My Dear Friends:

Having set off something of a small firestorm with my quote from Jacques Ellul, I feel responsible to make one last attempt to rein things in and get back to the main point.  Ellul was not talking about “Trump vs. Hillary” or “this November’s election.”  How could he have been when he was writing in France in the 1950s?  His point — and mine — is something at once far simpler and more universal in scope:  namely, that politics is not the be-all and end-all of human existence; that there are other and better ways to do good to our neighbors; and that, when all is said and done, we are supposed to be following a Master who said, “My kingdom is not of this world.  If my kingdom were of this world, then my followers would fight to __________ (you fill in the blank).  But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.”

P.S.  For more on my views regarding the pragmatic approach of practical politics, see my last entry under the The Pilgrim Path, “Impracticality,” September 30, 2016.