This blog post is a meditation that serves as introduction to a series of meditations entitled, “The Righteousness of being Woke: Resisting the Un-biblical Anti-woke Heresy.”
 
These days, it is fashionable on America’s political and cultural right to complain about and rage against what it calls “wokeness,” or “woke culture” —as if sleeping and slumbering are somehow preferable to being awake! It is bizarre. And this is really saying something about a political and cultural movement that is increasing drunken in and addicted to the most bizarre and easily refuted conspiracy theories in America’s long history of infatuation with conspiracy theories.
 
Challenged by and fearful of ideas and individuals that they cannot understand and will not countenance, those on America’s political and cultural right use “woke” as its latest catch-all pejorative for the political left and its defense of those very same challenging and fear-inducing ideas and individuals. Nevertheless, they seem often to struggle to clearly define, explain, or articulate the meaning of the political and cultural phenomena that they so fear and loath.
 
But the word, “woke,” as used in a political and cultural setting is easy to understand and explain. “Woke,” as a political and cultural phenomenon has a nearly hundred-year history. For most of that history it existed in obscurity. For most of its long and rather silent history, “woke” indicated the  awareness and acknowledgement of the oppressive racism America has practiced against African Americans from its inception. The Black Lives Matter movement resurrected the term from its obscurity and expanded the meaning to include not only awareness and acknowledgement of racist oppression, but resistance to it as well. More recently “woke” awareness has expanded to include past and present oppression, injustice, and wrong committed against other vulnerable groups such as women and the LBGTQ community.
 
To be “woke,” then, is to remember. To remember and resist oppression. It is to acknowledge, and, most importantly, repent of social injustices and wrongs committed against any individual or group—in America’s case, African Americans, women, and LBGTQ, past and present, have been particularly vulnerable to oppression. In using the term in a pejorative manner, America’s political and cultural right confesses, unbeknownst to itself, its preference for forgetfulness, ignorance, and sin. To be anti-woke represents the refusal to engage in the process of repentance. It calls for spiritual sleepiness and slumber. It is nocturnal, a creature of the night, an inhabitant of dark places. In avoiding the light of day, its slumber is the sleep of hell.
 
One of the foundational tenets of this right-wing anti-woke heresy involves America’s history with slavery and racism. There is an attempt on the part of the slumbering right to deny this history; to deny the oppression African Americans have and do endure; and to deny that much of America’s economic “greatness” was built on the back of the immorality of free and forced labor. More, it wishes to forget and deny present racism and its deleterious effects upon its targets. The movement wishes to remove such truths from school curriculums and public discourse. It wishes to keep our children asleep. Forgetful. Ignorant. Wicked.
 
All of this, one suspects, it does in order to maintain an oppressive order in service to an ungodly white supremacy that has dominated America from its inception. In so doing, it becomes the defender  of oppression—not only of African Americans, but of all vulnerable groups. America’s anti-woke mob seeks oppression. It is an oppressor.
 
While most of those who complain loudly of “wokeness” are undisciplined in their rage, tragically, there are some, like Florida’s DeSantis, who, more wickedly crafty than most, cynically seek personal and political gain by further enflaming and manipulating the frenzied and fearful anti-woke or slumbering mind—often making appeal to those deemed more reasonable by dressing up the hateful anti-woke heresy in the language of “parental rights” and other pleasant sounding lies.
 
Whether wielded in an undisciplined or cynical or crafty way, the anti-woke heresy is dangerous to society and the soul of its people. It must be challenged, resisted, and overcome. In this series of meditations, we resist the aspect of the anti-woke heresy that challenges the remembrance of America’s historical and systemic oppression of African Americans. We resist the anti-woke heresy with the Bible—a Book that so many anti-woke heretics claim to know and love. It is yet one more of many sad commentaries on American Christianity that so many who claim the title, “Christian” have adopted the hateful anti-woke heresy that is so incompatible with the Bible.
 
For, make no mistake about it. The anti-woke heresy that seeks to forget America’s past oppression and ignore America’s present oppression of African Americans is decidedly at odds with the Bible. It is unbiblical. It is, in fact, about as unbiblical as one can get. To forget and ignore social injustice is antithetical to every Biblical and Christian principle. It is utterly un-Christian. If it is un-American to remember our own or any oppressive past or ignore our own or any oppressive present, then large swaths of America’s population is unbiblical and un-Christian.
 
So, we will begin this series of meditations and our resistance of the anti-woke movement’s slumbering denial and forgetfulness of America’s oppressive history toward African Americans with a story that is familiar to all of us: the story of Israel’s exodus from Egyptian bondage. The story is a staple of western culture. It is the central story of the Hebrew Bible. The story’s point is central to not only the Hebrew Bible, but the Christian Bible as well. It is the central point of Christian doctrine. To wit:
 
God is a Savior, a Redeemer, a Rescuer, a Liberator, an Emancipator. This reality is more than central to the Biblical witness, it is central to the Divine Character. But, for every Savior, Redeemer, Rescuer, Liberator, and Emancipator, there is an enslaver, an oppressor that must be humbled, resisted, defeated, halted and, where necessary due to the hardness of heart, annihilated. The two messages—Liberator and oppressor—go together, hand in glove. One cannot remember one without remembering the other. Nor should one. The remembrance of salvation and liberation without a thorough understanding and remembrance of what it is one is saved and liberated from is meaningless and nonsensical on its face.
 
The battle over wakefulness or slumber in matters related to social justice has a very long history, pre-dating, even, America’s existence. America’s re-branded dalliance with forgetfulness and ignorance is not new. Forgetfulness and ignorance are exactly what one would expect of every oppressor. In its wish to oppress and keep oppression from coming to light, America’s right imitates the great oppressors of the Hebrew Bible, especially Egypt, as we will see in the upcoming meditations.
 
But Israel, the victim of Egyptian oppression, was called out of oppression to stand against oppression. The first step of this resistance to oppression is the remembrance, awareness, and acknowledgement of oppression. Israel was never to forget, sleep, or slumber in relation to its own oppression. It was to remain awake to the possibility of newer oppression of newer vulnerable groups. It was always to remember. It was never to forget. Israel was, then, to be and remain “woke.” The laws and ordinances that God gave to Israel were intended as a safeguard against its falling asleep to oppression and thus becoming the next in history’s long line of oppressors.
 
Like ancient Israel, America is called away from injustice and oppression. Americans, like Israelites are called to remember. They are called away from forgetfulness. They are called to wokeness. They are called to woke remembrance. This series of meditations lends but one more voice to that call. This call to woke remembrance is not simply a matter of righting past wrongs. It is a matter of imagining and carrying out a more just future.
 
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!

strange notions of diversity and unity
 
 
While I call today's blog a meditation, it might more accurately be called a jeremiad.
 
Upon returning from a month long tour across the southern part of the subcontinent of India, I was interested to learn of the little dust up over Dallin Oak’s here-today-gone-tomorrow video (unfortunately, he says and does nothing in it to earn the title “Elder,” “Apostle,” or “President”) in which he seemed to poopoo diversity and any notion of the Lord’s responsibility for, interest in, or use of diversity within the body of Christ.
 
“Jesus did not pray that his followers would be diverse,” he intones. “He prayed that they would be one…”
 
His declaration is so knuckleheaded on so many fronts that it is hard to know where to even begin a discussion. Hearing his unfortunate declaration concerning diversity, unity, and the relationship between them, my wife wondered out loud, “What does that even mean?” 
 
While I have some sympathy for my wife’s sense that the declaration was nonsensical and off kilter, I nevertheless find significance in it. It seems to me an example of the quiet part being spoken out loud. I would be willing to bet that this ugly and inciting aphorism has been bandying about the echo chambers of the church’s highest leadership councils for some time. In this rarified, artificial, and vanilla environment of self-perpetuation devoid of self-reflection, it has almost certainly reverberated back and forth with little or no resistance. But when tried out and uttered outside in the real world where such declarations enter rather than bounce off actual human beings it landed with a deafening thud rather than exalted echoes.
 
Enter the public affairs wizards to attempt a white wash.
 
I have little doubt that this and many other ugly assertions that seek to justify a host of institutional errors and defame those perceived as threats to the status quo bounce around uninhibited inside the carefully maintained echo chambers of church leadership. I would be willing to bet that, while those “who seem to be somewhat”[1] lament the decrease in new members entering and the increase in old members exiting, within the leadership echo chambers there is a wizened, self-satisfied, and self-righteous nod of the head that this decrease in coming and increase in going is, in the end, inevitable—simply a matter of prophecy being fulfilled: an increasing and clearer demarcation between the goats and the sheep, the wheat and the tares. 
 
Convenient echo, this, since it allows the shouters to continue the status quo and avoid the sort of change that we call repentance and associate with progression. Here we recall that it was this same man who asserted that the church felt no need to apologize for past church errors—probably as much a dig at, say, the Catholic Church and its willingness to admit past errors as belligerent refusal to confess sin and error and ask for forgiveness. We also call to mind the church’s passive, responsibility-avoiding “mistakes were made” rather than the active and accountable “we made mistakes” when addressing its twenty-year-long fraudulent and unethical investment practices that have recently come to light. Those who lead the church simply seem incapable and/ or unwilling to admit error and make godly confession of sin as God requires of disciples.[2]
 
Troubling, to say the least.
 
It is such maintenance of the status quo and avoidance of repentance and progression that Oak’s latest howl concerning diversity seems intent on setting in concrete. But through scripture, we can easily identify the sophistry of his strange assertion and that has likely bounced about and then escaped the self-perpetuating echo chambers of the church’s leading councils. We can call to mind scripture’s insight that it is God, Himself, who appreciates, creates, and utilizes diversity. 
 
“For the body is not one member, but many. If the foot shall say, “Because  I am not the hand, I am not of  the body;” is it therefore not of the body? And if the ear shall say, “Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body;” is it therefore not of the  body? If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling? But now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him. 
And if they were all one member, where were the body? But now are they many members, yet but one body. And the eye cannot say unto the hand, “I have no need of thee:” nor again the a head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” Nay, much more those members of the body, which seem to be more feeble, are necessary: and those members of the body, which we think to be less honourable, upon these we bestow more abundant honour; and our uncomely parts have more abundant comeliness. For our comely parts have no need: but God hath tempered the body together, having given more abundant honour to that part which lacked: that there should be no schism in the body; but that the members should have the same care one for another. And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it. Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular.”[3]
 
If this is not a paean to diversity, I don’t know what is. 
 
“Jesus did not pray that his followers would be diverse,” but one, you say? Well duh. Of course, Jesus does not pray for diversity within the church. There is no need! He created diversity; built diversity into it from the very beginning! He is pleased with diversity. Finds it necessary. Mixes and combines diverse elements to form a healthy whole. Diversity keeps the more “valued” and “honorable” members—those such as Oaks?—from thinking more of themselves than they ought and allows the less valued members to think more of themselves than they are otherwise inclined to do.
 
“Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all. But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal.”[4]
 
And you do know, don’t you, that diversity and unity are not mutually exclusive? That, in fact, they belong together, go hand in hand? All are profited; all are blessed through the diversity God makes and cherishes as part of His Kingdom. Diversity is fundamental to the advancement of the institutional church and its individual members.
 
Oak’s sophistry rejects divinely ordained diversity and falsely characterizes unity and oneness. But the sophistry goes further. Whether intentionally or unintentionally, it defames those who laud diversity, suggesting that they are somehow uninterested in and even adverse to the idea of unity and oneness in Christ when, in fact, those who laud diversity actually assert that a recognition and respect for diversity is a key to unity and oneness. The sophistry is more than gaslighting. It is itself divisive and inciting. If left to stand, it will do as much as anything to create disunity.
 
Those who seem to be somewhat in the church seem to become ever more reactionary and irrational in their defense of a status quo that is increasingly indefensible. Here’s hoping they can be constrained in their irrational reactionary impulses by something more than a bunch of hired public affairs professionals. Here’s hoping they can find their way to humble acknowledgement of imperfection and error that leads to godly repentance.
 
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!
 

[1] See Galatians 2.6
[2] According to one GA’s recent ridiculous assertion, one can replace the name of the church with “Jesus.” It is, then, disconcerting to witness mere humans fining Jesus for fraudulent financial practices.
[3] 1 Corinthians 12.14-27
[4] 1 Corinthians 12.4-7

  text
1Warning! There are those who plot to abuse their power,
   those who spend the night planning crimes.
Come daylight, they act upon their plans
   because it is within their power.
2They covet tracts of farmland, and find a way to steal them.
   They covet houses, and seize them.
Thus, they extort a property owner of his home,       
   and an individual of their property.
3On account of this, YHWH has warned:
   “Understand that I am planning disaster for this people
such that you’ll not be able to remove it from around your necks
   or be able to walk upright.
      For it is a disastrous time.”
 
 
  introduction
Micah was a prophet who ministered to ancient Israel during the second half of the 8th century B.C. He was a younger contemporary of the prophet Amos and was roughly a contemporary of Hosea and the more famous Isaiah. Like all the prophets, he spoke in an elevated, poetic style as was customary and expected of those who claimed divine appointment to speak the word of God.
 
Poetry can be difficult to understand. However, there is nothing difficult about Micah’s poetry here. No doubt, the reader can easily understand Micah’s critique of and warning to Israelite society found in these verses. Nonetheless, we will begin this homily by restating Micah’s critique and warning in non-poetic and more contemporary terms.
 
We will then turn our attention to a more detailed look at the specific economic/ ethical issue Micah addressed—the purposeful and immoral dispossession and homelessness created by Israel’s wealthy, powerful, and influential manipulation of the “real estate sector” of their economy. In order to understand the broad nature of the threatened coming societal disaster, we will observe the choices that both individual and society write large made in creating dispossession and homelessness. Before concluding, we will consider the relevance of this passage to contemporary American society. For, though ancient Israelite laws regarding land possession and transfer were very different than ours today, there are, nonetheless, principles that apply across time and cultures so that Micah’s social critique and warning can be applied to modern society.
 
 
  a more contemporary restatement
Crimes are being committed in Micah’s Israel. The criminals committing the crimes are individuals of wealth, power, and influence. Indeed, they are using their wealth, power, and influence as tools to facilitate their criminality. The criminals are fully committed to their criminality. There is nothing haphazard, accidental, or lackadaisical about their crimes. Their crimes are premeditated, imaginative, and well thought out. That’s verse one.
 
The stage upon which the criminals act is the “real estate market.” Their victims are the less wealthy, powerful, and influential property holders. Through the actions of their wealthier, more powerful, and more influential fellow citizens, the less wealthy, powerful, and influential are left dispossessed and homeless. While the criminals use their wealth, power, and influence to victimize their fellow citizens, the driving force behind their crimes is unchecked desire and a disregard for the divinely granted value and dignity of their fellow citizens. That’s verse two.
 
Micah will brook no nonsense. The dispossession and homelessness that he finds in Israelite society are not the consequence of some theoretical or inevitable “market forces.” Dispossession and homelessness are a choice. They are a consequence of the choices that wealthy, powerful, and influential citizens make. They are the consequence of human desire, not some preordained inevitability of nature. That’s verses one and two.
 
However, with verse three and its warning of broad and sweeping societal disaster, we are reminded that the criminal choices that result in the dispossession and homelessness of vulnerable populations is not, in fact, limited to a few rogue individuals. They are choices of society writ large. It seems unlikely that the Lord would warn of broad societal disaster if it were a matter of a few bad apples. Indeed, this runs contrary to scripture’s testimony that Yahweh is a mercy God, full of compassion and patience. Thus, the warning of broad and sweeping societal disaster can only be explained by the presence of a broad and sweeping malignancy infecting the entire society.
 
 
  the choices are societal rather than simply private and individual
It takes two to tango, the say. The simple fact of the matter is that Israelite society’s wealthy, powerful, and influential could not do what they did on their own. They required help. Co-conspirators. They required the help of those who legislate and enforce the laws by which society functions—in this case, we are dealing with laws regulating economic, and particularly real estate affairs. Micah is clear that government officials of all strips were corrupted, and that their corruption was in part the result of bribes and kickbacks they received.
 
“Those of integrity have vanished from the land.
   There isn’t an upright individual among them.
All of them are involved in violent intrigues.
   Each of them prey upon his fellow citizen as if cursed.
Their palms are open to corruption.
   For a favorable decision, the government official demands,
      along with the government decision maker, bribes.
Also, the powerful makes known his hidden desire.
   They are united in what they do and want.”[1]
 
“I beg you to listen to this, you leaders of Yaʿaqōb,
   and you rulers of Yiśrāʾēl
who show abhorrence for justice
   and pervert all that is right;
shaping Ṣîyôn through violence,
   and Yerûšalāyim through injustice.
Its leaders make decisions based on bribery,
   its priests offer direction for a fee,
      and its prophets offer predictions for money.”[2]
 
Obviously, less wealthy citizens lacked the means to offer such bribes and kickbacks. The sort of bribes and kickbacks that Micah condemns surely came from the wealthier, more powerful and influential citizens who could afford them. Such underhanded expenses were simply written off as the price of doing business.
 
One could easily predict that individuals involved in business would have profit as their over-riding objective. One could even justify it, within reason. But their willingness to acquire profit/property through bribery and other unethical practices demonstrates that their desires for profits were not within reason, or decency, for that matter.
 
While one is not shocked at the wealthy’s actions, one is shocked at the behavior of those whom society expected to look after the welfare of all. Micah’s judgement is that every leader to whom people looked for leadership and guidance was motivated by their own economic interests and used their positions of trust for their own personal gain. There was total synchronicity between business and political leaders when it came to motivation, and complete cooperation when it came to the means by which immoderate economic desires were realized. Bribes were given and received so that laws would be passed that advantaged the wealthy and the governing at the expense of everyone else. Bribes were given and received to deny the less influential a just settlement in any case that might be brought to redress the abuses perpetrated by the wealthy, powerful, and influential.
 
Micah’s most famous contemporary prophet, Isaiah, complained of the immoral and unethical laws passed and upheld by the nation’s legislative and judicial leaders.
 
“Warning! To those who issue oppressive statutes
   and continuously write laws that afflict;
that put redress out of the reach of the underprivileged
   and rob the poor among my people of justice,
making prey of widows
   and plundering orphans.”[3]
 
So, there you have it. Wealthy, powerful, and influential individuals used their wealth to buy legislators. Corrupted by their own lust for wealth and the “legalized” bribes/ kickbacks they accepted to fulfill their lusts, legislators and the judiciary passed and enforced laws that were, themselves, corrupt, unethical, and criminal—in the ancient world of Israel, the “legislative” and “judicial” functions of government were conducted by the same small group of officials as no equivalent to our modern “separation of powers” or “checks and balances” existed. Part of the corruption was found in the way the laws advantaged the wealthy and influential and disadvantaged the less wealthy and less influential. And this, ladies and gentlemen is how the dispossessed and homeless were created.
 
Nay, it is how the dispossessed and homeless ARE created.
 
 
  choosing dispossession and homelessness in contemporary America
If all of this sounds eerily familiar, it should. The first two verses of this reading could easily serve as text for a story found on the evening news of America’s news networks. We see the same personal desires and intentions, the same schemes and societal choices today that Micah saw in his day. Indeed, Micah could hardly better describe what has happened in America over the course of the past forty years. What is happening in America today. It has happened and is happening in every sector of the economy—banking, employment/ wages, insurance, healthcare, entertainment, retailing, manufacturing, food production and distribution, etc., etc., etc. But, as our thematic passage focuses on real estate and housing, we will limit ourselves to that sector of our economy, the immoral choices being made in and by it, and the attack it levels against the dignity of individuals created in the image of God.
 
The ability to buy a home and afford mortgage and rent payments has rarely been more difficult for more regular working people. Homelessness has grown accordingly and is growing exponentially. Tens of thousands of individuals who work hard, many even working two jobs, find paying a mortgage or rent payment impossible. By the thousands, even individuals who worked and studied hard to earn the all-important college education end up homeless because the cost of housing—both owned and rented— is out of reach (The old and somewhat dismissive belief that mental illness was the major cause for homelessness is no longer true). Many teachers, for example, have and are leaving the teaching profession because they cannot afford housing on their salary. Others are living in their cars. The horror stories are multiplying exponentially.
 
To a large extent, this state of affairs is the result of laws passed and policies implemented by legislators who have increasingly become beholden to the money provided by the wealthy. Legislators who have had their offices purchased by the wealthy have passed bills that advantage wealthy real estate manipulators and cause hardship and homelessness. Worse, as in many industries, legislators pass laws written by the very wealthy, powerful, and influential individuals and institutions that those laws are intended to oversee.
 
Talk about giving the fox the key to the hen house! Nay, rather it is like giving voracious and ravenous wolves a license to kill those created in the image of God.
 
It would require a book length manuscript to catalogue all the oppressive real estate/ associated banking laws and “regulations” that have been written in this manner and that cause dispossession and homelessness. Unfortunately such dastardliness is limited to the real estate sector of our economy. It permeates every economic sector.
 
As but only one example in the real estate sector, consider the matter of leverage. Individuals who wish to purchase a home are held to very strict rules about how leveraged they can be to purchase a home. Yet, huge corporations, banks, private equity firms, etc., are allowed to buy homes—whole neighborhoods of them—with very little control on how leveraged they are. This puts the private individual at a serious disadvantage in purchasing a home. With little regulation, such manufactured entities buy up so many homes that they control the price of homes. Soon, the price of housing goes up, putting the expectant individual home buyer at an even larger disadvantage.
 
But it does not end there. Oh, no. Even poorer individuals who are reduced to renting without any hope of buying a home are adversely impacted. The conglomerates that buy up homes by the millions also have no limit on how much they can extort renters. Rents go up, renters are evicted, people end up on the street or in cars or under cardboard boxes. Rental evictions are now at an all-time highs.
 
Just as in Micah’s day, all of this is permitted by legislators and legislatures. It has become “lawful.” However, there is at least one big difference between how all of this is achieved today verses how it was achieved then. For the most part ancient citizens had no ability to choose their leaders and thus no control over laws enacted or the gross violations of human dignity that they perpetrated. But we live in a free society in which legislators and legislatures are elected. This difference makes the “legal” violation of others even more vile and expands the accountability across broad swaths of American society. In America, the electorate is ultimately responsible.  We choose. And by electing individuals who then stay in office after passing such offensive laws that demean those created in the image of God, we choose—yes, CHOOSE—to assign hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens to the indignities of poverty, dispossession and homeless.
 
Our entire society will pay the price of such brutal and demeaning criminality. We. The. People. Choose. We. The. People. Are. Responsible. We. The. People. Will. Pay.
 
It is only right that it be so.
 
 
  conclusion
Micah witnessed first-hand the indignity of poverty, dispossession, and homelessness. As if this indignity were not enough, Micah observed wealthy, powerful, and influential citizens, fueled by their avarice, add to the indignity by vilely and purposefully scheming with lawmakers to pass and enforce laws that expanded the rolls of the poor, the dispossessed, and the homeless. By so doing, society’s leaders made legal what was immoral and unethical, called good what was evil, and abrogated the final and ultimate of the Ten Commandments:
 
“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.”[4]
 
In the short term, passage of such inhuman laws brought temporary advantages and benefits to the legislators who “legalized” them and the wealthy, powerful, and influential citizens that benefited from them to the disadvantage of those with less wealth, power, and influence. Micah’s contemporaries, Amos and Isaiah, witnessing the same people and the same vile behaviors, spoke of those who luxuriated on huge tracks of land[5] and were able to afford multiply homes—the “winter house” and the “summer house.”[6] Inside these “great houses” built with the finest in building materials—“hewn stone,”[7] “cedar,” and rooms “painted with vermilion”[8]—the wealthy, powerful, and influential schemers stretched themselves out on divans decorated with ivory, dressed themselves up with the finest in perfumes, and listened to live music while they ate the choicest cuts of meat money could buy and drank the finest of wines[9] which they had cultivated in their own magnificent vineyards.[10]
 
Sound familiar? The old adage rings true: “The more things change, the more they remain the same.”
 
But, such shenanigans brought great suffering to those dispossessed and made homeless by them. And, understanding that such living was akin to the cannibalizing of one’s fellow citizens,[11] Micah warned that in the long haul such immoral “legalities” were disastrous for rich and poor, powerful and weak, influential and ignored alike. The disastrous behavior of society’s wealthy, powerful, and influential would bring disaster on all—a disaster that would strangle the neck, cripple the body politic, and bring the end of a once great nation.
 
Notwithstanding the warning of history and the inspired counsels of ancient Hebrew prophets, America tragically follows in the footsteps of that once great nation turned cannibal to its own citizens and traitorous to God. If we do not repent and change our ways, we will follow in its footsteps into the heart of dark disaster.
 
Those in the halls of power, in the boardrooms of American business, and in the college classrooms of economic departments can proclaim until they are blue in the face and have convinced every undiscerning soul that the dispossession and homelessness of many of our fellow citizens is the consequence of objective, unfeeling, and inevitable market forces. But those who hear and know and discern the word of God know, as Micah did, that such vain and lying proclamations are those of false prophets interested only in filthy profit.  
 
Dispossession and homelessness in America is a choice. A conscious and devious and devilish choice. Not a choice made by those whose walls are made of interior car fabrics, canvas, and cardboard. But a choice made by the wealthy, powerful, and influential. A choice made by legislators, legislatures, and courts. A choice made by every single American who has the power through their vote to elect individuals who will respect the dignity of every living soul created in the image of God. 
 
Might does not make right, though the world would have us think otherwise and it is how, in this dark and dreary world, the rich grow richer, the powerful grow more powerful and the influential grow more influential. “Might makes right” is against everything that God stands for. The very first criminal in human history questioned whether he was expected to be his brother’s keeper. In his life, in his teachings, and in his death, Jesus taught that, yes, we are all our brother’s keeper. Indeed, the greater are to be servants to the lesser.
 
That’s the truth and the word of the Lord to which Micah would utter a loud and heartfelt, “Amen.”
 
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!
 

[1] Micah 7.2-3; author’s translation.
[2] Micah 3.9-11; author’s translation.
[3] Isaiah 10.1-2
[4] Exodus 20.17
[5] See Isaiah 5.8
[6] Amos 3.15
[7] Amos 5.11
[8] Isaiah 22.15
[9] See Amos 6.4-6
[10] See Amos 5.11
[11] Micah 3.2-3

26For there can be found among my people ungodly individuals.
   They keep watch, like bird catchers watching a trap.
      They place traps, they capture human beings.
27Just as a bird cage is full of birds,
   their houses are filled with deceit.
      This is how they have become powerful and wealthy.
28They have grown fat and plump,
   having gone beyond, even, the wicked words they speak.
They will not hear a legal case--
   such as that of an orphan— and yet they enjoy success.
      Nor will they bring the cases of the impoverished to trial.
29Should I not level a charge against these?--
   an oracle of YHWH--
      Should I not take vengeance on a nation such as this? (author’s translation)

Some words seem more “pregnant” with meaning than others. In scripture, words like “redemption” or “justice,” or “wicked,” or “righteousness,” or “temple,” or “miracle” grab all the headlines. We spend time analyzing and defining them. There are other words we hardly notice, as if they were but supporting actors. But sometimes these supporting actors can take on a starring role.
 
In this reading, the word, “therefore” (“for this reason,” “as a result”), my “this is how,” should be given a leading role. It carries a powerful punch, and contains one of the punch lines of the passage. The “wicked” or “ungodly” we are informed, are loaded. Their wealth allows them to eat well—so well that, unlike most of humanity for most of human history, they take on added weight. As they grow portly, their skin stretches to cover the additional area causing it to take on a certain “shine.” The “therefore” reminds us how they achieved their wealth and the comfort and even extravagance it provided. Their “good fortune” comes through deceit and corruption practiced against the vulnerable—orphans and the impoverished in this case.
 
As is so often the case in the Old Testament, the wealthy are portrayed here as predators who think of and act toward their prey as if they were something less than human. As a bird catcher captures birds with a trap, the tool the wealthy uses to fill their houses with vanities is deceit and fraud. But, with his imagery of a cage full of birds, Jeremiah reminds us that the materialistic gains the wealthy acquire through fraud are as trifling as their fraud is wicked. For, what, really, is more trivial than a cage full of birds? The wealthy inflict great harm on humans for the frivolous pleasure of the echo of chirps.
 
The false mythology of American style capitalism would have us believe that wealth comes to the virtuous—the more wealth, the more virtue. That virtue may take many forms, but one of its most common virtues, so the myth goes, is hard work. The fact is, in this world, as Cain discovered at the earlies stages of human existence, wealth is most often accumulated through violence against others. Capitalism’s false doctrine cannot silence or undo this Biblical truth, emphasized and illustrated over and over again in the sacred text.
 
“Therefore,” in today’s text, is, therefore, the bearer of a time-honored Biblical truth that has been under assault throughout its long career. Those who profess belief in and claim to honor the Bible must resists the siren song of capitalism’s myth of innocence and inevitability. They must not only resist its lies individually but must agitate in such a way as to make society uncertain of capitalism’s false pretentions of virtue.
 
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!

​For the past 6 years, I have been unsparing in my criticism of TFG, often referring to him as Caligula or tRUMP. He has done nothing to earn himself my softened criticism. Indeed, with each passing hour he has only dug himself a deeper hole into the bowels of hell. That said, in light of my recent meditations on DC 3.5-11, I would today like to offer a gentler reproach and a slightly hopeful invitation.
 
In case you missed the meditations, they can be found in the archive section at the bottom of my Homily and Meditation page. In them, I consider the serious and unrelenting  reproof that the Lord leveled against the young Joseph Smith as a result of his having lost 116 manuscript pages that contained a translation of the Book of Mormon (verses 1-8). Finally, in verse 9, the Lord begins to comfort Joseph by turning from Joseph’s past misdeeds to a provisionally hopeful future. The provisionally hopeful future is dependent on Joseph’s repentance which, itself, is reliant on God’s merciful nature. “For remember,” God encourages, “God is merciful.”
 
In our third meditation on DC 3, we saw a pattern of reproof and comfort that God recommends to his latter-day disciples. It is a pattern that is reflective of the Divine character and of anyone who desires to be like Him.
 
“Reproving betimes with sharpness, when moved upon by the Holy Ghost; and then showing forth afterwards an increase of love toward him whom thou hast reproved, lest he esteem thee to be his enemy; that he may know that thy faithfulness is stronger than the cords of a death” (DC 121.43-44).
 
 Now, I’ll not claim that I have been “moved upon by the Holy Ghost” in all my reproofs of TFG.  Nor will I deny having been so moved in some of them. In addition, I will not attempt to hoodwink the reader into thinking I love TFG. I do not. I can’t even bare to say his name. Even looking at photographs of him is difficult. I refuse to listen to or read anything he says. He disgusts me. He is as repulsive a being as I have ever seen in my lifetime. Nevertheless, I will this once soften my reproof and extend an invitation. An honest invitation to repent. I can’t say that I am hopeful, but here it goes.
 
So, Mr. Trump, I invite you to repent. Confess your countless sins and strive the rest of your days to undo the damage you have done to the individuals you have abused, the nation you have terrorized, and the planet you have further sullied. If you will do so, I promise I will pray for you. 
 
If your deep sociopathy is a mortal affliction like other mortal afflictions such as blindness or chronic clinical depression or cancer rather than an indication of an eternally blackened soul, then I will pray God’s mercy on you. I will pray that you spend a little less time in hell and not be cast into outer darkness after the resurrection. 
 
I am sorry, but given your lifetime of personal debauchery, fraud, cheating, lying, abusing others, using others as tools for your own selfish and narcissistic needs and ends, I can in good faith only pray that you spend less time rather than no time in hell. That, I think, is the best you can hope for, assuming, of course, that you are not one of the infamous third of heaven’s hosts who supported Lucifer and somehow flew under the radar to be granted a “second estate.”
 
But if your sociopathy here is indicative of a blackened and consuming eternal soul, then you and I are destined to be eternal enemies and I will pray for your defeat and destruction.
 
Amen.

Genesis 4.9 reports a portion of the conversation conducted between Yahweh and Cain immediately after Cain’s murder of his brother Abel—a murder inspired by envy and a desire to possess what another rightly possessed. The passage contains the first recorded words uttered by a mortal being after the expulsion from Eden. One can think of any number of probable and earlier mortal utterances that might have been more positive and uplifting. But, in portraying and advancing their thesis concerning the brutal nature of mortality, the writers and editors of Genesis reported these words first.
 
Though Cain’s response to Yahweh’s question concerning the location of Abel takes the form of a question, it is, in fact, anything but an honest query. Rather, it is Cain’s arrogant and dismissive denial of his responsibility to or for anyone other than himself.
 
“Am I my brother's keeper?”
 
Sadly, this attitude is alive and well today. It is evidenced in both private and individual acts of selfishness and in the choices that society makes concerning public policy—policies that proudly and loudly proclaim that no American need be his brother’s keeper. The America version of Cain’s selfish and murderous belligerence can be seen in a myriad of private and public acts and policies, but the recent anti-masker and anti-vaxxer movements with their tens of millions of members is as good and as concrete an example as any. Unlike Cain, these modern-day American Cainites are responsible not for one death but for many—tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of fellow citizens.
 
This is tragic enough but is made even more tragic when so many millions of American Cainites call themselves “Christian”—this with the Bible’s anti-Cainite position staring them in the face. And it isn’t like Genesis’ authors and editors were the only and last to rebuke the Cainite doctrine of vile and violent sacrifice of others out of selfish self-service. As but one example, we offer up the admonition of the apostle Paul—a man so many “Christians” claim to admire, love, and follow.
 
“Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others” (Phil. 2.3-4).
 
This counsel is not only ignored almost entirely by American “Christians,” it is proudly rejected as some kind of socialistic plot against decency. But, it is American “Christianity’s rejection of the “brotherly” principle and its willful adoption of the murderous Cainite attitude that is indecent.
 
It is not enough to personally resist in our individual lives this Satanic delusion that we are not our brother’s keeper. The times call for true evangelists and activist that push back against American Cainite delusions with equal and opposite force. Without this, the modern American Cainites gain ground inch by inch. Those worthy of the name, “Christian” must join forces with all decent people to publicly renounce Cain’s age-old Satanic lie and to actively agitate for private attitudes and behaviors and public policy that recognize and act upon the truth that God has called us to be our brother’s keeper; that we are all truly connected, interrelated, indeed, related. Without this, we can only expect deeper belligerence and more murder on grander and grander scales until the nation and then the whole earth is wasted.

They hate those who call for justice in governance[a].
   They abhor those who speak truthfully.
Therefore, because of your plundering of the vulnerable
   by the grain taxes you extract from them,
you have built the most luxurious[b] of homes,
   but you will not live in them;
you have planted cherished vineyards
   but you will not drink their wine.
For I am well aware[c] of the magnitude of your criminality[d],
   and the vastness of your corruption[e]:
oppressing the innocent, taking bribes,
   and deny the impoverished a hearing[f].
The one prospering in such times remains mute,
   for such times are depraved (author’s translation).[g]
 
 
Amos was a brave man and faithful, honest messenger of God. We must honor him by being equally brave and honest. Indeed, he lamented the wickedness of cowardly and self-serving silence during depraved times such as ours. Such cowardly and self-serving silence is, in very truth, a sign of personal depravity—one that deepens societal depravity. Here, then, is his lament and warning.
 
The one prospering in such times remains mute,
   for such times are depraved.
 
Those who are prospering because of societal depravity, going unscathed by its wickedness, must not remain silent and inactive.
 
So, what sorts of times can be called, “depraved”? Amos describes some of them in this reading. For starters, in speaking of the wealthy and powerful, Amos charged,
 
“They hate those who call for justice in governance.
   They abhor those who speak truthfully.”
 
This “justice in governance” takes in more than justice in our criminal justice system. It most certainly includes justice in legislative laws, policies, and programs. But it does most definitely include criminal justice. So, here is my breakout from muteness.
 
Recently, a sitting member of congress, Representative Louie Gohmert of Texas, complained in all seriousness and on camara before an audience of perhaps millions, “If you're a Republican, you can't even lie to Congress or lie to an FBI agent or they're coming after you.” Just let that sink in. A sitting member of congress is incensed that one cannot lie with impunity; incensed that liars might be held accountable.
 
This bit of depraved indifference to justice was spewed in response to the arrest of Peter Navarro against whom a grand jury of peers, after being presented with evidence, issued a two-count indictment for contempt of congress. In spite of having openly expressed his contempt for congress on camara before millions, Navarro has expressed outrage that he was arrested and handcuffed. Oh, the nerve of treating him like every other criminal! Don’t they know who he is?
 
You see, both men think that the rich and powerful such as themselves should not be held accountable for their criminal behavior. Just like ancient Israel’s wealthy and powerful, they attempt to establish one set of laws for the ordinary Joe and another set for the high and mighty. Gohmert, Navarro, dozens and dozens of U.S. representators and senators, and a certain treasonous former president despise justice and truth. They despise it as a basis of governance. And they certainly despise it as a basis for holding the wealthy and powerful accountable for their depraved indifference to justice.
 
Tragically, this American depravity is eerily similar to that which Amos observed in 8th century B.C. Israel and described in verse 10. But this is not the extent of 8th century B.C. Israelite depravity. Nor is it the extent—not even close—of America’s 2022 depravity. As Amos goes on to describe further and deeper depravities, so too must we.
 
We have discussed before the great American myth concerning wealth and power, asserted and perpetuated by none more loudly than the wealthy and power. To wit, wealth and power are the result of intelligence and skill and hard work—righteousness. But Amos, like all the Hebrew prophets whom God inspired to see the world as it really is rather than as the myth the powerful propagate, knows this to be a lie. If their wealth—typified by Amos in their luxurious homes and gardens/vineyards—is due to any skill, it is the skill of wickedness; of manipulating legal and legislative processes for their benefit and at the detriment of the poor. Their wealth and power are, in fact, built on the back of others. They are stolen.
 
“Therefore, because of your plundering of the vulnerable
   by the grain taxes you extract from them,
you have built the most luxurious of homes,
   but you will not live in them;
you have planted cherished vineyards
   but you will not drink their wine.”
 
Over a century later, nothing had changed when the prophet Jeremiah credited the wealth and power of the wealthy and powerful to the same wickedness: deceit, injustice, and the violation of others.
 
“Just as a bird cage is full of birds,
   their houses are filled with deceit.
      This is why they have become powerful and wealthy;
They have grown fat and plump,
   having gone beyond, even, the wicked words they speak.
They will not hear a legal case--
   such as that of an orphan— least it succeeds.
      Nor will they bring the cases of the needy to trial.”[1]
 
Again, we must stress that this thievery takes place both in the spit-shinned floors of legislative halls and decorated cambers—overrun with the wealthy and powerful’s lobbying prostitutes—and in wood paneled courtrooms—inhabited by the wealthy and powerful dressed in their ten thousand dollar silk suits and red power ties. These are the playgrounds, or, better, the marketplaces of the wealthy and power where they buy and sell law makers, judges, and attorneys.  Or, are these the places where they buy and sell the poor, powerless, and vulnerable? Yes, to all the above.
 
“For I am well aware of the magnitude of your criminality,
   and the vastness of your corruption:
oppressing the innocent, taking bribes,
   and denying the impoverished a hearing.”
 
The profits in selling the poor may not be high, but, hey, profit is profit.
 
“They sell out the innocent in order to turn a profit.
   They sell out the impoverished in order to acquire a pair of sandals.
They lust after the dirt
   that is found in the hair of the poor,
      and make the life of those already distressed even more precarious.”[2]
 
So, here we are. Right back in the 8th century B.C. And just like way back then, “Social Justice” leaves a bad taste in the mouths of many. We can see why. It has ever been so. The wicked taketh the truth to be hard, for it cutteth them to the very center.”[3] Or, as Amos put it,
 
“They hate those who call for justice in governance.
   They abhor those who speak truthfully.”
 
But, worse than “cutting them to the very center,” the idea of social justice threatens to cut into their profits, something that, in their blind wickedness, is of more value to them than their own immortal souls.
 
We would love to compose only light and happy fare filled with naught but “the pleasing word of God… which healeth the wounded soul.”[4] But, we, like Amos, live in depraved times. We will not be complicit in the depravity through self-interested silence and cowardly inaction. We will, rather, like Amos, remind those whose conscious has not yet been completely “seared with a hot iron”[5] that the word of God warns and informs; that sometimes, before it can comfort it must discomfort, sometimes with the sharpness of a “two-edged sword.”[6] With its piercing warning, it can liberate us from the values and principles of the ungodly, the unethical, the corrupt, and the anti-social. It can liberate us from the depravities of our time and nation. It can guide us toward a society that is healthy and enduring. It can guide us into the kingdom of God.
 
So, yes, we are so bold as to invite others to avoid the muteness that has so often been found among those who have prospered in the midst of depravity; among those who dared not risk that which “moth and rust doth corrupt,”[7] among those who have, themselves have not felt the pinch of injustice that so many have and do. Let’s not fall prey to same muteness of Amos’ day.
 
The one prospering in such times remains mute,
   for such times are depraved.
 
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!
 

[1] Jer. 5.27-28
[2] Amos 2.6-7
[3] 1 Nephi 16.2
[4] See Jac. 2.8
[5] 1 Timothy 4.2
[6] Hebrews 4.12
[7] Matthew 6.19


[a] Hebrew, šaʿar. Literally, “in the gate.” The city gate is where legal, legislative, and political decisions were often made. To think of the “gate” only as a place for legal court cases is wrongheaded. It is always a place where laws and policies are legislated. One can think of the Roman Forum, forum meaning originally, “open outdoor place.”

[b] Hebrew, gāzît.  “This word indicates a particular type of dressed stone that was considered to be building material of the highest quality and of pleasing appearance” (NIDOTTE, Vol. x, p. x). The translation, “houses of ashlar masonry,” while accurate and literal does not send the message to the common reader who does not go beyond the page he or she is reading. With little appreciation for what is really being said, the reader can then hide behind ignorance and run the risk of behaving in the same despicable and punishable way. I am loath to be the cause for someone else’s justifying sin due to ignorance or the lack of clarity. Here, I show myself to be, as I am, more preacher and shepherd than scholar.

[c] Hebrew, yāḏa‘, “I know.”

[d] Hebrew, pešaʿ.

[e] Hebrew, ḥaṭṭāʾt.

[f] Hebrew, šaʿar, again. Literally, “from the gate they stretch the impoverished.”

[g] For those who wish to compare, here is the KJV translation formatted in poetic verse.
They hate him that rebuketh in the gate,
   and they abhor him that speaketh uprightly.
Forasmuch therefore as your treading is upon the poor,
   and ye take from him burdens of wheat:
ye have built houses of hewn stone,
   but ye shall not dwell in them;
ye have planted pleasant vineyards,
   but ye shall not drink wine of them.
For I know your manifold transgressions
   and your mighty sins:
they afflict the just, they take a bribe,
   and they turn aside the poor in the gate from their right.
Therefore the prudent shall keep silence in that time;
   for it is an evil time.

Psalms 1 and 2 have long been viewed by many exegetes as intimately connected. It has even been suggested that they were at one time a single psalm. Too much water has passed under the bridge for us to be certain about the second contention, but a close reading today does persuade the careful reader that they do, at the very least, play off and complement one another. Many have pointed out that Psalm 2 ends on the same note with which Psalm 1 began: ’ašrê, a macarism that we have translated as “truly fulfilled” in Psalm 1 and “enduring” in Psalm 2.[1] Both psalms, then, have an acute interest in establishing of what the truly “happy,” “fulfilled,” “enduring,” and “progressive” life consists.
 
Psalm 1 teaches that a life of advancement and fulfillment consists of rooting oneself deeply in the guidance and values that God provides in scripture, and in striving to live according to that guidance (1.2).
 
“How truly fulfilled [are]…
they [who] choose YHWH’s direction
   and consult his Tôrâ at all times.”[2]
 
At the same time, the fulfilling and progressive life consists of rejecting the guidance of the ungodly, whose unethical behavior is antithetical to a healthy and enduring society.
 
“How truly fulfilled is one who
   does not walk as directed by the ungodly,
does not stand in the path of the unethical,
   and does not sit in gatherings with sociopaths!”[3]
 
Psalm 1 concludes as it began with a warning about the ungodly. In addition to being built upon rejecting the guidance of the ungodly, avoiding their lifestyle, and refusing to cooperate or collaborate with them in their unethical sociopathy, the fulfilling and advancing life and society are also built on rejecting their often boisterous demands for influence, power, and governance in society.
 
“Therefore, the ungodly should not participate in a place of decision making,
   or the unethical have place in a just assembly.
For, YHWH promotes the norms of those who do right,
   but the norms of the ungodly are to perish.”[4]
 
In a sense, Psalm 2 opens where Psalm 1 opened and closed: with the wicked. But in Psalm 2, the wicked are represented by those in power. The governing. The first psalm’s warning about not allowing the ungodly to “participate in a place of decision making” has gone unheeded. Those who govern the nations and those who allowed them into the position they hold, are in open rebellion against God.
 
“Why do the nations raise such a ruckus,
   and entire populations grouse to no avail?
world’s kings offer resistance;
   world leaders form a united front
against YHWH
   and against his Māšîaḥ.” [5]
 
Such rebellion is not allowed to stand. Whether the nations and their citizenry know it or not, they are on borrowed time. They are given time to repent, but that time will not last to perpetuity.
 
“Now then, O kings, be sensible in your response.
      Learn your lesson, O rulers of the earth.
Serve YHWH with deference.
   Be content with cowering before him;
kissing the Son’s feet,
   lest he become enraged, and you be annihilated;
      for his anger can flare up in a flash.”[6]
 
There are many other truths to explore in these two psalms, and innumerable ways to examine them. But I’ve said what I wanted to say in this brief homily. These two introductory psalms preview themes that will run throughout the Book of Psalms, to wit:
 
The world is infested with many, millions, of ungodly, unethical, and sociopathic individuals. They freely offer their guidance and their values to the unsuspecting. They invite all to adopt these norms and values as their own and collaborate with them in society destroying activities. These ungodly, unethical, and sociopaths find their way into positions of governance. From these high perches, they foment rebellion against God until annihilation is the only possible end.
 
In his mercy, God has provided guidance that delivers us from the perilous traps the ungodly set. This guidance is found in his word, in scripture. By giving diligent attention to the word of God and striving to abide by the guidance found in it, we discover a life that is fulfilling and that allows for unknown progress and advancement.
 
Now, in my former, unrepentant life, I would end with this conclusion and bear testimony to the truth and reality of these things. But as I have so often said, “That was then.”
 
This is now.
 
“In 2016, a man—a man as ungodly, as unethical, as sociopathic, and as dismissive of God’s gracious guidance as any who had ever offered themselves for any public office in the United States—presented himself to Americans and asked that he be granted a position “in a place of decision making.”  The place of governance that he desired—the presidency of the United States—might possibly be the most powerful position of governance the world has ever known. He shamelessly offered his own brand of perverted guidance. He presented his own deviant norms. He invited others to join him. Collaborate with him.
 
Tragically, tens of millions joined him in his ungodliness, his immorality, his sociopathy. More tragic, notwithstanding the Psalmist’s warning that “the ungodly should not participate in a place of decision making,” millions who express love for and allegiance to the Book from which this warning comes, granted him a place of governance. This was a violation of the most basic of godly principles.
 
He and they have ever since been on rampage. They have raised a hellish ruckus. They have resisted God’s guidance and formed a united front in rebellion against God. Even with his defeat in 2020, he and his minions doubled down, fomented insurrection. Through these and many other anti-social activities, they have created a chasm between them and God that has only deepened and widened since then.
                                                    
No, such rebellion will not be allowed to stand. Whether the nation and its citizenry know it or not, they are on borrowed time. They are given time to repent, but that time will not last to perpetuity.                           
 
“Now then, O kings, be sensible in your response.
      Learn your lesson, O rulers of the earth.
Serve YHWH with deference.
   Be content with cowering before him;
kissing the Son’s feet,
   lest he become enraged, and you be annihilated;
      for his anger can flare up in a flash.”
 
Yes, in these two opening psalms of the Psalter, both individuals and nations can find much to guide them in their attitudes and behaviors. The two paths, fulfillment, advancement and endurance, or damnation and annihilation, are clearly set forth. All are free to choose their path, but not the consequences of their choice. Each path contains within its own course, the seeds of its own inevitable destination.
 
It would be hard to overestimate the importance and pertinence of these two psalms and their message to today’s world and to America in particular. It has a choice to make between advancement and annihilation. Lets hope they choose wisely.
 
“Moreover by thy word is thy servant warned:
   and in keeping of them there is great reward.”[7]
 
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!
 
[1] We accept the proposal that ’ašrê comes from the root ’šr, meaning “advance,” “go/ walk forward.” As one author put it, the word “derives from a root meaning ‘to go forward,’ ‘to walk on,’ ‘to march steadily’ (cf. Akkadian, Arabic, etc.), perhaps even to progress in the way of comprehension” (Terrien, “The Psalms: Strophic Structure and Theological Commentary,” Eerdmans Critical Commentary, emphasis added).
[2] All psalm translations are mine unless noted otherwise.
[3] Psalm 1.1
[4] Psalm 1.5-6
[5] Psalm 2.1-3
[6] Psalm 2.10-12
[7] Psalm 19.11, KJV

My mind once again turns, as it so often has in recent years, to the Old Testament character, Cain (Qayin), the searching question God posed to him, and his belligerent response.
 
“YHWH asked Qayin, ‘Where is your brother, Hebel?’
He replied, ‘I don’t know. Am I responsible for my brother?’” (Gen. 4.9, author’s translation)
 
This exchange always deserves careful attention in its own right. It deserves the careful attention of all of us today because of its terrible relevance to current affairs. It earns my attention today because of my own struggles in dealing with the innumerable Cains our society has spawned.
 
The exchange between God and Cain deserves careful attention in its own right for a number of reasons. One can imagine any number of human activities, good and bad, that transpired in the years immediately following Adam and Eve’s exile from Eden[1] (I still smile every time I recall the painting that appeared many years ago in one Church publication or another. The painting portrayed Adam and Eve having a family home evening with their children. It makes me chuckle even now as I mention it.). Anyway, there had to have been billions of human acts before Cain’s violent murder of his brother, Abel. Yet, this was the first post-Eden story that the writers reported. It is astonishing, really. Some might even say it is perverted. But I say, it is remarkably apt that they should begin human history with a story of such perversion. Many, many thousands of years ago, someone or someones warned us about the nature of the human race. The planet is a violent place because of this dominant violent race. We should be on guard for the inevitable violence.
 
And, we should be on guard for the ungodly justifications of said violence. Again, we are struck by the Biblical writer’s bold and determined commitment to truth telling. For, just as there had to have been many billions of human actions between the departure from Eden and Cain’s murder, there had to have been gazillions of human words spoken in the same time frame. But, like the billions of human actions, the inspired writer passed over every one of the words and conversations, good and bad, without comment and reported these as the first human recorded words:
 
“I don’t know. Am I responsible for my brother?” (KJV, “I know not: Am I my brother’s keeper?”).
 
This brings us to the present, one form of the present’s violence, and the relevance of Cain’s response to God’s query about the whereabouts of his brother. Syntactically, by means of its prefixed interrogative particle, ha-, the Hebrew text presents Cain’s response to God’s question as a question, “Am I responsible for my brother?” But even the most undiscerning reader knows that Cain’s question was not really a question. It was a statement. It was an arrogant and belligerent and unapologetic assertion that he had no responsibility for or to his brother. And since he had no responsibility for or to his brother, then he had no responsibility for or to anyone… but himself.
 
And even the most undiscerning libertarian reader knows that Cain’s assertion, masquerading as a question, was patently false; that his aggressive assertion is contrary to every feeling and principle that exists in the heart of God, as well as every hope and expectation he possesses for humanity.
 
And yet, millions of Americans, many of them Bible readers and professed Christians, have lived for the past two and a half years, essentially spitting Cain’s violent retort into the beautiful face of a God whom they claim to know and love, but whom they blaspheme with every breath they breathe.
 
“I will not mask. I will not be vaccinated. I have no responsibility and no obligation to and for anyone but myself. If others become sick, if others die because of my putrid breath, that’s on them, not on me.”
 
Even the most undiscerning libertarian Bible reader ought to know that this assertion is patently false; that this aggressive assertion is contrary to every feeling and principle that exists in the heart of Yahweh, as well as every hope and expectation he possesses for humanity. And they do know. But, they are like Amulek of Book of Mormon fame.
 
“I did harden my heart, for I was called many times and I would not hear; therefore I knew concerning these things, yet I would not know; therefore I went on rebelling against God, in the wickedness of my heart… (Al. 10.6).
 
Like Amulek, they have made a choice. A willful choice. They have willfully chosen a lie over the truth. One can only hope that they, like Amulek, will find their own “fourth day of this seventh month.” For their sake and for the sake of all the rest of us.
 
This brings us to my own struggles in dealing with the innumerable Cains who have reincarnated in American society. What am I to do to with them? How can I trust them? How can I believe a word they say, but for those words in which they reveal their narcissism coupled with hatred of God and of others?
 
They stand and bear testimony that they know God lives; that Joseph Smith was a prophet; that the Book of Mormon is true; that the Church is led today by living prophets. And how, I wonder, am I supposed to believe that they have discerned the truth of all the things they claim to know when they cannot discern the truth of the existence of a sickening and potentially deadly pathogen? I do not question the veracity of all to which they testify, but I do question, doubt with a skepticism unlike any other I have known in my life, that they can discern such spiritual truths when they cannot discern the most simple of truths: a dead virus was loose among humankind and simple measure were needed in the face of it.
 
And what am I to do and feel when they stand and testify that they “love each and every one of you.” I know that they do not love me, and many others like me. They have shown me that by their works. If they loved those outside their insular families, they would have happily social distanced and worn a mask. They would be vaccinated. It is just that simple.

I simply cannot compartmentalize and separate their testimonial assertions from their deviant actions. Upon deciding that he had no responsibility for or to others and then living by that dictum, he became a “fugitive and a vagabond.” He was a pariah in society. Should these modern day Cains who are willing to see others sicken and die so that they can selfishly avoid the inconvenience and discomfort of a mask or shot be treated any differently? Why do their leaders treat them with kid gloves, coddle their violence?
 
As for me, I can no longer give them a listening hear. I hear only hypocrisy. These modern day Cains are, to me, a staggering and tottering people. They are wondering fugitives from the truth.[2]
 
Unfortunately, we are all—whether we like it or not, whether we want to be or not—connected. As Paul reminded us, what happens to one part of the body is felt by all members of the body. And so, their staggering and tottering has made a homeless wanderer of me. Those who I once thought of as friends,
 
“with whom, together, I enjoyed sweet companionship
         with whom, together, I walked among the worshippers…[3]
 
these now appear dangerous. Their actions shameful. Indecent. Cain-like. UnChrist-like.
 
I am torn. Do I, can I, maintain Alma’s perspective that “their souls are precious, and many of them are our brethren.” Can I hope that God will give me and others “power and wisdom that we may bring these, our brethren, again unto thee”; reclaim them from their apostacy?[4]
 
Or, do I follow the Psalmist’s lead and resort to cold, hard execration?
 
“Let death come upon them;
            may they descend into hell while still alive
               because multiply evils are in their homes, deeply imbedded.”[5]
 
I don’t know. I vacillate back and forth between the two futures, not sure which one will finally win the day.
 
For now, I can only do as I have always done. Take refuge in him who is and always has been my go-to “hiding place.”[6] My true home.
 
“Be merciful unto me, O God, be merciful unto me:
   for my soul trusteth in thee: yea,
in the shadow of thy wings will I make my refuge,
   until these calamities be overpast.”[7]
 
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!
 

[1] My discussion of events recorded in Genesis as if they were literal is simply rhetorical, much like I might do if I were discussing Shakespeare’s play Hamlet. But I do not take the events recorded in Genesis literally. As is the case with Shakespeare’s play, the importance of the principles expounded in Genesis far, far outweigh any value that might come from literal readings.
[2] See Gen. 4.14. The basic meaning of Hebrew, nûa‘ and nûd, KJV’s “fugitive” and “vagabond,” are “to stagger” and “to totter.” They can also have the more concrete meaning, “to wonder aimlessly” and “to be homeless.”
[3] Psalm 55.13-14, author’s translation
[4] Alma 31.35
[5] Psalm 55.15, author’s translation.
[6] Psalm 32.7
[7] Psalm 57.1

I recently reposted a series of five homilies entitled, “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” on the Just Society page of this site. I did so because, in my view, what Putin is doing in Ukraine is an example of apocalyptic behavior about which John the Revelator warned.
 
Please note: I am not maintaining that what Putin is doing in Ukraine is THE Apocalypse. It is, rather, AN apocalypse. We can only wish that there were but one apocalypse. But, we are not so lucky. The apocalypse that Putin is executing in Ukraine is but one of many apocalypses that many madmen such as Putin have wrought in every era of world history.
 
In this blog post, I will briefly review but one aspect of Putin’s apocalyptic ride on the back of the black horse of John’s revelation.[1]
 
In Putin’s now six-weeks-long invasion of Ukraine, we see him as the rider on the white horse.
 
“Then I saw—imagine this! —a white horse. Its rider held a military bow and was granted a crown. He went off triumphantly, intending to conquer.”[2]
 
This horseman represents the personal and nationalistic desire to conquer and dominate other peoples and nations. Predictably, and as John so accurately observes, this desire leads to conflict at the personal level and to war at the national level.
 
“And another horse, this one red, went off, its rider given power to take peace from the earth to the extent that they kill each other. He was equipped with a vicious sword.”[3]
 
Here is Putin’s Russian war machine—a machine bought and paid for by Lucifer[4]—activating the Ukrainian war machine—also bought and paid for by Lucifer—with military resources—also bought and paid for by Lucifer—supplied by the west, including and especially America. These killing machines cause blood to flow. Hence, the second horse’s red color. But war machines are but one way to kill. And so, we come to the third horse, the focus of this brief blog post.
 
“Then I saw—imagine this! —a black horse. Its rider held a set of scales in his hand. I heard something like a voice coming from the four creatures, announcing: ‘A quart of wheat or three quarts of barley costs a day’s wage, while olive oil and wine you are not to impact.’”[5]
 
Food shortages. Hunger. These are often the unintended consequences of war. Often, they are intentional war strategies. But whether they are the consequence of intentional military planning or simply unintended consequence, they are real. We have already seen it in places like Mariupol. We are seeing, today, the initial stages of a broader apocalyptic food shortage and starvation pattern that is a consequence of Putin’s mad invasion of Ukraine.
 
“Prices for food commodities like grains and vegetable oils reached their highest levels ever last month largely because of Russia’s war in Ukraine and the ‘massive supply disruptions’ it is causing, threatening millions of people in Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere with hunger and malnourishment, the United Nations said Friday.
 
“The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said its Food Price Index, which tracks monthly changes in international prices for a basket of commodities, averaged 159.3 points last month, up 12.6% from February. As it is, the February index was the highest level since its inception in 1990.
 
FAO said the war in Ukraine was largely responsible for the 17.1% rise in the price of grains, including wheat and others like oats, barley and corn.”[6]
 
And, again.
 
“Monica Kariuki is about ready to give up on farming. What is driving her off her 10 acres of land outside Nairobi isn’t bad weather, pests or blight — the traditional agricultural curses — but fertilizer: It costs too much.
 
“Despite thousands of miles separating her from the battlefields of Ukraine, Kariuki and her cabbage, corn and spinach farm are indirect victims of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion. The war has pushed up the price of natural gas, a key ingredient in fertilizer, and has led to severe sanctions against Russia, a major exporter of fertilizer.
 
“Kariuki used to spend 20,000 Kenyan shillings, or about $175, to fertilize her entire farm. Now, she would need to spend five times as much. Continuing to work the land, she said, would yield nothing but losses.”[7]
 
This is entirely consistent with John’s revelation as portrayed in his four horsemen. And what of the fourth and final rider?
 
“And I saw—imagine this! —a pallid horse. As for its rider, his name was Death, and hell accompanied him. And he was given dominion over a large swath of the planet to slay with the sword and with starvation and with death and with earth’s wild beasts.”[8]
 
At this stage, thousands have and are dying under the weight of a madman’s unholy desire for domination (white horse) and the world’s war machines that the desire has naturally enough activated (red horse). As a result, people have and are dying of starvation. Food shortages are on the rise (black horse). The bodies of the dead are being eaten on the streets as the number of dead grow and/or the danger of gathering and burying them becomes every more dangerous. The tit-for-tat will only increase (pale horse). Many nations are being drawn into the conflict—both passively and actively.
 
Will this apocalypse spread further? How far? Will it become the traditional global apocalypse imagined by so many readers of Revelation?
 
I don’t know. No one does. But we do know this. It all began with a desire. An unholy and ungodly desire to conquer. To dominate. It all began with the Satanic will to power. To be number one. To take glory to oneself. And we know this, too. Such apocalypses will remain part of human history, playing themselves out over and over again until the humble, self-sacrificing spirit of Jesus—the spirit that puts others before self—rules the world; until the first choose to be last and allow the last to be first. Only this spirit of at-one-ment—connectedness, unity, linkage—can save the world. Otherwise, as the final word of the Hebrew Bible warns, the earth’s end will and can only be ḥerem, extermination.[9]
 
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!
 
 
[1] An extended exploration can be found in my five homilies on the Just Society page of this site.
[2] Revelation 6.2. This and all translations found below are mine.
[3] 6.4
[4] “I will buy up armies and navies and reign with blood and horror,” he threatened God when cast out of the garden.
[5] 6.5-6
[6] “Food prices soar to record levels on Ukraine war disruptions,” AP, Nicole Winfield
[7] “Russian war worsens fertilizer crunch, risking food supplies,” AP, Geoffrey Kaviti, Chinedu Asadu, and Paul Wiseman
[8] 6.8
[9] See Malachi 4.6

The passage from Ecclesiastes that is found at the head of this and many other posts has come often to my mind over the past weeks as I have observed the madness that is flooding Ukraine and spilling out into our living rooms through news reports. There is another passage, no less insightful or true, it seems to me, that has also repeatedly come to mind.
 
“This is the world,
brutal and cruel, that Troy tried to withstand.
Cruelty wins in the end.
Our little clearings of civilization may seem real,
but mindless wilderness always lurks,
may take its time,
but in the end overwhelms all our pretensions to decency.
We revert to beastliness. (Seneca, Trojan Women, Lines 985-990)
 
It is difficult to not feel the sad truth of Seneca’s assessment of the mortal condition.
 
In a series of tweets, I sent the following out.
 
With the atrocious images flowing out of Ukraine showing the systematic war crimes that Putin’s army has and is committing, I have to assume that Putin knows that he can never leave “mother Russia” again. Never.  No amount of disinformation will be able to change what the world now knows with certainty: Putin is a war criminal. Putin must now know that to leave Russia for any reason is to be arrested as a war criminal. 
 
He must now know that there will be no more arrogantly strutting around with world leaders or any more hope of renewing a G-8 coalition that includes him, for fear of certain arrest. 
 
He must now know that he will never again jet around the world in one of his or his oligarch buddy’s private luxury jets, for fear of arrest upon landing. 
 
He must now know that he will never again step foot on any one of however many mega yachts he has stolen from the Russian people, for fear of arrest. 
 
He must surely now know that he will never again enter another of the however many penthouses or mansions that he owns in any one of several swank locations on the globe, for fear of arrest. 
 
He must now know that even if he can manage to get to any of those billions of dollars he has stolen and stashed away, he will never spend one cent of it outside a devastated Russian economy. 
 
He must now know, finally, that he is a prisoner in his country. His life will never be the same. His world has changed forever.
 
He must now understand all this. This makes him very, very dangerous. The question is, how many other lives is he prepared to change and ruin? The other question is, is there anyone bold and calculating enough to remove him from power, turn him over to international courts, and/or end his pathetic life?
 
To better understand what Putin is, what he is about, what he represents, and how utterly dangerous he is to global peace, to human life and existence, I have reposted a series of five homilies I wrote some time ago on “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.” It can be found on the “Just Society” page of this site.
 
Moroni testified, “I speak unto you as if ye were present, and yet ye are not. But behold, Jesus Christ hath shown you unto me, and I know your doing.”[1] This is really saying something. But John, the Revelator, were he to so speak might say something like, “I have seen all of you, from the dawn of time to the last gasping breaths of mortals upon the earth.”
 
The Revelator saw Putin. But not only Putin. What he sees in Putin is not unique. Putin is but one of many, many lunatics in world history who have madly chosen to climb up on the back of the wild horses of John’s apocalypse and wildly ride across the world stage.
 
In the past six weeks, we have witnessed Putin’s wild ride. We have watched as he has galloped across Ukraine first on the white horse, then on the red, then the black, and finally, through reports of war crimes coming from Ukraine, on the pale horse. The scale of his wild ride is still confined to Ukraine. It has not become global. But, it grows more likely with each passing day that his mad ride on the four wild horses will become more encompassing; the arena become larger; the battle grounds expanded.
 
We are told to pray for peace. Very well. But, now is not simply a time to pray for peace. We are quickly getting well past that point. We must begin to pray for an end to Putin’s madness; a stop to his mad ride on the four horses of John’s apocalypse, even if it be by the arm of God Himself.
 
“Avenging God, YHWH,
   avenging God, reveal yourself.
Rise up, Ruler of the world…
 
[May he ] send the same calamity upon them that they sent upon others,
   and bring an end to them with the same evil they perpetrated on others;
      Yahweh, our God, will certainly bring an end to them.”[2]
 
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!
 
 
[1] Mormon 8.35
[2] Psalm 94.1-2, 23, author’s translation.

Hitler.
 
Nazi.
 
Today, and for a long time now, it has been deemed unacceptable to compare individuals to Hitler or organizations to Nazis. Now, it is true that no one or thing in 2022 America—not tRUMP, not DeathSantis, not Abbot, not the GOP, not any of their ilk—can be compared with Hitler or his brand of Nazism as found in Germany during the 1940s. However, it is accurate to say and ought to be acceptable to observe that the individuals and organizations mentioned above are showing similarities to Hitler and signs of Nazism as manifest in the late 1920’s and early to mid-1930’s. Could we not at least call them, “budding Nazis”? Maybe, “Nazis in embryo”?
 
Do not tell me, for example, that Hitler and his Nazi party would not have been thrilled by the new Texas law that directs the state’s Child Protective Services to “begin handling reports of gender-confirming care for kids as child abuse.” Don’t tell me that the secretive manner in which investigations into such “gender-confirming care” cases are handled is not right out of Hitler’s and the Nazi playbook. Do not tell me that the designation of such secretive investigations into “gender-confirming care” as “special assignments,” does not conjure up horrifying images from Nazi Germany’s activities aimed at ethnic cleansing.[1]
 
But, no, the GOP and their leading lights have not begun to actively murder millions of innocent people because they are different… yet—though the jury is still out on how many people have suffered and died because of the grievousness of the decrees they have written and the wickedness of so many of the laws that they have passed.
 
It is also true that tRUMP has not yet shot anyone “in the middle of Fifth Avenue.” Okay? His supporters have not yet been put to the test to see if he was correct when he boasted, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, okay, and I wouldn't lose any voters, okay?” Of course, the fact that his supporters are still with him after all his record-setting lies and unprecedented corruption—including his encouragement of and leadership in an insurrection against the United States government—might be taken as evidence that he was right and that his supports have failed the test of being freedom loving, patriotic, and moral Americans. Not to mention being just plain, decent human beings.
 
All of this leads us to the second noun in our title.
 
Cult.
 
This word is deemed to be inappropriate for polite society. So, though tRUMP looks very much like a cult leader and tRUMPism looks for all the world like a cult to me, we will for now avoid the designation. We will just call the movement, “religion,” and Trump, its prophet.
 
If questioned about this designation, I will offer up this interesting piece of evidence. I will ask the reader to consider, again, tRUMP’s apparently accurate assessment that “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, okay, and I wouldn't lose any voters, okay?” What he really means is that people will follow him even when he is wrong.
 
Now, consider the common Mormon religious position that one is to “follow the prophet” even if and when he is wrong. Sounds an awfully lot like tRUMP’s assertion to me. I suppose that the prophet could stand in temple square and shoot someone and still maintain many of his supporters. In fact, one suspects that the response to this crime would be much like the response of TRUMP’s supporters’ to his myriad of crimes: justify it by finding a way around calling it a crime. Argue that prophets, actually, can say and do no wrong. Whatever they say and do is, by definition, “right.” We learned that long ago from the first Mormon prophet, Joseph.
 
Nothing, it seems, is more important than standing by your man.
 
So, yes, with this single evidence among the many that we could innumerate, we are justified in calling tRUMPISM a religion. False and apostate, yes, but religious in nature nonetheless. This new “faith” increasingly shows strong indications of being a cult. With each passing day, its adherents display clearer and clearer signs of being willfully brainwashed. That which is insane is increasingly viewed as rational and sane. How much longer can it be before this apostate religion morphs into full-blown cult and then from budding Nazism to full-on Nazism? How long before its adherents metastasize from budding Nazis into full-on Nazis?
 
It isn’t inevitable, of course, that today’s budding cultists and Nazis become the real McCoy tomorrow. But no one who claims to still be rooted in reality and who loves goodness and virtue can afford to passively wait around to find out. The threat that the American right—inspired and empowered by the devil named, Trump—represents to all that is good and holy is not to be ignored. It must be exposed for the evil and danger that it is.
 
For me, the word of God is the first defense. It is more than a defensive shield. It can be and should be used, like a double-edged sword, as one of the most powerful offensive weapons against this unholy abomination.
 
“And now, as the preaching of the word had a great tendency to lead the people to do that which was just—yea, it had had more powerful effect upon the minds of the people than the sword, or anything else, which had happened unto them—therefore Alma thought it was expedient that they should try the virtue of the word of God.”[2]
 
If the “virtue of the word of God” fails to quell, defeat, and obliterate the American evil that tRUMP has brought to light and breathed new life into, then… well… as Jesus said to the “daughters of Jerusalem,
 
‘Weep not for me,
but weep for yourselves, and for your children.
For, behold, the days are coming, in the which they shall say,
“Blessed are the barren,
and the wombs that never bare,
and the paps which never gave suck.”
Then shall they begin to say to the mountains,
“Fall on us; and to the hills, Cover us.”
For if they do these things in a green tree,
what shall be done in the dry?’”[3]
 
May it not be so, Lord! But may repentance awake and forgiveness be granted.
 
Even so, com, Lord Jesus!
 

[1] “Caseworkers: Texas order on trans kids handled differently,” Paul J. Weber, AP News.
[2][2] Alma 31.5
[3] Luke 23.28-31

​america’s mad state of rebellion:
therefore, the world lieth in sin
30 march 2022

What is to be done when not just one person or a few people, but an entire society comes to believe and act as though madness is the norm; that insanity is sanity; that madness and insanity are the normal state of existence?
 
Columnist and reporter, Sharon Zhang, recently wrote, as so many have, of a form of madness that is viewed by many, many 10s of millions of Americans as normal, appropriate, and desirable. Actually, this piece catalogues not “a form of madness,” but multiple forms of madness.
 
“… the average bonus for Wall Street employees rose to $257,500 in 2021 – or roughly five times the average salary for U.S. workers. This is an increase of 20 percent from 2020; meanwhile, the average American only saw wage raises of 2 percent in 2021, which is far less than the inflation rate of 7 percent…”
 
Note, please, we are only talking here about Wall Street bonuses, not salaries. Bonuses, above and beyond salary, were 5 times the salaries of U.S. worders. And, we should not, on one side we are talking about “employees.” On the other, “workers.” I accept this distinction as Wall Street “employees,” for all their talk of the American work ethic, have never done a days work in their lives.
 
“… the average bonus for Wall Street employees has increased by a whopping 1,743 percent since 1985, when the average bonus was $13,970. If minimum wage had kept up with Wall Street bonuses, it would be $61.75 an hour, or 8.5 times higher than the current minimum wage of $7.25.
 
Not only do Wall Street employees not work, but they earn more for not working than ever before.
 
Millions of low-wage essential workers are struggling to make ends meet while taking care of our country’s basic human needs. Meanwhile, Wall Streeters are getting massively rewarded for high-risk behaviors that endanger the entire economy” …
 
Not only do Wall Street employees not work, they engage in practices and behaviors that hurt working American’s and put the entire U.S. and world economy at risk—as was the case a decade ago.
 
“… the minimum wage has remained stagnant since 2009. Not only is $7.25 an hour insufficient to survive nearly anywhere in the U.S., it’s also considered poverty wages in many places. With each year that goes by, that wage is worth less; with inflation, $7.25 in today’s dollars is equivalent to only $5.50 in 2009 dollars.” [1]
 
Not only do American workers actually work, and work harder and smarter than they did a decade ago, they earn less for doing so.
 
In what sane persons mind; in what sane society’s collective consciousness; in what sane legislative body’s policies does any of this sound like a good idea, reasonable, sane?
 
None. No, not one.
 
On its very face, such realities are clear indications of mad insanity. One needn’t be the least bit philosophical or religious to see the clear, abject madness of such conditions. One would think that the drive to survive built into human DNA over millions of years would be enough to cancel the existence of such nihilistic and destructive insanity.
 
That said, those who live in American society claim to be, if not philosophical, religious. Many tens of millions of them claim to be followers of one, Jesus, Son of God. And several millions of these “Christians,” those who once called themselves “Mormons,” also claim to follow Jesus—going so far as to call themselves, “Saints.” But, notwithstanding scripture’s unambiguous opposition, millions of these “Christians,” “Mormons,” and “Saints” have fallen prey to the sort of madness described in Zhang’s piece. In this, at least, there is no hypocrisy. They callously live the false doctrine they espouse—economic inequality is normal, appropriate, and justifiable before God.
 
So, again, to those who normalize madness, we must speak of God’s own word. They have, of course, heard it before, these madmen and women. Having rejected the word of God in the past, they will, likely, reject it once more. Still, we do not wish to be guilty of one of ancient Israel’s greatest sins: the failure to fulfill its calling to the world.
 
“Just look at my servant, whom I grasped,
   the one I chose, in whom I was pleased.
I placed my spirit upon him
   that he should[2] generate justice among the nations.
He won’t call out, or lift
   or make his voice heard in public[3].
He doesn’t so much as trample a crushed blade of grass,
   or an already sputtering wick
      to faithfully produce justice.
He is not to grow feint[4] or discouraged
   until he has established justice on earth;
      for the ends of the earth are in anxious expectation of his instruction.
This is what the God, Yahweh, said--
   the creator and expander of the heavens,
      the one who stretches out the earth and spreads out its life[5],
who grants life[6] to all peoples upon it
   and breath who live[7] on it--
‘I, Yahweh, called you, as is right,
   and would strengthen you and watch over you
and present you as a promise[8] to peoples
   and an example[9] to nations,
to open eyes that are blind,
   to lead captives out of prison
      from imprisonment those who abide in darkness.’”[10]
 
It’s very sad, don’t you think—the world, left without a warning voice because those called to warn wouldn’t lift a finger? Like that ancient nation, Jesus’ disciples today are “sent… out to testify and warn the people, and it becometh every man who hath been warned to warn his neighbor.”[11]
 
 And here is our warning in relation to the madness of the sort of economic inequality so well described in Zhang’s piece.
 
“It is not given that one man should possess that which is above another, wherefore the world lieth in sin.”[12]
 
You see? Inequality is sin. Economic inequality is sin. No matter how one dresses it up; no matter how normal it is presented to be; no matter how often and vociferously it is defended and justified, economic inequality is a form of madness. In God’s economy it is abnormal. It is not how the cosmos was created to function. It is indicative of a world wallowing in sin and in open rebellion against God. Its only end is disfunction, collapse, and destruction.
 
Unfortunately, a people, a faith, a society engulfed in this form of sinful madness to the extent that America is loses, as we have already said, the very ability to discern truth; to distinguish madness from sanity.
 
“Nevertheless, in your temporal things you shall be equal, and this not grudgingly, otherwise the abundance of the manifestations of the Spirit shall be withheld.”[13]
 
It is, therefore, difficult to see a way out of the present madness or a path that leads to future sanity. Repentance requires enough discernment to recognize and acknowledge sin. But the “manifestations of the Spirit,” so essential in revealing sin, have been and are disrupted; drowned in a flood of lust.
 
In calling for economic equality, we do not call for religious programs or movements. We only call for moral rectitude consistent with cosmic principles of happiness, advancement, and endurance as God, Himself, has outlined them.
 
We will not slacken in our commitment to warn concerning the madness. We will not cease in extending an invitation back from insanity to sanity. If we are unsure and doubtful concerning the possibility of reformation, we will plead before God, as one anxious, yet determined father once did,
 
“Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.”[14]
 
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!


[1]“If Minimum Wage Kept Up With Wall Street Bonuses, It Would Be $61.75 an Hour,” Truthout).
[2] I understand this imperfect verb to be modal.
[3] Literally, “outside, in the street.”
[4] Again, the imperfect verb is read in a modal sense.
[5] Literally, “offspring, seed.”
[6] Literally, “breath.”
[7] Literally, “walk.”
[8] Traditionally, “covenant.”
[9] Literally, “light.”
[10] Isaiah 42.1-7
[11] DC 88.81
[12] DC 49.20
[13] DC 70.14
[14] Mark. 9.24

For those who regularly visit this site, my love for the Book of Psalms is by now well known. Also well know is one of the reasons for my appreciation: faithful boldness in prayer. The Psalmists’ faith in God is such that they know His appreciation for honesty in prayer and so fearlessly offer it, even when their thoughts and feelings might challenge traditional views of what God will and will not accept by way of challenging complaint and questioning. Today’s blog post is a prayer.
 
 
Oh Lord, I will be as bold as Israel’s beloved Psalmist. I will speak of my wonderment. I will confess my doubt. I will give voice to my frustration and complaint. 
 
Where, I ask, are you? Are you really there? Do you really care?
 
How long will you remain silent, absent, neglectful, inert?
 
Why silent, absent, neglectful, and inert about and toward the devil named Putin?
 
Why silent, absent, neglectful, and inert toward and about religious leaders who give this devil a pass—is it because his views toward gays is perfectly aligned with theirs?—while they engage in inanities that waste the spiritual energy of adherents, divert attention from Jesus’ most cherished aims, and trivialize the Gospel of Jesus Christ?
 
Is it wrong to ask that you act today as it is reported you have acted in the past?
 
I remember, Lord, the words with which Sennacherib’s envoy, Rabshakeh, blasphemously reproached you to your face. “Hear ye the words of the great king, the king of Assyria,” spat Rabshakeh at the walls of your holy place. 
 
“Let not Hezekiah deceive you… neither let Hezekiah make you trust in the LORD, saying, ‘The LORD will surely deliver us: this city shall not be delivered into the hand of the king of Assyria’ … Beware lest Hezekiah persuade you, saying, ‘The LORD will deliver us.’  Hath any of the gods of the nations delivered his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria? Where are the gods of Hamath and Arphad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? And have they delivered Samaria out of my hand? Who are they among all the gods of these lands, that have delivered their land out of my hand, that the LORD should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?”[1]
 
I remember, still, what you said and how you responded when Hezekiah laid all this blasphemy before your face. I remember how you said to the mighty king of Assyria,
 
“Whom hast thou reproached and blasphemed?    
   and against whom hast thou exalted thy voice,  
      and lifted up thine eyes on high?   
even against the Holy One of Israel…”[2]
 
I remember how you warned the oppressor, and promised the oppressed
 
“He shall not come into this city,   
   nor shoot an arrow there,  
nor come before it with shields,   
   nor cast a bank against it. 
By the way that he came,   
   by the same shall he return,  
and shall not come into this city,   
   saith the LORD.”[3]
 
I remember, too, how you then acted.
 
“Then the angel of the LORD went forth, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred and fourscore and five thousand: and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses. So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, and went and returned, and dwelt at Nineveh. And* as he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, that Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons smote him with the sword.”[4]
 
Did this, O Lord, really happen? Is scripture to be trusted? Is it to be used as precedent, as an example to be followed? Did you really heed Hezekiah, a good, but flaw man such as I, as so many of us? Did you deliver Jerusalem, flawed city that it was, from the spoiler’s lust?
 
So, look down now, Lord, at what is happening on the planet called earth. A spoiler has entered the sovereign nation of Ukraine. The besieged nation is not a perfect nation. But it is no better or worse than ancient Judah was, surely. Its inhabitants have no less claim upon you for life and peace than that ancient nation that Isaiah, Jeremiah and many others castigated so mercilessly for its unfaithfulness to you. And I, with many others who pray to you, are we so different from Hezekiah. And surely, the spoiler’s head, Putin, is but a reincarnation of and is driven by the same vile lusts as that infamous Sennacherib.
 
Why, then, oh Lord, do you turn a blind eye to Putin’s present blasphemy and reproaches to your honor? For surely, the man’s violent outburst is a blasphemy and reproach against you and all that you stand for. Why do you sit idle while the puny man does Satan’s bidding? Wreaks havoc on the world? Lays waste to cities? Chases millions into the life of powerless refugee status? Causes psychological damage to children that may very well spill over to several generations? Takes the life of thousands upon thousands of innocents?
 
You, it is claimed, sent a sword-wielding angel to threaten death upon one, Joseph, who hesitated to take a second wife in polygamy. Why do you withhold your warning sword now? Why do you not visit and threaten Putin, whose sin is viler than Joseph’s by the order of many magnitudes? This would be a mercy to Putin and to the whole world. Can I, can we not ask this of you? If not, why not? What’s changed? What’s different?
 
Can I, can we not ask this of you? If Putin will not yield to your merciful warning that he stop and desist from his demonic works, then may you do as you did to Sennacherib and his army. Stretch forth your mighty arm and turn his army backward. Send them back to their homeland, defeated, without the shedding of the defenders’ blood. And, if necessary, may you send forth upon Putin an assassin, as you did against Sennacherib and as you did when you sent the left-handed Benjamite, Ehud, to pierce with his two-edged dagger the corpulent Moabite king as he sat upon his royal toilet.[5]
 
I ask that you try mercy first. Then, the bloodless defeat and failure of an army. Only then, death to Putin.
 
Can I really ask God to kill? Do I want to? How do I feel about a God who kills? I am, I confess, torn. But, what else is there to it? It is good and righteous and proper that Putin’s evil be stopped.
 
Now, Lord, forgive me, but I am troubled by another evil. We have leaders, it seems to me, religious leaders who, claiming to know you best and to be your mouthpiece, trivialize the Gospel of Jesus Christ. They give a pass to an obvious aggressor, murderer, war criminal, and faithful, apocalyptic-scale disciple of Lucifer by offering generic, half-hearted, milk toast statements of regret in regard to Putin and his international lawbreaking aggression against another nation. This weak-kneed and inadequate response is, in itself, troubling enough. But, at the same time that Satan unleashes his bought and paid for armies and navies and air forces upon a weaker nation, these same leaders travel the world over to claim that your greatest concern revolves around a matter as trivial as the name of the church and how its name is to be typeset. Putin may not be named as a danger to righteousness, but by God, those who won’t abide by their stylistic preferences sure as hell are!
 
Then again, they use their globetrotting ways as an opportunity to unambiguously and consistently and emphatically chide those who speak too often and/or too intimately of/to a wholly speculative, non-scriptural divine matriarch. But, on those occasions when this unknown matriarch is referred to, these leaders once more demand that their stylistic preferences be maintained and capital letters avoided in vocal intonation and typesetting.
 
How, oh Lord, are we to take such leadership or its claims of insight seriously? Forgive me, O Lord, but Jesus’ famous criticism of the religious leaders of his day comes unbidden to my mind: they “strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.”[6]
 
Lord, should not Putin be stopped? Will you let him offend and defile his nation and the nations of this world as America’s previous president did? You know how I prayed to you about him. I won’t return to that complaint. Will you not demand of all, especially religious leaders, that they take a stand and proclaim boldly and unequivocally against the evil that is Putin? Will you not put an end to the blasphemy and reproach that Putin’s violence casts at you? Will you not put an end to the trivialization of the Gospel of Jesus Christ? Will you not put an end to the misery and suffering and death of the Ukrainian people?
 
Please act, Lord. I refuse to be comforted until you do. A gospel that does not comfort the vulnerable, the oppressed, the suffering, the powerless, the dying can bring comfort to no one.
 
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!

[1] Isaiah 36.13-15, 18-20
[2] Isaiah 36.23
[3] Isaiah 36.33-34
[4] Isaiah 36.36-38
[5] See, Judges 3.15-26
[6] Matthew 23.24