The Bible is not an à la carte restaurant
In memory of Father Alfred Delp SJ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Delp
Born September 15, 1907 – Beheaded February 2, 1945
Father Delp was a member of the Kreisau Circle, a resistance group against the Nazi regime in Germany that worked to prepare the new political and economic order in Germany after the expected defeat.
Is it my German roots or my critical perception as a historian that makes me sit up in full attention when a head of state claims to have been spared by divine providence and destined for greater things?
It is probably a combination of both, when I hear about divine providence to enable future activities in the inaugural address of an American president, and I am then reminded of the divine providence claimed for himself by a German dictator 15 times between 1939 and 1945.
Claiming the prerogative of interpretation of the actual reality, whether conveyed by mounted couriers or in the electronic media, may be sufficiently well known.
However, the claim to interpretive superiority in religious matters has undeniable authoritarian and absolutist traits, which remind me of the attempt to bring the Protestant churches in Germany into line and the intimidation attempts against the Catholic Church between 1933 and 1945. https://europa-information.eu/en/caring-for-migrants-and-refugees-is-not-optional-for-catholics https://europa-information.eu/en/bishop-budde-trump-and-the-history-of-faith-leaders-getting-political/
Political Parties in Europe, including in Germany, invoke Christian values. Regardless of the Judeo-Christian inspiration in the US Declaration of Independence of 1776, the French Declaration of the Rights of Men in 1789 or the first seven “human rights articles” of the German Basic Law of 1949, none of these texts speak of national citizens, but only of human beings.
There is no room for electoral motives or an intellectual rigidity when it comes to meeting the high standards of the constitutions in the search for ways to prevent or eliminate the reasons behind economic migration while respecting human dignity.
It is important to preserve and conserve human dignity in order to be a Christian conservative in the best sense of the word. Do we not read in the American declaration of independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” ? As long as efforts to do so are unsuccessful, all those with political responsibility can only hope for the mercy and forgiveness of the one to whom President Trump refers. TH