President Joe Biden celebrated Easter and acknowledged the Transgender Day of Visibility, the former as he has done his whole life and the latter as he has done throughout his presidency so far. This year, the two observances fall on the same day, today.
How dare the President of the United States acknowledge that transgender people exist? The blowhards at Fox News are aghast. Celebrating both Easter and the Transgender Day of Visibility is contradictory, it goes against the core tenet of Christianity, which is hatred against gays, bisexuals and the transgender. The thing about Jesus dying and getting resurrected is purely secondary.
Jesus Christ died to atone for all the sins of some people. Who gets to determine for which persons’ sins Christ died for? So-called “Christian” “conservatives” are the ones who get to determine these, they’re people who couldn’t locate the Ten Commandments nor the genealogy of Jesus in the Bible if their lives depended on it. Not even if they happen to be selling copies for $60 each.
Oddly though, great composers like Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven and Anton Bruckner wrote a lot of music about Jesus’s death and resurrection but no music about how good Christians are supposed hate the LGBTQQIA. I guess none of them were genuine Christians.
Senator Raphael Warnock (D-Georgia), who is also a senior pastor at the Ebenezer Baptist Church, blasted “Christian” “conservatives” criticizing President Biden for supposedly demeaning the significance of Easter. “This is the opposite of the Christian faith. Jesus centered the marginalized. He centered the poor.”
President Biden commemorated Easter today with a dignified and statesmanlike message. You can read the message in full on the White House website.
Jill and I send our warmest wishes to Christians around the world celebrating Easter Sunday. Easter reminds us of the power of hope and the promise of Christ’s Resurrection.
As we gather with loved ones, we remember Jesus’ sacrifice. We pray for one another and cherish the blessing of the dawn of new possibilities. And with wars and conflict taking a toll on innocent lives around the world, we renew our commitment to work for peace, security, and dignity for all people.
From our family to yours, happy Easter and may God bless you.
Dignity for all people? What a revolutionary concept!
As for the other guy in the presidential race, as you probably already guessed, he unleashed another all-caps tirade on his Twitter knockoff of a Mastodon rip-off. It’s so unfair that he should be prosecuted for even just one of the crimes or frauds he’s committed!
With all the news of “Christian” “conservatives” sowing division over President Biden’s acknowledgement of transgender people, it’s hard to find anything about how President Biden actually celebrated Easter today. What cathedral did he and his wife go to? What music was played at the cathedral?
Obviously, that information could not be released to the public in advance. After all, the other guy posted a threat of assassination against President Biden recently. But maybe after the fact it could be reported that President Biden went to Easter Mass at such and such church in such and such city.
I think Beethoven would be appropriate for Easter Mass. Watch this performance by the hr-Sinfonieorchester conducted by Andrés Orozco-Estrada, with vocal soloists Regine Hangler, Katrin Wundsam, Steve Davislim, and Hanno Müller-Brachmann, and the Wiener Singverein.
The first time I listened to this mass a couple of decades ago, I was awestruck by the propulsive energy of the Gloria. I had recently learned the word “dithyrambic,” and I thought that adjective was perfect for this music.
What strikes me more about this mass these days is the wildly warlike tangent in the Agnus Dei that could very well have followed “wie ein Held zum Siegen” in the Ninth Symphony. After the chorus sings “dona nobis pacem,” strings and woodwinds usher in a confrontation between the trumpets and drums.
Then the vocal soloists and the choir intervene, insisting on “dona nobis pacem” and calming everyone down. But it’s Beethoven, not God, who grants us that peace in that moment, though I doubt it was Beethoven’s intention to contradict the lyrics. Bruckner, in his Mass in D minor, sets “dona nobis pacem” more convincingly and more sincerely than any other composer I’ve heard.
I had been aware of Beethoven’s earlier Mass in C major when I first heard the Missa Solemnis, but it wasn’t until a couple of years ago that I actually sought out recordings of it.
Here’s Karina Canellakis conducting the Radio Filharmonisch Orkest and Groot Omroepkoor, with vocal soloists Iwona Sobotka, Virginie Verrez, Benjamin Bruns and Adam Kutny.
Karina Canellakis is a brilliant conductor, and relatively young. She has already conducted the New York Philharmonic and the London Philharmonic.
Hope you’re having a happy Easter.