First, in the MAGA antichrist cult of eternal double standards, where law binds their victims and protects themselves but never protects their victims or binds themselves, grace likewise is extended only to themselves and never to those they hate. So when an impenitent technically-not-a-rapist sex predator, liar, fraud, felon, and traitor they support is under discussion, they always piously intone, “God can use anyone.” But when it is pointed out that God can therefore use somebody they hate, they declare that if we support such a person, “America will be under the judgment of a righteous God.” Heads they win, tails their victims lose.
A second point is that many people have noted, of course, that unlike Trump (who has never demonstrated the slightest contrition for or even admission of any sin, much less the torrent of grave and proven sins he has committed in full view of the world) David famously repented his sins (notably, sin of raping Bathsheba and killing her husband Uriah) in one of the most well-known psalma in the world, Psalm 51.
The most extraordinary thing about the Psalm is that it exists at all. Christians take it for granted. But compared with other royal literature in antiquity, it is a shocking departure. Kings tend, in antiquity, to record their brags and boasts, their triumphs and conquests, not their failures and shame. In a world filled with Persian, Assyrian, Babylonian, and Egyptian Donald Trumps, David really sticks out in his stunning willingness to publically declare his bloody-handed guilt. That such a poem makes it into the liturgical literature of Israel and that whole disgusting, shameful and appalling episode of David’s sin gets incorporated into the royal chronicles of the House of David and the sacred literature of Israel is a stunning testimony to just how singular the Jewish people are in the ancient world. You will not read such a thing in Trump’s autobiography.
Finally, there is a somewhat subtle and theological point to be made. Some have noted David wasn’t a murderer or adulterer when he was anointed King and argue that he became that way after power had corrupted him.
Here’s the thing though: by David’s reckoning, he was always that way, and says so very plainly in his psalm of repentance for the sin.
Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,
and in sin did my mother conceive me. (Ps 51:5)
In other words, he is telling us he was born broken. Power just give him scope and cover to express that brokenness.
One of the weird consequences of Christ’s teaching that he comes to save all is that all are in need of saving. And that means that before sin is an act it is a condition we are in. We are born broken and almost as soon as we can act, the brokenness gets expressed in our actions.
In short, we aren’t sinners because we sin. We sin because we are sinners.
External conditions can inhibit or exacerbate that, but they do not, in the end, cause it. When Jesus tells us that it is out of the heart that sin comes, he’s not kidding around. There is something wrong with us. That’s what the Tradition means by “original sin”. “Actual sin” is the bad things we do as a result of that spiritual birth defect. Both sorts of sin are what he came to heal us from.
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It’s curious how Evangelicals and Right Wing Catholics think that they, and they alone speak for God. They seem to believe that Liberals and even moderates are despised by God and speak only in error. Trump is popular with them because he has given them permission to be their worst selves. Thus they can hate and mistreat immigrants, gays, non Christians, etc and it is righteous and correct, the actual Gospels notwithstanding.
Indeed, the Trumpers believe that they are also the “Real Americans,”. White Christians from the South and Midwest are real Americans, but nobody else. The next 4 years will be ugly.
What we call the Bible is amazing in its honesty and understanding of the human condition!
As Fr. Matthew Mary Bartow stated in your first post on this topic, we don’t know which psalms were written by David, so we don’t know that David himself was willing “to publically declare his bloody-handed guilt.” If psalm 51 came from a later writer, then rather than Trump’s autobiography, a more accurate comparison might be to a book written about Trump a few hundred years in the future. In that case, it would be far less surprising if a future apologist attributed Trump with a little humility or remorse for some of his actions.
There are several facts from David’s lifetime that demonstrate that it’s not purely revisionist apologia: He submitted to Nathan’s admonishment and didn’t have him killed. He admitted his sin and married Bathsheba. Later, despite David’s contrition, when Nathan informed David that there would be temporal punishment for his sins, he didn’t object or rebel, but accepted them, and the punishment was quite severe (something unthinkable in the world as of then): His and Bathsheba’s child would die and Absalom would rebel and be killed.
All this weighed heavily on David. If he did not compose the psalm himself, it certainly expresses well his feelings on the matter.
I’m waiting and watching to see if he responds to what Pope Francis said to him about refugees here.
I need to have hope, even where hope is not merited.
A few days ago you mentioned strolling with an e-book reader reading Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. I finally got one last week and just finished Hobbit (which I admit I haven’t read in its entirety before) when you posted that article and it brought a smile to my face.
I was actually starting off on LotR at that time, reading it for the first time in the original version (I read a translation long ago and it didn’t carry as much weight as it does now; a lot went over my head, be it for the youth, lack of experience or loss in transaltion).
I’m at the Council of Elrond right now and this hits way too close for comfort. Excerpt from Gandalf’s account of his meeting with Saruman:
‘ ‘‘And listen, Gandalf, my old friend and helper!’’ he said, coming near and speaking now in a softer voice. ‘‘I said we, for we it may be, if you will join with me. A new Power is rising. Against it the old allies and policies will not avail us at all. There is no hope left in Elves or dying Númenor. This then is one choice before you, before us. We may join with that Power. It would be wise, Gandalf. There is hope that way. Its victory is at hand; and there will be rich reward for those that aided it. As the Power grows, its proved friends will also grow; and the Wise, such as you and I, may with patience come at last to direct its courses, to control it. We can bide our time, we can keep our thoughts in our hearts, deploring maybe evils done by the way, but approving the high and ultimate purpose: Knowledge, Rule, Order; all the things that we have so far striven in vain to accomplish, hindered rather than helped by our weak or idle friends. There need not be, there would not be, any real change in our designs, only in our means.’’
In the foreword to the second American edition, Tolkien mentioned that LotR is not an allegory. To quote:
“…I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. I much prefer history, true or feigned, with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers. I think that many confuse ‘applicability’ with ‘allegory’; but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author.
(…)
The real war does not resemble the legendary war in its process or its conclusion. If it had inspired or directed the development of the legend, then certainly the Ring would have been seized and used against Sauron; he would not have been annihilated but enslaved, and Barad-dûr would not have been destroyed but occupied. Saruman, failing to get possession of the Ring, would in the confusion and treacheries of the time have found in Mordor the missing links in his own researches into Ring-lore, and before long he would have made a Great Ring of his own with which to challenge the self-styled Ruler of Middle-earth. In that conflict both sides would have held hobbits in hatred and contempt: they would not long have survived even as slaves.”
Tolkien was a prophet. I’m quite sure He would scoff at this label, so let me rephrase it as: His words were prophetic.
Tolkien was certainly very wise.
Excerpts from “We Will Serve the Lord” by Rory Cooney.
—
Wealth can be an idol, built of gleaming gold,
bringing dreams of paradise, of futures bought and sold.
Some will choose to gather it, all that they can hoard,
but as for me and my house we will serve the Lord.
…
Power is a hunger, burning in the breast,
to walk among the mighty and trample on the rest.
Some will choose to gain it by lie or guile or sword,
but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.
—
Side note: As a whole it’s a great exit song for mass.