News Flash: There may have been a negotiated cease-fire in the war. According to this, Iran, the US, and Israel agreed to stop shooting at each other for a period of two weeks and Iran agreed to open the Strait of Hormuz for the same two weeks. Whether this will hold or not is debatable, but if the destruction and killing ends, even temporarily, that will be a good thing.

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https://www.lewrockwell.com/political-theatre/power-politics-the-iran-war-john-j-mearsheimer/

Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

I may have read Donald Trump wrong the other day when I said he was a madman. After a few days of reading other commentary and thinking about it, his childish, foul eruption on Truth Social may have been because he was simply irate with the way things were going on the ground in Iran. In other words, angry and raging. Mad man! Not necessarily insane nor off his rocker (that possibility still exists, BTW), but definitely upset. His antics resemble those of a pampered, spoiled child who has been told that he cannot have the thing he wanted and has thrown a hissy fit.

What appears to have set him off was the horrible loss of aircraft taken in the (supposed) mission mounted to rescue the second airman who was stranded in Iran after his plane, an F-15E was shot down. Speculation is rife that the official story is a smokescreen and was designed to mask the real operation–a bold attempt to grab the enriched uranium stored near Isfahan by Special Forces, which, if successful, would have been a major victory for the Trump administration. Unfortunately, for him, it was not and resulted in a major disaster.

This is reminiscent of the hapless military maneuver ordered by Jimmy Carter in 1980 to rescue the 53 kidnapped hostages from the American embassy following the revolution which ousted the Shah and replaced him with Ayatollah Khomeini. Carter’s reputation took an immense hit over the incident and he lost the presidential election to Ronald Reagan by a landslide. It is interesting that the Iranian regime released the hostages almost immediately after Reagan took office.

To be sure, Donald Trump’s outbursts are important as they help to shape and manipulate the world situation and have extraordinary power to mold events and happenings in real time. What is more important, however, is how we perceive, not the message, but the messenger. Do we see him as The Answer to all our troubles? A messiah who will correct America’s problems and reverse her downward course? Are we consumed with the concept of American Exceptionalism which teaches that we are better than the rest of the world? Is Trump our Glorious Hope and constant Source of Strength? Are we trying, perhaps without even realizing it, to live vicariously through him?

Questions like these matter greatly because they shine a brilliant light on the faith in our lives, where we actually live and what we actually believe to be true. As Christians, professed believers in Jesus the Christ, the Prince of Peace, we have to make a decision as to the course we will follow and will be held responsible for any deviation from the truth. Consequently, when our man Trump makes a declaration or takes an action which is contrary to the teachings of Jesus, we are put into a position of decision: Which version of truth will I hold to and whose word will I follow?

Thinking about it this way brings the Gospel message home, personally close, and we simply cannot avoid it. Attempting to shove it under the rug, to make excuses, to justify our actions only creates confusion and controversy. In the end, we must admit that the Gospel reigns supreme or a political paradigm based on violent force and selfishness does. There is no middle ground here, no neutrality, no fence-straddling. It is either one or the other.

As a lifelong skeptic, I am forced to concede that neither of these positions may be true and that both may be false, however, it is certain that both cannot be right. Either the Gospel is correct or…it is not. Either Trump’s method of “kill, steal, and destroy” is the way to go…or it is not. Either of these might be right, both might be wrong, but both cannot be right. It is my responsibility as a son of God, Who is Truth, to determine which of these two is proper and to forsake all others or, if in deciding that both are wrong, to find something else to pursue. In the event that you hold to neither philosophy, then it is up to you to point the rest of us in a different direction, because without that, your version of truth is worthless, null, and void.

This holds significant authority in the lives of modern-day American Christians who are instructed constantly to live like Christ, to exemplify His pattern on Earth, yet still worship and exalt the religion of violent power. How can this be? Jesus, love him or hate him, spoke constantly about sacrificing one’s own life so that others would benefit, yet, today there are many who claim to believe in this way of life who do not hesitate to loudly and persistently seek to rain death and destruction on others so that they might personally benefit from the loss that others experience.

I cannot tolerate that.

If you proclaim your faith in Jesus, this is for you. You have a choice to make. You can follow the message of the Gospel of Peace, learning what it means to love your neighbor AND your enemy at least as much as you love yourself, OR, you can follow the path of violence, vengeance, and hatred toward others that you don’t even know.

The status of your eternal future depends on the way you respond.