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# How to Deal with Erratic, Corpulent, Much-Married Ginger Rulers
- URL: https://mereorthodoxy.com/deal-erratic-corpulent-ginger-authoritarian-much-married-rulers/
- Published: 2016-11-18T10:45:01.000Z
- Updated: 2026-05-18T16:34:17.000Z
- Description: Susannah Black proposes various options for Christians in public life attempting to deal with the ascent of an erratic, corpulent, authoritarian ruler.
- Author: Mere Orthodoxy
- Tags: Guest Writer, History, Current Politics

**Note**: Some of these Options are better than others.

## The Wolsey Option

Through an excess of personal ambition, tie your whole career to the favor of an unpredictable and potentially vicious master. Lose his favor anyway.

## The Cromwell Option

Facilitate your master’s bizarre, persistent and destructive attraction to a sexy fascinating Pepe-meme generating femme fatale whose appeal has to do with the pleasure of transgression, leading to huge rents in the social fabric and the overturning of established norms of behavior.

## The Edward Option

DOUBLE DOWN

## The Mary Option

ROLLBACK

## The More Option

If, in the context of your work, it is conceivable that you might receive a 3 a.m. order to… oh, hit this button, say; deploy that weapons system… and that refusing such an order could potentially trigger a court martial, rehearse saying the following phrase: “The King’s good servant, but God’s first.”

## The Elizabeth Option

Keep your own counsel. Don’t deliberately alienate anyone. Bind together a fractured nation full of mutually antagonistic, mistrustful and confused people. Carve out a space for the preaching of the Gospel. Reform, with moderation and prudence. Seek the common good. Trust God. And survive.

*Susannah Black received her BA from Amherst College and her MA from Boston University. She is associate editor of* Providence Magazine *and of the Davenant Trust’s journal* Ad Fontes*, is a founding editor of* Solidarity Hall *(which now appears as The Dorothy Option on Patheos), and is on the Board of* the Distributist Review*. Her writing has appeared in* First Things, The Distributist Review, Solidarity Hall, Providence, Amherst Magazine, Front Porch Republic, Ethika Politika, The Human Life Review, The American Conservative*, and elsewhere. She blogs at* [*Radio Free Thulcandra*](https://radiofreethulcandra.wordpress.com/?ref=mereorthodoxy.com) *and tweets at @suzania. A native Manhattanite, she is now living in Queens.*