I wrote another letter to Speaker Johnson. This time I challenged him as one Christian to another on his plans to help fundamentally reshape the country into a Taliban-like theocracy. I believe we must do everything in our power to stop Project 2025 from becoming our reality. I choose persuasion; others may choose protest. But we must all do something because pundits are saying that the attempted assassination of Trump at his Pennsylvania rally yesterday makes him far more likely to win the election because of the sympathy vote and the vote of those who are enamored by his defiant strong man response.
Dear Speaker Johnson,
I have been a born-again Christian since February 14, 1971. I spent more than 20 years teaching Sunday School and another 5 years working with youth in my church. My professional career was spent working at a Lutheran private college where I was a professor in the graduate school of education and a campus administrator.
I write to you today as a patriotic voting citizen who cares deeply about the Constitution of our country and the attention that must continue to be paid to the establishment clause that ensures every American of their freedom of religion and an assurance that the state will not impose a specific religion upon them.
That said, I’m appalled by the Republican move and the conversative court’s movement toward theocracy. In particular, I oppose Project 2025 and it’s revolution and endorsement of violence to accomplish it’s authoritarian goals. There is nothing “Christlike” about this plan. I am shocked by state laws that now impose the teaching of the Bible and the posting of the Ten Commandments in public schools. Not only are these mandates clear violations of establishment clause, but they are an affront to Christianity itself.
As a follower of Christ, I must question the theology and even the wisdom of imposing the Old Testament laws of an angry God upon the people of this nation. Conservative claims that this is a “Christian” nation is a rewriting of history and worse, it is a contradiction to the types of laws you and your party seek to impose.
The lies, political tricks, and even threats of violence your party employs to gain power are typical of sinners, not saints. Jesus told us that we will know a tree by its fruit. Greed for money and power make up the root and trunk of your conservative tree. Nothing good will come from it. Your party has embraced Trump, a tree that has produced nothing but rotten fruit. The fruit of your laws will produce more deaths by gunfire, environmental pollution that will destroy life on the planet, a rollback of access to healthcare, expanded hunger, more maternal deaths, rampant bullying, and legal discrimination of minorities. I see no compassion, but only exclusion and misery for people who are not white, heterosexual males.
Conservatives ban books that help children to understand and accept the reality that human beings are diverse and that we can live together in peace. These are anti-bullying books. In addition, conservatives seek to hide our nation’s history of exploitation, violence, discrimination, and genocide. Instead of healing the wounds of the past, you seek to bury the truth when Jesus tells us that it is the truth that sets us free. Repentance, redemption, and restoration come with the truth, not with denying past wrongs.
The reality is that no one can groom a person to be something they are not. You cannot groom a child to be another gender or a homosexual. You can only make them feel safe or not to reveal their true selves. You cannot force people through laws, intimidation, and violence to accept your view of Christianity either. History has shown that it doesn’t work. The truth of human nature and science will always rise from the ashes.
I grow weary of watching Republicans engaging in fear-mongering and outright lying. I’ve heard Trump and other Republicans repeatedly lie that democrats approve of aborting viable babies at eight or nine months gestation and even after birth. Is it that the Ten Commandments are for thee but not for me with you guys? “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor”. Remember that one? Let’s not even talk about how many commandments Trump has violated in his personal life. Jesus warned you that the love of money is the root of all evil, but you all aren’t paying any attention to that in your embrace of his lawlessness and evil.
Jesus preached and led the way in taking care of the hungry, the sick, the outcast, the children and welcoming the immigrant. He didn’t condemn sinners, but rather encouraged repentance. It appears to me that the laws the democrats propose are more in alignment with the care for others that Jesus stood for and taught his disciples while the Republicans are stuck in the condemnation and lack of compassion of the Old Testament God. Evangelical Christians these days are characterized by their hate, not love. Jesus had compassion for the outsiders in society and included them, never condemning or ostracizing them. I note that he never mentioned gays even though they were certainly present. He never mentioned abortion even though abortion has been part of the human saga. I must note that according to the Bible itself, this body is just a tent formed in the womb and becomes a living soul when it is capable of breath. So many fertilized eggs are naturally miscarried before viability, so why would anyone believe these “human bodies under construction” are more valuable than the living and breathing women who are nourishing them through their own bodily sacrifice and peril? And I’ve never seen a living human being capable of being frozen indefinitely and then coming back to life to continue developing. This body is simply a tent that temporarily houses a breathing, thinking, and ambitious human soul.
Being a mother of three, I endured the months of sickness, the backpains, and the pain and risks of childbirth along with the scars that remained afterwards. I required major surgery following the birth of my third child. Pregnancy and childbirth is risky business and we have the maternal mortality rates to prove it. My point is that Republicans forcing women to risk their lives and endure the hardships of pregnancy and childbirth against their freewill is cruelty at its worse. Not every woman has the physical nor mental capacity to endure a pregnancy.
With this letter, I am hoping to appeal to your sense of right and wrong, good and evil. Project 2025 is evil. It moves people away from the love of Jesus and the salvation He offers and not towards it. It has no foundation in the Gospel or teachings of Jesus and seeks to undermine the constitutional freedoms citizens of this country enjoy and thrive under. Under Project 2025, we will be worse than North Korea, China, Russia and Cuba. The people there are not free and soon Americans will have less freedom than the citizens of those countries and that is a tragedy. Our innovation will be stifled. Our pursuit of happiness in life on our own terms will no longer be an option. Our economy will crash. Oppressed people are not happy and thriving people; they are hopeless and stop innovating. Our lives will be no different from the Afghan people under the Taliban.
At least China and much of the world aren’t denying science and are paying attention to climate change. If Project 2025 is implemented, I believe China will soon lead the world and perhaps that will in fact turn out to be what saves the planet and humanity itself from destruction. No one will enjoy freedom, but at least the planet will be here until the next generation of people, “yearning to breathe free”, mount their own revolution. Or maybe Jesus will return and save us from ourselves.
Sincerely,
Dr. Juanita Hall, concerned citizen