Category: Responsibility

The Devil’s Bargain

‘Let no man turn aside, ever so slightly, from the broad path of honor, on the plausible pretense that he is justified by the goodness of his end.  All good ends can be worked out by good means.  Those that cannot, are bad; and may be counted so at once, and left alone’ – Charles Dickens, in his novel, Barnaby Rudge

The past few days I have been thinking of Leland Gaunt.  For those who don’t recognize the name, Mr. Gaunt is the proprietor of the shop ‘Needful Things’ in the Stephen King novel of the same name.  The shop offers a curious inventory of items, and for each individual customer who comes through the door, there is a particular item that inevitably overwhelms their discretion and self-restraint.  It is an item they simply must possess, no matter the cost.  Mr. Gaunt, eager to please, offers each enthralled customer the item of their desire for two prices, both of which they must agree to pay. 

The first price is always a bargain, leaving each customer with the distinct impression that Mr. Gaunt desires to give his stock away.  The second price isn’t specified up front. Mr. Gaunt simply advises that he will come to collect later.  If this makes you suspicious you are right to be, but the shoppers at Needful Things, seeing the item of their heart’s desire before their eyes, never take time to be so themselves.  All they can contemplate is that they need the item, and so they pay the initial price without consideration of the second.  They simply can’t resist, for, as Leland Gaunt himself says, ‘Everybody loves something for nothing…even if it costs them everything.’

And that, of course, is the catch.  It will cost them everything.  For, as it turns out, Leland Gaunt is no ordinary shopkeeper.  He is the devil himself come to Castle Rock, Maine to wreak havoc.  He lets his customers enjoy their items for a time, and then, when he has them where he wants them, comes to collect the second price, which, wouldn’t you know it, is destructively, even lethally, high.  In the end, each item fails to deliver on its original promise, and ends up costing the buyer, as Mr. Gaunt himself had intimated, everything.    

This past week, as most of you know (unless you’ve been living under a rock), a draft opinion by the United States Supreme Court leaked to the press.  The opinion, if adopted, would overrule Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark decision that made abortion legal throughout the United States.  The whole country has been in an uproar ever since.  The draft decision is being seen as vindication for the many Christians who, despite reservations, voted for Donald Trump in 2016 and/or 2020.  Sure, he was an odious character, a womanizer, a racist, a bully, and possessed more than a few authoritarian tendencies, but heck, he promised to appoint conservative, originalist Justices who would overrule Roe, and that was something for which those same Christians had been praying for decades.  The protection of unborn life was the worthiest of causes, and the bargain Mr. Trump proposed was simply too enticing to pass up.   And so, they held their noses, pulled the proverbial lever, and waited for the promised victory. 

Now, that victory seems imminent.  And so, in the minds of many, the Faustian bargain struck with Mr. Trump seems to have been worth it. 

But was it? 

You see, just as was the case in Mr. Gaunt’s shop, a devil’s bargain always comes with a second price, and the promise given always fails.  Now, I understand that we are talking about the lives of unborn children.  I am myself pro-life.  I believe all life to be sacred, from womb to tomb.  But one must ask whether this bargain is even going to hold; whether the promised gain will be fully realized.  Whether, for starters, the draft opinion will even become law.  Whether, in a society where the majority simply doesn’t see things as I and other pro-life persons do, such a decision will be allowed to stand for long, or even have the desired effect (one of the ironies of overruling Roe may well be that in the states where the vast majority of abortions are performed, abortion access, and hence the number of abortions, including late-term abortions, will likely increase, rather than decrease).  One must ask whether, in fact, there may have been other means, other ways, to save the lives of unborn children, say, by providing financial, emotional, and other support to birthmothers, birthfathers, and families facing unplanned or crisis pregnancies, as many Christians and agencies have been, and still are, doing.  Or by ensuring that health care and other benefits remain available to those same mothers and families.  Or by coming alongside families and helping them raise their children by providing childcare and other support services.  Or, in situations where birth families are not able to care for their children, by adopting their children and raising them to cherish their birthmothers and fathers and their choice for life.  Or by simply engaging in the patient industry of gentle persuasion and the modeling of a better way.  There are many ways to be pro-life with respect to abortion, with or without the reversal of Roe.

And then there is the matter of the second cost.  In backing Trump, Christians partnered with a man who has threatened democracy, damaged race relations, denigrated public decency, and caused countless other social harms.  The consequent injury to the Church’s witness has been incalculable.   In the minds of many both within and without the Church, Christianity has become associated with Trumpism.  Christians (even those of us who didn’t make the bargain) are now widely thought of as the people who support racism and white supremacy, who separate children from their families, who approve of the use of violence against peaceful protestors, who look the other way as women are demeaned and abused, who, well, we could go on for a while here.  It seems no exaggeration to say that both the message and messengers of Christianity have been tarnished severely by this association with Mr. Trump, and that this tarnishing, on top of the aforementioned damage to society, may well result in millions, even tens of millions, turning away from Jesus forever. 

Talk about a high second price.

So it is with the devil’s bargains.  They seem to offer an effective means to a certain end.  But in the end, the promise is never fulfilled, and the price proves to be too high.  Which is why, for example, when Jesus was offered a similar bargain by Satan in the wilderness, in that case control of all the kingdoms of the world, he refused (see, Luke 4:5-8).  Sure, he might have gained control over the world’s kingdoms (and been able to pack their courts!), he may even have been able to do much good, but he would have done so by rejecting the way of the Cross, the one thing necessary for the salvation of the world and the establishment of the one Kingdom that truly matters.  He would have missed the proverbial forest for the proverbial trees.  For Jesus, the means by which he saved the world was as important as the end, for only by following the right means could the proper end be truly achieved. 

It may seem like a bargain to give power to a despot in order to win one’s favorite cause, especially a cause as important as the preservation of human life.  I can understand the temptation.  But folks, it is always a mistake to accept the devil’s bargain.  It is always better to follow the path of Jesus, the path of service and sacrifice, as long, hard, and frustrating as it may be, than it is to accept the cheap and easy way out offered by, if not Satan himself, those who seek to wield his power. 

Esau McCauley has said, ‘the way you get something is just as important as the fact that you get it…so as a Christian, I am never allowed to put aside means to get to an end.’[1]  He’s right.  As Dickens noted, good ends can always be worked out by good means, those that cannot are bad, and should be counted so at once, and left alone. 

And so I say to those who voted for Trump because of their pro-life convictions, this week may seem like vindication, but beware.  The second, hidden cost of your bargain is already playing out before our eyes.  In the end, it may very well cost everything. 

Far better, I believe, to reject the devil’s bargain in all its guises, and, like Jesus, pursue another way. 

Under Christ’s Mercy,

Brent

[1] See, interview with Esau McCauley in Holy Post Number 425. 

Time to Share

‘If you have two shirts, give one to the poor.  If you have food, share it with those who are hungry’ – John the Baptist, Luke 3:11

The news hit the day after Thanksgiving.  As tens of millions of Americans rushed to stores and online to take advantage of Black Friday sales, the World Health Organization released news about the dreaded Omicron Variant.  Stock markets plunged, travel restrictions were imposed, and supply lines came to a stand-still.  Suddenly, the prospect of a post-Thanksgiving/holiday Covid surge took on dire new dimensions as people contemplated the news that the new variant boasts a ‘constellation of mutations’ that may enable it to evade both vaccine and natural immunity. 

The jury is still out on just how bad this really is, so it is premature to panic.  It may well be the case, one can hope, that this will turn out to be much ado about nothing.  Nonetheless, the arrival of a new ‘variant of concern’ offers an opportunity to reflect on the world’s response to the pandemic, in particular the failure of the wealthier nations to share their vaccine blessedness with less affluent countries. 

Omicron has its origins in South Africa, a nation with a relatively low vaccination rate (35%).  Poorer African nations are more severely under-vaccinated.  Nigeria, for example, has a rate of 1.7%.  Ethiopia, 1.3%.  The Democratic Republic of Congo is at 2.1%.  The continent as a whole stands at around 4%, with poorer nations averaging, as the examples cited evidence, less than 2%. 

And that’s just Africa.  Poorer countries around the world are overwhelmingly unvaccinated. 

As a Christian, I find this appalling, as I hope you do too.  Two reasons, the first being basic fairness.  John the Baptist’s observation about sharing clothing and food seems to apply to vaccines just as well.  In wealthier nations, including the United States, we throw expired vaccines away every day.  We have far more than we need (even if the persistently stubborn were to break down and take a needle, we would have plenty).  Seven days ago, America reached the point where 36% of Americans had received a third dose of the vaccine.  I myself am so boosted, a decision I weighed carefully, considering the very topic I am currently addressing. I decided to get the shot because they were abundant here in the states and, given the current state of vaccine hesitancy, would go bad if not used.  It did pain me somewhat to know I was getting a third shot when hundreds of millions have yet to get one. 

This widespread availability of the vaccine at home, and the receipt of boosters, is not necessarily a cause for hand wringing.  Citizens of wealthier nations could, if we set our collective mind to it, provide more than enough vaccine for both ourselves and the world.  I am no expert, and I am sure there are deep complexities involved, but two steps in particular seem in order.  First, wealthier nations could simply create a Marshall-type plan on Covid and appropriate billions of dollars to the purchase and deployment of vaccines throughout the world.  Second, the Pharmaceutical companies that created the available vaccines could release their patents, enabling vaccines to be developed at a faster pace throughout the world.  Pope Francis called for such a step in October, calling on Pharmaceutical companies to ‘Make a gesture of humanity and allow every country, every people, every human being, to have access to the vaccines.’

‘Oh but we can’t spend our money distributing vaccines everywhere!’ I can hear some say.  ‘We need to make sure we have enough vaccine to protect ourselves!  Not everyone is vaccinated here.  America first!’  Putting aside that Americans here have had plenty of time to get vaccinated, this argument is hollow, self-serving, and certainly contrary to the teachings of Jesus.  I love the story of Jesus and the Syro-Phoenician woman in the Gospels.  A foreigner came to Jesus asking for healing for her daughter.  Jesus, knowing his disciples’ prejudices, initially put her off by saying he had come for the children of Israel, not outsiders, thereby revealing the ugliness of the disciples’ nationalist, ‘Israel first’ mentality.  When she persisted in her pleas for help, Jesus delivered the woman’s daughter to wholeness.  There are many lessons in the story, but among them is the realization that Jesus didn’t just offer ‘healthcare’ to those close to home.  He made it available wherever it was needed.    

As for the release of patents, I am sure that I (and the Pope) will be accused of naivete.  Do you not understand the nature of the pharmaceutical industry?  Or the precedent it would set for the future?  Why should companies that invest millions, even billions, not be able to reap the rewards of their labor.  To tamper with the invisible hand of the Pharmaceutical marketplace would be to denigrate capitalism.  Well, in the first place, these vaccines were produced, at least in the United States (and I’m sure elsewhere) in part with public money, aka taxpayer dollars.  And in the second place, this is a crisis moment in which millions of lives are at stake.  If Big Pharma chooses profits over human lives at such a time as this, it will reveal the moral bankruptcy of its corporate soul and deserve whatever government encroachment on their turf ensues.  As far as I’m concerned, if they will not release their patents voluntarily, they should be made to do so.  Cries of socialism be damned. 

The second reason I find the current state of vaccine disparity so appalling is this: it is not only morally wrong; it is galactically stupid.  Failure to stop the spread of this mutating virus throughout the world means it will have more opportunities to metamorphose as it spreads, producing ever more variants of concern, each potentially more virulent than the last.  We are flipping out over the Omicron variant at present.  One wonders what happens by the time we get to the last letter of the Greek alphabet.  The Omega variant might be one that lives up to its name, to the horror of us all. 

The wealthier nations and the Pharmaceutical companies have a choice.  We can do the right thing, save millions of lives, and in the process save ourselves.   Or we can forsake the advice of John the Baptist to share, cling to what is ours, and watch the world descend into a chaos of our own making. 

It’s time to listen to the Baptizer.  It’s time to share.  If we don’t, we may all live to regret it. 

Under Christ’s Mercy,

Brent

Make Decency Normal Again

‘You have heard that our ancestors were told, ‘You must not murder.  If you commit murder, you are subject to judgment.’  But I say to you, if you are even angry with someone, you are subject to judgment!  If you call someone an idiot, you are in danger of being brought before the court.  And if you curse someone, you are in danger of the fires of hell’ – Jesus, in Matthew 5:21-22 (NLT)

According to Jesus, words matter.  The things we say, the things we suggest, have meaning, both for those who hear them and for the state of own hearts.  Holding another person in contempt, such as we evidence when we call someone a disparaging name or curse them, is serious business.  Sticks and stones may break our bones, but when we say things that put another person’s physical, spiritual, emotional, or psychological well-being in danger, we imperil our very souls.  Treating people with decency and respect, valuing them as fellow pilgrims on the journey of life, holding them up instead of tearing them down, even when we are talking about those with whom we may have reason to disagree, matters to Jesus. 

Yesterday, the United States House of Representatives voted to censure one of its members.  You probably know the story.  Representative Paul Gosar from Arizona had posted on Twitter a doctored anime video depicting himself flying through the air with a sword and slashing at the neck of New York’s Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.  In the video, blood sprays from the wound as AOC’s neck snaps back, lifeless, and dead.  Gosar then turns his attention to President Joe Biden, his next apparent victim. 

Decency in political discourse seems to be on its last legs in this country, but even so, this was beyond the pale.  In defense of the motion to censure Gosar, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi remarked, ‘We can’t have members [of the House] joking about killing one another.’  That such a defense had to be made at all is illustrative of how bad things have become in America. 

Not surprisingly (I wish I could say something like ‘shockingly’ here), Pelosi’s view of the matter was not supported by the members of Gosar’s party, all but three of whom voted against censure (two, Representatives Liz Cheny and Adam Kinzinger admirably voted in favor, a third Republican Congressman, David Joyce, who ironically serves on the House Ethics Committee, voted ‘present’ – hardly a profile in courage there).  To many opposed to the motion, the video was ‘just a joke.’  How on earth it can be considered acceptable to joke about murdering a woman (or anyone for that matter), I cannot begin to understand.  But when you consider further that AOC has been vilified by conservatives and right wing zealots for years (the former’s rhetoric fueling the hate of the latter; the two groups are becoming increasingly indistinguishable), that as a result she receives a daily briefing each morning about the latest threats against her life, that, on January 6th, she was among those most likely to be murdered (or worse) by the insurrectionists at the Capitol, one might think that, perhaps, Republicans would realize the dangers of such a ‘joke,’ and that, further considering Gosar’s affiliations with neo-Nazis and right wing thugs, it wasn’t a joke at all but a calculated attempt to raise the temperature of hate against a rival, liberal member of Congress, her safety be damned.  There certainly wasn’t anything funny about that video.  In fact, if you or I had posted it, we almost surely would have received a visit from the Secret Service. 

I can hear the conservative AOC haters now: but she’s a Socialist!  This was just meant to highlight how dangerous she is; that we are at war for the soul of our country (this has actually been said in defense of Gosar).  Come off it.  I don’t care if AOC is a strident Communist (which she isn’t).  You don’t treat anyone like this.  Not if your Mama raised you right.  And especially not if you claim to be a follower of Jesus, who, remember, demands that we not speak or act in ways that hold others in contempt or risk placing their lives in peril. 

In support of the motion, AOC took the floor and gave a speech that is exactly what our country needs to hear as it continues to slouch toward the annihilation of decency.  You can watch her speech here.  I urge you to do so.  I would go so far as to say that, whatever your politics are, if you can listen to her words and disagree with her on this matter, if you can listen to her words and continue to defend someone like Gosar, if you can listen to her words and continue to believe that it is acceptable to treat anyone the way she has been treated by Trumpian political operatives, then, to paraphrase a friend of mine, your moral compass, if you ever had one in the first place, is irretrievably broken, and you need to get yourself a new one. 

I am glad the censure motion passed but disappointed that it did not pass unanimously.  It is a sad day indeed when Congress, a body that I, like AOC, was once taught to hold in the highest regard, cannot even agree to protect the safety of its own members, when political disagreements are resolved, not in a spirit of civility and common unity, but with vicious attacks and diatribes, if not full on violence, and when such attacks, diatribes, and violence are defended, almost to a person, by one of America’s two political parties. 

I take some consolation that, at least for now, a low bar has been set: it is not acceptable for members of Congress to even joke about murdering one another.  That the bar is so low is enough to make one weep.  I can only hope that this small step might be part of a longer journey to make decency, if not great, at least normal again. 

Under Christ’s Mercy,

Brent

Bee Sense

‘Don’t just look to your own interests.  Consider the interests of others’ – Philippians 2:4

I recently spent some time in a community garden watching bees and butterflies.  Pollinators are amazing to observe, and I filmed several video clips and took even more pictures as they drank nectar from flowers.  One thing the pandemic era has taught me is to appreciate the simple things.  Enjoying God, the company of family and friends, and the beauty of the earth are pretty much all I need these days to be content, so spending an hour or so with my daughter and mother-in-law in the garden watching bees and butterflies was a kind of bliss. 

It wasn’t long after this experience that I serendipitously read an entry concerning bees in Peter Wohlleben’s, The Inner Life of Animals.  Bees are fascinating creatures, necessary for the health of our planet, but also capable of teaching lessons.  One such lessons struck me as I read Wohlleben’s discussion of how bees stay cool in the summer and warm in the winter.  In the summer months, the intense activity among bees can raise hive temperatures considerably, which could prove fatal to the colony, but bees have found ways to stay cool.  Worker bees bring water into the hive to cool things down, and the fluttering of wings produces breezes.  In such ways, the hive is climate controlled, and the bees don’t overcook. 

In the winter, warming measures are undertaken.  If it gets cold enough, the bees of a colony will huddle together in ball.  The queen, who must be protected at all costs, is of course placed in the center of the ball where it is warmest.  Moving out from the center, the temperature of course drops, placing the bees at the outer rim in peril of freezing to death, except for one thing: the bees take turns.  They take shifts on the ball’s surface, allowing each crew to take a turn closer to the center and warm up before returning to duty on the outer edge.  In this way, the colony, and each bee within it, has a chance to survive the winter. 

One wonders what motivates bees to look out for one another in this fashion.  Perhaps it is too much to suggest they care for one another (then again, perhaps they do).  It seems more likely that they simply understand that the success of the hive depends on the success of each bee.  If they lose even a single member of the colony, the ability to stay warm collectively is diminished.  Essentially, bees know that they need each other.  Each individual bee therefore considers the interests of the others along with their own.  Each bee knows that unless they look out for the other members of the colony, no one will make it. It is of course natural for bees to feel this way; they are inherently collectivists, not individualists.  They don’t live their lives in terms of ‘me’ and ‘I’ but ‘we’ and ‘us.’  They value one another’s contributions to the collective, and are willing to sacrifice, in this case, a little bit of warmth, for the sake of saving the whole. 

I could run in a thousand directions on this, most of which would produce controversy.  This would only prove the point of this post, but honestly, I’m just too tired to deal with it at the moment (I’m on vacation).  Suffice it to say that we humans could learn from bees.  It breaks my heart, and makes me more than a little frustrated, that some people (I won’t say most, although I confess, I’m tempted these days) can’t seem to understand that we need to look out for each other.  They can’t seem to understand that each one of us has value, and that we need to look, not just to our own interests but to the interests of others.  They can’t seem to understand that if we don’t look out for one another, say, by taking a shot in the arm or wearing a mask (okay, I just went in one of those potentially controversial directions), we will all be impacted detrimentally.  They can’t seem to understand that we should be willing to make sacrifices, for the sake of saving both the vulnerable among us and our society as a whole. 

Perhaps bees are just programmed to act the way they do.  Perhaps they don’t think nearly as much about their behavior as I have suggested.  But to my way of thinking, that only makes things worse.  We human beings have been gifted with the ultimate grace: we have been made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27).  We have the ability to reason, to think things through, to feel compassion for others, to experience community, to love.  Those of us who claim to be Christian claim not only these extraordinary graces, but the power of God to activate them fully.  How sad then, when we neglect our birthright and ignore the gifts we have been given, when we, instead of considering the needs of others, choose to only, and shortsightedly, consider our own. 

I leave it to you, reader, to consider the myriad of circumstances to which this lesson may apply.  Like I said, I could take this in a thousand directions.  All I choose to say in closing is this: its time we started acting a little more like the bees.

It’s time we all got a little bee sense. 

Under Christ’s Mercy,

Brent

Carry the Fire

‘Sin will be rampant everywhere, and the love of many will grow cold’ – Jesus, Matthew 24:12 (NLT)

Cormac McCarty’s The Road is as darkly dystopian a novel as you will find.  It tells the story of a man and his son struggling to survive in a post-apocalyptic world that is literally cold and growing colder.  It is a world with few survivors attempting to escape cannibalistic bands of men.  If this sounds awful, it is, but the story is nonetheless touching and beautiful.  Hope abounds, as father and son hold on to one another, loving each other deeply from the heart, learning together what it means to live with faith.  Throughout the novel, the father encourages his son with a simple phrase: carry the fire.  The world around them is dark and hopeless, but they carry within them a spark of life they dare not, will not, allow the world to quench.  This is how to survive in a cold world that is growing colder: you ‘carry the fire.’ 

I’ve been meditating the past several weeks on a familiar passage from Paul’s second letter to his son in the faith Timothy.  It goes like this:

‘For a time is coming when people will no longer listen to sound and wholesome teaching. They will follow their own desires and will look for teachers who will tell them whatever their itching ears want to hear. They will reject the truth and chase after myths.  But you should keep a clear mind in every situation. Don’t be afraid of suffering for the Lord. Work at telling others the Good News, and fully carry out the ministry God has given you’ – 2 Timothy 4:3-5. 

I’ve known those words for as long as I can remember.  But they have never felt more apt than they do now.  We live in a time when facts do not matter.  People are following the darkest inclinations of their hearts and accepting as true any cockamamie theory that justifies their expression.  They are indeed rejecting truth and embracing strange myths (e.g., Q Anon, Pizza gate, The Steal).  Elected leaders – and religious leaders – who consciously know better go along with such insanity, believing that they can use said dark expressions to forge political coalitions to remain in, and expand upon, their positions of power.  Sin has been part of the world since the Fall, but ours is a time of descending shadow.  We face the sort of days Jesus warned about.  Sin is rampant everywhere, and the love of many is growing colder by the minute. 

How does one live in such a world? 

Carry the fire. 

That is Paul’s advice to Timothy, his son in the faith.  Not in so many words, but it’s what he means. 

He breaks his advice down into four main points.    

First, we must keep a clear head in every situation.  Rudyard Kipling’s famous poem, A Father’s Advice to his Son, begins, ‘if you can keep your head about you, when others are losing theirs and blaming it on you…’  That seems to sum things up well.   People around us have lost their heads.  But disciples of Jesus must not lose theirs.  We must, as the author of Hebrews puts it, keep our eyes fixed upon Jesus.  While others wander into myths, we must remain deeply rooted in the way, truth, and life of our Lord.  We must, as Rich Mullins sang years ago, continue as the children who love while the nations rage.

Second, we must not be afraid of suffering.  Too many believers have been silent in these times, fearful of the repercussions of speaking truth into the darkness.  Church leaders have feared losing their flocks, ministries, or positions.  Ordinary believers (as if there were such a thing!) fear losing friends and community standing.  Folks, if we’re fearful of such things now, what will we do when things get worse?  Paul wrote to Timothy from prison, awaiting his own death.  The very next verses in his letter tell of how he was being poured out as a drink offering for his faith.  Yet Paul was not afraid of suffering.  He knew it was part of what can happen when you live faithfully for Jesus.  Flannery O’Connor put her finger on the problem of people who don’t understand this basic truth when she wrote, ‘they think faith is a big electric blanket, when of course it is a cross.’  As believers living in a world that is cold and growing colder, we had better be prepared to pick up ours and follow Jesus.  We cannot be afraid. If the world is to find hope beyond the darkness of our times, we must do what we have been called to do. 

Third, we are to work at telling others the Good News.  Some translations put this, ‘do the work of an evangelist.’  An evangelist is one who proclaims Good News.  We who follow Jesus have the best news of all and have been empowered to share it far and wide.  The Kingdom has come.  There is another way to live.  We need not be captive to either strange myths or our darkest impulses.  People must know this. We must stand at the crossroads and live out the values of the Kingdom, pointing the world to Jesus and his way.  To paraphrase N.T. Wright, it is our call to preach hope wherever there is hopelessness, justice wherever there is injustice, peace wherever there is violence, and love wherever there is hatred.  We are to preach Jesus, incarnate, crucified, and resurrected to a world that is cold and growing colder, that it might find the warmth it needs to thrive again. 

And finally, we are to fully complete the ministry that God has given us.  This will be different for each of us.  But every Christian has a ministry.  Whatever it is, whether it is running a global ministry, pastoring a small church, caring for a handicapped child, preserving the beauty of God’s creation, loving the neighbor across the street, or any number of other wonderful things, we are to continue to bloom wherever God has planted us until we are directed to another mission field or else our race has run.  God will show us, each day, what he desires us to do.  Ours is to draw close to him, discern his will, and perform whatever task he gives.  In a world that is cold and growing colder, this may seem to not make much difference at times.  No matter.  We must be faithful to the end.  We must do what is right.  We must follow the lead of our Lord and Savior. And trust the rest to him. 

This is how we live in times such as ours.  We do not give up.  We fight the good fight.  We finish the course.  We keep the faith.  We pass on the torch of faith to those who come behind us.  Just as those who carried it faithfully in the past passed it along to us. 

The world is dark and cold my friends, and things may get darker and colder still in days to come.

Carry the fire.

Under Christ’s Mercy,

Brent

Calling Out Quislings

‘A vile race of quislings – to use a new word which will carry the scorn of mankind down the centuries – is hired to fawn upon the conqueror, to collaborate in his designs, and to enforce his rule upon their fellow countrymen, while groveling low themselves’ – Winston Churchill, June 12, 1941

Let me be clear at the outset of this post that I believe in forgiveness and enemy love.  God commands these things, and believe it or not, they are powerful forces that can and do change the world.  But I also believe in justice and accountability.  God talks about them a lot too. 

This past week’s attack on the Capitol Building in Washington cries out for accountability and justice.  Make no mistake: this was a coordinated insurrection orchestrated by the President of the United States, who even as it unfolded, called Senators to convince them to heed the will of the mob and overturn a free and fair election.  That the President and perpetrators of the assault need to be held accountable should go without saying (though sadly, it needs to be these days). 

But accountability needs to go much further than the President and his Brownshirts (or should I say Redhats?).  Just as there were many fingers on the trigger that killed Jimmie Lee Jackson, there were many collaborators in the assault on the Capitol that killed five people, including a law enforcement officer.  What happened at the Capitol was the inevitable result of four years of fomented outrage, wholesale engagement with the politics of fear, hate, and division, and a collective refusal on the part of those who know better to simply stand and say, ‘enough.’ (It is actually in a deeper sense the inevitable result of hundreds of years of American History, but that’s a longer story for another time).

The insurrection was led by Republican members of Congress who, for four years, stood by in silence as children were put in cages.  As families were torn asunder.  As racism roared from the mouth of a white supremacist president.   As daily assaults against the institutions of democracy flowed from his twitter account.  As the President invited foreign interference in what was then the upcoming election, and as he spun false conspiracy theories about election fraud once he lost while simultaneously attempting election fraud himself.  As these and a parade of a thousand other horribles swept across the land, these members of Congress, almost to a man and woman, stood by and did nothing.  In fact, they defended it all.  And when given the opportunity to remove a would-be dictator from office before he could do further damage, failed to do so.  My goodness, even in the wake of the assault, 147 of these Congressman continued to press false conspiracy theories in an attempt to steal the election!  As for the rest, well, we can be thankful they finally decided to step back from the brink to some degree.  But even they have failed to own up to their part in this insurrection.  Shame on them.  Shame on them all. 

It was also led by members of the President’s own administration, who stood by and defended the President at every tweet, every provocative word, every assault on the fabric of society.  They stroked his ego, fueled his narcissism, and carried out his cruel and destructive orders.  They peddled lies about the election themselves and kindled the fires of rage.  In the wake of the attack, some have resigned.  Some have been silent.  None have stood up.  None have owned up.  Shame to them as well. 

It was led by the heroes of right-wing media.  Outlets like FOX News, Newsmax, and One America have knowingly reported lies as facts, all in the name of ratings and the dollars they bring.  And when the coup failed, their spin machines went into action.  ‘It’s the fault of the liberals.’  ‘It was really Antifa.’   Have they no shame?  Whether they do or not, shame on them all. 

And it was led by leaders of the white American Church.  White Evangelical leaders such as Franklin Graham, Jerry Falwell Jr., and Eric Metaxas, Christian Nationalists all, may as well have broken the barriers at the capitol themselves.  Such supposed followers of the Prince of Peace put down their crosses and took up their swords in defense of a man whose every utterance threatened lives and defied the teachings and way of Jesus.  And not just white Christian leaders.  White Christians in general are, tragically, among the most likely to believe the President’s lies.  The most likely to repeat them.  Heck, there were even some among the insurrectionists waving Jesus flags and crosses alongside Confederate banners.  Even now, many still stand beside the man who inspired an attack on Congress.  Shame, the deepest shame, be on them all.  It’s long past time we stopped calling these folks Christians. 

The above quote from Winston Churchill is a reference to the government of Vidkun Quisling, a Norwegian politician who betrayed his country in an attempt to gain power through a collaborative alliance with the Nazis in the 1930s.  He brought shame to his family name and nation and earned the legacy of a coward and a collaborator with evil.  Sadly, he was not the last of his kind by a long shot. 

Republican Senator Mitt Romney, a standout of virtue amidst the crisis of the Trump Presidency, spoke like Churchill the other day.  In the wake of the insurrection, he spoke in defense of democracy:

‘We gather today due to a selfish man’s injured pride and the outrage of his supporters whom he has deliberately misinformed for the past two months and stirred to action this very morning.  What happened here today was an insurrection, incited by the President of the United States.  Those who choose to continue to support this dangerous gambit by objecting to the results of a legitimate, democratic election will forever be seen complicit in an unprecedented attack against our democracy.  They will be remembered for their role in this shameful episode in American history.  That will be their legacy.’

Like I said at the outset, I am a big believer in forgiveness and enemy love.  But I’m also for justice and accountability.  We cannot sweep the actions of these scoundrels under the carpet.  We must call them to account.  We must pray and call for their repentance.  For there can be no moving forward, no peace, no reconciliation, no justice, and no hope for a better tomorrow otherwise. 

And so, until there is repentance, until there is accountability, let us remember who and what the collaborators are: a vile band of quislings complicit in an unprecedented and violent attempt to inaugurate an era of authoritarianism in America. 

For their sake, for the sake of the Church, and for the sake of our society, I pray for their transformation, and if it happens, I will gladly stand in line to embrace them.  But let us not pretend that things are fine before then.

The quislings must be held accountable. 

Under Christ’s Mercy

Brent