Pro-Life Republicans by Chip ProserThe idiot didn't mean any harm when he wished his Twitter followers a "Happy Good Friday" or when he told a TV audience later in the day to have a "great" Good Friday. He just doesn't know any better--and apparently the hucksters and carnival barkers who pass this spiritual black hole off as a Christian-- if not a saint-- never explained this one to their beloved meal ticket. Good Friday, which commemorates the day Jesus was crucified, is not like a Merry Christmas kind of holiday.Unlike Trump, Louisville state Rep. Charles Booker, the progressive running for the McConnell-held Senate seat in Kentucky, grew up in the church. Both of his parents are ministers. While the Pope was urging Christians to avoid in-person Easter Sunday services, Trump was calling for people to pack the churches-- a perfect manifestation of the GOP Death Cult. Charles Booker told us that "It pains me to be away from my church this weekend as we celebrate the Resurrection. The decision to ask Kentuckians to stay home this weekend is not an infringement on faith; it comes as a necessity to save lives, and from the principles of our faith that tell us to care for one another." Trump doesn't get that; neither does Mitch McConnell. In an e-mail to his supporters, Booker noted that "Mitch is (once again) pandering to his religious conservative base by saying COVID-19 efforts to keep Kentuckians safe this Easter weekend threaten religious liberty. He’s undermining our local leaders’ efforts to save hundreds if not thousands of lives for the sake of a cheap political stunt. Not today, Satan." McConnell demanded that Governor Beshear exempt Easter services from his stay at home rules. Beshear, however, isn't afraid of McConnell and his crackpot supporters. CNN reported that people who show up at church today will be ordered to self-quarantine for two weeks.
Officials are aware of about six churches planning to hold in-person services, Gov. Andy Beshear said in a statement. The state police will record attendees' license plates and notify them it is a misdemeanor violation of orders issued by state health officials, the governor said."Local health officials then will contact the people associated with those vehicles and require them to self-quarantine for 14 days. This is the only way we can ensure that your decision doesn't kill someone else," Beshear said.It's crucial for the state to take the measures especially after an outbreak that left dozens sick and multiple people dead in Hopkins County was traced to a church revival there last month, he said."Folks, we shouldn't have to do this," he said. "What we're asking is for you to love your neighbor as yourself. We shouldn't have to do this."
This weekend, John Pavolvitz explained the Easter story for anyone-- like Trump-- who doesn't know it or understand it: "An innocent man tortured, murdered, and buried in a tomb. Three days of breathtaking grief. Three days of hopeless silence. Three days of painful waiting. Then, in the pre-dawn hour, a group of mourning friends reach the tomb, and the stone covering it has been pushed to the side and the space emptied. They initially assume their friend’s body has been stolen by his executioners, but their despair soon becomes momentary disbelief, and then breathless exhilaration when they are given the news by two strangers-- that their beloved friend is among the living. They rush to tell the world the unthinkable news: He is not dead, he has risen!"That-- at the very heart of Christianity-- is very likely beyond Trump's ken.
The resurrection story of Easter is one that some people of faith claim as literal and factual; the tangible proof of their tradition and the evidence that they are a people saved from the permanent constraints of death.Others embrace it as a symbolic reminder of the things we overcome here: of life breaking through, of restoration happening, of figurative resurrection taking place, of glorious rebirth happening, of miracles in our midst.Yet, here on the ground, whether we claim a religious worldview or not, we all face the stark reality that the people we lose don’t physically come back and greet us on the path of our grieving, that we aren’t given an Easter morning miracle of their rebirth, that people we love get sick and die and they stay dead.Because of the coronavirus’ presence, this strange Easter Sunday is one marked by physical separation from people we love and from those we feel affinity with who are still alive. We are disconnected from family and friends and and faith communities....For many, this Easter will be a magnifier of our losses, of our days of breathtaking grief, of hopeless silence, of painful waiting. It will underscore the loneliness we feel every day. Yes, we will eventually be released from this quarantine time of pause, to return to normalcy-- but we’ll still be missing some in front of tombs with the stone firmly in place.In days marked by so much death in the news, it can be an impossible task to find hope and to move forward. I’m not going to tell you to find it in some hope of heavenly reunion with your loved ones or the in the idea of eternity waiting for you-- and I’m not going to give you empty platitudes about the metaphorical resurrections in your life, because that will not bring the people you love back to you. It won’t restitch those severed ties or revive their bodies.I’ll only tell you that when you wake this Easter morning and you are feeling the emptiness of your loved one’s loss and the sting of the many current physical separations and you are grieving the resurrections that will not come, know that you share this place with a multitude of similarly stranded and waiting people who are mourning this Sunday morning.