As long as he gets what he wants, he doesn’t seem to care it it’s legal or illegal, innocent or corrupt, good or bad for the American economy, good or bad for the world economy, good or bad for the environment.
I wrote this post originally quite early in Donald Trump’s second presidency. I might write a second version as so many more things have changed since then.
It’s perplexing how much has changed in US domestic politics and international relations since Donald Trump’s second term as president began on 20th January.
I’m not going to try to summarise his actions, analyse his reasons for them or the effect they may have going forward. Instead I’m going to explain how one ordinary British citizen (me) views the underlying reasons for the way Trump behaves and why those around him act the way they do.
Right at the start I must admit that I have little to go on; my knowledge is limited to what he has done and said as reported by the news media, the reactions from the many world leaders and business people who have met him, the outcome (so far as we know them) of his actions, and comment from others on his personality, character and behaviour. But mostly, what I write below will be based on what I’ve observed in interviews and on news broadcasts, articles, and the response of others.
So, if you’re prepared to hear thoughts and opinions from a very ordinary member of the British public – read on.
Intellect
Donald Trump has a BSc in economics (and I have one in horticulture, another in mathematics and computing as well as an MSc by thesis on plant reproductive biology). I appreciate, therefore, that Trump has both the intellect and work ethic required to achieve his degree. It’s a significantly harder challenge than doing well in primary or secondary education.
Legal issues and bankruptcy
Following his university education, Trump found work in the family property business. However, things didn’t always go too well for him, there were legal battles over race discrimination and contempt of court, and six of his businesses have been declared bankrupt. The details are included in the Wikipedia article about him, with references to sources.
How things look
This seems to have set the tone for his current approach to legality and success in politics as well. Winning by whatever means he deems necessary seems to be his normal approach to political life. As long as he gets what he wants, he doesn’t seem to care it it’s legal or illegal, innocent or corrupt, good or bad for the American economy, good or bad for the world economy, good or bad for the environment. Sometimes he may genuinely not understand what he’s dealing with, ‘Drill Baby Drill’ is a dreadful intention to express if you’re a person who understands the damage that will be done to to our very fragile environment and ecosystems. And he clearly had no idea that imposing tariffs on imports was tantamount to a severe tax on United States Citizens.
Mr Trump has stabbed Ukraine in the back by his unkind and unhelpful remarks to Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the White House combining ignorance and rudeness in an extraordinary way. He tries to be friendly to the some of the world’s worst characters – Vladimir Putin is a prime example, Benjamin Netanyahu is another – while at the same time rudely dismissing and criticising many who would help him if he took a more conciliatory line, people like the leaders of Canada, most European nations, and so forth.
War
Mr Trump has skilled and experienced military analysts and experts ready with good advice and wisdom. He ignores them. Apparently he prefers guesswork, trial and (mostly) error to sound advice, good judgement and deferring to those with experience, an ability to think through the options and war game out the possible and likely outcomes.
If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. (If you don’t see those links, click the article’s title above the main photo and they will appear.) Send a link to friends who might enjoy the article or benefit from it – Thanks! My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome and encourages me to write more often!
Paul’s letter to the Ephesians has sometimes been described as the constitution of the church, but that’s not strictly correct. Paul didn’t write Ephesians to define what church is and is not, so it contains much more than the bare bones of a definition. Constitutions are (relatively) brief but very clearly lay out the essence and limits of something, be it an organisation like a business, a charity, or indeed a nation. They also spell out definitions of terms as well as the concept being defined, as clearly as possible. So if we want a constitution for the church, we must think in terms of something succinct, crystal clear, and complete but not providing unnecessary additional detail.
Why have a constitution?
The church has never truly had a constitution, some might argue it doesn’t need one. But recently I’ve begun to feel it does. Almost every denomination imposes customs and requirements on their adherents, over and above anything that Jesus taught. There are paid leaders and managers, forms of infant baptism, doctrine, so much encrusted over the basics. So much that can be seen as unnecessary when we compare it to the earliest forms of church as we find it in the New Testament.
Some form of declarative constitution might bring clarity to all this muddled confusion. Over the centuries there have been repeated reforms and corrections, but generally these have resulted in yet more varieties of belief and practice. A constitution might help us simplify and see some patterns in the prevailing mess; we should at least make an attempt to form one.
There are probably as many definitions as there are denominations, and that’s quite a large number; a constitution provides a reference point. The Bible, and even just the New Testament is far too detailed to be a definition; yet it contains everything we need to know and does not support the additions and concretions of the last two millenia.
The essentials, but no more
What else can we say about constitutions in general? The key point, I think, is that a constitution should contain everything essential but nothing beyond that, to bring clarity and focus. Constitutions are usually amendable both for corrections and for additions or deletions. There is normally an agreed process for amending a constitution.
So where would we begin for the church? As always, we must begin with our source – Jesus himself.
Jesus’ claims
Jesus made some pretty fundamental claims; the constitution will need to say whether we accept these claims or reject them.
He said that his father is the God of his ancestors and that he was there with his Father when the universe was conceived and created. He claims to have come into this created world like one of us, as an ambassador for and from his father, to reveal the father to us and to make it possible for us to communicate with the father again. So continuing with the results of part 1 of this series, we can add an additional clause about Jesus. Let’s put that new clause at the beginning, where it belongs.
The Constitution of church so far
1 – Jesus was sent by his Father to be present in the world to reveal the nature and the loving heart of the Father. He returned to his Father and deposited their Spirit to remain in his followers as a perpetual gift.
The Spirit lives within us, giving us the potential to continue the work Jesus began in this world – loving, reconciling, transforming, encouraging, guiding.
2 – Church is not a particular place or building. It is, instead, a particular people.
Church consists of every person following Jesus, but the term also applies to local church where it’s limited in time and place to a particular group or gathering meeting and working together more or less regularly.
3 – A named place is not required, people can meet anywhere convenient to them.
An informal name may be helpful to explain where and when meetings take place, but names are not intended (and should not be interpreted) to indicate any sort of hierarchy within, or separation from, any other part of church, even if those other parts regard themselves as different or separate.
We’ll continue adding and editing clauses of our Constitution next time, rearranging them as seems necessary and appropriate.
If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. (If you don’t see those links, click the article’s title above the main photo and they will appear.) Send a link to friends who might enjoy the article or benefit from it – Thanks! My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome and encourages me to write more often!
This index links to my ponderings on creating a constitution for church to help us focus on what matters while avoiding wasting time and effort on what does not.
[Why do] we have and use the term ‘church’ at all? It’s come to mean those buildings in most towns and cities in the world where Christians gather on Sundays (and often at other times, too) to read Bible passages, listen to sermons, take communion, and in some denominations have one or more leaders at the front.
I made a start on a stand-alone article on this topic as one of my ‘Ad hoc’ articles, but thinking about it again more recently I felt it would make a good, stand-alone series that I could develop over time.
But something I didn’t consider was why we have and use the term ‘church’ at all. It’s come to mean those buildings in most towns and cities in the world where Christians gather on Sundays (and often at other times, too) to read Bible passages, listen to sermons, take communion, and in some denominations have one or more leaders at the front wearing funny clothes (or ordinary ones). That’s a sort of caricature of course. Churches and church members often do much more than that. They may run a food bank, hold evening meetings to study the Bible more deeply, visit local hospitals to visit patients, and a whole lot more besides. But these activities are not church; in a sense they are add-ons, though they are certainly good things to be doing in the communities where we live.
Places or people?
But why are they called ‘churches’ in the first place? This is something we need to consider; over time, people have used both place-words and people-words for gatherings. Church is a place-word and we could also mention a series of other place-words used in different times and languages to express the same concept. For example kyriakón / Kirche / kirk, as well as basilica, cathedral, and chapel.
All of these in one way or another are used to signify places of gathering.
Kyriakón is from Kyrios, the Greek word for lord or master. Kirche is German, kirk is Scots, and church is of course English. However derived they all speak of a place but significantly also of kingship, rule and authority.
In a Roman city the Basilica had the appearance of a traditional European church building. Two rows of large columns supporting arches and a high roof, with a semi-circular and sightly raised area at one end. So architecturally it was church-like but was not a place of worship. It was the Roman law court and the judges sat on the raised area in the apse (the semi circular end section). The idea of authority hovers there in the background again.
The Greek word cathedra simply means a chair, a cathedral is the ‘seat’ of a bishop. The word chapel is Latin, from cappa, a mantle or cloak. It entered English in the 13th century from old French.
Going back to Hebrew and Aramaic brings in other aspects. Hebrew was used in the Jerusalem Temple and to read the Old Testament scrolls in the synagogues. Jesus and his followers spoke Aramaic in everyday life. Synagogue is a Greek word and means an assembly or gathering, literally a bringing together (the New Testament was written in Greek and there were well-established Greek versions of the Old Testament as well). The Greek term packages up two Hebrew words, edah (congregation or community – a people word), and qahal (summoned or called together – a people/action/place word). After the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 AD, the Greek term synagogue was used to bundle up the senses of gathering, learning and intercession.
There were other words for the buildings themselves. Beit ha-knesset is the house of assembly, Beit ha-midrash is house of study/interpretation, Beit ha-tefillah is house of prayer.
No need for a name
Taking all of this together we can see that when we meet, wherever that might be, it’s a place, a gathered people, and has senses of assembling, study/interpretation, and prayer, as well as Lordship. So where can we gather to achieve all of that? Anywhere we like! We have only to agree a time and place to turn up together to pay attention to Jesus. Anywhere will do. It could be the temple courts, the upper room, my house, your house, a garden, a woodland clearing, a supermarket car park, or it could be somewhere we call a baptist church or a house church. The place itself is of no significance, all of the significance rests in the fact that Jesus is here and we are with him, that he is teaching us and we are learning ever more from him. Have you ever been in a place like that? Does it need a name? I’m going to provisionally call it a House of Presence or a House of the Spirit.
But the constitution of the Church doesn’t need to name things. So we won’t define a name in our constitution at all. We should include a note to say that a name is not required, it’s important to state that; because the name doesn’t help to define church. Why did the 1st Century believers talk about Lydia’s House. or the gathering at Corinth? Because they knew what we have often forgotten – it’s no more than a matter of convenience. We can (and should) meet anywhere; a river bank is enough, or a market place, someone’s home or a hired room.
It’s not the place that matters, it’s the people and the purpose that are significant, the presence of the Spirit of Jesus in his gathered people is what really matters. However, it’s worth mentioning that big spaces with hundreds of people are usually too large for very practical reasons. There’s a need to sit around with no more than one to ten other people. Everyone needs to know one another, like a family, everyone needs to be able to share freely what they’re reading or hearing from the Spirit. If it’s big and impersonal many opportunities will be missed. We can come together in larger numbers with a band of musicians to celebrate and sing our hearts out. That’s good too, but it’s a different kind of meeting. But it’s still an expression of church and life together.
Paul’s letter to the Ephesians has sometimes been described as the constitution of the church, but that’s not strictly correct. Paul didn’t write Ephesians to define what church is and is not, so it contains much more than the bare bones of a definition. Constitutions are (relatively) brief but very clearly lay out the essence and limits of something, be it an organisation like a business, a charity, or indeed a nation. They also spell out definitions of terms as well as the concept being defined, as clearly as possible. So if we want a constitution for the church, we must think in terms of something succinct, crystal clear, and complete but not providing unnecessary or irrelevant additional detail.
Why have a constitution?
The church has never truly had a constitution, some might argue it doesn’t need one. But recently I’ve begun to feel it does. Almost every denomination imposes customs and requirements on their adherents, over and above anything that Jesus taught. There are paid leaders and managers, forms of infant baptism, doctrine, so much encrusted over the basics. So much that can be seen as unnecessary when we compare it to the earliest forms of church or to what we learn from the New Testament. Some form of declarative constitution might bring much needed clarity to the current confusion.
Over the centuries there have been repeated reforms and corrections, but generally these have resulted in yet more varieties of belief and practice. A constitution might help, I think we should at least make an attempt to form one.
So first of all, why would we even want a church constitution? There are probably as many definitions as there are denominations, and that’s quite a large number; a constitution provides clarity and a reference point. The Bible, and even just the New Testament is far too detailed to be a definition; yet it contains everything we need to know and does not support the additions and concretions of the last two millenia.
The essentials, but no more
What else can we say about constitutions in general? The key point, I think, is that a constitution should contain everything essential but nothing beyond that. Constitutions are usually amendable both for corrections and for additions or deletions. There is normally an agreed process for amending a constitution.
So where would we begin for the church? As always, we must begin with our source – Jesus himself.
A good start would be to state that church is defined by everything that Jesus is and does and teaches and by nothing beyond that. Having leaders of a particular flavour or style and how we name those leaders are not fundamental. Whether you have a priest, a vicar, a pastor, elders or deacons, those are all secondary features of church life and practice. They cannot form part of the definition.
Let’s begin by saying church is a group of people striving to follow Jesus. I don’t think we can start in any better way.
So we’ll make that our primary clause.
The Constitution of church so far
1 – Church is not a particular place or building. It is, instead, a particular people
2 – A named place is not required, people can meet anywhere convenient to them.
We’ll take those as the first two clauses of our Constitution for now
If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. (If you don’t see those links, click the article’s title above the main photo and they will appear.) Send a link to friends who might enjoy the article or benefit from it – Thanks! My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome and encourages me to write more often!
We live in a culture deeply uncomfortable with grief. We rush people through heartbreak. We hand out silver linings while wounds are still open. Even in faith spaces, we sometimes move too quickly toward redemption language because suffering itself makes us uneasy. We want resurrection without sitting at the tomb. We want healing without fully acknowledging what was lost.
It’s quite easy in life to bounce from one thing to another without paying much attention to anything. It’s the usual mode of the world we live in. But when we do that, we miss a very great deal. We don’t really get into the deeper aspects, we don’t think things through properly. On the one hand we don’t see the wood for the trees, but on the other hand we don’t have time to even get to know one, single tree in the depth it deserves – the crevices in the bark, the shades of green in the details of the leaves, the patterns of the veins in those same leaves, the gentle sound of the breeze filtering through the canopy. The aroma of moist earth and leaf-mould.
Sandy doesn’t make that mistake, it’s even in the title of her blog – Run with Patience (KJV Heb 12:1). Here’s an extract from a recent article to give you a flavour of her approach, at the end of the extract I’ll place a link so you can read the rest direct on Sandy’s site.
Extract from Sandy’s article – The slow Return of Hope
There are seasons when the soul does not sing easily. Seasons where faith feels less like soaring and more like sitting quietly in the dark, trying to remember what light once felt like.
I think that’s why I keep returning to Book of Lamentations, not because it resolves suffering neatly nor because it offers quick comfort, but because it refuses to lie about pain.
The older I get, the more I realize how rare that is.
We live in a culture deeply uncomfortable with grief. We rush people through heartbreak. We hand out silver linings while wounds are still open. Even in faith spaces, we sometimes move too quickly toward redemption language because suffering itself makes us uneasy. We want resurrection without sitting at the tomb. We want healing without fully acknowledging what was lost.
But Book of Lamentations lingers in the ruins. It lets the smoke rise, the silence ache, and grief breathe.
And strangely, that honesty feels sacred to me.
Because there are losses in life that cannot be reduced to inspirational lessons. Some grief changes the architecture of a person. Some suffering rearranges the nervous system, the body, the assumptions you once held about safety, love, God, or the world itself.
Sometimes you survive something, but you do not emerge untouched.
I think Scripture knows this better than we often allow ourselves to admit.
Read the full article on Run with Patience
Here’s the entire article on Sandy’s site. I suggest you read it to discover the precious truth it contains. Explore the other articles on Sandy’s thoughtful site as well. Perhaps bookmark the blog, or sign up for email notifications whenever new articles appear.
If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. (If you don’t see those links, click the article’s title above the main photo and they will appear.) Send a link to friends who might enjoy the article or benefit from it – Thanks! My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome and encourages me to write more often!
Journeys of Heart and Mind 
