Specks and Planks

“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The current US presidential race looks more like the gladiators’ game, where savagery reigns and all decency has vanished. Too much is at stake as the election nightmare draws nigh, and the hour might be late already to repair the damage, regardless of who wins the race. When the ball is over will we all be paying the price? So, how can one be silent?

One is yet to see what the presidency of Hillary Clinton might bring to America, and to the world? There are things about her that concern me indeed. Her emails are not among them, nor the ancient sins of her husband Bill. I wish the zealots who are today so generously forgiving all Donald Trump’s blunders, gropings and other sexual and non-sexual escapades, would extend only a portion of that grace to the Clinton Family.

I am much more concerned about the further advancements of gender and marriage confusion, that was aggressively advanced under the current administration? Let me share a recent, eye-opening experience as a metaphor.

As I recently entered a local branch of otherwise well know national brand of a coffee outlet, my attention was drawn to a new sign posted next to what used to be the male bathroom. It was quite a sight and surprise to see, through the open bathroom door a male urinal, and next to the open door a new sign declaring that from that day onward ladies were welcome too. Already I’ve heard comments uttered by some concerned women who complained that before the female and male bathrooms were turned into the “gender-neutral” sanctuaries at least the ladies’ toilets were clean. Since the renaming of the bathrooms, no clean toilet is to be found around. These are some of the first consequences of the gender equality wrongly applied.

Sounds cynical? Not nearly as much as the whole social and political construct that drowns us all deeper into moral confusion under the hijacked concept of advancing human equality.

Will we have more of those, and alike, if Hillary Clinton occupies the Oval Office?

Moreover, will we witness more assaults on religious freedom, at least on some of its aspects? Will we be a part of further devastation of human dignity through the application of quasi science, and under the implausible excuse that human progress and liberation cannot be stopped? Will we be fed more wild interpretations of the US Constitution, especially those that twist the freedom of religion into the freedom from religion? Will the aggressive atheism continue to grow into the state favored religion in the years to come? These are some of the legitimate questions one should ask before deciding to cast his or her vote for Hillary Clinton.

Sadly, the US has not yet devised an electoral mechanism by which the best of the best and the most accountable would grace the finals of a presidential race. A few potentially better choices, candidates with more upright characters, were dismissed long months ago by the people who wanted a messianic figure; one who would look more like Barabbas, and less like Jesus. Could it be that the words of the Old Testament prophet Amos speak also to us who are expecting that some kind of miracle will rescue America on the November 8? Amos warned: “It will be as though a man fled from a lion only to meet a bear.” Amos 5:19.

But, come what may, I will not join the crowd of ideologically driven zealots who are calling Hillary Clinton an evil woman. She is not a witch or an antichrist, regardless of all the claims of the numerous YouTube self-styled prophets.  And it is a total misnomer for Donald Trump to call her a “crooked and criminal Hilary”. May he behold himself in the mirror of truth before he continues to cast the rocks of wild accusations and labels against her. I will have nothing to do with the gloating shouts of many calling Americans to do away with Hillary Clinton.

And while I am still trying to make up my own mind about Hillary Clinton, under no circumstances, as a follower of Jesus, could I vote for Donald Trump. Everything about him resonates with the total absence of common sense, sound judgment, and decency. The idea that he could become the next US Commander in Chief is a nightmarish and dangerous one.

Let me be clear. His mistakes, shortcomings and sins do not upset me. Everyone has “sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” Romans 3:23. Everyone needs repentance and forgiveness. The redeeming blood of Jesus washes the sins of Donald Trump just as thoroughly as the sins of Bill Clinton, or any TV evangelist. I could care less about the things that happened in his life ten or more years ago, provided Donald Trump has repented for his sins; provided they were buried in the past.

But this is the point: with Donald Trump everything suggests that his sins are very much alive and well. He seems to be taking pride in the lifestyle soaked in lack of humility, malice, revengefulness, spite, narcissism and promiscuity. Miroslav Volf is right when he states that the video in itself is not a problem. It “simply puts a terrible icing on the unsavory cake that, if we are wise, we the citizens of the United States will not inflict on ourselves and the entire world after Nov. 8″, said Dr. Miroslav Volf.

And we all know it very well, if we only want to have our eyes open, that Donald’s “unsavory cake” is made up of the perpetual and blatant lying, lavished threats, arrogance, meanness, humiliation of others, bullying and verbal abuses, people trashing, womanizing and more. Moreover, he excites his supporters to the acts of hatred, racism and violence. Some of his mesmerized supporters are even promising an armed revolution should their idol lose the 2016 presidential election.

Donald Trump is a loose cannon, another Pandora box that should have never been opened, a presidential candidate with dangerous intentions. He is the stuff of which fascism and brazen dictatorships are made. Through his political birth we understand better the political evolution of Adolf Hitler, or Mussolini. The problem with Donald Trump are not his long-forgotten sins, but his character; or to put it more clearly – the lack of it. The tragedy is that he calls it “being smart, being successful”.

Donald Trump is a fake leader. One of the examples for it is the ways he fakes his Christian faith. He discovered the benefits of being a Christian only a few months ago; when he calculated that he had to be one if he were to attract the evangelical votes. Anyone who knows anything about Christianity can detect his pretense immediately. Only an unrepentant man, living in the state of spiritual delusion, could claim that he “will not have to be asking God for much forgiveness”. A man whose favorite Bible verse is “an eye for an eye” is ignorant of his Lord Jesus Christ. Donald Trump is yet to learn that love and empathy, rather than retaliation, are the language of the applied Gospel of Christ. He does not know yet that the heart of Jesus’ message and example is his summon to his followers to love one another, enemies included. Moreover, if Donald Trump knew anything about the Christian faith as it is revealed in Jesus Christ, he would speak more kindly about the poor, women, disabled, immigrants, his political rivals, and yes – Muslims and Mexicans too. Donald Trump is not a follower of Jesus.

Irrespective of how many evangelical hands have been piously laid over his head in the past few months, or how many “anointed prophets” have declared him to be the “chosen one” (check the YouTube, google about it); and regardless of all kinds of gymnastics that so many Christian leaders have been applying to Christianize him somehow, Donald Trump is not a contemporary David, or Sampson or John the Baptist. He certainly is not a modern-day Constantine or King Cyrus of the Old Testament. The prophetic blessings uttered over him are those of the false prophets, warned about by Jeremiah the prophet: “Do not listen to what the prophets are prophesying to you; they fill you with false hopes. They speak visions from their own minds, not from the mouth of the Lord.” Jeremiah 23:16.

While Hillary Clinton is yet to prove if she is a friend or a foe of the followers of Jesus, Donald Trump has already demonstrated amply that his lifestyle is an insult to anything called Christian. It is shocking indeed to see so many misguided Christians and Christian leaders (evangelical mostly) who, while never ceasing to demonize the US President and Hillary Clinton, are remaining deliberately blind to any and all character blunders of Donald Trump.  In their views he remains the God’s anointed, almost a messianic figure, a liberator who will “make America into a great Christian nation” again. It does not bother them at all that he has no credentials whatsoever, moral or otherwise, to claim for such a monumental task. And while some are still remaining concerned about the state of religious freedom under Hilary Clinton, a more realistic concern should be if Donald Trump and his followers would turn the freedom of religion into a mockery and disgrace, only selectively applied, if given a chance?

Sadly, and dishonestly, their veneration of Donald Trump is the agenda, and not the truth-driven. Mistakenly they believe that, if surrounded by godly men, Donald Trump would grow to be their champion in the noble fight for the restoration of the very values his lifestyle mocks so profoundly. At the same time, they cannot stand any “speck” in the eyes of Hillary Clinton, while they are deliberately swallowing and excusing multiple “planks” in the eyes and boastful mouth of Donald Trump. Many who should have known better have already bowed down in the attitude of worship and adoration of his gold-coated image. But by God’s grace I intend to remain standing. I will not prostitute my faith under the false pretense that he is the God’s choice for America at this time when everything about him demonstrates otherwise.

No, my friends, voting for Donald Trump does not mean voting for God and His Kingdom.

PS: Are we praying honestly that the will of the Lord will be done at this time? How many of us are pushing our cherished political agendas into our prayers? And how many sermons we hear today about how to vote are pure manipulations (not in my church)? And how many modern prophecies endorsing the populist candidate are nothing more than the wishful thinking of the “prophets”? May the Lord give us, his followers, His grace at this time of a great need so that in the days ahead our loyalty remains clearly with Him, and not with Donald Trump, or Hillary Clinton.

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