TUCKER: Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?

We've just passed the anniversary of the invocation of the Emergencies Act, though you wouldn't know it from reading the news. A lot of people are just tired of it all and apart from keeping up on the Pat King sentencing, just want to move on. For some of us, still a bit locked in that moment of facing riot cops on Sparks Street in Ottawa, it's still fresh.Three years later and still no accountability.But this is the Canadian way, apparently. Ruffle our feathers and we're fine to perhaps boo those ignorant Americans at a hockey game, but that's as far as it goes. We placid and effeminate 'law, order and good government Loyalists' were fine, during the pandemic, to have the tightest, hardest response, apart from Saudi Arabia and China. The more rules the better. While there are a few things that this anniversary evokes, one is Romans 13 — that chapter which so many a pastor during the pandemic referenced for all the sheep being drawn into an antagonistic mood. “Submit to authorities because they are put there by God,” we were told. “And they were living under Nero” we were told, to highlight that Trudeau's heavy-handedness paled by comparison. Take the vax like Jesus would do.Submission was all-encompassing, we learned. Fears of COVID-19 trumped all we had believed about worship and community and commitment to each other, and we bowed before the edicts of bureaucrats long before we ever hit our knees.As a person who sees Jesus as the ultimate challenge to my own ego-centred, get-em-back impulses, such sermons are never easy to discard. Yes, There is something valuable in intentionally submitting to authorities, even stupid ones. At the same time, the yea-but in me always chafes as I think about Bonhoeffer (preacher and ethicist who tried to assassinate Hitler,) or Martin Luther King, or Martin Luther, or John Knox confronting Mary Queen of Scots. It always feels a bit strange to sit in a Protestant church listening to a sermon about submission to authority. Do we submit to all leaders, or just ours? Do we submit to Putin or Xi Jinping, too, as they must be ordained by God?Of course, a few preachers during those heavy four years highlighted a more nuanced way: Test our rulers to see how they conform to God's law. When the state steps into uncharted ground, when they are telling people to take a drug or lose their jobs, they are on thin ice. We are to help them do good. Douglas Wilson will even say that submission to tyranny is rebellion against God.There is a higher order that we are all under, no matter the circumstance. Ceasar is not Lord.Anyway, the point is, this was not the general tenor from our pulpits during the pandemic. Apart from a few outliers like Artur Pavlovski, Tim Stevens, James Coates and the pastors down on Sparks Street being beaten while singing To God be the Glory, many preachers ignored their prophetic role. The general rule was to follow whatever public health decreed, even if it meant barring us from worship, taking attendance for the government, and leaving people alone and isolated. Community via Zoom.For me as a Christian, the pandemic showed the shallowness of the Canadian church.Strangely, then, a month ago I found myself applauding a 'woke' preacher — Mariann Budde — for taking the mickey out of Trump.The day after Trump's inauguration, the Episcopalian bishop of Washington gave a sermon on the practices that nurture unity, such as gentleness and honesty. And then, with Trump in the front row, she eyed him: “In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy on people in our country who are scared now. There are gay, lesbian and transgender children in Democratic, Republican and Independent families, some who fear for their lives.”She went on: “And the people who pick our crops, who labour in our poultry farms, and meatpacking plants, who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work in hospitals, they may not be citizens or have the proper documentation.[...] I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away. And that you help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here.”That was all.What was the response? She was demonized by conservatives. Franklin Graham said the cathedral had been taken over by gay activists. Others talked about her “radical political ideology.”Later, Trump wrote, “The so-called Bishop who spoke at the National Prayer Service on Tuesday morning was a Radical Left hard line Trump hater.” He went on to highlight that she hadn't mentioned the crime that is done by illegals. He said she was “nasty in tone, and not compelling or smart” and “not very good at her job!”Point taken about what she left out but, Budde spoke truth. She asked for mercy for people who were afraid. She asked an avowed Christian man in authority to act like one. To show mercy. And, as a public preacher, she showed guts in doing so.Now, you may say that there is no comparison. You may say that the gender-bending, the compulsory vaccination, the weaponization of our education system against tradition and Western Civilization — the whole woke marxist bag of tricks — justifies the response and Trump's apparent refusal to show mercy or be a reconciling force.You might say that the ends justify the means.They don't. Not now anymore than during the pandemic. Four years ago many of us would have applauded a preacher challenging Trudeau for mercy upon all those who had lost their jobs, or been tackled for not wearing a mask, or been beaten for not moving their truck. Not a radical change in policy. Just mercy.If we're going to be so quick to dismiss words that echoed so much of Jesus', we need to ask why.Can we not, as Bari Weiss said in her recent talk to the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship, at least apply some 'principle over power'?We need it: Trump's challenge to a managerial state that has benefited the managers for far too long.But, truth is truth, no matter where it comes from. In a new and discomforting way, many Christians and their preachers need to be asking that 2000 year old question: Is Ceasar Lord or Jesus? Especially when Nero now fiddles our tune.

TUCKER: Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?

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