SFR File Photo
Morning Word: Moving experience
Just want to say thank you for your reporting that helps me keep up with what’s happening in my local world and the larger world as well.
Also, some mornings what keeps me awake and reading is knowing I’ll reach the last paragraph which is the best of all—after “Thanks for reading!” you will share some link to an article, video, music or essay that particularly moved you. I cannot count the number of times I too was moved to tears, laughter, surprise, incredulity, humility and/or compassion at what was shared. And I often pass on the link and hopefully, the moving experience, to those I think will love it too.
So, thank you for having the courage to share what makes you feel something and for enriching my life.
Lisa Gosper-Espinosa, Santa Fe
Elections: Dangers of nationalism
Most Americans have never heard of Christian nationalism, or its dangers. I recommend they see the documentary God and Country, directed by Rob Reiner.
If polls are accurate, a majority of voters would bestow power on the former president, a verifiable narcissist, who like Constantine I (313 C.E.) assimilated persecuted Christians into his empire by promising them freedom and shared greatness. The long-term effect of this conflation of church and state produced the Holy Roman Empire, which gave rise to the Crusades, inquisitions, burnings at the stake, and the colonization and genocide of Indigenous Americans.
In Germany in the 1930s, Hitler, a charismatic demagogue, dreadfully like Donald J. Trump, convinced the German Christian churches to trust him and formed the Reich Church within his Nazi regime. Paul Tillich, a German-born cultural philosopher, wrote that an idolatrous faith in a messiah-like leader can’t be explained, but finds a home with a daemonic, bloated, self-sufficient aggressive power, enamored with itself. Right now, we are looking into the face of this same dangerous combination. Curiously trusting citizens are imagining that a single leader will restore America to its mythological greatness. But just means bring about just ends, while insidious means, and leaders, can entrap our psyches. Wake up Santa Fe! Wake up America, to history repeating itself.
Len Schreiner, San Miguel County
