Barney Wiget's Blog, page 37

It’s the Rope That Saves

As I read it, the rope Rahab draped out her window and used to scale down Jericho’s wall was the very same red rope that the scouts put to use for their escape some days before. The rope was meant for both Jewish scouts and pagan prostitutes; for insiders and outsiders.

As the scouts were in no way superior to the town prostitute, we have a common need of redemption with the people we attempt to bring to Jesus. We’re the same as the lostest of the lost––trashed by our sin and yet treasured by the Savior. We can only share as much of Jesus as we’re clutching onto for ourselves. Thus, our message is: “Join us at the cross!”

Remember it’s the rope that saves, not how well we comprehend it. We don’t have to grasp it perfectly, to climb down the rope or to encourage others to join us. Its strength is bound up in what it is, not in how well we understand it or how well we communicate it to others. As with any of Jesus’ miracles––walking on water, turning water to wine, or healing the blind––his miracle of salvation is as high above our thoughts “as the heavens are above the earth.”

It’s not for us to fortify the rope, just trust the rope and preach the rope and nothing but the rope so help us God!

– Originally published in Reaching Rahab: Joining God In His Quest For Friends

Trading Our Testimony for a Bowl of Stew and a Few Federal Judges

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“We should pray for presidents, critique them when they’re wrong, praise them when they’re right, and never, ever impose partisan double standards. We can’t ever forget the importance of character, the necessity of our own integrity, and the power of our prophetic witness.” (David French)

Here are my “closing arguments” on Chris Buskirk’s article on the “American Greatness” site. He claims that by supporting Donald Trump’s presidency our Christian testimony is not at all compromised. I beg––even plead––to differ! Please see my last two posts for context.

Can Christians Support Donald Trump Without Risk to Their Witness?


Are Donald Trump’s Sins Worse Than Other Presidents?

I hate it when people misuse the Bible and to justify their preconceived political notions. It’s up to you to decide whether or not my interpretation of Scripture falls into the same category.

Buskirk says that some people, “wrap themselves in pious, Christianist rhetorical flourishes and scriptural references. But by conflating the role of the secular and the sacred, by attempting to immanentize the world which is to come, they misrepresent orthodox Christian teaching about the role of Church and the practice of secular politics to the detriment of both.”

In English he’s saying that they use the Bible to back up their view that we are supposed to actually be used by God to change make the world a better place. And that’s a problem?

His $50 words notwithstanding, if we’re not here to improve the world, then why are we here? Jesus said, “Greater works than mine shall you do…” and that the world will “see our good works and glorify the Father in heaven…” We’re “ambassadors for Christ” says Paul. And Jeremiah says, “Seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper” (Jeremiah 29:7).

By the way, to “immanentize the world” means to bring the contents of heaven here on earth. Is that not what Jesus meant when he told us to pray: “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven”? If our kingdom priorities don’t impact our political ideology then I doubt they’re truly kingdom.

Buskirk says, “Voters have both a right and an affirmative obligation to prioritize public virtue. And that’s exactly the calculation that Christian Trump voters made in 2016 and are almost certain to make again in 2020.”

Are you kidding me? In what universe does Donald Trump serve as an example of “public virtue”? I don’t know what faith to which Buskirk ascribes, but for a man who quotes the Bible and tosses around grandiose theological terms, I can’t begin to imagine his version of “virtue.”

He rails on Nancy French for referring to Isaiah 5:20, “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.” He claims that she takes the verse out of its context, which he says is, “the redemption offered by the Gospel to which Isaiah was pointing.” All you have to do is skim that chapter to see that it contains nothing about redemption or the gospel. The whole chapter is about God’s judgment for his people Israel for their sin, and in my view very much applies to the values and policies of Donald Trump.

I can only imagine that Buskirk is banking on his readers either being unfamiliar with Scripture or won’t check up on his use of it. He’s definitely got his own preferred “alternative facts” method of biblical interpretation!

Then Buskirk has the audacity to say, “Using gratuitous, out-of-context quotes from the Bible to support one’s preferred political program is an abuse of scripture.” I couldn’t agree more, but isn’t it exactly that which he does throughout his article?

For example, he uses Bible characters Joseph, Daniel, and Esther in the most bizarre way:

“Did Joseph undermine his public witness as a prophet of God by serving Pharaoh even as he held the Israelites in captivity? What about Daniel, who served the fantastically pagan Nebuchadnezzar? Or Esther, who married the murderous, libertine emperor Xerxes?”

I don’t get his point at all since those three served in their posts with integrity. Plus, Pharaoh didn’t, as he suggests, hold the Jews in captivity during Joseph’s lifetime. They were guests of the Egyptian leader who deeded them choice property. They weren’t slaves in Egypt until Joseph was dead and the next Pharaoh took power. And what about Daniel and Esther? That they served pagan kings has nothing to do with his argument that Mr. Trump’s sins don’t disqualify him as president. It’s a weird mix of non sequiturs.

He seems to think that if he throws out a bunch of Bible names and stories that people will swallow what he’s serving without testing it first. He must not think much of either the Bible itself or of Christians’ knowledge of it.

As though it lends him credibility, he quotes a seminary professor: “Scripture says nothing specifically about the concrete decisions that Christians must make about voting, party affiliation, details of public policy, or political strategy. These are decisions of moral gravity, but they are not decisions that one Christian can impose upon the conscience of another Christian.”

I agree that the details of policy and strategy aren’t spelled out in Scripture. It is, however, our job to hold lawmakers and law-enforcers accountable to set the nation’s course in the direction that best benefits ALL of its citizens. Tell the African slaves and their progeny plus the citizens of Flint, Michigan that the Bible doesn’t speak to their plight and that God doesn’t expect specific action to be taken to fix it through voting, advocating for justice, and applying as much pressure as is needed to get our elected officials to do the right thing.

So, when Christians advocate for President Trump do they risk eroding the integrity of their testimony, and by association, our collective witness? To my mind, absolutely!

John Fea writes: “Too many of its leaders (and their followers) have traded their Christian witness for a mess of political pottage and a few federal judges.* It should not surprise us that people are leaving evangelicalism or no longer associating themselves with that label—or, in some cases, leaving the church altogether.”

*In case you’re not familiar with the reference…

Well? What do you think? I’d love to hear your thoughts…

Rahab’s Redemptive Red Rope

[image error] “ Sharing faith is not like teaching a class on the fundamentals. It’s more like riding on a train with our hand out to give people running alongside a chance to come aboard.” 

It would be a stretch to claim that the scouts fully understood that the red rope signified Rahab’s salvation from judgment. But being immersed in the Passover story and the miles of scarlet thread woven into the tabernacle and priests’ vestments, it’s conceivable that they inadvertently chose the red rope to make a creative––if not oblique––reference to her deliverance by sacrifice.

Jesus frequently illuminated his message by referring to farmers’ seeds, shepherds’ sheep, and vinedressers’ vines. You might say that the scouts subconsciously used the red rope to “preach the gospel” to Rahab. In like fashion, we should be keen to read the clues that the Spirit places in front of us and creatively employ them in sharing the salvation story.

The scouts didn’t have time to tell the whole story about sacrificing lambs and painting doorposts. Opportunities for unpacking the redemption story would come later. For the moment, a red rope would have to do. Similarly, many of our gospel-telling opportunities are time-sensitive and require a resourceful use of whatever object or metaphor that presents itself.

– Originally published in Reaching Rahab: Joining God In His Quest For Friends

Are Donald Trump’s Sins Worse Than Other Presidents?

 

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In my last post I began pushing back on Chris Buskirk’s thesis that one’s support of Donald Trump doesn’t compromise their personal or our collective Christian testimony. He claims that it would take a “major breach of public trust or endorsement of public evil [on the presidents’ part]” to negatively effect the public witness of the Church. As I said before, I can’t imagine what more the president would have to say or do to fall into those categories. I absolutely do believe he has acted in such a way and that those Christians who continue to run interference for him have already damaged the reputation of the Body of Christ in America.

But let me proceed with some more objections to Buskirk’s article. He says:

“Are Trump’s sins greater than those of many other presidents? … George H. W. Bush’s or Lyndon Johnson’s or FDR’s reported adultery? How about John F. Kennedy’s serial adulteries in the White House? Warren Harding’s love child?”

My short answer is a qualified “yes.” It’s qualified because there’s only One who really knows the sins of all people, yet I do believe Donald Trump’s culpability to be greater than most, if not all previous presidents. (Please don’t stop reading here and bang out your rebuttal. Give me a chance to explain.) Let’s talk about the “sin is sin” meme.

All sins are not created equal!

Sure, small sins and big ones are both sins. In that sense it’s true that sin is indeed sin. I’m a sinner in the same way Donald Trump is a sinner but are both redeemable by Jesus. The difference between him and me might be that I try my best to live repentantly and routinely confess my sin to God. I don’t know if he does. He said one time that he doesn’t. That aside…

There is a sense in which, all sin is sin as James 2 affirms. Break any link in a chain and the chain isn’t a chain anymore.

But in another very real sense, there are sins that drive a deeper wedge between us and God, and between us and others, and that cause more damage in the world than others. Jesus said: “You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness” (Matt. 23:23).

Apparently he didn’t see every command as equally important. The command to do “justice, mercy and faithfulness” outweighs the command to tithe. If someone tithes but has no mercy in his heart or is unfaithful to his friends or his spouse, and his sin is greater than not tithing.

So not everything commanded by God is of equal importance. And if commands vary in importance, it follows that violations of those commands also differ in gravity.

Jesus also taught that the “greatest” command is to love God and our neighbor as ourselves (Matt. 22:37–40). Therefore, rejecting God (instead of loving him) and hating people (instead of loving them) are greater sins than failing to tithe or attend church or keep the speeding limit or anything else for that matter.

Threatening a special drowning by millstone judgment for the damage they do Jesus seemed to have a particular issue with those who “cause little ones to stumble.” (Matthew 18) Metaphorical? Sure. But he makes a point that some sins carry a greater weight than others.

In our own justice system there are crimes that carry more weight than others. We know this because the retribution for them varies according to the seriousness of the crime. Murder is worse than speeding and incur different penalties as a result.

Buskirk asks, “If personal sin were disqualifying, who could lead?” OK, everyone sins. Everyone falls short of God’s standard. But his argument is ridiculous and he knows it. One’s personal transgressions are judged against the task a person has. I wouldn’t trust my child to a pre-school teacher given to rage, while that kind of anger might fit well in an NFL player or a cage fighter. Alcohol abuse might not be grounds for a farm laborer’s dismissal, but he’s probably not be the best candidate to drive a cross country truck.

Then he jumps into an ill advised use of the Bible, “Was David disqualified from leading Israel because he murdered Uriah in order to take Bathsheba as his wife?” I suggest that had David not repented so thoroughly (Psalm 32 and 51) he would have been disqualified, as was Saul for his lack of repentance for much less grievous sins. But the fact is, he came with all his heart back to sanity and his love for God.

From my vantage point, Mr. Trump’s unfaithfulness to his wives, paying off a prostitute to keep quiet, his petulant tantrums in press conferences, his narcissistic refusal to listen to advisors who know more than him about how the world works, his unremitting lying, and much more are, to my mind, personal sins that disqualify this president for the job. His predilection toward white nationalism and narcissistic behavior is revolting all by itself, but when it enters the public arena and leads to lying, obfuscating, and flirting with other dictators, I draw the line.

And it’s not just the gravity of Mr. Trump’s amoral lifestyle behind closed doors, it’s the unrelenting cascade of inhumanity to man that distinguishes him from all his predecessors, to say nothing of the impunity with which he does it!

Are his sins greater than other presidents? As I said before, since I’m not God, all I a say is a “qualified ‘Yes’.” From my vantage point, of all the presidents in my lifetime Donald Trump is the most dangerous and least qualified. And when Christians overlook his amorality in favor of a better economy and a few conservative judges, they damage our reputation as Christ’s representatives.

Let’s leave it at that for now. Next time we’ll look at some more of Mr. Buskirk’s theological non sequitors with which he attempts to prove that supporting Donald Trump’s presidency has no negative impact on our Christian witness.

In the meantime, feel free to chime into the conversation. I’d love to hear your thoughts…

Can Christians Support Donald Trump Without Risk to Their Witness?

The short answer to the question above, in my view is “NO!” Chris Buskirk disagrees. In his article on the “American Greatness” site he challenges editorials by husband and wife: David and Nancy French of the National Review and the Washington Post respectively, wherein they posit that our testimony is indeed compromised by those who support Mr. Trump’s presidency.

Along with the Frenches I believe that our Christian testimony has been co-opted by party over purity, and has been compromised if not shredded, and repairs are needed––and fast.

“Nobody’s perfect.” It’s a common refrain for the Donald Trump mulligan-mantra. I suppose you might call it “imperfection” when a man who marries one woman, has an affair, marries his mistress, marries a third woman, has an affair with a porn star while that third woman is pregnant with his child, and then pays her off to keep quiet! “So what?” they say.

So I don’t want to have to tell my granddaughters than “Stormy Daniels” is a weather reporter and that presidents are above the law of the land and of God! When the president makes serial adultery and philandering normal in America and evangelicals are willing to give him a “mulligan” for it the integrity of our testimony is damaged.

People aren’t stupid, they can see through the veneer when we show that we’re more about our party’s platform than we are about our Lord and his Word. It’s at this very point where our so-called Christian morals and our politics collide. If you can’t hear the loud crash and realize that something is out of whack, you should get your ears and your heart checked!

Of Bill Clinton’s moral failure in 1998 Franklin Graham said: “If he will lie to or mislead his wife and daughter, those with whom he is most intimate, what will prevent him from doing the same to the American public?” Thirty years later this same preacher and son of the great Billy Graham claims that adultery is an entirely private matter and that, “This thing with Stormy Daniels and so forth is nobody’s business.” It’s nothing but duplicitously selective moral outrage. Doesn’t he know that while driving forward throwing a transmission into “Reverse” like that can give a guy whiplash?

That same year the Southern Baptist Convention’s “Resolution on Moral Character of Public Officials” came out which said: “Tolerance of serious wrong by leaders sears the conscience of the culture, spawns unrestrained immorality and lawlessness in the society, and surely results in God’s judgment.” I guess they’ve changed their minds for Donald Trump’s sake.

Fuller Seminary President Dr. Mark Labberton said:

“The central crisis facing us is that the gospel of Jesus Christ has been betrayed and shamed by an evangelicalism that has violated its own moral and spiritual integrity.”

“Now on public display is an indisputable collusion between prominent evangelicalism and many forms of insidious racist, misogynistic, materialistic, and political power. The wind and the rain and the floods have come, and, as Jesus said, they will reveal our foundation. In this moment for evangelicalism, what the storms have exposed is a foundation not of solid rock but of sand.”

I’ll admit that politics is not my expertise but when people like Buskirk use the Bible to justify unbiblical ideas he’s in my wheelhouse. It’s not that my Bible interpretive skills are indisputable, but it is a place with which I’m familiar. And when someone misuses Scripture to back up their preconceived notions they’re asking for trouble, if not from me, from Scripture’s Author.

From where I sit, Buskirk’s very title is false: “Yes, Christians Can Support Trump Without Risk to Their Witness.” I beg to differ. In this and the next couple posts I’ll tell you why.

In order to make his argument that that the president’s serial womanizing doesn’t matter begins with a rhetorical question, “Can an adulterer be a great surgeon?” Seriously? No clear thinking person would conflate the role of surgeon with that of leader of the world’s most powerful nation! Surgeons don’t create policies that affect the whole country and effectively the rest of the world. They’re not in the public eye every second of the day, speaking on behalf of all 330 million Americans. It doesn’t matter how surgeons live as long as they can set your broken leg or put the transplant liver in its right place. The comparison is ridiculous!

I’m fully aware and ashamed that, as Buskirk points out, many of our former US presidents have been adulterers, some of which were Christians or claimed to be. I preached on sexual purity to our church during the Bill Clinton scandal, as did many other preachers and Christian media folk. Many of them hit him pretty hard in the media but now seem to have reversed their position since it’s their party’s man in the Oval Office.

Though we don’t expect our lawmakers to act like Jesus, what we’ve seen in Donald Trump is a completely different category of amorality. All you have to do is Google his history of wives, non-wives, prostitutes, private and public statements about women like they’re nothing but pieces of meat for his hedonistic indulgence. We have someone in the White House now without any evidence that I can see of a working conscience. To me that’s a problem.

But my objection to Buskirk’s thesis and to Mr. Trump’s presidency goes far beyond his “sexual ethics.” Buskirk claims that “barring some major breach of public trust or endorsement of public evil [on the presidents’ part]” does not reflect one way or another on our public witness.

As for Mr. Trump’s “endorsement of public evil,” where do I begin? Advocating violence in his rallies and not immediately condemning the violence at Charlottesville qualify for an endorsement of public evil in my book. His hate and fear mongering verbiage in reference to those south of the border, jailing women and children escaping violence in their own countries, and denying climate change against all the evidence to the contrary also come to mind as public evils. “Love you neighbor as yourself” doesn’t seem to have sunk into his thinking.

Then I can’t help but wonder what the author would consider a “major breach of public trust.” If the daily legion of falsehoods, an average of 15 false claims a day in 2018, isn’t such a breach of trust, I really can’t imagine what is. I’ve read fact checkers who have logged as many as 10,000 “pants on fire” balderdashes by this president. I’d say that could fit the criteria of untrustable. “Thou salt not lie” unless it is politically expedient seems to be his take on Moses’ ninth commandment.

This is a whole new category of crapola! Take a brief whiff:

“Obama is a Muslim not born in America.”
“We had the biggest audience in the history of inaugural speeches… a sea of love!”
“Thousands of Muslims celebrated on 9/11 on rooftops.”
“Senator Cruz’s father may have been involved in the Kennedy assassination.”
“The unemployment rate may be as high as 42 percent.”
“I never said Russia did not meddle in the election.”
“Our African-American communities are absolutely in the worst shape they’ve ever been in before. Ever. Ever. Ever.”
“I’ve been on the cover of Time Magazine more than anyone else.”
Did you know about the $13,000 payment made to Stormy Daniels for her silence? “No!”

If the truth sets us free, then lies enslave us. As Jim Wallis says, “Regular purveying of falsehoods and consistent lying by the nation’s highest leaders can change the moral expectations within a culture, the accountability for a civil society, and even the behavior of families and children.”

“When some large number of the people in a country buy into this [presidential lying],” says Peter Wehner, “– if they make up their own narrative — then a society begins to fracture in the deepest way. That is what is going on, and he’s doing this day after day after day, and it’s taking a terrific toll — a political toll, and a civic toll, and a social toll.”

Enough for now. Next time we’ll analyze some of Chris Buskirk’s theological presuppositions, especially his view of the role of the Church. ½ Spoiler Alert: I have a feeling that many good church-going Christians think more like him than like me. Let’s wait and see.

In the meantime, I’d love to hear what you think. Please chime in on Facebook, Twitter, or right here on WordPress.

More Than One Brand of Lostness

We have to stop to consider what’s going on inside this person, what sort of relationship we have with them, and what the Spirit wants us to say through us at this time with this person on this day.

It was “the lost” that Jesus came all the way here to seek and to save. It is wise to acknowledge that there’s more than one brand of “lostness.” Some drivers get caught up in the scenery and don’t even know they’re lost. Others know they’re lost but try to figure it out without consulting a map or GPS. Then there are those who know they need help to get un-lost. Each one will require a different approach.

By the way, if the concept of “lost” is off-putting to you, go with “missing,” as in those whom Jim Hendersen calls, “the people Jesus misses most!”

– Originally published in Reaching Rahab: Joining God In His Quest For Friends

Trigger Happy Christians

Have you noticed that Jesus asked a lot of questions? It’s odd when you think about it, God asking questions, as though he didn’t already know the answers! All the more do we have to ask questions in order to find out where people are coming from. Our goal to introduce them to Jesus notwithstanding, it’s simply interesting to learn about someone’s way of looking at the world and its Maker. We have to take time to learn about them without being in such a lightspeed rush to download all our brilliant presentations of spiritual realities.

Believe me, I know how to put a preach on, and when it seems like the thing to do at the time, I do. But sometimes just listening and saying very little is a better way to go. Sometimes it might be advisable to speak to a sinful behavior and other times not so much. Just because something is true doesn’t mean we need to say it up front.

For instance if I’m a little overweight, and without being invited, you break into offering me dieting advice you might not get very far without me tuning you out mid-recipe.

– Originally published in Reaching Rahab: Joining God In His Quest For Friends

Two Presidents and a Preacher: A Pack of Pals

In reference to his hour-long phone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin on May 3rd President Trump tweeted:

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Later that same day during a press conference with Prime Minister Pellegrini of the Slovak Republic, he was asked,“Mr. President, did you tell him [Putin] not to meddle in the next election?”

Here’s his answer:

“We didn’t discuss that. Really, we didn’t discuss it. We discussed five or six things. We also — we went into detail on various things, especially, I would say, the nuclear. Especially, maybe, Venezuela. We talked about North Korea at great length, and pretty much that’s it.

Also discussed trade. We intend to do a lot of trade with Russia. We do some right now. It’s up a little bit. But he’d like to do trade and we’d like to do trade.

And getting along with Russia and China, getting along with all of them is very good thing, not a bad thing. It’s a good thing. It’s a positive thing. Getting along with other countries — including your country, by the way — but getting along with countries is a good thing. And we want to have good relationships with every country.”

Set aside the typically repetitious and disjointed way he constructs (or deconstructs) sentences , you have to be disturbed that he contradicts himself on the very same day about whether or not he spoke with Putin about Russia’s election interference.

“We talked about how much of a hoax it is! Ha ha!”

“No, we didn’t even bring it up!”

Which is it?

Bottom line, in one or both instances he lied. His statements are mutually contradictory. Either, when they talked about it they laughed over it as a hoax or they didn’t talk about it at all. Both can’t be true.

As disconcerting as his lying is, what is more bothersome to me is that virtually everyone in the intelligence community as well as both sides of the aisle in Congress are absolutely convinced that Russia did interfere. Yet he still doesn’t admit it and makes light of it! (Reminiscent of his view on climate change, where he rejects the report done by 300 congressionally mandated scientists and the 13 agencies. This after he admitted he hadn’t even read it! But let’s not go there right now.)

Russia’s interference is about our free and unhindered elections, which is the most fundamental component to our democracy, something we have historically made every effort to export around the world. This is a first tier issue and our own president has no stomach for protecting it! How is that possible?

I’m not crying, “Collusion” or even “Obstruction of justice,” though the latter seems pretty dang obvious to me. I’m talking about our president lying for the millionth time and about his bromance with the Russian autocrat whose government meddled in our election and aided in getting him elected. This is intolerable to me and should be to every American!

Mr. Trump’s admiration for tyrants is not exclusive to Putin. He spoke similarly of the maniacal and ruthless demagogue who murdered 300 of his political rivals, Kim Jong Un, when he called him “a great negotiator… Good personality… Loves his people”! 

I’m all for diplomacy and for our leaders going out of their way to find common ground with other world leaders, even some of the worst of them. But our president seems to find more in common with some of the planet’s most infamous dictators than he does with leaders of nations with whom we have historically been allies.  He called Xi Jinping of China whose regime carries out the most state executions in the world, “a good man… a very good man.” It’s craziness!

As if that weren’t enough, the very next day Liberty University president Jerry Falwell weighed in:

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In my view, Jerry Falwell  embarrasses the entire evangelical tribe and thereby severely damages our testimony! Someone who has our president’s respect and ear, as does Falwell, instead praising him and labeling his opposition a “coup” should be reeling him in. Another fawning supporter of the president is preacher Paula White, who soon after the racial violence in Charlottesville compared Mr. Trump to the biblical queen Esther, and told viewers that opposing the president meant “fighting against the hand of God.” It’s ridiculous and shameful.

Rather than challenge the president’s narcissistic personality and inept policy making, Falwell, White, and others squander their moral authority by their unflinching public support and lending him political cover.  By association this diminishes the moral authority of every person who identifies as “Christian.”

Their attempts to sanitize the president and support him at the cost of the Church’s already teetering reputation grieves me. That Christ followers, who are the guardians of morality and whose role it is to call for stronger character and deeper souls, have wandered so far from biblical revelation and been so completely sucked into the orbit of such an unscrupulous man as Mr. Trump should grieve us all.

Falwell went on to make a snide remark about “reparations,” which was obviously meant to disparage the proposals for reparations for African Americans whose ancestors were brought here and enslaved. (I’m not necessarily supporting the idea of reparations for the progeny of slaves. I’m merely saying shame on Mr. Falwell for praising Mr. Trump in this contemptuous and condescending, yet passive-aggressive way.)

Brothers and sisters, it’s past time to consult the Lord about cutting ties with this terrible and toxic president. We should be sickened by his character and conduct instead of praising and defending him.

If I didn’t think it would widen our nation’s already cavernous divide and incite riots among fans in red hats I’d prefer impeachment. Short of a blistering hot smoking bazooka, the red hat brigade would go crazy. Their denial reminds me of the duck hunter who claimed he never misses. He took aim and shot as the duck kept on flying unimpeded. He said to his hunting partner, “There flies a dead duck!”

If no such bazooka materializes, and if we (I) can stand it for another couple years, we will have the opportunity to use the ballot box to send him off for the last time to Mar-A-Lago to work on his golf swing.

If you’re a lesser-of-evils voter, in my view you can’t help but find in the enormous pool of possibilities, a lesser evil than the one we’ve got now. If you’re a registered Republican, check out former Massachusetts governor, Bill Weld, for instance. I’m not endorsing him. I’m just saying, take a look. For you Democrats, you have much more work to do to study up and choose from among the couple dozen of candidates. Then there will be a Libertarian and any number of independents from which to choose.

From where I sit, just about anyone with a pulse who wants the job would do a better job as President of these great United States than Donald Trump!

No One-Size-Fits-All Approach

Wisdom is not a static thing; instead it is dependent on a variety of considerations including the present leading of the Spirit. Without this wisdom we’ll depend too heavily on routine and sterile gospel-sharing methods. This is why Solomon could claim, as we’ve previously pointed out, that it’s the wise that “win souls.”

A one-size-fits-all approach to sharing Jesus is lazy and immature. There is no one-trick evangelistic method. Sometimes, we should go ahead and answer people’s objections and sometimes we shouldn’t.

– Originally published in Reaching Rahab: Joining God In His Quest For Friends

More Prayerful, Less Reckless

Peter in particular seems to have had a proclivity for a recurring “impulse control disorder,” the therapy for which Jesus prescribed was an hour of flesh-denying, spirit-strengthening prayer.

All three nodded off during prayer––three times! What happens when we drowse instead of casting our fears and cares on God? We retain our fears and rely on swordsmanship for protection and for the advancement of the cause of Christ. Prayerless Christians have been known to be some of the most reckless ones.

They napped through prayer and Peter woke up swinging. Had they spent time in the needed time in prayer that night instead of dozing, the story might have ended differently. Their willing spirits might have won over their weak flesh and garnered enough self-control to keep their swords scabbarded.

Even if we can’t seem to pray for an hour it might be good if we just pause for a while, if for no other reason than to reduce our frenetic heart rate and thereby avoid less than productive evangelistic encounters.

– Originally published in Reaching Rahab: Joining God In His Quest For Friends