January 6, 2021 - Domestic Terrorists Occupy the U.S. Capitol Building

I can’t stop watching the news. Protesters became rioters and stormed the U.S. capitol. They breached the dome. The House floor. The offices. They stopped the peaceful transfer of power in its tracks.

In addition to the giant U.S. flags, the Trump 2020 flags, the Don’t Tread on Me flags, I even saw a Christian flag.

As a white evangelical Christian, who accepted the Republican values I was raised with until my late 20s, these are my people.

And I’m ashamed.

I’m horrified.

Mostly, I am grieving.

To those who still support Trump, even if you’re trying to distance yourself from the violence, enough. Look around you. Witness the devastation you are responsible for.

To everyone else, I’m sorry. This is wrong. This is evil. I want nothing to do with this.

I don’t know why so many Christians are attracted to this evil. It’s something I’ve been pondering. It frightens me. We need to think and talk through it more.

But for now, there is grief.

Have mercy, Lord.

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Dear Lord and Father of mankind,

Forgive our foolish ways;

Reclothe us in our rightful mind,

In purer lives Thy service find,

In deeper rev’rence, praise.

Drop Thy still dews of quietness,

Till all our strivings cease;

Take from our souls the strain and stress,

And let our ordered lives confess

The beauty of Thy peace.

~ John Greenleaf Whittier