Trump-supporting Christians have abandoned the call to be Christlike and turned Christianity into something barely recognizable. It’s time to ask ourselves honestly: what are we doing?
I’ve always referred to myself a lifelong Christian, and I intend to remain faithful to God till I die. I’m very grateful for being raised in the church. If not for the solid, heartfelt faith of my parents and extended family, I’m not sure I’d still be wearing the “Christian” label. Because of Trumpism.
Here’s a quote I saw recently, trying to belittle atheists:
“When people choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing, they then become capable of believing in anything.”
I propose that, no, the exact opposite is true:
“When people choose to believe in God, they then become capable of believing in anything.”
It’s true. We have been guilty of a massive lack of discernment, and the sooner we admit it, the better.
First, we paired ourselves with a man who…well, you know the long list of strikes already against him even before he won in 2016. In spite of his many indiscretions and deep-seated vices, we Christians excused and embraced him. Every time some new trespass came to light, we found a way to brush it off.
Everyone is a work in progress; everyone deserves forgiveness and a second chance, but we’re not talking about a friend or coworker here. This is the man on track to be in charge of our country – the primary steward of our taxes, the priority-setter for the whole world. Before election day, he showed us that he was a fake Christian.
It’s practically a Golden Calf. The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) is in full swing, and nothing has caused more buzz than the full-size golden statue of Donald Trump, dressed in American flag shorts and flip-flops. (I’m not allowed to steal a photo of this statue to show you, but you can see it here. It’s quite a sight, and it was made in Mexico.)
Honestly, if this statue doesn’t wake conservative Christians up to the idolatry they’re indulging in, nothing will – unless Charlton Heston comes back from the dead and recaps his Moses. That might do it.
Oh, wait. I spoke too soon – check it out. It didn’t work.
This is a come-to-Jesus moment for y’all, conservative, Evangelical Christians. You have a golden statue in front of you. It’s so obvious, you can’t possibly miss it…can you?
I spent most of my life as a conservative, Evangelical Christian. I often wonder, if I hadn’t gotten out around 2014, would the Trump frenzy have caused me to leave? I honestly don’t know. I do know that, as unnerving as it was to leave behind something I’d known all my life, I couldn’t stay with something that I’d seen to be so defective.
I pray that my Evangelical-leaning, pro-Trump readers will courageously open their eyes now when an almost-literal Golden Calf is staring you in the face.
A golden statue of Donald Trump that has caused a stir at the annual US gathering of conservatives was made in Mexico – a country the former president frequently demonized.
The statue is larger than life, with a golden head and Trump’s trademark suit jacket with a white shirt and red tie. Video and pictures of the tribute being wheeled through the halls of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Orlando, Florida, went viral on Friday.
The conference is seen as a vital gathering of the Republican right, and this year has become a symbol of Trump’s continued grip on the party, despite being cast out of office after two impeachments, seemingly endless parades of scandals, and a botched response to the coronavirus pandemic that has cost half a million lives in the US.
The Siberian tiger developed some physical adaptations to endure the cold climate of its habitat, like a thick layer of fat and a very dense fur, paler and with fewer dark stripes compared to other tigers. It has yellow or reddish skin with dark, narrow, and widely separated dark brown stripes. The chest, belly, inner limbs, and the area around the neck are white. It has a flexible body and a long tail, which measures about 39 inches in males and about 36 inches in females.
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An image of a Siberian tiger in the Sikhote-Alin mountains of Russia
Netflix’s popular miniseries The Queen’s Gambit, which follows a young chess prodigy as she ascends the ranks of U.S. and world championship tournaments, has earned widespread praise from chess enthusiasts, historians, and even professionals for its startlingly accurate portrayal of chess gameplay and the world of high-stakes competition.Much of the reason The Queen’s Gambit has avoided the mockery that so many other depictions of the game have received is that the show’s creators consulted with chess heavyweights, including instructor Bruce Pandolfini (who advised the novel The Queen’s Gambit is adapted from) and grandmaster Garry Kasparov, a former world chess champion considered by some to be the greatest player ever. I spoke with Kasparov to learn more about his work on The Queen’s Gambit, what the show gets right about chess in the ’60s, and how it compares with other on-screen depictions of the game. Our conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
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The Queen’s Gambit.Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by Netflix.
During the first wave of the pandemic in the winter, Mo Willems’s ‘‘Lunch Doodles’’ series, in which the beloved children’s-book author and illustrator led viewers in endearingly no-frills online drawing sessions, was a lifeline to families desperate to exercise their imaginations during the lockdown. (He pitched in again by hosting another doodle session on election night.) That Willems, who is 52, was ready to help during a hard, confusing time was no surprise. His two best-selling series of books — one about the odd couple Elephant and Piggie, the other about the mercurial Pigeon — resonate with the hard, confusing time of early childhood. In their whimsy, slapstick, and emotional matter-of-factness, these books have established their creator as sort of a cross between Dr. Seuss and Charles Schulz, with all the responsibility that implies. ‘‘The idea that one of my books would be one of the first that a child reads on their own — that’s incredibly powerful,’’ says Willems, who just published the latest in his Unlimited Squirrels series, ‘‘I Want to Sleep Under the Stars!’’ ‘‘Reading by yourself is the first time you don’t need your parents to do something vital. It’s a liberation.’’
When I was first putting together my questions for you, I realized that a lot of them had to do with things like how we can help kids with the ambient stress of parents’ worrying about the pandemic or politics. But maybe it’s wrong for me to assume that a has unique ideas about kids’ emotions. So let me ask you: Do you think you have special insights about kids? Probably the most fundamental insight is that even a good childhood is difficult: You’re powerless; the furniture is not made to your size. But when parents come up to me and ask, ‘‘How do you talk to the kid about the pandemic?’’ they’re asking me to be disloyal. They’re actually asking about a form of control. ‘‘Hey, you have this relationship with kids. Help me control them.’’ [Expletive] you! I’m not on your side. I wish there was a better way to say it. The real answer is: Show that you don’t know. Show them that you’re fumbling. Why wouldn’t you? How do you expect your child to fall and then stand up and say ‘‘That’s OK’’ when you won’t even say, ‘‘I don’t know how to discuss the pandemic with you’’? Are children not allowed to be upset? Does that inconvenience you? You want to protect and prepare them. But I’m not saying it’s easy.
Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main, is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse.Its 763,380 inhabitants as of December 31, 2019, make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. On the River Main (a tributary of the Rhine), it forms a continuous conurbation with the neighboring city of Offenbach am Main and its urban area has a population of 2.3 million. The city is the heart of the larger Rhine-Main Metropolitan Region, which has a population of 5.5 million and is Germany’s second-largest metropolitan region after the Rhine-Ruhr Region. Frankfurt’s central business district lies about 90 km (56 mi) northwest of the geographic center of the EU at Gadheim, Lower Franconia. Like France and Franconia, the city is named after the Franks. Frankfurt is the largest city in the Rhine Franconian dialect area.
Max Brooks is getting a little tired of being proved right. An author with cult appeal and massive sales, he is regularly referred to as “a soothsayer” and “a genius”. His 2006 novel, World War Z, was about a deadly virus originating in China that causes global devastation, and his compulsive new one, Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Sasquatch Massacre, is about people forced into self-isolation, huddling in terror from an unimaginable threat outside. But Brooks, 47, is dismissive of the hyperbole: “Everything I write about has already happened. The history of pandemics tends to come in extremely predictable cycles. So if I’m the smartest guy in the room, we’re in big trouble,” he tells me over Skype from his home in Los Angeles (our interview was in May, before the national protests after the killing of George Floyd, but well after lockdown started.). He has the jittery energy of the chronically anxious, and the easy confidence of one who has been thoroughly validated.
He certainly saw the coronavirus coming long before most politicians, and was making preparations in January. On 16 March, when most people in the western world were barely getting to grips with the lockdown, he made a video about the importance of social distancing to protect the elderly. He enlisted the help of the oldest person in his life, his father, comedy god, Mel Brooks. “If I get the coronavirus, I’ll probably be OK. But if I give it to him, he could give it to Carl Reiner, who can give it to Dick Van Dyke, and before I know it, I’ve wiped out a whole generation of comedic legends,” says Brooks, pointing to his father behind a glass door and listing his closest friends. The video has been watched more than 16m times. “I wasn’t given some secret information. I got my information from the news. Really deep state: turning on CNN and watching Wuhan getting locked down,” he says dryly.
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‘Everything I write about has already happened’ … Max Brooks. Photo by Valerie Macon / Getty Images.
Film and Writing Festival for Comedy. Showcasing best of comedy short films at the FEEDBACK Film Festival. Plus, showcasing best of comedy novels, short stories, poems, screenplays (TV, short, feature) at the festival performed by professional actors.
