"It will end badly," I said four years ago, and so it is ... the depths of his narcissism, his spite, his immorality, and cruelty, are running unchecked, and in the next thirty days, who knows what evil will yet emerge from his tormented soul.

Yet, 70 millions Americans voted for him ... which says a great deal about our nation, and our own spiritual deformation. Our own blood-soaked history, our love of violence, our racism, our growing inability to care for our neighbor.

I hope that the unvarnished Tr--- gives pause to some who voted for him, and to some of the GOP who stood by him as he destroyed one thing after another. Sadly, there are very few Republicans left - the GOP has, in fact, become the POT, the Party of Trump.

Yes, the man has a base in this nation, and that ought to frightened the daylights out of anyone who yet cares about the larger issues of justice, climate, equality, immigration, and healthcare.

As always, I write as Christian, lest anyone write me off as a silly liberal. YES, I'M A LIBERAL BECAUSE I'M A CHRISTIAN! The life of Christ, what he said, and did, and died for, shape my being. The witness of the Prophets, the Song of Mary, the Book of James, and Paul's ethics, are the bedrock of my thinking, my values, my politics.

To all who look to the Star for hope, who know full well that even now Herod is at work to destroy the work of God, may there be an abundance of grace, mercy, and peace.

We have our work cut out for us, so let us put our hand to the plow and not look back. Let us sing with heart and soul:

Oh little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by
Yet in thy dark streets shineth, the everlasting light
The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.

The America I've Known ...

The America I've known for most of my life,
And for which I've watched good and decent people strive:
Overcoming the Great Depression, Dust Bowls and disasters ...
Working through the horrors of McCarthyism,
Expanding civil rights and ending, mostly, segregation.

And a host of good things.
Sound diplomacy, mostly.
GOP Presidents, less than good, but mostly tolerable.
And too much given away to the rich.

But attention still paid to Working America.

Now, being trashed.
Tossed out on the rubbish heap behind a billionaire's home.
The American Worker savaged.
Mutuality destroyed by American individuality.

A poisonous me-first cluster-bomb.
Exploding across the land.
Racism rampant born again.
Misogyny revamped.

Here I am, 72, soon to be 73.
And my America is being thrashed and trashed.
By the greedy and the cruel
By religion run amok.

Evangelicals who are nothing more than Baalists.
Osteen lovers of wealth and dreamers of dominance.
Robbing the treasury of my nation.
Giving it away to the Philanthrobbers.

All is lost, it really is.
In a cesspool of GOP Chamber of Commerce.
Reliance upon the Almighty Dollar.
The Capitalist Way, the Truth and the Life.

I'll not look the other way.
Though a forthright view of things is hideous.
I'll not put on an alternative-fact smile.
Though tears are more than likely.

Now is the time to tell the truth.
The King has no clothes.
The promise of greatness is a chimera.
Birthed to win votes.

Tell the truth.
I think that's what my heroes did.
Jeremiah in the muddy well.
Isaiah in the temple.

Paul to the Romans when he spoke of grace.
And James to those who gutted the faith of life.
And John to those who cheapened love.
And Jesus to the bankers.

And Wycliffe and Huss.
And Luther and Calvin.
And Bonhoeffer and Barth and Bultmann.
And Martin Luther King, Jr.

All's well that ends well, is for sure.
I believe in the good ending.
But not always a good path in the meantime.
But the path upon which God walks with us.

I'll trod that path in the years that remain.
It'll surely be for others to clean up the present mess.
Cleanse the air and the water again.
And set the people free.

The Doors Are Slamming Shut

Can you hear it America?
The Doors.

The Doors are being slammed shut.
And sealed tight.

Executive Orders.
And Christian Power.

The Doors are slamming shut.
One-by-one.

Slammed and sealed.
Guarded by doers of good.

"There will be none of that here," they proclaim.
With giddiness and pride.

"We'll have none of that, for we would be pure."
Purity, as they see it, always demands death.

The death of freedom and thought.
Because thought is the bulwark of freedom.

Kill the thought.
Kill the thinker.

And freedom goes away.
And power rises up.

Beware, godly power.
Beware, the power of purity.

Can you hear it America?
The doors are being slammed shut!

"In God We Trust" ... I Dare You!

"In God We Trust." Heck, every "Christian" nation has made that claim. But it's obvious, I think, that "God" has a lot of variety. The God of the Germans told them to kill the French. The Russian God told them to kill Germans. The British God said "Kill." And so did the American God. And kill they did in countless wars to this very day. These days, Muslim nations also express "trust in God." Hindus and Buddhists in India claim divinity, too. How we love to kill in the name of God, the Gods, our divinities.

I've long felt that America's claim befits a nation burdened with self-righteousness, as if we could do no wrong, because "we trust in God." But, then, so do so many other nations and movements.

Even in America, the God of a right-wing NRA supporter is rather different than the God of a life-wing Occupy Wall Street advocate. And what about those who have no God? Oh well ...

All across the battered landscape of God-trusting history, defeat, death, disease, and victory, too, and gloating and pride, and parades and bunting. But

With all these "Gods" floating around, which God shall it be?

I guess the one with the biggest army and the most bombs.

Yet, there's another story here ... a deeper, darker one, an ironic element. Yes, trust in God - go ahead, I dare you.

The God of the Prophets who allowed the Assyrians to destroy the Northern Kingdom and then allowed the Babylonians to destroy the Southern Kingdom. They trusted in God for victory, but such was not the case.

Or the God of Jesus, who allowed Rome to level the city of Jerusalem and end all claims to land.

Beware of this God - not owned or manipulated by any earthly power. At no one's beck and call.

Trust God - go ahead.

I dare you.

Vision, Voting Booths and Faith

Written for the August newsletter of Calvary Presbyterian Church, Hawthorne, CA

As the Presidential Campaign heats up, both parties are offering their vision for America.

What’s our vision for America?

And more importantly, could we explain to someone how our vision for America correlates with our faith?

Our vision is shaped by all sorts of things:

1. How we were raised and how our parents saw the world.
2. Our schooling, what we majored in and our favorite professors.
3. Our work history - good jobs and bad jobs.
4. Our personal lives - joys and our sorrows, wins and losses.
5. How we feel about ourselves, how we see our lives and our place in the world.
6. Newspapers and magazines and books.
7. TV and radio.
8. Obviously, the internet - from the ridiculous to the sublime.
9. Our religious background and spiritual proclivities.
10. And our DNA.

In high school and college, I was formally introduced to Calvinism, a “world and life view” - a faith perspective into which I was born, with many a fine pastor proclaiming the gospel with Reformed Style! For me, as a person and a pastor, such breadth and depth captures the heart of the Christian Faith, the sweep of Scripture and the vision of the Saints and Leaders of the last 2000 years.

Everyone has a tradition, even those who claim to be “non-denominational” have a tradition behind them, and it’s called Anabaptist. 

Anyway, as Christians of the Calvinist, or Reformed, persuasion, our world and life faith is big; big enough for the world, and small enough for every-day life. Including the candidates we support and our vision of America. So we pray: O God, may our convictions correlate with Jesus, the Bible and our Reformed Tradition.”

So, we rightly ask, “What are the elements of a Calvinist, or Reformed, faith”? 

1. This world belongs to God, and God yearns for the world to know and live this liberating truth. This is God’s Sovereignty!
2. God is at work in all things to restore creation to health and wholeness for all God’s creatures, great and small. At the heart of this work is forgiveness, or atonement. This is God’s Grace!
3. The object of the Christian is not to simply go to heaven (though that’s part of the deal, God be praised), but to live well here, as a child of God, a friend of Jesus. This is God’s Sanctification of God’s People.
4. The prophets of the Old Testament offer tremendous insights into the mind of God and provide the foundation for Jesus and the New Testament. This is God’s Instruction.
5. The Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount describe specifically the world envisioned by Jesus. This is God with Us!
6. Paul the Apostle writes about the effort of God to persuade us, lead us, guide us, command us, through Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit, to be, as Jesus says, the salt of the earth and the light of the world. This is God’s Call to Follow Christ!

We shall serve Christ well when we take his life and love, and the whole counsel of God, into our hearts and minds, and our hearts and minds into the voting booth.

To God be the glory!

Interim Pastor Tom Eggebeen

Who or What Are We?

Who are we?

Notice, I didn’t ask, “What” are we?

As for the what, there’s a lot of pressure on us to be a what. A consumer! And sadly, so many Americans wear that label proudly. That we refer to ourselves as an “American Consumer” is, or so it seems to me, a contradiction in terms.

Would Washington or Jefferson have nodded in agreement with this?

Or Lincoln or Martin Luther King, Jr.?

Would Jesus?

1957 Cadillacs were consumers, and so are garbage disposals and slot machines.

But people?

The boys and girls in charge of consumerism don’t want us to think about this. They want happy spenders digging themselves deeper and deeper into a financial hole, living for the day and ignoring tomorrow. When 9/11 happened, we were told to go shopping, when we might better have been told to take a few days for family prayer and reflection, or study-up on the Middle East or seek out a Muslim neighbor and find out how they’re feeling.

We used to be a nation that saved.

We paid for things in cash.

We bought stocks for their long-term dividends.

We were slower and more relaxed.

Our homes were smaller and so were our cars.

We ate out less and spent more time with our children.

The gap between top and bottom was smaller.

People sat on their front porches and knew their neighbors.

Kids played in the neighborhood and every adult was their parent.

We were not consumers. We were people.

Our Founding Mothers and Fathers worked hard and sacrificed for us to be people.

And to be people is how God created us, and the reason why Jesus paid us a visit.

He died, of course, because the powerful and the wealthy in Jerusalem were afraid of the people figuring out how badly they’d been duped.

Yet when Easter came, we knew the truth.

We are people!