Tea at Trianon: Trump and the Christians

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Wednesday, June 22, 2016

Trump and the Christians

From The Christian Review:

It was supposed to be a meeting of 300, but over the course of a few weeks it burgeoned to over 1000 attendees. The setting was hardly intimate, but given the circumstances, the Evangelical organizers did a good job of making it worth our while. Donald Trump showed another side of himself during the hour-plus question and answer session: the usual bravura was replaced by self-deprecating humor, a deeper seriousness, and a forthright affirmation of the Christian faith.

Two of those taking the stage before Trump, Franklin Graham and Jerry Falwell, Jr., took advantage of their time slots, setting the tone for an occasion to ponder the future of our nation if Hillary Clinton is elected president, with her 2 to 5 picks for the Supreme Court, her pro-abortion agenda, and her evident scorn for traditional Christians.

Trump himself picked up that thread in answer to one of the first of the questions posed by Gov. Mike Huckabee, calling religious liberty the “number one issue of the campaign.” He mentioned several times the list of 11 possible SCOTUS nominees already released, with the help of vetting from The Federalist Society and The Heritage Foundation, and promised the release of at least four more in the near future. Trump was emphatic when he said all his nominees would be “pro-life” and “similar to Justice Scalia.” Needless to say, the room frequently interrupted these comments with loud clapping and “Amens.”

There were some Catholics in evidence: Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the SBA List, introduced Cong. Marsha Blackburn, who spoke about her House Planned Parenthood investigation, and author/speaker Eric Metaxas capped the event with a speech on the “new vision” for America. Other than those two, I counted dozen or more around the room, such as Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League; Lila Rose, president of Live Action; John Klink, former Vatican diplomat to the UN; Austin Ruse, president of C-FAM; Marjorie Murphy Campbell, blogger at www.newfeminism.com; Mary Beth Bonacci, president of Real Love, Inc.; Deacon Keith Fournier, blogger at www.thestream.org; and Brian Burch, president of CatholicVote. (Read more.)

From LifeNews:

Since he’s become the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, pro-life voters are starting to move in Donald Trump’s direction — especially knowing the alternative is abortion activist Hillary Clinton. But many pro-life voters and some pro-life leaders remain skeptical about supporting Trump given some of his misstatements and past support for abortion.

To gain a better understanding and insight on his abortion views and to potentially be able to endorse his candidacy, a group of top pro-life leaders met with Trump today at a summit in New York.

“We are going to appoint great Supreme Court justices… These will be justices of great intellect… And they will be pro-life,” he said.

During the meeting, Trump told them he would promote religious liberty and appoint pro-life judges:

Donald Trump won a standing ovation from hundreds of Christian conservatives who came to New York City Tuesday with a skeptical but willing attitude toward a man who has divided their group with comments on women, immigrants and Islam. In his comments the presumptive GOP nominee vowed to end the decades-old ban on tax-exempt groups’ – including churches — politicking, said religious liberty is “the #1 question,” and said he’d appoint anti-abortion Supreme Court justices. “I believe that he came across very well as a messenger for everybody in the room, not just as a beneficiary of evangelical votes but as a fellow traveler. That’s not necessarily an easy distance for him to have traveled because people didn’t see him like that before,” said Marjorie Danenfelser of Susan B. Anthony’s List, which works to oppose abortion. “He made no missteps. There were no explosions.” She said she couldn’t recall a candidate explicitly stating they would pursue “pro-life” justices. “They usually couch it in other words, like ‘constitutional,’” she said. As president, he said, he’d work on things including: “freeing up your religion, freeing up your thoughts. You talk about religious liberty and religious freedom, you don’t have any religious freedom if you think about it,” he told the group, which broke in many times with applause.
(Read more.)