I admit to not paying much attention to Easter. Sometimes, Easter passes by me completely. But I think that is largely because I am not a Christian. If I were a Christian and a believer in Christian theology, I would of course take Easter very seriously. And even if I were a Christian who took much of the theology with a grain of salt, I would still take Easter seriously, and expect the holiday to be respected by everyone. Yes, by everyone, but especially by people who claimed to be, or self-identified as, Christian.

And I think that if someone who presumably was a Christian disrespected the holiday, I would be upset, I would not have any respect for the individual, and I would conclude he was, at best, a hypocrite.

So what do we make of Donald Trump and his Easter “greeting”? And I quote: “Happy Easter to all, including the Radical Left Lunatics who are fighting and scheming so hard to bring Murderers, Drug Lords, Dangerous Prisoners, the Mentally Insane, and well known MS-13 Gang Members and Wife Beaters, back into our Country.” And “Happy Easter also to the WEAK and INEFFECTIVE Judges and Law Enforcement Officials who are allowing this sinister attack on our Nation to continue, an attack so violent that it will never be forgotten”. And more, including calling “Sleepy Joe” a “highly destructive Moron”.

I don’t think I have to provide an answer to my question. We all know that virtually no Republican Christians will do anything about it. They will just let it pass by and, yes, they will agree with its sentiments. And some of them will conclude that the way Christians should think about Easter and the resurrection of their savior just doesn’t apply to Donald Trump, although it applies to everyone else. This is the America we now live in.

Of course, we have to admit that, for most of us, it is still better to live in the United States than to live in, say, Sudan. Did you happen to see the front page article on Sunday’s New York Times, with the headline “Aid Cuts Hit Hungry in a City of Shellfire and Starvation”? And if you saw it, did you read it? I quote Declan Walsh’s article:

“Abdo, an 18-month old boy, had been rushed to a clinic by his mother as he was dying. His ribs protruded from his withered body. The next day, a doctor laid him out on a blanket with a teddy bear motif, his eyes closed.

“Like the other 11 children, Abdo starved to death in the weeks after President Trump froze all U.S. foreign assistance, said local aid workers and a doctor. American funded soup kitchens in Sudan, including the one near Abdo’s house, had been the only lifelines for tens of thousands of people besieged by fighting.

“Bombs were falling. Gunfire was everywhere. Then, as the American money dried up, hundreds of soup kitchens closed in a matter of days.”

So, who in the United States government is to blame? Certainly, Donald Trump, with whom the buck stops. And Elon Musk, who has been in charge/not in charge of decimating the government. And Marco Rubio, our Secretary of State, who has given strong verbal support to the collapse of USAID, and into whose department the remnants of AID have been placed. And Peter Marocco, who was apparently directly in charge of the destruction of USAID and who has just been fired by Rubio for reasons apparently not completely clear.

But if deaths result from both the actions taken and the method by which these actions have been taken, shouldn’t, as they say, someone be held responsible? And the responsibility of all of these pro-life individuals should be responsibility for taking lives, right? And in my book, putting aside legal niceties, this means “murder”. Not “killing”, like in a war or when someone is threatening your spouse, but “murder”.

Now, going back to these folks all being Christians. One of the Ten Commandments, to which both Jews and Christians should adhere, is explicitly a prohibition of murder. Once again, most Republican Christians will let this just pass by. Most of them don’t read the front page of the Times, and don’t have any idea of the various ramifications of stopping the AID funds. And, guess what? No one is really going to tell them.

And then there is bombing the Houtis in Yemen. We are doing this because there needs to be a response to the Houtis targeting ships in the Red Sea and firing missiles at Israel. I understand that something needs to be done about this. And careful bombing would seem to be a possible reaction. But for two problems. First, that the bombing is, from all accounts, accomplishing nothing. Second, that the result of the bombing of a country with whom we are not at war, is resulting in multiple deaths of Yemenis and this again comes close to the definition of “murder”.

So maybe Easter should be a motivator for some of the true Christians who are supporters of Trump and his programs to take a closer look at the effect of his policies and at Trump himself. They may be able to find somewhere in themselves the ability to put aside their blinders and let the sun shine in. And that could make a lot of difference.

I will end this where I should have started it, with Easter greetings to all who celebrate. And I just saw that Pope Francis has died. He put up the good fight on most issues. I hope the Catholic Church does not follow so much of the rest of the world and move backwards.