One of my favorite scenes from the original 1984 Ghostbusters is when the boys are called into the office of New York mayor Lenny Clotch (David Margulies) to explain the appearance of specters throughout the city.  In the following dialogue, the Ghostbusters reveal the extent of these catastrophic supernatural events

Dr. Peter Venkman: This city is headed for a disaster of biblical proportions.
Mayor: What do you mean, “biblical”?
Dr. Raymond Stantz: What he means is Old Testament, Mr. Mayor, real wrath of God type stuff.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Exactly.
Dr. Raymond Stantz: Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling!
Dr. Egon Spengler: Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes…
Winston Zeddemore: The dead rising from the grave!
Dr. Peter Venkman: Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together… mass hysteria!
Mayor: All right, all right! I get the point!

It does not take much of an imagination to recognize a similar level of delirium has engulfed the nation during this past year.  Therefore, if this current crisis be of biblical proportions, should we not look to the Old Testament for a response.  Perhaps, the story in Genesis of Sodom and Gomorrah, with some poetic license?  Consider the following.

¹⁶ When the founding fathers got up to leave, they looked down toward the Nation’s capital, and the voters walked along with them to see them on their way. ¹⁷ Then the founders said, “Shall we hide from these citizens what we are about to do?¹⁸ In 2018, the voters can surely become a great and powerful force in the nation, and all citizens will be blessed through them. ¹⁹ For the voters can choose new leaders, so that they will direct their children and their households to keep the way of the founding fathers by doing what is right and just, so that the voters will bring about for those who understand the true values and promise of the nation we envisioned.”

²⁰ Then the founders said, “The outcry against attempts by Donald Trump and his minions to violate constitutional principles is so great and their sin so grievous ²¹ that we will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached us. If not, we will know.”

²² The voters turned away and went home, but one remained standing before the founders.  ²³ Then that one, brave voter approached the founders and said: “Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked?  ²⁴ What if there are fifty righteous Republicans in the Senate and House  who will join the Democrats to end this national nightmare? Will you really sweep them away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people in it?²⁵ Far be it from you to do such a thing—to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. Far be it from you! Will not the voters across the country do right?”

²⁶ The founders said, “If we find fifty righteous people in the city of Washington, we will spare the whole place for their sake.”

²⁷ Then the brave voter who remained behind spoke up again: “Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the founders, though I am nothing but dust and ashes, ²⁸ what if the number of the righteous is five less than fifty? Will you destroy the whole nation for lack of five people?”

“If we find forty-five there,” the founders said, “We will not destroy it.”

²⁹ Once again he spoke to them, “What if only forty are found there?”

The founders said, “For the sake of forty, we will not do it.”

³⁰ Then he said, “May the founders not be angry, but let me speak. What if only thirty can be found there?”

The founders answered, “We will not do it if we find thirty there.”

³¹ Then that brave voter said, “Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the founders, what if only twenty can be found there?”

The founders said, “For the sake of twenty, we will not destroy it.”

³² Then he said, “May the the founders not be angry, but let me speak just once more. What if only ten can be found there?”

The founder answered, “For the sake of ten, we will not destroy it.”

³³ When the founders had finished speaking with the lone voter who pleaded on behalf of the Nation, they left, and the man returned home.

What the voters in this parable did not realize, it is not the founders who are responsible for finding the 50 righteous persons.  And if such righteous representatives do not exist, it is not up to the long deceased founders to rid us of them.  The voters, themselves. have that power.  All they need to do is exercise that power.

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP

In the interest of truth in advertising, I need to remind my readers I am a culturally Jewish agnostic in a mixed religious marriage.  And I prefer to wish everyone I meet “happy holidays,” except on December 25th when I gladly greet my Christian friends and colleagues with “Merry Christmas,” in the same vein I wish Americans “Happy Independence Day” on July 4th and not all summer long.

Holidays occurring in November and December cover the tapestry of American diversity.  However, I would never challenge the fact December 25th belongs to those of Christian faith nor would I support anyone who challenged the right of Christians to consider that specific day sacred.  However, last Friday, those who accuse people like me of waging an imaginary “War on Christmas” need to turn their weapons on one of their own who has done more to de-legitimize the holiday than I ever could.

In defense of alleged child molester and Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate Roy Moore, Alabama State Auditor Jim Zeigler dismissed the charges against Moore in the Washington Examiner, stating:

…take Joseph and Mary. Mary was a teenager and Joseph was an adult carpenter. They became parents of Jesus. There’s just nothing immoral or illegal here. Maybe just a little bit unusual.

Ziegler’s comments reminded me of the politically incorrect joke which has made the rounds on the Internet, tee shirts and in graffiti.  “Easter has been canceled — They found the body.”  I could not find the origin of this meme which people like Jim Zeigler must surely and justifiably find offensive.  So you think someone who promotes the evangelical version of Sharia law would choose his own words more carefully. On Friday, Zeigler became the equivalent of a modern-day Judas.  He might as well have said, “Cancel Christmas — Jesus is not the son of God, he is the offspring of an adult carpenter.”  I have yet to see this headline on Fox News or in Breitbart.  Instead, they prefer to point their fingers at those of us who believe we should welcome the stranger into our hearts and minds during the holiday season regardless of faith or spiritual preference.

I sometimes wonder what Jesus would think of actions taken in his name,  if there was in fact a second coming.  In this case, I have no doubt on which side he would align when it comes to a “War on Christmas.”  And I wonder if even he might find it hard to “turn the other cheek.”

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP

Although they were few and far between, there were groups of German Jews who supported the rise of Adolph Hitler and the Third Reich.  One such organization was the German Vanguard led by Hans-Joachim Schoeps (1909-1980), a professor of religious studies at the University of Erlangen in northern Bavaria.

According to a document in the archives of the SHOAH Resource Center at Yad Vasham, Israel’s holocaust memorial and museum:

Schoeps and his followers were extremely patriotic Germans who wanted to be seen as a Jewish political movement within the revival of German nationalism. They looked down on Eastern European Jews, and opposed Zionism, Marxism, and liberalism. Zionism was considered negative because Zionists wanted to become a separate Jewish nation like any other, while the Vanguard believed that German Jews belonged to the German nation, and were only different with regard to their religion. They even saw Zionism as a type of assimilation away from pure German-ness.

Vanguard members failed to understand that the Nazis hated Jews because of their race, and considered them to be non-Aryan, or non-German, to the core. They thought that Jews would eventually be allowed to integrate into the Third Reich. Nonetheless, fearing arrest, Schoeps fled to Sweden in 1938, where he kept up contact with German conservatives throughout the war.

On several occasions over the past two years I have wondered how any Jewish-American could support Donald Trump based on individuals he selected as advisers, some of the company he keeps, his re-tweeting content from neo-Nazi and other anti-Semitic sources and his reluctance to call out anti-Semitic behavior by some of his supporters.  Equally distressing was their willingness to overlook warning signs in return for policies which they believed would result in national economic growth and personal financial gain.  Ironically, members of the German Vanguard expressed the exact same sentiments.  Does Schoeps’ willingness to support the Third Reich’s focus on German nationalism remind you of anything you’ve heard recently?

But there is one more major difference between the German Vanguard of the 1930’s and what I will call the American Vanguard which exists today.  The current version is more diverse than its historic ancestor.  It includes Hispanic-Americans who discounted Trump’s characterization of Mexicans as rapists, criminals and drug dealers.  And as was most evident over the course of the past week, white Evangelicals who have traded in the Sermon on the Mount for Trump’s tweets and rants.

The best evidence of the religious right’s membership in the American Vanguard is the response by members of Trump’s Evangelical Advisory Board.

Jerry Fallwell, Jr., president of Liberty University, praised Trump’s “bold truthful stmt about #charlottesville. So proud of @realdonaldtrump.”  Twitter/August 16, 2017

Johnnie Moore, National Association of Evangelicals.  “NO, I am not pulling out as an Evangelical advisor to the White House.  It’s not our job to take advice but to give It.  I will keep giving it.” Twitter/August 16, 2017

Pastor Mark Burns, referring to the two sides represented in Charlottesville. “BOTH are violent and dangerous.”  Twitter/August 15, 2017

When Tony Suarez, Vice-President of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference tweeted we need leaders who will unite rather than divide, he quickly clarified he did not mean Trump was one of those dividing the country.

Televangelist James Robinson’s contribution. “Are we going to rip Amazaing Grace out of every hymnbook because John Newton was a slave trader?”

Pastor Jack Graham chose to retweet a call to tear down statues of Charles Darwin, claiming “Darwin was a white supremacist and racist if ever there was one.”

To be fair, three of the 25 members of the board condemned the organizers of and participants in the Unite for Right demonstration in Charlottesville.  But none resigned from the advisory group and none chastised Trump for his comments on Saturday or Tuesday.

There’s an old saying about what motivates individual behavior.  “We know what we are, we’re just haggling over the price.”  Sadly, in this case, the cost of membership in the American Vanguard is One’s Soul.

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP