BUCKNACKT'S SORDID TAWDRY BLOG We should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive & well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate, bier or wein in hand, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WHOO-HOO, WHAT A RIDE!!!!!!"
Showing posts with label Jesus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jesus. Show all posts
13 June 2026
16 April 2026
NOT TO BE OUTDONE BY KKKRISTI NOEM'S HUSBAND 14APR26
27 December 2025
Ten Things You Can't Do at Christmas While Following Jesus 23DEZ13
Christmas story is replete with images of people journeying to new lands Maciej Sojka/Shutterstock
THOUGH I should have posted this before Christmas it is never too late to not do these things in the true spirit of Christmas! So Merry Christmas to all again, and as sung that night over 2000 years ago, Glory to God in the Highest, and on Earth, Peace and Goodwill Towards Men!!!! From Sojourners
Ten Things You Can't Do at Christmas While Following Jesus
By
Dec 23, 2013
Ah, Christmas! The most wonderful time of the year. A time to gather with family and friends, and, with a smile on our faces, pretend we aren’t quietly measuring who received the best present and which relative really, really needs to stop drinking. A time to hang tinsel and baubles from the tree, and a time to hang up our hopes of losing that last 10 pounds this year. Such a joyous season!
The real point here is that Christmas is what we make of it. For Christians, however, there are some very specific things you can’t do if you want to actually honor and follow the person we celebrate this season. So, I give you my “10 Things You Can’t Do AT CHRISTMAS While Following Jesus.” As with my other “10 Things” lists, this is not intended to be a complete list, but it is a pretty good start.
10) Celebrate Consumeristmas — For many folks, Christmas starts standing in line on Thanksgiving Day. ’Tis the season for mass consumerism. Regardless of where you think it began, Christmas has slowly drifted into the bog of consumer madness. Like frogs in a pot of slowly boiling water, we never saw it coming. For Christians, this is particularly problematic because the guy we are celebrating this time of year told us that collecting stuff here on Earth is not the way to follow him.
9) Forget Those Without Food — Jesus once said that when we feed the hungry we are feeding him. Anyone want to guess what it means when we ignore the hungry? How about ignoring the hungry as we scrape the leftover Christmas ham from our plates into the trash? Maybe we need to change the name of the season to Gluttonousmas? Too many presents, too much food, too little consideration for those in need.
8) Forget Those Without Shelter — No room at the inn. One of the key moments in the story Christians celebrate is the moment when Jesus was almost born in the streets of Bethlehem. Our need to clean up the Christmas story assumes that the innkeeper told them to use the manger but the Bible says no such thing. There was no room at the inn, leaving Mary to place her newborn child in a smelly feeding trough. For that night they were without shelter. Throughout his life Jesus would spend his ministry with no place to lay his head. This time of year we celebrate a homeless man. Do our actions, do the places we place our money honor that?
7) Forget About Immigrants —We three kings from Orient are. Besides sounding like Yoda wrote a Christmas carol, there are a number of things messed up about that line. We don’t actually know how many there were. They were magi, not kings. We also do not know where they were really from other than “from the East.” What we do know is they were foreigners and their revelation of the real king’s plans to kill all newborn boys to put an end to Jesus turned Jesus’ family into immigrants in Egypt. Our Christmas story is replete with images of people journeying to new lands. Christmas should cause Christians to recommit to embracing immigrants.
6) Miss the Message About Resisting Abusive Power — Mary and Joseph and their family had to flee their homeland because King Herod strong-handedly used his power to squash out what he saw as a threat to his power. I can guarantee you two things; One, in the house where Jesus grew up, the narrative of why they had to flee to Egypt and of the senseless deaths imposed on other families by the powerful was a story that was told time and time again. Two, the focus on abuse of power in Jesus’ teaching and his constant willingness to confront it was no accident. Christmas should cause Christians to recommit to confronting those who abuse power.
5) Forget Those Without Presents — If you have two coats, give one away. In announcing the coming of Jesus, John the Baptist told us what God was asking of us. Coats were just an example – a placeholder if you will. If you have two Christmas presents, give one away.
4) Insist Your Religious Celebration Rule Them All — This time of year far too many Christians remind me of Gollum and his Precious. (A Lord of the Rings shout out in a Christian Christmas post! C’mon Peter Jackson, give me some promo love!) One holiday to rule them all: “We nee-eeds it. They stole it from us!” Never mind that Jesus was Jewish or that there is a list of other celebrations that occur this time of year, there’s a certain cultural privilege in the air that seems so very un-Christian to me. You can just about bet that the folks calling out for the dominance of Christmas would be singing a new song if Judaism were the dominant religious culture and this time of year radio stations across the land played Chanukah songs. Well, metaphorically they would be singing a new song — maybe a few even literally.
3) Get Mad About “Happy Holidays” — On a related note, you know what “holiday” is short for, right? Holy day. Do you really have a problem with people calling Christmas a holy day?
2) Think That It Is Actually Jesus’ Birthday — Um. So, dang, this is hard and I’m really sorry to be the one telling you. Um, let’s see. Remember how when you were growing up the Sunday school teacher told you it was Jesus’ birthday? Yeah. Well, um ... they lied. Yeah. Sorry about that. We don’t actually know when Jesus was born. It was probably in the spring or summer because “the shepherds watched their flocks by night” — something that definitely didn’t happen in the winter.
1) Confuse the Religious Observance With the Secular Holiday — It may be that Dec. 25 was picked as the date to celebrate Jesus’ birth to compete with or even to adopt the followers of the pagan celebration of Saturnalia, which included decorating with evergreens, gift giving and parties. (Hmmm, why does that seem so familiar?) I bring this up to make a simple point; A lot of our “War on Christmas” problems would rightfully go away if we simply acknowledged that there are two celebrations of Christmas each year. One is religious and one is not. Most of this article actually points to the issues that happen when we conflate them. So, let’s stop doing it.
Mark Sandlin currently serves as the minister at Vandalia Presbyterian Church in Greensboro, NC. He received his M. Div. from Wake Forest University's School of Divinity and has undergraduate degrees in Business Administration and English with a minor in Computer Science. He's an ordained minister in the PC(USA) and a self-described progressive.
17 December 2025
VERSE AND VOICE FROM SOJOURNERS 17DEZ25
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24 October 2025
Jesus Cast Down the Mighty from Their Thrones. So Should We 16OKT25
WE, the people, especially Christians, have the responsibility to peacefully remove corrupt, greedy, dishonest, hypocritical, racist, misogynistic, xenophobic, violent and authoritarian "leadership" from positions of power. We have a responsibility to peacefully oppose their policies and actions until they are removed and also to monitor our own attitudes, actions and rhetoric to make sure we do not lower ourselves to their level becoming as wrong as they are. This from Sojourners.....
After the Election, How Are Organizers Resisting Christian Nationalism? 25NOV24
Trump Wants Us to Feel Powerless. Don't Let Him & 10 Ways To Stay Grounded During Trump’s Second Term 30JAN25
In L.A., Protesters Practice the Politics of Jesus 16JUN25
I'm Not Letting Christian Nationalists Ruin My July Fourth 2JUL25
Why Evangelicals Couldn’t Care Less About Trump’s Epstein Scandal & 'JESUS AND JOHN WAYNE' 8AUG25 & 12JUN25
Viral CNN Segment Highlights Disturbing Christian Movement. Bible Scholars Have Thoughts. 13AUG25
I Rejected Charlie Kirk’s Politics. That’s Why I Grieve His Death 11SEP25
By
Oct 16, 2025
In the past week, the Trump administration brokered a deal that secured the release of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners. While the terms of the long overdue ceasefire are being contested, this is a groundbreaking accomplishment for which I’m deeply thankful. But this short-term peacemaking victory abroad was quickly undermined by the administration’s bellicose rhetoric and actions at home.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly abused his ability to declare emergencies and seize power under the pretense of maintaining law and order. For example, he declared immigration emergencies to further militarize the U.S.-Mexico border and label drug cartels terrorists; he declared a “trade emergency” to justify and impose costly tariffs; and he declared an energy emergency to greenlight new drilling projects and ignore regulations. Most alarmingly, he has falsely declared a “crime” emergency to federalize and deploy National Guard troops to additional cities.
The No Kings protests taking place this weekend, which Sojourners is cosponsoring, are the most visible markers of resistance to the Trump administration’s increasing suppression of freedom and consolidation of power, a style of leadership known as authoritarianism. While the term “authoritarianism” can feel abstract and alarmist, polls show that Americans are increasingly worried about authoritarianism’s impacts, including political division and erosions of fundamental freedoms. Fortunately, as Trump threatens to continue sending National Guard troops to U.S. cities under the pretense of fighting crime, most Americans reject this idea.
No Kings makes the “increasing authoritarian excesses and corruption of the Trump administration,” even more plain. As materials for the Oct. 18 day of action explain:
“They are targeting immigrant families, profiling, arresting and detaining people without warrants; threatening to overtake elections; gutting health care, environmental protections, and education when families need them most; rigging maps to silence voters; ignoring mass shootings at our schools and in our communities; and driving up the cost of living while handing out massive giveaways to billionaire allies, as families struggle.”
This list echoes what Protect Democracy calls the authoritarian playbook, a list of the tactics that authoritarian leaders employ in order to consolidate power. Reviewing these tactics now, Trump has already employed each of them to varying degrees, including his attempt to politicize independent institutions, spread disinformation, aggrandize executive power at the expense of checks and balances, quash criticism and dissent, scapegoat vulnerable or marginalized communities, work to corrupt elections, and stoke violence.
In this first year of Trump’s second term, we have witnessed him act more like a king than a democratically elected president who cares about and governs for all Americans. Kings demand and reward loyalty while seeking to punish their enemies; Trump has increasingly weaponized the Justice Department to punish his enemies, including the recent indictment of New York Attorney General Letitia James for alleged mortgage fraud. Kings so often instill fear and trade in hate; Trump declared during Charlie Kirk’s memorial service that he hates his opponents and does not want the best for them. Kings rule by coercion and not by persuasion; Trump told our nation’s military leaders that they must focus on the “enemy within.” Kings govern by decree instead of persuasion or building consensus; as the costly government shutdown enters its third week, Trump has reportedly told Republicans to refuse to negotiate with Democrats to end the shutdown.
If you haven’t personally felt the impact of these actions, consider listening to members of some of the groups the administration has most targeted, including immigrants, LGBTQ+ folks, and members of Black and brown communities.
These tactics are obviously destructive to our democracy. As Christians, we need to be clear that authoritarianism also perverts our faith, especially as many leaders have misused and weaponized Christian faith to justify their pursuit of concentrated power and wealth. Trump consolidated support among many white Christians by stoking their sense of victimhood and grievance, arguing that only he could protect them and promising to be their “retribution.” The rise of Christian nationalism, which so often wraps the cross in the American flag, has become an ideology supercharging the Make America Great Again movement.
In biblical language, this is the sin of idolatry—pursuing worldly things before our devotion to God. Warnings against this echo throughout the Bible, from the Ten Commandments given to Moses and the frequent warnings of the prophets, to Paul’s letters to early Christian communities. In Matthew 6:24, Jesus declares that “You cannot serve God and wealth,” and in the Great Commandment a few chapters later, instructs us to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (22:37). Jesus, our ultimate example of what it means to love, understood the dangers of concentrated power. His birth was heralded by Mary as an event that “brought down the powerful from their thrones” and instead “lifted up the lowly” (Luke 1:52). In his ministry, Jesus proclaimed a gospel that was good news for those who lacked power—the poor, the sick, the imprisoned (Luke 4:18). And when the religious and political leaders of the day saw his message as a threat, Jesus ultimately gave his very life to subvert the brutality of the cross into the promise of salvation and liberation.
Idolatry, by contrast, hollows out the Christian faith in service of power. It tempts folks to seek wealth and the ability to control others instead of the last-shall-be-first gospel Jesus preached; it so often places the pursuit of profit over people and the pursuit of coercion over the common good and an extra concern for “the least of these.”
If you’re curious what “service to power” looks like, let’s zero in on Trump’s threats to invoke the Insurrection Act, which represent a clear red line into more dangerous authoritarianism. So far, Trump has used a different legal justification to deploy National Guard troops to U.S. cities led largely by Black Democratic mayors; however, given recent court rulings blocking additional deployments to Portland, Ore., and Chicago, it is becoming more likely that he will invoke the Insurrection Act to circumvent these rulings and further consolidate and abuse power.
Though rarely used, the Insurrection Act gives the president the power to deploy U.S. military forces domestically in specific circumstances of rebellion, insurrection, or civil unrest. In the past 150 years, it has mainly been invoked to suppress racist violence in the South during the Reconstruction era and the Civil Rights Movement. President George H.W. Bush invoked it in 1992 at the request of California’s governor to help quell violence during the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles. But the act has a gaping weakness: A Supreme Court ruling in 1827 affirmed the president’s exclusive authority to decide when an insurrection exists, opening up the potential for considerable abuse of power.
After ruling against Trump’s deployment of the National Guard to Portland, Judge Karin Immergut—who was nominated by Trump in his first term—wrote that the administration has “made a range of arguments that, if accepted, risk blurring the line between civil and military federal power—to the detriment of this nation.” In response, White House adviser Stephen Miller posted on X: “The issue before is [sic] now is very simple and clear. There is a large and growing movement of leftwing terrorism in this country. It is well organized and funded. And it is shielded by far-left Democrat judges, prosecutors and attorneys general. The only remedy is to use legitimate state power to dismantle terrorism and terror networks.”
Referring to nonviolent protesters exercising their First Amendment rights as terrorists and insurrectionists is both dangerous and ludicrous. The administration is also using the spurious argument that National Guard troops are needed to guard federal buildings and protect Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, many of whom are inflaming tensions with their aggressive and sometimes lawless actions. In reality, ICE is increasingly being used as a paramilitary force, particularly with incidents of masked officers abducting, detaining, and in many cases, deporting suspected undocumented immigrants. This is despite federal data showing more than 70% of detainees as of last month had no criminal convictions. And if Trump invokes the Insurrection Act, this surge of ICE officers and crackdown on protest will likely be a preview of what’s to come elsewhere.
Jesus warns: “What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?” (Mark 8:36). Obeying in advance and capitulating to democratic backsliding are all roads that succumb to the very real temptation to compromise the gospel for short-term gain. And while protest alone is insufficient, it can help us break out of feelings of despair, powerlessness, or fatalism. That’s why this Saturday’s No Kings peaceful protests—alongside protecting those being targeted, defending our civic institutions, engaging in noncooperation—are important; all are ways to cast a hopeful vision for the Beloved Community and a new America in which liberty and justice become real for all. As Christians and as the church, we are one body with many parts, with different gifts and roles to play.
We can’t simply wait this out or refuse to see what is becoming increasingly clear: The Trump administration is using authoritarian tactics, and invoking the Insurrection Act would be a dangerous next red line down this path. Christian conscience calls us to oppose it with even greater courage and sacrifice.
Rev. Adam Russell Taylor is president of Sojourners and author of A More Perfect Union: A New Vision for Building the Beloved Community. Follow him on Bluesky @revadamtaylor.
18 July 2025
VERSE AND VOICE FROM SOJOURNERS 17JUL25
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28 June 2025
STAND FOR PEACE FROM SOJOURNERS 27JUN25
BLESSED are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Matthew 5:9 NIV. Probably one of the hardest teachings of Jesus to follow, but if you just think about what the world would be like if we did, and pray for the strength and courage to stand for peace and against war and
Challenge the oldest and most dangerous myth: that God’s power is found in military might, in pharaoh’s “chariots and horses” (Psalm 20:7).
Speak out when leaders invoke God’s blessing on military attacks, which is a misuse of God’s name to justify destruction. This isn’t politics — it’s blasphemy.
Invite followers of Jesus more deeply into the way of nonviolence, through exploration of the scriptures and practical application. Jesus taught his followers to commit to the way of nonviolence and pray for their enemies. Even amid betrayal, Jesus insisted: “All those who use the sword will die by the sword” (Matthew 26:52).
When the U.S. bombed Iran on Saturday, the Sojourners team sprang into action. We take our witness for peace seriously. In every corner of the globe, people of faith are standing with resolve for peace in the face of violence — even when it hurts. Peace is not simply the absence of military aggression and it’s not an easy stand to take. It runs counter to what we may hear on the news — and even at church. But it is the right choice. It is the way of Jesus. The Sojourners team is working incredibly hard to respond quickly to an ever-changing political environment. We are working to keep you informed and to keep all of us rooted in the gospel.
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