Sinning

IT HAS BECOME EVIDENT that evangelical support for the president is predicated at least partly upon the dubious proposition that since we, including Mr. Trump, are all inherently sinful, his often reprehensible words and deeds do not disqualify him from the presidency. The lord has a purpose for everyone, and, after all, Noah was a drunkard, and King David was a murderer and adulterer. Examples of fallen folks serving the will of God permeate the Bible, which is a litany of violence and genocide enacted by a wrathful God who alternately is a petty tyrant, petulant child, and mass genocidal sociopath. It would seem that the more debauched the sheep, the greater the likelihood of becoming a "vessel of God". Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart were not isolated anomalies. Bakker did five years for embezzlement, Swaggart fretted and strutted upon the stage, confessing only after being caught at a cheap motel with a cheap prostitute, sobbing, confessing, repenting. It was too late to save their highly lucrative ministries. A recently published monograph by evangelical Christian Ben Howe, titled "The Immoral Majority: Why Evangelicals chose Political Power Over Christian values" attempt to elucidate this ostensibly inexplicable phenomenon. During the Clinton presidency, a single instance of fellatio and a lie about it told to a grand jury were sufficient to warrant impeachment and removal. During the Trump presidency, a self proclaimed claim of serial sexual molestation, over fifteen thousand lies told to three hundred and thirty five million Americans, and an endless avalanche of vicious slander leveled against women, disabled people, and the deceased is insufficient to preclude election to the presidency. A quarter of the American people describe themselves a "evangelical Christians", who, unlike twenty years ago, are bending over backwards to forgive the sins of a chief executive who has neither confessed, repented, nor atoned. The evangelical movement would serve itself better by cleaning its own house, by excommunicating the seeming army of pedophiles, serial sexual molesters, and adulterers with which the movement is infected, than to lamely excuse the incessantly execrable behavior of a reprobate president who only recently switched his affiliation from pro choice to pro life. As if we are all not "pro life". The mere fact that limited government conservative Christian insist on overturning Roe v. Wade evinces their lack of faith in God. God has the power to move a woman's heart,and to steer her clear of the murder of her unborn child. That he/she/it usually fails to do so indicates that he/she/it is either pro choice, lacks omnipotence, or is so devoted to free will that he has permitted forty five million children to die before they are born, in defense of personal liberty. We may assume that, ultimately, the universe and this small planet operate according to God's will. As Archibald McLeish said: "If God is God, God is not good. If God is good, God is not God". This conundrum is of no concern to the evangelical community, which, upon close scrutiny, neither believes in God nor acts according to the admonitions of his only begotten son.