Note: If you wish to receive, via e-mail, (1) my weekly newsletter or (2) daily copies of these posts, write to me at [email protected]. Comments may also be sent to this address. I promise not to share your e-mail with anyone. To unsubscribe, write here as well.
Friday
In a drearily predictable development, another Trump-supporting pastor has been indicted for child abuse. Robert Morris, founder of the Gateway Church in Southill, Texas and one-time member of Trump’s first-term spiritual advisory team, has admitted to “kissing and petting” a 12-year old girl when he was 21. The abuse continued for four years.
Sanctimonious Christians who declaim against liberals, it seems, are always the ones most likely to violate basic tenets of decency. The more fervently they uphold “traditional Christian values,” the greater the odds that they are violating them in private.
Which leads me to Oliver Goldsmith’s comic poem “Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog,” which features a sanctimonious man of God. To establish his godly credentials, the poem tells us that he ran “a godly race” whenever he went to pray and that
A kind and gentle heart he had,
To comfort friends and foes;
The naked every day he clad—
When he put on his clothes.
This man is contrasted with an abject sinner—a cur “of low degree”—which everyone looks down upon. It is clear that this dog is a reprobate when he bites “so good a man.”
The real toxicity lies elsewhere, however—as becomes clear in the poem’s unexpected conclusion. Goldsmith might be drawing on Jesus’s parable about the smug pharisee and the breast-beating tax collector in structuring his lyric: “For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted,” Jesus contends (Luke 18:9-14):
An Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog
By Oliver Goldsmith
Good people all, of every sort,
Give ear unto my song;
And if you find it wondrous short,
It cannot hold you long.
In Islington there was a man
Of whom the world might say,
That still a godly race he ran—
Whene’er he went to pray.
A kind and gentle heart he had,
To comfort friends and foes;
The naked every day he clad—
When he put on his clothes.
And in that town a dog was found,
As many dogs there be,
Both mongrel, puppy, whelp, and hound,
And curs of low degree.
This dog and man at first were friends;
But when a pique began,
The dog, to gain some private ends,
Went mad, and bit the man.
Around from all the neighboring streets
The wond’ring neighbors ran,
And swore the dog had lost its wits
To bite so good a man.
The wound it seemed both sore and sad
To every Christian eye;
And while they swore the dog was mad,
They swore the man would die.
But soon a wonder came to light
That showed the rogues they lied,—
The man recovered of the bite,
The dog it was that died!
A poem that Trump used to share with audiences was another lyric about biting, this one about a woman who saves a snake from dying. She is rewarded for her generous act with a death bite:
“I saved you,” cried that woman
“And you’ve bitten me even, heavens why?
You know your bite is poisonous and now I’m going to die”
“Oh shut up, silly woman,” said the reptile with a grin
“You knew damn well I was a snake before you took me in!
. While, for Trump, the snake is a stand-in for immigrant “racists and murderers,” it’s clear to any objective observer that the real poisonous snake is Trump himself. America has twice taken him into the Oval Office, where he has done far more damage than anyone crossing the border.
Jesus was suspicious of people who loudly proclaim their holiness while judging and condemning others. In his vision, the curs of low degree will inherit the kingdom of heaven.
