The Best Candidate

I’m prompted to write by the imminent U.S. election and a few comments from faithful readers who are dismayed by the shift in my content from gracious, encouraging devotions to relentless, scary-seeming rants about repentance.

(BTW, I’m working the polls again. It should be exciting! 😂🙏🏽)

Oh, how I wish God were giving me light words of imminent uplift, prosperity, and victory that garner 10,000 likes and dollars to match, but alas, not. The undeniable urgency in the air has persuaded me because He’s God, and I’m not.  What’s worse is what He’s put on my heart is equally offensive to all parties.

Yet there remains Good News.

But first, I want you to know how much I appreciate hearing how my usual writing helps you. I still have boatloads of comforting and encouraging personal stories to share. Even so, I also respect your concerns about my shift in perspective, and I’d like to address them here.

Why the Shift?

The shift is due to what’s on my mind, unraveling world circumstances, and my own related, intensifying, instructive real-life experiences these past few years. Many of us share a common sense of imminent something, loosely timed around the advent of COVID.

It’s been unfolding for millennia.

Thus, I want to share what I'm hearing during these outrageous times. Not to bring us down but to point us up. Not to offend, but to free. Not to scare us per se, but to scare us straight to the only One who can save us. The real One of the Bible--both lion and lamb--who is unchanging and predicted all this unfolding earthly drama with uncanny accuracy. 

Surrender the right to be right.

We humans continually misunderstand God to suit our own brand of narcissism, believing we know best or better than God and better than “THEM,” whoever they happen to be in our world. My aim is not to divide but ultimately to foster unity against a common threat of godless ideologies and idolatry that has its grip on us.

The humbling prerequisite is unilaterally offensive in that we must honestly recognize our shared, abject need and thus, surrender our right to be right.

And if my impassioned, repetitive blathering is too much for you, just read the words in red.

Not Left or Right

America is more fractured than ever in a volatile world that seems to be spinning out of control--if you believe social media's streaming catastrophe 24/7. We turn our eyes to one candidate or another as savior, each side claiming the moral high ground, selectively quoting God (or worse, dismissing God altogether) to uphold their superior stand. Each demonizes the others as though they were a different species or idolizes candidates as the only remedy for the world’s unmanageable problems.

God has a way of shattering and displacing idols, whatever their affiliation.

Likewise, God's been known to raise leaders as disciplinary action.

Either way, we're in trouble if we’re hanging all our hopes on mere humans.

Mine is bipartisan bone-picking, loosely organized around two spiritual poles: law and love.

On the one hand, the "love boat" of the self-serving, sin-sanctioning, all in the name of affirming, artificial love, is sinking under its own weight. Likewise, sinking is its counterpart lead-bottomed legalism that presumes to violently condemn this or that sin while blithely overlooking other sins that equally enrage God. Both sides are self-righteous, and therein lies the problem. A la carte Jesus.

Again, if you tire of my redundant rambling, read the red.

Narcissus by Caravaggio, c.1599.

One Problem. One Remedy.

Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone." Mark 10:18

ALL SIN separates us from God, each other, and our true selves. While some sins are indeed particularly toxic and rampant, sin is sin.

Jesus is the single, and thus unifying, ego-leveling bridge to God, who can solve all our problems.

I can’t summarize what got me to this place in one blog post. I’ve had a succession of extreme, instructive encounters with the inherent sinfulness of humanity, including my own. I have witnessed, been, and been subject to exceptional people of all stripes—evangelical to atheists—who have an equally extraordinary capacity for evil, petty or grand, often unrepentant, and sometimes hidden or unseen to themselves.

It’s been awful.

We can all be so obviously blinded and corrupted by our unchecked egos and appetites for power, money, influence, and the numbing comfort they impart on those who have it…and their devoted followers. Then there’s the indignant, righteous rage of the have-nots, will-nots who can’t or won’t play.

Ultimately, this is narcissism or idolatry, with the self-blind hypocrisy it engenders in all of us.

Unchecked ego is blinding.

Even just a little bit of this yeast goes a long way.

With understandable prurient interest, people want to know: “Evil???” eyebrows raised, “Do tell!”

Maybe they hope for a murderous or raunchy secret. We like juicier evils, but mainly, I’m referring to something more mundane but equally offensive to a perfectly Holy God.

I think Google AI does a great job of synthesizing the many definitions of evil found in Scripture and everywhere else:

“A violation of God's design. Evil is the act of taking something good and using it for selfish purposes instead of as God intended. 

A corruption of goodness. Evil is the distortion of something that was originally good. 

A preference for anything over God. Evil is the act of loving something more than God or for a reason other than God. 

A deviation from God's rules. Sin."

That's so clear I could about stop there, but I want to seize the imminent election to support the point.

"My brothers and sisters, in the course of a long life in the service of our Mother the Church, let me tell you that the one sin I have come to fear more than any other is certainty. Certainty is the great enemy of unity. Certainty is the deadly enemy of tolerance." Robert Harris, Conclave

Election Politics

“All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!” John 8:7

Jesus was unaffiliated and didn’t have an opinion on outside issues. His concern was with our spiritual condition, from which all else flows. He says our collective problem is spiritual rather than political, social, psychological, or anything else. The solution is spiritual, too.

Apart from God, we will continue to careen into a predictable and avoidable abyss.

During this particularly contentious and dangerously divisive election season, each side presumes to be on the good side, defining evil by political yardsticks that run along party lines.

I don’t dare presume to tackle any issues here, and I’m not claiming a position, though I could opine all day long. I want to leverage a few divisive issues to make what I hope is a unifying point that we're all in this together.

Abortion

"If someone has enough money to live well and sees a brother or sister in need but shows no compassion—how can God’s love be in that person? Dear children, let’s not merely say that we love each other; let us show the truth by our actions." 1 John 3:17-18

Pro-Life: Basing moral rightness on this one agonizing issue overlooks valuing life beyond the womb and the biblically equal sins of self-centered, self-indulgent greed, hypocrisy, and lack of charity, among others.

We can’t mandate women have unwanted babies if an obscenely lopsided economy and class structure doesn’t provide a living wage, adequate health- or childcare, affordable housing, or other essential social supports, particularly in and through the church. Indeed, as a nation of absurdly prosperous Christians (the type who want small government), we can’t send women off with unwanted babies, a Bible study, some words of encouragement and/or condemnation, along with few boxes of diapers and formula. At the same time, many Americans live in extravagant comfort.

In this light, criminalizing abortion is morally wrong. Whatever her choice, a woman in this bind deserves mercy and loving care.

But we can’t stop there.

Pro-Choice: Impassioned outrage about a woman’s rights over her body fails to acknowledge the most basic rights of defenseless, voiceless unborn men and women. We have many luxurious if questionable, legitimate rights as women. We can choose to have sex with whoever, whenever. Or not. Most have access to birth control, including abstinence. We can now change our gender at will! We can give (or horrifyingly, essentially sell) an unwanted child to whoever we choose or leave a newborn baby at a hospital/firehouse, no questions asked. We can’t rightly rationalize the “choice” because the helpless tiny human isn’t yet viable outside the womb, which could change anytime now.  Legit reproductive freedom begins before conception.

Despite emotionally-charged rhetoric and ad campaigns, 95% of abortions are elective procedures; less than 3% are due to rape/incest, danger to mom, or even congenital concerns (Brookings Institute, Lozier Institute.)

The offense of stripping a vulnerable human’s right seems magnified by indignation over the rights of trees, lab animals, pets, or convicted murderers facing the death penalty, which all tend to run along party lines.

Social Justice

“Cursed is anyone who withholds justice from the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow.” Deuteronomy 27:19

"You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt." Deuteronomy 10:19

Immigration

As the American-born daughter of Italians who came here in 1965 and became citizens to celebrate the Bicentennial in 1976, this issue is near and dear to me...and more importantly, to God. It's hard to justify the right-leaning view of maligning modern-day immigrants as a prosperous nation of 97.897% immigrants (minus the natives we displaced), much less so in Christ’s name.

Covering a lot of political territory, I’ll let Jesus explain in His own crystal-clear words:

“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry, and you gave me no food; I was thirsty, and you gave me no drink; I was a stranger, and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison, and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’" Matthew 25:41-46 ESV

Conservatives of this stripe may want to pack summer gear for their trip to eternity.

On the other hand, we cannot allow a steady stream of random immigrants to enter the country without even the most basic screening, particularly now that our national debt and supportive infrastructure are in critical condition, not to mention a growing list of truly toxic enemies who exploit porous borders.

Racism/DEI

“There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Galatians 3:28

For just one example about this terribly touchy subject, any non-African American who laments accusations of racism or DEI-type initiatives is either disingenuous or deluded. No privileged or ordinary white man or woman can understand the impacts of racism and slavery, now further underscored by the science of epigenetics that documents the effects of generational trauma. Aside from the concrete evidence of both historical and contemporary abuse and inequities, dismissing the intangible impact of such realities is naïve at best.

White middle-class man: Imagine being violently torn from your currently comfy life, separated from your wife and children, perhaps witnessing their abuse, stripped of your identity, and forced to labor to enrich an abusive or benevolent owner under inhumane conditions. Fast forward to contemporary America. Imagine unwarranted skepticism of your intellect or integrity. Imagine that your living ancestors couldn’t use the same bathroom or attend school with their white counterparts.

What might some side effects of this big, bitter pill be? What is adequate restitution for such an injury? How long until such a deep wound heals?

On the other hand, while equalizing initiatives seem logical and fair, unearned advantages and entitlements destroy our character and motivation. We’ve lived it, witnessed it, and bemoan it--whether in corporate moguls or the typical American teen.

Entitlements are also all too easily weaponized as incentives or patronizing controls of vulnerable people.

Let's not even talk about entitlements based on what people are doing in their bedrooms. So odd.

Moreover, invoking racism or reparations for anything must be tempered by the sober acknowledgment of our shared humanity reflected in countless current and historical facts.

For instance, some scholars estimate that more than 90% of American slaves were previously enslaved and sold by their African countrymen. Much later, formerly enslaved Americans resettled to Africa by the American Colonization Society themselves violently oppressed and exploited the indigenous blacks, replicating the oppressive systems they escaped!

The modern epidemic of trafficking is color-blind and pervasive.

Because that’s what we humans tend to do, regardless of color, gender, or any other characteristic. Given the right forces at work.

None of this justifies discrimination and abuse of any kind. Still, honest self-appraisal would reveal the more uncomfortably equalizing and harmonizing truth of our human natures that would unify rather than divide.

Economics

Jesus told him, “If you want to be perfect, go and sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” Matthew 19:21

“All the believers were united in heart and mind. And they felt that what they owned was not their own, so they shared everything they had.” Acts 4:32

I won’t spend much time on the issue of money because it’s so painfully obvious that nobody in America should struggle to eat well, pay for adequate housing, be well-educated, or get medical care.

Among Christians, we congratulate ourselves for tithing or better when Jesus’ standard is far higher. Note that Ananias and Saphira deceptively withheld profits from their Christian community while trying to look magnanimous, (she writes, loudly clearing throat). God struck them dead.

Why is a weary old woman working at Walmart instead of watching TV with her feet propped up or bouncing a grandbaby on her knee? Why are hardworking Americans unable to get needed healthcare or are forced to work multiple jobs to survive? Why, then, would we be surprised that some resort to crime or numb with substances, or that neglected kids grow up to be troubled adults, or that families fall apart and young people struggle to find their way?

Friends on the right: I’m not advocating for socialism; I’m advocating for faithful Gospel Christianity starkly at odds with the self-indulgent, sin-laden, empire-building American church, especially of the "evangelical" variety that purports to be biblical.

Our national debt stands at $35.85 TRILLION. The government cannot pick up the tab Christians were largely meant to carry.

Friends on the left: History tells us that spendthrift, stringless social entitlements, notably absent God, tend to go dark quickly.

How can we invoke something as arrogant as Christian nationalism when there’s scant evidence we’re Christian? Speaking of which,

Christian Nationalism

JESUS said,

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him." John 3:16-17

Note: Jesus is doing the saving.

"And he will send out his angels with the mighty blast of a trumpet, and they will gather his chosen ones from all over the world —from the farthest ends of the earth and heaven." Matthew 24:31

Note: God's chosen are international.

"Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit." Matthew 28:19

Note: Jesus wasn't in America when he said this. God's disciples are worldwide.

I love my country, but Christian nationalism is not Christian. A few hard facts: 1) Jesus came to save the world and His mission was global. 2) America isn’t represented anywhere in the Bible, and 3) At the same time, America was founded on religious liberty grounded in Christian values; we’ve so far departed from biblical Christianity that it’s offensive to invoke it to advance worldly agendas. God indeed shed his grace on America and endowed us with extraordinary human and natural resources. Have we stewarded them well?

Nothing personal, mind you, because Americans are humans, and humans are sinners.

Foreign Policy

On the one hand, paternalistic and self-serving global interventions are bankrupting the nation and diverting essential resources to problems we can’t solve. America is not the savior of the world, and it’s dishonest to say we’re merely humanely supporting our vulnerable allies. Genuine philanthropy isn’t self-serving and invoking Christian values while grossly neglecting our own needy or the needy next door (ask 22 million combined Haitians and Cubans to start) or bankrupting our nation to support strategic assets.

However, the looming and growing threat of merciless, dehumanizing creeds gaining a foothold in the world is very tangible and menacing. Americans are largely insulated from the evil reality of the godless ideologies that characterize the jelling super-alliances. Whatever our spiritual orientation, be sure we'd prefer core Christian values to prevail over those dark forces. Dig a little deeper into Russia, China, and North Korea alone (along with some Middle Eastern minions) who hate us on principle, and see where their dominance would lead. Horrifying.

Speaking of godless, other godless ideologies look friendlier or superficially shiny…with a hop skip, and a jump to eugenics.

Sexual Sin Scandals

Along with abortion, we’ve built entire theologies and weighted party platforms based on sexuality, currently focusing on the genuinely alarming trend of transgenderism. I don’t want to argue what the Bible says about sexual immorality and identity by any definition you care to use.

There’s plenty of thoughtful debate and ambitious rationalization about what is unambiguously stated over and over. Our edits have only fostered destructive confusion with irreversible impacts, apart from supernatural spiritual restoration.

Before anyone tars and feathers me, please know that I wish it weren’t so. Who wants to pick any wildly unpopular side of this issue?

SIDEBAR: I just saw the star-studded and brilliantly absurd movie Conclave, which might have been a favorite movie were it not for the ridiculously manipulative and implausible, shameless propaganda plot twist at the end that the new pope, self-named Innocent, is a hermaphrodite (1.7% of the world population). Really? All this seems to pave the way for a distorted, throat-ramming, evil agenda that's not making the world more healthy, harmonious, loving, and tolerant. It's not.

More Honest & Equalizing

...the truth will set you free.” John 8:32

There is, however, scandalous yet clarifying insight to consider when it comes to sexual issues. First, Barna reports that a [un]healthy majority of Christian men, including pastors, use porn (~75%). Jesus’ standard of mental purity condemns them right alongside homosexuals or promiscuous people some so revile. The tantalizing aspect of sexual conduct aside, self-serving scorekeeping aside, the everyday sin list would condemn either left or right-leaning folks.

Jesus hated hypocrisy.

Moreover, while God seems to condemn sexual immorality as more corrosive to people and the community than other sins, He’s clear that sins like envy, greed, gossip, lying, divisiveness, rage, drunkenness, factions, and idolatry—to name a very few—all “deserve death” and those who practice them “will not inherit the kingdom of God” (Romans 1:32, Galatians 5:23).

Gulp.

Even so, I’m not picking sides because the point is that most of us qualify for the fiery pits of hell despite our convictions otherwise.

How might our attitudes toward our fellows change if your sin is every bit as damnable as the other guy’s? Would it elicit repentance along with more compassion, mercy, humility, and, most importantly, unity?

The Common Affliction: Collective Narcissism

(again...sigh)

Our country is alarmingly divided, each side claiming superiority that divisively and dishonestly demonizes opponents. The vocal, often Christian religious masses selectively cite scripture to support their views. Again, conveniently overlooking Christ's underlying love ethos that sums up all the commands.

Likewise, left-leaning faithful or secular humanists invoke love and tolerance while displaying neither for those of conflicting views and ever-redefining the loving lines of right and wrong to lead us to a moral precipice that will take us out, just like the Roman Empire.

These are different sides of the same coin: both self-righteous, self-justifying, and self-deification apart from God. This view divides and elevates the self above God. It's idolatry. This narcissism also drives hypocrisy to hide our dark underbellies. Then we idolize mortal saviors by proxy, also idolatry.

Some have elevated Donald Trump to savior status, euphoric with zeal and adoration. Others scathingly condemn his moral failures as uniquely criminal. It's disingenuous.

Let's not forget that beloved, handsome, and refined democratic president John F. Kennedy was well known for his dalliances, and he and his brother Bobby were even implicated in Marilyn Monroe’s death. The ruthlessly ambitious and corrupt Joe Kennedy clan is the stuff of legends.

So many leaders in any arena have variance of the same afflictions. Not good but real.

Regardless, thank God that nobody is beyond redemption. I note that Trump miraculously dodged death twice.

This bipolar idolatry, too, is a bi-partisan phenomenon. On the left, supporters have rallied to demonize Trump and hail Kamala Harris as savior, who only months ago, bastions of liberal media condemned as disappointingly incompetent at best.

Yes, we need a better “candidate” to solve our problems. The only genuinely unifying candidate. The solution is less about who is in office and more about Who is truly in charge.

The Best Candidate

But Jesus knew their thoughts, and said to them: “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself will not stand. Matthew 12:25

The powerlessness and unmanageability of the current state of affairs is Good News because it signals both our collective bottom and the need for a greater One who has all power. As very, very Pollyanna-implausible as it sounds.

WE MUST STOP our collective, bipartisan bickering, our self-righteous confidence that we are oh-so-right and they are oh-so-wrong. In the light of TRUTH, this isn’t true. What’s true is that we all deserve the fiery cosmic spit apart from Christ.

Our common welfare should come first; united we stand, divided we fall. As a nation and as a species. For real.

We are combatting God-sized problems that transcend our party or Christian affiliation. We face common threats from godless or hateful ideologies. Some are obvious, while others are disguised as impossibly idealistic, driven by a cabal of financial and intellectual elite, certain of human solutions that our best thinking since creation proves wrong. Some selectively invoke God in a thinly veiled demagoguery that is achingly prevalent, and profitable, on both sides of the political aisle.

This ancient narcissistic experiment is running its course. As unlikely as it seems to rational humans, even those who claim the Nicene Creed, Christ is returning one day to clean up the mess humanity made, sooner rather than later.

All the historical prerequisites have been met and the signs of the times are textbook vivid.

The Last Judgment (Il Giudizio Universale), Michelangelo, 1536–1541, Sistine Chapel

The Imminent Something Big

There's a lot of headline-fueled fear about natural cataclysms, economic collapse, national implosion, or world wars that don't seem so unlikely anymore. Movies like Leave the World Behind are eerily prophetic. Who can say for sure?

One imminent something is sure: Jesus is returning. All these alarming omens are unfolding precisely as predicted, heralding Christ coming to judge everyone and set things right. This is consistent with core eschatology (Oxford: “the part of theology concerned with death, judgment, and the final destiny of the soul and humankind”) of roughly 2.4 billion Christians, with fascinatingly parallel accounts of another 2 billion Muslims and 1 million Hindus, who share many of the same predictors of an eventual reckoning.

It really should give us all pause.

The Unifying Remedy of the Good News

However bleak, terrifying, and terminal any of it sounds, Jesus offers a happy ending, including the grace to gracefully endure whatever happens here on earth on the way to something so much better.

The Good News remains Good for now. There is One who has all power and can solve all our complex problems if we re/turn to Him. That one is God. Not the God of our prideful and self-serving understanding or invention, but the One True God who is knowable, knows and loves us enough to die for us.

We can humble ourselves and unify voluntarily, or God will do it for us, separating us into two permanent apolitical parties.      

Vote

For sure, pray, vote your conscience, and whatever the outcome, re/turn to God, the Best Candidate.

PRAYER:

Jesus, you alone are Savior. You alone are King. Please forgive us for our senseless, divisive, and ineffective idolatrous narcissism, and help us bow to you alone. Expose our hearts and hypocrisy to unify us in our understanding of our shared need for YOU. Deliver us from the true enemy of our nation, world, and souls. In Your name, we ask it, Amen.

P.S. If you don't believe any of this, I ask you to consider what you believe and what is the basis of your belief.

GIVE