There are sneakers that cost more than an iPod. ~ Steve Jobs

Republicans buy sneakers, too. ~ Michael Jordan

In the last two Presidential elections, a great percentage of evangelical Christians and some other stripes of self-identifying Christians peddled the tiresome trope, “We’re not electing a pastor. We’re electing a president.”

First, people who say this would do well to do a little research on why the Christian faith community settled on the nonreligious word pastor to describe their faith leaders (and it’s a little more involved than saying it’s about herding sheep) as well as research on why the leader of worship in many Christian traditions is referred to as the presider, a word that’s etymology is shared with the word president. While I’m at it—properly understood—the presider of liturgy (liturgy means the work of the people) does not preside over (nor lord over) but rather presides in, with, among, and on behalf of the community. Even if we only identify two essential qualities among others that are integral to understanding the image of the pastor—character and selfless concern—we begin to sense that many of the attributes of an effective pastor are what citizens should be looking for in a competent and honorable President. The thought that character, maturity, personal ethics, and emotional intelligence are unimportant or irrelevant in the leader of the United States is tragic, dangerous, and a sad commentary on the stalled maturation of the American populace. I mean this primarily as a theological and pastoral statement, not mainly a political one.

Second, the statement mentioned above was and is voiced as a way to rationalize or justify one’s decision to support and vote for a man who seems not only constitutionally and categorically allergic to the most basic teachings of the gospel, but also brazenly dismissive of and blatantly disinterested in what is asked of those committed to living the Christ-life. Anyone familiar with Donald Trump’s history knows that he has never been remotely interested in Christianity or being a Christian. He calls himself a Christian (as of about 2015) for the same reason he changed his position on abortion. Because of expediency. If he thought calling himself a Jain or Jehovah’s Witness would get him elected he immediately would be careful not to step on bugs and begin hanging out at Kingdom Hall. He changed his position on abortion not out of any deep, moral conviction or religious awakening but because he thought it was advantageous to his political aspiration. If you think this is presumptuous or mere conjecture, I would submit you haven’t done your homework on DT and what his lifelong priority and ultimate concern has been throughout his life, namely, Donald.

The trope—”We’re not electing a pastor. We’re electing a president,” was and is an anemic, if not shameful, attempt to condone voting for a man to lead our country who arguably is the most emotionally stunted, mentally impaired, and morally unformed human being to hold public office since 1776. Anyone who has taught in a junior high school or high school knows that the standards for running for class president or student body president—G.P.A., character, comportment, civility, maturity, etc.—seem to be higher than our standards for who is capable, able, and eligible to run for the presidency of the United States. I sometimes imagine the daughters of parents who “back” Donald Trump running for one of the above-mentioned student government positions. And I can’t imagine the parents would not march into the Principal’s office protesting (not books to be banned—that was last week) if their child’s male opponent was resorting to the same smear tactics, childish mendacity, name-calling, rumor-spreading, bullying, lying, cheating, gaslighting, bloviating, chauvinistic, attitudinal, vulgar, and verbal rot as The Donald does daily in his campaign.

Third, the statement typically made immediately after the one about electing a president, not a pastor is something like, “The Bible says, ‘Judge not, lest ye be judged.'” This is one of the most abused and misused verses in all of the Christian scriptures. When this verse is mistakenly used in this way, it confuses being an arrogant critic with being a responsible discerner. To judge whether Donald Trump is a worthy or unworthy, capable or incapable, honorable or dishonorable, uniting or divisive, mature or immature, innocuous or dangerous candidate for the presidency is our responsibility as citizens. We’re talking about discernment, about making decisions. We exercise judgment from the moment we get up in the morning and process down the hall to brush our teeth. Is a parent responsible or negligent if they do not teach their children how to judge whether or not to run out in the street after a $3 plastic ball? Of course, we teach them how to make a decision based on their ability to judge whether their life is worth more than a bouncy ball.

(Background music changes to something lighter, a bit more playful) I see your trope—“We’re not electing a pastor. We’re electing a president.”—and raise you my trope—“We’re not electing a shoe salesman. We’re electing a president.” Never use a period or any other hard grammatical stop when speaking about Mr. Trump because the circus continues rolling along ad nauseam or ad infinitum (take your pick). Anyone who knows me from my younger days knows that I was ahead of my time when it came to athletic footwear. I was wearing red or blue hightop Converse and gold Pro-Keds when it was about as fashionable as a beehive hairdo would be today (actually, that’s a bad analogy given what sets atop Mr. Trump’s noggin). It was mentioned in the homily at my wedding that I had been talked down from the ledge of vowing to wear said pair of red high tops at my wedding by a sagacious woman (actually it was because I didn’t think they went well with my tie).

Anyvey (or is it oy vey), it seems that The Donald—jilted by Nike, Adidas, Puma, New Balance yadda yadda yadda—has found someones to press the rubber and make some gold sneakers that can be purchased for the low-low price of $400 a pair (or for the price of your moral compass, integrity, self-decency, and soul). If this is not a sure sign of how far we’ve fallen as a nation that our presidential candidates are hawking sneakers, then I don’t know what is. It is not surprising—and the irony is too delightful and the tragedy too painful—that Mr. Trump’s big reveal a day or so ago was at a gathering called Sneaker Con Philadelphia. I’ve been trying all morning to imagine Abe or FDR or LBJ or Tricky Dick sitting in the Oval Office with their feet up on the mahogany desk donning (get it, donning) their new, golden, rubber-soled footwear. I imagine the golden booties will be souled-out soon (NEWS ALERT—just learned the first pressing have souled out—by the Trump tribe). I hope they are sturdier and better looking than The Big Baller Brand of shoes marketed by Donald’s loquacious twin Lavar Ball (See the god-awful green things immediately above). This too is a theological statement.

Can I get an Amen?

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