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Title: Donald Trump, Man of Faith
Source:
First Things
URL Source: http://www.firstthings.com/article/2016/08/donald-trump-man-of-faith
Published: Jul 7, 2016
Author: Matthew Schmitz
Post Date: 2016-07-07 18:20:03 by ConservingFreedom
Keywords: None
Views: 2436
Comments: 26
[...] In his late twenties, Trump began attending Marble Collegiate Church on Fifth Avenue. Founded in 1628 in the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, Marble Collegiate is one of the few institutions that survives from the city’s founding. Peter Minuit, the governor of New Amsterdam, was the first church elder, and Peter Stuyvesant, the colony’s director general, led worshippers to service every Sunday. The high steeple of its current home, erected in 1854, rises two hundred feet above the pavement, a symbol of uprightness set in stone. Here Trump walked down the aisle after exchanging vows with Ivana and heard the sermons of Norman Vincent Peale, a man whose philosophy would become Trump’s own. [...] Before Trump made his own foray into politics, he read Peale’s book and adopted its program of “positive thinking.” The two men began to trade public compliments. Peale, always generous in his assessments of human nature, said that Trump had a “profound streak of honest humility.” Trump, not exactly showing that humble streak, said that Peale “thought I was his greatest student of all time.” In a certain sense, Trump was right. Peale has had no more perfect disciple. Peale distilled the optimism and self-sufficiency of the American character into a simple creed. The first article of his faith was a warm patriotism. He called the U.S. “the greatest country in the world” and addressed his writing to “everyday people of this land” who “are my own kind whom I know and love and believe in with great faith.” These were the people he met in masonic halls, resort hotels, and cruise-ship conference rooms. In them he sensed innate decency and ability. Any one of them could become efficient and successful—if only he would believe in himself, harnessing the power of positive thinking. [...] Thus the necessity of repentance recedes. It is important to think positively, and a negative thought, such as Domine, non sum dignus, can be injurious to spiritual health. Yet the gloomy aspect of traditional Christian practice is also the wellspring of Christian compassion. At the moment a Christian asks for forgiveness, he must acknowledge his own weakness and look mercifully on the weakness of others. In the Our Father, the Christian asks that he be forgiven, just as he in turn forgives. From the holy terror that Peale called “fear thoughts” comes the light of Christian love. At a campaign event in Iowa, Trump shocked the audience by saying that he had never asked God for forgiveness. All his other disturbing statements — his attacks on every vulnerable group — are made intelligible by this one. The self-sufficient faith Trump absorbed from Peale has no place for human weakness. Human frailty, dependency, and sinfulness cannot be acknowledged; they must be overcome. This opens up the possibility of great cruelty toward those who cannot wish themselves into being winners. A man who need not ask forgiveness need never forgive others. He does not realize his own weakness, and so he mocks and reviles every sign of weakness in his fellow men. [...] Christianity is a religion of losers. To the weak and humble, it offers a stripped and humiliated Lord. To those without reason for optimism, it holds up the cross as a sign of hope. To anyone who does not win at life, it promises that whoever loses his life for Christ’s sake shall find it. At its center stands a truth that we are prone to forget. There are people who cannot be made into winners, no matter how positive their thinking. They need something more paradoxical and cruciform. [...]
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#5. To: ConservingFreedom (#0)
Sounds like something a Marxist/Jesuit Useful Idiot would say. What does this mean?
Sounds like something a Marxist/Jesuit Useful Idiot would say. It's your contention that our Lord was not stripped and humiliated? That the cross is not a sign of hope? What does which mean: "Christ Frees Us", or that ugly POS sculpture? And what does either one have to do with the article?
"Christ Frees Us" is the name of the sculpture.
No idea what this has to do with the article ... but it looks to me like the meaning is: Man is the measure and meaning, and the Cross is merely a backdrop. I hope for the sake of the "artist"s soul that I'm mistaken.
Obviously. Look closer. http://www.google.com/? gws_rd=ssl#q=%22Christ+Frees+Us%22+lcms
#12. To: VxH (#11)
(Edited)
So? Of the three results on that page (relevant excerpts below), only the last appears problematic - and since it was not written by the article author, nor does the article author appear to even be a member of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, I still see no relevance. Perhaps you should simply state your point. Here, in our worship, God is truly present. His words, his meal, his water- specific realities-invite us to him. His gracious character, so definitively revealed in the face of Christ, frees us from our shifting sentiments and religious fashions. As Luther put it so pointedly: "We see the deepest into God's heart when we see his Son on the cross." Rom. 12:9-21 + The love of Christ frees us to love and serve one another. Meeting us in his word and sacraments, that crucified and risen Christ frees us from the desperate need to be like God and raises us to live from the forgiveness of sins, not as a god but as children of God who "can experience deprivation and yet have joy and delight." In that encounter with the incarnate Lord who did not insist on equality with God but rather humbled himself for the sake of his neighbor, the church’s witness, mercy, and life together finds its most profound expression of the reality that transcends this life.
If you want me to comb through 153 links to assembke your point for you, my rate is $250 an hour.
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latestit offers a stripped and humiliated Lord. To those without reason for optimism, it holds up the cross as a sign of hope.
"Christ Frees Us"
#6. To: VxH (#5)
"it offers a stripped and humiliated Lord. To those without reason for optimism, it holds up the cross as a sign of hope."
What does this mean?
#8. To: ConservingFreedom (#6)
What does which mean: "Christ Frees Us", or that ugly POS sculpture?
#9. To: VxH (#8)
What meaning did the artist have in mind?
#11. To: ConservingFreedom (#9)
(Edited)
No idea what this has to do with the article
Replies to Comment # 11. https://www.google.com/webhp? gws_rd=ssl#q=%22Christ+Frees+Us%22+site:www.lcms.org
#13. To: VxH (#11)
http://www.google.com/? gws_rd=ssl#q=%22Christ+Frees+Us%22+lcms
End Trace Mode for Comment # 11.
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