Hwhup The Deans List! The Jason Dean here on a Sunday, which can only mean one thing- play time is over. Time to grow up, eat your vegetables, and get back to work. It’s the Weekender V, and I’m back with a 5engeance.
Spoiler alert- most of my writing this week deals with faith and politics. I’m kind of putting myself out there; I hope that if you disagree with me, you will at least read my words in the spirit in which I am sharing them.
Let’s get to it!
Art
We’re starting (and ending) this week’s Art class with a few photos from my photo shoot out in the HUGE spring snow storm we had last month (okay, technically it was only the first of the huge spring snow storms we had last month). I’ve talked before about how I like to sit with images for a time and let the freshness of the experience fade away so that I can see photos more objectively. Usually I mean this in a more negative way; I’m detaching emotionally from images so that I can cut the bad ones. These three photos though?
Chef’s kiss to me.
History
I don’t have any substantive updates on the streaming thing- mostly because I haven’t have the time or bandwidth to do more research. It’s funny- I started this newsletter the same week I was on a staycation, so it was easier to think about things I want to do like live streaming editing sessions from photos I took in years past. Now that I’m back to work, it’s quite challenging to just do the minimum things I want to do with this newsletter, let alone branch out into new territory to grow my photography business!
We will get there, some day.
Instead I’m talking about history today because I’ve recently discovered a couple of street photographers that have unique and ‘out-there’ styles, which is something that I’ve been exploring in my own work ever since I discovered Jiří Hřebíček and was first emboldened to start playing around with Intentional Camera Movement.
The two photographers are the late Saul Leiter, an American abstract street photographer, and Olga Karlovac, a contemporary street photographer based out of Croatia. I am just starting to dive into their bodies of work, so I don’t have too many of my own thoughts to share right now. What has drawn me to both is their ability to share their unique worldviews through unconventional photography techniques. That’s what I want for me and my photographs, so I’m excited to be inspired by these visionaries!
Civics
Yesterday, there were protests against the Trump administration across the nation (including right here in Marquette) on the same day lots of his tariffs went into effect. I bring it up as a way to transition to share something I have wanted to say for awhile now about President Trump:
His is not a Christian administration.
I’m not sure if that statement is going to be more or less controversial than I think, but it’s the statement I feel most confident in speaking to. Since Trump himself believes he was saved by God to ‘make America great again’, it’s reasonable to assume that he believes that the way he is governing our country has some sort of divine mandate attached to it. Some high-profile faith leaders seem to believe the same, and the way that the Evangelical church at large in America stood behind him at the voting booth leads me to think that most churchgoing adults in America do too.
I, however, do not believe this to be the case.
Here’s the thing- if you want to convince me that Trump’s administration is Christian, you can’t simply say it’s because he was elected as a Republican. Being a Christian is, really, much more than claiming a label. And it isn’t enough to point me to all of the things that the Trump’s administration is against. Being a Christian is about much, much more than just not doing certain things (like having sex before you’re married). Just because he and his ilk are against abortion, immigration, DEI, CRT, gender ideology, etc does not make their governance Christian. You have to look at the things that Trump is for in assessing whether that is the case.
From what I’ve seen, Trump is for “America”, power, wealth, and vengeance, particularly power and wealth for himself and his friends and vengeance against his enemies. Does that sound Christlike?
No. No, it does not.
It’s ironic that I spent most of my Christian life being told that the separation of church and state was bad and that the government and the church were supposed to be intertwined because America was a Christian nation…and now that we supposedly have a Christian government in charge of our Christian nation, it looks absolutely nothing like the church of Jesus Christ.
Instead, you have people in the highest levels of that government, professing to have the same faith that I do (a faith where you love your neighbor with an expansive understanding of who your neighbor is, love your enemies, and take care of the sick, the outsider, the hungry because it’s the right thing to do) behaving cruelly towards their neighbors and towards their ‘enemies’ while they actively enact policies and cut programs that hurt sick, hungry outsiders in our communities. Does that sound Christlike?
Folks, I am nervous to share these thoughts. Politics and faith can be difficult subjects to talk about, especially for those who are conflict-averse (like me!), and I know many of the people who followed me on Facebook and follow me here are Christians and Trump supporters. I hope that you know me well enough by now to know that I am a kind and loving person who is curious and humble and tries his best to live out the teaching of Jesus that are laid out in scripture, even though I often fail and fail spectacularly.
What else even is there?
