Allen Hench, for many years a successful Pennsylvania attorney, has traveled extensively world-wide, taught at a major university in the States and has even hosted an early morning classical music hour on public radio.  One suspects he does his best thinking and composing while doing his daily run of several miles.  When in gathering, he always seeks out the opinions of others as if searching and probing for a better understanding of our human condition.  Here from a Christian perspective he ponders how to reconcile the Gospel, historic American values and the present political and social situation in the United States. - Glenn N. Holliman

   . . . And, just what version of the New Testament supports current US policy regarding humankind world-wide ?    

The Statue of Liberty -- closed for the next four years

Emma Lazarus’ famous 1883 lines obliterated

 “AMERICA FIRST” -- The new national motto

Our new  goal -- US supremacy

“America the Beautiful” replaced with “America the Great”

The problem

I am troubled and perplexed.  I do not understand how we got to this era of a national selfishness, abandoning long-standing US concern for non-Americans.  I, and others, cringe at the ugliness that oozed from the inaugural address.  The sentiments proclaimed were embarrassing.  

 What happened to the idea of being a citizen of the world?  Or, the Christian notion that all mankind-internationally-is our neighbor?   Are  these old-fashioned notions that shaped customary US headship,  now superseded by a warped or perverted national pride? 

Is a Christian to have two levels of brotherly love: one for Americans, and a lower one for non-Americans?  I never thought so—but it seems a large portion of the country, including many Christians, do.

Right, Allen and his wife, Ellen, often open their home for hospitality.

The recognition

On Feb 12, we prayed:   “Forgive us, God, for thinking we are the center of your world.”[i]  We  acknowledged:  Our “harsh judgment of brothers and sisters, strangers and friends  . . .  [our] ridicule . . . [our] silent grudges . . . [barring] us from freely accepting others  . . . “  

Is more required?                                                                                                                                                      

We confessed these failings.    But, does it end there?   Where do we go now:   individually . . . , as a Church, and . . .  as part of the American Christian faith community?   Should we explore a response to this “unchristian-like” turn our country has taken?  Should we develop or implement a Call or Plan of Action for our Congregation, and/or the greater American Christian community?

Determining the action plan   

                                                                                                                            

To answer that, analyze the upcoming Lenten preaching scriptures.  The point from Deuteronomy: Walk in obedience to God, or else.  From Isaiah: Woe to those who make unjust laws, . . .  issue oppressive decrees, . . . deprive the poor of their rights  . . . withhold justice from the oppressed . . . .  and continues asking:    What will you do on the day of reckoning, . . .  Where will you leave your riches?   [These excerpts sound like God-inspired authorship proclaimed in the last four weeks---and, maybe, as a direct rebuttal to some political pomposity].   Add the final scripture from Luke and the package of principles  grounded on the words and actions of Christ along with other New Testament teachings. 

 Christian values used to determine public policy                                                                                           

Should not this package, considered in its totality, be our guide, as Christians, in helping to determine public policy in 2017 ?   And, how should we be effective proactive Christians, especially when a large part of the Christian community, the “Christian right,” may be strongly supportive of some of the Administration positions others would challenge?    

This writing is not intended to suggest ignoring  legitimate security issues relating  especially to immigration; and these contentions may indeed justify some positions, or at least warrant caution. But, somewhere there must be a balance between security issues and theological truths, and give us a reasonable, just approach.

What do we do now? 

                                                                                                                                                    

I do not want the within to be just rhetorical even though I admit I have no answers.    I invite reaction, improvements to the articulation of the issues, suggestions, thoughts --- a dialogue.  What do we do now ?   Can we progress as a national Christian community, or are the philosophical divisions thereof too wide?   Or, do we ignore a national crusade, and forge forward as a congregation?  Or individually?

Allen Hench                 

                                                                                                                  

 “In any situation, the best thing is to do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing; the worst thing you can do is nothing.” Theodore Roosevelt

Comments?

---

A Little Note Taking Stock of the Underlying Poison

Terry Fields, our Englishman who lives in France and who winters in Florida shares his latest take on the transatlantic political scene.  Grab a cup of coffee, read, challenge and reflect. - Glenn N. Holliman

I am snug at home, prosperity increases for the asset-rich, but others shudder with fear.

The brexit vote and the Trump victory are now a little way behind us, but little of consequence has yet happened, unless you are an undocumented migrant in the United States, where you now have cause to wake at 4 am in a sweat of fear.

Photograph by Terry in his Florida haven, picture taken this past week of mother and baby owls.  Fitting that owls, the wise bird of history, should take us residence with our well-read Mr. Field!

The British have railed both for and against the brexit referendum, but nothing has happened to affect the economy, society or the political life of the country, and the continent.

The press in Europe is, in general, in a foment of rage, indignation and moral superiority concerning Trump; anything he says and does causes a new scream of undiluted rage and anguish; The town halls of America are the sites of expressions of fear and anger over the future of ‘Obamacare’. The president says many of the protesters are paid and thus not genuine; many seem honest and fearful on inspection of MSNBC or CNN. On Fox, they are suggested to be paid insurgents. Pay your money; take your choice.

Global stock markets are enjoying a good run up; in the context of the last decade, it is still really quite modest, but profitability is rising in corporate land, and there is undoubtedly a focus on business in the USA. One is reminded of the dictum of President Coolidge ‘ The business of  America is business’.

Inroads are being made on the panoply of controls and environmental directives that have constrained American industry, with an early decision to allow Appalachian coal producers to dump their run offs in local streams and rivers. There will be very much more of this in the future; the accent now is on business, not on controls and regulations.

As I write, there are very large numbers of ‘undocumented’ immigrants who must be experiencing acute anxiety – the easing of restrictions, levels of criminality etc that puts many millions ‘into the frame’ for removal by the ICE.

Yet most Americans are comfortable, more or less. Most are safe, adequately prosperous, secure. I am in this category also. This new politic makes one bring to mind the European political instabilities we all recollect, where the safe comfort of the citizenry contrasted with the terror experienced by those the state chose to target.

A Mexican committed suicide by throwing himself from the border bridge – after his third ejection from the United States.

Brexit Fun.

BY the end of May, the future of the EU in the short to medium term will very probably be established. If Le Pen has won in France, the house of European cards will collapse, and Brexit will become a side story as Europe implodes politically, socially, culturally and very probably economically. Similarly with the Dutch election, but less critical in its implications for EU continuation.

If the EU continuity seems probable, then there will be the potential for a robust defence against the British attempt to maintain market access but with no commitment to the ‘four freedoms’ and no fee-for-access payment.

British Prime Minister May’s entire potential for any success depends upon the EU and its constituent parts being disordered and at each others throats. That will not happen if France and Germany stabilise, and coalesce around a developing response to the Trump administration.

The Soul of the Nation is alive in its Town Halls.

Watching the confrontations – for that is what they are – between the attendees and their – in general – Republican senators where raw emotion concerning the probable removal of Obamacare and its possible replacement  - puts me in mind of the rage felt in Britain by very many people  over the performance of the NHS. No riotous meetings, but vast numbers of people enraged, frightened, badly treated, abused by inappropriate neglect, and much more besides - but unlike in the United States – cowed by the British power elite, since unlike the American, the Brit has a forelock and is often required to tug it hard.

Both systems are failures, for frighteningly similar reasons. In Britain, the rich use BUPA, Nuffield, or self-finance. For the rest there is the soviet-style NHS.  Thus in Britain funding inadequacy is a core problem.

And in America?

There is funding inadequacy to finance Obamacare, since the young with low probability of using the system are not required to buy the insurance, so, predictably, they do not.

In the USA, a high percentage of the total healthcare system cost includes litigation for tortuous wrongs.

In the UK, the tortuous wrongs are autofunded by repeat usage and the social payments of the welfare state to the damaged.

Either way, the costs of healthcare are inadequate to demand.

Both systems achieve the same outcome – local impoverishment of supply for the most disadvantaged – but each system starts from very different opening positions.

Therefore will someone please go back to basics, create insurance costs based on herd basis mortality and morbidity statistics, and generate an inexpensive system of corrective actions for tortuous loss, that removes lawyers and adversarial litigation from the process?

Whoever does this will win election and power from now until the ending of the world.

Hint here – in the US we have a system of mutual care operated by church groups, whereby the mortality and morbidity statistics are applied to compute reasonable premiums and excellent coverage. If they can do it, why is it not universally applied?

A simple impediment to the roll out of such a scheme – the existence of the extremely rich.

The rich patient

The rich doctor

The rich lawyer.

They all want more than their moral share.

Rich men, eyes of needles, the Kingdom of God. Remember.

Fear is the key.

In the eighties, it was the Libyans, in the nineties it was the Iraqis, in the noughties it was 911 and the Middle East neocon agenda, now it is every migrant trudging past our front doors to the next casual employment.

Time to ditch the fear. Across the Atlantic, there are two populations of rich and comfortable, but fearful people that number not much south of a billion in number.

What can these migrants do to us?

Why work for us, join us, live with us, and become our friends.

Or at least most of them can.

And that means it really is time that a serious conversation needs to be had concerning Islam, its real nature, its precepts, the directions and requirements held within the Holy Koran, its ‘political’ project in non-Islamic countries and societies, its objectives, and how it fits – or does not fit – into western society.

That is the hardest of all, since the legions of the politically corrupted need to be set aside and ignored in order for such a social conversation to be undertaken.

Climate Change

To avoid catastrophe, the removal of carbon usage from energy systems need to be achieved by 2050. 

That will not happen with the United States using political distortions against responsible science in order to prosecute industrial policies designed to garner the votes of the desperate.

Nothing more needs to be said on this matter at present. And nothing worse could be imagined.

The internet and Universal Suffrage.

Are they both compatible with the continuation of western democracy?

Discuss.

Happy days.

I am Terry Field and I approve this message. ( Was that ok, Vladimir, or do you want anything redacted?)