Day 1693 - A Question of Values

Rarely, current events lead directly and parallel to an independently conceived sermon. It happened this week. You’ll have to wait a day or so for the sermon, but here is the current event as it relates to the message. As always I acknowledge we all have feet of clay and that calling out hypocrisy can be the ultimate hypocritical act.

In the 1990's, James Dobson, founder of "Focus on the Family" said President Clinton had created a "profound moral crisis" in the Lewinsky affair.  I will not quibble with their assessment. However, in this link to the source, Mr. Dobson went on to explain away the behaviorof the now POTUS towards women. He brags of having the power to have women any way and any time he wants. Mr. Dobson said POTUS is not  "a perfect man but he is pro-life."  Mr. Dobson was just one of many in the so-called evangelical conservative movement who have flocked to POTUS as their savior against folks they brand as the anti-Christ. I presume Mr. Dobson wants us to model the behavior of POTUS as a Christian exemplar for our own children.

I had read recently a conservative religious blog that said the POTUS remains their hope for their policy objectives to enforce their view of Christian morality on the public.  This hope is spoken of the man who is on record (tape) for expressing his power to subject women to the most degrading, dehumanizing (I hate to use a common Liberal word, objectifying, but it is probably better than self-absorbed, or vain) treatment - groping women at will whose objective is a diamond tiara. 

I usually just ignore these claims by the evangelical political movement because they seem so contradictory to reasonable Christian thinking. Surely few are taken in by their arguments?  But for those who do, why? 
As I said in my preface, I've always felt that we all have feet of clay.  But the willingness of the Conservative and political evangelical movement to endorse a person who refuses even to acknowledge the flawed morality of his action and moreover, that the movement itself refuses to object to that flawed morality or chastise the actors reinforces everything Henry Richard Niebuhr said about the institutional Church.  What must it do to save itself? But these folks persist in justifying this outrage by its hoped-for ends. 

I imagine the screw turned just a little tighter on their moral compass last week when the newly appointed  communication director for POTUS, Anthony Scaramucci, talked to the press. 

Clearly it is another Machiavellian move to place a fellow who embodies the stereotype of the crass New Yorker in the halls of power. It would be just another irrelevant event except he landed in a position to speak for the POTUS and also by extension for supporters of POTUS and on behalf of the government and all citizens of America.

This Scaramucci fellow in his days on the job representing POTUS described Reince Priebus in very unflattering terms and untruths, and then went tumbling down into the sewer with his description of a bedfellow of the POTUS, Stephen Bannon. 

He used not just unflattering terms but language unfit for print save for the future record the sordid character of our current American national leadership.  Scaramucci suggested Mr. Bannon engages in an acrobatic act of autoeroticism requiring extraordinary physical flexibilty. Lest you don't believe me, and want to read it yourself that I recommend only to the strong of stomach, and certainly not to children. Be prepared for sexual crudity, here is the link. Since Scaramucci made these statements closely following a dinner with the POTUS we must assume it is with the consent and support of POTUS. (POTUS has yet to address the Scaramucci's profanity.)

I would not give it the benefit of publicity, except for the recent blog from one of this evangelical group (sorry I lost the link, but see the one above in a similar vein) that stated that POTUS remains their hope for achieving imposition of their version of religious morality on America. (I expect like every one else who touches POTUS, they too will be betrayed.) The POTUS endorsement of Scaramucci goes directly to the heart of the core morality of the self-labeled conservative religious right leadership. They reveal their willingness to ignore its connection to them in order to achieve their dogmatic ends and validate the behavior. 

In my mind, the absence of a condemnation of the language and renouncing Scaramucci as representative of their religious faith is prima facia evidence of how far the political religious right has sunk from a Christian ethos into its own Machiavellian plotting. This seems to be the behavior they expect of their children, I guess.

And then this week the POTUS appeared before newly graduated police in New York encouraging these new officers to rough up arrested persons. Not only does this reflect a complete disdain for the bedrock principle of our Constitution that a person is innocent until proven guilty beyond a shadow of doubt, it sounds tragically like President Duterte of the Philippines who has encouraging police to summarily execute hundreds of suspected drug dealers on the street. Is this the American justice we want, and Christians to endorse? 

It is fairly clear that at best the POTUS and his communications director have an amoral value system focussed on personal power, bearing an uncomfortable similarity to President Duterte of The Philippines.  So, to Franklin Graham, Pat Robertson, James Dobson,  James Robison, and the collection of conservative Catholics, Tony Perkins, and all the rest who champion strong families and Christian values, where do you stand on these displays of compassion and respect for the value of the human person by POTUS and his handpicked communications director, Scaramucci?

Do you "religious leaders" hold up POTUS and his communications director as symbols of the Church in society, or as the antithesis of the Church?

I hope you understand my answer rhetorically. If not watch for my next post.

Note added late 7/31/17: Surprise, surprise, POTUS dismissed Mr. Scaramucci today, but as yet, POTUIS has not expressed a reason for the firing, nor addressed Mr. Scaramucci's behavior.  A NYT article quoting sources said POTUS' daughter and husband pushed for Mr. Scaramucci and POTUS was very pleased with the language used as noted above. Life imitating art, I imagine.