On Relationship and Certainty

 

On Relationship and Certainty

January 23, 2026

I just read a meditation by Cameron Trimble, someone to whose meditations I and others I know have subscribed. In it she says wisdom arises from relationship. It does not arise in certainty. It comes when people who disagree remain in dialogue with one another. Trimble sees certainty as a bad thing. I’m not so sure she’s right about that with regard to at least some certainties. Some people are just flat wrong, Undeniably wrong. MAGA morons, for example. Nothing good could come from remaining in relationship with them other than the relationship of hostility. And I kept thinking of my theological beliefs. I’m damned certain that at least many of them are right. That at least some of the beliefs of some others, like the beliefs of Biblicists, are just wrong. The only reason to stay in relationship with them would be to have a chance to convince them that they are wrong.

If anyone is going to challenge my theological certainties, it’s me. Not that I claim ultimate knowledge of God. I’ve never made that claim. But that we don’t have ultimate knowledge about God is one of my core theological beliefs, and I am certain that it is right. I am certain that God is “joyful darkness far beyond our seeing, closer yet than breathing,” to quote Brian Wren.[1] I can’t, and won’t, let go of a certainty about that truth. Did it arise from relationship the way Trimble says wisdom arises? Maybe. After all, I spent more than three years in seminary studying and talking about the Christian faith, and those three years of study certainly affected how I think about God and the Christian faith.

Or is it something I came to on my own? I don’t think I came to any theological thesis entirely on my own. I learned a lot from Paul Tillich and Douglas John Hall, for example, though I learned from them by reading them not be being in conversation with them since I never met either of them in person. So perhaps Trimble is at least partly right. Wisdom can arise from relationship. I would add that it doesn’t have to be a face to face relationship. It can be the relationship of the reader to the author, or of the hearer to the speaker.

Yet I am not willing to give up all of my certainty. I am certain that Donald Trump is a fascist who is out to destroy American democracy. I am certain that Hitler and Stalin were profoundly evil. No wisdom could arise from remaining in conversation or other relationship with anyone who contended otherwise other than a relationship of hostility and condemnation. And I am certain that God is “joyful darkness far beyond our seeing, closer yet than breathing,” both unknowable and intimately knowable at the same time. Anyone who claims truly to know all there is to know about God because they’ve read the Bible or for any other reason is absolutely wrong, and I am absolutely certain that that is true.

So, I value relationship. I know that wisdom can arise from some relationships, but it does not and cannot arise from all relationships. There is such a thing as being absolutely wrong. Soviet Communists and German Nazis were absolutely, unquestionably wrong in their foundational beliefs. So are MAGA Trumpists. I will never accept that they were and are not absolutely wrong.

That there is such a thing as being absolutely wrong is clearer than that there is such a thing as being absolutely right. In the realm of theology, for example, I know that I may be wrong about some or even about many things, though I am certain that I am not wrong about the paradox of God as utterly transcendent and intimately present at the same time. My belief in the truth of that statement is so much a core of my theology and of my life that I can’t help but understand it as universally true, not just true for me.

So, it seems, I have a complex relationship to truth and falsehood and how truth arises. Or better, how anything can be absolutely true. Wisdom can arise from some relationships but not from all relationships. There is at least some foundational absolute truth. And yes, I know that that statement contradicts at least some of what I have written over the years. Perhaps it contradicts much of it. So be it. As I write today, I accept it as true. So I live with both certainty and uncertainty. I trust that I have discerned at least some foundational truth myself and that much of what I trust is true has risen in relationship with others. Perhaps that’s true of you too.

 

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[1] From his great hymn “Bring Many Names.”

On the Trump-Greenland Disaster

 

On the Trump-Greenland Disaster

January 21, 2026

 

Americans are terrible at knowing the facts of history, much less knowing what those facts mean. So let me take you back to September, 1945. World War II has just ended. Germany, Japan, and their various allies have surrendered to the allies, the most important of which were the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Tens of millions of people (or more) have been killed in war since the Japanese invaded Manchuria and the Germans invaded the Soviet Union. The United States, UK, France, and other nations of western Europe, whichever side of the war they had been on, were terrified that the Soviet Union’s Red Army would not stop at Germany but would march on to conquer all of Europe. The Soviets had their armed forces in the eastern part of Germany and in Poland, Hungary, Austria, and other nations of central Europe. They had annexed the three Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania against the will of most of the people of those countries.

It became clear that they had no intention of relinquishing control of the part of the continent outside their own borders that they had occupied. Western Europe was indeed vulnerable to further Soviet expansion, though one reason—perhaps the main reason—why the United States, the UK, and others had invaded France and moved their forces eastward against fierce German resistance when the Soviets already had Hitler on the run was to stop the Soviet Union from taking over more of Europe than it already had or clearly would. Soviet ideology was indeed expansionist. The Soviets called for so-called socialist, really Communist, revolutions everywhere in the world but especially perhaps in western Europe. There were, of course, Marxists in western Europe who might have welcomed a Soviet takeover of their country, but most Europeans, especially wealthy Europeans, were horrified by the thought of living under Soviet rule.

So the western allies undertook an immensely important move.  They created NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. They intended it as a defensive not an offensive alliance. It’s most important provision was, and is, Article 5 of the NATO charter. It provided that all NATO nations would treat any attack on any NATO country as an attack on all NATO countries. NATO was no doubt the primary reason the USSR didn’t even try to expand farther into Europe after the war than it already had.

NATO has been a smashing success. With only one significant exception involving Serbia, there was been no war in western Europe since the end of World War II. That there hasn’t been is truly remarkable given the way European nations were so fond of going to war against each other before the end of World War II. The United States has always been a key NATO member. We were involved in NATO’s creation. We have provided nearly all of the nuclear shield over western Europe that played a central role in stopping Soviet aggression in that part of the world and continues to do so with regard to Russia in the post-Soviet era. Today, nearly every European nation west of Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine is a member of NATO as is Turkey, which is only partly European.

For reasons that make absolutely no sense to any informed, thinking, halfway intelligent person, Trump wants the United States to take Greenland for itself. Greenland is part of NATO member Denmark. It is in many ways autonomous, but the nation to which it belongs is still Denmark. Trump says he wants the US to buy Greenland from Denmark and has more than once threated to use military force to take it if Denmark won’t sell it. He lies and says that the US needs Greenland for national security against Russia and China. Neither Russia nor China has any desire or use for Greenland. The US currently has one military base in Greenland that is part of our missile defense system. Greenland is part of a NATO ally. The US has absolutely no need for Greenland whatsoever.

So what’s going on here? What certainly seems to be going on is that Donald Trump is becoming demented or is otherwise losing his grip on reality. He has gotten a harebrained idea in his head, and the can’t let it go. He doesn’t understand reality. He lives in a fantasy world of his own making. He won’t listen to reason. Facts mean nothing to him. He considers anyone who disagrees with him about Greenland or anything else to be an enemy to be attacked not an opponent with whom to debate.

Now, dementia is common in older people; and Donald Trump is old, 79 years old as I write. When an ordinary citizen becomes demented, it is unfortunate and often difficult for that person, for that person’s loved ones, and that person’s care givers. Trust me on this one. I have a close relative who is the same age as Trump and who has a fair amount of dementia.[1] When you tell a demented person that something that is real for her is not real, she’s likely just to get mad at you and stick to her demented belief.

When the president of the United States becomes demented, the consequences are far, far more serious. Trump’s demented fixation on Greenland has already gone a long way toward destroying international security arrangements that have prevented a new world war for eighty years. It is likely to result in the European Union imposing economic sanctions on the US in response to Trump’s threat to put a tariff on European goods if he doesn’t get Greenland. It may lead to the end of NATO. That, of course, is something Vladimir Putin would love to have happen; and it is easy enough to believe that Trump serves Putin’s interests more than the serves true American interests.

We are not facing an ordinary political situation here. We are facing a complete disaster. Absolutely nothing good can come from Trump’s Greenland fixation. Only destruction can follow. As Canadian Prime Minister Carney has suggested, Trump’s Greenland fixation and other grievous faults may lead to mid-level economic nations like Canada banding together without and even against the US to protect their own legitimate interests. Trump is causing the US to lose its position of leadership in the world. He is turning to the use and the threat of military force to achieve his results not to traditional, tried and true methods of diplomatic negotiation.[2]

Donald Trump is an unmitigated disaster for the United States and, indeed, for the whole world. We can’t be rid of him soon enough. Congress should be stepping in to stop his insane threats and actions and even to remove him from office, but of course they won’t because Congress is full of Republican Trump toadies. Oh well. It is what it is, and all we can do is hope that our country and God’s world will survive our demented president.

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[1] My relative’s dementia is associated with one or more strokes. As far as we know, Donald Trump has not had a stroke; but people become demented without a precipitation event like a stroke.

[2] Trump said in Davos, Switzerland, today that he will not use military force to take Greenland. Sounds good, but then, we can’t believe a word Trump says; so who knows?

More on Trump's Fascism

  

On Donald Trump’s Fascism 

January 16, 2026 

It becomes more and more obvious every day that Donald Trump is not only an American fascist but that he iss using fascist techniques to impose his will on not only the United States of America but on the whole world. What are some of those techniques: 

1. Have an innocent demographic that you accuse of being responsible for all of your country’s problems, then use violence against them. For Hitler that was the Jews. For Stalin (a Communist who functioned like a fascist), it was counterrevolutionaries. For Trump, it is immigrants legal or otherwise be they citizens or not. 

2. Make people disbelieve in the reality of truth. Lie, lie, lie, the lie some more. Not because you want people to believe the lies, though you’re perfectly happy if they do,  but because you want them not to believe that there is no such a thing as truth. To believe that they can trust no one to tell them the truth.  

3. Suppress what we in America call constitutional rights, most especially the rights of freedom of speech, of the press, and of peaceful assembly. 

4. Censor everything published or broadcast in the country. Prohibit any expression of opposition. 

5. Make opponents enemies. In a democracy, people of different political opinions vie in the public square for public support. They may not like each other. They consider the other’s policy positions to be dangerous and destructive. But they don’t call opponents enemies. They don’t think political opponents deserve execution. Fascists cannot tolerate opposition, so they turn opponents into enemies and say they deserve to be killed. In classical fascist systems, they actually kill them, sometimes by the millions. 

6. Have some sort of paramilitary group of thugs that you employ against those “enemies.” Hitler had the Gestapo and the SS. Stalin had the NKVD. Trump has ICE. He has violent paramilitary organizations on standby. He if fully willing to use all of these institutions against advocates of democracy. 

7. Centralize political, military, and police power in one person, one Supreme Leader. For the Nazis, of course, that was Hitler, whom they called “der Fűhrer,” the leader. Soviet Communists of his time called Stalin the “Vozhd,” which also means leader. Fascist regimes may retain outwardly democratic political structures, but, in reality, there is nothing democratic about them. 

8. In fascist systems, the leader exercises that unlimited political, military, and police power only for the benefit of the leader’s fascist regime. The leader may do that through nominally constitutional institutions, but, in fact, the leader is in complete control of the country. 

9. Convince the people that only that supreme leader can solve their country’s problems.  

10. Glorify the leader beyond all reason. Make him (it’s always a him) infallible. Make any opposition to him or even questioning of him sedition. Make everyone pledge allegiance to him. Hitler required even Christian pastors to take the Hitler oath. Yours truly will never, under any circumstances, take a Trump oath. 

11. Claim to be working for the people while actually creating a privileged power elite above the people. 

12. Greatly increase the wealth of the leader and his closest supporters through both legal and illegal means. 

13. Have no scruples whatsoever about using murderous violence against perceived enemies or against people you want the country’s people to believe are enemies. Have no scruples against violence even to the point of committing genocide. Hitler did it against the Jews. Stalin did it against the Ukrainians. Trump hasn’t committed genocide yet, but then, he’s just getting started. 

14.  Seek to expand the part of the world under the leader’s control. Hitler did it by invading and conquering most of western and central Europe. Stalin did it by being part of the Soviet Communists’ conquest of most of what had been the Russian Empire and by entering into a coalition with another fascist, Hitler, that allowed the Soviet Union to occupy and absorb the three Baltic Republics and parts of Poland that became part of the Soviet Socialist Republic of Ukraine. 

15. Care nothing about the opinions or interests of any nation. Only the fascist leader’s opinions matter. 

16. Claim the right to do anything internationally with no negative consequences or negative responses by any other nation or international organization. No one, domestic or foreign, has the right to criticize the fascist leader. 

So what is a fascist regime? It is a system of government grounded in a supreme leader’s megalomania and lust for power. It is established and maintained through violence or other illegal means. Even is it is established through legal mechanisms, as Hitler’s was, it comes to be maintained through violence and fear. It functions only for the benefit of its leader and a small group of the leader’s closest supporters. It panders to non-political power structures, such as economic systems and institutions, only to coopt them and make them supporters. Or, as Stalin did, it simply destroys all non-political power structures so that they cannot be centers of opposition.1 

Perhaps the good news is that Most fascist régimes don’t last very long. Italy’s Mussolini, the protopicalfascist, ruled Italy only from 1922 to 1943. Hitler’s fascist regime lasted only for twelve years, from 1933 to 1945. Stalin ruled from roughly 1929 to his death in 1953.2 The Soviet regime that followed him certainly was nothing close to democratic, but at least it wasn’t nearly as murderously violent as Stalin had been. Mao Zedong was head of the Chinese state from 1949 to 1959 and effectively in control of the country as head of the Chinese Communist Party until his death in 1976. The Communist regime in China that followed him, like the Communist regime that followed Stalin in the USSR, was, and is, in no way democratic; but it, however, was, and is, less fascist than Mao had been if only because it was and is somewhat less murderously violent.3 It is too early to say how long Trump’s would-be truly fascist regime will last in the United States. 

Donald Trump truly is an American fascist in the sense I have outlined here. Every one of these criteria either applies to what Trump has done or is doing or points to something he will do if he thinks he can get away with it. He has not succeeded in turning the United States into a truly fascist nation, at least not yet. No one, I trust, is going to arrest or murder me for writing this post and posting it online. Yet there is no doubt that he will turn us into a truly fascist nation if he can. He is clearly a megalomaniac. He clearly sees opponents as enemies deserving death. He has expressly said as much. He uses force as much as he has so far been able to use to exert his power and suppress all of his opponents. Clearly, he will establish as much of a truly fascist regime as his country allows him to establish. 

Which means that it is up to us to stop him. I am an adherent of Christian nonviolence, so I will never advocate stopping him violently; but we must all use every nonviolent means available to us to stop him from turning our country truly fascist. How do we do that? By speaking out. By demonstrating against Trump and essentially everything the executive branch of the federal government he heads does. By voting, for as long as we still have the right to vote for candidates of any political party with the guts to stand up to him and say “No,” and, those for whom we vote who are to be members of Congress have the guts to vote against him every time. By supporting nongovernmental organizations like the ACLU that take the Trump administration to court over its myriad violations of the law (and often win). By bombarding our senators and representative with phone calls and email telling them to oppose everything the Trump administration wants to do.  

Folks, short of violence, which I will not advocate, nothing is too much for us to do to try to stop Trump’s fascist takeover not only of our government but of our entire nation. I wish I had a magic wand that could make him to away, but I don’t. I do still have my constitutional right of free speech; and, for now at least, so do you. So let’s speak out. Let’s cry out. Let’s scream out. Let’s demand that our elected representatives do everything they can to stop Trump. Let us demand that our state governments, some of which at least are anti-Trump, do whatever they can do to stop him in their states. Nothing we can do amounts to too much. We face a true crisis. We face a turning point in American history. Will we turn to fascism, or will we return to the ideals America has always espoused, as woefully inadequately as we have put them into practice. It may well be up to us which we way we turn. So let’s yank any steering wheel we have and do what we can to stop the American fascist Donald Trump. The future of our country, and perhaps the future of the world, depends on it.