The Unholiness of this Holy Week

 I'm aware every year of how secularized Holy Week and Easter have become and how "the long weekend" is the way many media outlets describe what begins with Good Friday and continues through Easter. When I got my hair cut last week I asked my barber if he would be closed on Good Friday, a statutory holiday in Canada, and he looked at me blankly. He will be open and is already fully booked. 

Of course, many Christian denominations don't really acknowledge this week of what is often termed Jesus' Passion. Nonetheless, plenty of conservative Christians in the States are ramping up the rhetoric of Jesus' wrongful arrest and trial because?...ya, you guessed it, the Abominable Saviour, Donald Trump will be charged with a crime tomorrow. 

I find this incredibly offensive, but I suppose I shouldn't really be surprised. This "brand" of Christianity appears to have become unmoored from Jesus' teaching and any expectation that leaders will be moral people who live by moral precepts of any kind, let alone Christian. And the message of sacrificial love, salvation, and resurrection promise have become hideously distorted. 

I saw over the weekend that Diana Butler Bass wrote about this, and as usual she is a voice of sanity in the midst of what have become a form of idolatry regarding Trump: 

I don’t know how far these comparisons will go. They are offensive, idolatrous, and an affront to millions of faithful believers who are preparing to observe the most sacred week of the Christian year.

But that won’t matter to Trump’s supporters. Social media and evangelical sermons will be awash with this theological and political conflation. We can fully expect that this unholy fusion of Trump and Christ will supercharge emotions during next week’s events in New York. One could wish that the crowd will turn its back on Trump, but I’m not counting on it.

It is hard enough for America to be facing the first-ever indictment of a former president. But knowing that this particular former president is viewed as the Anointed One, who, his followers believe, is like Jesus being persecuted by the legions of Satan, is a theo-political wild card we’ve got to pay attention to. At the time of his arrest, one of Jesus’ disciples attacked a soldier who came to take him away. Jesus insisted: “Put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword.” Do not expect the same from Trump.

This could be a very strange — and certainly historically significant — Holy Week.