TIME’s Person of the Year: Donald Trump

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Bootstrap
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TIME’s Person of the Year: Donald Trump

Post by Bootstrap »

I'd like us to discuss how Kingdom Christians in America can best be salt and light as we move from the Obama Administration to the Trump administration. I'd also like to discuss the Time Magazine article, but I very much want to discuss it from this perspective. And in the discussion, I hope we can try to look like salt and light in the way we respond to each other.

We are living in a very divided country, and a country where anger is boiling over so much that rational discussion of many things is quite difficult - even among believers. So what is the place of Kingdom Christians living here?

Here's the article describing why they chose Donald Trump. I'll quote from the introduction:
It’s hard to measure the scale of his disruption. This real estate baron and casino owner turned reality-TV star and provocateur—never a day spent in public office, never a debt owed to any interest besides his own—now surveys the smoking ruin of a vast political edifice that once housed parties, pundits, donors, pollsters, all those who did not see him coming or take him seriously. Out of this reckoning, Trump is poised to preside, for better or worse.

For those who believe this is all for the better, Trump’s victory represents a long-overdue rebuke to an entrenched and arrogant governing class; for those who see it as for the worse, the destruction extends to cherished norms of civility and discourse, a politics poisoned by vile streams of racism, sexism, nativism. To his believers, he delivers change—broad, deep, historic change, not modest measures doled out in Dixie cups; to his detractors, he inspires fear both for what he may do and what may be done in his name.

The revolution he stirred feels fully American, with its echoes of populists past, of Andrew Jackson and Huey Long and, at its most sinister, Joe McCarthy and Charles Coughlin. Trump’s assault on truth and logic, far from hurting him, made him stronger. His appeal—part hope, part snarl—dissolved party lines and dispatched the two reigning dynasties of U.S. politics. Yet his victory mirrors the ascent of nationalists across the world, from Britain to the Philippines, and taps forces far more powerful than one man’s message.
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appleman2006
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Re: TIME’s Person of the Year: Donald Trump

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Just checking to ensure that you did see my earlier comment along this subject was made in the funny pages and was entirely expected to be understood that way. OK?
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Bootstrap
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Re: TIME’s Person of the Year: Donald Trump

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appleman2006 wrote:Just checking to ensure that you did see my earlier comment along this subject was made in the funny pages and was entirely expected to be understood that way. OK?
Sure.

But we seem to be talking around the edges of this issue in many threads. I thought it might make sense to tackle it head-on, and from a Kingdom Christian perspective. Any thoughts?
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temporal1
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Re: TIME’s Person of the Year: Donald Trump

Post by temporal1 »

from what i've read on MD-MN, i don't think many read TIME.
i don't. this cover will not change that.
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Most or all of this drama, humiliation, wasted taxpayer money could be spared -
with even modest attempt at presenting balanced facts from the start.


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Josh
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Re: TIME’s Person of the Year: Donald Trump

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Not sure how this is different from 8 years ago. We are still in the same "divided" country.

If we are supposed to be ambassadors of Jesus' kingdom then I don't think it makes a great deal of difference if we are ambassadors to Yugoslavia or if we are to Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia, Macedonia, Croatia, Herzegovina, Slovenia, and Kosovo.

Some of us were not faithful ambassadors and actually took the sides of one of our host countries. Some of us might be feeling a bit of pain now when the allegiance we took appears to be losing. This is a good opportunity for those of us who feel this way to realise those on the other side have felt the same way the last decade.
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Wayne in Maine
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Re: TIME’s Person of the Year: Donald Trump

Post by Wayne in Maine »

Bootstrap wrote:I'd like us to discuss how Kingdom Christians in America can best be salt and light as we move from the Obama Administration to the Trump administration. I'd also like to discuss the Time Magazine...
What's the point? The quotes from the Time article that you posted are informed by a political philosophy that is outside the Kingdom of God.

Kingdom Christians in America can respond best by acting and talking like Citizens of the Kingdom of God, not like political partisans of the American nation.
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Re: TIME’s Person of the Year: Donald Trump

Post by mike »

Bootstrap wrote:I'd like us to discuss how Kingdom Christians in America can best be salt and light as we move from the Obama Administration to the Trump administration.
The same way we were salt and light under Obama. Not a big deal, not a big change in my opinion.
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Re: TIME’s Person of the Year: Donald Trump

Post by Bootstrap »

mike wrote:
Bootstrap wrote:I'd like us to discuss how Kingdom Christians in America can best be salt and light as we move from the Obama Administration to the Trump administration.
The same way we were salt and light under Obama. Not a big deal, not a big change in my opinion.
Christians often failed to be salt and light under Obama. I worry that we will fail under the Trump Administration too. I've talked to families who had a hard time talking to each other over Thanksgiving and brethren who have a hard time fellowshipping with each other because they let political opinions trump family unity or our unity in Christ. If we show the same kind of hostility and anger to each other that we see in the world, we have failed the Kingdom.

Some Christians saw a vote for Obama as proof that someone is not a real Christian. Now some Christians seem to see a vote for Trump - or Clinton - as the same kind of indicator. Let's not be so quick to condemn each other.

I think Kingdom Christians need to be a consistent witness that the Kingdom of God is not defined by politicians and parties. And even we fail at this.
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Bootstrap
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Re: TIME’s Person of the Year: Donald Trump

Post by Bootstrap »

Wayne in Maine wrote:
Bootstrap wrote:I'd like us to discuss how Kingdom Christians in America can best be salt and light as we move from the Obama Administration to the Trump administration. I'd also like to discuss the Time Magazine...
What's the point? The quotes from the Time article that you posted are informed by a political philosophy that is outside the Kingdom of God.
Just like almost every political opinion expressed here or in people's Facebook accounts.

I see Kingdom Christians taking strong positions on these kinds of questions. I see people expressing secular political opinions as though they were God's most urgent truth to his people, in ways that do not allow room for us to carefully reflect together in wisdom and in love.
Wayne in Maine wrote:Kingdom Christians in America can respond best by acting and talking like Citizens of the Kingdom of God, not like political partisans of the American nation.
What does that look like?

To me, it's often helpful to step back and ask what the emotional content of a post is, here or on Facebook. Is it dripping hostility and hatred toward some individual or group? Is it promoting unreasonable fear? Is it open to discernment to see if it is true or beneficial? Does it feel more like the fruit of the flesh or the fruit of the Spirit? (Galatians 5)
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Bootstrap
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Re: TIME’s Person of the Year: Donald Trump

Post by Bootstrap »

One more thought.

Are we bonding together as Kingdom Christians and using our standards to discern what's going on in the world around us, or are we bonding to the factions of the world and using their standards (from any worldly faction) to judge other Christians?
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