I remember the diligence that I paid in class....listening to Professor J. J. Zasloff at Pitt in 1973....for he was a world renown expert on Southeast Asia. Just last night I ordered on Amazon a particular book that I wanted....on Southeast Asia! So it has been over fifty years of interest in and studying not only Vietnam....but Russia and Germany and England and Israel and the world actually.
               I had....previously to a few years ago....thought that I had at least a handle on how a Generalissimo or a Fuhrer or a Comrade Chairman could come into power....but in retrospect since Trump....it was only theory. In Trump I have witnessed first hand....since he took office in his second term a little over a year ago....how it takes a daily....morning....noon and evening....every day of the year....barrage or blitzkrieg of in essence purging....of everyone and everything and every symbol and every picture and every remembrance of whatever it was that came before.
               I just started book number 110 on Trump....an oral history of January 6.....2021....in fact that is the subtitle of the book.....Storm The Capitol. Whether you call them the proletariat or the patriots....or Les Misérables....their minds have to be kept occupied all the time! That is why Trump is tweeting....or whatever it is called today....everyday....and almost every hour of the day!
               I could go on in my description of this....but to my evangelical friends....who have been totally taken in by this tried and true combination of intimidation and agitation and flattery and distraction....do you at times have trouble even recognizing yourself anymore? Does that sweet love of Jesus....that first love of the gospel....seem only a distant memory....replaced by demands for what is yours....and anger....and laughter at ridicule directed others? If you but decide to renew your mind....and turn it to Christ....this bondage will be broken....should God will it....and vision and discernment will return....along with hearing to recognize the voice of the Good Shepherd....and identify the wolf in sheep's clothing.