Covid-19 File: Trump holding up the Bible.

I guess that would do it...

Trump cradling a Bible in his right hand standing by St John’s Episcopal Church, known as the Church of the Presidents (“because it had been attended by every one since James Madison in the early 1800s”).

When asked by a reporter whether the Bible he was holding is his own, Trump replied: “It’s em a/em Bible.”

So, this morning, I would entitled the image below as this: “Trump and a Bible.”

It was a 17-minute photo session after Trump walked over to the church at 7:01 pm on Monday. This is the brainchild of one of his advisers, Hope Hicks. 

And mind you, in order to clear the path for the photo session with a Bible and a church, Trump’s security had to strike the protestors “with flash-bang grenades and doused with tear gas.”

One observer said: “Let me be clear. This is revolting. The Bible is not a prop. A church is not a photo op. Religion is not a political tool. God is not your plaything.” (James Martin SJ). 

Lesson? One, and bless the president’s intention, whatever it is, as I believe it is to end the racist schism that is breaking out all over the country. 

But whatever its redeeming intention, it ends there. And this is where the real problem with religion starts. 

Let me say that the symbol is not the faith. Similarly, the power is not in the cross where Christ was crucified. Neither is it in the empty tomb nor the communion elements. 

In modern context, the power is also not in the building, the music or even the Bible. That is why holding it up would not bring about the peace that Trump and his adviser Hope have wished it would bring. 

Recall that it is the living word, not just a printed one. For what is the use of a vaccine against coronavirus if you just flash it around, instead of injecting it in your body? For it has to challenge one’s immunity system within in order to strengthen it against the virus with-out. 

The word has to become flesh, and the flesh thereafter crucified before the Bible can be deemed a living seed that germinates into a healthy tree planted by the river of life in order to bear life-transforming fruit. The process, like a wine-press, takes time, for most, if not all, takes a lifetime. 

This brings me back to Trump, the most militarily powerful man on earth. I just want to say that there is nothing wrong with power, fame and wealth. 

The Great Commission is about making Jesus known, all over the world. The assurance of faith is the assurance of power to change, to command the storm of life, and to influence, shepherd and lead lives. And how about prosperity? 

We have read and seen great men and women of great wealth performing great exploits for the kingdom of God. The Bible thus, if one is prepared to embody it with love and sacrifice, is the living word unto godly grief, repentance and love demonstrated in a broken life. All power, fame and wealth therefore are humbled means to kingdom’s ends. 

Returning to Trump, and his religious posturing at St John’s, and taking his life as the backdrop, I can’t say with certainty (for now at least) that this is one individual who takes the Bible, or a Bible, seriously. I suspect it may just be a glorified means to an end of power, fame and wealth for himself. 

Yes, that old familiar reminder comes in, “Nobody is perfect”. But, it is also said that you shall know him by his fruit, as well as these words of Jesus to a sinner who wiped his feet with her tears and hair: “Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little." He said to her, "Your sins are forgiven."

When you put them together, we are not left without a guide (or standard) to come to our own opinion of Christian leaders who are supposed to be beyond reproach. 

For greater power comes greater responsibility. And there is nothing worse than having great power only to bear little or no accountability and responsibility.

Trump, an outsider at Bush Senior's funeral.

When Americans voted for President Trump, they were going for a different kind of presidential breed. 

It is definitely not voting out of ignorance because Trump’s amoral (most times mind boggling) ways were already well known or publicised by then. 

While many evangelicals would consider him as their own, calling him a Christian, I reserve my opinion on that. If anything, at times, I don’t even consider myself a Christian - but just a follower of Christ. 

And wrily speaking, I am rather consoled to know that when Jesus called his disciples, he asked them to follow him, and not, “come, become a Christian.” 

I guess Trump made that term quite loaded, pregnant with double meaning (maybe “Cross-bearers” would be a more apt alternative?)

But I have sidetracked, and this morning’s post is not so much about Trump as it is about Poppy. Yes, that’s the childhood nickname Mr George Herbert Walker Bush was known as, and he has passed on at a ripe old age. 

Comparing the two, the 41st and the 45th, journalist Maureen Dowd wrote: “The narcissistic, amoral, vulgar reality-TV president and the modest, principled, classy, old-world president could not be more different.” 

Well, I tend to agree. And it is as plain as vanilla to the eyes when you put them side by side. Both claims to be believers, yet one is devoted to his marriage, a lifetime vow, and the other is, well, less so. 

In fact, if one defines marital unions in a progressive, postmodern way, where you become happier with every change of marital companion, then maybe Trump trumps on the marital front. 

Then, when it comes to humility, being gentlemanly, respectful and employing choice positive words, they are quite worlds apart, especially when it comes to shooting from one’s mouth. 

In the papers today, the focus was on the presidential discomfiture of Trump when he and Melania attended George Bush Snr’s funeral. All three past presidents were seated on the same front bench with edgy Trump at the far left edge of his seat. 

His signature pursed lips were maintained almost throughout the mourning or remembrance ceremony. 

And on the subject of bad-mouthing, the order of their seating arrangement goes something like this as reported: - 

“First was the president Mr Trump said was illegitimate (Mr Barack Obama); then the First lady he called profligate spender of taxpayer dollars (Mrs Michelle Obama); then the president he called the worst abuser of women (Mr Bill Clinton); then the first lady and Secretary of State he said should be in jail (Mrs Hillary Clinton); and then the president he said was the second-worst behind Mr Obama (Mr Jimmy Carter) and his wife, Rosalynn.”

It is also reported that “it was impossible to pay tribute to the 41st president of the US without drawing implicit contrasts with the 45th.” And here is what was said in a nutshell about Bush snr.

“His life code was: “Tell the truth. Don’t blame people. Be strong. Do your best. Try hard. Forgive. Stay the course. And that was, and is, the most American of creeds.” (Mr Bush’s biographer Jon Meacham). 

So, yes, both believed in one faith, both presidents declared it before the cheering electorate, but if the fruit of one’s life is the determining measure, then at this point, the fruit Trump bears markedly differ from the fruit that the late Bush bore. 

One will be remembered for his service of integrity, leadership of courage and acts of love in his heart for the citizens of our country, so said his son, the 43rd. 

But the other thus far is of a different harvest field where truth is fungible, integrity is about adaptability, and modesty is non-existent. 

Now, let’s be clear, no one is perfect. And funnily, when you hear that qualifier, you know the next line from the same mouth is going to be about a string of self-boasting. 

But in the context of this post this morning, I know that Bush snr has his own demons he struggled with. All of us do, and are still “doing”. 

In fact, when asked about Trump by Maureen Dowd, Bush snr snapped, “He’s an ass.” So, pent-up frustration still needed an outlet to vent as we are all imperfect human beings, whether president or otherwise. 

But let me say that the entry of Trump’s presidency wholly redefined human imperfections for me, and sometimes I caught myself muttering beneath my breath, “Is Trump the new moral?” 

Then, I consciously rebuked myself and quickly sift through the sand path for the footprints of my saviour. 

So, let me end with Maureen’s words. 

“As politicians go, 41 had many good qualities. Most of the time, he tried to do the right and decent thing, as he saw it, to act for the good of the country and the world. He earned his sobriquet from his biographer Jon Meacham: The Last Gentleman.”

Well, maybe another gentleman will come by to take over the presidential baton in a term sprint from the incumbent. But, when it comes to being a gentleman, Trump is hands down far from being one. Cheerz.

A Dark Christmas for Trump.

I wonder how Trump is going to celebrate Christmas. It is a tough week for him. In fact, it is a tough presidency for him. 

In today’s article “How Donald Trump got caught in a legal vice” by author and executive director of Bloomberg Opinion, Timothy L. O’Brien, he wrote this Grinch’s Christmas Trump list of notty and not nice: -

“The Trump Organisation, the Trump Foundation, the Trump family, the Trump transition, the Trump inauguration, the Trump White House are all being probed for wrongdoing.”

He added that the Mueller’s investigation into Trump’s collusion with the Russians to help his 2016 president compaign may have ”pull the many strands of the investigations together.” Talk about opening a can of worms.

Senator Susan Collins, a Republican, said: “Let me point out that there are a lot of unanswered, legal and factual questions but clearly this was not a good week for President Trump, not for his campaign organisation and these allegations are concerning.”

So, what do they say about the latest legal woes he is facing? Fake news? Enemies of the people? Witch-hunt? Envy and jealousy? (Has Trump made clone out of us? It’s like tens of thousands of mini-Trumps roaming the streets?)

The real question is, do we now (finally) call a (rotten) apple a (rotten) apple? Or we shouldn’t accuse an innocent man before proven guilty - if ever proven guilty? 

You see, what started as an investigation into collusion, led to Michael Cohen’s admission that Trump suppressed information of his extramarital affairs with porn stars by paying them off and the National Enquirer buying over the stories to bury them. 

Question is, how would that look to the evangelical’s voters should his adultery with Stormy and MsDougal be made public just before the 2016 election? 

Will Trump then lose the Christian votes? 

Going by the way his religious supporters are pining for him, with one even saying that short of seeing Trump shooting his daughter, he will still vote for him, I think that answer to that question might just answer itself. Isn’t that a frightening presumption for the faith (if true)?

Here, I recall that Trump’s lawyers strongly advised him against accepting an invitation from Mueller to be examined by him for fear that it might just be a perjury trap. 

The irony of that is that as his legal trouble unravelled itself, Trump’s electoral college victory in November 2016 might just turn out to be a President trap for him. 

Timothy wrote that anything that Trump touches has not turned into gold as he has always craved after, but on the contrary, it has turned into a deep suspicion and bloomed into an investigation. Recall Trump Organisation, Trump Foundation, Trump family, Trump transition, Trump inauguration, Trump White House? It has his name all inscribed.

Timothy then wrote this: “If that’s the course the various investigations follow, then Mr Trump may emerge as a brazen grifter (con artist) who, by aspiring to the White House like a wizened, soiled version of Icarus, flew beyond the boundaries of his own luck and abilities and delivered his business into the hands of prosecutors.”

Mind you, and I am not even opening that Pandora’s box on his undisclosed tax statements which he has fiercely vowed to fight anyone who threatens to make it public. Mm...I wonder, what is he hiding from the people?

Lesson? Just one.

Over the months, I have seen how Christians (here and in America) have been fighting for this President, openly believing that beyond the prophesy that he is divinely appointed, Trump is also the anti-establishment saviour to set the country straight again and bring back good old biblical and moral values into the world like pro-life, pro-family, pro-Jerusalem, pro-prayers and pro-Christmas. (maybe we need a leader who is pro-Christ?) 

Honestly, I too wish that Trump could start coming to his senses. I too wish that I can write something positive about him, like his employment numbers and the growing economy. And maybe his fight for the farmers, storekeepers and bakers, and for traditional values is also worthy of some mention?

But while there are some positive developments coming out of his administration, the disturbing part is still about him and how he clumsily mixes business opportunism with his presidency, falsehoods with truths, praying with pastors with preying on women, praising himself and praising God, nepotism with honest and impartial government, and calling Christmas Christmas and not calling a spade a spade.

On so many levels, it is still a bewildering and incomprehensible leader whose only preoccupation as a president (it seems) is to make sure that everyone knows without questioning that he is a great president, if not the greatest, full stop. 

So, let me end on a cautious note to believers by asking, what is spiritual discernment? How do we know with a measure of certainty that a leader is just not what he claims to be?

Is it about the adultery? Well, King David did that. What’s the big deal? 

Is it about repeated denials in the face of truth? Well, Peter denied Jesus repeatedly in his face? So, don’t be so petty please. Look at the big picture.

Is it then about spreading falsehoods, covering up, blaming others, cowardice and shifting responsibility? Hey, tell me which one of Jesus’ disciples has not in one way or another trespassed those sins? Look at the infamous Iscariot. 

Well, the crucial (enduring) difference between them and Trump, at least for now, is that they all repented, set things right, paid the price, and gave themselves up for the purpose of the Cross. 

That is what distinguished them from the current president. And that is what it takes to discern right from wrong, and truth from falsehoods.

Ford v. Kavanaugh - Who's telling the truth?

How do you deal with a 100% sure thing when it happened more than 30 years ago? Mind you, the 100% surety is on both sides of the divide.

As far as Dr Christine Blasey Ford (from Stanford) is concerned, she is sure about the following narrative. 

It happened one summer of 1982, after a day of diving at a country club. 

On a spur of the moment, she attended a gathering at a nearby house. She is sure Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge were drinking, intoxicated at that time. 

She is sure Kavanaugh pushed her into a bedroom and both of them locked the door behind them. 

She is also sure that one of them turned on the music to drown out the sound in the bedroom and Kavanaugh got on top of her and started “grinding into (her).”

After that, she is sure that Kavanaugh covered her mouth when she started to yell and he struggled to take off her clothes as she was wearing a swimsuit underneath. 

Then, Mark Judge hopped into the bed and “they all tumbled off the bed.”

It was at this time that she escaped by locking herself in the bathroom.

She recalled this: “I waited until I heard Brett and Mark leave the bedroom laughing and loudly walk down the narrow stairway. I waited and when I did not hear them come back up the stairs, I left the bathroom, went down the same stairwell through the living room and left the house.”

Dr Ford concluded by saying: “I remember being on the street and feeling an enormous sense of relief that I escaped that house and that Brett and Mark were not coming outside after me.”

All of that, she said she was 100% sure. 

Now, it’s Kavanaugh‘s turn. What then is he so sure about?

Well, as a Supreme Court nominee pending senate’s approval, he is sure that he was not at the party as described by Dr Ford. He even had a calendar (of that summer of 82!) just to prove he wasn’t there. 

In fact, he is so sure about it that he “angrily, tearfully and unequivocally denied sexually assaulting Dr Christine Blasey Ford when they were teenagers.” 

He even threw his chastity into the ring saying, “he had no sexual intercourse until well after high school.”

He then added: “This whole two-week effort has been a calculated and orchestrated political hit, fuelled with apparent pent-up anger about President (Donald) Trump and the 2016 election, fear that has been unfairly stoked about my judicial record, revenge on behalf of the Clintons and millions of dollars in money from outside, left-wing opposition groups. This is a circus. You may defeat me in the final vote, but you’ll never get me to quit. Never.”

Wow, that’s a lot of conspiratorial yarn to spin or political axe to grind targeted at a Supreme Court nominee and it paints a picture of how insidious and even juvenile a place of high politics can be.  

Indeed, Trump is a lightning rod for, well, lightning to strike not once or twice, but almost anytime when there is some political ”baby showers” nearby. 

So, where do the senate stand now? Both sides are 100% sure. Did it happen or not? 

I know you can’t prove a negative, but what if it is a positive that is beyond proof? 

Or, what if truth is not the holy grail here, but something more is at stake because everyone drinks from the same poison chalice in a political showdown to the detriment of the electorate writ large?

Alas, unless it is captured on video, and the identity of parties verified to a high standard of proof on an event that happened more than 30 years ago, none of us will ever be the wiser. 

I also know there is no smoke without fire, but what if this is a case of mistaken smoke from a fire elsewhere (not coming from Kavanaugh’s pit)?

Mind you, the fate of a man’s career and reputation (and possibly his life) is now hanging in the balance on the testimony of his accuser, who is hard pressed to prove what she alleges because it was some event in the distant past she’d chosen (with great reluctance and agony) to let dead dogs lie just as long as her attacker’s prominence in society doesn’t reach a level where she feels strongly (out of duty) that she has to kick the dogs back to life again. 

You see, Dr Ford had 30 years or more to make the complaint, make it public, pursue her attacker, but she kept it to herself, hoping that each day would become easier to move forward, and the pain would be further buried. 

But alas, to her, it seems almost bearable in the long shadow of silence and quietude until Kavanaugh‘s career culminated to the top judicial post of the land. 

This is when her levee of tolerance broke. This is when she came out of the buried heap of pain concerning a memory of that horrid day that never left her. This is when she felt viscerally that her attacker cannot and ought not to get away with what he did.  

And this is also the part where Dr Ford‘s accusation had bedeviled or split the senate panel in their bid to approve Judge Brett Kavanaugh as the next Supreme Court Justice to replace the outgoing Justice Anthony Kennedy. 

This position for the top judicial post is no small matter because in the event of a split at the highest judicial level on issues concerning abortion or euthanasia for example, someone like Kavanaugh (with his conservative leanings) might just tilt the scale to the delight of the republicans, the evangelicals and the other traditional sections of the country.

Such importance attached to the role as the deciding voter in a split bench seems to be the tipping point for Dr Ford to come forward after more than 30 years of hidden woundedness. 

But then, what if it is true - because Dr Ford’s recent testimony before the judiciary committee was reported to be authentic, believable and highly persuasive? She came off as sincere and devoid of any discernible motive - in fact, there was no reason for her to come forward (at all) at such a heavy social and emotional toll on herself and family. 

So, based on her testimony, what if Kavanaugh had a past he would rather not remember so that the same would not threaten a future he would rather not let go? 

And what if in his mindless youth he did things he regretted but not to the extent as Dr Ford had described it? Don’t we all have skeletons in our high school or teenage’s closets? 

But of course, if blow by blow, what Dr Ford accuses is true or close to the truth, then this is no teenage angst, truancy or prank. It is criminal, period. 

The truth is, we will never know. And when asked why he seems resistant to invite an FBI investigation, Kavanaugh said, “You know that’s a phoney question because the FBI doesn’t reach conclusions.” That only thickens the plot further for the republican side. 

So, in the words of the series ”X-Files”, the truth is out there, and it is still out there, whether Kavanaugh is eventually selected or not to represent truth, justice and freedom at the highest court of the land.  

But let me leave you with one thought from Kavanaugh, which has nothing to do with his judicial appointment but has everything to do with the divided nation and divided leadership that is the United States of America and the world. 

Kavanaugh said he intends “no ill will to Dr Ford and her family.” It reports that “he choked back tears while saying that his 10-year-old daughter, in saying her evening prayers recently, told his wife Ashley that “we should pray for the woman.””

Now, while I can’t say much about Kavanaugh’s purported magnanimity since he is personally embroiled in the whole senate drama which Senator Lindsey calls it an “ethical sham”, but on his daughter’s prayer, her heart is definitely in the right place.

It is a heart that the world ought to pay attention to. Her message ought to give the world reason to pause, stand back and think real hard amidst their busy running around to outbid, outdo and outrace one another. 

At such time, what is lacking is the courage to do the right thing, to stand up to be counted. We need this more than ever in a post-truth world where power, wealth and fame are often conveniently associated with truth, integrity and humility. 

Everywhere we go we see how they are being played out. When two powerful, rich and famous men come together for purported peace and denuclearisation in a summit in Singapore recently, and all of a sudden, one deserves the Nobel Peace Prize and the other whose sordid past consists of murder and oppression is exalted as the emblem of peace.

In a world where priests are supposed to be the shepherds of hearts, they turned into sexual predators of innocent children. In a world where democracy and equality are supposed to assure us of a better future, what we get is concentrated wealth in a handful with scraps for the rest. And in a world where many look to religion for refuge from the world, what we get is a glittering haven that differs little from the world. 

I can imagine the current state of things through the eyes of a little girl like Kavanaugh’s 10-year-old daughter. It must have been a very confusing and conflicted one. It must have been a world where we are no doubt young once, but we can be immature our whole life. 

So pray we must, not just for the world out there, for the people we have hurt, but also for ourselves, for the change in ourselves that we are so eager to see in others. Because anything short of that is nothing more than a kind of insidious hypocrisy that doesn’t escape the eye of our children. Cheerz.