In Depth:  Martyn Whittock

Martyn Whittock

As Christians, we know that “Blessed are the peacemakers” (Matthew 5:9).

And yet we also know that what is required is more than the absence of conflict, as important as that is. For justice, wholeness and restoration are also values that are deeply embedded in scripture. The Greek-speaking writers of the New Testament used the Greek word eirene to translate Hebrew shalom and communicate its values, derived as they are from a root denoting ‘wholeness,’ ‘completeness.’ This reminds us that, as Christians, we need to look at the content of peace and what it brings. Which brings us to the recent conversation between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.

Martyn Whittock

Well, we are roughly a month into the Trump presidency and the character of the new White House is becoming very clear.

Although I have a track record of sounding the alarm regarding Donald J. Trump, in the New Year of 2025 I was trying to be quite balanced on a number of occasions. In one column I pondered whether we would get ‘Trump unleashed’ or ‘Trump lite’? That I even suggested the latter was a sign that I thought it might be possible: lots of aggressive noise but not the political meltdown that many (myself at times) feared. A few weeks in, I would like to amend that brave optimism on my part. It is ‘Trump unleashed.’

Martyn Whittock

Donald Trump has become the only person – other than Grover Cleveland (president 1885–89 and 1893–97) – to serve non-consecutive presidential terms in the USA.

This has occurred less than four years since the apparent collapse of his political fortunes in the aftermath of January 6th, when it looked like the Republican Party might turn its back on the Trump years and reinstate a more familiar kind of conservative politics. But the reliance on the Make America Great Again (MAGA) base (whose support for Trump remained strong) proved too valuable to risk alienating. So, they were reconciled to Trump.