Christians vs. Christians

When I was a kid there was a game children would play called “ding and ditch.” The idea was ring a doorbell and then run away so when the person answered the door they’d find nothing. They’d look left and right, call out and then shrug their shoulders and close the front door. If someone in the group of miscreant adolescents was feeling particularly bold, they’d ring the same bell again and run again; only this time the person opening the door would get mad and shout words I can’t print here.

I was never a fan of ding and ditch because I thought it was mean and stupid but kids didn’t have cable TV back in the mid 1970’s so this is how they entertained themselves.

I hadn’t thought about ding and ditch until a few days ago when I saw the editor of a Christian magazine wrote an oped saying that Donald Trump was an immoral man and good Christians shouldn’t vote for him. Now, had this guy written this scathing condemnation of Trump and stood by to take the heat for the next year or two I would have thought, “Well that took guts.” Instead I read that he wrote this piece and then announced he’s retiring.

This bothered me because he had to know there are some Christians who support the president and his flamethrower of a column was going to tick them off. That would mean some people who subscribed or purchased his magazine would cancel their subscriptions over this. So when the financial fallout now happens in 2020 this man won’t have to deal with it.

You see what I mean? Ding and ditch.

The president immediately tweeted something nasty at the guy who wrote the column and within 24 hours a couple hundred other Christians lashed out saying Christians should vote for Trump.

I’m a Christian and I think politics should stop at the doors of the church and people should practice what they are taught inside the house of worship. Meaning, judge not lest ye be judged. In other words, whether the president’s name is Trump or Obama of Lincoln for that matter, keep your focus on God and the bible and leave the politics to the politicians.

I’m always astounded when I hear people say to someone else, “I don’t know how you could vote for him or her in the first place.” I heard this lot with Trump and Hillary and I certainly heard it with Obama. First up, people are individuals with their own minds and life experience so they can vote for whomever they want and it’s not their job to justify it to you or anyone else. That’s part of what makes

America great.

Second, it has been my experience that people don’t view politics or politicians like some complicate Rubik’s cube; instead they often focus on one or two things they like or don’t like about the person.

Example, if you think the most important thing in the whole world is who sits on the Supreme Court, then you’ll shape your vote on which candidate shares your view of things. If you wanted another Ruth Bader Ginsburg you were most certainly going to go for Hillary. If you wanted another Clarence Thomas, Trump was your choice.

You could ramble on to the Hillary supporter about the missing emails or her husband or whatever but they’d be thinking, “Yeah, yeah, yeah but she’s going to protect Roe v. Wade.”

On the flip side you could offer up a laundry list of things wrong with Donald J. Trump but if you were talking to a small business owner who is worried about taxes they’d likely say, “Yeah, yeah, yeah but he’s going to help my business.”

This is how people vote, often on one issue that matters to them.

I hate watching Christians fight with each other over politics and telling each other that they are breaking some moral code by how they vote. I seem to remember a cool cat telling a crowd they should render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and leave the rest to God. It’s quite possible the man knew what he was talking about when he said that.

On the subject of faith, I know Christmas is over but could people in the media stop announcing every December that there is a “War on Christmas.” Yeah, I’m looking at you Fox News. There really isn’t. Christmas comes every 25th of December and how you celebrate it is solely your responsibility. If the barista at the coffee shop says, “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas” it really shouldn’t shake your faith. If that’s all it takes to make you feel like God is dead, you need to get back to church or perhaps just watch a perfect sunset at Rock Harbor in Cape Cod; either one might jump start your belief in the divinity.

The president keeps saying at his rallies that he brought back “Merry Christmas” and people were afraid to say it before he showed up on Pennsylvania Avenue. Nope. Not true. I’ve always said it and even the most secular people I know usually just smile and say, “You too.”

So, as we close out 2019, let me just say “Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and somebody wake the groundhog.”