this week, that law would effectively be nullified. “They are abdicating their most important Constitutional obligation: oversight over the executive branch on trade,” said Representative Richard E. Neal of Massachusetts, the top Democrat on the Ways and Means Committee who had led the effort to force a vote on resolutions to end the tariffs. “Republicans have unequivocally showed us who they are — cowards who kowtow to the president on everything including the economy.”

Musings on How Trump Has Undermined Trust in America

   Rudy Barnes, Jr., March 8, 2025

Before Trump’s Republicans took charge of American politics, I believed the church could be a moral steward of promoting the common good and political legitimacy.  I was wrong.  Now that Trump and his “Christian” charlatans have corrupted the political legitimacy of America’s politics, it will take more than the church to save America from ourselves.

 

David French has emphasized the priority of the Constitution as the foundation of law in America, but after the vast majority of Christians voted twice to make Trump their President, the church has lost its moral compass, being more concerned with its popularity than with challenging a corrupt Trump regime and restoring political legitimacy in America.

The altruistic moral teachings of Jesus are summarized in the greatest commandment to love God and our neighbors as we love ourselves.  Its moral imperative is to provide for the common good, but that has been lost in America’s polarized politics.  It will take an emphasis on supporting and defending the Constitution to promote the common good in America’s politics.

Holding the President accountable to support and defend the Constitution has become a legal priority in America, with Vance and Musk castigating President Zolensky during his visit to the White House.  It was an egregious example of Trump seeking to reshape the Constitution to increase the power of the executive branch at the expense of Congress.

Trump, Vance and Musk have already begun dismantling the federal workforce and terminating ongoing federal domestic and foreign programs with no Constitutional authority or Congressional mandate.  There is no moral or legal precedent for their irresponsible behavior; and so far the courts have not stopped Trump’s wreckage of the Constitutional order.

It’s a supreme test for the viability of America’s Constitutional democracy, and Trump’s Republicans in Congress have been marching lock-step with him.  With the American church silent on this existential moral and political disaster, David French has said, “As Trump destroys institutions, he destroys trust.  And trust, once destroyed, is the most difficult thing to restore.”

David French reminds us, “As we experience the consequences of Trump’s actions, we’re learning exactly why the /founders did not want the president to reign supreme.  We’re reminded once again that they possessed keen insight into the perils of governing a large fractious nation by executive fiat.”

Like other demagogues, Trump has often threatened to use military force to maintain order on his terms as he dismantles the Constitution and expands his power.  Ironically, Trump, or his successor, may have to consider mobilizing the military to support and defend the Constitution in America.  If so, Zolensky would appreciate the irony.

  

Notes:

“President Trump is doing damage to America that could take a generation or more to repair. The next election cannot fix what Trump is breaking. Neither can the one after that. To understand the gravity of the harm Trump has inflicted on the United States in the first month and a half of his presidency, a comparison with the Cold War is helpful. Republicans and Democrats often had sharp differences in their approach to the Soviet Union.  At no point did Americans go to the polls and choose between one candidate committed to NATO and another candidate sympathetic to the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. The very idea would have been fantastical. American elections could reset our national security strategy, but they did not change our bedrock alliances. They did not change our fundamental identity. 

Until now. Consider what happened in the Oval Office on Friday February 29. Trump and Vice President JD Vance ambushed President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine on live television. Vance accused Zelensky of being “disrespectful,” and Trump attacked him directly: You’re gambling with the lives of millions of people. You’re gambling with World War III and what you’re doing to this country that’s backed you far more than a lot of people say they should.  Trump has taught our most important strategic partners a lesson they will not soon forget: America can — and will — change sides. As we experience the consequences of Trump’s actions, we’re learning exactly why the founders did not want the president to reign supreme. We’re reminded once again that they possessed keen insight into the perils of governing a large, fractious nation by executive fiat. By challenging the constitutional order, Trump is challenging the stability of the American system itself.”  On Trump doing real damage to America, see  https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/02/opinion/trump-ukraine-zelensky-usaid.html.

WSJ Editorial Board Veiled Warning, Trump’s Old World Order, May 2, 2025 

It seems clear that Mr. Trump wants to wash his hands of Ukraine. “You’re either going to make a deal, or we’re out,” Mr. Trump ordered Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday. This will embolden Vladimir Putin to insist on even harsher terms for a cease-fire deal. Mr. Trump is hammering traditional U.S. friends. He plans 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico, in violation of his own USMCA trade deal, and his defense secretary has threatened to invade Mexico to pursue drug cartels. He wants to hit Western Europe with heavy tariffs on its autos, and slap reciprocal tariffs on the rest of the trading world. Meanwhile in the Americas, Mr. Trump has demanded control over the Panama Canal, which the U.S. ceded by treaty in 1999. And he wants Denmark to sell Greenland to the U.S. These moves taken together hint at a worldview that has long been the goal of American isolationists: Let China dominate the Pacific, Russia dominate Europe, and the U.S. the Americas. All of this would amount to an epochal return to the world of great power competition and balance of power that prevailed before World War II. It’s less a brave new world than a reversion to a dangerous old one. Mr. Trump hasn’t articulated this, but some of the intellectuals surrounding him have. Elbridge Colby has argued that the U.S. must leave Europe and the Middle East to their own devices to focus on the Asia-Pacific. But he has also said that South Korea might have to fend for itself, and he said in a letter to us last year that “Taiwan isn’t itself of existential importance to America.”  Mr. Trump has an obligation to tell Americans what new order he thinks he is building. Then we can have a debate about his intentions and their consequences.

Trump Is Appeasing Putin As Chamberlain Sought to Appease Hitler

By Rudy Barnes, Jr., March 1, 2025

The recent statements of Trump claiming Zelensky is a dictator with no public support who started the war in Ukraine, and Trump’s meeting with Putin to end the war without Zelensky, is similar to Neville Chamberlain's efforts to appease Hitler’s aggressions at the beginning of WWII.  Unfortunately America doesn’t have a Winston Churchill waiting in the wings to save us.

 

The abandonment of Republican support for Ukraine against Putin’s aggression reveals a feckless Republican Party that should be minimized to reduce partisan polarization and restore a functioning Congress.  Trump has so intimidated Republicans in Congress that they have succumbed to his demand for unquestioned loyalty to his reckless narcissistic policies.

Zelensky has said that Trump lives in “disinformation space.”  That’s putting it too mildly.  Trump and his spineless Republican Party have sold out Ukraine’s future--one not unlike America’s efforts to gain its freedom.   Trump is a wannabe dictator sympathetic to Putin who is  impressing the world that America doesn’t deserve the respect it had before the Trump regime.

In the wake of Trump’s unjustified criticism of Zelensky, Senator John Thune of South Dakota has said, “Right now you have to give Trump some space;”  Just the opposite is more appropriate.  Trump has made a mess of U.S. policy toward Ukraine, and there should be no more delay in correcting his grievous errors.

American voters must recruit and elect independents to fill GOP Congressional seats in 2026 to correct Trump policies.  After viable independent candidates are recruited, then ballots must be secured and counted to prevent a Russian style mockery of democracy.  Remember, Trump favors Putin’s style of democracy, and he would likely assist Trump with election fraud.

For Republicans to redeem their party they must pledge independence from Trump and loyalty to support and defend the Constitution from radical right corruptions, like Project 2025. The elections in 2026 and 2028 will allow American democracy to be born again, once again promoting the light of liberty and the common good in an otherwise dark world.

Americans can’t claim ignorance for the demise of democracy and abandoning Ukraine. They should have seen it coming with Trump’s first term and his campaign promises in 2024.  Trump has referred to Musk as an unelected “patriot” and empowered him to head DOGE to reshape the Constitution and eliminate essential government services.

So far Congress and the courts have not prevented Trump and Musk from appeasing Putin for his aggression in Ukraine.  Great Britain’s Parliament replaced Chamberlain with Winston Churchill, who led the Allies to victory over Hitler in WW II; but the U.S. Constitution doesn’t provide an option for Congress to replace Trump with a statesman like Churchill.

Notes:

On Trump Firing Joint Chiefs Chairman Amid Flurry of Dismissals at Pentagon, see https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/21/us/politics/trump-fires-cq-brown-pentagon.html.

The NYTimes Editorial Board asked, Who Will Stand Up to Trump on Ukraine? https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/22/opinion/trump-ukraine-russia-republicans.html.

Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, once called Mr. Putin a “thug” and a war criminal, saying he “needs to be dealt with.” But shortly after Mr. Trump announced that Mr. Putin had extended an invitation for the president to travel to Moscow, Mr. Graham changed his tune substantially, writing on social media that Mr. Trump “is Ukraine’s best hope to end this war honorably and justly,” adding that he believes the president “will be successful and he will achieve this goal in the Trump way. ”On Republicans Being Mum after Trump Turned Toward Russia and Against Ukraine”, see  https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/19/us/politics/trump-ukraine-russia-republicans.html.

On the Disturbing Question at the Heart of the Trump Putin Drama, Thomas L. Friedman has opined, “I can’t blame our traditional friends for being disoriented. But Trump completely misreads Putin. He thinks Putin just needs a little positive attention, a little understanding, a little concern for his security needs — a hug! — and he will sign the peace Trump so badly desires. Nonsense.  Putin is not looking for “peace in Ukraine. He is looking for victory in Ukraine" — because without a victory, ‘he is very vulnerable at home. Capitalist democracies will do anything for peace, and Putin’s autocracy will do anything for victory. We need to switch that around. The way to do that would be by signaling to Putin that the Western allies will see his bet and raise him one — “not maligning a heroic nation” that has been fighting to preserve a Europe whole and free.”  See https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/25/opinion/trump-putin-ukraine.html.

The U.S. has reportedly struck a deal with Ukraine that includes access to rare earth minerals for U.S. aid to Ukraine.  According to one Ukrainian official, some technical details are still to be determined. However, the draft does not include a contentious Trump administration proposal to give the U.S. $500 billion worth of profits from Ukraine’s rare earth minerals as compensation for its wartime assistance to Kyiv.  The U.S. and Ukraine would have joint ownership of a fund, and Ukraine would in the future contribute 50% of future proceeds from state-owned resources, including minerals, oil, and gas. One official said the deal had better terms of investments and another one said that Kyiv secured favorable amendments and viewed the outcome as “positive.” The deal does not, however, include security guarantees. One official said that this would be something the two presidents would discuss when they meet. https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-economic-agreement-us-72ee2cfa720f6a42455c5425007060e6.