Happy Easter, everybody, believer and skeptic alike. To
Christians, Easter is a time to proclaim the victory of specific doctrinal
beliefs. To those of us of a more general spirituality, it is a time to
reaffirm the (at least temporary) victory of life over death.
But let me tell you one thing the Easter story is not. It
is not a time to proclaim the unassailable rectitude of the Republican Party.
If Jesus rose, it was His victory, not that of Republicans.
This seems so obvious that you may wonder why I need to
say it. Let me tell you a memory from about 1973. I was a high school kid
reading the Letters to the Editor section of the Fresno Bee newspaper. One
letter told the story of how the crowds praised Jesus as he entered Jerusalem,
and within a few days they were calling for His death. The writer then drew a
comparison between Jesus and Richard Nixon. Americans, the writer said, praised
Nixon when he won his 1972 election as president. Then, within a little more
than a year, they were turning against him because of the Watergate scandal.
The writer said that people turning against Nixon was just as unreasonable and
unholy as people turning against Jesus.
This really happened. You can’t make stuff like this up.
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