Before you put on that Red Baseball Cap . . .

Why are those wearing those red baseball hats so angry?

Look, it's a fair question.

What lies behind all this anger anyway? Is it legitimate anger? Who and what have ticked off the people in the red baseball hats?

What has compelled those who claim to love America and want what’s best for our country to fall in line behind Donald Trump, whose entire political platform has been built upon the exploitation of this anger (which has often turned into violence)?

How can supposedly educated, enlightened twenty-first century men like Paul Ryan (who certainly reads books and has a sense of history) cave in to this racist misogynist unstable bully who has done nothing but incite anger everywhere he goes?

Has Paul Ryan sold the GOP soul to the devil for a bowl of pottage? Has he compromised the grand old Party’s historic integrity by throwing his red baseball cap into Trump’s ring?

During the rise to power in the 1930s much of the German Church did not speak out against Adolf Hitler and the government’s attempt to Nazify the German Protestant Church. Hitler is now considered one of history’s worse racists who engineered the deaths of over 6 million Jews, not to mention those whose bloodlines were not pure Arian (white). 

Church leaders and pastors caved in to this mad man whose agenda was to make Germany great again by creating a thousand year Reich. 

I’ve asked myself a thousand times: “Would I as a pastor have stood up against Hitler?” I’ve wondered privately to myself: “Would I have been brave enough to oppose Hitler from my pulpit based on my commitment to Christ and his teachings?”

Quite honestly I am not sure what I would have done.

Yet there were those brave souls within the German Protestant Church (which became the State Church of the Nazi government) that went underground and worked to derail Hitler and the Nazis. Their movement became known as the “Confessing Church” (Bekennende Kirche) or more properly the “Confessional Church.”

The German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was hanged by the Nazis, was a member of this Confessing Church—the only voice of protest against Adolf Hitler and the Nazis.

So why are we not hearing a similar voice of protest coming from American pulpits today—voices crying out against the resurgence of racism, misogynism, and bigotry that is feeding the anger of those in the red baseball hats? 

Why aren’t more preachers, priests, and pastors crying from the rooftops against what this man and his movement represent? We in this country have worked so hard and long to create a nation in which everyone is valued; that the color of one’s skin or one’s ethnic heritage or one’s religious affiliation or one’s sexual preference is not a disqualifier from being a good American citizen—or even a Federal judge for that matter.

Look, I understand the politics, I really do. I no longer actively serve a church, so it’s far easier for me to write a piece such as this without fear of losing my job. I do expect to get angry responses from some of my readers. That’s okay but don’t expect me to change my opinion of Donald trump. 

But there comes a point when the voices of the leaders of faith communities need to speak out. There comes a time for us to abandon the comforts of our privileged positions and pulpits and take on the mantle of a Jeremiah or an Amos.

Claiming that Trump is the lesser of two evils is a pitiful excuse for supporting this dangerously toxic and unstable individual. Personally I don’t see any way on earth that Donald Trump is going to change (I don’t care how many so-called “good people” he surrounds himself with), even if he is elected President. He will remain a Clear and Present Danger to the United States of America. The only way that this man will change his true stripes would be if God Almighty were to intervene.

In fact there is precedent for such a thing happening. Saul of Tarsus was a very dangerous man. He hunted down and killed followers of the Way (who later became known as Christians). He was a vicious man whose moral conscience was tainted by his own political zeal.

But while on a mission to track down more followers of the Way Christ appeared to him, knocking him from his horse and temporarily blinding him. It seems that this was the only way to get Saul’s attention. Saul later became the Apostle Paul, the great defender of the Christian faith.

Short of another Damascus Road experience I see no hope of Donald Trump changing for the better. 

So I encourage you to think long and hard before you start wearing one of those red baseball hats. If you are wearing one then I suggest you take a very, very hard look at the man who gave you that red hat.

Let history be your guide. This isn’t the first time a guy like Donald Trump has captured the imagination of so many angry people. 

It won’t be the last time but I sure do pray that enough good people will wake up and throw their red baseball hats where they belong: in the trash!