Donna Kundtz Moore

Happy to see that one of my new Democratic Party friends, Donna Kundtz Moore, will be the guest preacher at the New Hope Lutheran Church on Catalpa Dr: October 20, Sunday, 9:55 AM.

At 7:55 AM this morning Donna wrote the following on Facebook: “I am preaching Sunday. First time in years. I want to do it. But… Not written yet. So here I am on Facebook. How do you spell procrastination?” I’m getting a little worried because now it is 12:32 PM and it looks like Donna is still on Facebook.

Donna will speak about the Poor People’s Campaign and our Moral Agenda and the scripture for her sermon will come from Luke 18 — Jesus’s parable of the widow and the unjust judge. Donna wrote that she sees the Widow in this story as standing for who need help and that the parable is one that teaches the value of persistence. I’d love to hear Donna speak and I’m going to make the effort to get to the New Hope Church on Sunday.

This is what I wrote to Donna:

The theme that could unite Christians is patriotism — broadly defined.

Ok — You got me to read Luke 18. Amazing how easy it is now to compare multiple and multiple translations. I like Phillips: “There was a magistrate in a town who had neither fear of God nor respect for his fellow-men.” I assume this judge could take such a haughty and independent attitude because he was an agent of the totalitarian state. This “unjust” judge finally gave the widow justice simply for his own comfort — not because the judge felt obligated to dispense justice — and she was lucky because in some totalitarian states her annoying behavior would have got her shot or sent to the archipelago or work camps.

I like the idea that “the Widow in this story stands in our culture now for all who need help.” In America — those who need help are standing before an unjust judge and they are not just asking for help. They are asking for justice. They are asking that America fulfill its pledge of “liberty and justice for all.”

The unjust judge is the status quo — a corrupt and broken system controlled by legalized bribery — and this status quo has contempt for those with no money or no power. The widow in the Bible story had zero power to change the status quo of the system she was born into. Her only hope was to beg and beg the status quo to give her a crumb. Here in the United States the Widow is empowered by our Constitution to transform the status quo.

I checked. Every week in America 37% of the population attend a religious service. Astonishing. In England the rate is only 2 or 3%. You’d think a Christian nation would have Christian policies and would have actions reflective of Christian ethics. Christians are divided and polarized. The theme that could unite Christians, I’m thinking, is patriotism — broadly defined.

I’m urging the MCDP to agree to a resolution that the number one issue in America is the brokenness of our system of representative democracy — that all of the sins of the system are explained by the simple fact that our Constitutional democracy is in shambles. My idea is that this resolution will lead to a “Contract With OH-10 Citizens” that Democratic candidates to the Ohio Assembly and to congress (OH-10) will sign and will make the center of their campaigns. This “Contract” will specify commitments for accountability, transparency and citizen engagement, etc. I’m thinking that repairing the system could be the theme that unites American Christians — Christians now divided by identity and culture — the rise of a new understanding of what it means to be a patriot.

I’m thinking I will try to make it to your church on Sunday.

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