"Pro-Life" Christians May Yet Be the Death of Us All: Who's Driving Trump's Nonchalance About Coronavirus and Why

Yesterday, I pointed you to a recent article by Ruth Graham about why Trump-friendly Christian leaders are feeling fine about coronavirus. As that article notes, if Mr. Trump says the virus is contained and it's no worse than the flu and his "numbers" are good, his white Christian fan club will fall into formation and cheer him on — though they claim they support him to the moon because he's "pro-life," and lying about and ignoring an impending pandemic that's killing lots of people seems hardly congruent with any meaningful "pro-life" values.

Fiddling, Burning: Commentary in the Time of Coronavirus

#ProLife https://t.co/YEM6KsIotU

— 𝕎𝕚𝕝𝕝𝕚𝕒𝕞 𝔻. 𝕃𝕚𝕟𝕕𝕤𝕖𝕪 🌈 (@wdlindsy) March 9, 2020

David Remnick, "Trump in the Time of the Coronavirus": 

Donald Trump is incapable of truth, heedless of science, and hostage to the demands of his insatiable ego.

More on Forgiveness and Clergy Abuse Situation: Kaya Oakes on Need for New Understandings

finally starting to directly reckon with how white evangelicalism taught 'forgiveness:' what it is, who it serves, how it's offered or received.

tl;dr: in many contexts, what white evangelicalism teaches as forgiveness is merely an affirmation of the status quo.

— Blake Chastain (@brchastain) March 3, 2020

A month ago, Ruth Krall offered us a valuable statement about the "sin or crime" dilemma facing religious bodies as they deal with sexual abuse of vulnerable people by religious authority figures. Should a community frame sexual abuse of the vulnerable by pastors, priests, religious authority figures primarily in terms of forgiveness? Or should religious communities begin from the starting point of recognizing that sexual abuse of minors is a crime, as they deal with these issues?

Ruth Krall on Coronavirus: "If We Fail to Adequately Care for Those Who Cannot Care for Themselves, the Door will Open to Threaten Us All"

There are only TWO coronavirus cases in Mexico.

There are 16 in Canada.

For Trump, every problem has the same solution https://t.co/DV6GnePbNg

— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) February 29, 2020

I'd like to share with readers this morning an email that Ruth Krall sent to me yesterday, which contains some of the best commentary I've yet read on the coronavirus discussion. Ruth has kindly given me permission to share her thoughts. She writes, 

Quote for Day: Intersectionality Is a "Lens, a Prism, for Seeing the Way in Which Various Forms of Inequality Often Operate Together and Exacerbate Each Other"

Kimberlé Crenshaw, who coined the powerful term "intersectionality," talks to TIME Magazine about what she intends with that term:

Quote for Day: "People Voted for Hitler as They Voted for Putin and Trump, Because They Didn't Want to Give up Their Own Privileges"

PRRI, "Despite Chaos and Controversy, Trump Favorability Stable Throughout 2019," 26 Feb. 2020

In her book Learning from the Germans: Race and the Memory of Evil (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2019), Susan Neiman cites German philosopher Bettina Stangneth, author of Eichmann Before Jerusalem (NY: Knopf, 2014; German edition, 2011):

Quote for Day: "Church's Radically Patriarchal Leadership Structure and Theology Are at the Root of Most Sex Abuse Cases in the Church"

Jamie Manson writes, "No, Jean Vanier is not 'like all of us'":