The Truth, Implications and Proposed Response – Baptist News Global

In the January 1969 issue of the magazine. Playboy magazine included an essay by a distinguished American theologian that contained the following memorable words.

Why is the issue of equality still so far from being solved in America, a country that bills itself as democratic, inventive, welcoming to new ideas, wealthy, productive and incredibly powerful? The problem is so serious because, despite its virtues and attributes, America is deeply racist and its democracy is flawed both economically and socially. … Today’s dissenters tell the complacent majority that the time has come when further shirking of social responsibility in a troubled world will lead to disaster and death. America hasn’t changed yet because many people think it shouldn’t change, but that’s an illusion of the damned.

These words of Martin Luther King Jr. were published almost a year after his assassination under the title: “Testimony of Hope.” All essays have been republished in Testament of Hope: Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King Jr. edited by James Melvin Washington and published by HarperOne.

A month ago I finished a blog called “Questions for the Admissions Committee” in these words:

You and I are on the CEO hiring committee. Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are the most prominent candidates.

Why would we choose Trump over Harris?

Why did we choose to prosecuting a fraudster, a sex offender, and a commercial fraud?

Why do we choose a convicted criminal who refuses to show remorse, remorse or take responsibility for his crimes over someone who has dedicated his career to trying to protect people from fraud, violence and torment?

Why would we trust an enterprise, and the lives, futures and hopes of everyone who is a part of it, to the most dishonest, incompetent and irresponsible sociopath that ever sought and was elected as its CEO after we fired him at the end of his first term in office? office?

We fired Donald Trump four years ago.

He is more dishonest, incompetent and irresponsible now than when we fired him.

And he’s proud of it.

If we hire him again, our neighbors will not save us from this stupidity and its consequences.

Our enemies will celebrate and exploit our stupidity.

No deity will forgive or forgive this.

History will record that we were fools.

Our children and their descendants will curse our stupidity.

And Trump will go to his grave bragging about it.

November 5 Donald Trump was rehired as president, and J. D. Vance was hired as vice president.

“I accept their election. This does not require me to comply with their fascist intentions.”

I accept their election. This does not require me to comply with their fascist intentions.

This does not make me conform to their plans to treat our immigrant neighbors as a threat; demonize our transgender neighbors as predators; viewing our neighbors who voted differently than them as mortal enemies; and treat women, girls, and LGBTQ people as socially and politically inferior, incompetent, or irrelevant.

So count me among the people who will disobey and actively resist the dictates, policies and practices of the incoming Trump-Vance administration, which promise to be hateful, unjust and oppressive.

Count me among those who will openly condemn these dictates, policies and practices as cruel, vicious and stupid.

Consider the community I serve, New Millennium Church in Little Rock, Arkansas, to be a community that will continue to welcome and respect the inherent dignity of all people in God’s love. We will do this because we live for God, in every breath and heartbeat, by the power of the Holy Spirit, as followers of Jesus Christ, together.

I agree that Donald Trump and JD Vance were elected President and Vice President of the United States. I reject any suggestion that our community should submit to their hateful, unjust and oppressive dictates, policies and practices.

So, I will say to the people of the New Millennium Church that we have a moral duty as followers of Jesus and a constitutional right under the First Amendment to resist and disobey these hateful, unjust and oppressive dictates, policies and practices. Like Dr. King, I am a follower of Jesus who does not suffer from the “delusion of the damned.”

Will you, your pastor, and your congregation “go along and get along?” Will you celebrate or condemn the Trump-Vance administration? Will you court his favor or sound the alarm about his fascism?

“Will you, your pastor and your congregation walk together and get along?”

What will you, your pastor, and your congregation do?

Will your elected officials be at the local and state level? “put up to get along” with the fascist dictates, policies and practices of the Trump-Vance administration? Will they help kidnap undocumented men, women and children who work, study and live like our neighbors and deport them? Will they criminalize women and girls who make reproductive health decisions? Will they persecute the health workers who help these women and girls?

What will local and state elected officials do?

Donald Trump and JD Vance will be tyrants. Will we submit to their tyranny? Or will we condemn and resist it? Will we surrender to fascism? Or will we ignore it? What will you do?

If you don’t judge, resist and challenge Trump-Vance fascism, what justifications will you find for your willing complicity in it? Whatever the justification for this complicity, your descendants will curse your stupidity.

Donald Trump and J.D. Vance will go to their graves bragging about it.

And no deity will forgive this.

Wendell Griffen is a retired circuit court judge in Arkansas and serves as pastor of New Millennium Baptist Church in Little Rock.

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