“They heal my people’s brokenness inadequately, asserting:
‘It’s Okey! It’s Okey!’
But nothing is Okey!”
(Jeremiah 6.14, author’s translation).
​

  introduction to the series

Judicial inequality and injustice. Economic inequality and injustice. Rampant greed and fraud on the part of wealthy individuals and essential institutions. Bribery and corruption of government officials. Inordinate influence of the wealthy on laws and public policy. Unjust laws and policies favoring the powerful and influential while disadvantaging the less powerful and influential. The infliction of the vulnerable with hunger, homelessness, sickness, and anxiety. Self-righteous justification of the mad state of rebellion. Stubborn refusal to acknowledge these and a host of other societal ills.
 
No, I am not only talking about America of 2025. I am also talking about late 6th and early 5th century B.C. Judah. These, and many other evils undermined the temporal, moral, and spiritual health of the nation. All the signs were there. The nation was on the verge of collapse. It was in desperate need of truth, however sour it might be to the national palate. But the nation’s shepherds fed the populace an empty diet of propagandistic myths of nationalism. Many of Israel’s prophets joined the fray. Israel’s watchmen, Jeremiah charged,
 
“Heal my people’s brokenness inadequately, asserting:
  ‘It’s Okey! It’s Okey!’”
    “But nothing,” Jeremiah replies, “is Okey!”
 
Does this, too, sound familiar? Strike close to home? It should. Too often, today’s religious leaders—whether they go by the name, “prophet,” “priest,” or “pastor”— seem to lack both discernment and courage. They seem utterly blind to and mute about sin and evil, unless, of course, it involves some form of real or imagined sexual deviance. If they do speak out, it is often with muted, vague, delicate, and generalized voices and statements. These shepherds seem not up to the challenging task of bold and clear truth telling of the sort that our society so desperately needs. Now is not the time for delicacy and caution.
 
This homily is the thirteenth in an ongoing series entitled, “Healing Our Brokenness Inadequately,” based on Jeremiah 6.14. In this series, we explore specific examples of individual and societal sins about which political and religious leaders all too often remain willfully blind or, if sighted, stubbornly mute… and therefore complicit. Tragically, sometimes their complicity is even active and enthusiastic. With these examples in mind, we will often call upon the classic Hebrew prophets as well as other ancient and not so ancient prophets to speak as if from the dust. We read these discerning writings in light of the societal ills and injustices that abound in our modern world. Sometimes we even imagine and take a stab at replicating what a Hebrew prophet might have to say if he were to come to us from the past.
 
In this homily, we consider a recent and particularly egregious example of hypocrisy--one of the few sins that Jesus specifically singled out--in which America’s GOP/ MAGA take the name of the Lord in vain to implicate Him in their wicked cannibalism of their more vulnerable fellow citizens.
 
 
  taking the name of the Lord in vain, cannibalism, and hypocrisy

Call me crazy, but stripping necessary and life-saving health care from millions of innocent victims (e.g., the US House’s latest and largest redistribution of wealth bill in its history), then mocking those who express concern with this thievery by flippantly declaring that “we are all going to die” (e.g., Joni Ernst), then insinuating that those who dare believe that health care can offer a longer life are fearful and faithless people and so should get to know one’s Savior, Jesus Christ (also e.g. Joni Ernst), and then telling those that have no health care as a result of the wickedness of their leaders that it is their own fault (e.g., Speaker Johnson)… all this seems to me to be 1) a textbook case of cannibalizing one’s fellow human beings,  2) a textbook definition of taking the Lord’s name in vain, 3) the height of  hypocrisy, and 4) indicative of America’s political right as epitomized by the GOP and MAGA.
 
Any prophet worth their salt would proclaim loud and long against such hypocritical cruelty and blasphemy. Micah did not hesitate to use the language of cannibalism in criticizing his nation’s ruling elite and the unjust laws they passed to oppress the vulnerable.
 
“I am warning: Yaʿaqōb’s elite must listen right now,
  along with Yiśrāʾēl’s governing officials:
    ‘Isn’t it incumbent on You to determine what is just--
the ones who hate what is beneficial and love what is harmful;
  the ones who strip their skin right off them,
    and their flesh from off their bones;
the ones who have eaten my people’s flesh,
  stripped their skin right off them,
    snapped their bones,
chopped them into little pieces to fit in a pot,
  as meat in a caldron.’”
 
Though we find it horrifying, we might forgive the starving for turning to human flesh for survival. But, through their past theft, these GOP and MAGA cannibals have all that the heart can desire. Their greed is unbounded and the lust of their black hearts is insatiable.
 
As if this were not blasphemous enough, they take the name of God in vain, implicating God in their thieving schemes. They do this by recommending that their sacrificial victims turn to God for salvation (e.g., Joni Ernst) as their oppressors place them on the altar to roast and become humanburgers on the bakery buns of the wealthy.
 
Any prophet worth their salt would proclaim loud and long against such taking of the Lord’s name in vain. It was none other than God, Himself, who commanded,
 
“Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.”
 
Any prophet worth their salt would proclaim, as Jesus himself did, loud and long against the blasphemous hypocrisy of the GOP and MAGA.
 
“Woe unto you also [who] lade men with burdens grievous to be borne, and ye yourselves touch not the burdens with one of your fingers.”
 
“Woe unto you… hypocrites! For ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness.”
 

  conclusion,  imprecation, and benediction

“Do you rulers truly decree what is just?
Do you govern your citizenry with equity?”
 
Nay, they do not.
 
The childishly named “Big Beautify Bill” is the largest redistribution of wealth from the middle and lower class to the most filthy rich in America’s history. Among its innumerable grotesqueries is the stripping away of health care from millions of vulnerable Americans. When legitimately concerned citizens express their outrage at politicians willingness to shorten their lives, they are cynically reminded that “we are all going to die.” When the oppressed confess that they are aware of their mortality, but that their short lives should not be needlessly shortened even more in order to further enrich that already filthy rich, they are told that maybe they should stop fearing death and find Jesus.
 
All of this is disgusting beyond words. But the taking of the name of God in vain by these hypocrites is beyond the pale. To invite someone to Jesus while you schemed to kill them is surely sin at the “son of perdition” level. I for one will follow Joni’s advice so far as to call upon Jesus. But I’ll be calling upon him to damn her and those like-minded with her to hell a hundred times over. It will sound something like this:
 
Do not hold Joni or her brothers and sisters in wickedness guiltless, O Lord.
Convict them of crimes against Deity and against humanity.
Sentence them to roast on the altar of hell’s brimstone.
 
“Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?” 
 
“Rise up, ʾElōhîm. Argue Your case.
Give thought to Your constant defamation by the contemptible.”
 
“May they be like a slug that oozes away as it crawls along.
Like a woman’s miscarried fetus, let them not see the light of day.
May they be like a thornbush that, before it grows thorns
and matures, a blazing heat blasts it.”
 
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!

The demon, or man, or whatever he be.. you know, the irredeemably wicked sociopath that pollutes and blackens America’s White House… yea, that one recently referred to America and the American economy as “a giant, beautiful store” where “everybody [the international community] wants to go shopping.” Then, he added, “And on behalf of the American people, I own the store, and I set prices, and I’ll say if you want to shop here, this is what you have to pay.” 
 
As all authoritarian autocrats do, the man whose name I refuse to utter or right is treating America and the American economy as if it belongs to him; as if the American economy is his own personal business to do with as he wishes to enrich himself, his family, and his cronies. He acts as if he is the American economy. Indeed, he governs, if  the chaos he brings can be called “governing,” as if the entire world and world economy are his own personal business enterprise to manipulate however he sees fit (and why not, since, he has decreed according to his own twisted and mad logic, that he rules the world). 
 
And, of course, a dysfunctional, corrupt, and cowardly congress has done nothing to daunt his madness, thus aiding in his authoritarian kleptomania.
 
Now, never mind his incessant and shameless lies by which he has deceived tens of millions of willfully ignorant and idolatrous voters, convincing them that he is some kind of gifted businessman. Never mind that he didn’t earn his wealth, but had it handed to him on a golden platter. Never mind that in his own right he is a failed businessman, with multiple failed and bankrupt businesses—this, even though he has cheated in every way imaginable. 
 
None of that matters. It wouldn’t matter if he really was the messiah of business. The simple fact is, the American economy, let alone the world economy, does not belong to him. It is not his to do whatever enters his crazed head.
 
He has no moral or constitutional authority to unilaterally impose universal tariffs or to dictate the rules of national or international trade without congressional authorization and oversight. It is certain that the framers of the constitution never envisioned giving one, lone individual carte blanche authority to impose the sort of universal tariffs that the serial bankruptee is currently pursuing.
 
As to the constitutional authority to impose tariffs, that belongs to congress. Under certain conditions, congress may delegate limited and specific authority to the president. In the present circumstances and in regard to the current dictator want-a-be, no such congressional delegation has been sought or granted. I say that “no such congressional delegation has been granted.” But this is only true if one ignores the passive cowardice of the present congress in fulfilling its constitutional duty to exercise oversight in relation to tariffs and to act as a check and balance against the tyranny of the one. I guess the “inspired framers of the constitution” should have included an article that granted the president authority to unilaterally and universally impose tariffs when congress was too dysfunctional to do its duty or too timid and cowardly to resist the tyranny of one.
 
If the vile man’s constitutional authority to unilaterally impose universal tariffs is questionable, his moral authority to do so is even more so, especially when his tactics are so clearly coercive and satanic. This brings us to Revelation 13 and the mark of the beast.
 
Revelation 13 confronts the reader with two beasts. Here, as throughout the Book of Revelation, we are dealing with a highly imaginative, symbolic, and fluid world. We should be careful about rigidly separating and compartmentalizing the two beasts. They are of the same spirit. They are archetypes.
 
The two beasts, along with the dragon who is the power behind the throne, can be viewed as forming an “unholy trinity” that stands in opposition to the holy trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Like the holy trinity, this unholy trinity acts in concert, the motivations and actions of one being the motivations and actions of all three. The two beasts, then, like the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, need not be seen as separate “individuals,” or as proceeding in some kind historical chronological order, but, rather, as an escalating spiral of wickedness.
 
Now, I have in the past, likened America’s sociopathic president to the first beast of Revelation 13. The two have much in common. Note that I “liken” the vile man to the apocalyptic beast. I do not say he is “the” beast. I do not believe that John the Revelator looked into the future and saw the man whose name I refuse to utter or write. But John did look into the future and see individuals who fit the beast’s character--it is possible that the beast was patterned after Nero, with whom there have been many leaders of similar perverted character.
 
Anyway, we are informed that “the dragon [The devil] gave him [the beast] his power, and his seat, and great authority.” In the case of America’s beastly president, I maintain that the man and his election is the work of evil, the evil of people and the evil of the devil. It is not God but “the dragon [that] gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.” 
 
Like Revelation’s beast, America’s beastly president has both literally and figuratively received a “deadly wound” to the head and been “healed. 
 
Just as “all the world wondered after the beast,” the entire world lives in fascination of America’s sociopath-in-Chief, captivated by his every action and word as evidenced by every daily news feed and TV news program saturated with reports of his bottomless wickedness.
 
Just as many deemed the beast irresistible, “saying, ‘Who is like unto the beast? Who is able to make war with him?’” many fear to challenge America’s beastly president and his unprecedented wickedness. Here, we note especially but not exclusively the admitted fear of him that members of congress have displayed and verbally admitted to, and their unwillingness to challenge, check, or balance him in his satanic authoritarianism.
 
Just as many “worshipped the beast,” the man whose name I refuse to utter or write is worshipped by what can only be called a cult of personality. In doing so, his cult members not only honor and worship the beast, they “worship the dragon which gave power unto the beast.” 
 
Like Revelation’s beast, much of the fascination and worship that surrounds the man who blackens America’s White House stems from his own exaggerated and deceptive self-promotion, the dragon having “given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies.” Indeed, America’s sociopathic president is incapable of opening his mouth without lying.
 
 Now, with that in mind, we come to the character and actions of Revelation’s second beast and the tariffs of America’s beastly president. Speaking of the second beast, we read,
 
“And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: and that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.”
 
A few points. 
 
Although we may be inclined to read this in terms of individuals and their ability/ permission to “buy or sell,” we can also understand the buying and selling at the institutional and global level, buying and selling referring to the ability to engage in trade. Indeed, the more expansive understanding of the beast’s control over buying and selling, i.e. economy and international trade is far more likely.
 
What do we make of the mark? In revelation, the mark is a sign of approval, acceptance, and protected status. Even of ownership. In Revelation 7, 144,000 have a seal placed on the foreheads. This seal signifies their approved, accepted, and protected status with God. They are God’s people. Those so sealed/ marked are protected during the looming apocalyptic plagues.
 
The beast’s mark also signifies approval, acceptance, protected status, and ownership. This time those marked by the beast/ dragon receive approval and protection to buy and sell/ trade. They are given favored status.
 
Those who would buy and sell/ trade must meet with the beast’s approval and acceptance. If they do not do as he wishes and thus receive his protected/ favored status, they are not granted the right to buy and sell/ trade.
 
We should note, too, the coercive and authoritarian nature of this beast.
 
With these things in mind, we return to America’s beastly president and his shocking, authoritarian, and treasonous statement mentioned at the beginning of this post.
 
“But I am this giant store. It’s a giant, beautiful store, and everybody wants to go shopping there. And on behalf of the American people, I own the store, and I set prices, and I’ll say, if you want to shop here, this is what you have to pay.”
 
The current wicked and corrupt American administration’s unauthorized, unchecked, unbalanced, autocratic, and coercive tariffs and trade policies can be seen in light of the beast’s coercive control of the right to buy and sell. Seen in this light, the current trading policies and the accompanying tariffs are yet one more clue as to the inspiration and power that supports and sustains the most wicked man to ever hold public office in America.
 
Behold, then, the 47th president of the United States. Behold the beast, inspired and empowered by Lucifer, the seven headed dragon. Behold the beast, encouraged and empowered by a cowardly and sycophantic congress. Behold the beast, fed and empowered by his willfully ignorant acolytes. Behold the beast, emboldened and empowered by the abomination that is modern American Christianity.
 
Behold the beast that, if there is a God in heaven, will be thrust down to hell and suffer its eternal flames.
 
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!

While we know more about the character and personal life of Jeremiah than any other Hebrew prophet whose words are recorded in the Hebrew Bible, we cannot always be sure of the chronology of his words and actions as found in the Book that bears his name. So, we cannot be sure when exactly he decided to become mute and stop preaching.
 
“Then I said, ‘I will not make mention of him,
nor speak any more in his name.’”
 
We do not know how long his mutism lasted. But we do know that it came to an end.
 
“But his word was in mine heart as a burning fire
shut up in my bones
and I was weary with forbearing,
and I could not stay.”
 
I do not pretend to be a Jeremiah, but I can relate to his frustration with God and his passionate disgust at the behavior of his fellow citizens. I do not pretend to be a prophet, but am pained and angered by the stupefied and cowardly silence of those who claim to be prophets. As I have repeatedly written of them, in the face of the harms that the wealthy and powerful--including the beast that currently defiles America’s White House-- inflict today upon individuals and society, these modern prophets, like those of Jeremiah’s day, “heal my people’s brokenness inadequately.”
 
In the immediate aftermath of the horrific American election of 2024 when a wicked electorate coronated an irredeemably wicked sociopath as dictator, I announced that I would, like Jeremiah, go mute. I would stick my head in the sand, remain silent, and wait four years for the madness to pass--not out of fear of the beast before whose madness the whole world trembles (the same beast whose vile name I refuse to utter or write), but out of concern for my own physical and mental health. The demon sickens my stomach, frays my nerves and raises my blood pressure among other ills. It is physically exhausting and mentally taxing work to track and fight a dragon.
 
But, fight the dragon we must. Try as I might, I can’t quench the fire in my bones any more than could Jeremiah so many millennia ago.
 
I apologize to the present and future generations for my four-month silence. I can only remind them that I had for the previous eight years been passionately warning through the “foolishness of preaching” about the irredeemable wickedness of the man whose name I refuse to utter or write, and the danger he posed to all that is good and right and holy. As I have written, there are innumerable and irrefutable proofs that he is guilty of having broken nearly every single one of the Ten commandments (and, perhaps, every single one of them), that he does not possess a single virtue extolled by Paul and recommended in the LDS 13th Article of Faith, or possess a single fruit of God’s Holy Spirit. 
 
The misanthropic sociopath and liar extraordinaire possesses not one single virtue or even the tiniest piece of any single virtue. He is utterly devoid of goodness. He is, as I have called him before, a black whole. He possesses no light, no truth, no goodness, no virtue in himself and sucks light and truth and goodness and virtue out of everyone and everything that comes within his orbit.
 
So count me as back in the game, tracking and reporting on the rapacious beast that pollutes America with his bottomless wickedness, defiles all that is good and right with his irredeemable wickedness, and blasphemes all that is godly with his blasphemous lies.
 
Every day brings some new transgression of decency, some new breach of established norms. Nay, not “some new,” but many new transgressions and breaches. One hundred days has seen a deluge of many, many hundreds of them. Each one deserves the illumination of a huge spot light. We will see what we can do in the deluge. But, one indecent transgression over arches the rest and deserves special attention.
 
American Presidents don’t “rule.” They may govern, but they do not “rule.” They do not “rule” America, and they most certainly do not “rule” the world.  Indeed, not only does America reject one man “rule,” it rejects the idea of “ruling” entirely. Not only do individuals not “rule” in America, collections of individuals do not “rule” in America. “Ruling” is not the language of America, its constitution, or its institutions.
 
Yet, reflective of his Satan-like lust for power, this is precisely what the vile man who currently sits in the American White House, polluting it with his very presence, recently declared: “I rule America and I rule the world.”
 
This is not semantics: rule or govern, govern or rule. However ignorant and mad the most wicked man to ever hold public office in America might be, he doesn’t joke around. His choice of words is purposeful and reflective of his nature and intentions. He means what he says. He intends to be a ruler. He intends to be a dictator. He is certainly acting like one. And, unfortunately, like the ancient Roman Senate at the end of the republic and like Germany’s Reichstag of the 1930s, America’s House of Representatives and Senate are too cowardly or corrupt to fulfill the role assigned to them by the constitution to act as a check and balance against the antichrist’s maniacal power grab. And, as I have complained over and over again, those who want to be prophets are delinquently, unforgivably, and accountably mute in the face of his bottomless wickedness.
 
But each day the sociopath defiling America looks and acts more and more like that proverbial “iniquitous king” who “has his friends in iniquity, and keepeth his guards about him; and he teareth up the laws of those who have reigned… before him; and he trampleth under his feet the commandments of God; and he enacteth laws, and sendeth them forth among his people, yea, laws after the manner of his own wickedness; and whosoever doth not obey his laws he causeth to be destroyed.” 
 
He must not be allow to “rule.” Not here. Not anywhere. The budding dictatorship that he expands by the day must be stopped. Crushed. Destroyed. We have already witnessed enough of his wickedness to be sickened. We have witnessed “how much iniquity… one wicked king cause[s] to be committed.” Hopefully we will not, like those before us, have to find out how very, very difficult, often violent, it is to “dethrone an iniquitous king.”
 
Wake up, America, from your slumber; from the sleep of hell. Its time for its senators, its congressmen, and those who be be prophets to stand up and do their duty, a duty they owe to America, a duty they owe to the world, a duty they owe of God.
 
And to God, we say,
 
“LORD! How Long shall the wicked,
how long shall the wicked triumph?
 
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!

I remember growing up hearing how the constitution would hang by a thread and that the “elders of Israel” would come to its rescue. Turns out that was just self-righteous and self-congratulatory BS. Turns out to be false on at least two counts.
 
First, the thread has already been cut.
 
Number two, no one came to the rescue. Certainly not the elders of Israel. Indeed, many of those elders of Israel joined in support of the most wicked man, a sociopath, to ever hold public office in the united states--that’s right, it no longer deserves capitalization-- and thus helped hold the scissors that cut the final thread.
 
As to the first, just consider. Over and over and over again, one man--just one, single, solitary sociopathic man whose despicable name I refuse to utter or write--is left unchecked and unbalanced by constitutionally prescribed and co-equal branches of the federal government.
 
That’s the obscenity of an american dictator and dictatorship!
 
The sociopath single-handedly, unilaterally, belligerently, and capriciously fires contracted government workers while constitutionally mandated co-equal branches of the federal government sit and do little or nothing to check and balance his unconstitutional actions.  
 
That’s the obscenity of an american dictator and dictatorship!
 
The sociopath single-handedly, unilaterally, belligerently, and capriciously strips, plunders, and shutters whole congressionally mandated government departments while constitutionally mandated co-equal branches of the federal government sit and do little or nothing to check and balance his unconstitutional actions.
 
That’s the obscenity of a dictator and dictatorship!
 
The sociopath single-handedly, unilaterally, belligerently, and capriciously sends his jack-booted thugs into america’s streets, schools, stores, and homes to arrest and disappear those he deems undesirable while constitutionally mandated co-equal branches of the federal government sit and do little or nothing to check and balance his unconstitutional actions.
 
That’s the obscenity of a dictator and dictatorship!
 
The sociopath single-handedly, unilaterally, belligerently, and capriciously directs an independent Justice Department to do his personal and private and vindictive and unjust bidding while constitutionally mandated co-equal branches of the federal government sit and do little or nothing to check and balance his unconstitutional actions.
 
That’s the obscenity of a dictator and dictatorship!
 
The sociopath single-handedly, unilaterally, belligerently, and capriciously ignores judicial rulings while constitutionally mandated co-equal branches of the federal government sit and do little or nothing to check and balance his unconstitutional actions.
 
That’s the obscenity of a dictator and dictatorship!
 
The sociopath single-handedly, unilaterally, belligerently, and capriciously levels tariffs against friend and foe alike while constitutionally mandated co-equal branches of the federal government sit and do little or nothing to check and balance his unconstitutional actions.
 
That’s the obscenity of a dictator and dictatorship!
 
We could go on. And on. And on. We haven’t even scratched the surface of the socipath’s dictatorship. When did the real America ever give such power to one man. True, there are those among us, much like the King Men of Book of Mormon fame, who have worked for decades to establish an imperial presidency. The American presidency, of whatever party, has become increasingly imperialistic. But we have managed to keep this evil somewhat in check and balanced.
 
But no more. No, the truth is clear. The u.s. is now a dictatorship, governed by a capricious, cruel, criminal, and sociopathic dictator without any checks or balances from the co-equal branches of the federal government. He is determined to wreck our children’s education, kill us with polluted air and water, create even grosser levels of economic inequality, strip us of the resources we have worked so hard to put aside for retirement, oppress the vulnerable and innocent, etc., etc.
 
And while he does all of this and more, those who have a constitutionally mandated obligation to act as checks and balances against the capaciousness of one-man rule just sit, often privately appalled, on the sidelines and silently watch, derelict in their duty either through willing compliance or corruption or cowardice or all three.
 
That’s the obscenity of a dictator and dictatorship!
 
Those who have a constitutionally mandated obligation to act as checks and balances against the capaciousness of one-man rule leave unchecked and unbalanced a capricious, cruel, criminal, and sociopathic man who has been a criminal his entire life. He should have been in prison long before he even thought about running for the white house that he now pollutes and defiles. He was a criminal, an actual convicted felon even as he ran for dictator. He is a criminal as he now dictates.
 
Just consider the last item, his tariff war against the rest of the world. Just one man--one, single, solitary, belligerent, ignorant, capricious, cruel, criminal, and sociopathic man!--has been allowed to roil the global markets, costing people trillions of dollars, threatening the livelihood and security of billions of people across the globe without the slightest check or balance from congress, a co-equal branch of the federal government. What kind of obscenity is that!
 
That’s the obscenity of a dictator and dictatorship!
 
And, like all dictators, the capricious, cruel, criminal, and sociopathic man uses his unchecked and unbalanced power to turn the government into his own personal criminal enterprise in order to empower and enrich only himself. Just this week, by his own admission, he made 2 billion dollars in the stock market. Talk about market manipulation! His is the ultimate in insider trading.
 
That’s the obscenity of a dictator and dictatorship!
 
And the response to this heist? Nada. Nil. Zip. Zilch. Zero. Not a word from the coequal branches of government that have a constitutionality mandated responsibility to check and balance him. Hell, forget about checking and balancing him. Previous generations would have had the good sense, decency, and courage to impeach him, throw his ass out of office and into the clink--the darker, the deeper, and the danker the better.
 
But, that’s how dictators operate and how dictatorships work. He abuses and molests an entire nation, nay, an entire planet just as he as abused and molested women for decades.
 
No one should ever be allowed to claim ignorance or surprise. It was all entirely predictable--and I have been predicting it for going on a decade now.
 
As capricious and cruel and criminal and sociopathic; as evil and irredeemably wicked, and satanic as the man is, the greatest evil comes from an electorate that placed him in office to engage in his wickedness--a wickedness completely predictable, as he broadcast it beforehand--and members of the coequal branches of government that leave him unchecked and unbalance to conduct his criminal dictatorship.
 
The truth is, we are left without enough words or words vile enough to express our contempt for the despicable man and the nation so willfully and willingly enthralled and captured by so obvious a wicked sociopath. Nor are there words powerful enough to proclaim righteous condemnation and imprecation against a once proud and free nation that has so foolishly given itself over to a wicked dictator and the dictatorship of a sociopath.
 
And, finally, we come back to those famous “elder’s of Israel,” so many of whom are complicit in the fall and have willingly taken part in the coup by supporting a sociopath for president. And what of those who lead them; those who cowered into silence, as witnessed by their complicit silence in the most recent general conference--it too, has lost its right to capitalization? Not even a word from them. They are, as Jeremiah complained, leaders who continue to adequately heal the wound of God’s people.
 
It is all so obscene.
 
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!

The word, “redeem,” literally means “to buy back,” “to recover by purchase.” In Christian theology it means, “to deliver from sin and spiritual death.” To be irredeemable is the opposite. In Christian theology one who is, because of their own obstinance and the depth of their depravity, irredeemable has not and cannot be delivered from sin and spiritual death. Those called in LDS parlance, “Sons [Daughters] of Perdition,” can be thought of as irredeemable.
 
As of February 2025, the U.S. White House is occupied by something more than a sociopath. It is occupied by an irredeemably wicked man. A Son of Perdition. An Anti-Christ. Perhaps a devil. He is irredeemably all these things and more. It would require a full page of ugly adjectives, many of them profane and pornographic to plumb the depths of his wickedness. And,  still, it may not plumb deep enough.
 
Scripture is our standard. It informs us what we should do and what we should be. No matter where we turn in scripture, when we weigh and measure the irredeemably wicked man whose name I refuse to utter or write against the standard, we find him lacking by absolutely every, EVERY measure.
 
In past homilies, meditations, and blog posts, we have, for example, reflected upon the fact that he is a serial breaker of the Ten Commandments, perhaps every single one of them—at the very least being a serial idolater, serial user of God’s name in vain, serial sabbath breaker, serial adulterer, serial thief, serial liar, and serial coveter.
 
We have also called upon the testimony of the Pauline virtues, approximated in the LDS Articles of Faith: truth, honesty, justness, purity, loveliness, goodness, virtue, and praiseworthiness.[1]  These the sociopath lacks entirely. In spades. Not a smidgen of a one of them does he possess.
 
Today, we add another list to the standard by which we measure the man who pollutes the U.S. White House, the U.S. government, the American people, and the citizens of this planet. This list constitutes what is often called the “Fruits of the Spirit.” These fruits are: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.”[2] The man went 0 for 8 when it came to the Pauline virtues. He goes 0 for 9 when it comes to the fruits of the Spirit.
 
The man is just one big black hole when it comes to the virtues and the fruits of the Spirit. He is not only devoid of virtue himself, but he also sucks virtue out of everyone and everything that comes into his destructive orbit.
 
Scripture advises the need for the Holy Spirit in discerning truth. It speaks of studying things out in your mind. It speaks of burnings in the bosom—Lord knows the vile man whose name I refuse to utter or write has given me the worse case of heartburn of my life. It speaks of stupors of thought—I am constantly stupefied by the depth of the man’s wickedness. It speaks of enticement, the enticement to do good or to do evil.[3]
 
But really, in this post-truth age of our perverted current U.S. president, no assistance from the Holy Spirit is needed in discerning the truth of the man or the words he spews. As for the words he spews. They make discerning truth a simple matter of hearing what he says and knowing that the truth is always, always, always the opposite of what he says. The world has always been populated by leaders who lie. But few, if any, have ever lied so consistently, so thoroughly, and so persuasively as this latest liar. I have concluded, in fact, that he has never uttered a truthful word in his entire life. He is a perpetual lying machine.
 
And, remember, when we speak of lying, we are not only speaking about one’s relationship with facts—a relationship that is contemptuous of truth. The liar is also contemptuous of their fellow beings. Liars do not respect others. Liars harm others (One wonders, really, if those who so readily and enthusiastically accept the lies of the liar lack self-respect and are full of self-loathing). The man polluting the White House is such a man, contemptuous and disrespectful of everyone, including those who “love” him most.
 
But there is an upside to the man being such a devoted liar. Few people have ever made discerning truth easier than this conjurer of lies.
 
As for the man himself, the standards of scripture make the truth of his abject, total, and irredeemable depravity and wickedness undeniable, inarguable, and certain.
 
We have discussed what he hasn’t done—kept the most basic of commands, those of the Ten Commandments—and what he is not—possessing none of the virtues outline by Paul and restated in the LDS Articles of Faith or any of the fruits of the spirit. This is but a small sampling of scripture’s insight into the sociopath who pollutes 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
 
As we have observed above, scripture provides clear insights into what he is not. But it also provides clear insights into what he is. God is certainly the most prominent figure portrayed in scripture. Scripture is mostly about Him, and we would do well to focus on scripture’s Divine portrait. But it also portrays other figures. While the Book of Psalms, like the rest of scripture, is primarily focused on God and His unmatched character, it also portrays those who are opposed to or the opposite of God. One of these characters is the rāšāʿ, the “wicked,” the “malevolently immoral.” They are very active, numerous, and dominant in the world. The Psalmist spills a good bit of ink in describing them.
 
In an upcoming homily/ blog post, we will explore the doings and being of the rāšāʿ as the Psalmist describes them. You probably already understand why. But lest I leave you uncertain… the man whose name I refuse to utter or write is a rāšāʿ par excellence. So, in exploring the rāšāʿ and their character, we also explore the irredeemable man, what he is as well as what he is not. It isn’t a pretty picture. But we must not turn away and ignore the truth, for the truth shall make you free.[4]
 
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!


[1] See Philippians 4.8
[2] Galatians 5.22-23
[3] See DC 9 and Moroni 7
[4] See John 8.32

Now, I know what I said in my previous post: I would have little to say about the irredeemably wicked man who now pollutes the White House and infects and poisons the entire globe with his mind-numbing venon. What I should have said is that the evidence is in. For many years—many years before his ascendency onto the American political stage—his depravity has been on display, transparent to any with eyes to see. So, I will not go looking for more evidence, more data concerning his deep and abiding depravity. It would require me to keep up with the latest news reports of the toxic, malignant, and depraved doings of his misshapen and deformed sociopathic soul. This I refuse to do.
 
But, however hard I try, and however many filters I put up to block reports of the man’s boundless depravity from my view, his wickedness is so deep and so wide and long and so black and comes so naturally to him that one report or another is constantly slipping through the cracks of my defenses. There is simply no wall high or broad or long enough to keep reports of the sociopath’s irredeemable perversion, mendacity, deviancy, malignancy, and depravity from breaching one’s defenses. The politicians who bend the knee and worship the beast are little better.
 
I didn’t read the piece, mind you, but this headline slipped through my defenses: “Democrats Consult Psychologists on how to Deal with…” (You can supply the name of the pervert that now pollutes the White House, for I refuse, remember, to utter or write his vile name).
 
I would have laughed if it weren’t so sad and terrifying. Apparently, Democrats still don’t understand what they are dealing with. They think they are simply dealing with a very, very, very, very sick man. But I am here to tell them that they are dealing with something more than psychology, and if they want to deal with him, they need something far more than even the most skilled psychologists. They need an exorcist. As I have written before, the man’s depravity goes well beyond the abnormal. His depravity is off the charts. It is in the paranormal range. His depraved wickedness is positively demonic. Satanic. Luciferian.
 
So, my dear Democrats and anyone else who wished to understand and, perhaps, even righteously resist him, forget about the psychologist’s symbol:

​You’ll need something more appropriate to the danger. You’ll need something more powerful. If you will understand him and resist him and his bottomless wickedness, you’ll need something more like this instead.

With the American presidential inauguration of the sociopath whose name I refuse to utter or write, the madness, the lunacy, the buffoonery, the criminality, the wickedness, the ungodliness, the sorcery, the blasphemy is back in spades. The madness, the lunacy, the buffoonery, the criminality, the wickedness, the ungodliness, the sorcery, the blasphemy, all this will be deeper and darker this time around. America will have earned every pain it suffers at the hooves of this beast.
 
Those who have followed the postings on this site know very well how I feel about the demon. I could not have been clearer. My warnings have been unmistakable. He is a despicable human being. The most loathsome and irredeemably wicked creature of my lifetime. The most profane and vulgar of deviants. The most dishonest and dangerous “politician” in America’s short and storied history. The opposite of and an enemy to all that is true, honest, just, pure, lovely, good, virtuous, and praiseworthy.[1]
 
I write, now, to say that while I will continue to muse and comment on scripture, it is unlikely that I will be posting much additional commentary about the beast or his bottomless wickedness. You see, I have put up filters to keep his filth out of my life as much as possible. Since America elected its favorite antichrist, I have not watched a minute of news. I have canceled all my news service subscriptions. I cannot stomach seeing video or images of the blasphemer’s ugly mug. I cannot abide the sound of the lunatic’s lying voice. I cannot endure the sight of the words the buffoon spews. I cannot endure the never-ending headlines that proclaim his ungodly deviance. When any words, headlines, images, or videos of or about the vile miscreant are involuntarily pushed upon me, I immediately scroll, click, or navigate away before my soul is further soiled and sullied by his filth. Any awareness of the sorcerer causes my blood pressure to rise and takes another year off my life.
 
America is in its current morass, in part, because of ignorance. I hate to join the crowd and become an ignorant voter. But I can’t take it. Unless the “burning fire shut up in my bones,” becomes unbearable,[2] I am planning to spend the next four years with my head in the sand and remain ignorant of the wicked deviance of the evil demon, now U.S. president, whose name I refuse to utter or write.
   
So, enjoy the ride. See you in four years, if American is still American and hasn’t, like the Gulf of Mexico, been renamed: renamed after the nameless scoundrel and fashioned in his pornographic image.
 
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!


[1] See Philippians 4.8
[2] See Jeremiah 20.9

And the bishop, Newel K. Whitney, also should travel round about and among all the churches, searching after the poor to administer to their wants by humbling the rich and the proud.
 
 
  introduction

This passage is one that I include in my list of scriptures that describe a just society. Some might question my inclusion of this passage in such a list. They may reason that this passage addresses behavior and intentions that relate only to those of the LDS faith and that it has no bearing or application to the world at large and how it manages its financial resources. I reject this reasoning. It is too puny a vision. God thinks big, as the prophet Isaiah reminded us over two millennia ago.
 
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
   neither are your ways my ways,
      saith the LORD.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
   so are my ways higher than your ways,
      and my thoughts than your thoughts.”[1]
 
In this homily I hope to expand our vision of the counsel given to Bishop Newell K. Witney in 1832.
 

god’s call to serve

As I have suggested in numerous scripture-based homilies, meditations, and questionaries, God gave the small and insignificant nation of ancient Israel laws, imbedded with principles, by which a secure, just, and enduring society could be established. In doing so, God did more than provide laws and principles for the insular nation. God called Israel to be His servant to be an example to the world by keeping His just laws and forming a “more perfect union.”
 
 Through Israel’s “evangelical” example, God hoped to transform and improve the entire world. Unfortunately, Israel did not live up to its calling. It did not keep God’s laws for a just society and so the world was left without an example. This is not my own estimation of Israel’s failed response to God and His call, but that of the Hebrew prophets.
 
I have also suggested in numerous scripture-based homilies, meditations, and questionaries that I believe that Jesus of Nazareth, through his words and actions during his ministry and through his disciples, intended to transform and improve the world—remake it into the image of the kingdom of God. Unfortunately, through the apostacy of “Christianity”—to be seen not so much in the corruption of doctrine as in the corruption of behavior in yielding to the twisted and unjust values of this world—this hope was shattered. Once more, the world was left without a servant and without an example of a just society. The salt lost its savor, and Christianity found itself trodden under the feet of violent marching armies for centuries.[2]
 
Finally, as I have suggested in numerous scripture-based homilies, meditations, and questionaries, I believe that God intended to transform and improve the world through an insignificant Joseph Smith, the principles that He taught him, and the small institutions that He established through him. The jury is still out on the effectiveness of this latter movement. The signs are not particularly encouraging as this movement seems to have succumbed to the same worldly temptations and twisted values as the earlier evangelists—ancient Israel and emergent Christianity. If so, they are liable to suffer the same tragic ends.
 
It is a sad reality that all these efforts to transform and improve the world have seemingly been for naught—not for the lack of divine inspiration, but for the failure of the called servants and the lack of human response. The world does not seem much changed from what it has been from the dawn of history. Still, that does not mean that we give up the hope of transforming and improving the world that we have inherited.
 
The instruction found in DC 84.112 is an example of God’s efforts to transform and improve the entire world through the example of an insignificant and small portion of the world’s population. This instruction contains principles that are to be applied to the entire world, not only to a small enclave of humanity formerly known as Mormon. Neither Joseph Smith nor God were so myopic as to have anything in mind other than worldwide transformation and improvement.
 
So, what divine principles are found in this passage that might bring about the transformation and improvement of the world and form a cornerstone of a just and enduring society? Here are the principal ones that I identify in this passage.
 


  searching after the poor

Newel K. Whitney was to “travel round about and among all the churches, searching after the poor to administer to their wants.” At that time, the churches were scattered several miles apart. Roads were not great. During parts of the year, they were nearly impassable. The horse was the best and most swift means of travel, the horse-drawn wagon the principal means of transporting goods.
 
This is all preamble to our first point: fulfilling this divine direction required much time and energy. The Lord required leaders of the church to make whatever efforts were necessary to 1) identify the poor, and 2) supply the economic deficiencies of the poor. In fulfilling this divine mandate, the church not only cared for the poor, but served as example to the world. This is what just societies that are consistent with the character of God look like. Just societies actively and energetically and untiringly 1) identify the poor, and 2) supply their economic deficiencies, whatever difficulties that effort might entail. Looking after the poor is not to be a passive activity. Nor is it an afterthought.  Identifying the poor and supplying their economic deficiencies is a high priority for God and is to be a high priority for those in governance and leadership.
 
The goal is not merely to meet temporary needs. The goal is to eliminate poverty entirely.
 
“And the Lord called his people ZION, because they were of one heart and one mind, and dwelt in righteousness; and there was no poor among them.”[3]
 
“… The people were all converted unto the Lord, upon all the face of the land, both Nephites and Lamanites, and there were no contentions and disputations among them, and every man did deal justly one with another. And they had all things common among them; therefore there were not rich and poor, bond and free, but they were all made free, and partakers of the heavenly gift.” [4]
 
So, God, I contend, called a little group that would come to be known as Mormons to obey God in actively eliminating poverty among them through consecration. In engaging in this righteous work inside their group, they were to serve as examples to the outside world. Outside this movement, these called evangelists were to advocate for laws and policies that were consistent with the divine revelation and that would eliminate poverty in the broader society. These servants to the world were not called for their own glory. Yes, they were, by God’s own testimony, granted the “privilege of organizing themselves according to my laws.”[5] But in being so granted, they were under obligation to stand as an example, a city on a hill, to the rest of the world in hopes that the world would be transformed and improved until there were no poor anywhere on the globe.
 
So, that’s principle number one. Just societies actively and diligently identify those who are economically deficient and help supply the deficiencies of the poor. In today’s world, these deficiencies would include such things as food, housing, healthcare, education, and, where practical and realistic, jobs. Societies broaden these efforts, whatever the cost and effort, with the goal of eliminating the scourge of poverty from the planet.
 
 

  humbling the rich

The question now arises: By what means are the deficiencies of the poor to be supplied? Here is the Lord’s plan for supplying the deficiencies of the poor. The Lord directed Newel K. Whitney to “administer to their wants by humbling the rich and the proud.”
 
Now, as we have so often remarked, modern religious thought too often domesticates the idea of humility, turning it into a pleasant, almost cute and cuddly little character trait. But, in calling for the “humbling” of the rich and proud, God isn’t simply talking about shaping an inner trait in the rich. In this passage the Lord uses the verb, “to humble,” in its participial form. The verb means “to lower in power, dominance, independence, importance, status, or prestige.” The Lord intends to utilize the wealth of the rich to change both the life of the poor and the life of the rich. He intends to raise the poor and lower the rich.
 
Lest I be accused of making stuff up, I would have the reader consider counsel given to Joseph Smith a little more than a year after the counsel given to Newell K. Whitney. In DC 104, The Lord informed Joseph that the community’s economic resources must be utilized and distributed in “mine own way.” That way was consecration and redistribution. Then, he says,
 
“…this is the way that I, the Lord, have decreed to provide for my saints, that the poor shall be exalted, in that the rich are made low.”[6]
The “humbling” of the rich involved something far more than emotional and psychological alteration of the rich. I was about lowering them, lowering their wealth, lowering their power and influence purchased through their wealth. And it was about exalting the poor. Raising their wealth, raising their power and influence restricted by their poverty. All this is entirely in keeping with the intuition Mary had about the work that God intended to do through her son, Jesus.
 
“He hath shewed strength with his arm;
   he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
He hath put down the mighty from their seats,
   and exalted them of low degree.
He hath filled the hungry with good things;
   and the rich he hath sent empty away.”[7]
 
The counsel given to Newell K Whitney evidences the Lord’s assumption that the rich need humbling and that they must be economically lowered. There is an assumption that the status, influence, and dominance of the rich must be diminished if not broken—indeed, one senses in these passages an intensity, almost aggression about humbling and making low the rich.” There is an assumption that the inordinate status, influence, and dominance of the rich is a threat to a well-functioning and enduring society. To be sure, American is currently passing through an era when the danger that the wealthy and the influence that their wealth buys is clear and self-evident. Many a societal ill found in America could be solved by following the direction given in the Doctrine and Covenants to “humble the rich” and “making them low.”
                                                   
As we have said, there is an assumption in this passage and on the part of the Lord that the rich need humbling. I have said this before. I will repeat myself here. With the possible exception of maybe two passages, often misinterpreted, scripture does not record any instance of God leveling criticism against the poor. Rather, God and those who represent Him advocate for the poor hundreds of times in scripture. The poor are never portrayed as violators but as violated. They are not spoken of as those who victimize. They are always the victimized. They are never told to work harder or longer or smarter. The wealthy are told to work harder, longer, and smarter in caring for and lifting the poor There is simply no way around these scripture realities—however inconvenient it may be to those taken in by our twisted economic system and its justifying propaganda.
 
At the same time, scripture does not record any instance of God advocating for the wealthy. Indeed, 99.9% of the time when scripture mentions the wealthy it is with an explicit or implied “woe” somewhere nearby. We could fill a book with examples of God “woeing” the wealthy, while we can hardly find 25 words in which he “woes” the poor.[8]
 
These scriptural attitudes and habits are the exact opposite of current attitudes and habits toward the poor found in American society, where the poor are blamed and “woed,” while the rich are exalted and wooed. This is but one of many evidences of how utterly unbiblical and ungodly—ungod-like—American society is. It is indeed tragic that so many who join in the “woeing” of the poor claim to follow God’s word, whether it comes from the Bible or the Doctrine and Covenants.
 
Separating lying propaganda from divine law and principle, we find that administering to (not simply caring for) the poor by “humbling the rich and proud”—“proud” being, in scripture a near synonym of “rich,” the rich being thought of as proud almost by definition[9]—is not only a benefit to the poor. It also benefits the rich who “fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition.”[10]
 
So, that’s number two. Just as the Lord sees that the poor need help out of their economic deficiencies, He sees that the wealthy need help out of the spiritual deficiency: the pride, that their wealth almost universally creates. Therefore, he humbles the wealthy by requiring that their wealth be dedicated to lifting up the poor. In addition, the Lord’s counsel is good for society at large. As the wealth of the rich is deduced, so too is the power and influence they buy with their wealth. Few things offer better proof of the Lord’s wisdom, justness, and interest in all His children than this inspired counsel found in DC 84.112.
 


  Conclusion

In the winter of 1830-31, after reading of and being inspired by Enoch’s establishment of Zion, and being moved upon by the Holy Spirit, Joseph Smith’s understanding of his calling underwent a huge and radical transformation.[11] No longer did he simply think in terms of establishing another religion, church, or institution. He began to think of his calling in terms of establishing a whole new type of society. This society was not to be a small, insular, and exclusive society. It was, like the stone cut out of the mountain,[12] to fill the entire world. Joseph and the movement he led were called to transform and improve the human condition the world over.
 
Under the Lord’s tutelage, Joseph began to understand that the world’s economic systems were a principal impediment to improving the human condition. Indeed, much of the blame for the sorry state of this world rested on the world’s economic systems. They were twisted and perverted, permeated with false values and destructive behaviors. A new economic system was needed in the world if it was to be transformed and improved as God intended and demanded it be—as it must be to abide His presence. At the heart of the Lord’s economic system was an awareness of the economic deficiencies under which the poor suffered and the spiritual deficiencies under with the rich suffered. These deficiencies were, in fact, interrelated and codependent. The economic instruction found in DC 84.112 along with much other economic counsel given in the middle third of the Doctrine and Covenants was intended to address and heal these deficiencies.
 
In a moment of inspiration soon after Joseph’s economic/ Zionist epiphany, the Lord informed—or is it “warned”?— “the poor have complained before me, and the rich have I made, and all flesh is mine, and I am no respecter of persons.”[13] With this warning ringing in his ears, Joseph immediately began to newly conceive the rich and poor. Much of the middle third of the Doctrine and Covenants is taken up with instruction concerning a new economic system that would benefit both rich and poor and so transform and improve the world.
 
DC 84.112 is part of that extended instruction on economy that makes up the approximate middle third of the Doctrine and Covenants. Here, the Lord directs that society make a more concerted effort of caring for the poor. Society’s leaders are to actively identify the poor, inventory their financial deficiencies, and provide means to eliminate these deficiencies. The principal means for eliminating the deficiencies under which the poor suffer is the redistribution of wealth.
 
True to the Lord’s early warning, there was no “respect of persons” (the poor over the rich) in this redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor. Both groups benefited. The Lord’s desired economic system could eliminate deficiencies found in both groups—economic deficiencies found among the poor, and spiritual deficiencies found among the rich. As is the case throughout scripture, there was an assumption that the financially rich were rich in pride and required humbling as much as the poor were humiliated and required help to be lifted out of poverty. However, in addition to altering the inner character of the rich, the Lord wanted and intended to reduce their unequal wealth, alter they social status, and reduce the excessive power and influence that purchased their wealth.
 
It is, in my view, a gross misreading of the text to understand the economic principles found in the middle third of the Doctrine and Covenants as applying only to “the Church,” or as containing principles exclusively intended for an exclusive “Zion.” The economic principles would, of necessity, initially be adopted and applied among a small group. But the Lord intended that, increasingly, larger and larger populations adopt and apply those principles because of the example of the first adopters and appliers and the superior society that those principles created. It was the Lord’s hopes and intentions that the economic principles would expand the world over.
 
As ancient Israel and Christianity, the initial latter-day group failed miserably in adopting and applying the Lord’s eternal economic principles. There is no telling how negative an impact this failure has had on the world. Those of us who lay claim to the heritage of this initial latter-day group have done no better. Indeed, we, as a group, actively resist such principles as we succumb to the false values and principles of the world’s economic systems—values and principles that are incessantly justified and propagated by an immense, sophisticated, and uncompromising propaganda machine.  
 
Just like all those that have proceeded (Egypt, Babylon, Rome, et al.), the world’s current twisted economic systems are on life-support, gasping for their last breath of air. It is high time that we who claim to believe that the Doctrine and Covenants contains the word of God—a warning to a dying world—put our money where our mouth is. It is time for us to individually live by the Lord’s economic principles. But this is not enough. We must advocate within our larger society for the Lord’s economic system; one in which the lifting up of the poor and the making low of the rich are given the highest priority and engage our most diligent efforts. This is true discipleship. Such values and practices are foundational to the endurance of human society in this world. Such values are necessary if we hope to abide in a more eternal and enduring society beyond those of this world.
 
“For verily I say unto you, the time has come, and is now at hand; and behold, and lo, it must needs be that there be an organization of my people, in regulating and establishing the affairs of the storehouse for the poor of my people, both in this place and in the land of Zion—for a permanent and everlasting establishment and order unto my church, to advance the cause, which ye have espoused, to the salvation of man, and to the glory of your Father who is in heaven; that you may be equal in the bonds of heavenly things, yea, and earthly things also, for the obtaining of heavenly things. For if ye are not equal in earthly things ye cannot be equal in obtaining heavenly things; for if you will that I give unto you a place in the celestial world, you must prepare yourselves by doing the things which I have commanded you and required of you.”[14]
 
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!


[1] Isaiah 55.8-9
[2] See Matthew 5.13
[3] Moses 7.18
[4] 4 Nephi 1.2-3
[5] DC 51.15
[6] DC 104.16
[7] Luke 1.51-53
[8] Scripture is as clear as clear can be. Wealth breeds pride. This reality is widespread enough to be called universally true. It makes no difference that there might be the occasional exception—these exceptions being more exceptional than is often claimed. The Lord’s solution to the damning pride of the wealthy is to reduce the wealthy’s riches. This is not socialism or communism or any other ism. Rather, it is a ness. It is righteousness, holiness, godliness.
[9] The exceptions to this are just that, exceptions. Historically and globally speaking, they are so rare as to warrant little consideration.
[10] 1 Timothy 6.9
[11] See my meditation on DC 37.
[12] See Daniel 2.35, 44-45
[13] DC 38.16
[14] DC 78.3-7

There are ten of them. They are most often referred to as “The Ten Commandments,” but sometimes as “The Decalogue” (The Ten Words). We all know what they are. American “Christians,” so-called, and especially “Christian Nationalists” want them displayed in courtrooms, schools, etc. Here and there, in Louisiana, for example, some have even convinced gullible and hypocritical lawmakers to mandate their display—I call them hypocritical, in part, due to their professed contempt for mandates.
 
At the same time, this same group of people enthusiastically, zealously, and hypocritically supported an American presidential candidate who repeatedly and unrepentantly has violated most, if all the Ten Commandments to which they so ardently claim allegiance and wish displayed wherever they can find blank wall space.
 
I have said it before, and I say it again now. I will not stop saying it.
 
The man, whose name I refuse to write or utter and who is shamefully to be the next president of the U.S. with huge “Christian” support, is guilty of breaking at least six of the ten commandments—not once, not twice, not in error, but openly and blatantly over and over again over many, many years.
 
He has broken the command, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”
 
He has broken the command, “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.”
 
He has broken the command, “Thou shalt not commit adultery.”
 
He has broken the command, “Thou shalt not steal.”
 
He has broken the command, “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.”
 
He has broken the command, “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s.”
 
Those are the ones we know of; the ones we are absolutely 100% sure of. Who knows if he is guilty of having broken the command, “Thou shalt not kill.” It is highly likely that people have died because of his practiced wickedness. But, as he himself has confessed on more than one occasion, he could kill someone publicly and in broad daylight and his supporters wouldn’t give a damn.
 
The rationalization of these so-called Christians for supporting such a fatally and irredeemably flawed man is that, well, you know, “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.”[1] They like to remind those that criticize them and their idolatrous politician that it is only he or she who is without sin that can throw rocks—counsel that they, themselves are as far from keeping as the east is from the west.
 
But I am here to tell you, dear reader, that there have been few sinners more skilled in the dark arts of wickedness than this vile man. His wickedness is bottomless. Paranormal. Devilish. He is by a wide, wide margin the most wicked individual to run for public office in U.S. history. He is by a wide, wide margin the most openly and obviously wicked individual to be elected to public office in U.S. history.
 
We who are sinners cannot compare, compete, or keep up with his wickedness. He is out of our league when it comes to wickedness. Furthermore, he is deserving of every rock thrown at him and no one can be censored for joining in the fray of rock throwing.
 
And while we are throwing rocks, we ought to heave a few American “Christianity’s” way. To be sure, many non-confessing Christians joined in their wicked support of a fatally and irredeemably flawed man. Perhaps we cannot expect our secular society to care about things so archaic as morality. But, in supporting a demon, American “Christianity” has shown itself more than worthy of the divine criticism that God, Himself, threw at it two hundred and twenty years ago in a Colonial era spring forest. American "Christianity's" behavior is not merely hypocritical. Not merely blasphemous. Not merely a stain on its collective character. It is corrupt and an abomination before God.[2]
 
With its support of this vile, lurid, vulgar, profane, cruel, dishonest, wicked, evil, and demonic sociopath, American “Christianity” has shown itself to be in violation of the very first command to have no other gods before the Only, the One, and True God. If it has not already done so, how long can it be before it makes of this man, who utters great and blasphemous things, an idolatrous image and thus breaks the second commandment, “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them…”
 
I, for one, will not bow the knee to such a beast.
 
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!


[1] Romans 3.23
[2] See JSH 1.19

  introduction

Those not familiar with current American Evangelical political thought might be unaware of a new, detailed theology concerning the former American president and 2024 GOP presidential candidate. In this theology, evangelicals have drawn a parallel between the ancient Persian Emperor, Cyrus, and the wicked man whose name I refuse to utter or write. Just as God used Cyrus, a godless man, to restore Judah to its ancestral home in the promised land, the theory goes, God is using the wicked New York playboy turned politician to lead American Christians back to their rightful place of dominance over American culture and government
 
This is not the place to examine all that is wrong with this theology or the questionable historical claim that founders of America intended Christianity to dominate American culture or government. Indeed, there is good reason to believe that Jesus, whose kingdom was not of this world, never intended his disciples to participate in flawed and immoral human governments, let along control them.
 
It is perhaps foolishness to draw parallels between Biblical and modern American characters. That said, God, Himself, is not above using what is foolish to accomplish good.
 
“For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.[1]
 
I have suggested elsewhere that if there is a parallel to be found between a Biblical character and the unnamed American scoundrel, it is most likely the Antichrist of Revelation 13.[2] This is especially so if he is reelected. American Christians would be well advised to forget about Cyrus as a Biblical parallel with the New York playboy and give serious thought to the beast of Revelation 13.
 
But, in this homily, I will engage in my own bit of foolishness and participate in a little Biblical parallelomania. In doing so, I will utilize a different Biblical character as a parallel to the godless New York playboy turned politician. That character is Judah’s king Manasseh. If nothing else, this homily promises to be a fun and informative romp through the Old Testament. Who knows but what in the course of our foolishness and fun, we might learn a thing or two that can serve as a warning about our current trajectory and mad state of rebellion against God.
 

  a call to leave the world to serve and evangelize

God saw Israel’s suffering under the heavy hand of Egyptian servitude. He delivered the Israelites from their servitude. This is the central story of the Old Testament and allows its authors to draw out the Book’s central theological insight: God is an emancipator of the weak and powerless.
 
It was not, however, only out of a divine hatred for captivity, violence, and oppression that God delivered Israel. He delivered an oppressed people so that He might create a people, a nation, that rejected captivity, violence, and oppression—a nation that would be the mirror opposite of Egypt. In creating such a nation, God hoped to provide an example, a beacon for all the world. With this beacon shining in a darkened world, God hoped to change the world. Israel, then, was God’s servant and messenger to the world; His exemplar of a better world.
 
Isaiah speaks often of Israel’s call.
 
“All nations will come streaming to it;
   many peoples will come, saying:
Come! Let’s go up to Yahweh’s mountain;
   to the temple of the God of Ya‘qōb.
He will teach us his ways,
   and we shall walk in his paths.
For Torah will come out of Ṣîyôn,
   and the word of Yahweh from Yerûšālāyim.”[3]
 
“Just look at My servant, whom I take hold of,
   My chosen, in whom I was pleased.
I placed My spirit upon him
   that he should generate justice among the nations…
I, Yahweh, called you, as is right,
   and will empower you and watch over you
and present you as a promise to peoples
   and an example to nations,
to open eyes that are blind,
   to lead captives out of prison;
      from imprisonment those who abide in darkness.”[4]
 
Because of the law of God that Israel lived and taught, God hoped that the nations would
 
“retool their swords into plow blades
   and their spears into pruning instruments.
One nation will no longer lift the sword against another,
   nor will they any longer train for warfare.”[5]
 
The Psalmist, too, knows and speaks of Israel’s call as servant and evangelist to the world.
 
“’ĕlohîm! May you show us grace, and bless us!
   May you lighten us with your presence
that how you conduct yourself might be known throughout the earth;
   made known to all peoples the victory you can bring.
That the nations might acknowledge you,
   all peoples yield to you;
that hosts of people might raise a shout of joy
   when you govern the nations justly,
      when you supply direction to the peoples of the earth;
that the nations might acknowledge you,
   every people yield to you.
Earth will then yield its bounty.
   ’ĕlohîm, our God, will bless us.
’ĕlohîm will bless us
   because every corner of the earth reveres him.”[6]
 
Unfortunately, Israel rejected its call and refused to make any effort to fulfill its call.
 
“He won’t call out, or lift
   or make his voice heard in public.
He doesn’t so much as trample a crushed blade of grass,
   or an already sputtering wick
      to faithfully generate justice.
 
He was not to grow feint or discouraged
   until he establish justice on earth;
      for the ends of the earth await his instruction.”[7]
 
Israel not only failed to be a light to the world, but it set a bad example in the world by mirroring such rogue states as Egypt, Babylon, and Sodom.
 
“Hear the word of the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom;
   give ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah.”[8]
 
Israel, in fact, became worse than any other rogue nation, being less faithful to the one and only true God than they had been to all their false gods.
 
“For pass over the isles of Chittim, and see;
   and send unto Kedar, and consider diligently,
      and see if there be such a thing.
11Hath a nation changed their gods,
   which are yet no gods? 
but my people have changed their glory
   for that which doth not profit.”[9]
 
“As I live, saith the Lord God, Sodom thy sister hath not done, she nor her daughters, as thou hast done, thou and thy daughters.”[10]
 
“Manasseh seduced them to do more evil than did the nations whom the Lord destroyed before the children of Israel.”[11]
 
This last quote brings us, finally, to Manasseh.
 

  manasseh, final nail in judah’s coffin

Israel’s rebellion against God and its refusal to act as God’s servant in the world began right from the start and continued year after year, decade after decade, century after century. Acting in the role of mediator, Jeremiah offered a confession for the nation that it stubbornly refused to make for itself.
 
“We have sinned against the LORD our God,
   we and our fathers,
from our youth even unto this day,
   and have not obeyed the voice of the LORD our God.”[12]
 
Still, for hundreds of years, God stuck with the nation. God’s longsuffering patience with Israel is a remarkable testimony to the largess of His character. The rebellion continued until the nation’s final days, as the chroniclers of 2 Kings witness.
 
“They have done that which was evil in my sight, and have provoked me to anger, since the day their fathers came forth out of Egypt, even unto this day.”[13]
 
This final notice comes during the reign of King Manasseh.  As we have already observed,
 
“Manasseh seduced them [Judah’s citizens] to do more evil than did the nations whom the Lord destroyed before the children of Israel.”
 
Here, we are reminded of King Mosiah’s observation,
 
“For behold, how much iniquity doth one wicked king cause to be committed, yea, and what great destruction!”[14]

Manasseh’s wickedness, greater than any Israelite or Jewish king before him, and his people’s wickedness, equal to that of any nation before them, is catalogued in 2 Kings 21. It is a cornucopia of transgressive behavior. And, after hundreds of years of national rebellion, Manasseh’s wickedness and concerted efforts to destroy and reverse centuries of established norms is finally simply too much for God. His patience finally runs out.
 
“And the Lord spake by his servants the prophets, saying, ‘Because Manasseh king of Judah hath done these abominations, and hath done wickedly above all that the Amorites did, which were before him, and hath made Judah also to sin with his idols: therefore thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Behold, I am bringing such evil upon Jerusalem and Judah, that whosoever heareth of it, both his ears shall tingle. And I will stretch over Jerusalem the line of Samaria, and the plummet of the house of Ahab: and I will wipe Jerusalem as a man wipeth a dish, wiping it, and turning it upside down. And I will forsake the remnant of mine inheritance, and deliver them into the hand of their enemies; and they shall become a prey and a spoil to all their enemies…’”[15]
 
When the text finally gets around to recording Judah’s final collapse, we read,
 
“And the Lord sent against him bands of the Chaldees, and bands of the Syrians, and bands of the Moabites, and bands of the children of Ammon, and sent them against Judah to destroy it, according to the word of the Lord, which he spake by his servants the prophets. Surely at the commandment of the Lord came this upon Judah, to remove them out of his sight, for the sins of Manasseh, according to all that he did; and also for the innocent blood that he shed: for he filled Jerusalem with innocent blood; which the Lord would not pardon.”[16]
the man i refuse to name is more Manasseh than cyrus

As we mentioned in the introduction, in a vain attempt to justify their support for a wicked man, American Christians developed a theology that views Persia’s wicked Cyrus and America’s wicked 2024 GOP candidate for president in parallel. In this theology, God works through both men to accomplish some good, however ignorant of God and His works the men proved to be.
 
Of course, I offer a wholehearted and full-throated, “Amen,” to American Christians’ evaluation concerning the wicked nature of the man I have variously called, “Caligula,” “tRUMP,” “Legion,” “The Beast,” and “Antichrist.” While all power elites in American and world history have been and are flawed in common and predictable ways, this man, whose name I refuse to utter or write, is uniquely, bottomlessly, and perhaps paranormally wicked. Hence all excuses of supporting him because “they are all the same,” flounder on the brutal reality of this man’s unparalleled, unbounded, and bottomless wickedness.
 
Here, I add yet another name to his list of shameful monikers: Manasseh. If we are to look outside of Revelation 13 for Biblical characters who might be seen in some manner parallel to the vile American man, it seems to us that Manasseh, king of Judah is better than Cyrus, king of Persia.
 
Most agree, even many of his supports, that, the American playboy turned politician is a deeply flawed man. America’s Manasseh is wicked beyond words. Like Manasseh of old, he has transgressed every sacred norm. Like Manasseh of old, this depraved American version of Manasseh has seduced American citizens to engage in vile wickedness. His acolytes love the man for his transgressive behavior and speech. At no time do they cheer him more than when he is at his most vulgar. The more vulgar he becomes, the more their love for him grows, bearing witness to the previously concealed vulgarity of his hordes.
 
America’s Manasseh has indicated that if elected, those deems his enemies—his enemies becoming “enemies of the state,” as he becomes the state—can expect harassment, prosecution, and death.[17] If elected, it is very possible, indeed, likely, that he will oversee the shedding of innocent blood just as the Manasseh of old.
 
We could go on. I have no doubt that many books will be written over the next many years and decades cataloguing the wickedness of America’s Manasseh and the wonder that such wickedness could attract such numbers of admirers. There is no telling what wickedness he and his wicked hordes might do if given the unchecked power after which he and they lust.
 

  conclusion

As bottomless as is the man’s wickedness, and as wondrous as is the attraction of so many millions of American to him and his wickedness, what should give us greatest pause is the possible divine response to America’s Manasseh and his torrent of wickedness. We remember God’s response to Judah’s Manasseh.
 
“Behold, I am bringing such evil upon Jerusalem and Judah, that whosoever heareth of it, both his ears shall tingle. And I will stretch over Jerusalem the line of Samaria, and the plummet of the house of Ahab: and I will wipe Jerusalem as a man wipeth a dish, wiping it, and turning it upside down. And I will forsake the remnant of mine inheritance, and deliver them into the hand of their enemies; and they shall become a prey and a spoil to all their enemies…’”
 
Now, let me be clear. I reject a violent God and the idea that He caused or causes societal or national collapse such as the Old Testament authors credited Him. But I do believe in a God who knows and warns about attitudes and behaviors that necessarily bring societal and national collapse. And I do believe in societal collapse under the weight of national wickedness that reflects rebellion against God and His wise counsel and warnings. I do believe that America’s Manasseh could bring about the end of America just as Judah’s Manasseh brought an end to Judah.
 
To some, of course, this sounds like hysteria and hyperbole. Every nation in history has considered itself exceptional, essential, and inevitable. Every nation, when faced with warnings of its demise, has responded with the same false reasoning and vain and arrogant boasts as those spoken by Laman and Lemuel when they heard the inspired warning of national catastrophe and collapse.
 
“And we know that the people who were in the land of Jerusalem were a righteous people; for they kept the statutes and judgments of the Lord, and all his commandments, according to the law of Moses; wherefore, we know that they are a righteous people; and our father hath judged them...”[18]
 
“Neither did they believe that Jerusalem, that great city, could be destroyed.”[19]
 
We hear much the same propaganda and false security among the Book of Mormon peoples of wicked king Noah.
 
“And now, O king, what great evil hast thou done, or what great sins have thy people committed, that we should be condemned of God or judged of this man? And now, O king, behold, we are guiltless, and thou, O king, hast not sinned; therefore, this man has lied concerning you, and he has prophesied in vain. And behold, we are strong, we shall not come into bondage, or be taken captive by our enemies; yea, and thou hast prospered in the land, and thou shalt also prosper.”[20]
 
Let America beware of such false, vain, arrogant, and destructive bluster.
 
Perhaps God intended America, like ancient Israel, to be a light to the world. I don’t know. But if so, the nation has often stumbled in its call just as ancient Israel. Like ancient Israel, it has at times been the worst of nations. In its love affair with it American Manasseh, it is reaching the nadir of wickedness.
 
 God has been incredibly patient with America and its mad state of rebellion against Him. We should all be concerned that if America’s Manasseh is reelected—a greater offense than the reign of Judah’s Manasseh, as, unlike the people then, we have free voice in his selection and rule—God’s undeserved patience will finally come to an end, and He leave us to suffer the natural consequences of our wicked choices and behavior. Perhaps America’s Manasseh will be the one to break the hourglass and allow the sands of time to finally run out on the great American experiment.
 
I, for one, will not be found playing advocate for a wicked and vulgar nation. America’s Manasseh and the America he leads to wickedness and perversion will deserve every bit of the hell it suffers. One hopes it is not too late, and that the day for repentance has not passed. But one sees reasons to fear that Isaiah’s insight into Israel’s mad state of rebellion against God might very well apply to America in 2024.
 
“And He said, “Go, and say this to the people:
   ‘Listen carefully! But you won’t pay attention.
     Understand rightly! But you won’t even consider.
Pronounce this people’s heart impenetrable,
   their ears deaf,
     and their eyes blind
lest they see with their eyes,
   hear with their ears,
understand with their heart,
   return, and be healed.’”
 
“Then I asked, ‘How long, my Lord?’
   He answered,
‘Until cities are desolate without inhabitant,
   houses are without a single occupant,
     the land is ruined, a desolate waste,
and YHWH has removed everyone--
   the desolation being tremendous throughout the land.’”[21]

 
  benediction

“Lord, how long shall the wicked,
how long shall the wicked triumph?”[22]
 
“O Lord God, how long wilt thou suffer that such wickedness and infidelity shall be among this people?
O Lord, wilt thou give me strength, that I may bear with mine infirmities.
For I am infirm, and such wickedness among this people doth pain my soul.
O Lord, my heart is exceedingly sorrowful;
wilt thou comfort my soul in Christ.
O Lord, wilt thou grant unto me that I may have strength,
that I may suffer with patience these afflictions which shall come upon me,
because of the iniquity of this people.”[23]
 
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!


[1] 1 Corinthians 1.21
[2] See my homily on Revelation 13, entitled, “My Confessions and the Beast.”
[3] Isaiah 2.2-3, author’s translation
[4] Isaiah 42.1, 6-7, author’s translation
[5] Isaiah 2.4, author’s translation
[6] Psalm 67.1-6, author’s translation
[7] Isaiah 42.2-4
[8] Isaiah 1.10
[9] Jeremiah 2.10-11
[10] Ezekiel 16.48
[11] 2 Kings 21.9
[12] Jeremiah 3.25
[13] 2 Kings 21.15
[14] Mosiah 29.17
[15] 2 Kings 21.10-14
[16] 2 Kings 24.2-4. We do not accept that God pushed the destruction button on his divine console. Such language is rhetorical. Nevertheless, God knows the consequence of all human behavior, and always warns of them
[17] Liz Cheney is the vile man’s latest target of violent rhetoric as he threatens her with a firing squad. There is no reason, zero, to disbelieve the man’s intensions to persecute, arrest, and kill those who oppose him.
[18] 1 Nephi 17.22
[19] 1 Nephi 2.13
[20] Mosiah 12.13-15
[21] Isaiah 6.9-12, author’s translation
[22] Psalm 94.3
[23] Alma 31.30-31