Notes from December 2020: The Madness of the Moment

I have so many notes from the past couple of months and so little time that I've given up trying to write separate pieces on them all. Instead I've chosen to bundle a few together – some highlights if you will. There are a couple of things that I keep coming back to especially with regard to December of 2020.

During the Christmas week we were barraged with images in the news, online, and in person that served as a capstone to a (by all accounts) crazy year.

Christian media was saturated with images of Kirk Cameron leading caroling protests. I am still baffled as to how this person has set himself up as some kind of Christian leader and why anyone would listen to him. He's a second rate actor that got his start in producing cultural garbage that has been somehow forgotten and rewritten as some kind of fond memory. Growing Pains was trash and it's not a show a Christian can watch.

He then proceeded to be involved with some terrible Evangelical movies with their bad production only outstripped by their bad theology. He hitched his wagon to Ray Comfort – or perhaps it's the other way around. Cameron has no credentials or real theological competence but his association with Comfort provided him with credibility and Comfort in turn got the fame and attention he sought, by hitching his wagon to a growing Evangelical celebrity.

Cameron then has worked to produce what can only be described as lame even buffoonish Christian documentaries that don't stand up to even prima facie scrutiny. As a Christian I can say that they are an embarrassment.

But then we're supposed to be excited because he's now leading anti-government protests – supposedly on the basis of resisting Covid-19 protocols and restrictions? He's terribly concerned for the Church or so we're led to believe. Pardon my scepticism but it would seem his move is primarily political. His speech is governed by the false political narratives of the moment. Setting himself up as a discerning leader, his move strikes me as a political stunt by one seeking to raise his profile.

If he's really concerned about the state of things, instead of politicising the pandemic – why don't you go offer some help and encourage the Church to do likewise? Why not channel your energies and your celebrity into doing something constructive and helping to bring end to the pandemic rather than grandstanding stunts that give credence to the rampant misinformation that is overwhelming society and serve no purpose apart from whipping people up into a subversionist frenzy?

Then in the midst of this fiasco, Trump releases a Christmas video with a woman that (in Christian terms) is not his wife and this is praised as the most Christian statement ever released by a president. Evangelical Trumpites were literally falling over themselves to offer praise to their leader – as they were so deeply moved by the Trump reading of a canned statement that he did not write – nor could he have written it.

What a moment – Christians praising sacrilege.

Trump stands there with a woman who again, is not (biblically speaking) his wife, and a tart at that. He's an unrepentant rapist, whoremonger, thief, liar, and murderer, and every Christian should be appalled that he would dare to read out such statements and utter the name of Christ – from his cursing filthy and unrepentant lips. But instead they praise him and are brought to tears.

Well do I recall the apoplectic reactions whenever Bill Clinton attempted to invoke Christianity – and rightly so. But not so with Trump, instead his reading of a statement he clearly didn't write (and doesn't understand) moves them tears.

Not long after I was in a store and encountered a Wesleyan Holiness girl who (unlike most of the other Christians in the area) was actually wearing a mask and yet it was emblazoned with a Trump 2020 logo.

These are the people who separate themselves over ethical issues and standards. They cut themselves off from mainstream culture and despise the worldly Christians who listen to pop music, watch television and wear worldly clothes. These are the types that look down on women who don't wear their hair up or would wear pants.

And yet the foul-mouthed criminal Trump with his bevy of slut-girls is held up as a Christian leader, a moral choice – even to the point that you walk around with his name pasted on your very face? I suppose some think of the Trump mask as a kind of subtle protest. But what struck me is the fact that this girl's whole presentation – long denim skirt, long sleeves, bunned hair – which is meant to be a proclamation of her Biblical modesty, femininity, and antithesis – was utterly negated by the Trump banner across her face – a declaration of enshrined worldliness and the garish celebration of sin – the froward perverse heart of Proverbs 11, that is an abomination to God. I was immediately reminded of the next verse in the chapter concerning the gold ring in a pig's snout and the lovely woman who lacks discretion.

Make no mistake, this lack of discernment is judgment and it seems like it's getting worse by the day.