A Bible lesson for Christianity Today
As a lifelong Christian and longtime subscriber to the long admired publication Christianity Today, I was stunned to read the parting shot from editor Mark Galli actually calling for President Trump to be removed from office.
It was so uncalled for, so unexpected from a publication whose sole purpose is to report what's happening in the Christian community at large – not to offer advice about totally political issues.
Abortion, illegal immigration, drug trafficking, prostitution, rampant pornography even on movie and TV screens – these are moral blights on our society Galli's magazine should address, because Christians can agree they are obvious spiritual threats to families, our children and America's future.
But to publicly jump into the middle of a far from settled controversy involving unproven charges against a duly elected president is terribly out of line for any "magazine," let alone one known as a Christian news service.
Why? Because the charges from the political left are unbalanced, unproven and largely demonstrably untrue. They are clearly politically motivated and biased, made up of supposition, "impressions" and flat out untruths!
The basic hard facts:
- One president called another on the phone, had an amiable conversation, and one asked "for a favor" from the other. It was tabled and not accepted. Some military aid had been delayed, for unspecified reasons, but was duly given – and that was that.
- Both participants in that conversation specified repeatedly there had been no "quid pro quo," no concessions granted and no harm done.
- There was nothing wrong with President Trump asking for information about the already known involvement between former veep Joe Biden, his son Hunter and a notorious Ukrainian energy company being prosecuted for corruption. Not that Trump was concerned about possibly facing Biden in the 2020 election – he would have eagerly embraced that unlikely possibility. Trump was understandably curious, not "digging for dirt," as has been repeatedly been charged. No information was given, and that was that.
- Since that phone call was first brought up by Adam Shiff, and purposely distorted in what he later called "parody," Trump's detractors have obscured the obvious facts with opinions, presumption, supposition and every distortion, trying to build a case for removing Trump from the White House!
And though the Pelosi-controlled House finally voted to impeach, based on all this "moral" posturing minus the inconvenient structural facts, they have yet to submit their charges to the Senate, and one of their own attorneys reminds them there is no impeachment until the Senate has its opportunity to weigh the evidence and vote yay or nay!
So now I want to remind editor Galli, my Christian brother, of some very relevant biblical facts.
Jesus "hung out" with a lot of unsavory characters. The religious leaders, the Jewish hierarchy, were very critical of Him sitting and eating and even drinking with tax collectors and known publicans and sinners. Jesus answered that He had come specifically for people like them, rather than for supposed "good" people who didn't think they needed saving.
The same type of leaders criticized Jesus for accepting expensive fragrant oils from a known prostitute, whispering, "If He really knew what this woman is, He wouldn't have anything to do with her," and Jesus rebuked them for their hypocrisy and ignorance, commending the woman for preparing him for His coming death.
He noticed despised tax collector Zacchaeus up in the tree, and called him by name to come down and take Him to his house for dinner (resulting in the despised man's own salvation). He repeatedly surprised and scandalized the religious authorities by doing things they didn't approve, and were more openly criticized by Jesus than even the woman taken in adultery and about to be stoned, by law!
My point – and the reason I've stepped into this mess – is to remind us that "God's ways are not our ways," that He is not bound by our trivial understandings and that He said openly in 1 Corinthians that He delights in choosing to use things and people that are "foolish" to us – to deliberately confound the "wise."
Would Mark Galli have selected the notorious Saul of Tarsus, the persecutor of Christians, to write a third of the New Testament? Likely not.
But God, knowing the hearts of even despised men, called several at crucial points in human history, changed them even as they did His bidding, and used their minds and talents to accomplish vast changes – for the good of all.
Finally, and this should be headlined in Christianity Today, the fundamentally changed Apostle Paul delivers this from God Himself:
"Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves."
So, brother Mark, you know the Bible; is Trump appointed by God?
Yes, we the people elected him, as we did Obama and Bush, Nixon and Clinton. But once we elected them, God authorized them to give us either what we need … or what we deserve. And as we continue to pray for them – as He orders us to do – God works through them and their decisions to show us both what we are, as individuals and a nation, and what we need to do to become more what He wants us to be.
Trump came to this office promising to "drain the swamp" of entrenched self-serving politicians and agencies, and amazingly, he's been doing that. You can certainly say that Jesus came to "drain the swamp" of hypocritical, self-righteous but ineffectual religious traditions – and HE did that.
His obvious flaws notwithstanding, Trump has been more supportive of Israel, the unborn, marriage and religious liberty than any other president in modern history. And furthermore, He operates under the expressed authority of God.
So, let him that is without sin cast the first stone.
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