Happy Bastille Day, to those Gentle Readers who celebrate such things. It wasn’t a genuinely great occasion, mind you, but it deserves recognition as the heralding event to the more significant French Revolution. Then again, that wasn’t exactly something to celebrate, either, was it?
Gentle Readers with some knowledge of the philosophy of Ayn Rand are aware that she harshly condemned the whole concept of sacrifice. Rand’s attitude toward the kind of acts we typically call sacrifices was unbalanced in the extreme. She tended to see all such things as diminutions of the ego, and condemned them as such.
Given the tenor of the age in which she wrote, Rand’s attitude is understandable. Her principal adversary was the Marxian gospel that subordinates the individual to the collective. She opposed that stridently, and with justice. However, her philosophical championing of the individual, with which I’m in accord, is inapplicable to the greater part of sacrificial behavior among free persons.
Sacrificial (alternately, altruistic) behavior, when it’s not the consequence of a coercive influence, is actually an enlargement of self, even a celebration. In the absence of coercion, the actions of the giver proceed from his own motives. Assuming that his judgment is reasonably accurate, he is extending himself emotionally to embrace the well-being of another. Even when his judgment is inaccurate – e.g., when the person he seeks to help cannot, should not, or must not be helped – his motives are nevertheless good ones: the desire to use his own resources to increase happiness or reduce misery. Hopefully, he will learn from the mistakes he makes in this regard without losing his spirit of benevolence.
The greatest act of sacrifice on record is, of course, that of Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God, who accepted excruciating suffering and death to open the gates of eternal life and bliss in the nearness of God. He gave his mortal body and all the suffering it could experience for the salvation of the world: everyone who has ever lived and who ever will. No one can beat that. There’s no record of anyone having tried.
Would anyone dare to argue that Christ somehow diminished himself by that sacrifice?
Let’s take the point as having been established and turn to the consideration of a somewhat more recent event.
Yesterday evening in Butler Pennsylvania, President Donald Trump held a campaign rally. It wasn’t his first such, of course. We can hope that it won’t be his last. What made it unusually notable was the attempt on his life. It missed its mark mainly because of his fortuitous turn of his head as the bullet intended to kill him flew past him. Had he not turned at that moment, the bullet would have found the center of his head, all but certainly ending his life.
Those are the raw facts of that moment. However, there are other facts of great significance which must be added to our contemplation of the event:
- Donald Trump is a billionaire who earned his fortune in the real-estate market.
- He is 78 years old, and could justifiably rest on his laurels for the rest of his life.
- He’s been the target of more vilification than any public figure since Lincoln.
- He’s been attacked through the courts.
- His political adversaries in Congress want to strip away his Secret Service protections.
- His family, friends, and political allies have also been attacked in various ways.
- After having been grazed by an assassin’s bullet, he stood and shouted to his admirers to “Fight!”
A commentator whose name I’ve misplaced said that a man of his age and attainments should be touring golf courses, or on a yacht cruising the world in comfort and leisure. Yet Trump soldiers on, determined to win back the office that was stolen from him. For whose benefit are his exertions, his determination, his dedication, and his courage? His? Melania’s? Barron’s?
No, Gentle Reader. They’re for us.
It’s not the sacrifice of Christ. Neither will it – we hope – eventuate in his murder. But it’s a very big deal all the same. The biggest of our time.
Quoth Sundance of The Last Refuge:
Dear God, we come before You to seek Your protection. Strengthen President Donald John Trump with the power of Your righteous might. Dress him in Your armor so that he can stand firm against the schemes of the evil that seeks his downfall. We know his struggle, like ours, is not simply against flesh and blood; but against evil manifest, against the powers that corrupt man, against the world forces of those who succumb to darkness, against spiritual forces of wickedness and malevolence.
You are President Trump’s keeper, O Lord. You are the shade on his right hand. Protect him from all forms of evil and keep his soul safe. We beg Your might to guard his voice, his going out, his coming in and his steadfast determination to protect his flock.
Lord God, we thank You for Your outcome today, and humbly ask for Your angels to continue standing guard in his path. We plead for Your perfect wing to continue forming the perfect shield. From this moment and forever until the end of our capacity, we pray for Your protection. In Jesus’ name.
Amen.
I could not have put it better.
May God bless and keep us all.
UPDATE: The image below is mere conjecture…but who really knows?
2 comments
I won’t compare Trump’s sacrifice, both personal and financial, to Christ’s. However, it’s a fair comparison to those of Washington, Jefferson, and others of the Revolutionary War period.
I also note that Trump took not a single penny of his official salary during his four years in office, choosing to donate those quarterly checks to charities (even the so-called “fact-checking” sites admit this, although they claim that he “never gave a whole year’s salary to any one cause”, as if that was what he should be castigated for, rather than emulated).
Accusations of “he still made money” are most amusing, given the vast list of politicians who make millions above and beyond their “official” salaries, especially those who have never held a private-sector job in their entire adult life.