Christian leaders honor golden statue of Trump

[JohnH]

Carter used peanuts, Trump was using gold long before politics. i wouldn’t have used peanuts, i wouldn’t have chosen gold. i rarely choose Louis XIV or Rococo art, it’s flamboyant, often used and recognized on the world stage. The White House is mostly Neoclassical style, i believe it contains many artifacts of many styles, i would expect Rococo is present. Probably in picture frames. i haven’t visited.

The U.S. is known for being a hodge-podge, not all bad. i see this as more of that. Part of the whole.

I find the idea that America has to use a colour scheme from an Ikea catalogue to be an odd one. Gold and gold colour has long had a place in America.

I also don't see how a lack of gold colour leads to better government. I suppose this could be a mistake Anabaptists would make, since we eschew gold in our own lives, but we shouldn't exactly be expecting plain dress from the President.

[JohnH]

My answer is the same the last time you asked this question in this thread:

So I was 15 in 1994 with very limited access to the Internet because my family only had dial-up. I was not secretly harboring a pro or anti-Carter bias or activism.

Then the next question would be if you even bothered to look at the history of other statutes of American Presidents (including living ones) before levying these criticisms at Trump.

I think it's a bit embarrassing that I had to be the one to point out a Carter statute even existed. I was 12 at the time myself and only recall it because of my grandparents being offended at a statute being made of a living President (they were extremely anti-Carter, and didn't appreciate the various ways they felt he ruined America).

[Soloist]

My answer is the same the last time you asked this question in this thread:

So I was 15 in 1994 with very limited access to the Internet because my family only had dial-up. I was not secretly harboring a pro or anti-Carter bias or activism.

Then the next question would be if you even bothered to look at the history of other statutes of American Presidents (including living ones) before levying these criticisms at Trump.

I think it's a bit embarrassing that I had to be the one to point out a Carter statute even existed. I was 12 at the time myself and only recall it because of my grandparents being offended at a statute being made of a living President (they were extremely anti-Carter, and didn't appreciate the various ways they felt he ruined America).

I don't think its necessary to look through history to find others to condemn before judging the actions of a current president. Its not necessary for a 15 year old to have an opinion to have a valid one 30 years later nor is it necessary to go back to study who might have lived before to make a decision. Can you make wiser decisions and learn from history? sure. I find this though to simply be a defensive action to discredit critics.

[temporal1]

I don’t think it’s just a question about Christians being involved in government and politics. Clearly, that happens all the time.

My concern is that Trump-aligned evangelicalism has often used prophetic rhetoric, language describing spiritual warfare and messianic overtones to describe Trump. In this context, the Don Colossus statue isn’t just this weird and tacky thing, but also seems to be the visual and material manifestation of a movement that I believe represents spiritual danger to the Christianity in America. I think the quasi-religious language being used to describe Trump is a problem.

Trump has many diverse supporters, many would have nothing to do with quasi-religious language, whether believers or atheists. All politicians want supporters. As is being revealed in Minnesota, some to an alarming extent. $$$$

Trump has not shown the type of loyalty that becomes suicidal. He has made awful mistakes. MTG and Paula are 2, in my view.
He’s capable of distancing himself - which suggests he’s not sold out, so to speak.

No gov is perfect, no politician is perfect. Voters are continually balancing pros+cons.
Evidently, lots of voters see more positives than negatives. Partisans see only positives or negatives, regardless of reality.

Representatives are supposed to represent. In this system, politicians need to be accountable to voters.
Ideologues believe they know better than voters, in fact, better than God. That’s a problem.

[JohnH]

I don't think its necessary to look through history to find others to condemn before judging the actions of a current president. Its not necessary for a 15 year old to have an opinion to have a valid one 30 years later nor is it necessary to go back to study who might have lived before to make a decision. Can you make wiser decisions and learn from history? sure. I find this though to simply be a defensive action to discredit critics.

When one's criticism is only of one person from one particular political party, it is going to be perceived as partisan. It also doesn't do any good for anyone else hearing the criticism is on the fence or is partisan themselves, but in the other direction.

If one actually wants to take a stance against statues, then it might be good to research Presidents, statues, and in particular the relationship to the Christian faith. Considering as Carter ran on a platform of being an evangelical Christian moreso than any other President I can think of, and also the first ordained Christian since 1881, it would be the first place to look. Perhaps a case could be made that evangelical Christianity has had a problem for a while with statues of Presidents. I would certainly be open to that.

What isn't useful is to have yet another referendum of "I don't like Trump and here is something that makes him bad" when it is something shared by many other Presidents, often from different parties.

[Soloist]

I don't think its necessary to look through history to find others to condemn before judging the actions of a current president. Its not necessary for a 15 year old to have an opinion to have a valid one 30 years later nor is it necessary to go back to study who might have lived before to make a decision. Can you make wiser decisions and learn from history? sure. I find this though to simply be a defensive action to discredit critics.

When one's criticism is only of one person from one particular political party, it is going to be perceived as partisan. It also doesn't do any good for anyone else hearing the criticism is on the fence or is partisan themselves, but in the other direction.

Its interesting that "defense" comes across the same way.

If one actually wants to take a stance against statues, then it might be good to research Presidents, statues, and in particular the relationship to the Christian faith. Considering as Carter ran on a platform of being an evangelical Christian moreso than any other President I can think of, and also the first ordained Christian since 1881, it would be the first place to look. Perhaps a case could be made that evangelical Christianity has had a problem for a while with statues of Presidents. I would certainly be open to that.

It might be good, but its not necessary to research to hold a stance. You haven't researched everything yet you have a stance right?

What isn't useful is to have yet another referendum of "I don't like Trump and here is something that makes him bad" when it is something shared by many other Presidents, often from different parties.

I'm not actually looking at Trump. I'm looking at the actions of so called Christians and calling it bad.

[QuietlyListening]

With the advent of social media and instant news we are more aware of things today- especially political.

I was a young adult when Carter was president and until I saw the peanut statue here, I was unaware of a statue in his honor. I also was not aware of the types of dedication services that went with the Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument and any other presidential honors. I guess what is interesting, sad and troubling is the fact that we have professing Christian leaders dedicating a statue of a living president and the one leading the dedication had to make sure he told everyone - this is not a golden calf. That indicates an issue right there.

I would have no problem if all the statues were taken down. Instead of saying everyone is once more trying to complain about Trump and pick on him, so to speak, why not just acknowledge that MAYBE there is a point being made.
Deflecting back to past statues is not going to take away from the fact that there are many professing believers who are getting very close to putting our president on a pedestal and if not worshipping him they are awfully close to it. That is the troubling thing to me.

[JohnH]

With the advent of social media and instant news we are more aware of things today- especially political.

I was a young adult when Carter was president and until I saw the peanut statue here, I was unaware of a statue in his honor. I also was not aware of the types of dedication services that went with the Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument and any other presidential honors. I guess what is interesting, sad and troubling is the fact that we have professing Christian leaders dedicating a statue of a living president and the one leading the dedication had to make sure he told everyone - this is not a golden calf. That indicates an issue right there.

I would have no problem if all the statues were taken down. Instead of saying everyone is once more trying to complain about Trump and pick on him, so to speak, why not just acknowledge that MAYBE there is a point being made.
Deflecting back to past statues is not going to take away from the fact that there are many professing believers who are getting very close to putting our president on a pedestal and if not worshipping him they are awfully close to it. That is the troubling thing to me.

I fail to see the point being made when prior Presidents have done the exact same thing. Particularly a President who was a professing Christian and also an ordained man, which is certainly a level beyond just having a minister present to dedicate the statue.

As I started in the other thread, as an Anabaptist (or, really, as a Christian), I think we should avoid statues, icons, pictures, effigies, photographs, and so forth. However, most of the rest of christendom likes those things, which is why I find myself in a plain Anabaptist type of church that looks quite different from the rest of Christianity.

[Bootstrap]

What isn't useful is to have yet another referendum of "I don't like Trump and here is something that makes him bad" when it is something shared by many other Presidents, often from different parties.

But it's not. For instance, for the bronze statue:

Carter was not in charge at the time; it was more than a dozen years after he was in office.

And for the peanut state - peanuts communicate something very different than a giant gold statue. One is about the humble background of Jimmy Carter, the other is about the imperial majesty of Donald Trump. Gold is not just some random color here, it's part of a long tradition. Don Colossus is not made of "wooden hoops, chicken wire, aluminum foil, and polyurethane", it is made of gold, and that means something.

I'm not sure what meme coins have to do with this either. Deciding to buy into a highly risky cryptocurrency is something buyers should beware of. It's not like there isn't plenty of information out there telling people not to do that.

I can't tell if you ever read this. I'd love to hear you respond to it in detail:

https://forum.mennonet.com/viewtopic.ph ... 96#p304696

A group of people stand to make a lot of money from this. Including people in Trump's circle. And some of these people make a lot more money depending on what Trump does for them.

Do you know the definition of the word "fraud" in the context of government?

[Szdfan]

With the advent of social media and instant news we are more aware of things today- especially political.

I was a young adult when Carter was president and until I saw the peanut statue here, I was unaware of a statue in his honor. I also was not aware of the types of dedication services that went with the Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument and any other presidential honors. I guess what is interesting, sad and troubling is the fact that we have professing Christian leaders dedicating a statue of a living president and the one leading the dedication had to make sure he told everyone - this is not a golden calf. That indicates an issue right there.

I would have no problem if all the statues were taken down. Instead of saying everyone is once more trying to complain about Trump and pick on him, so to speak, why not just acknowledge that MAYBE there is a point being made.
Deflecting back to past statues is not going to take away from the fact that there are many professing believers who are getting very close to putting our president on a pedestal and if not worshipping him they are awfully close to it. That is the troubling thing to me.

I fail to see the point being made when prior Presidents have done the exact same thing. Particularly a President who was a professing Christian and also an ordained man, which is certainly a level beyond just having a minister present to dedicate the statue.

As I started in the other thread, as an Anabaptist (or, really, as a Christian), I think we should avoid statues, icons, pictures, effigies, photographs, and so forth. However, most of the rest of christendom likes those things, which is why I find myself in a plain Anabaptist type of church that looks quite different from the rest of Christianity.

What I find interesting is that your own iconoclastic theological commitments could arguably lead you to look at Don Colossus with more skepticism.

I assume you don’t wear a gold wedding ring even though it’s “just an object,” gold is “just a color,” and many Christians wear wedding rings. Why? Because the ring is not merely a ring. It carries symbolic and spiritual meaning.

That’s part of why I find it difficult to understand why a giant gold-leafed statue of Donald Trump, surrounded by quasi-religious rhetoric, does not seem to trigger the same symbolic concerns for you.

It feels like your anti-anti-Trump position overrides symbolic concerns that your own church would normally take very seriously.