Lex Anteinternet: Sunday Morning Scene. Dominionism and the Department of Defense.

Lex Anteinternet: Sunday Morning Scene. Dominionism and the Departm...: The following was posted by Assistant Secretary of Defense, Sean Parnell: Sean Parnell @SeanParnellASW “Then I heard the voice of the Lord s...

Sunday Morning Scene. Dominionism and the Department of Defense.

The following was posted by Assistant Secretary of Defense, Sean Parnell:

Sean Parnell

@SeanParnellASW

“Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?’ And I said, ‘Here am I. SEND ME!’” — Isaiah 6:8

Frankly, this is a shocking association of the US military with religion.
I've warned here that the US is in the thick of an Administration that features individuals in it who who hold minoritarian Evangelical views well outside the mainstream of Christianity, and further that were introduced rather late in Christian history.  Unfortunately, the United States, which is a Protestant country, is basically the epicenter of such views and many Protestants don't realize their views are not held by most of the globes Christians, most of whom are Apostolic Christians.

Included in that set of views, for some, is the concept that Christians can help bring about the Second Coming and, in some quarters, that the United States is a nation directly charged with a Devine Mission.

The military is definitely suffering right now, with some elements of the Navy having morale problems and a war going on which the administration repeatedly claims we've won, but which drags on.  The current hope is that economic sanctions will bring Iran to its knees but none of the predictions about the war have proven correct so far.  

Not one.

One way to definitely end the war would be to commit ground troops.  It'd also be a bloody mess.

These recruiting blurbs do not indicate a commitment to inserting ground troops, but they do demonstrate a frightening mix of religion with foreign policy.  We are not Crusaders and frankly Crusaders would have regarded American Evangelicals as weird heretics.  The fact that the government sends out a message like this should be alarming, and it should be offensive to Christians, Muslims and Jews, all of whom regard Isaiah as a prophet.

Indeed, when Isaiah spoke those words, he wasn't asking to be sent into combat.  He was being sent as a prophet.

The military should never be committed to an immoral cause, but we should not imagine that every time it has been committed the commitment met Christian standards.  None of the military actions taken during the Second Trump Administration do.  They most particularly do not under the reconsideration of the Just War Theory made by Pope Leo.

What Parnell did here is wrong on so many levels.  Christians should be horrified.

Lex Anteinternet: Saturday, September 4, 476. The end of the Roman Empire and the beginning of the Middle Ages.

Lex Anteinternet: Saturday, September 4, 476. The end of the Roman ...: Coin with the image of Emperor Romulus Augustulus. 11 year old Romulus Augustulus, the last Emperor or the Western Roman Empire and a mere f...

Linked in here as this mentions the namesake of the blog.

Saturday, September 4, 476. The end of the Roman Empire and the beginning of the Middle Ages.

Coin with the image of Emperor Romulus Augustulus.

11 year old Romulus Augustulus, the last Emperor or the Western Roman Empire and a mere figurehead, was forced to advocate by Flavius Odoacer, a German commander of the Roman Guard who declared himself King of Italy and a vassal of the Eastern Roman Emperor.

Coin with the image of Flavius Odoacer.

The event is marked as the end of the Roman Empire and the beginning of the Early Middle Ages.

Romulus went on to live in exile with a pension and seems to have lived to at least 60 years of age.  He was a Catholic (orthodox) Christian  and may have founded a monastery while in exile.*

Odoacer, while regarding himself as a vassal of Constantinople, had a falling out with with the Eastern Roman Emperor Zeno who in turn sent Theodoric the Great to depose him, resulting in a war which cost Odoacer his life in 493.  Theodoric did not stop there, but killed many of Odoacer's followers, including his wife Sunigilda, who was stoned to death, and his brother Onoulphus.  In spite of his short reign and violent death, he's regarded as an important post Empire figure.  Odoacer was an Arian Chrisitan.

Theodoric coin.

Theodoric, an Ostrogoth, who became king, was a hugely significant figure, expanding his reign over a fair amount of what had been the Western Roman Empire.  He was an Arian Christian whose rule mimicked forms adopted from Constantinople.  He was King of Italy, the Ostrogoths, and the Visigoths.

Theodoric was a patron of the orthodox Catholic philosopher Boethius for quite some time, but as his rule progressed, Theodoric began to turn from neutral in the dispute between orthodoxy and Arianism and he had Boethius arrested and ultimately executed in 524.

Boethius' magnum opus, De consolatione philosophiae, was written while imprisoned and awaiting execution.  He is regarded as a martyr in the Catholic and Orthodox Churches.

Footnotes:

*This era was marked by a major conflict between orthodox Christianity and Arianism.  To clarify things here, the schism between the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church was very much in the future so the use of orthodoxy here does not mean to imply the Eastern Orthodox Church.

The Agrarian's Lament: On Wendell Berry. An introspection.

The Agrarian's Lament: On Wendell Berry. An introspection.: We noted the passing of Wendell Berry here on September 1, but I didn't go into much introspection on him in relation to us.  This omiss...

On Wendell Berry. An introspection.

We noted the passing of Wendell Berry here on September 1, but I didn't go into much introspection on him in relation to us.  This omission was, ironically, time caused. 

I didn't have time to.

Since Berry's death I've ready comments by people, principally on Twitter, reflecting on how influential Berry was on them.  He was certainly influential on me, but not quite in the way that he was on others.  Berry wasn't the source of my world view.  Rather, what he was was the distiller of it.

I had an Agrarian mindset before I'd ever heard of Berry.  I came into Berry, in fact, because I had an agrarian mindset.  Indeed, I had an agrarian mindset before I had heard of agrarianism in a philosophical sense.  I was really a nascent agrarian by the time I graduated from high school, although only vaguely so.

By the time I had graduated from university as an undergrad, I was a full blown, if undefined, agrarian.  What I really wanted to do was to hunt, fish and garden, and be allowed to do so.  If I could have, I would have ranched.  I didn't have the means to do that, or to make my other goals my present habitus or mode of living, at least in full, although at the time wildgame provided most of my meat, and my father's garden most of my produce.  What I didn't have, was a good and steady income and the destruction of the extractive economy, which I was disenchanted with anyhow, kept me from having one.   I had already found a literary fellow traveller in the form of Aldo Leopold.

Law school seemed my only option, and so I went.

The Agrarian impulse however only strengthened during that time.  Getting out of law school in 1990 I recall telling a friend of mine that I had no ambition, as all I wanted to do was ranch.  He told me that didn't mean I had no ambition, that was my ambition.  Well, that's one of those insights that is a bit shocking when you first hear it, but it was correct.  At that time I still carried a sort of weltanschauung that required me to make something of myself in the eyes of the world, something that had been instilled by my mother.

In spite of starting practicing law, my agrarian world outlook only increased.  At that time I discovered the Southern Agrarians somehow, which was mind blowing.  For the first time, really, I learned that there others who held the same viewpoints on many things that I did. The Southern Agrarians, who are very problematic on some things, nonetheless really helped define my philosophical worldview to me and I realized that what I was, was an agrarian.

The Southern Agrarians were almost all dead by that point in time.  Only Andrew Nelson Lytle was left alive.  So the movement seemed to be dead itself, but the arrival of the Internet allowed even a very isolated person such as myself to learn who else was out there.  That lead me to Gene Logsdon and Wendell Berry.  Berry was by far the more influential.

Indeed, Berry took the world out look I had and really distilled it. There were a lot of things I believed but I didn't have the existential nature of defined. Berry did that for me.  His influence on how I sese the world was massive.

Distilling my world view didn't stop with Berry.  Sometime after discovering him I discovered the Distributist, including Chesterton, and that really completed it, basically.  I often say, when there's ears to hear it, that while not all Distributists are Agrarians, all Agrarians are Distributist.

Berry stands in my intellectual formation with Leopold and Chesterton, three men who now are at some lively gathering beyond the veil.

Berry's death is a major and tragic loss for the intellectual life of the nation.  Not just agrarianism, but the soul of the United States itself.  Berry lived life the way it really should be lead.  He was deeply Christian (he was a Baptist) and a man of letters who farmed.  He saw America for what it was, what it had become, and what it should return to.  He advocated for Christian principles and lived a Christian life, while having a deep land ethic and understanding of the land itself.  He urged us to "become native to this place".

I've never really been able to pull off what he lived and advocated.  But I may be about to.

Berry, in his youth, was an opponent of the Vietnam War in a region that was likely not opposed to it.  His departure comes during the reign of Donald Trump.

Berry, like all true agrarians in contemporary society, likely knew that what he stood for was not going to be adopted by the culture at large.  The Southern Agrarians were already lamenting the destruction of the last of agrarianism during the 1930s.  The Unsettling of America, a masterpiece, was published in 1977. Particularly after the election of Ronald Reagan, each passing year has made the plight of agrarians worse in this country, as its yielded to an unprincipled culture and greed. Restraints placed on the evolution by the law, which do exist, and by the culture, which also exist but which are greatly weakened, have nearly fallen by the wayside.

Berry was 93 when he died this past week.  Donald Trump, suffering from dementia in the Oval Office while nearly ruling as a dictator, is 80 years old.  Berry was of the Silent Generation (Leopold was of the Lost Generation). Trump is a Baby Boomer and virtually defines that generation, in spite of what many in it would like to believe.

Berry stood for, and will continue to stand for, the opposite that everything Donald Trump does.  He was a sincere Christian deeply in nature and the virtues of self control on al things. Trump is, at best, a faux Christian who stands for destruction and avarice. They represent the two poles that struggle for the soul of the nation, one who would anchor us in a quiet and unassuming harbor, and another who would drag us out into and down under in the tempest.

Wendell Berry, August 5, 1934 – August 31, 2026.  May the perpetual light shine upon him.

Lex Anteinternet: Ecclesia militans. On the use of the word "Christian".

Lex Anteinternet: Ecclesia militans. On the use of the word "Christ...: Ἰησοῦς εἰς τὰ μέρη Καισαρείας τῆς Φιλίππου ἠρώτα τοὺς μαθητὰς αὐτοῦ λέγων· Τίνα λέγουσιν οἱ ἄνθρωποι εἶναι τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου;  οἱ δὲ εἶπ...

Ecclesia militans. On the use of the word "Christian".

Ἰησοῦς εἰς τὰ μέρη Καισαρείας τῆς Φιλίππου ἠρώτα τοὺς μαθητὰς αὐτοῦ λέγων· Τίνα λέγουσιν οἱ ἄνθρωποι εἶναι τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου; 

οἱ δὲ εἶπαν· Οἱ μὲν Ἰωάννην τὸν βαπτιστήν, ἄλλοι δὲ Ἠλίαν, ἕτεροι δὲ Ἱερεμίαν ἢ ἕνα τῶν προφητῶν. 

λέγει αὐτοῖς· Ὑμεῖς δὲ τίνα με λέγετε εἶναι; 

ἀποκριθεὶς δὲ Σίμων Πέτρος εἶπεν· Σὺ εἶ ὁ Χριστὸς ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ ζῶντος. 

ἀποκριθεὶς δὲ ὁ Ἰησοῦς εἶπεν αὐτῷ· Μακάριος εἶ, Σίμων Βαριωνᾶ, ὅτι σὰρξ καὶ αἷμα οὐκ ἀπεκάλυψεν σοὶ ἀλλ' ὁ πατήρ μου ὁ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς. 

κἀγὼ δὲ σοὶ λέγω ὅτι σὺ εἶ Πέτρος, καὶ ἐπὶ ταύτῃ τῇ πέτρᾳ οἰκοδομήσω μου τὴν ἐκκλησίαν, καὶ πύλαι ᾅδου οὐ κατισχύσουσιν αὐτῆς. 

δώσω σοι τὰς κλεῖδας τῆς βασιλείας τῶν οὐρανῶν, καὶ ὃ ἐὰν δήσῃς ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς ἔσται δεδεμένον ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς, καὶ ὃ ἐὰν λύσῃς ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς ἔσται λελυμένον ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς. 

τότε διεστείλατο τοῖς μαθηταῖς ἵνα μηδενὶ εἴπωσιν ὅτι αὐτός ἐστιν ὁ Χριστός.

_____________________________________________ 

Jesus went into the region of Caesarea Philippi and

he asked his disciples,

"Who do people say that the Son of Man is?" 

They replied, "Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah,

still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets." 

He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" 

Simon Peter said in reply,

"You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." 

Jesus said to him in reply,

"Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. 

For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father. 

And so I say to you, you are Peter,

and upon this rock I will build my church,

and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. 

I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. 

Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven;

and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." 

Then he strictly ordered his disciples

to tell no one that he was the Christ.

Matthew 16:13-20

The other day I saw an item on Blue Sky posted by Atticus Finch of Georgia which linked in an article on "post truth Christianity".  It brought into focus something that's really been increasingly bothering me in recent years. . .well more specifically the Trump era.

Then, as an example of synchronicity, I was speaking with a close relative of mine who absolutely exploded on the same topic.  I didn't bring it up.  That person did.

Then, this past Sunday, Matthew 16:13-20 was the Gospel reading.

Yesterday there was a post on Twitter in which an Orthodox Christian reacted the same way I am here.

So here's what that topic is.

When the term "Christian" is used recently, it tends to refer to "Christian" support of Donald Trump.  And, hence the error.

While you can find individuals of any stripe of Christianity and religion supporting Trump, in reality, the Christians that support Trump are, for the most part, and most significantly, Evangelical Christians.  Yes, you can find a Catholic or Orthodox cleric here and there that does.¹ And, in fairness, you can find Hindus, Muslims, Jews, Atheists, and any number of other sets of beliefs with individuals who support Trump.²  But the real core of the "Christian" support of Trump comes from a slice of the Evangelical world, and just a slice at that.

The "post truth" comment is what really got my attention.  

American Catholics generally try to make nice with other Christian denominations, although less so in the post 1960 world than we used to, but lots of Protestants don't try to make nice with us.  So we have tended, post 1960, to keep some of our weltanschauung to ourselves.³ So much so, in fact, that we've allowed the Protestantization of lots of Catholics, who now think like Protestants.  While there are exceptions, when you find a real pro Trump Catholic, they probably have a Protestant world outlook and don't realize it.

So, to post truth.

Protestants have been "post truth" for about five hundred years.  Protestants outside the mainline Protestant churches are very post truth.

We've known that all along.

Starting with science, Catholics are in favor of science, not against it.  The entire Big Bang Theory is our deal.  We're not opposed to the theory of evolution.  People evolved from earlier primates.  The world is not 5,000 years old.  It's billions of years old.

We know that. We not only accept that (most of us) but we rejoice in it.  We don't feel that God has to fit within our limited human imagination.

Our basic view is that God gave us the intellect to explore his creation.  So far, we haven't found one darned thing that causes us to question our faith.  Moreover, if you belong to a religion that requires you do deny science, something about it is deeply wrong, even false.

So, yeah, there's a lot of "post truth" Christians out there, and they're coming from the Evangelical end of the pool.  If you find a Catholic holding those views, they've likely dipped their toes in it.  Some are swimming really deep in it.

And here's another thing, which my relative was exploding on.

Catholics have taken a beating for decades simply for being Catholic.  It's okay, Christ told us that we would.  In the US we get, from Evangelicals, the question of "are you Christian?", with the reply from them often being that if we're Catholic, we're not Christian.

Well, I guess when people had access only to their friends and neighbors and a pastor who had been miseducated on these topics, that was not only to be expected but semi tolerable, but it isn't any more.

We are the original Christians.

Πάντες τῷ ἐπισκόπῳ ἀκολουθεῖτε, ὡς Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς τῷ πατρί, καὶ τῷ πρεσβυτερίῳ ὡς τοῖς ἀποστόλοις. τοὺς δὲ διακόνους ἐντρέπεσθε ὡς θεοῦ ἐντολήν. μηδεὶς χωρὶς τοῦ ἐπισκόπου τι πρασσέτω τῶν ἀνηκόντων εἰς τὴν ἐκκλησίαν. ἐκείνη βεβαία εὐχαριστία ἡγείσθω, ἡ ὑπὸ ἐπίσκοπον οὖσα ἢ ᾧ ἄν αὐτὸς ἐπιτρέψῃ.

ὅπου ἄν φανῇ ὁ ἐπίσκοπος, ἐκεῖ τὸ πλῆθος ἤτω, ὥσπερ ὅπου ἄν ᾖ Ἰησοῦς Χριστός, ἐκεῖ ἡ καθολικὴ ἐκκλησία. οὐκ ἐξόν ἐστιν χωρὶς τοῦ ἐπισκόπου οὔτε βαπτίζειν οὔτε ἀγάπην ποιεῖν· ἀλλ' ὃ ἄν ἐκεῖνος δοκιμάσῃ, τοῦτο καὶ τῷ θεῷ εὐάρεστον, ἵνα ἀσφαλὲς ᾖ καὶ βέβαιον πᾶν ὃ πράσσετε.

See that you all follow the bishop, even as Jesus Christ does the Father, and the presbytery as you would the apostles; and reverence the deacons, as being the institution of God. Let no man do anything connected with the Church without the bishop. Let that be deemed a proper Eucharist, which is [administered] either by the bishop, or by one to whom he has entrusted it. Wherever the bishop shall appear, there let the multitude [of the people] also be; even as, wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church. It is not lawful without the bishop either to baptize or to celebrate a love-feast; but whatsoever he shall approve of, that is also pleasing to God, so that everything that is done may be secure and valid.

 The Epistle of Ignatius, 33 to 108, to the Smyrnaeans, written in 107.

Nobody with any religious education of a serious nature denies this whatsoever.  John Calvin and Martin Luther didn't deny that.  The only religion that can raise a hand on it are the Orthodox Churches, and they don't deny that we're first, they just take they position that they are also first, and that actually makes some sense.  There's a schism between the Orthodox and the Catholic Church, but we all go back to day one.  That's not to make light of the schism, but it's significant in that we all know that our churches go directly back to the moment Christ founded the church.

No Protestant Church can claim that and maintain the claim, although some try to.  Those that do have to acknowledge that the Catholic Church is first, and try to argue that they're related closely enough to it in order to make the same claim.  That is the claim of the Methodist and Anglican Churches, for example.

All of which brings up the next point.  Any Protestant Church that claims to be authentically Christian that doesn't have a good explanation for this is in real trouble.  Extra ecclesiam nulla salus.  You can't be a Protestant Christian and just claim you are like the original Christian communities.  Take a look at what St. Ignatius of Antioch wrote in 107.  St. John the Apostle had only been dead for about seven years when he wrote that.  You aren't like the original Christians if you don't look like the Catholic Church, with Bishops, priests, and deacons.  You can't claim there was a great falling away, a Great Apostasy, early on.  There wasn't. We have all the books and we know that there wasn't.  Ignorance, on this topic, is your only defense (and now that you've read that, you don't have that).

Indeed, if you aren't Catholic, you need to have a really good explanation for it, and there really isn't one.

So, here's the thing, now that Trump is in office and flaming out we're hearing from the same group of people who said that we're not Christians that we need to throw in with them and support Trump.

We do not.

Trump is not a religious man himself, and there's very little evidence that he has any deeply held religious beliefs, if any religious believes at all.  Personally, he's a study on certain of the Seven Deadly Sins.  He's a warning on the love of money.  He's a serial polygamist.  He's a liar.

He's an evil man.

Throwing in with evil is never justified save for the principle of Double Effect.  I.e., my tipping the pizza delivery guy may have just funded the purchase of illegal drugs, but that was not the intended effect.  My working for the post office may mean that I'm delivering pornography (well, I guess that probably doesn't happen anymore in the age of the Internet, but you get the point), but that is incidental to the occupation, not its purpose.

But this obviously crosses over a line, somewhere.  If, for example, I were a German and this was 1940, a hatred of Bolshevism would not justify joining the SS.

And that's sort of where we are at now, in a way.

Some thinking Catholics supported Trump either openly or quietly with their vote, earlier, as they were opposed to abortion and the weirdness of social trends in sex and gender in general.  Well, the Supreme Court has reversed Roe v. Wade and the transgenderism thing is jumping the shark, if it hasn't already jumped it.  Indeed, in Europe, where it first appeared, it's in major retreat.  Obergefell hasn't been reversed, but there's been no case that presented an opportunity for htat to occur, probably because conservatives fear to advance one.

Irish born immigrant  Patrick J. Sullivan.  He became wealthy raising sheep in Carbon County and relocated to Casper in 1892, when he went into other enterprises.  He was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1894 to 1896 and from 1898 to 1900, Mayor of Casper from 1897 until 1899, Senator from Wyoming from 1929 to 1930, appointed to fill the seat left by the death of Francis E. Warren.  While he was a practicing Catholic, he tended to deemphasize it at the time as it was damaging to his public standing, something that was the case up until Kennedy ran for President.

Now, mind you, I'm not telling you who to vote for, what I'm suggesting is whom you do not support, or to put it another way, what you should not get wrapped up in.

The MAGA movement isn't justifiable from a Christian perspective at this point, if it ever was.  It's weirdly nationalistic and in many instances engaged in idol worship in the form of fanatic adoration of Donald Trump, even somewhat crediting him with supernatural powers in "always being right".   The administration has committed the military to actions which are outright murderous in the Caribbean and South American Pacific.  It's waging an unjust and illegal war.  It creeps right up on being racist and some of its members hold beliefs that are deeply antithetical to Apostolic Christianity.  Some of the people in it are deeply evil, and all of them are deeply compromised.

Vote for those who you will, and in keeping with your conscience.  But some things to remember.  

Trump is not any kind of real Christian.  Attaching Christianity to this administration is going to have a massive negative impact as it falls.  It is in fact already doing so.  There are people in the secular world who truly believe that its the "Christians" who are supporting Trump, and that people like Mike Johnson and Mike Lee are posters for Christians. They are not.⁴  The fact that they're being made posters for Christianity means that they, and Trump, are driving thinking people away from the Church.  When Trump falls, he's going to take a lot of Evangelical Christianity down with him, just as the fall of the Confederacy during the Civil War heavily damaged the Episcopal Church in the South.

Catholics, we don't want to be part of that, and there's no reason that we should be.

Ecclesia militans.⁵

Footnotes

1.  A prominent example of that is Bishop Barron.  Bishop Barron shows up on occasion at Trump related religious gatherings and he servers on President Trump’s Presidential Religious Liberty Commission.

I'm not here to criticize a Bishop and I don't really understand what the Bishop is doing, or what the Commission does.  Nor have I followed it.  I'm just noting this.  Cardinal Timothy Dolan, who is well liked, also serves on it.  Archbishop Elpidophoros of America and Bishop Salvatore Cordileone are advisory members.

2.  Stephen Miller, who just the other day accused the Protestant seminary student who is competing for a Senate seat from Texas of not being Christian, is Jewish.

3.  We can trace this to the 1960 election of John F. Kennedy, as we have before, who basically promised to only be Catholic on Sundays.

Kennedy was a horrible example of a Catholic to start with.  But his election was such a thrill to American Catholics that a large number of them followed him into the same easy belief, which has been a disaster for a generation of American Catholics that we're only now just really beginning to recover from.

4.  Johnson is a Southern Baptist, which is presently the largest Protestant denomination in the US, having about 12.3M members.  In contrast the number of Catholics in the US is around 70M.  A person needs to keep in mind that not all Catholics are observant, but then neither are all Baptists.  Anyhow, Johnson also seems to adhere to the New Apostolic Reformation and sincerely believe that he's been licensed to lie in order to bring about a Protestant state.  Lee is a Mormon and therefore not a Christian at all.

5.  This huge icon is a Russian Orthodox icon.

Churches of the West: Become Peacemakers enters the 2026 Wyoming Election.

Churches of the West: Become Peacemakers enters the 2026 Wyoming Election.: Lex Anteinternet: The 2026 Election, 13th Edition. The choosing lane... : June 19, 2026 The mere fact that somebody is running against Bear,...

Become Peacemakers enters the 2026 Wyoming Election.

Lex Anteinternet: The 2026 Election, 13th Edition. The choosing lane...: June 19, 2026 The mere fact that somebody is running against Bear, one of the most notable of the WFC, is a good thing.  Here's hoping t...

A really interesting development:

An interesting development in the statewide races:

35 Candidates, Including Two Wyo Gov Hopefuls, Sign Love Your Enemies Pledge

At this point, what's particularly interesting is who has signed, and who has not.

The entity it self has some every notable names behind it. According to their website:

Justice Keith Kautz (Retired Wyoming Supreme Court, Evangelical Leader Southeast Wyoming)

Diana Enzi (Long time Wyoming activist and advocate for Christ from Gilette Wyoming)

Jim Neiman (Business, civic and Christian leader from Hullett, Wyoming)

Michael Evers (Business Leader and Episcopal Priest from Sheridan Wyoming)

Evan Simpson (Business Leader and Religious Leader for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints from Star Valley, Wyoming)

Frank Moore (Business Leader and active in the Catholic community in Douglas, Wyoming)

Diemer True (Business, civic and Christian leader from Casper Wyoming)

Ron Rabou (Farmer, author and motivational speaker and leader in Christian community and member of Converge Worldwide from Albin, Wyoming)

Patty Micheli (Rancher and Religious leader and teacher for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Fort Bridger, Wyoming).

Mike Leman (Legislative Liaison for the Dioceses of Cheyenne, Deacon at St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in Casper, Wyoming)

The text of the pledge is:

THE PEACEMAKER PLEDGE

I believe that as a follower of Jesus, I am called to be a peacemaker— not a partisan soldier, and not a voice of outrage. I recognize that our politics has become poisoned by hatred, tribalism, and fear, and I confess that I too have been tempted to replace grace with outrage, truth with slogans, and love with loyalty to a side.

Today, I pledge to be different.

I will love my enemies, not just my friends. I will stand faithfully upon my convictions without giving into cruelty. I will call out wrongdoing without canceling people. I will refuse to let the letters on someone’s hat or the hashtags in their bio mean more to me than the Gospel. I will not be swept up in the outrage cycle, but will instead step out of the chaos and boldly examine my own actions.

I commit to bringing the peace of Christ back into the public square—to show a divided world what it truly looks like to follow Him, not as a culture warrior but as a Kingdom person.

I take to heart the words of Jesus: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” And I hold fast to the call of Luke 6: “Love your enemies, do good to them… Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.”

This is my pledge. By God’s grace, I will become a peacemaker.

The candidates who have signed the pledge, which you can do on their website, are, so far:

GOVERNOR

Eric Barlow
Governor

Megan Degenfelder
Governor

U.S. SENATE

Jimmy Skovgard
U.S. Senate

U.S. HOUSE

Jillian Balow
U.S. House of Representatives

Bo Biteman
U.S. House of Representatives

Kevin Christensen
U.S. House of Representatives

STATE SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION

Steve Harshman
State Superintendent of Public Instruction

SENATE

Evie Brennan
Senate District 31

Ogden Driskill
Senate District 2

Ronald McCleary
Senate District 5

Marcia Neumiller
Senate District 27

Lauren Schoenfeld
Senate District 5

Wendy Schuler
Senate District 15

HOUSE

Dalton Banks
House District 26

Elizabeth Bingham
House District 17

Ronda Boller
House District 52

Peter Boyer
House District 58

Jessica Crowder
House District 43

Christopher Dresang
House District 35

Erin Edwards
House District 41

Justin Fornstrom
House District 10

David Hill
House District 50

Lloyd Larsen
House District 54

Martha Lawley
House District 27

Matthew Legler
House District 25

Jayme Lien
House District 38

Roland Luehne
House District 28

Myca Sturtevant
House District 29

Shane Swett
House District 13

Art Washut
House District 36

John Wetzel
House District 25

JD Williams
House District 2

Paul Wing
House District 11

Bill Winney
House District 20

COUNTY

Macey Moore
Converse County Commissioner

COUNTY PARTY

Michael Evers
Sheridan County GOP Precinct Person- Precinct 2-5

My guess is that after the article, some who haven't signed, or who aren't aware of it, will sign or will feel compelled to sign.

Notably, in the House, the big money candidates, Gray, Freiss and Rasner have not signed.  Gray's an entire political career has been based on being a lying asshole, so this puts him in a spot.  When he gets up at night and stubs his toes he blames it on left wing radical communist Marxist socialist fascist monarchist podiatrist, so that would take a major part of his repertoire out of play and actually make him live part of his faith.  Rasner has gone full comedic sideshow at this point, but it would take the extreme out of the candidate whose been the most extreme.  It probably wouldn't impact Freiss who hasn't attacked his opponents, but who is, in a very nice way, relying upon "I'll bring jobs to Wyoming of a type that I've worked at myself because I believe you dumb twits want to exist in the imaginary 1950s".

It's also interesting that only one Senatorial candidate, Skovogard, has signed it.

The name of the organization comes, of course, from Matthew 5:9, " Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God."

We have not seen much of that in politics.  A lot of modern campaigning in the Trump era has been downright immoral, lead by the conduct of Trump himself, who belittles and insults people routinely.  Of course, in spite of the fact some Christians have seen something in him, there's no evidence of any Christian beliefs in Trump at all. He doesn't attend church, he's a serial polygamist, he has a track record of cheating on his spouses, he's hung out with men who rape teenage girls, and his life has been characterized by a love of money.  Indeed, money seems to be his primary focus and he doesn't seem to grasp that it isn't the primary focus of every living human being.

This, of course, is the Wyoming election, but here too conduct has been shocking.  Signing this would take a big page out of some candidates campaign strategy guide.

Well, I hope this makes a difference.  And I hope that failure to sign is taken as a reason not to vote for a person.