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Why did Trump win the election?

2024-11-14 Wolf Paul

For eight years, I have made it no secret that I do not consider Donald Trump qualified to be the head of state and government of the most powerful nation in the Western world—primarily due to his character and temperament—and I have therefore been criticized by many of my American evangelical friends. They claim American politics is none of my business since I am neither a U.S. citizen nor a resident of the U.S. I have always disagreed—sometimes sharply—and insisted that I am very much entitled to have an opinion on U.S. politics and to express it because America, as the most powerful country (at least in the “Western” world), influences all our lives. I have also been a lifelong admirer of America, who has never forgotten that without the decisive involvement of the United States in World War II, I probably would not be living in a democratic country today. Additionally, I grew up in a home funded by the Marshall Plan, so the fate of this country is very dear to my heart.

Unfortunately, my enthusiasm and sympathy for the country have significantly diminished in recent years because I couldn’t understand how a country with around 300 million citizens, about half of whom are eligible to vote, could not find better candidates in the last three presidential elections than Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, Joe Biden, and Kamala Harris—a real indictment. Other weaknesses have also come into sharper focus: the inability to curb the gun epidemic and the resulting mass shootings in schools and elsewhere, the inability to ensure an affordable healthcare system, especially for the poorer and more disadvantaged sections of society, and the increase in racially motivated attacks by police, to name just a few examples.

I have also become severely disillusioned about American Evangelicalism which has been a very formative influence in my life: It is incomprehensible to me how around 82 percent of American Evangelicals could, encouraged by many of their most prominent leaders, vote for a foul-mouthed serial adulterer who boasts of sexually harrassing women, demonizes his political and displays his dehumanizing disdain for people of color, women, the handicapped, members of the LGBT community, and immigrants.

Throughout it all, I never imagined that my very vocal opposition would have any effect on the outcome of the election, and sure enough it didn’t: Donald Trump won the election by a landslide, and if nothing unforeseen happens, he will steer the United States’ affairs as the 47th president for the next four years, thereby also exerting a great deal of influence on the rest of the world.

For a long time, I looked at Trump supporters among my friends, and especially among evangelical leaders, with great incomprehension, and in some cases, I was tempted to break off contact. However, I have since revised my stance on this, especially concerning ordinary voters—though I remain very disappointed and critical of evangelical leaders who brush aside Trump’s character deficits with sometimes bizarre theological arguments (it seems character only matters in political opponents, not in our own candidates).

This lengthy process of changing my attitude is difficult to describe and is probably still incomplete, but on the Monday before the election, and then three days afterward, I came across a few articles that reflect my thoughts better than I could describe them myself and that have also given me further food for thought.

First, there was a lead article in the news magazine profil on Monday by Robert Treichler titled “America Wants to Dream”(4), in which he describes Trump’s appeal to voters:

What is Kamala Harris’s great promise? No, I don’t mean a list of proposals from all kinds of fields, but a big idea that can deeply resonate with 150 million people.

I fear there isn’t one. The only issue Harris addressed in an emotionally stirring way during the campaign is the right to abortion. But that’s not an overarching idea for the entire nation.

Trump has such a promise: “Make America Great Again.” This simple slogan, with which Trump has campaigned for a third time, embodies many motives that create a political sense of identity. The desire for strength, a return to old, disreputable ideas, a commitment to ruthlessness toward opponents, and defiance of moralistic objections…

Trump intertwines his slogan with his numerous character flaws. But the vow to make America great again apparently still outshines all the unspeakable things.

In the same issue, Siobhán Geets and Robert Treichler answer 47 questions about the U.S. presidential election in an article titled “Do You Understand America?”. It begins:

Would you vote for a black woman or a man convicted of sexual abuse, who is also suspected of attempted election fraud and inciting an uprising? You may not have to think long. The trickier question is: Why does the above-mentioned convicted felon—you’ve recognized him by now, it’s Donald Trump—have a good chance of being elected the 47th president of the United States next Tuesday?

Trump’s ongoing popularity and political success are baffling. But there are explanations: It is a fact that Trump recognized the problem of illegal immigration early on and made it a political megatopic, similar to right-wing parties in Europe. In his unique style of grotesque exaggerations, he demonizes migrants as murderers and rapists, even going so far as to claim that immigrants from Haiti “eat other people’s pets.” Nevertheless, even though Democrats have since imposed restrictive measures against illegal immigration, a large portion of the population grants them no credibility on this central issue.

Additionally, the politically charged question of identity politics comes into play. Democrats fight for diversity, LGBTQ rights, and abortion rights. John Della Volpe, director at Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics and a former advisor to Joe Biden, warns that they are neglecting men in the process. These men increasingly turn to the Republicans, who promote a carefree role model with limited tolerance for patriarchal and sexist behaviors. It’s entirely normal for one half of the population to want something different than the other half.

However, the problematic aspect is that the two halves no longer seem to meet on any level—not even figuratively. Trump supporters believe the 2020 election was rigged, dismiss court rulings, ignore warnings from his former associates about Trump being dangerous or even fascistic. Thus, all accusations from the other side fall flat.

Although Trump himself says outrageous things, such as wanting to use the military against “enemies from within”—meaning his opponents within the U.S.—his supporters dismiss these as typical exaggerations. Meanwhile, the other half of the country shudders in horror.

Similar reflections to these during the past year have led me to try to understand ordinary Trump voters better and to approach them with more tolerance.

Finally, three days after the election Jonah Goldberg’s newsletter titled “Stop Bashing Democracy!” arrived in my inbox. He writes:

And that, in a nutshell, is the grave error people are making. People vote for candidates—any candidate—for lots of different reasons. If you think Trump is a fascist, fine. We can talk about that. But just because you think he’s a fascist doesn’t mean someone who voted for him agrees with you and voted for him anyway. I know dozens of people who voted for Trump. None of them are idiots or fascists or fascist idiots.

This argument works every bit as much in the other direction. You may think Kamala Harris is a “communist” or “Marxist,” etc. Whether she is or not is a debatable proposition in the sense that it can be debated. But if you want people to agree with you, you need to make the argument, not just hurl the accusation. If you’re sure she is a communist, no one can deny you the right to say so—but saying so doesn’t mean everyone has to agree with you. Very few of the 68 million people who voted for Harris did so because they thought she was a Marxist or a communist.

I still believe I am correct in my assessment of Donald Trump, and that Trump’s supporters are mistaken, but I now understand them better, especially since Kamala Harris (just like Hillary Clinton eight years ago) was only a marginally less problematic candidate.

Now, lets jump back across the Atlantic to my country, Austria. Much of what Robert Treichler and Siobhán Geets write can be applied almost one-to-one to our situation, where Herbert Kickl, in my opinion a completely unsuitable candidate, won the most votes in the parliamentary election. Fortunately, he did not receive a governing majority, and no one wants to form a coalition with him, so there is a good chance we will have a coalition government, possibly involving the ÖVP, SPÖ, and perhaps NEOS.

But one thing is clear: if the new government continues with “business as usual”, Kickl will garner even more votes in four years, and perhaps even an “absolute majority”, enough to govern. Blaming it on stupid voters won’t help then either. Because the problem here, as in America (and many other countries), is the same: a political class, an aspiring elite too committed to their own interests and ideological pet issues to care about the concerns and fears of ordinary citizens. It may take different forms in America and here, but at its core, it’s the same.

Footnotes:

- Note 1: These figures are estimates from 2020 ↩️
- Note 2: Robert Treichler was born in 1968 in Graz, studied French and philosophy, and has been a journalist with the news magazine profil since 1997, serving as deputy editor-in-chief since 2021. In 2024, together with Gernot Bauer, he published the book Kickl und die Zerstörung Europas (Kickl and the Destruction of Europe) with Zsolnay. ↩️
- Note 3: Siobhán Kathleen Geets, born in 1984 in Vienna, studied cultural and social anthropology at the University of Vienna with a focus on gender studies, international development, philosophy, and religious studies. She completed her thesis on ladyboys in Thailand and was awarded her degree in May 2008. From October 2008 to September 2009, she attended a course at the Vienna School of Photography. In January to February 2008 and February to March 2009, she conducted field research in Thailand, interviewing ladyboys for her thesis and a radio feature for Ö1. Since 2020, she has been part of the foreign affairs team at profil. ↩️

Terrorists killing hostages is MURDER, not execution

2024-11-09 Wolf Paul

The Austrian Broadcasting news portal ORF Online reports that Qatar has asked members of the terrorist organization Hamas to leave the country, reportedly at the urgent request of the United States.

The report includes this paragraph:

«The recent U.S. decision was partly influenced by the execution of American-Israeli citizen Hersh Goldberg-Polin and five other hostages by Hamas at the end of August, according to a U.S. official speaking to the ‘Times of Israel.’»

In the German original the word here translated “execution” is “Hinrichtung, which like “execution”, describes, in its narrow, original sense, the carrying out of a legal death sentence.[[Regardless of what one thinks of the moral status of capital punishment there is a big difference between a sentence being carried out after a trial an a verdict by lawful authority on the one hand and the wanton killing by criminals and terrorists (not that I think there’s much difference between these two categories) on the other.]]

I consider it very problematic that these two terms, “Hinrichtung” and “execution” is regularly used to describe the illegal killing of people by criminals and terrorists. In reality, this is murder. The killing of hostages is nothing but cowardly murder.

Describing such acts as “executions” gives both the act and the perpetrators a veneer of respectability and legitimacy they do not deserve.

The language we use, as well as the words we choose, is very important.

Donald Trump now champions “reproductive rights”

2024-08-28 Wolf Paul

Peter Wehner, senior fellow at the Trinity Forum and a former Republican speechwriter points out some inconvenient facts and asks disturbing questions, but I doubt somehow that this will sway many of Trump’s followers.

If I were an American I could not in good conscience vote for either Trump or Harris come November, and in the absence of a credible and viable third party candidate would simply not vote, but I don’t really have a problem with those who would vote for either one of the candidates as the lesser of two evils–that is a legitimate prudential judgement.

My issue is, rather, with those of my fellow evangelicals (and Christians of other traditions) who voted for Donald Trump in 2016 and/or 2020 because they consider abortion the most significant of all issues, and did so while holding their noses with respect to Trump’s character, and who now, in the wake of January 6 and when Trump has had the Pro Life plank removed from the GOP platform and repeatedly expressed his support for “reproductive rights” and greater abortion access are still Trump loyalists defending their champion and their support for him. Unfortunately this group includes many prominent evangelical leaders (such as Al Mohler, Franklin Graham, Tony Perkins, Robert Jeffress, Michael Brown, and many others) as well as most of my American evangelical friends.

Here are the two, in my opinion most important paragraphs from Wehner’s article:

Now ask yourself this: How could an evangelical who claims to be passionately pro-life vote for a presidential candidate who now promises that his administration will “be great for women and their reproductive rights”? Especially when that person has cheated on his wives and on his taxes, paid hush money to porn stars, and been found liable of sexual assault?

And how can those who profess to be followers of Jesus cast a ballot for this candidate, once the excuse of casting a pro-life vote is gone? For a convicted felon and a pathological liar, a man who has peddled racist conspiracy theories, cozied up to the world’s worst dictators, blackmailed an American ally, invited a hostile foreign power to interfere in American elections, defamed POWs and the war dead, mocked people with handicaps, and encouraged political violence? How can they continue to stand in solidarity with a person who has threatened prosecutors, judges, and the families of judges; who attempted to overthrow an election; who assembled a violent mob and directed it to march on the Capitol; and who encouraged the mob to hang his vice president?

I feel an immense sadness for this once great country which in many important areas increasingly looks like a third world nation and which out of a population of 335 million could not find two suitable candidates for the nation’s, if not the world’s, most important office. Unfortunately neither of the current candidates will make America great again.

And I feel an even greater sadness for that segment of the American church which seems to have lost its moral compass.

Clerical Abuse is not just a Catholic Problem

2024-08-11 Wolf Paul

A number of years ago, at the height of the Roman Catholic clerical abuse scandal first in the US and then also in Europe (Ireland, Austria, etc) there was quite a bit of tut-tuting among some of us Evangelicals, combined with finger-pointing at the celibacy requirement for Catholic clergy.

In 2017 prominent Evangelical apologist Ravi Zacharias was shown to be a sexual abuser and in 2022 the clerical abuse and lack of safeguarding scandal errupted in the Southern Baptist Convention.

In the past couple of years “The Roys Report” has reported almost weekly about clerical abuse cases (both sexual and other) across the entire Evangelical spectrum in the US[1], from small country churches to megachurches, from charismatic to non-charismatic churches and ministries. Most of these, of course, involved married abusers.

And just like the Catholic leadership twenty years ago, many Evangelical leaders who were tasked with the oversight of these abusive pastors and youth ministers seemed more concerned with reputational and financial damage control than with justice for and pastoral care of the victims.

It’s time we stopped the finger pointing and started praying for a cleansing in the entire Body of Christ, of whatever tradition. Abuse victims don’t care in the slightest whether their abuser professes belief in the “Solas” or in transsubstantiation, or what he thinks of the pope, whether he speaks in tongues or not. The damage is the same, and in all these cases it is the name of Christ that’s being dragged through the mud.

(BTW I am not raising this under some illusion of my own sinlessness or holiness, but I confess that I am utterly unable to fathom how one could commit such acts and then stand up at the front of the church and preach the gospel or handle the communion elements.)

__________

I believe that if we hear less of this in Europe the reasons are sociological rather than the greater holiness of European churches[↩]

The Angela Carini–Imane Khelif Case

2024-08-04 Wolf Paul

Here are some thoughts, prompted by the Carini-Khelif case and extending beyond it, presented in random order. They will likely lead to my classification as a backward and “transphobic” male chauvinist — so be it, as I am already considered “homophobic” anyway. [1]

I say “Hats off!” to Angela Carini, who said, “If the IOC allows her to compete, I respect that decision. These controversies made me sad, and I feel sorry for my opponent, who is also here just to fight.” Carini explained that her refusal to perform the customary handshake after the match was a misunderstanding: “It was not an intentional gesture, and I apologize to her and everyone. I was angry because the Olympics were over for me. I have nothing against Khelif; if I met her again, I would hug her.” My respect!
I generally consider boxing unsuitable as a sport, and even more so for women. It is a skill that certainly belongs in police and military training, and perhaps in self-defense courses, but not in the Olympic Games.
J.K. Rowling has been advocating for years to differentiate between biological/genetic sex and social gender, which may differ from each other. In this context, she commendably supports maintaining hard-won safe spaces for biological/genetic women. I fully support both positions.
It is unclear to me whether Imane Khelif is truly a man or a woman. Imane does not seem to fit the typical transgender pattern. However, Khelif’s (biological-genetic) sex is also not entirely clear. [2]
If sports competitions are held separately for men and women based on biological-genetic sex, for good scientific reasons [3], then there must be objective criteria for determining who is a man and who is a woman, and these criteria must be verifiable in case of doubt.

So much for the specific case of Carini-Khelif. But the discussion about this case also touches on and raises other issues.

I differentiate between religious beliefs and convictions which apply in my private life and my faith community, and the laws and societal conventions of our largely secular societies and states. Unlike many of my fellow believers, I do not insist that people with other or no religious convictions conform to mine.
In a democratically governed state, it must be legitimate for people with different beliefs and values to represent and try to implement them politically in accordance with existing laws. This right belongs to conservatives and “progressives,” the right and the left, the religious and the atheists alike.
I respect the right of every person to live and love according to their ideas, in accordance with existing laws. However, I reserve the right to freely express my opinion on the lifestyle choices of others and resist the compulsive, sometimes even legally enforced, expectation to affirm these choices good and right.
With the exception of certain physical characteristics such as skin color or gender, I consider anti-discrimination laws legitimate only in the public sector and essential services, and possibly even in public corporations. [4] However, I think they go too far when they interfere with the right of individual citizens to freedom of assuciation, to determine for themselves with whom they want to work or do business, by dictating, for example, whom they should hire or for which customers they should provide their services.

__________

The use of terms like “homophobic” and “transphobic” for anyone who disagrees with the current politically correct views on homosexuality or transsexuality implies that such opinions cannot have a rational basis. This is both ignorant and unhelpful to a reasonable, civilized debate.[↩]
One of the major fallacies in the current gender debate is the assumption that issues like gender dysphoria, intersexuality, and purely psychological problems, such as feeling like being in the wrong body, can be easily and seamlessly resolved through hormone treatment and/or surgery, or even simply through legal regulations. The longer medicine, psychology, and legislation follow this approach, the more unexpected, harmful side effects emerge.[↩]
there are scientifically proven differences in physical performance between people with male DNA and those with female DNA[↩]
In this context, “public corporations” refers to firms or organizations that are not owned or assigned to individual, named persons, and are therefore not as directly connected to the beliefs of these owners as in the case of partnerships.[↩]

Nederland is op een hellend vlak terecht gekomen…

2024-07-27 Wolf Paul

Gedurende mijn jeugd had ik contacten met Vlaamse (Belgische) en Nederlandse mensen die grote indruk op me maakten; in mijn late tienerjaren kwam ik tot een levend geloof in Christus door een groep die verschillende Nederlanders omvatte, en in de daaropvolgende jaren hebben Nederlandse mensen, waaronder de overleden auteur Corrie ten Boom, een Nederlandse Joodse holocaustoverlevende, mij op vele manieren beïnvloed. Ik werd een “Holland fanboy”, zozeer zelfs dat ik Nederlands leerde (wat, toegegeven, geen al te moeilijke opgave is voor een taalkundig begaafde Duitssprekende).

In de afgelopen decennia heeft het land dat ooit opstond tegen de onmenselijke nazi-ideologieën, waaronder euthanasie en antisemitisme, euthanasie omarmd en recentelijk een verontrustende tolerantie voor seksueel misbruik en verkrachting van kinderen getoond.

De 29-jarige Nederlandse beachvolleyballer Steven van de Velde werd in 2016 veroordeeld tot vier jaar gevangenisstraf nadat hij had bekend een 12-jarig meisje in 2014 in het VK te hebben verkracht. Onder een verdrag tussen het VK en Nederland werd hij overgebracht naar Nederland om zijn straf uit te zitten, waar zijn veroordeling werd gewijzigd in “ontucht” en zijn straf werd teruggebracht tot één jaar, die hij uitzat in een Nederlandse gevangenis. Ongeveer een jaar na zijn vrijlating hervatte van de Velde zijn sportcarrière en nam hij deel aan beachvolleybal. Dit jaar werd hij geselecteerd om Nederland te vertegenwoordigen op de Olympische Spelen in Parijs.

In reactie op protesten tegen zijn deelname van slachtofferadvocaten zowel in het VK als in Nederland zelf, verklaarde het Nederlands Olympisch Comité dat “Steven geen pedofiel is,” dat hij geen recidivist is en dat alle noodzakelijke waarborgen zijn genomen.

Maar recidive is hier niet het probleem.

Ten eerste, gezien de quasi-religieuze rol en het belang van competitiesporten in onze cultuur – iets dat blijkt uit de pracht en praal rondom zowel de Olympische Spelen als andere internationale competities en de verering van succesvolle atleten – komt het inzetten van een atleet op een grote internationale competitie zoals de Olympische Spelen neer op een soort heiligverklaring, een presentatie van deze atleet als een heilige en rolmodel, als iemand die het waard is om nagevolgd te worden. Is dat echt gepast in het geval van iemand die veroordeeld is voor drie gevallen van verkrachting van een 12-jarig meisje?

Ten tweede, dit toont enorm disrespect voor de slachtoffers van seksueel misbruik, van wie de meesten worstelen jarenlang met de nadelige effecten, vaak fysiek maar altijd psychologisch, terwijl misbruikers, zelfs als ze lange gevangenisstraffen uitzitten en nog meer als hun opsluiting heel kort was zoals in het geval van van der Velde, de situatie psychologisch overwonnen en zelfs succesvolle carrières hebben. Het zien van hen op een voetstuk verergert het geweld dat deze slachtoffers is aangedaan.

Ik ben zeer teleurgesteld dat het Nederlandse rechtssysteem de brutaliteit had om een veroordeling voor verkrachting omtewandelen tot “ontucht” en een straf van vier jaar terug te brengen tot één jaar; ik ben teleurgesteld dat er geen massaal protest is in Nederland tegen het inzetten van een veroordeelde kinderverkrachter, en dat de rest van het Nederlandse team blijkbaar ook geen probleem heeft met de aanwezigheid van deze man in hun gelederen.

Ten slotte vind ik de bewering dat van der Velde geen pedofiel is ook zeer verontrustend. Pedofilie wordt gedefinieerd als een pathologie, een ziekelijke, abnormale, bijna verslavende of dwangmatige seksuele aantrekking tot kinderen; en hoewel het zeker verwijtbaar is om aan deze aantrekking toe te geven en de gevolgen voor de slachtoffers verwoestend zijn, impliceert de classificatie als aandoening op zijn minst een zekere verzachting van de schuld. Als echter iemand kinderen misbruikt, met name hen seksueel misbruikt en zelfs tot verkrachting overgaat zonder aan de aandoening pedofilie te lijden, kan deze daad alleen worden verklaard door pure, onversneden slechtheid.

Natuurlijk gaan we ervan uit dat een crimineel die zijn gevangenisstraf heeft uitgezeten en betaald heeft voor zijn misdaad, of in een christelijke context, zijn zonde heeft beleden en vergeving van Christus heeft ontvangen, zijn misdaad niet langer tegen hem gehouden mag worden; maar er valt veel te zeggen voor het feit dat bepaalde misdaden, zelfs nadat ze zijn geboet en vergeven, een persoon diskwalificeren voor bepaalde rollen. Dit geldt voor pastors, priesters, leraren en anderen die onze cultuur verheft tot rolmodellen. Boetedoening (seculier en religieus) en vergeving impliceren niet dat er geen blijvende gevolgen zijn.

Vertaald van mijn originele Engelse tekst met de hulp van ChatGPT.

The Netherlands are far gone down a slippery slope …

Wolf Paul

Throughout my childhood I had contacts with Flemish (Belgian) and Dutch people who greatly impressed me; in my late teens I came to a living faith in Christ through a group including several Dutch people, and in subsequent years Dutch people including the late author Corrie teen Boom, a Dutch Jewish holocaust survivor, influenced me in many ways. I became a “Holland fan boy”, so much so that I learned Dutch (granted, not too difficult a feat for a linguistically gifted German speaker).

In recent decades, however, the country that once stood up to the inhumane nazi ideologies including euthanasia and antisemitism has embraced euthanasia, and most recently demonstrated a disturbing tolerance for the sexual abuse and rape of children.

29-year-old Dutch beach volleyball player Steven van de Velde was sentenced to four years in prison in 2016 after confessing to the 2014 rape of a 12-year-old girl in the UK. Under a treaty between the UK and the Netherlands he was transferred to the Netherlands to serve his sentence, where his conviction was changed to “fornication” and his sentence reduced to one year, which he served in a Dutch prison. About a year after his release from prison van de Velde resumed his sports career, competing in beach volleyball. This year he was selected to represent the Netherlands in the Paris Olympics.

In response to protests against his participation from victim advocates both in the UK and the Netherlands itself the Dutch Olympic Committe asserted that “Steven is not a pedophile,” that he is not a recidivist[1] and that all necessary safeguards have been put in place.

But recidivism is not the issue here.

Firstly, considering the quasi-religious role and importance of competitive sports in our culture–something that is evidenced by the pomp and ritual surrounding both the Olympics and other international competitions as well as the adulation of successful athletes–fielding an athlete at a major international competition like the Olympics amounts to a sort of canonization, a presenting of this athlete as a saint and role model, as someone worth emulating. Is that really appropriate in the case of someone who was convicted of three counts of rape of a 12-year-old.

Secondly, this shows enormous disrespect to the victims of sexual abuse, most of whom struggle with the ill effects, often physical but always psychological, while abusers, even if the serve long prison sentences and even more so when their incarceration was rather nominal as in van der Velde’s case, have moved on psychologicallly and even with successful careers. Seeing them put on a pedestal exacerbates the violence done to these victims.

I am very disappointed that the Dutch legal system had the temerity to reduce a conviction for rape into one for “fornication” and a four-year sentence to one year; I am disappointed that there is not a groundswell of protest in the Netherlands against the fielding of a convicted child rapist, and that the rest of the Dutch team apparently also has no problem with the presence of this man in their ranks.

Finally, I think the assertion that van der Velde is not a pedophile is also very troubling. Pedophilia is defined as a pathology, an abnormal, almost addictive or compulsive sexual attraction to children; and while acting on this attraction is definitely culpable, and the effects are devastating for the victims, the pathology of the condition implies at least a certain mitigation of guilt. If, however, someone abuses children, particularly sexually abuses them and going so far as rape, without suffering from the pathology of pedophilia, that is motivated and driven by pure, unmitigated evil.

Of course we assume that a criminal having served his prison sentence has paid for his crime, or in a Christian context, has repented of his sin and received forgiveness from Christ, his crime should no longer be held against them; but there is a lot to be said that certain crimes, even after they have been atoned and forgiven, disqualify a person from certain roles. This is true of pastors, priests, teachers, and others which our culture elevates to role models. Atonement (secular and religious) and forgiveness do not imply that there are no lasting consequences.

__________

likely to re-offend[↩]

Donald Trump’s Pro-Life Ploy is History

2024-07-17 Wolf Paul

Here is Catholic World Report on the fact that the Republican Party platform has been stripped to a large extent[1], at Donald Trump’s insistence, of the pro-life position which was part of it for fifty years: They pat themselves on the back for having returned abortion law to the States, and say they oppose late-term abortion. They have removed the support for the traditional family and inserted a paragrap about gender ideology, stopping short of condemning hormones and surgery for minors.

I have said all along that Donald Trump’s pro-life stance was merely a tactic, a clever ploy to win the support of gullible (sorry!) religious folks, and I have been dissed for this view by my American Evangelical friends.

And while the “pro-life” justices Trump has installed in the Supreme Court have overturned Roe v. Wade they have also just given him carte blanche to effectively become an unaccountable, absolutist king.

Congratulations, my friends.

«Nor do most observers seriously believe that abortion (much less the defense of traditional marriage) are issues that Trump is personally much concerned about, given his notorious personal life and the pro-choice and otherwise socially liberal views he expressed for decades before running for president in 2016. The most plausible reading of Trump’s record is that he was willing to further the agenda of social conservatives when doing so was in his political interests, but no inclination to do so any longer now that their support has been secured and their views have become a political liability.»

__________

I just looked at the 2016 GOP and Democratic platforms, and here is how they differ on abortion and marriage:

GOP 2016 on abortion:
“We assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed. We support a human life amendment to the Constitution.”
“We oppose using public revenues to promote or perform abortion or fund
organizations like Planned Parenthood, so long as they provide or refer for elective abortions…We will not fund or subsidize healthcare that includes abortion coverage.”

GOP 2016 on marriage:
“Traditional marriage and family, based on marriage between one man and one woman, is the foundation for a free society and has for millennia been entrusted with rearing children and instilling cultural values.”
“We do not accept the Supreme Court’s redefinition of marriage and we urge its reversal, whether through judicial reconsideration or a constitutional amendment returning control over marriage to the states. We oppose government discrimination against businesses or entities which decline to sell items or services to individuals for activities that go against their religious views about such activities.”

GOP 2016 on Gender Ideology:
Nothing. That wasn’t a hot-button issue yet.

And here is what’s changed:

GOP 2024 on abortion:
We proudly stand for families and Life. We believe that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States guarantees that no person can be denied Life or Liberty without Due Process, and that the States are, therefore, free to pass Laws protecting those Rights. After 51 years, because of us, that power has been given to the States and to a vote of the People. We will oppose Late Term Abortion, while supporting mothers and policies that advance Prenatal Care, access to Birth Control, and IVF (fertility treatments).

GOP 2024 on marriage:
Nothing.

GOP on Gender Ideology:
We will keep men out of women’s sports, ban Taxpayer funding for sex change surgeries, and stop Taxpayer-funded Schools from promoting gender transition, reverse Biden’s radical rewrite of Title IX Education Regulations, and restore protections for women and girls.

Here is the GOP 2016 platform, and here the GOP 2024 platform.[↩]

Sex vs Gender?

2024-07-03 Wolf Paul

German Evangelical magazine idea (Nr. 27.2024, p. 7) quotes from a taz interview with Alexander Korte, a German specialist in child and adolescent psychiatry and psychotherapy, who comments on the statement that gender identity is innate:

“That’s absurd. Neurobiological research definitely owes proof that gender identity could be genetically determined. Even from a developmental psychology perspective, it is absurd to assume that identity is something one is born with. From my point of view, identity is always the result of an individual’s bonding and relationship history – and also physical history.” [1]

Politically speaking, I agree with this statement but consider it irrelevant to most of the controversial gender debate. That debate is not primarily about identity, but about biology. Separate sporting events for women and men are justified by the biological differences between (biological) women and men; the same applies to gender-segregated toilets, showers, changing rooms, etc. All of this has nothing to do with identity.

And frankly: it is also absurd to assume that perceived gender identity should take precedence over biological sex in every respect and in all situations. That is postmodern, post-scientific nonsense, and where, for example, the rights of the small but very vocal number of “trans people” are supposed to trump the rights of the large majority of “cis people,”[2] it is profoundly undemocratic.

Also, for the assessment of this issue in traditional Christian theology[3] this question is not particularly relevant: the theological evaluation of societal phenomena and human behaviors is not based on genetics or whether something is innate, but on what God’s Word, the Bible, says. After all, the Bible clearly states that we all have an innate inclination to sin (Romans 3:10-18: [4], which manifests differently in different people. Nevertheless, sin is never justified.

Whether and to what extent the Bible represents an identity differing from biological sex as a result of fallen and therefore sinful nature can certainly be discussed. It is clear that the Bible does refer to men in women’s clothing (and vice versa) as “an abomination” (Deuteronomy 22:5[5], but spends far more time and has far more condemnation for other behaviors and attitudes, calling them sin, “abomination,” and “wickedness.” And how did Jesus put it? “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone.”

(The cover picture of this post is a screenshot from Merriam-Webster‘s entry for “transgender”.)

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Dr. Korte is indeed critical of gender ideology, as a quick Google search clearly shows.[↩]
The term trans-(men, women, people) refers to individuals whose perceived gender identity does not align with their biological sex, in contrast to cis-(men, women, people), whose gender identity and biological sex match. Additionally, there are the adjectives transgender and cisgender. All of these are neologisms (late 20th century) based on the Latin words trans (beyond) and cis (on this side of) as well as the originally grammatically term gender.[↩]
i.e. a theology which starts from the premise that the Bible is God’s revelation of and about Himself, that it doesn’t and shouldn’t be changed, and that it is still the standard for Christian faith and theology today.[↩]
“There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one. Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit. The poison of vipers is on their lips. Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know. There is no fear of God before their eyes.” Paul quotes here various passages from the Hebrew Bible (“Old Testament”) which describe the innate inclination of humans towards sin.[↩]
“A woman shall not wear a man’s garment, nor shall a man put on a woman’s cloak, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord your God.”[↩]

The Two-State Solution Isn’t One

2024-03-22 Wolf Paul

The obsession of many international politicians with a two-state solution in the Middle East is largely motivated by cynical, domestic political damage control. As a solution, the two-state solution is dead on arrival.

I am very pessimistic about the attitude of most politicians towards military conflicts and political or other crises abroad:

They make proposals for solutions that will not work but are meant to show their voters that they (the politicians) are not just sittin on their behinds and perhaps also bring a short-term relaxation so that the terrible images disappear from their voters’ TV screens, and which ideally do not produce any domestic political problems. Whether these “solutions” are viable in the long term or even worsen the situation in the longer view is not so important, because “by then I will have long been out of office, and others may worry about it.”

We see this in the attitude of many politicians and governments towards the current conflict in Gaza and their proposed solutions:

Apart from the absolutely necessary short-term measures to avert a hunger disaster (and the delay of which is primarily blamed on Israel, although the well-known facts suggest otherwise[1]), nearly all major international actors (USA, EU, UN, etc.) are pushing the so-called “two-state solution”, which would give the Palestinians their own state (in Gaza and the “West Bank”). This approach has only one serious disadvantage that will torpedo its implementation from the outset:

The “two-state solution” is rejected by the majority of both the Israeli and Palestinian populations (with over 70% each) — this according to current surveys by Israeli and Palestinian pollsters.

Palestinian leaders repeat—almost like a mantra—the supposed command of the Prophet to annihilate the Jews and their own claim to the land “from the river to the sea” — but only on Arabic media channels, to the West they convey a different image. According to a current survey – by Palestinian pollsters – 73% of the population of Gaza approve of the massacre on October 7th, despite the immense suffering it has brought over them[2].

The Israeli population was predominantly in favor of a two-state solution in the 1990s; the continued Palestinian refusal to recognize Israel’s right to exist, as well as about 30 years of continuous shelling of Israeli villages and cities and countless other terrorist attacks, with the climax on October 7th, have turned this approval into rejection: The trust of Israelis of all political stripes that there could be a relatively peaceful coexistence or even just cohabitation with a Palestinian state is virtually at zero. A survey from February showed that 44% of Israelis believe that terrorism would increase if a Palestinian state were realized; in a survey at the beginning of this month, 79% of Jewish Israelis and 39% of Arab Israelis agreed with the statement, “There is no chance for a peace agreement with the Palestinians in the foreseeable future.” After October 7th, a two-state solution is seen as a reward for terrorism.

The obsession of many international politicians with a two-state solution clearly contradicts the will of the Israeli public and certainly does not match what the Palestinians want. It is primarily motivated by a cynical desire for domestic political damage limitation[3].

Sources for this article: “Who Wants a Two-State Solution? Not Israelis or Palestinians” by Israel Kasnett in “Israel Today“, March 22, 2024, as well as my extensive reading and media following on the topic.

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Israel’s position is clear and justified: a ceasefire and thus easier provisioning in exchange for the release of the hostages from October 7th; so far, Hamas has demanded a permanent end to hostilities; there seems to be some movement on this issue now. Moreover, blaming Israel seems to be generally de rigueur: Although it is an open secret that Hamas embeds its terror infrastructure within civilian facilities and residential areas, and partly prevents the civilian population from seeking safety in order to propagandistically exploit the inevitable civilian casualties, and that Hamas seizes a significant portion of the international aid payments and deliveries to arm themselves and supply their fighters, and although the civilian casualty numbers, as published daily by the Health Ministry in Gaza, are statistically impossible and therefore unlikely (after all, the Health Ministry, like all official Gaza, is in the hands of Hamas), everything that comes from there is taken at face value by most international media and politicians, and Israel is blamed for the suffering of the civilian population[↩]
From the Palestinian perspective, what was done on October 7th was simply obeying what they believe to be the Prophet’s instruction (namely, killing Jews), so they naturally see the Israeli counterstrike as completely unjustified.[↩]
Currently in the USA, it’s about limiting the loss of votes in the presidential election in November ’24.[↩]