At the start of this week’s post, I should say that a friend warned me to not get into politics this week. My concern as an historical theologian has always been about promoting critical reflection about faith, life, and morality. I respect my friend’s concern, but politics is part of our life experience; and with less than two weeks before the 2024 U.S. presidential election, there is a great need for critical thinking.

Being a critical observer and thinker today is challenging. There is certainly a lot of falsehood and pure nonsense in our contemporary world that is packaged and promoted as truth. There are also frightening realities.

In September, the former U.S. president said that if he is reelected, his plan to deport 15 to 20 million people currently living in the United States would be “bloody.” As Heather Cox Richardson reported on October 21^st, Mark Milley, 20th chairperson of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from October 1, 2019, to September 30, 2023, told journalist Bob Woodward that Trump is “a fascist to the core…the most dangerous person to this country.”

We need critical observers, but critical observers can also be quickly repudiated or denigrated. We need, these days, a great many courageous critical observers, who are supportive of other courageous critical observers.

The reality is that engaging in respectful exchanges of opinions, while working toward the same goals, is how we will thrive and grow as a society. That challenge will be here before and after November 5^th.

Thinking about helping people become well-informed critical thinkers today, I suggest that we stress “values clarification.” How do people display and practice truth and honesty? Or how do they display and practice falsehood and deception? Do we take time to compare or help people compare a person’s rhetoric with that person’s actual behavior? How do we help people clarify their own values? How do we clarify our own values.

Reviewing the most recent “Al Smith Dinner in New York,” on Thursday, October 17^th, can be a helpful values clarification exercise. The Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner, commonly known as the Al Smith Dinner, is an annual white tie dinner in New York City to raise funds for Catholic charities in the Archdiocese of New York. It is currently hosted by the Archbishop of New York, Cardinal Timothy Dolan.

This year Vice President Harris did not attend the October 17^th Al Smith dinner and Cardinal Dolan strongly criticized her for not attending, saying she was sending “one of those zooms” instead. Former President Trump and his wife Melania did attend the dinner.

Cardinal Dolan looked on with a friendly expression as Trump made his degrading comments, occasionally laughing at the former president’s remarks and personal attacks against Kamala Harris. “We have someone in the White House who can barely talk, barely put together two coherent sentences, who seems to have the mental faculties of a child,” Trump told the New York group. “It’s a person who has nothing going, no intelligence whatsoever. But enough about Kamala Harris.” Cardinal Dolan sat there with a big smile. Shame on Timothy Dolan, whom I have known from the time he was a young priest in St. Louis, Missouri. Once upon a time we were even friends.

The 45^th president of the United States is a Bible man, according to his ardent supporters. Indeed, the God Bless the U.S.A. Bible isalso known as the “Trump Bible.” It is based on the King James Version of the Bible (first published in 1611) with added content specifically relating to the United States. The God Bless the U.S.A. Bible was first published in 2021 but was later marketed by Donald Trump under his brand name and promoted as part of his 2024 presidential campaign. Donald Trump may be a “Bible man” but, as the American columnist Maureen Dowd wrote in the New York Times on October 19^th, “Trump is proudly amoral. He disdains the Christian values I was taught by nuns and priests. His only values are self-interest and self-gratification.”

For the Al Smith dinner, Vice President Kamala Harris did not give “one of those zooms” but a well-thought-out video presentation. She had explained several days before the dinner that she could not be personally present because she would be campaigning in the battleground state Wisconsin on that Thursday. Cardinal Dolan was terribly upset she did not attend. Mr. Trump was probably relieved.

Getting ready for the big November 5^th election, requires values clarification reflection and decision-making. An important values clarification exercise before November 5^th would be reviewing the personal values of the candidates, as expressed in their words and actions. Project 2025 – the Trumpian agenda for the U.S.A. if he is re-elected — calls for a careful and critical reading. I find it dangerously alarming.

Well, we do indeed have much to observe and think about these days.

And this remark concludes my October “political” commentary.

•  Jack

 

Dr. John Alonzo Dick – Historical Theologian

Researcher: Religion and Values in U.S. Society