For that same reason, I also despise Donald Trump, who gives little evidence of valuing women apart from the sexual pleasure they provide him, willing or not. He is far more like Ali Hosseini Khamenei than not, a privileged old man, wielding the levers of power for his own benefit and no one else’s. This, of course, is what prompted the attack on Iran, not to head off a planned attack on America or to achieve a lasting peace in the Middle East. Its sole purpose was to provide two amoral, unpopular men, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu, with the distraction they need to remain in power. Now, rather than talking about Trump’s sexual assault of children and Netanyahu’s unprecedented corruption, we are talking about war. There is some evidence, according to The Guardian, that a girl’s school in the city of Minab was bombed, killing at least eighty-five students. Neither man, I promise you, will shed a tear for those children, caring no more for them than the children they have sexually assaulted and the adults they have fleeced.

Here are three men who represent the absolute worst their religions have to offer; three men who embody not a single virtue their faiths claim to value. They possess not the slightest degree of charity, compassion, grace, or integrity. Using religion to seize and hold power, they are a moral affront to every sincere believer. Now one of them is dead, unable to harm anyone any longer. I impatiently await the deaths of the other two, believing it will improve our world, not diminish it. I will say it right out, some people care so little for others, they have forfeited the right to be cared for, and deserve the same misfortune they have visited upon others. While I take forgiveness seriously, I take accountability just as seriously, and when someone has proven themselves to be unapologetically evil, I do not believe their wickedness should go unanswered.

I am weary of old men whose only priorities are power and wealth, who take so much and give so little. I am weary of old men who feign morality and virtue, decreeing the death and slaughter of innocent people. Bombing Iran was unlawful, a grotesque breach of international law. The order to attack it should have been rejected by American military leaders, but wasn’t. So now the monster masquerading as our president knows military personnel will do whatever he asks, whether it is entering a war without congressional consent, or meddling in an election that might show him the door. One ought never offer such a man their unquestioning cooperation, but now, without a whimper of protest, they have done just that. They have made a Faustian bargain, selling their souls to the devil, and there will be hell to pay.

Philip Gulley is the author of the popular Harmony series and Unlearning God: How Unbelieving Helped Me Believe.

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A month before my appearance at the Ashtabula Prayer Breakfast, I was notified that after prayerful consideration the good Christians of Ashtabula no longer wished to hear from me. Have you ever noticed that when evangelical Christians give you the shaft, they claim it was the result of “prayerful consideration”? Then they asked for their money back. I’m an old-fashioned sort of guy and if I don’t do a job, I don’t take money for it. But this time I made an exception, told them our contract permitted me to keep the fee, which I then donated to the ACLU. I’m not sure what the ACLU did with the money from the Ashtabula prayer warriors, but I’d like to think they spent it on a lawsuit prohibiting the state of Alabama from horsewhipping unwed mothers on courthouse lawns.

This month, the Einsteins in charge of the National Day of Prayer, after prayerful consideration, invited Donald Trump to speak about prayer, which he did, in an hour-long drone fest, by making fun of Speaker of the House Michael Johnson for praying before meals. In the spirit of the event, he called Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., a “moron” for voting against his big, beautiful bill, then urged all present to see Melania, the Amazon documentary about his wife, in which she explained why she posed nude. It turns out she wanted to honor the beauty of the human body, which presumably is why she was mentioned in the Epstein files. Then, forgetting it was a bipartisan event, Trump ridiculed people of faith who voted for Democrats. All in all, it was a banner day for prayer, and everyone involved left the hotel ballroom confident the cause of prayer had been advanced.

As rich a spiritual event as the National Day of Prayer breakfast was, I can’t help but wonder why Billy Graham, back in 1952, thought it a good idea to pray to a man who told his followers, “when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret...” Then again, religion can be a mysterious undertaking and maybe back in 1952 Jesus changed his mind and told Billy Graham to go ahead and rent out a hotel ballroom, fill it with big shots, invite the press, and have at it.

It turns out his son, Franklin Graham, who usually attends the National Day of Prayer Breakfast, didn’t attend the most recent one. I think he and God might be on the outs since this past November when Graham said, “The Epstein files are nothing compared to God’s files.” I had no idea God, as Graham seems to suggest, is an even bigger pedophile than Jeffrey Epstein and I think Franklin Graham needs to tell us what he knows and when he knew it.

As annoying as all these things are, what bothers me most is that the prayer breakfast was held on February 5th, my birthday, and I would have happily traveled to Washington D.C. to speak to those folks. There are things I’ve been wanting to say to Donald Trump and the Southern Baptists for some years now and it would have saved me a lot of trouble to only have to say it once, when they were all together. Since they didn’t afford me the opportunity, I’ll say it now. Do us all a favor and go into your closets, close the doors, and shut your pieholes. Leave the running of the country to those of us who still believe in the Constitution. Can I get an Amen!

Philip Gulley is the author of the popular Harmony series and Unlearning God: How Unbelieving Helped Me Believe.

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Harris eventually withdrew his support for the book, apologized for the harm it had caused young women, kissed the ministry and his wife goodbye, and is now a champion of gay rights. That same publisher fired me when I came out of the closet as a universalist, which they claimed violated the morals clause tucked away in my publishing contract. Only in Evangelical Christianity is it considered a breach of morality to say God loves everyone.

I told Josh Harris that asking young people on the cusp of sexual maturity to defy 300,000 years of evolutional biology wouldn’t work, but it’s hard to stop something when you’re making a boatload of money doing it. As for nonsensical, it seems absurd to use the words “purity” and “evangelical” in the same sentence, given the Evangelical’s embrace of Donald Trump, an adjudicated rapist, a serial adulterer, and a sexual assaulter of children. Then again, purity for the Evangelicals was never about integrity, but control. More specifically, men wishing to rule women, dominate their bodies, and narrow their opportunities. Only religion can keep half the world’s population under its thumb and sound virtuous while doing it. I weep to think of all the women who were forced to dim their light, hide their gifts, and still their voices, then made to feel guilty when, weary of oppression, they rose to their feet in protest.

Last week, I wrote about Donald Trump’s illegally parlaying his presidency into great wealth, but failed to mention another group hitting it big in the MAGA world—the plastic surgeons plumping lips, enlarging breasts, narrowing waists, smoothing wrinkles, and otherwise conditioning women to believe their only value is their sexual allure. Trump, and the Evangelicals who support him, have made their contempt for women all too clear. They are objects, used at the whim and pleasure of men; objects to be grabbed, abused, and assaulted. We’ll tolerate no more pious pronouncements from these men about complementarianism, about their God-ordained role, which is short-hand language for keeping women in their right and proper place.

It was no surprise that Trump’s Supreme Court appointees stripped women of their reproductive rights, for nothing is more intrinsic to freedom than a woman’s right to decide whether she will bear a child. Having won control of women’s bodies, MAGA’s will not stop until they also control their minds. Just this week, a young woman in Grand Rapids was arrested by two male police officers for peacefully protesting Donald Trump’s illegal invasion of Venezuela. First, they regulate their wombs, then their words, all without a peep of protest from the Evangelicals who claim to be the protectors of women.

If you’re a woman attending a church that allows you in the nursery but not in the pulpit, if you can serve as a cook but not as an elder, if you are praised for staying home with the children but not for working as a scientist unlocking the mysteries of the universe, you have joined a community that fears your potential, rejects your humanity, and silences your voice. No matter how much they claim to love you, no matter how many games they have for your children, no matter how many Bible verses they cite justifying their sexism, you are not loved for who you are but for what you offer—your unquestioning allegiance to a system whose foot is on your neck and will remain there until you throw it off and rise triumphantly to your feet.

Philip Gulley is the author of the popular Harmony series and Unlearning God: How Unbelieving Helped Me Believe.

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Donald Trump used a Bible when he was sworn in, held by his wife, but following the advice of several theologians didn’t touch the Bible while repeating the oath of office, lest he be struck dead by God, who you’ll recall smote Uzzah for touching the Ark of the Covenant. I don’t believe God intervenes in time and space to smite or save, but if Trump had touched the Bible and burst into flames, I would have happily reconsidered my beliefs.

While the president isn’t required by law to place his hand on the Bible, it’s been the customary practice since George Washington did in 1789. I think the world of George Washington, but he blew it on this one. Had he known millions of American would eventually use their Bibles to gut our democracy, I am confident he would have kept his Bible at arm’s length. Thomas Jefferson realized what Washington didn’t, so didn’t use a Bible, nor any other book. Our sixth president, John Quincy Adams, took his oath on a book of law. Calvin Coolidge, Warren G. Harding’s vice president, was back home in Vermont when Harding died, so was sworn in by his father, a notary public descended from the Puritans, who refused to imbue any object with a reverence meant only for God, so left out the Bible bit. Richard Nixon and Donald Trump used two Bibles, from which we can only conclude that the more Bibles a president poses with, the more likely he is to violate its commandments.

If you’re a frequent reader, you know I entertain fantasies of being elected to the presidency. Should that happy day arrive, I will place my hand squarely on the Constitution, the very document I am vowing to preserve, protect, and defend. I surely can’t be the first American to note the irony of placing one’s hand on a Bible while swearing fealty to a document that forbids the government establishment of a religion. Yet the tradition persists, in the vain hope it will cause God to smile favorably on our nation. But I’ve noticed those who champion this practice seldom support the true causes of national greatness─the empowerment of women, public education of the young, progressive taxation, and generous pay. Instead, they believe certain gestures and words, like incantations, will cause God to bless us. Like all superstitions, their beliefs require the suspension of common sense. Worse yet, they reduce our religious texts to good luck charms, employing them as shibboleths to move the mind of God.

One only needs to witness the degradation of democracies at the hands of theocrats to realize the dangers posed by the union of religion and government. There are six theocracies in the world—Iran, Afghanistan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Mauritania and Vatican City, and I wouldn’t live in any of them if you gave me a free house. I like speaking my mind, which in five of those countries can result in decapitation, and in the sixth nation a rap on the knuckles by an ancient nun, so no thank you.

There is a picture making the rounds, taken in Tehran, Iran in the mid-1970s, of three young women dressed in Western attire, walking down a street on their way to school, smiling, laughing and free. It could have been taken in Paris, London, or New York City. Another photo shows three women walking the same street a decade later clad head to toe in heavy, black cloth, only their eyes exposed. This, my friends, is what happens when ignorant and superstitious men, believing they speak for God, assume power. Mark my words, if it would benefit Donald Trump even the slightest bit, if it would extend his power or increase his wealth one iota, he would happily enlist such revolting men to assist him, and indeed already has. Pete Hegseth attends a church whose pastor doesn’t believe women should vote. Michael Huckabee, who daily prays for Armageddon, is Trump’s point man in the world’s most volatile region. Russell Vought, the architect of Project 2025, sits in the White House, dismembering in months what took our ancestors centuries to build. Less well known, but every bit as dangerous, are the millions of Christian Nationalists who’ve conflated God and country, who won’t rest easy until every American believes as they believe.

There are myths, long in the building, we must dismantle for America to flourish. Chief among them is the antiquated belief that God is committed to our nation and ours alone. In exchange for God’s singular devotion, we must demonstrate our piety, swearing on Bibles, displaying the Ten Commandments in school rooms, beginning our legislative sessions with prayers, and electing to office the most backward and superstitious among us, which is why I was encouraged by the election of Zohran Mamdani. If only he had rested his hand on the Constitution and not the Quran, my joy would have been complete.

Philip Gulley is the author of the popular Harmony series and Unlearning God: How Unbelieving Helped Me Believe.

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My wife has fall break this week, so we will be traveling to visit our new grand twins. I will be holding them instead of writing, but I’ll be back in the saddle next Monday. In the meantime, enjoy this essay about participating in the No Kings Rally this past weekend.

Please don’t hesitate to share it on your social media platforms, so we can generate support for our efforts to save democracy. Thank you.

Phil

I had an unexpected bill this week, so you can imagine my relief after being paid to attend the No-Kings March in Plainfield, Indiana this past weekend. To be clear, I haven’t been paid yet, but I have it on good authority (Donald Trump, Fox News, and Alex Jones) that George Soros will be sending me a check any day now. I was only able to parade for an hour, because I had an afternoon wedding to conduct (Congratulations, Josh and Meg!), so I won’t be receiving as much money as the 20 people from our Quaker meeting who marched the whole two hours, but every little bit helps. Mr. Soros, thank you in advance for your generosity. And thank you, Donald Trump, Fox News, and Alex Jones, for telling me about this job opportunity. It was a lot of fun, and I met some fantastic people of all ages.

There were a few folks protesting the protesters; two men holding a cardboard box that read “Trump 2028.” A teacher at heart, I stopped to tell them about the 22nd Amendment, which reads, in part, “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice...” They told me Donald Trump had been elected in 2020 but cheated out of a term because of a rigged election. If that were true, I explained, then Donald Trump has been elected three times to the Presidency─2016, 2020, and 2024─and is therefore in violation of the Constitution and should be removed from office. I told them not to be discouraged because John F. Kennedy, Jr. would be taking his place, which seemed to mollify them. When I mentioned Elvis Presley would become the next Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, they were positively giddy.

I didn’t count how many people attended the Plainfield rally but have since heard the numbers 750-900 bandied about. I don’t think that included the lady carrying an inflatable penguin, holding a sign that read, “The only king we want is the emperor penguin.” (Great costume, Linda!) The No Kings folks estimate 7,000,000 people marched nationwide. The political scientist, Erica Chenoweth, says it has historically taken 3.5% percent of a nation’s population to peacefully overthrow an oppressive regime, which means we’re well on our way to showing Donald Trump the door. A tattletale in the White House ratted out Trump, saying he watched the marches on television and was shaking with anger and fear, which means Trump is starting to realize what the rest of us know in our hearts, that the tipping point is drawing near.

If the Republicans were to counter the No Kings March with one of their own, it would look like the Shriners had come to town─a handful of fat, old, white guys zipping up and down Main Street on minibikes, occasionally crashing into one another, an apt metaphor for Republican leadership. Say what you will about Antifa, we sure know how to draw a crowd.

Meanwhile, Trump’s rural support has struck an iceberg and is sinking fast. Rural hospitals are closing because of Medicaid cuts and health insurance rates are threatening to double because of the Republican’s refusal to fund the Affordable Healthcare Act. With farmers underwater from the tariff war, unable to sell their soybeans, a shuttered Department of Agriculture will be unable to process farm subsidies, if and when they’re approved. With the farmers stroking out from financial worries, they’ll be two hours from the nearest hospital, thanks to Donald Trump. Come 2026, Republican losses in rural and red states will be staggering.

Then there’s the little matter of the Epstein files. We have a Republican Speaker of the House refusing to swear-in a duly elected representative, knowing the Democrats will vote to release the files the moment she assumes office. The Republican’s reluctance to be forthcoming indicates Trump’s complicity in the most heinous crime an adult can commit—the sexual assault of a child. To be fair, the Democrat’s refusal to do the same when they had the chance might also mean high-placed Democrat officials appear on Epstein’s list. But justice demands the list be opened, the names be named, the accused charged, tried, and if found guilty, imprisoned, no matter their status or power. If Bill Clinton and Donald Trump are found guilty, let them share a cell.

Though we are poles apart politically, I have more in common with those two Trump supporters holding the cardboard sign than I do with the oligarchs running the show. Like those men, I am frustrated with preening leaders who’ve monetized their positions. Like those men, I am tired of watching the rich eat cake while everyone else fights for crumbs. For far too long, far too many of those entrusted to serve our nation have served themselves instead. Why those two men think a billionaire grifter is the solution to this problem is beyond me. I do know they are not my enemies. They are men who love our nation as much as me, though we wield the tools of democracy differently. What they don’t realize yet will soon occur to them, that when Donald Trump pictures himself dressed as a king flying an airplane, releasing bags of s**t on American marchers, the s**t will hit them too.

My father was too young to fight in World War II, my grandfather too old. But I’ve pastored dozens of veterans from that horrible war, all of whom knew they were fighting fascism. When Republicans call people like me Antifa, as if that were a bad thing, they do not realize they are paying me the highest kind of compliment. They are placing me in the same camp with men whose sacrifice and bravery I deeply admire. Were they still alive, I know on whose side they would march.

Philip Gulley is the author of the popular Harmony series and Unlearning God: How Unbelieving Helped Me Believe.

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Being a real American, I try to find the good in every situation, so must say I’m intrigued with the idea of Hegseth ordering our general officers to attend his lecture. I’ve decided I’m going to try that at my Quaker meeting. I don’t have an administrative assistant to send letters to the two hundred or so Quakers in our meeting, so I’ll have to send an email, even though I know some of them will claim they never saw it. Don’t let our reputation for probity fool you. If a Quaker doesn’t want to do something, they’re not above “not seeing” the invitation. Twice a year, we have Clean-Up Days at our meetinghouse, and it’s amazing how many people never see or hear the announcement.

Anyway, back to my plan. Some of the Quakers in my meeting have gone a bit soft and need to be reminded what Quakerism is all about. Since our beginnings in 1649, we’ve done a wonderful job making other Christians feel inferior, but these days more Quakers are interested in ecumenism than they are in reminding other Christians that we’re better than them. This, of course, doesn’t bode well for our religion. What good is a religion if it doesn’t believe in its own superiority? So this Tuesday, when Hegseth and the generals are at the Marine base in Quantico, Virginia, I’ll be speaking to the Quakers at my meetinghouse to remind them that we’re the greatest, most powerful, most Godly religion in the world, and it’s high time we started acting like it. No more of this nonsense about the “light of God in all people.” No more saying nice things about Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus. No more cooperating with the Episcopal food pantry. Several years ago, a church down the road was vandalized and we sent them money. We’ll be asking for that money back, with interest. From now on, if someone isn’t for us, they’re against us.

The only problem I see with this plan is that I don’t have anyone else to blame for our lack of religious diligence. I’ve been here 26 years, but back when they hired me, I was liberal, so might have encouraged their open-mindedness and cross-cultural efforts. You better believe I won’t make that mistake again. No wonder our church isn’t growing by leaps and bounds. Who wants to attend a church that doesn’t stand up for itself?

Say what you will about Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth, at least they love America more than anyone else, which they’ve been telling us for years, but we were ignoring the emails. While we’re at it, let’s stop this No-Kings nonsense. If real Americans want a king, let us have one. Let’s face it, real Quakers want a pope, and coincidentally, I now realize God wants me for the job. He told me so himself yesterday when I was polishing my crown.

Since I’ll be giving a speech of my own, I won’t be able to watch Hegseth’s speech, but I’m confident it will displace the Gettysburg Address as the finest speech ever delivered on American soil. How could it not? It’s Pete Hegseth, after all, and have you seen his hair? I hope the generals clap as loud and long as they’re supposed to, just like the generals in North Korea, so that Pete Hegseth and Donald Trump know how much they are loved.

Philip Gulley is the author of the popular Harmony series and Unlearning God: How Unbelieving Helped Me Believe.

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I would have preferred Charlie Kirk live his three score and ten. I would have preferred he realize the damage his words had done, apologized for them, and worked to unify our nation, not divide it. That will never happen now. Instead, his every utterance will be remembered, celebrated, and sanctified by his followers. His more odious quotes will take on the weight and authority of Scripture for some. It is already happening, which doesn’t alter the fact that they are unworthy of permanence or veneration.

Since I don’t have a blood fetish, I didn’t go in search of video clips showing his death. I did however see several pictures of the audience cheering him on moments before he died. They were predominantly young, male, and white. This was on a college campus in Utah, after all, which among all the states has one of the lowest percentages of Black citizens. This was prime territory for Kirk, who had said, among other things, “If I see a Black pilot, I'm going to be like, 'Boy, I hope he's qualified.” Kirk referred to Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson as an "affirmative action pick" who "did not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously". Never mind that Kirk dropped out of the community college he attended while Jackson graduated from Harvard University, magna cum laude, then went on to attend Harvard Law School, graduating in 1996 with a Juris Doctor, cum laude.

America has had its share of racists and Charlie Kirk was no different than any of them, except that his rise to prominence paralleled the ascendency of Donald Trump, the most bigoted president of the past hundred years. Their confluence formed the perfect storm of prejudice and hatred. In short, I held little affection for the man and his message while he lived and see no need to reconsider my opinion in his death. In life, he was not a saint; in death, he is not a martyr. He is, unfortunately, a textbook example of oblivious privilege, monetized cruelty, and unprincipled greed.

Most of all, I loathe Kirk’s habit of convincing young, white, males that their lack of success was the fault of women and racial minorities, who because of their gender and race deprived deserving white males of the opportunities due them. Rejected for entrance into West Point, he blamed unnamed minority cadets who allegedly took his spot. His go-to response to every setback and failure, which we all experience, was to blame the nearest woman, Black, or immigrant. In so doing, he taught millions of young white males to do the same.

Had I been rejected from West Point, I would have assumed it was because I graduated 77th out of 78 in the Class of 79. I would not have laid the blame on an anonymous “other.” I would have suspected the deficiency was mine, and mine alone. But now, thanks in no small part to Charlie Kirk, a generation of young males have been given the convenient excuse to blame their difficulties on those who don’t look like them, pee like them, or believe like them.

At the time of his death, Charlie Kirk was pulling in millions of dollars a year as a speaker, podcaster, and the executive director of Turning Point USA. To listen to his long list of grievances, one would have thought he was living in a tent under a bridge. I don’t know how the alleged DEI cadet who took his place at West Point fared, but I bet they’re not as wealthy as Charlie Kirk, who earned $50,000 to $100,000 for a typical appearance, where he laid all our nation’s ills at the feet of gays, trans folk, women, and racial minorities.

A woman I know wrote on her Facebook page that Charlie Kirk was killed while engaged in the ministry God had called him to. I grew up with this woman, and in every other regard she is a kind and lovely person, but now is a cultist, and like all cultists has been conditioned to believe absurdities. In the months ahead, we will see efforts made to enshrine Kirk’s words and worldview. Somewhere a statue or memorial will be built, and people will flock to see it. But his admirers are glorifying what should never be glorified—falsehoods, hatred, chauvinism, all masquerading as gospel truth. Others will read his words, now preserved for posterity, and find nothing in them meriting celebration or elevation.

Charlie Kirk did one thing well. He succeeded in turning millions of people against other people who would never hurt them. It wasn’t a trans person who killed Charlie Kirk. It wasn’t an immigrant, or a Black man, or a liberated woman. It was someone so like Kirk himself, so casually violent, so full of entitlement, that the death of those with whom he disagreed seemed a reasonable option. It was Kirk, after all, who called the execution of gay people "God's perfect law when it comes to sexual matters.” It appears his alleged assassin had persuaded himself the death of Kirk was also, in some warped and twisted way, a final solution.

It is believed by some that Charlie Kirk aspired to the presidency. At one time, his rhetoric would have sunk his chances, but after Trump I now realize bigotry is no barrier to public office. In too many circles, it is mandatory. It took Trump mere minutes to blame Kirk’s death on the “radical left,” thirty-three hours before the alleged killer had been identified and captured. This was the political legacy Charlie Kirk hoped to build upon. The true legacy of Charlie Kirk isn’t the millions of dollars he earned, but the millions of people he persuaded that evil was good, hate was acceptable, and that our struggles were always the fault of someone else and never ourselves.

Philip Gulley is the author of the popular Harmony series and Unlearning God: How Unbelieving Helped Me Believe.

Discover my books, stories, and more by visiting Books by Philip Gulley

Contact Philip directly at philiphgulley@gmail.com

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We then noticed bad theology tended to be rooted in inaccurate perceptions of God, so we wrote a book called If God Is Love. To be honest, Jim wrote most of that one. I was still busy checking my mail for bombs and moving from one undisclosed location to another. By then Jim’s worldview was shifting toward agnosticism, a common experience for those who spend a lot of time with me, so he declined to write a third book. Forging alone in the literary wilderness, I wrote If the Church Were Christian, honking off the few remaining evangelicals who didn’t already hate me.

I was growing fond of what my publisher began to call the If series, though had not yet figured out the next logical book in the series. Then came Donald Trump and his pledge to make America great again. In case you weren’t aware, he stole the line from Ronald Reagan. In all his 79 years, Donald Trump has never had an original thought. He latches on to other people’s ideas and claims them as his own. This isn’t necessarily wrong, except when the person you steal them from is a bald-headed Nazi named Steven Miller.

This is when I decided to write a book called If America Were Great: Our Common Quest for a More Perfect Union, a point-by-point refutation of Trump’s horrific vision for America. My agent proposed the project to HarperCollins, my long-time publisher, who, despite the strong sales of the If series, declined to publish it, saying it was inconsistent with their publishing priorities. Bear in mind, gentle reader, that the owner of Harper Collins was one Rupert Murdoch, the owner of Fox News and one of the more dangerous immigrants to the United States in the past fifty years, right up there with Elon Musk.

I defined ten principles that make for national greatness. I’m sure there are others I didn’t include, though these seemed to me to be the most pertinent ones in our current culture. Here they are:

If America were great, racial and gender disparities would be acknowledged and addressed.

If America were great, those who can, would help those who can’t, while holding accountable those who won’t.

If America were great, ethical alliances, commitments, and promises would be made and honored.

If America were great, it would be defined by its character, not its borders.

If America were great, noble principles would become national priorities.

If America were great, its citizens would live fully in the present and prepare wisely for the future.

If America were great, its citizens would pursue happiness without infringing upon the happiness of others.

If America were great, its leaders would nurture cultures and climates of peace.

If America were great, its leadership would be representative of its populace.

In the weeks ahead, I’ll be reflecting on these principles. Feel free to comment as you feel led.

Now, a word about Charlie Kirk. I was taught to never speak ill of the dead until they’ve been properly interred. I’ve written an essay about Kirk’s life and work, and will post it next Monday, September 22nd, following his funeral on the 21st of September.

Philip Gulley is the author of the popular Harmony series and Unlearning God: How Unbelieving Helped Me Believe.

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When my son warned me about turning into an angry old man, I thought of that man immediately and grimaced. I don’t want to be that man, so I gave my son’s remark the consideration it deserved. But I don’t think I’m at risk of becoming the kind of angry old man my son had in mind. Children cut across our backyard on the way to the bus stop, ride their bicycles up and down our sidewalk and driveway, play in our screenhouse, and it doesn’t bother me a bit. I enjoy hearing their voices and having them around. I’m not angry at “uppity Blacks” or “difficult women,” or “no-good teenagers,” or “lazy Mexicans.” Demanding equal rights doesn’t make one uppity or difficult. No one is no good by virtue of their age. And if Mexicans are lazy, why does our economy absolutely depend upon their diligence?

In one regard, my son is right. I am major-league pissed these days, but not at kids, not at life, not at the world. I am angry with the white racists who have co-opted the church in America, manipulated the ballot box to gain and secure political power, who have turned a blind eye to the fascism of Donald Trump, who claim to love Jesus while disregarding everything he said or taught, who create economic systems that rob others of opportunity, who stockpile guns to fight government abuses, but cheer on the modern Nazis who imprison and deport people of color without due process, who wave the flag and sing the anthem and praise America, all while committing the most un-American acts this nation has seen since slavery. Damn right, I’m angry. And you should be too.

Yes, I’m angry, and I will remain angry until enough Americans recognize the vile immorality of the Trump Crime Syndicate and demand the impeachment of every single MAGA officeholder. They have proven, by their compliance with lawlessness, that they are unfit for office. On the heels of World War II, Germany instituted a policy of denazification, meant to rid its political ranks of Nazis. I will remain angry until a similar policy of “demagafication” is conducted in this nation. I can forgive those naïve enough to support Donald Trump’s 2016 candidacy. But how anyone who claims to love America could support him after his January 6th attack on our nation has neither my sympathy nor respect. If any group should be stripped of their right to vote, it should be them, for they have proven they have little regard for democracy, so should not have a say in it until they have renounced Trump and his traitorous ways.

I’ve been in religious circles long enough to know someone reading this will chide me, saying anger isn’t a useful emotion. These are the same kind of soft-brained people who scolded Jesus for his contempt for Herod, who thought overturning tables was a bridge too far, who even today call themselves Christians one moment and pull the lever for Trump in the next. Why are they not angry when the world’s richest man cuts food and health assistance to the world’s poorest children? Why are they not angry that twenty-five women credibly accused Donald Trump of rape and sexual assault? Why are they not angry that American farmers have nowhere to sell their grain and might lose their farms? Why are they not angry that non-violent offenders are plucked from the street and deported without cause or warrant to countries they’ve never known? Don’t tell me anger isn’t a useful emotion. When enough people become angry, this tyranny will stop. Trump’s abuses of power are only magnified by our docility.

Most of all, I am angry at my peers—the Baby Boomers. If ever there were an American generation who prospered from the sacrifice and generosity of previous generations, it was us. Excellent public schools, superior health care, generous wages supporting a broad middle-class, a progressive tax system funding our economic and intellectual ascendancy. Now we who have received so much are bequeathing so little to our children and grandchildren. A generation weaned on John F. Kennedy’s clarion call for sacrifice and service, has fully succumbed to Ronald Reagan’s “the government is the enemy” mantra. Because Reagan smiled and joked and waved a flag, we came to despise and forsake the very programs that fueled our rise. If there has been a more reckless and selfish generation, I am not aware of it.

You’re damn right this pastor is angry, and I will stay angry until these horrible wrongs are righted.

Philip Gulley is the author of the popular Harmony series and Unlearning God: How Unbelieving Helped Me Believe.

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Our daughter-in-law is bursting at the seams, expecting twins by the end of September, a boy and a girl, doubling our grandchild count from 2 to 4. When I mentioned their imminent arrival to a friend, she said, “How unfortunate. I wouldn’t want to bring a grandchild into this world.”

Since this is the only world currently inhabitable, I’m not sure which other world she has in mind. If we’re going to have children and grandchildren, we’ll have to have to have them in this world, and not some make-believe world in another place and time. This is it. Like it or not.

She blamed the world’s wretchedness on Donald Trump, which struck me as a United States-centric sentiment, the assumption that if things are bad here, the whole world is a mess. This likely stems from our curious habit of referring to the American president as the “leader of the free world,” which must surely annoy the other 95 democracies in the world. I can assure you that the citizens of Germany, England, Norway, and India don’t view Donald Trump as their leader. Many U.S. citizens don’t, including me. He may be the Current Occupant, but that doesn’t make him a leader.

I’ve lived through a dozen Current Occupants, have liked some better than others, but since becoming an adult I’ve not felt the need for any leader. I’m perfectly capable of leading myself, thank you very much, and if I lose my way, I can always depend upon my wife to set me on the right path.

A lot of Christians refer to themselves as followers of Jesus, which makes me suspicious, since they appear to be doing whatever they wish, then attributing their activities to God or some other person of the Trinity. I can’t count the times I’ve seen someone do something unkind or immoral, then claim God told them to do it. To hear them tell it, they talk with God like I talk with my neighbor Bill. I’ve known Bill since the first grade, a lot longer than I’ve known God, but I’d no more expect Bill to lead me than I would expect God to. They both have more important things to do, like plumbing and saving America from Donald Trump.

The same woman who told me she wouldn’t bring a child or grandchild into this world, then told me things will be better when a Democrat is leading us, a sentiment with which I disagree. This world will be better when each of us stops depending on others to provide our moral direction. All those folks who voted for Trump because they’d been told the Democrats were sexually abusing children in the basement of a Washington D.C. pizza parlor, are now awakening to the realization that the abuse was happening, not in a pizza parlor, but on Epstein’s island hideaway and that Donald Trump might have been right in the thick of it. So much for moral leadership.

To be fair, Bill Clinton was a whole lot friendlier with Jeffrey Epstein than any decent person should have been, which doesn’t speak well of Democratic leadership either, and serves to prove my point that unless one’s morality is rooted in the self, it is vulnerable to corruption. I didn’t become a Christian because I needed Jesus to do for me what I should do for myself. I became a Christian, and remain one, because Jesus intrigues me. So much so, that if Jesus hadn’t existed, I might well have invented someone just like him. As a writer, I’ve invented lots of people, many of whom seem as real to me as Jesus, if not more. While I admire Jesus, I also admire the Dali Lama, Abraham Lincoln, Rosa Parks, and Desmond Tutu, who once endorsed a book of mine, something I could never persuade Jesus to do.

If you lack an interior compass, no external compass will suffice. Mature adults don’t expect a book, a church, a priest, or president to provide their moral bearings. When one assumes responsibility for the shape of one’s world, there is never a bad time to welcome new life. I’ll keep you posted on those twins.

Philip Gulley is the author of the popular Harmony series and Unlearning God: How Unbelieving Helped Me Believe.

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But it was still poison. He relegated women to the bedroom and kitchen, gays and lesbians to hell, home-schooled children to lives of social isolation and ignorance, religious hucksters and fundamentalists to the House, Senate, and Oval Office, and charlatans to the pulpit. In contradiction to every virtue he espoused, he endorsed Donald Trump for the Presidency, then served on his Evangelical Executive Advisory Board, alongside known crooks, swindlers, and cheats.

Am I sad he is dead? No. I have not cried a tear, nor do I intend to. Am I sad he lived? Yes. I weep for what his life could have been, the good it could have accomplished. I weep because the impulse of decency that might have first motivated his ministry was obviously supplanted by a lust for power, prestige, and wealth. He might have started with Jesus, but he died with Donald Trump. He was a modern Judas, trading his principles for silver, like so many others in Trump’s orbit. I weep for the gay youth rejected by their parents because of Dobson. I weep for the women who never reached their potential because James Dobson wouldn’t permit it. I weep for the gullible who earnestly believed James Dobson spoke for God and heeded his counsel. I weep for the nation that elevated this man, made his biases into law, and is now cursed with a president who feigns decency, though is anything but.

James Dobson was a sterling example of the depravity possible when someone claims to know the mind of God. Underneath his soft and polished voice was a hard and mean worldview, invariably condemning, excluding, and demonizing those who didn’t look like him, pray like him, and think like him.

I did not mourn the death of Jerry Falwell. I did not mourn the death of Pat Robertson. Nor do I mourn the death of James Dobson. I mourn only the deaths of decency and democracy these prophets of doom hastened with their pinched and hateful views.

Philip Gulley is the author of the popular Harmony series and Unlearning God: How Unbelieving Helped Me Believe.

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In the past, an American President violating the law would be held accountable by the United States Attorney General, but with AG Pam Bondi having sold her soul to the Orange Devil, and the majority leaders of the House and Senate having done the same, it’s now up to the National Park Service to prohibit Donald Trump from desecrating the White House, which falls under their stewardship and oversight as a national park. It is, after all, America’s house, not his. He’s a renter. We’re the landlords.

Our farm shares a mile-long border with the Hoosier National Forest. The officers in charge have little tolerance for anything that would harm the forest’s health. I’ve seen out-of-season hunters arrested, illegal timber cutters cited and fined, polluters hounded to the gates of hell and brought to justice. But Donald Trump can pave over the national treasure that was the Rose Garden, tack on a 90,000 square foot ball room onto the East Wing, which, if past is prologue, will be clad in vinyl siding, deck out the Oval Office in gold-painted tchotchkes from a Big Lots discount table, install immense American flags befitting a car dealership, and no one is stopping him. Having failed to name the Kennedy Center after his gold-digging wife, and with the Trump Hotel in the nation’s capital no more, he is determined to attach his name to something in Washington D.C. that will outlive however many pitiful years he has left, and dear Jesus, may they be few.

What’s next? A Walmart in Lafayette Park? A blinking cross on the White House roof? Replacing Blair House with a McDonald’s? A trailer park on the South Lawn? A Nazi addition to the Smithsonian? A statue of Putin on the National Mall? It is a tasteless and gaudy presidency, led by a tasteless and gaudy man.

How ironic that the man who claims to be the nation’s greatest builder has nothing of beauty to show for his efforts. Not one federal initiative to assist the poor and powerless. Not one word of hope to careworn citizens. Not one soaring speech to unite a nation. Not one moment of courage in the presence of tyranny, only ugliness and manipulation. Not one word of condemnation for the world’s bullies. Expertise had been replaced with extremism in this trinket-based presidency. Top-secret emails sent to reporters, official papers left in a hotel business center in Alaska, the pandemic response team dismantled, the National Weather Service gutted, FEMA replaced with thoughts and prayers, the swift dismemberment of a democracy nearly 250 years in the making.

Through it all, Trump struts, longing for an elegance he will never attain, since elegance has nothing to do with wealth, but with dignity, a trait he has never possessed. All the golden trinkets in the world cannot confer it, but still he tries. Golden medallions, golden furniture, golden toilets, golden chandeliers, golden watches, golden vases, even golden hair, now faded to orange. Those who surround him, currying his favor, will also fade, in power today, in disgrace tomorrow. The word Trumpian will enter our lexicon, synonymous with vulgarity. Watch and see. Just as Benedict Arnold means treason, so the name of Trump will mean tasteless. Abraham Lincoln was born impoverished but cloaked himself in dignity. Trump was born rich but swathes himself in golden raiment, hiding his moral rot.

Philip Gulley is the author of the popular Harmony series and Unlearning God: How Unbelieving Helped Me Believe.

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Along came Jimmy Carter, who promised never to lie but maybe would have won a second term if he had left some things unsaid. Admitting that he lusted after women cost him the Evangelical vote, who instead, in the words of Trump sycophant Pastor Robert Jeffress, “chose to support a twice-married Hollywood actor who was a known womanizer in Hollywood.” Not that Jeffress objected to that. He has a remarkable knack for overlooking the sexual shenanigans of Republican presidents so long as they swing by First Baptist Dallas every four years and pat his toady little head. When I began writing, I was published by the same publisher as Robert Jeffress and once spent a day with him at a book convention. It ranks as one of the most unpleasant days of my life, which includes four colonoscopy prep days and a Justin Bieber concert.

By the time Ronald Reagan had served two terms, the United States was starting to annoy me. It had put on fifty extra pounds, was on its second wife, had skipped a few child support payments, and was known to fly an American flag from the bed of its pickup while looping the courthouse square. In other words, America was becoming sort of an a*****e.

George H.W. Bush restored a measure of dignity to the nation, I liked the thousand points of light, but then he tried to balance the budget by raising taxes on the top earners, which went over like a Baby Ruth in a swimming pool, and he was denounced as a closet liberal and sent packing to Texas, as if losing the election weren’t punishment enough. I’m looking for a bumper sticker that reads, “Indiana: At Least We’re Not Texas.”

After Bush I, Bill Clinton moved into the White House for two terms, bringing his wife, a capable, intelligent woman, which terrified Rush Limbaugh, who spent the next 28 years lying about her, and for his efforts was awarded America’s highest civilian award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which now has all the prestige of a Cracker Jack prize. Bill Clinton, regularly touted as a genius, proved to be little more than a trailer park Lothario by having sex with an intern during a government shutdown. Our nation added another twenty-five pounds and began wearing sweatpants on airplane trips.

After Clinton, came George Bush Jr., who, lacking his father’s intelligence, ignored rumors of a terrorist attack on New York City, then strutted, smirked, started illegal wars, in the process tanking the world’s greatest economy. But now, compared to Donald Trump he seems positively Lincolnesque. Nevertheless, America put on another thirty pounds during his presidency, began wearing wife-beater t-shirts, hit on his daughter-in-law, and watched every episode of Duck Dynasty. When traveling overseas, I began introducing myself as a Canadian.

Then came Barack Obama and it felt like 1945 all over again. We had kicked the Nazi’s butts, saved the world from Trump’s man-crush, Adolph, and could once again hold our heads high. We dropped a hundred pounds, worked out at the gym, read books, listened to opera, played nice, and awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Bob Dylan and Loretta Lynn, national treasures from working stiff families. It felt good to be an American.

Then the proverbial excrement hit the ventilator. Donald Trump, the King of Comb-Overs, moved into the White House. Just like that, we put on another hundred pounds, pounded down Pabst Blue Ribbon, while urging our daughter to wear Daisy Dukes. He told three billion lies in four years, was impeached twice, and made me want to take long showers to remove the stink. It was 1920 all over again, and the Grand Wizard of the KKK was holding court. He lost the election, so staged a coup, for which he should have been jailed but wasn’t, since he was rich and white. I flew my flag upside-down.

Joe Biden followed, and on his first week in office took his dogs for a walk on the White House lawn, where they went mad and bit people. Still, it was such a vast improvement over Trump, no one seemed to mind, not even the people who’d been bitten. He told people not to drink bleach, urged them to get vaccinated, and, what do you know, people stopped dying of Covid, and our economy soared to record heights. But then, like too many old, white guys, he got to thinking the world couldn’t live without him, so ran again and Trump returned, like diarrhea after a county fair corndog, and here we are, making America Great Again, by systematically destroying everything and everyone that once made us great.

So, you’ll forgive me for not flying my flag this past Fourth of July. What America is, and what she’s quickly becoming, is nothing I want to applaud. It’s like celebrating your marriage to an arrogant, gone-to-seed jock. There aren’t enough good memories to make up for the misery. Of course, that could change. If every person who voted for and enabled this National Embarrassment apologized to every person they deported without due process, every child they made cry, and every family they separated, that would be a good start. Then, if they storm the White House, grab Donny and his Fox News Cabinet, and pitches them in the Potomac, I will once again believe in American greatness. But until that happens, let’s knock off the number one talk. Those days are gone.

Philip Gulley is the author of the popular Harmony series and Unlearning God: How Unbelieving Helped Me Believe.

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Similarly, every year the state of California sends $83 billion more dollars to the federal government than it receives in return. That same federal government, led by Donald Trump, is abusing the citizens of California, stifling their right to dissent, sending National Guard units to California without the governor’s consent, and now threatening to arrest the Mayor of Los Angeles and California’s governor, Gavin Newsom. Tom Homan, the director of ICE, denied threatening Newsom with arrest, but video clips show him doing just that. Lying is a prerequisite to work in the Trump Administration and Homan can spin a yarn with the best of them.

Erwin Chemerinsky, one of the nation’s leading constitutional law scholars, said “for the federal government to take over the California National Guard, without the request of the governor, to put down protests is truly chilling.” In this age of ICE, “chilling” is an apt description.

Were I Governor Newsom, I would refuse to subsidize my own abuse. Unless and until the federal government stopped its violence against Californians, I would not send the thinnest dime to Washington D.C. That Donald Trump would send members of the United States military to tamp down protests borne of his own stupidity is not only illegal, but contemptible.

It is always interesting to see who cooperates with tyranny and who opposes it, but Americans are showing their true colors. The police officers, federal agents, and ragtag thugs conducting these warrantless arrests are deserving of contempt. Those who order them into service are not fit to lead and are earning the well-deserved sneer of history. Their Nuremberg claims of only following orders are indefensible. If I were doing what they were doing, I would also mask myself, not wanting my family, friends, and neighbors to see the depths to which I had sunk. Other Americans, the true ones, are rallying on our nation’s streets, determined to not go quietly into America’s dark night. Just remember that today’s burning police car is yesterday’s cask of tea in Boston Harbor. As for Tom Homan, America’s Chief Skinhead, I have read he is a faithful Catholic. While he might attend weekly Mass, he is no faithful Catholic. One does not awaken each morning, work hand in hand with Satan, then claim the name of Jesus. How the sacramental wine and bread must curdle in his mouth.

The day is fast approaching when we must decide whether we will fund an abusive and traitorous government. Since I began paying taxes at the age of 16, I have funded government initiatives I didn’t support. I did so because I believed the federal government did far more good than bad with my dollars. But the tipping point is close at hand. If other Americans wish to cheer on Donald Trump, let them foot the bill for his cruelties, I will not. There are a thousand ways to avoid federal taxes, and I will make it my life’s work to discover and employ every one of them.

In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson deployed the National Guard to Alabama to protect Selma marchers from brutal authorities. He did so without the permission of Governor George Wallace, a racist segregationist. On January 6th, 2021, when our nation’s future hung in the balance, Trump held the National Guard at bay, refusing to quell a traitorous insurrection. For the first time since 1965, the National Guard is being deployed not to protect our rights, but to curb them, not to defend the Constitution, but to muzzle it. Let it never be forgotten that in our lifetime, one president used the National Guard to safeguard our rights while Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans used the Guard to suppress them. Never forget. Never forget. Never forget.

Philip Gulley is the author of and the popular Harmony series and Unlearning God: How Unbelieving Helped Me Believe.

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There is no such thing as a Trump Administration. There is a Trump Syndicate, a crime family, a consortium of thugs, underlings, felons, and grifters, purporting to be public servants while carrying out a global campaign of theft, pilfering America’s treasury, peddling access to the Mobster-in-Chief, Donald Trump, while gutting the very agencies that would hold them accountable to the rule of law.

Theirs is a master class in fraud, unparalleled in American history. The foxes are guarding the henhouse, which by the end of his term will be gutted. A democracy almost 250 years in the making has been stripped bare in one bleak and wintry season. The collective effort of twelve generations of Americans has been decimated by Hair Hitler and his Brownshirts. This is what I grieve the most, that tens of millions of Americans voted for a man who’d made no secret of his disdain for decency and duty. All his life, he has been the poster child of decadence—greedy, grasping, uncaring, and corrupt. He has never had a friend, only servile bootlickers collecting the crumbs that slip through his tiny hands, selling their souls for thirty pieces of silver. They, like he, merit a Judas death—abandoned and ashamed—their names a curse on the lips of history.

He ventures from the White House only long enough to plunder, gathering jet planes and sweetheart deals from the sponsors of global terrorism, peddling his cryptocoins, favoring those who purchase them, tyrannizing those who don’t. Like all crime bosses, it is himself he is serving and no one else, so he will leave the presidency far richer than he entered it. His is a transactional presidency, our shared public treasure rummaged at fire-sale prices to his cronies.

Anyone who dares protest is called out on middle-of-the-night tweets—Bruce Springsteen, Taylor Swift, colleges, professors, foreign presidents with the audacity to stand against tyranny, Mexico, Canada, and liberals. What an honor it would be to be singled out for attack by Donald Trump, to be labeled an enemy of his brutish ignorance. If we are known by the company we keep, we are also known by the company we find so repulsive we would dedicate our lives to resisting it. If he is naming his enemies, number me among them. I detest everything about him and all he represents−fascism, meanness, ignorance, and cruelty.

Like all mob bosses, to remain in his good favor requires an envelope of cash slipped into his silken pocket. His goons rise each morning and go forth, strong-arming America, threatening, intimidating, collecting the daily take, promising safety to those who comply and ruination to those who refuse. Now we are separating the men from the boys, and shame on the boys, shame on those who buckle under, the law firms and tech bros, whose donations fund this Thief-of-State. With billions of dollars at their disposal, with teams of lawyers at their beck and call, they tremble in fear of this strutting bully and what he might tweet about them. Their spinelessness is not only appalling, but traitorous. A pox upon them all.

Washington and Lincoln have their memorials, but there will be no such marker for Trump. Should one be erected, it will be torn down by those who cannot bear to see such a man saluted. There won’t be enough tomatoes in the world to register history’s disgust, nor enough guards to safekeep his marker. He should enjoy the braying accolades he is receiving now, since his future will lack the faintest note of praise.

Philip Gulley is the author of and the popular Harmony series and Unlearning God: How Unbelieving Helped Me Believe.

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I am learning these days that things we think others should treasure, things like the Constitution and the rule of law and the Golden Rule, don’t matter nearly as much to others as we think they should, hence our present difficulties as we navigate this cultural divide. If you came here today hoping this Quaker had a secret recipe for reconciliation, you will leave disappointed. It’s been my experience that cultural divisions take just as long to heal as they did to form, that one doesn’t necessarily bridge divisions so much as survive them.

Many of us, in these past nine years, have experienced ruptures in our relationships. A man in my town, after seeing a Harris-Walz sign in my yard, texted to tell me he would never speak to me again. Included in his text was a racist, sexist meme of Kamala Harris. I have no wish to bridge my differences with that man. My life will be fine without him. Another man I know voted for Donald Trump because he is a lifelong Republican and voted reflexively, instinctively, for the Republican candidate. While I don’t think he is well-served by his political inflexibility, he also volunteers at a local homeless shelter and fosters stray dogs. Though we are poles apart politically, we remain friends.

There are differences we can bridge and there are wide, yawning divides we are not likely to bridge nor should we. I can break bread all day long with someone who believes government should be limited and non-intrusive, who believes traditional morality is a suitable guide for human behavior, who thinks unbridled capitalism is the finest economic system ever devised. My life is full of people who embrace traditional conservatism, and I get along fine with them, even though I believe governments necessarily grow more complex and involved as nations grow, even though I believe traditional mores have sometimes negatively impacted women and people of color, even though I believe economies are too complex and powerful to be steered by unchecked greed. But I do not believe those people who think differently are my enemies. Indeed, I consider some of them my dearest friends.

What I am not willing to do is build a bridge to those whose goals include the mistreatment of women, the maltreatment of people of color, the wholesale rejection of due process and the rule of law, the abuse of the poor by the rich, the idolatrous worship of tyrants and dictators, the abandonment of our neighbors and historic allies, the participation in sexual assaults, economic policies that rob others of their retirement and college funds, the pointless and gleeful cruelty in order to own the libs, the open warfare on public education, the denigration of veterans as “suckers” and “losers,” and the encouragement of a violence insurrection against a duly elected government. Those, for me, are bridges too far. If being a true American requires me to ignore those abuses, then I will move to Canada, thank you very much. There are some bridges I will happily cross and even build, and there are some bridges I intend never to cross.

Motive is everything. I have no desire to unite with misogynists, racists, and abusers who saw in Donald Trump a kindred spirit. I will share a country with them because no nation is absent such people, but I will not pretend to be indifferent to their moral defects, nor be silent about them. I am not indifferent. I am not Neville Chamberlain, so blinded by hope I cannot see what is abundantly clear--that some people in our world, some people in very high places, will do whatever they wish while everyone else suffers what they must. I will speak up, lest my silence convey approval.

I will be kind, but I will also be clear, that there are some bridges I will not cross, no matter who is on the other side beckoning me. No matter how nostalgic I am for our past relationship, no matter that they were my best friend in high school, or my second cousin, or even my sibling. If they stand on the other side of that bridge because of a lockstep devotion to a political party, unable to comprehend that the party of Lincoln no longer is, I can still greet them as friends. But if they stand on the other side of that bridge because they believe some races are inferior, because they believe their wealth makes them superior, because they believe they are first-class and others are not, because they prefer fascism over democracy, that is a chasm I am unwilling to cross.

I do not say this lightly or easily. When you grow up a Hoosier Quaker, steeped in the double traditions of Hoosier hospitality and “seeing that of God in every person” it is sobering to realize that some ideas and people merit inhospitality, merit our full-throated rejection. It is sobering to realize some people care nothing for goodness and light. A word of pastoral advice: do not spend your one precious life attempting to win over those persons diametrically opposed to the happiness and well-being of others. It will be a game to them, and a misery to you. Above all, avoid the trap of nostalgia. My wife is right. It is okay to let go of things, even tube sock rabbits. When something or someone has lost their appeal, when their presence brings more burden than joy, it might be time to say good-bye.

If old friends have become toxic, make new ones. If a spouse or family member has shown you who they are and what they value, believe them. Stop making excuses for them. They’re not just having a bad day. They have made a conscious and deliberate decision to embrace that which should never be embraced. Mourn the loss, then for God’s sake, move on. There are eight billion people on Earth, find someone else. Then bring them here to Nashville and buy them a tube sock bunny. It worked for me.

I do not know why so many Americans have chosen to partner with ugliness. I do not know if they were motivated by economic struggle, by intransigent racism and the browning of America. I do not know if they absented themselves from the public institutions that used to connect us—the church, the bowling leagues, the Rotary, the Lions, the garden clubs, the public school—perhaps it was all of those things, and more. I do know that if we do not learn how to be together again, how to work together for the common good, that this rupture will not end with the death of Donald Trump. He is not the cause of our discord, but only a symptom, capitalizing on the consequences of our failed social compact.

It is up to us to decide whether we will sit alone in our homes, blasting away at unseen enemies on social media, or whether we will once again do what we used to do so well—befriend our neighbors, share meals, go for walks, read good books, travel, discuss important ideas, take up a new hobby that takes us out of our world, into the worlds of others.

Do what I did, join a motorcycle gang. Nine years ago, I started a motorcycle gang named the Quaker Oatlaws. Five old white guys and a young scientist from India who teaches at IU, riding our motorcycles through the reddest parts of the Midwest, engaging others, preaching the virtues of motorcycling and enlightenment to anyone who will listen.

Engage. Speak up. Don’t yell. There’s already enough noise. If you have young people in your life, and you must have young people in your life, be their elder. Guide them. Teach them history. All of it. If Donald Trump wants to leave out the parts about Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bloody Sunday, you tell them about it. If Pete Hegseth removes the DOD web pages about the Navajo code talkers and the Tuskegee airmen, you make sure they are mentioned and honored. This is what elders do. They keep the stories alive. And not just the stories that reflect favorably upon us, but all the stories, so the ugliness isn’t repeated.

We have become civically flabby. We have let the muscles of our democracy wither. It is time we went to work. Join. Vote. Engage. Talk to others. Be an elder. Make friends with people who don’t look like you, worship like you, or always think like you. Challenge cruelty. Correct untruths. Run for office. Resist ignorance and small-mindedness. This is the hard work of democracy, and we not only can do it, we must do it, if America is to be saved.

Philip Gulley is the author of Unlearning God: How Unbelieving Helped Me Believe and the popular Harmony series.

Discover my books, stories, and more by visiting Books by Philip Gulley

Contact Philip directly at philiphgulley@gmail.com

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I don’t know what the Quaker women in England are like, but if they are anything like the Quaker women in America, the British government is about to get its collective ass kicked, metaphorically speaking. For the past 375 years, Quaker women have gathered in our meetinghouses to discuss and remedy any number of injustices and will not be deterred by Taser-toting thugs, official or otherwise. If British authorities had hoped to intimidate these Quakers, had hoped to scare these women into silence, I can assure you just the opposite will happen. Quaker women around the world will now be redoubling their efforts for peace and justice. Had I any sympathy for the MEGA folk, I would warn them to apologize quickly, repair the door they broke, and fire the nimrod who ordered this assault. But I don’t, so I will let them suffer the consequences of their stupidity.

Here in the United States, Quakers have joined in a lawsuit against the Trump administration, who in its infinite wisdom, thought it wise to deny churches the time-honored practice of sanctuary. The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), under the direction of Herr Tom Homan, is determined to invade any home, school, or church to arrest terrorists cleverly posing as janitors, agriculture workers, health-care workers, housekeepers, and food servers, some of them for decades. I predict that all across America, Quaker meetings, and other churches, will be offering sanctuary to people whose only crime was wanting a decent life for their children. I say let Trump’s goons invade our churches, if only to prove how vile and low this administration has sunk.

I awaken each morning more confident Trump’s reign of hate will come to the wretched end it deserves. There isn’t a day that passes he doesn’t make more enemies, doesn’t alienate another bloc of voters, be they farmers, people of color, college students, women, teachers, librarians, federal workers, social workers, soldiers, pastors, people of every faith and no faith, union workers, liberals, conservatives, and middle-of-the-roaders. Every day his base shrinks, until finally the momentum of resistance will sweep democracy in and demagoguery out. You know you’ve gone too far when even the Quakers are mad.

Republican officeholders can avoid all the town hall meetings they wish, we will set up empty chairs to symbolize their moral and physical absence and let fly with our grievances. More importantly, we will vote in numbers so vast not even their shameless gerrymandering can prolong their power. Even the most ignorant and entrenched Republican officeholders will awaken to our anger and their own vulnerability and might even begin protecting the Constitution they swore to defend. If not, we’ll replace them with senators, representatives, and governors who will.

Don’t let uniformed hooligans kick down your doors. Join your fellow Americans in non-violent protests this Saturday, April 5th, at the rally nearest you, which you can find by clicking here: https://www.mobilize.us/indivisible/

Philip Gulley is the author of Unlearning God: How Unbelieving Helped Me Believe and the popular Harmony series.

Discover my books, stories, and more by visiting Books by Philip Gulley

Contact Philip directly at philiphgulley@gmail.com

JOIN PHILIP FOR SUNDAY WORSHIP

You're invited to join Philip and Fairfield Friends Meeting online for our worship services (Sundays 10:30-11:30 a.m. EDT) via Zoom.

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83152822906?pwd=UDkzR3NPNlB5N29QY0svelRkNkUwdz09

Meeting ID: 831 5282 2906