Just Imagine

Try this on for some huge amount of imagination:  

Donald Trump was elected as President of the United States in 2016.

Eugene Peterson was the pastor in the Presbyterian Church from 1962-1991.

In one of Peterson’s more recent books — As Kingfishers Catch Fire — Peterson offers some of the sermons he had preached before he retired.  

The sermon I am reading now is entitled “Make Us Gods” based on Exodus 32:1 and 1 Timothy 1:13-17.

Which must have been given before his retirement in 1991.  And yet he is preaching about, an amazingly profound example, of how the nation of Egypt existed. 

“Egypt was religious through and through, one of the most religious cultures in the history the world…..All the politics was religious….

Egypt was a thoroughly religious society, and Egypt was a thoroughgoing slave society.  If you want to control a person or family or society, there is no better way than through religion.  And that is just as true today as it was in ancient Egypt.” (p.29 As Kingfishers Catch Fire)

Now just sit there a moment and imagine what Peterson preached some twenty five years before Trump was elected.

It is mind boggling to me.