Monday Morning Music Ministry

10-31-16

One of the opportunities afforded blog essayists is to see how many “hits” we
attract; how readers find you; and what links they wander to. Some people respond with messages; some to the blog’s address, some to my personal address; some readers appreciate the music tie-ins; many ignore them.

And I can tell when people click on messages from years past. That is satisfying to me, because I intend that most messages be “evergreen” – as pertinent today as, say, seven years ago. Just (I hope) as the Bible’s lessons have the same relevance to God’s children as they did in millennia past.

Over the past week I have purposely focused on the presidential election, not a typical pattern here. But I think the issues are so critical that we should take special notice. Moreover, the issues (as in the larger American culture) relate to biblical principles, biblical warnings, and horrible consequences of “biblical proportions.”

I have read some of my essays from years ago, and I think that most still are relevant. Even points I shared during the previous presidential campaign seem to me (as I attempt to be objective) neither moldy nor mistaken. But in the 2016 election cycle, things – not only facts but factors – change in days. Or hours. This is a campaign that is unprecedented for vituperation, lies, irrelevancies, numerous endorsements and abandonments, and, of course, scandals.

I might enter the previous sentence in the sweepstakes for Greatest Understatement Of the Year.

Through this political year I have written articles, as a historian, for national newspaper about previous political controversies – where bigamy, murder (Jackson); drunkenness (Andrew Johnson and Grant); an illegitimate child (Cleveland); an illegitimate child while president (Harding); sexual affairs (FDR, Kennedy, Clinton) – were commonly discussed. Et cetera. In other words: “Nothing new here.” And I never got close to the frequent charges of imbecility over 240 years.

Early in our campaign, this was a valid set of reminders; pacifiers, perhaps. But things are different, very different right now.

I am not being an alarmist. One who legitimately rings an alarm technically is not alarmist. An alarmist is a Chicken Little, one who falsely spreads fear and unnecessary warnings of impending doom. No, there is doom. It impends.

America has become two – or more – nations. I truly think that whether Trump or Hillary is elected, there will be riots here or there; no, here AND there. And not only on election night, but on Inauguration Day. And when major initiatives are undertaken by either putative president. (I use the word “putative” carefully – not “eventual” or “likely” president, but “generally assumed” president, because the legitimacy of Trump or Clinton surely will be challenged.)

Major questions, serious scandals, and hitherto disqualifying revelations have been commonplace this year. Our heads spin. Seismic civic explosions are forgotten scandal after scandal, because they are eclipsed by worse ones – always more bizarre. I believe that we long ago passed the point of a Hollywood studio accepting any recent news stories as possible treatments for a political thriller… or comedy: too unlikely!

OK, you know all this. I must remember to get over the astonishing and unprecedented events (partly because the two remaining weeks are bound to drop more bombshells). We must, all of us, come to grips that we very possibly are coming face-to- face with a constitutional criss.

Can a president pardon herself? Possibly… but, then, would the hundreds of millions of the “governed” be governable?

Can institutions once regarded as sacrosanct (the “most scared of holies”), for example the FBI and great charities, ever redeem their integrity?

Will personal probity ever return as a standard of public officials, or be demanded by a moral public?

Look at what has happened to us in this campaign. Except for the lurid flashes in the pan, the “breaking news,” the debates have largely centered on polls, trends, voting blocs, daily charts – in other words, the game more than the issues. Surely, the three “debates” centered more on name-calling than national challenges. We have come to assume the worst, including the worst motives, to our opponents. Hence, the two Americas: we have come to assume hatred… and adopt hatred.

I have suggested we Americans have deserved all this, and surely we do. What are we supposed to do, blame it on the Russians? We held primaries and caucuses (interminable, at that) and the voters spoke. At least in the Republican primaries there was a huge crop to choose from and a clear winner, and unlike elsewhere, no charges of rigging. So the system worked like systems do. To challenge the winner is to insult the voters.

As I also have suggested, Christians ought to look at likely results – desirable policy outcomes – instead of candidates’ personality tics or appearances.

Very slowly, but surely, Donald Trump’s speeches have featured fewer boasts and paranoid fantasies. More and more he ticks off his checklist: opposition to abortion; defending Christians overseas; reaffirming the First Amendment (freedom of religion) and Second (the right to bear arms); championing home schools, parochial schools, charter schools; ending Federal Government interference in education; and so forth.

He has fine-tuned his policy on immigrants. Not that all Mexicans are thieves and rapists, but unchecked floods of people at the borders might allow such to enter. The same with unvetted Muslim immigrants vis a vis terrorism. And so forth. Eventually, he has made sense.

This weekend Phil Robertson of Duck Dynasty spoke directly of how he recently witnessed to Donald Trump. Explained the Gospel as nobody else has done. He believes that Trump accepted Christ, and he sees a work in progress.

But no matter how the election goes, voters must remember that the “perfect might be the enemy of the good.” In any event, as vital as this election is… there are many, many, many deep, deep, deep problems with this society. From schoolyards to the Supreme Court; from those who make movies to those who watch them; from those who reject Christ to… those who are faithful church-goers. One man cannot change all, so we should work with those who will try. And One who knows.

How far have we drifted? Are “damned if we do and damned if we don’t” – is it that late? Have we slept through our alarms?

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Click: Where Did America Go?

10-24-16

Democrat Vice-presidential candidate Tim Kaine grew up in Kansas City KS. Recently, that city’s Archbishop, Joseph F Naumann, described the senator as a “Cafeteria Catholic” for picking and choosing the Church doctrines he chose to respect.

Kaine, who has a rare lifetime Zero rating from the American Conservative Union – which I realize is not a religious organization – favors abortion, and voted for its legality, extension, and federal funding; among opposing other teachings of the Church.

There are Protestants who have conflicts, too – claiming belief in the God of the Bible, but denying large portions of the Bible of God. “Pick and choose Christianity” is a cancer in Protestant (and Evangelical and Pentecostal and mainstream and post-modern) churches too; a cancer that metastasizes rapidly.

Kaine, and others, predictably fall back on the crutch of Relativism and say, “I am personally opposed to abortion, but I will not impose my view on others.” You have heard such things. Maybe you have said such things.

Some Day, these nominal Christians will answer for their hypocrisy. Abortion, death penalty, whatever the issue, if you believe something… stand up for it. If, further, your opinion is informed by your faith – if you believe it involves God’s will – then I worry for your soul if you fail to share His truth in public.

“Whoever disowns Me before others, I will disown before my Father in heaven.” That’s Jesus, quoted in Matthew 10:33.

Hey, politician – Hey, neighbor; Hey, person in the mirror – if you “personally oppose” abortion but tolerate it in society, how were people wrong to “personally oppose” slavery back in the day, but permit its practice? Slaves were private property, it was argued – who would you have been to interfere? Hey – what about the persecution and slaughter of Jews during World War II? It was argued that Jews were sub-human, after all; and how would have it affected you? Was it your business?

Since babies who are murdered up to hours before natural birth cannot speak for themselves, I will make their plea: Why are their lives less important than babies one day old? Or two years old and disabled? Or… why are their lives less important than your life?

The administration and party whose power Mr Kaine wants to perpetuate frequently has shown less compassion, and expended less political capital, on behalf of little victims of infanticide, and uncountable Christians martyred for their faith around the world, than toward trans-sexual persons who claim that landlords don’t like them; or sexual predators who demand free access to women’s restrooms in malls.

America, 2016.

Republicans are not off the spiritual hook. The Supreme Court that has written offensive rulings, and “discovered” rights that were not enumerated in the Constitution, have largely been Republican courts. Republican Congresses have been Big-Brother enablers since the 1930s. Conservatives, let’s admit it, have become mere foot-dragging liberals.

Speaking personally – c’mon, that’s what we all do – when Donald Trump, for all his many flaws, said that he is opposed to abortion; describes “late-term” abortions in graphic detail; and promises that any Supreme Court nomination he makes will be committed to overturn Roe vs Wade… that did it for me. No matter what other promise he makes or breaks; no matter what Hillary advocates and pledges… Trump deserves the vote of Christians and those who respect life (including descendents of slavery and holocausts).

Can we step back and realize that as few as four years ago, even most Republicans, conservatives, and “faith-based” candidates, refused to voice approval of Roe vs Wade being overturned? to dare to admit that they had a “litmus test” for judicial nominees? Mr Trump does. It is a political earthquake few have noted. In his Gettysburg speech, he further committed to positions — school choice, for instance — that conservatives and people of faith have wished for in living-room discussions and Republican “leaders” have failed to commit.

To those many people of faith, so-called, who lament our spiritual crisis, and the moral swamp wherein we slog: I am often among you, and hear many prayers for God to “bring revival to this land.”

I am not optimistic about a response that you people pray for. God could send revival; He is sovereign. Of course. But just as He did not send ten thousand angels to pluck Jesus from the cross… so He will not cause the Supreme Court building to spontaneously combust; or The New York Times building to float into the Hudson River and sink.

True revival comes less from God, and more from the hearts of His people.

And, when it comes, things are directed to Him, and not to rulers or candidates or politicians.

Everything else – everything – will fall into place when we seek revival as a people. Be not deceived, God is not mocked (Galatians 6:7). Do you believe God wants a relationship with a people who snap their fingers so He can clean up their holy mess?

Until and unless true revival comes, we deserve the mess we have created. I will support any candidate who commits to core biblical principles (apart from generic “caring” and compassion” as even the heathen do), and who is forthright about it.

We have sunk so low in America that I actually am grateful to have spiritual straws to grasp.

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Click this Johnny Cash performance: Help Me, Lord

10-17-16

Once upon a time there was a president named Franklin Delano Roosevelt. No… I will start this story earlier, and in another way.

Once upon a time there was a different America. Different than we know now. Not only different presidents and candidates, but different manners and morals. Different standards. You and I could go back in time and might recognize places and relate to interactions. But it is possible that Americans of earlier times, if they could materialize in our midst today, would be lost and bewildered.

U. S. Grant, the superior general and inferior president, was known to like his cigars and whisky. After a dinner with a group of generals or politicians – those details are lost; but a group of men who enjoyed after-dinner cigars and whisky – one man rose and proposed to tell a story or two. He signaled that the humor would be bawdy (“purple,” in the day’s parlance, meaning naughty) by announcing, “I see there are no ladies present.”

Grant reportedly said, “No, but there are gentlemen present”; and told the man to leave. The good old days. Can you imagine?

Theodore Roosevelt, exuberant hunter and woodsman and cowboy, was sometimes photographed and frequently caricatured in informal attire, however was respectful of the dignity of the presidency. He chose frock coats and top hats. He hated newsreel cameras.

But almost every day the weather allowed, he played tennis on White House courts. Other presidents had “kitchen cabinets” – unofficial advisers and confidants who met in friendship or for policy brainstorming. TR’s was on the tennis court. Yet not one photograph exists of TR playing in his tennis whites.

At the end of his term the Tennis Cabinet met for one last time, and TR was presented with a gift from the assembled friends. Finally they were photographed as a group… in formal attire. Dignity (even if readers from 2016 think it was irrelevant) was important.

Now I will mention TR’s distant cousin, FDR. The nation knew that Franklin Roosevelt suffered from polio; that he was in braces, unable to walk, barely able to stand. He had run – sometimes literally – for vice president in 1920, hale, hearty, handsome. But then polio struck.

Common knowledge it was, but he seldom was photographed struggling with crutches or arm-braces. Occasionally a news photo showed him tightly, and awkwardly, gripping a podium. Or when sitting with Churchill and Stalin at a wartime conference, his leg-braces could be seen peeking between his pants-cuffs and his shoes.

Dignity on his part; respect on the part of photographers and newsreel cameramen.

Fast-forward to 1976. I covered a George Wallace rally in suburban Chicago during the Democrat primaries. “The Fighting Judge” was the victim of an assassin’s bullet four years previous. Paralyzed from the waist down, he was dependent upon wheelchairs and assistants.

In those days the press’s role had changed – on a track toward today’s blatant partisanship. Wallace was viewed with opprobrium by most of the liberal media for his earlier segregationist stands, as was the incumbent president, Nixon, for a variety of excuses and justifications.

At that rally, a few photos were snapped during the speech. And then reporters and news photographers gathered at the hall’s exit, where a car would meet Wallace, who waited in his wheelchair. When the car pulled up and opened its door, Wallace’s aides did what was necessary and routine. Nowadays these maneuvers can be effected differently, but that night, two men joined arms to raise Gov. Wallace like a bundle of bones, from underneath, and awkwardly trundled him into the seat of the car.

It was inelegant. Embarrassing, clearly, to Wallace. Which is why the assembled photographers of the press corps instantly snapped their flash photos for every nano-second of that clumsy scene. I never did see any such photos on front pages… but the reporters seemed intent on making Wallace uncomfortable.

My point is not so much about presidential dignity, itself (remember that Lyndon Johnson surprisingly lifted his shirt to show a gall-bladder scar; and Jimmy Carter chatted about his hemorrhoids), but more about society, that it has changed. Our culture is cheapened; we have lower standards; manners and morals are endangered species.

“F Bombs” are dropped with total-war intensity. Movies are replete with filthy language and filthier behavior. Young girls in malls are heard talking in ways that once would have embarrassed stevedores. Plotlines of TV shows deal in topics once too “delicate” to raise in family or social circles; that is, in private. Athletes who denigrate the flag are stoutly defended; athletes who affix slogans to their shoes, supporting the police, are threatened with suspension. An upside-down world.

In politics, which, traditionally, closely follows and carefully leads the normative values and aspirations of society, cutting-edge outrages now are indulged. Onetime taboos – for instance, allowing men into any public restroom where little girls might be – is suddenly decreed to be a Constitutional Right. And, as with monarchs or tyrants of old, is allowed with a stroke the pen, a punishable crime if violated.

In this year’s politics we have a candidate who is endorsed by “Evangelical” leaders and immediately salts his speeches with hells and damns. Instead of issues, we hear discussions of sex allegations about him, and about a former president. The latter’s wife, a current candidate herself, is cast as an enabler, almost a harridan persecuting the putative victims. Whether true or half-true, these become part of the evening news, press conferences, dinner-table conversations.

That other candidate continues the march toward re-defining customarily deviant behavior. Discovering “rights” in the same manner as the incumbent president, her new discoveries routinely offend traditions, always under fraudulent banners. Inventing “rights” for sexual deviants or criminal aliens is to dishonor those who fought for racial justice, female suffrage, and other civil rights.

So Hillary would enshrine privileges for “women” with male accessories, and pedophiles, into the Constitution. She would continue her predecessor’s crusade to denigrate Christians at home and abroad. She frequently boasts of her early, and continuing, passion for vulnerable children, yet evinces no second thoughts about the killing of viable children sucked from wombs in their ninth months, and murdered by a blade to the bases of their skulls. Suddenly, in Hillaryland, these children are “formerly vulnerable.”

Debates and speeches seem to be ghost-written, now, by headline-writers of supermarket tabloids. What, in 2020? Spitballs and water-balloons at 20 paces?

Our current level of discourse has been cheapened, I believe irretrievably. All these things I have mentioned – and myriad others – are, none of them, splotches of toothpaste that possibly can be put back in their tubes.

Are we on a slippery slope?

Rather, a vortex in the unfortunate toilet-bowl of contemporary life, almost flushed away completely. And deserving of it.

Anyone who teaches something different is arrogant and lacks understanding. Such a person has an unhealthy desire to quibble over the meaning of words. This stirs up arguments ending in jealousy, division, slander, and evil suspicions. These people always cause trouble. Their minds are corrupt, and they have turned their backs on the truth.
I Timothy 6: 4,5a NLT

They prove the truth of this Proverb: “A dog returns to its vomit.” And another says, “A washed pig returns to the mud.”
II Peter 2: 22 NLT

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Click: Sin City

10-10-16

This week an enormous storm brushed by the United States. It was a long time building, it moves deliberately, and forecasters say that it likely will circle around and hit again, causing even more distress and severe adjustments to a fearful population.

In other news, Hurricane Matthew pummeled the East Coast.

But back to the election campaign.

The Election of 2016 is a plain illustration of how bankrupt our political system – our culture – is. A nation of a third of a billion people, and these two are the best we can do? Trump might be the “citizen politician” that the Framers hoped for; but scarcely of the caliber they envisioned. He is a messenger: a mailman carrying the accumulated complaints of a restive population. Many people love him for it… understandably, for all his faults. It seems like everyone else has failed us.

Hillary’s rise – or, rather, her decades-long hovering presence – is disturbing evidence of our civic insolvency. Once again, a population as large (and, supposedly, as diverse and resourceful) as ours, and we lately subsist on dynasties? The Kennedy royalty? Bush – Clinton – Bush – Obama – maybe Clinton / almost another Bush / talk of Michelle Obama / Chelsea Clinton / George P Bush / … and more Kennedys being spawned?

Incest. It results in mutants and defects, in politics as well as genetics.

In this interminable campaign, Donald Trump has had more lives than a litter of cats. Part of his relative stability in the polls is his strong (and, to me, inexplicable) support from “Evangelicals.” Christians, following Christian celebrities, have chosen, endorsed, and largely remained loyal to, Donald Trump.

His agenda, largely nationalist if not nativist, and generally in the tradition of economic royalists, Manchester Liberalism, and an America-First foreign policy – at the least the most recent iteration of his positions – is an agenda with which I generally am comfortable. Many conservative Christians feel the same way, at least manifested by an inchoate attraction.

Trump has given voice, or more appropriately speaks with the same voice, as those of the Goldwater-Wallace-Agnew tremors across our political landscape in the ‘60s and ‘70s. Of the Reagan Revolution’s foot-soldiers. Of the Tea Party insurgencies. Of the decentralization earthquakes in the Europe of Thatcher and UKIP and Brexit; the LePens in France; Geert Wilders in Holland; of anti-immigrant and nationalist movements in Germany, Italy, Austria, Spain, Hungary, Poland, Denmark, Switzerland, and elsewhere.

He is not unique… except for his unique baggage. His “evolving” positions (for instance, on abortion) might be more encouraging than troubling. His boorish social skills might be overlooked by supporters who think there are many butts that need kicking here and abroad.

That his morals, seemingly those of a pig, should surprise anybody is absurd.
Least of all should Christians be startled by the words in the tape that recently surfaced. Like other supporters and politicians, some of whom are now abandoning ship, they should not be discomfited, because nothing new is on display. Merely a new soundbite.

When James A Garfield was elected president, he left his position as an elder in his church, saying, “I resign the highest office in the land to become president of the United States.”

In William McKinley’s first inaugural address he said: “Our faith teaches that there is no safer reliance than upon the God of our fathers, who has so singularly favored the American people in every national trial, and who will not forsake us so long as we obey His commandments and walk humbly in His footsteps.”

Is Trump or Hillary capable of saying, or believing, such words? Especially the “humbly” component?

The real crisis in America is not deficient candidates. They are the symptoms, not the disease. To focus too much on these individuals is like a weatherman pointing to humidity levels in Arizona but ignoring Hurricane Matthew.

Ah, back to the Hurricane. An act of God, so-called. Our political storms, however, are man-made. We get what deserve, and what we have constructed. The fault, dear Brutus, is not in the stars, but in ourselves that we are underlings. Look in our mirrors for the authors of this current mess.

Meanwhile, Trump’s major political sin is not what he bragged about doing on the tape; nor in being careless to speak when being recorded. To me the political (that is, not only personal) sin was bragging, even fabricating, to a nobody. Trying to impress a Hollywood hack. Sounding like a wolf in cheap clothing. That manner of discretion, that twisted sort of probity, is spoken by loose lips that sink ships.

To apologize “to those who are offended” is a weasel-worded deflection. To claim that Bill Clinton did worse things, or at a faster rate, is the very opposite of contrition; more jealousy than remorse. To condemn Hillary for persecuting Bill’s mistresses and girlfriends is almost irrelevant, when Trump needs to reassure his supporters. To say that other world leaders (France, Italy, Russia) have had affairs, is a startling reversal of his attitude about foreign leaders. Those justifications are irresponsible efforts to distract people. It is an insult to his followers. It is cynical exploitation of the “Evangelical” “leaders” who support him.

Should Christians or patriots therefore abandon Trump and vote for Hillary? I think that the worst that can said about Trump – politics, integrity, probity – is insignificant compared to her resume, which is half sordid and half empty.

Is a third party (“What’s a Leppo?”) or a write-in a viable option? I think that these are virtual ballots for Hillary. She will have enough dead voters, illegals, and multiple fraudulent ballots already.

Should Christian patriots “grow up” and realize the world is “that way,” as some friends who decry what they see as a self-defeating rise of Neo-Puritanism argue? Nonsense. Most of us are loath to accept “things as they are” in any other sphere; political activism, even mere commentary, is (as Omar wrote) to smash the world to bits “and then re-mold it nearer the heart’s desire.”

What should Christians do? I am asked this frequently, a month from Election Day.

Once upon a time, the president was a minor part of the campaign. The PLATFORM was what attracted, or repelled, voters. Vote for the representatives of the positions you favor.

Myself, I think that if Hillary does everything she promises we are in a very bad place. If Trump fulfills only 25 per cent of his promises, we are in a much better place.

Christians, patriots, all voters: If this candidate is horrible; if that candidate is disgusting; if the other candidate seems like a dope; if others seem clearly dangerous… look at the policy options. Vote for likely outcomes, the best bundle of policies you can hope for.

Then, pray.

And vote.

And pray.

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Click: Funeral March

10-3-16

Ever since as I was a young boy, I heard adults talking about elections, and resignedly saying that they would, sigh, be voting for the lesser of two evils.

I picked up the mantra when I achieved majority, not as a matter of patrimony, but because the choices invariably were and are crummy. There were exceptions – I enthusiastically supported Ronald Reagan – but I frequently have voted for third-party candidates or skipped presidential ballots.

For a while I would not vote at all, local or national elections, on the premise that doing so would just encourage the scoundrels.

Eventually I realized that a wisecrack is an inadequate substitute for civic responsibility. Slightly more sophisticated was my objection that illiterate welfare scammers had the same “say” that I did… but abdication in the game we call democracy only enhances the self-defeating aspects of my inchoate protest.

Now I am fully engaged, voting and debating and writing columns and drawing political cartoons and glued to C-SPAN like a dog in heat. But, the more engaged I am, the more enraged I am.

That a nation of approximately one-third of a billion people cannot produce better presidential candidates then the two (or four) major candidates we are stuck with… is demoralizing. With troubling implications for the future – heck, the present state – of our republic. We have a flawed system, surely; but we also are in a tailspin in almost every sphere of national life. Politics is merely the mostly visible symptom. In this season, the nearest whipping-boy.

As I have evolved to a Christian Patriot, and as an essayist in this realm, the choices would seem to be clearer, the decisions easier to make. We all have checklists and litmus tests, whether clearly biblical or informed by our faith. Even secular voters have criteria, perhaps more so.

So why do so many Christian patriots – “value voters” – feel seriously conflicted this year? Being on the horns of a dilemma has never been so uncomfortable!

This week the author of books in Christian field Philip Yancey said in an interview that he was “baffled” that “Evangelicals” (a term of deliberate ambiguity, but that is another topic) could support a Donald Trump. He defined Trump as a “bully” who has taken positions contrary to the Bible and has been thrice-married and has built casinos.

Yancey is correct on the resume of Trump. I do not disagree. Personally, I don’t think I would like Trump as a neighbor, much less as a president.

There was a relative firestorm of response on social media, and Yancey quickly stated that he was not implicitly endorsing Hillary Clinton. In fact, without the clarification, of course the “implicit” endorsement was inferred by his many followers. To me, his greater offense was pretending to be “baffled” by “Evangelical” support for Trump. Our angst, our debates, our essays, our, yes, social-media posts are legion. Everywhere. For many people – many Christians, even many Yancey acolytes – support for Trump has been discussed endlessly.

For some, support is reluctant. For some, it might be automatic. For some, it is painful and anguished. Two prominent names in Christianity (neither of them ministers, by the way) have reached different positions: Falwell Junior, Yay; Yancey, Nay.

Christians in a democracy must realize the implications of supporting Hillary Clinton. She has also lied, is corrupt, doesn’t act like Jesus in myriad ways. Her hands arguably are dirtier, or bloodier, from her militant support of abortions. Lying to Benghazi parents. Spinning new absurdities about her e-mails, servers, and Foundation shenanigans. Start there.

Any (and every) candidate is going to be flawed. Does Yancey think “Evangelicals” should not vote for anyone? Of course not. He now says he will not vote for any presidential candidate this year. For my part, “been there, done that.” I think the only thing that Christian voters can be sure of about this election, about the choices facing us, is that there is no easy choice. You will not wake up tomorrow morning, slap your forehead in a V-8 moment, and realize that you have missed the obvious answer.

Another thing I did when I was a kid was to go to Union Square Park in lower Manhattan and listen to the speakers, most of them crackpot and most of them Communist, spout off to ersatz audiences of transients and passersby. A dying phenomenon, really – maybe the young Obama, on ghetto street corners of Chicago, was among the last – but I considered them to redolent of earlier days, and London’s Hyde Park. (I honed my debate skills, such as they are, in Union Square. Also my talent for heckling.) Like so many other things, this phenomenon has not so much disappeared as it has morphed into electronic social media. Now, gasbags (save yourself the Comments) float on electrons instead of standing on soap boxes.

… which is either democracy at work, or a pressure-valve from more serious dissatisfaction and dissent. I think violent days of protest and civil disobedience are coming soon, from sides of the political spectrum. But that, too, is for another time here.

In the meantime, we still are face-to-face with a seething, ugly, menacing dilemma. And we cannot escape it. We are in a horrible place — we Christians in this “democracy” — and nothing will save us but One thing. We know that Person. But other things can guide us, good, bad, and “Mister In Between.” Am I going to vote, once again in my life, while holding my nose?

Yes. I am going to hold my nose and vote. Any well-intentioned Christian patriot wanting to stay home, or abide a Clinton presidency, explicitly endorses an extremist Supreme Court, further erosion of Constitutional rights, more regulations favoring abortion and the homosexual agenda, uncountable immigration numbers from Mexico and from terrorist lands. Et cetera. That can sound like my opinion, but Hillary would thank me for stating her positions succinctly.

If Christians stay home, they should be consistent, and withdraw from all government activities and programs; all schools and institutions; all media… because everything is corrupted. “Let the Supreme Court [a response might say] go wacko. God is in control; He will see us through; His eye is on the sparrow and He watches over us.”

I agree. But He is watching us kill ourselves, too.

Under a sovereign God, Christianity is not a democracy. Conversely, once the Founders accepted pluralism, this is not a theocracy. I hate the thought of voting for “the lesser of two evils”… because that implies that both choices are evil. Neither Christianity nor a republic are roulette-tables, either. But I will take my chances.

One candidate is certain to continue the secular agenda, the war on believers, and a Frightening New World. The other has, among other things, promised to maintain Constitutional guarantees, restore traditional values, reverse governmental overreach, respect Christian expressions in school, courtrooms, public squares… If Trump keeps only a quarter of such promises, we will be better off.

One is the Lesser of two evils.
The other is the Evil of two Lessers.

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God DOES watch over us. That should bring us comfort! Here is the wonderful Ethel Waters, near the end of her life, singing the great song about God’s Eye on the Sparrow, at a Billy Graham crusade. BUT, as we take comfort from these lyrics, let us remember that He feeds the sparrows… but as He watches, we are accountable for how we respond to His care.

Click: His Eye Is On the Sparrow