White Christmas

It’s Christmas again, a good time to remember that love is sometimes hard to come by in this cold land. How would Jesus view our modern Rome? What would he think of our American Caesar? I’ll leave it to more learned folk than myself to tease that one out, but I have a pretty good guess. I bet you do, too.

When I think of the “least of these,” as Jesus encouraged us to do, I think of the same people targeted by this administration. Migrants, the poor, the hungry and needy, those in crisis. This week’s spiked 60 Minutes story describing the El Salvadoran concentration camp to which our government sent 250 men without even the fig leaf of due process to be tortured and sexually abused demonstrates that fact better than anything I could contrive. The contrast with the teachings of their Lord could not be more stark.

This in an administration that uses every possible instance to bind themselves to “Christianity” when their words and deeds contrast those of the man they claim to worship. As the comedian, commentator, author of the new book Separation of Church and Hate (and my former college dorm RA) has repeatedly pointed out:

“Jesus was a radical nonviolent revolutionary who hung around with lepers hookers and crooks; wasn’t American and never spoke English; was anti-wealth, anti-death penalty, anti-public prayer (M 6:5); was never anti-gay, never mentioned abortion or birth control, never called the poor lazy, never justified torture, never fought for tax cuts for the wealthiest Nazarenes, never asked a leper for a co-pay; and was a long-haired, brown-skinned, homeless, community-organizing, anti-slut-shaming, Middle Eastern Jew.”

Fugelsang makes this point to illustrate the deep lies at the heart of the contemporary conservative movement, a movement incompatible with the actual teachings of Yeshua ben Yosef. In fact, the best I can tell, Jesus had exactly one message: “Love each other. The rest don’t mean shit.”

Anybody as into UFOs as myself must maintain a high level of skepticism. I try to apply that skepticism to all areas of my life and so I periodically entertain the following question: “What if they’re right?”

What if migrants are criminals? What if they’re stealing our homes? Our resources? What if trans people are trying to groom others to join them? And, hey, maybe it was a mistake to grant women the right to vote. Or to serve in the military. Maybe white people, as JD Vance said the other day, have been forced to “apologize for being white,” and I just never heard about it. Maybe they really are eating the cats and dogs. Maybe, as the saying goes, “Trump was right about everything.”

Jesus on ‘roids.

Reality - the reality of things measured and weighed - disagrees. Which brings us to this enchanted Christmas season. It’s a season in which we traditionally agreed to adhere to certain fictions for the sake of the children. Now, though, those fictions apply to a sizeable minority of the nation. They are, in the literal sense, enchanted.

Maybe some of those raised with religion are better able to ignore disagreeable information when it contradicts what they wish to be true. Yes, the earth really is warming because of human activity. Yes, American citizens are being snatched off the street by a largely unaccountable domestic terror squad. Yes, the president is a convicted felon and serial sexual abuser. Yes, math still maths.

They do so, I imagine, for the same reason many of the faithful disregard abuses within their own churches. Because reward follows suffering. In other words, whatever the faults of their King of American Kings, they are reassured of the larger project to which God has used this imperfect instrument. That project is the establishment of America as a white Christian homeland.

To their minds, that doesn’t make them “bad” people, any more than Japanese who wish to maintain their traditional Japanese identity are “bad.” The difference, of course, is that the United States of America is not Japan. Our entire American experiment is predicated on the infusion of new energy, new ideas, new blood. Separating the establishment of the nation from the promise and peril of immigration is like segregating the stars and stripes. You can do it, but the remaining flag will mean something new.

Which is why they’re forever trying to rewrite the intent of the Founders and, more egregiously, the words of their savior. I’m sure you’ve all seen reports of the new, “manly and muscular” Jesus popping up in evangelical circles as an answer to the supposed “feminization” of American men. This new WWE Jesus is all about “rugged masculine virility,” as I read in this article by the pastor and author of the children’s book, Jesus and My Gender, Dale James Partridge. Theirs is a Jesus forever hammering ploughshares into swords. Such a Jesus renders unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s and also that which is God’s unto Caesar because, in this new MAGA Christianity, the two are indistinguishable.

Somewhere in this country a poor child is being born. Hopefully not in a manger but maybe in an underserved neighborhood. Maybe to a young single mother without steady income. That child will be much more likely to suffer asthma and obesity than their wealthier counterparts. They will be more likely to produce lower academic and economic outcomes. They are more likely to experience food insecurity, behavioral issues, and adult poverty. The muscular, manly American Jesus blames the poor for their troubles. The Jesus of whom I am a fan offers love rather than condemnation, resources rather than retribution.

Jesus didn’t set out to create a religion any more than the Founders set out to establish their new nation in his name. The bastardization of both has been the resounding message of our time. We’ve seen the corrupt place crowns on their heads and call it just. We’ve seen humility abandoned in favor of hubris and we’ve seen the consequences.

It’s Christmas again in this cold land. I hope your day is bright and warm. Love each other.

The rest don’t mean shit.