Questioning the Definition.

I see Mike Pence has been given a bit of a rough ride by a convention of people calling themselves conservative Christians. They called him ‘traitor’, apparently, for failing to support the illegal and undemocratic retention of Trump in the White House last November.

Well, let’s make a couple of self-evident statements here. If the definition of ‘a Christian’ is one who supports and abides by the alleged teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, then it has to be said that:

1. There is very little about hawkish, ego-ridden, money-obsessed America which could be described as Christian.

2. As far as I could see, there was nothing at all about Donald Trump which would justify calling him a Christian.

And there’s a wider question to be considered: what do you get if you allow a country to be run by conservative Christians? Iran with a slightly different smell?

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And in similar vein: as a boy I was confused by the terms Democrat and Republican. I wondered whether Democrats were people who believed in democracy, and Republicans were people who didn’t. Here I am all these decades later and I’m still not sure.

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I do hope this post doesn’t give offence to the few splendid Americans I know, and quite a few more besides, no doubt.