Today I am not going to write about cycling or midlife. But I somehow believe that what I am about to say is a midlife reflection of the sort I might have during a ride.
I was brought up Catholic. Later I became an Evangelical Christian. I explored other religions. Though I can feel some affinity, and great respect, for Buddhism (mainly because I don’t see it so much as a religion, at least as I understand it, as a way of being centered on learning and teaching), I identify as an agnostic non-theist. That is to say, I don’t believe in a “higher being” but, because no one has been able to prove, or disprove, the existence of such a being, I cannot dismiss the possibility of its existence.
So why am I mentioning what I do or don’t believe? Well, reading Bruce Gerenscer’s post today got me to thinking about how Evangelical Christians (like the one I was) and conservative Catholics give their full-throated support to Donald Trump. And the more un-Christian (at least as I understand the faith) his behavior, the louder and sometimes more belligerently they defend him.
What really got me thinking about this phenomenon, however, was a particular point Bruce made. Six decades ago, many people—some not even particularly religious—took umbrage at John Lennon exclaiming “We’re more popular than Jesus.” Actually, the outrage was, and continues to be, over how the tabloids misrepresented, and the public mis-remembers, what he said: that the Beatles were “bigger” than Jesus.
Even if John, normally the most articulate Beatle, could have said it differently, his point was valid: His group and rock’n’roll music generally had more influence on young people than Christianity or any other religion. I think church leaders, and many everyday believers, were more worried that they were losing their authority than over a band’s or a musical genre’s popularity.
I was a young child at the time, and I recall that many kids weren’t allowed to have Beatles’ records or albums, or even to listen to their music on the radio. I wasn’t subject to such a ban, mainly because my parent’s didn’t listen to the Beatles or other British Invasion bands: Their tastes ran more toward Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons and Concetta Franconero, a.k.a. Connie Francis. (I think every Italian-American family in my milieu had a similar playlist!)
Anyway, in contrast to the anger, some from not-particularly-religious people, at Lennon, Evangelical and Fundamentalist Christians, and conservative Catholics, raised barely a peep—some even applauded—when an AI-generated image of the Fake Tan Führer as a Christ-like healer spread across the web and airwaves. And when he excoriated the Pope for denouncing the war (let’s call it what it is) against Iran and being “soft on crime” (last I checked, the Vatican had the lowest crime—at least as it’s defined by law enforcement and investigative agencies—rate of any country). If anything, they justify “Baby Christian” Trump’s belligerent words and deeds by admonishing his critics not to “judge, lest ye be judged.” Perhaps that’s also their rationale for not calling out J.D. Vance—a recent convert to Catholicism—when he told the Pope to “be careful” about speaking of matters of theology.
Perhaps the most ironic aspect of the events I’ve just described is that the most pointed critiques of Trump’s and Vance’s blasphemies have come from people who aren’t religious: secular Christians and Jews, even atheists and non-affiliated believers. I must admit that I, too, feel even more ire at folks like Trump and Vance hijacking religious beliefs and iconography, and attacking religious leaders, than I might have were I still a believer. Why? Well, as I said earlier, even though I don’t believe, I still have respect for those who actually do and, more importantly, use it as a moral foundation for their lives rather than as a cloak over their calumny. After all, I can no more prove that their God doesn’t exist than they can prove he/she/they/it does. They have a right to believe, just as I have right not to. If the Pope is a guide and Jesus is an avatar for them—or if any other religious leader spreads a message of love—I am willing to denounce anyone who dares to defame or mis-appropriate them.
