The Cohen conundrum

Michael Cohen, for 10 years lawyer to President Trump and who is about to spend three years in prison for participating in his corruption, called the president “a racist, a con man and a cheat.” That isn’t, and shouldn’t be, news to anyone who’s paid attention to what he’s said and done over the years and especially since early 2017, when he was inaugurated.

However, so far I haven’t heard a word from many of these conservative Christians who have defended the president as having a “Cyrus anointing” from God to bring “righteousness” back to this nation. Perhaps they have a different concept of “righteousness,” such as not exploiting people, treating them fairly et cetera, than I.

What I suspect they mean by “righteousness” must be limited to banning abortion, driving gays back into the closet and reclaiming their desire for cultural supremacy, because I’m seeing absolutely nothing righteous about him or his administration.

You mean that’s not enough? How can that be? There’s something called the “fruit of the Spirit,” the “love” chapter of 1 Corinthians 13 and the Beatitudes in Matthew 7.

Well, we didn’t elect a pastor, you might say. Right. You’re supporting a bully who’s about to have his head handed to him, and when that happens you’ll lose whatever spiritual authority you have or desire because you refused to hold him accountable for his sins — because, in practice, they’ve become yours as well.

Indeed, you’d be surprised with the number of people turned off the Gospel — I have a lot of Facebook friends who simply don’t want to hear it — because of Christian support for Trump.

During the hearing yesterday Cohen, who I mentioned is headed to prison, appeared humble and contrite saying, in effect, “I sold out.” True. I wonder how long it will take for Trump’s Christian supporters to realize that they too sold out.

The church's sexual abuse crisis: Missing the point

Of late, sexual abuse in churches has been in the news.

Last year, a grand jury report here in Pennsylvania mentioned 301 priests, including one I knew personally but not well, in six Roman Catholic dioceses who were credibly accused of such dating back to the 1940s.

Last week, the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio News-Express published an investigative story noting that 200 pastors and deacons in the Southern Baptist Convention had themselves participated in such.

And, of course, those are the ones that could be confirmed, the issue likely being far more widespread than mentioned.

It’s really easy to say that the problem is sexual deviancy (especially in the case of the priests, who are vowed to celibacy) or the position of power that they hold in their respective churches.

In taking a “Soul Care” class at my church, however — the class is based on a book of the same name written by a pastor in my denomination — I've come to realize that part of the problem is that due to their positions clergy often have no one holding them accountable for not just their actions but also the brokenness that they brought into the ministry in the first place.

Put another way, it can be an issue of pride — that they couldn’t admit that they too suffer from the disease of sin and are in constant need of the grace of God in order to maintain the positions to which they felt called. Thus, attempts at “damage control” often make things worse, as offenders end up going from church to church bringing their unaddressed baggage with them.

Yes, clergy ought to be held to a higher moral standard than the laity; that being said, clergy likely face more spiritual attacks due to their position. My pastor is not afraid to ask for prayer because he knows full well that he can’t carry out the tasks to which he’s been assigned — “run errands” for the Holy Spirit, as one of the church founders put it — without it. And I myself have occasionally laid hands on him.

It might be that if these folks had come clean long ago, their respective churches might not have a crisis.

Trump the politician

When Donald Trump decided to run for president numerous people enthusiastically supported him, saying, "He's not a politician -- he says what he believes and would keep his promises because he won't owe anyone." I said from the jump, however, that he was as much a politician as anyone.

And now that he's declaring a "national emergency" in his demand for a wall along the border with Mexico, he's proving himself as such.

By numerous accounts, there is no crisis. Cities along the border are markedly safer than much of the rest of the country. Illegal immigration is as low as it has been in a decade, in large part due to stepped-up enforcement of laws already on the books plus an improving economic climate in Mexico. A recent shipment of drugs seized at the border came through a legitimate checkpoint.

So why is the president doing this? I suspect that he's attempting to placate his xenophobic, borderline-racist base, which cares about nothing except getting its way. (In fairness, he may personally believe this, but that's beside the point.)

Remember the five-week government shutdown that began right around Christmas? That wouldn't have even happened had he not been egged on by right-wing provocateur Ann Coulter, who claimed that he was caving on the border wall. And since Coulter's audience has a sizable number of Trump supporters, the vast majority of who refuse to accept defeat under any circumstances, he was almost obliged to keep the charade going. (To remain in power, any politician needs people who will agree with him.)

In the end, of course, he didn't get funding for that wall. And in negotiations that took place afterwards and facing a deadline of today, he still didn't get it, so now he's declaring a constitutionally-dubious "national emergency."

The bigger issue, however, is how many evangelicals not only have fallen for this hack but still worship him. Promise to overturn Roe v. Wade and they're bowing before him (never mind his lack of character, his broken promises and his trashing of Biblical norms, for which they'd criticize a Democrat in a New York minute). I would think that a group of people who understand the insidiousness of sin would be more cynical about people once they get into office and understanding the give-and-take of the political process.

At this juncture we're talking about a full-scale assault on the Constitution, specifically "separation of powers." That's why we likely won't see any kind of wall anytime soon, if ever, during Trump's administration because it would likely be tied up in court.

I heard recently that, while Trump cannot but lose this battle, he's engaging it because "He's a fighter" -- read: He'll be a martyr victimized by, among others, the political left and the "deep state." But in fact, this was a fight that he was bound to lose, especially going up against Nancy Pelosi, once again Speaker of the House, who knows how to chew him up and spit him out.

And if and when -- I'm banking on the latter -- that happens, we should see how foolish it was for us to place our trust in him or anyone else except God.