The Greatest Commandment as a Moral Imperative for Pluralistic Democracies

The Greatest Commandment as a Moral Imperative for Pluralistic Democracies

By Rudy Barnes, Jr., September 27, 2025

Charlie Kirk claimed to be a Christian conservative who supported Donald Trump.  But no one who claims to follow the universal and altruistic teachings of Jesus as the Word of God can support Donald Trump. The greatest commandment is a summary of the teachings of Jesus that calls believers to love God and our neighbors, including those of other races and religions, as we love ourselves.

At the memorial service for Charlie Kirk, his widow tearfully said she forgave the man who killed her husband.  At the same service, Trump stated “I hate my opponent.”  It was a nasty sentiment that Trump has publicly proclaimed throughout his Presidency, but it was clearly out of order at the memorial service for Charlie Kirk.

Repercussions from the Kirk assassination have impacted Christianity from colleges to neighborhood churches.  Kirk’s Turning Point is a mixture of religion and politics that has transformed evangelicalism, especially among the young, while traditional congregations are aging and becoming smaller.  The American church is destined to have its own Turning Point.

On Christianity after Charlie Kirk Ross Duthat has observed that “eight years ago, religious conservatives accepted the leadership of a flagrant immoralist as the price of protection against a then-ascendant-seeming secular progressivism.  This political compromise fractured churches, divided pundits and introduced a further crisis into an American Christianity already dealing with scandal, disaffection and decline.”

“But today conservative Christians are eager to tell a different story, and Charlie Kirk’s memorial service was subordinated to preaching, with Erika Kirk’s  extraordinarily moving message of forgiveness for her husband’s killer.  It was a stage for a narrative of revival, recovery, conversion, Christian strength.”

David Brooks has noted,”There’s been a lot of mingling of Christianity and politics since Charlie Kirk was murdered. Tucker Carlson opened one of his shows with a straight-up sermon: “This is a religion committed to love above all and to living in peace and harmony, truly. It’s a universalist religion that believes that every person has a shot at heaven. It’s not exclusionary at all.”

Given the rise of popular new variations of Christianity in politics and the decline of the church, it’s questionable whether the church will survive as the major social institution that it has been in the past.  Familiar but smaller versions of the church will no doubt continue to survive to satisfy traditional desires, but American churches are likely to continue to decline.

With the contentious relationships between competing Christian organizations like Turning Point, change is certain, but what kind of change it will produce--other than declining churches that is already evident--is yet to be seen.  David Brooks has indicated that one thing is certain:  There is no confusion between the teachings of Jesus as a moral imperative in pluralistic democracies and the evil narcissism of Trump.

Notes:

On Ross Douthat’s Christianity After Charlie Kirk, see   https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/22/opinion/charlie-kirk-memorial-christianity.html

On David Brooks, Why we Need to Think Straight About God and Politics, see 

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/25/opinion/kirk-trump-christianity.html

Behind Charlie Kirk’s Spiritual Journey that Fused Chrstianity and Politics, see  https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/22/us/charlie-kirk-christian-faith-politics.html.

Musings of a Maverick Methodist on Conflicting Concepts of Jesus, see 

http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2023/09/musings-of-maverick-methodist-on.html.

Musings on the the Dismal Failure of the Church and Democracy in America, see

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xWM4o586mCu6QoL69XAhkxfjjh6daTnNdnGnkJ05cZ8/edit.

On Jefferson's Jesus and Moral Standards of Legitimacy in Religion and Politics.docx

#564: Are You a Conservative or a Liberal?

  

By Rudy Barnes, Jr., September 20, 2025

I always considered myself a non-partisan moderate conservative, but after Charlie Kirk was described as a conservative who supported Donald Trump, I’m clearly not that kind of conservative.  Those who support Trump are committed to support his corrupt political agenda rather than providing for the common good, and are not true conservatives.

Until Trump’s domination of the Republican Party, there were conservatives and liberals in both parties who supported both liberal and conservative issues that provided for the common good.  But with partisan polarization voters are limited to choosing between Republicans or Democrats, and have no real choice for voters beyond party lines.  

David Brooks recently wrote, Why I Am not a Liberal, and I share his support of the maxim of Daniel Patrick Moynihan, that “the central conservative truth in politics is that culture, not politics determines the success of a society.”  Brooks also said that the central liberal truth is similar, but different: Democratic politics can change culture and save democracy from itself.”

The truth is that the politics of a majority in a democracy reflects their cultural values and preferences.  The Democratic preference for cash benefits to the poor will always be needed, but should be limited since they don’t always improve a nation’s culture.  The Bidenomics of throwing money at problems before the 2024 elections were politically ineffectual.

In American democracy today the majority of people define their cultural and moral standards through partisan politics.  In a pluralistic democracy political standards should provide for the common good.  Even then there are major differences, but today America’s polarized politics are dominated by partisan hatred rather than seeking to promote the common good.

Voters must end America’s polarized partisan politics to avoid the partisan trap that defines all national candidates along partisan lines.  That’s the only way to restore politics that can provide the common good.  Before the era of Trump we had leaders in both parties who had conservative and liberal perspectives of what constituted the common good.

   

Conservative and liberal labels don’t work in today’s polarized partisan politics since voters have to choose between Democratic and Republican candidates who put loyalty to their party ahead of other political issues.  You can be either conservative or liberal, but you won’t find any candidates who feel free to support true conservative or liberal political views.

Brooks ends up saying that “If you find some lefties who are willing to spend money fighting poverty but also willing to promote the traditional values and practices that enable people to rise, you can sign me up for the revolution.”

Notes:

David Brooks has cited a study “suggesting that merely giving people money doesn’t do much to lift them out of poverty. Families with at least one child received $333 a month. They had more money to spend, which is a good thing, but the children fared no better than similar children who didn’t get the cash. They were no more likely to develop language skills or demonstrate cognitive development. They were no more likely to avoid behavioral problems or developmental delays.  Kelsey Piper noted in another study published last year that families given $500 a month for two years had no big effects on the adult recipients’ psychological well-being and financial security. A study that gave $1,000 a month did not produce better health, career, education or sleep outcomes or even more time with their children.”  Piper noted that once children’s basic material needs are met, characteristics of their parents become more important to how they turn out than anything additional money can buy.”

Conservatism, as you know, is a complete mess in America right now. But reading conservative authors like Edmund Burke, Samuel Johnson, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Gertrude Himmelfarb and James Q. Wilson does give you an adequate appreciation for the power of nonmaterial forces — culture, moral norms, traditions, religious ideals, personal responsibility and community cohesion. That body of work teaches you, as Burke wrote, that manners and morals are more important than laws. You should have limited expectations about politics because not everything can be solved with a policy.”

Matt Bruenig’s contention was typical of liberals.  He scorned the very idea that focusing on human capital is a good way to improve social mobility. He wrote, “Cash is the key part of every welfare state in the developed world and absolutely critical for keeping poverty down.” We shouldn’t make fighting poverty overly complicated, he argued. “As a policy matter, these are mostly solved problems.” Just write people checks.

Progressives, by contrast, are quick to talk about money but slow to talk about the values side of the equation. “This materialistic bent leads to all sorts of bad judgments. For example, Joe Biden and his team had one job: to make sure Donald Trump never set foot in the White House again. They tried to accomplish that the only way they knew how: throw money at the problem. The vast bulk of the new Biden spending went to red states to employ workers without college degrees. Politically, the project was a complete failure. Populism is not primarily economic; it’s about respect, values, national identity and many other things. All that spending did not win anybody over.  Today most of our problems are moral, relational and spiritual more than they are economic. There is the crisis of disconnection, the collapse of social trust, the loss of faith in institutions, the destruction of moral norms in the White House, the rise of amoral gangsterism around the world. I wish both right and left could embrace the more complex truth that the neocon Democrat Daniel Patrick Moynihan expressed in his famous maxim: “The central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society. The central liberal truth is that politics can change culture and save it from itself.” If you can find some lefties who are willing to spend money fighting poverty but also willing to promote the traditional values and practices that enable people to rise, you can sign me up for the revolution.”  See Why I Am Not a Liberal, By David Brooks, at  https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/05/opinion/liberal-conservative-left-right-politics.html.       

The Cultural Seams that Threaten America's Pluralistic Democracy

The Cultural Seams that Threaten America’s Pluralistic Democracy

By Rudy Barnes, Jr., September 13, 2025     

In 1860, slavery broke the cultural seams of race in American democracy with a civil war.  It was followed by cultural seams shaped by greed, materialism and hedonism.  In 1929 the Depression forced Americans to address endemic poverty, and that was followed by World War II, in which America’s revived economy saved America and the world from Hitler’s tyranny.

In 2016, Trump was elected as President and reelected in 2024.  Since then America’s democracy seems doomed by a President with 34 felony convictions who is determined to undermine America’s Constitution.  Voters and our churches have ignored the altruistic and universal moral teaching of Jesus in America’s polarized partisan politics.

Trump’s Republican regime has been reshaped into forms unfamiliar to those who aren’t Trump insiders and privy to his corrupt and narcissistic views.  Chaos has become the political and economic norm, represented by a wildly fluctuating stock market and the likelihood of increasing inflation caused by Trump’s tariffs. 

Today cultural redemption in the darkness of Trump’s oppressive politics make a return to normalcy unlikely without a major moral, cultural and political reawakening before America’s 2026 midterm elections.  America is a divided nation ruled by Trumpists with little hope of it returning to political normalcy anytime soon

Since the Moral Majority of the 1980s American politics have been controlled by a two-party duopoly that set the stage for the primacy of a radical right Republican majority that was exploited by Trump’s assumption of power in 2016 and reaffirmed in 2024.  During that time Trump made no secret of his megalomania.

The feeble moral altruism of Christianity has been defeated by the self-serving nationalism of Trump’s narcissistic politics, which have been more about voters rejecting a divided liberal Democratic Party than accepting Trump’s corrupt policies. Trump has demonstrated the power of partisan politics over reason and common sense.  

Polls indicate a majority of Americans now oppose Trump’s economic policies based on the inflation caused by his widespread tariffs.  With a massive and unsustainable national debt of over $36.7 trillion and a falling dollar, there’s no public support for Democratic spending policies, or for a third party.  American democracy is caught in a political trap of its own making.  

The illusion of democracy as a political panacea in America’s polarized partisan politics is history, but we’ll have to wait and see if the 2026 midterm elections can restore some hope for repairing the Constitution and a functioning Congress.  Meanwhile, we can only hope that the cultural seams in American democracy can withstand the internal pressure of self-destruction. 

Notes:

Trump was found guilty on 34 felony counts after prosecutors alleged that he engaged in a "scheme" to boost his chances during the 2016 presidential election through a series of hush money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, and then falsified New York business records to cover up that alleged criminal conduct.  "I did my job, and we did our job," Bragg said following Trump's conviction.   "There are many voices out there, but the only voice that matters is the voice of the jury, and the jury has spoken."   https://abcnews.go.com/US/anniversary-hush-money-conviction-trump-continues-fght-criminal/story?id=122325361   "The alleged evidentiary violations at President-Elect Trump's state-court trial can be addressed in the ordinary course on appeal," the Supreme Court said in a brief unsigned opinion, though four justices said they would have granted Trump's application. For Trump's criminal defense, he relied on then-defense attorneys Todd Blanche and Emil Bove, who now serve as the deputy attorney general and principal associate deputy attorney general. Earlier this week, Trump announced that he plans to nominate Bove -- who led a purge of career law enforcement officials before the Senate confirmed his nomination to help run the DOJ -- to the United States Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit.   "That President Trump's defense in fact takes the form of a new constitutional immunity announced by the Supreme Court after his trial ended, rather than a new statute enacted by Congress, should if anything cut in the President's favor," lawyers with the Department of Justice argued in a brief submitted on Tuesday.  The appeal -- as well as the ongoing appeal of Trump's $83 million judgment in the E. Jean Carroll civil case and half-billion-dollar civil fraud case -- is proceeding on uncharted legal grounds as Trump wields the power of the presidency in his defense. He has characterized the prosecutors who pursued the cases against him as politically motivated, and has touted his electoral victory last November as a political acquittal.  "The real verdict is going to be Nov. 5 by the people," Trump told reporters as he left court following his conviction last year. "And they know what happened here, and everybody knows what happened here."

I’m an independent in my politics, and I’m still waiting on third-party candidates who have both altruistic morality and the potential to win a national office.  I have often referred to Trump as an evil man, and have reminded people who support him that they are supporting the power of evil in the cosmic battle between the forces of good and evil.

Musings on Our Broken Democracy and Corrupt Culture

By Rudy Barnes, Jr., September 6, 2025

America’s culture is corrupt and we have a  broken democracy.  Can they be restored?  Only if Americans can rediscover the altruistic values that gave birth to our nation, and both parties in our polarized two-party duopoly seek altruistic standards of political legitimacy that provide for the common good; and that will take a new birth of American libertarian democracy.

Donald Trump and his dominant Republican Party have undermined the Constitution, and the Democratic Party is unable to function as the loyal opposition.  The first step to restoring the checks and balances of the Constitution is to fix America’s broken 2-party duopoly. A one-party system cannot produce the political choices needed for freedom and democracy.

  

The Founding Fathers who drafted the Constitution were committed to religious freedom in the Bill of Rights, and did not promote any religion.  Until the 1960s many red states had one-party (Democratic) politics.  As an independent from South Carolina I can vouch for the need for political competition at all levels of government to provide political legitimacy.

Non-partisan politics can depolarize partisan politics; but both parties are opposed to doing that.  And since popularity is the measure of success in both politics and religion. partisan polarization has been exacerbated by nationalist forms of Christianity,   That has allowed popular forms of Christian nationalism to corrupt both politics and religion.

A one-party system cannot produce the choices needed for freedom and democracy.  While some churches have avoided politics altogether, others have supported demagogues like Trump, further polarizing partisan politics and preventing the church from being the moral steward of democracy.   

 In 1787 the Constitution was approved, and George Washington was elected America’s first President.  The Civil War divided politics in America, but afterward both parties promoted candidates committed to reconciling major political differences.  But In 2016, Donald Trump was elected President and re-elected in 2024; and that changed everything.

The challenge for the church is to acknowledge its role as the moral steward of God’s universal Word as taught by Jesus in the greatest commandment, but without promoting any political party or individual candidates.  That’s a challenge in all religions; even ancient Judaism provides examples of competition for belief between sects supporting secular idols and Yahweh.

Jesus was a Jew, not a Christian.  His teachings are universal and altruistic moral standards of legitimacy for all people.  While the church has taught that Jesus was divine and that belief in Jesus as God’s only Son is the only means of salvation, Jesus taught that we love God by loving others, including those of other races and religions, as we love ourselves.

Notes:  The church can be a moral steward of democracy by promoting the moral teachings of Jesus without promoting a specific party or candidate.  See Musings of a Maverick Methodist on the Virtues and Vices of Christian Morality.  Of course, every voter can individually promote whoever he/she supports.