Mike Pence & the Self-identified Christian
I actually don’t believe it’s possible to merely self-identify as Christian. It is akin to self-identifying as a tennis star or an architect. Unless you can drop a backhand into the one unreachable spot on the court or design buildings with grace and beauty that do not fall down, then you are not, in fact, a tennis star or an architect. You’re just another schmo who’s dreaming or confused.
As for being a Christian, unless you are actively opposing empire and occupation - as Jesus of Nazareth¹ did, unless you are fighting corruption between church and state - as JoN did, unless you reject sanctimonious judgments against other people’s ways of loving and being - as JoN did, unless you are committed to helping the poor and to rejecting the ways of the exploitative rich — as JoN was, and unless you seek to love and support the following people that Jesus of Nazareth identified in his Sermon on the Mount — “… the poor in spirit… they that mourn… the meek… they which hunger and thirst after righteousness… the merciful… the pure in heart… the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God… (and) they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake”² — then you are not, in fact, a Christian. You’re just another schmo who’s dreaming or confused. If we really consider these radical ideas and pursuits of Jesus of Nazareth, I’m afraid we may have just lost a large swath of Americans who like to call themselves Christians.
Though it is the flamboyant and unhinged television preachers who are most often cited as being hypocritically Christian, in Mike Pence we have someone we may refer to as a “true Christian warrior,” an evangelical activist who pursues politics. One only need to watch Mike Pence lower his body temperature by force of sheer will, put on that glassy, enigmatic half-grin and then tell a citizen that it is okay that:
– their Medicaid is being cut
– that their food stamps are being cut
– that their brother and sister are being held in separate concentration camps indefinitely
– that Saudi Arabia is using US-manufactured arms to eliminate the country of Yemen and all of its people
– that extreme weather events are rapidly increasing in frequency
– that extractive companies are being allowed to carve up and foul what remains of the continent
– and that it is okay to discriminate against a person who loves someone of the same gender…
to know that Christian posturing has reached a new and terrifyingly cold-blooded low in the windup toy cliché of the boring Midwesterner that is Mike Pence. The banishing of Pence and his wolf-in-sheep’s clothing guise is one of a myriad of steps the United States will have to take to begin to approach sanity and coherence.
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¹ Though I am not a Christian, I grew up in the largest self-described Christian nation in the history of the world. I also grew up inside the Catholic Church and attended a Jesuit high school, where we studied theology and social justice. I refer to the first century Palestinian rabbi known to Christians as “Jesus Christ,” as Jesus of Nazareth. The name Jesus of Nazareth identifies his first name and where he was from within Palestine, but does not speculate as to his divinity.
²From “The Sermon on the Mount” or at least the 17th C. English (King James) translation of the Greek version written down by the evangelist known as Matthew about 50 years after such an address was purportedly given by Jesus of Nazareth in Aramaic.
