"When You're a Star, They Let You Do It"

Trump and Gingrich share the stage at a campaign rally.

“With what shall I come before the LORD,
   and bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before him with burnt-offerings,
   with calves a year old? 
Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams,
   with tens of thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
   the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?’ 
He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
   and what does the LORD require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
   and to walk humbly with your God?”
Micah 6:6-8

On January 31, 1999 I preached on the impeachment proceedings against President Bill Clinton. The Lectionary text from the Hebrew Scriptures was that familiar passage from Micah.

I began with a quotation from Martin Luther: “If you preach the gospel in every aspect except for the controversial issues of your time, then you have not preached the gospel at all.”

I now know that Luther did not actually include the adjective “controversial,” but in those days before I checked everything on the internet, I was working from my memory of what someone else had quoted as what Luther said.

Luther’s comments had haunted me for months as I carefully avoided anything beyond a few oblique references to impeachment.

I had avoided it for good reasons. First, there was the danger of too much opinion and too little Bible. Second, I didn’t want to make people unhappy by talking about an unhappy topic. And finally, I did not believe that it was a matter of the soul—it wasn’t where we were living.

At the end of the sermon I asserted two conclusions.

The first was that committing adultery and lying about it ought not to be an impeachable offense.

The second was that President Clinton ought to resign. Monica Lewinsky was an intern. She was barely an adult. He should have been her protector rather than her abuser.

There was more, of course, I talked about the prophetic tradition, about concepts of justice and mercy and humility, and I threw in a heavy dose of Reinhold Niebuhr. But the bottom line for me was that he ought to resign.

My memories of the Clinton impeachment hearings came back to me as I watched with amazement while the charges of sexual misconduct piled up against celebrities and politicians.

When I preached the sermon in 1999 I did not know that the chief architect of the impeachment process, Newt Gingrich, was cheating on his second wife at the same time that he was self-righteously condemning Bill Clinton. Ironically, Gingrich was having an affair with a staff aide who was barely older than Ms. Lewinsky.

It is a somewhat perverse characteristic of human nature that by divorcing his second wife and marrying his mistress he made his affair somehow seem more acceptable. The Clintons, on the other hand, are widely pilloried for staying together. And to make that strangely commonplace judgment even stranger, it is Hillary Clinton who is more widely condemned. 

But all of that is ancient history.

The present tsunami of allegations is unprecedented. And so is the reaction, which seems to indicate that as a society we will not tolerate this any longer.

The bad news is that sexual harassment and sexual abuse and far more widespread than many of us would have imagined. The good news is that women are being taken more seriously. 

And now there are consequences.

Al Franken, John Conyers, Blake Farenthold, and Trent Franks have all been forced to resign. And Roy Moore was defeated.

Donald Trump alone remains apparently unscathed by the allegations against him. And the sweep of the allegations is breathtaking. 

Newsweek reports that Mr. Trump “has been accused of rape and attempted rape a total of three times, once involving an alleged victim who was a year younger than Moore's accuser.”

He has been accused of walking in on beauty pageant contestants, some of whom were teenagers, while they were changing.

And, at last count, nineteen women have come forward to accuse Mr. Trump of sexual misconduct. The Atlantic has helpfully summarized the allegations and the corresponding response from the President.

Not surprisingly, Mr. Trump has denied everything. When a reporter asked White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, “Is the official White House position that all of these women are lying?”, she responded with a resounding affirmation: “Yeah, we’ve been clear on that from the beginning, and the president’s spoken on it.”

In addition to the denials, the President has also attacked the women by calling them liars and by making fun of their physical appearance, saying that they were not attractive enough for him to want to sexually assault them.

Really. That’s what he said. And he said it more than once.

Other men who have been accused have responded with denials. Some have issued only half-hearted apologies, but none of them have attacked the victims as Mr. Trump has done.

But wait.

You know there’s more.

Mr. Trumps case is unique in that he is the only one who has bragged about his sexual assaults. “When you’re a star,” he boasted, “they let you do it.”

Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and comments are always welcome. Please feel free to share on social media as you wish.

What Has Changed and What Has Not

God is our refuge and strength,

   a very present help in trouble. 

Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change,

   though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea; 

though its waters roar and foam,

   though the mountains tremble with its tumult.

Psalm 46:1-3

For many of us, the past few days have been profoundly unsettling.

We were expecting to celebrate the election of the first woman President of the United States and we woke up on Wednesday to find that we had elected a man who is openly and unrepentantly misogynistic. 

Not a happy feeling. 

To take a biblical phrase out of context, some of us feel like strangers in a strange land.

In a blistering article in the Huffington Post, Sarah Ruiz-Grossman writes, “Dear Fellow White Women: We F**ked This Up.” And she follows that up with a startling statistic: “Exit polls show 53 percent of white women voted for Trump — compared to only 43 percent for Clinton.”

“When the demographic split for the exit polls came out, showing the divide between Trump and Clinton supporters, my eyes immediately jumped to one group: white women. Tell me we came through for our sisters of color, I begged, at least this one time. We didn’t.

“So I am ashamed. I am ashamed of my country. I am ashamed of white people. But more than anyone else, I am ashamed of white women.”

It feels like a seismic shift.

But, in fact, it really isn’t. It may be an uncomfortable look in the mirror, but the country really has not changed.

Hillary Clinton apparently will win the popular vote (and we will probably have a healthy debate about the Electoral College, which disproportionately increases the influence of smaller states and makes votes in swing states more important than votes in Alabama or Rhode Island). But regardless of the final outcome, the margin will be tiny.

Basically, it’s a tie.

And when we look more closely at the numbers, the demographic percentages are almost identical to 2012. Donald Trump did as well among white women in 2016 as Mitt Romney did in 2012. 

There are small shifts among other demographics, but nothing major.

Donald Trump won because his supporters were more enthusiastic (and a lot angrier) than those supporting Hillary Clinton. A higher percentage of his supporters actually went to the polls and voted. To paraphrase a campaign slogan, “Anger Trumps Apathy.” He hit a nerve.

The country did not change and yet our trajectory has shifted. 

We may disengage with other nations on climate change, on trade, and on mutual defense agreements. And then there are those all important Supreme Court appointments.

On the positive side, there is at least the possibility of a bipartisan approach to job creation and infrastructure. And the truth is that presidents are almost never as bad as their opponents fear or as effective as their supporters hope.

Campaigns are won and lost at the extremes, but governance gravitates toward the center.

I am aware, of course, that I can take the long view because I am in a place of privilege. Not everyone has that luxury.

On Wednesday morning I got a call from an African-American woman in our congregation.

"Bill," she said, "I'm scared. He's a racist. What's going to happen to people of color?" She was shocked that he could get elected, and she was especially afraid for her grandsons. "Hillary is not perfect," she said, "but she's not a racist." 

And then she talked about what Clinton had done on behalf of children. "All children," she said. "She didn't care what color they were, she loved them all."

We talked about hope and justice and loving one another.

That is not a phone call I ever expected to get in 2016, but it brought home to me how terrifying this is for those who are vulnerable.

Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and comments are always welcome. Please feel free to share on social media as you wish.

Some Comments on that Famous Video

Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.” Pilate asked him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” Pilate asked him, “What is truth?”
John 18:36-38

If you thought that Donald Trump’s lewd comments caught on tape would cost him the endorsement of his evangelical supporters, you would mostly be wrong.

Most of them are still on board.

One of the strange commonplaces of politics and religion in America is that conservative evangelical pastors routinely endorse political candidates and mainline pastors do not. And the conservative evangelicals do not just endorse a candidate. They are not shy about telling us that God has raised up this one or that one on a holy mission. Since they are the only ones speaking, this creates an asymmetrical picture and makes it look as if all Christians are conservative evangelicals.

This is not because mainline pastors do not think that the Gospel has political implications. On the contrary, we are more likely to emphasize the politics of Jesus than the evangelicals.

We recognize that the Bible is a profoundly political book. The prophets proclaim God’s passion for justice as the foundation of the social order. And the message of Jesus is centered on “the good news of the Kingdom of God.” In the Lord’s Prayer, our first petition is, “Thy Kingdom come.” When the early church spoke of Jesus as “Lord,” and “Savior,” and “Son of God,” they knew that all of these terms were used to apply to the Emperor. And they knew that the Empire had killed Jesus because he was a political threat. When early Christians said that Jesus was “Lord,” they were also saying, “and Caesar is not.”

The Gospel is intensely political and we cannot read it with any measure of intellectual honestly and pretend otherwise. It is about proclaiming a vision of the Kingdom of God. It is about social and economic justice. But we must also remember that the Kingdom of God can never be identified with any single political group or cause, or country. Instead, it is always the standard by which every political plan is judged.

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who certainly understood the political implications of the Gospel better than most, never endorsed a political candidate.

In the famous scene from John’s Gospel excerpted above, Pilate asks Jesus whether or not he is a king, and Jesus responds with one of the best known verses in the Bible. In the older, and more familiar, King James Version, it is translated as “My kingdom is not of this world.”

That is often taken to mean that Jesus is concerned with “heaven” rather than with any earthly kingdom. But if that were the case, then he would not have told his followers to pray for the kingdom of God to come on earth. Jesus was telling Pilate that his kingdom was not like other kingdoms. It was not built on violence and oppression; it was built on non-violent justice.

Unfortunately, that is not a concept easily reduced to a bumper sticker or a sound-bite, and it is not surprising that when mainline pastors do venture into the political arena we are often misunderstood.

After the release of the famous Donald Trump video, Bishop John Schol, who is the United Methodist Bishop of the Greater New Jersey area, posted the following statement on Facebook: 

“Because of my role, I do not comment on political elections and candidates. But this is not a political commentary. It is a faith comment, a comment about the human condition. The recent revelation of Donald Trump’s view of women as sex objects goes against the Scriptures and who God created us as female and male. While we know there are men everywhere who think and talk about women in this way, these comments should never go unchecked whether in private conversation or public conversation. The world needs people everywhere to denounce such comments and call for just treatment of women everywhere. When these comments go unchecked, they give permission for the physical, sexual and emotional abuse of women. The world needs all of us to be better and do better.”

He received many positive responses, but he also received a huge amount of pushback.

Some comments criticized him for making a political statement. Others criticized him for taking sides, or for focusing on words rather than actions. And still others thought he should balance his criticism of Trump by criticizing Hillary Clinton for . . . something.

First, a criticism of Mr. Trump should not be interpreted as an endorsement of Secretary Clinton.

Second, it’s not just about what Mr. Trump said on the video; it’s about what he said he did. He said that he committed sexual assaults on numerous women.

Finally, we need to move beyond our obsessive need for a false equivalency. The video is lewd. And if you want more lewd comments from Mr. Trump, you can listen to what he said about his daughter on Howard Stern’s radio program. 

Some things are just wrong. 

All by themselves.

Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and comments are always welcome. Please feel free to share on social media as you wish.

An Atheist's Perspective on Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton preaching at Foundry UMC in September 2015. AP Molly Riley Photo

He was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.” He said to them, “When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. Give us each day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us. And do not bring us to the time of trial.”
Luke 11:1-4

On a Blog site called “About Religion,” Austin Cline wrote a short summary of Hillary Clinton’s beliefs and practices. 

He writes from the perspective of an atheist.

For the most part, his description is straightforward. 

“Hillary Clinton grew up in a Methodist household,” he writes, “She taught Methodist Sunday school like her mother, is a member of a Senate prayer group, and regularly attends the Foundry United Methodist Church in Washington.”

Cline notes that in spite of her obviously sincere beliefs, she has been regularly portrayed by the Christian right as being “godless.” Conservative radio host Michael Savage described her as the “most godless woman in the senate,” and accused her of talking about her religious convictions only when it was politically expedient.

According to Cline, Jerry Falwell went further than Savage, “by declaring that she would energize the Republican ‘base’ of conservative evangelicals even more than if Lucifer were running as the Democratic candidate for president.” 

And he makes the important observation that by demonizing Hillary Clinton, Falwell and his followers can transfer the responsibility for the hatred “from the people who hate Hillary Clinton so much onto Hillary herself - if she's demonic, then people have no sane choice but to hate her. Furthermore, this ensures that there is no reason to hold back in attacks on her: you negotiate and compromise with political equals, not with demons.”

In contrast to Falwell and Savage, Austin Cline is convinced that Clinton is sincere in her beliefs. Of course, since he approaches this from an atheist perspective, that is at best a mixed blessing.

“There is no evidence,” he writes, “that Hillary Clinton's religiosity is superficial or an affectation; her behavior is consistent with her professed beliefs and she has explained more than once how important faith is for herself personally and her family. She has also said that prayer - trying to communicate with a god - is important in her life.”

I cannot be certain of how Hillary Clinton approaches prayer, but I think I can say with absolute certainty that she does not think of it as “trying to communicate with a god.”

Instead of the simple statement that Hillary Clinton “has also said that prayer is important in her life,” he inserts his definition of prayer as “trying to communicate with a god.”

It could be that Mr. Cline is just trying to have a little fun twitting the occasional Christian who might read “About Atheism.” It’s not “communicating,” it’s “trying to communicate.” And it’s not God, it’s “a god.” 

LOL.

But maybe he is sincere.

And if he is sincere then that reveals a much bigger problem: we are not even talking the same language.

When atheists and literalists debate, they may talk right past each other, but they are at least talking the same language. For both atheists and literalists, religious language is meant to be taken literally. But for Austin Cline, and for many other atheists, the symbolic nature of religious language is lost. When atheists converse with mainline Christians, they are not even using the same language. In our increasingly secular age, this is no small thing.


Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and comments are always welcome. Please feel free to share on social media as you wish.