So, the CIA gets a pass for the very real treason of secretly working to overthrow an election and
then a sitting president (Russiagate) while Trump faces an orchestrated takedown for what
amounts to questioning the outcome of an election. There are a series of silly charges you hope
they never hit you with. Trump called out the CIA. He was warned, the CIA doesn’t get mad,
they get even.
Hillary Clinton still spews hatred toward the man she says stole the 2016 election. But you
observe, she is a wellspring of hatred for anything good or noble or free. Problem is, she has a
following because half the nation is just like her.
The hypocrisy of the so-called deep state is palpable and purposeful. It is hubris but it isn’t just
hubris. It’s a tool to be used with practice and skill like an assassin’s favorite silenced pistol
against any enemy, foreign or domestic. Not enemies of the Constitution but of the deep state.
Like the nation in which it is embedded, the alphabet soup of unnecessary agencies has lost all
sense of morality except the morality of power and personal gain. You can bet the back trail of
the CIA is littered with the victims of betrayal by a fellow ladder climber in the agency.
Therein lies the crux of the matter, we are a nation in rebellion against our Creator. We have met
the enemy, and he is us.
I teach economics to high school students in Mexico. This week our subject is public choice
theory, a study of the incentives of people who make political decisions. Trump’s woes became
the subject of conversation. Good case study for public choice theory. A quick informal survey
revealed that all they had heard about Trump was the Mexican State’s propaganda version that
Trump is very bad. Just an echo of the US MSM. I asked if they had heard about Trump’s legal
woes. Yes, they had and had made the State’s desired conclusion: He must be very bad, look at
all he has been charged with. Teachable moment: don’t believe everything you hear, especially
not from your government. Get the facts first. Interpret them through the lens of Scripture.
Now, Mexico is Marxist. The Constitution of 1917 was the first communist constitution in
history. In Mexico, the deep state isn’t deep. It’s everywhere, it’s corrupt. Moreover, it is inept
and clumsy in the exercise of State tyranny. The justice system serves the State, not the citizen.
You are guilty until you prove yourself innocent and your defense lawyer, if you can afford one,
is loyal first to the State.
The citizens know this about their country but have no idea why this is so. The problem is that it
is Marxist to the core, depraved at its foundation, and needs to be abandoned. The Mexican
Republic was born in rebellion, not just against Spain, but against the Christendom she
represented. Never having been taught anything different, the people keep hoping the right
politicians will sanctify what is corrupt at its foundation. You might say the Marxist Overton
window won’t allow it.
Let’s move the Mexican Overton window a bit, at least for my students. I told them about the
former good and noble governor of the state of Chiapas who was jailed on false charges by his
replacement, a corrupt political enemy with no scruples. This is not uncommon in Mexico but
doesn’t make the headlines. We knew about this case because the victim in the story was a
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relative of a family in our school. We had all been praying for his release from this unjust
incarceration. My students knew about it and nodded along in agreement. Very bad. Very unjust.
Then I said, “This is what President Biden is doing to President Trump.” Pop, pop, pop, the
lights went on. “Oh, I see.” Don’t believe it? Check out Peter Schwizer’s The Drill Down
podcast here and here.
What always strikes me as odd is how many Christians viscerally hate Trump for his style but
barely give a nod of agreement that what Biden is doing is something akin to the beast of
Revelation. Why is that? Just speaking from my personal experience growing up in a Christian
home, it has something to do with being stuck in what writer of the letter to the Hebrews calls
elementary instructions about Christ. (Hebrews 6:1,2) The list of what is elementary is partial
and includes repentance from dead works and faith in God, teaching about baptisms, laying on of
hands, resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment.
Reminiscing, I think most of the heated discussions I’ve observed between denominations have
to do with these elementary teachings, that, and eschatology. By the eschatology I grew up with,
we were generally so heavenly minded we were not much earthly good.
There has never been a time in my life when I doubted my salvation or the other foundational
doctrines of Christianity. For me, those are the Trinity, the person and work of Christ, the church
as the people of God, the Bible as the Word of God, salvation by grace alone through faith alone
and our blessed hope of our eternal life and resurrection.
However, I confess, there have been times when all that didn’t seem to be working to get me
from Monday to Friday each week. At those times, it is easy to be drawn to humanist success
coaches who say things like, the secret to motivation is to seek pleasure and avoid pain. Echoes
of Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill and George Bernard Shaw. Who knew? None of this was
ever a subject in Sunday School.
Christian ethics boiled down to what you absorbed from your parents and admired believers in
the church. At least we had a work ethic, valued honesty, did not lie, mostly, (cross my heart,
stick a needle in my eye) and expected the same of our political leaders, knew fornication and
adultery were to be avoided like the plague, despised divorce, and loved having children and
family. OK, so we were naïve if not innocent but at least we knew right from wrong. Now, the
church hardly has a voice to call sodomy, cross-dressing, child abuse and child sacrifice
lawlessness as God’s Word does. That wouldn’t be nice. Too political you know.
We have always been striving towards Christian maturity but not clear on what it meant. Mostly
it meant knowing the elementary teachings or practicing the spiritual disciplines. Read your
Bible and pray. Don’t miss a meeting at church. Get on a committee at church or teach Sunday
School. Be a nice person. Don’t ruffle feathers talking about politics. I’ve even seen seminary
papers about spiritual maturity that basically say exactly this.
The Bible has not left us without a clear definition of spiritual maturity. Back to the Hebrews
passage, chapter 5 vs 14 says, “But solid food is for the mature, whose perceptions are trained by
practice to discern both good and evil.” Oh, so the mark of maturity is ethical more than
doctrinal? Yep, pretty much.
How did I miss that all these years? It didn’t help to grow up in churches that misinterpreted
Romans 6:4, “…you are not under law but under grace,” as meaning we were left to make moral
decisions without the moral guidance of God’s Law. Big mistake. We call it antinomianism. We
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are no longer under the curse of the Law, but it stands as the moral guide for all people
everywhere and in all times. It is immutable. It is what Moses meant when he said, “Today I
place before you life and death, blessing and curse. Now choose life.” Deuteronomy 30:19
We Christians admire King David in the Bible as a man after God’s own heart. Yet David not
only committed adultery and tried to hide it, when that didn’t work, he arranged to kill the
husband in battle. Trump has done nothing of the kind. Yet the US injustice system wants to jail
him for an alleged Clintonesque bimbo eruption and various other drummed up charges. Now
there is evidence that the FBI may have framed Trump in the classified documents case. His
prosecutor in this case, Jack Smith, is not legally qualified to bring the charges. The other cases
have been brought by district attorneys who campaigned locally on a promise to take down
Trump. And the people voted for them! Moreover, it is becoming ever clearer that all of the
Trump trials are being orchestrated from the Whitehouse.
We have met the enemy, and he is us.
What I rarely hear as a critique of Trump from Christians is his support for LGBTQ or for
pushing the Covid vax. Once I heard him tell an evangelical pastor he had never felt the need to
confess his sins. That was enough to keep me from voting for anyone for president in 2016
though I crossed my fingers and prayed that Hillary wouldn’t win. It would have been like
electing Athaliah for president. (2 Chronicles 22:10ff)
What do I think now? Trump isn’t a man after God’s own heart, but he isn’t the Antichrist 1
either. His opponent most certainly acts like one. Transgender awareness Easter anyone? We are
not really faced with a choice between the lesser of two evils, but, realistically, a choice between
the options God has allowed us at this moment in history.
I plan to vote accordingly.
