45* (or, The Unrepentant Nation)


45* (or, The Unrepentant Nation)

And so it is that the grace and dignity of the Office of the President has been handed over to a fraud, with the roaring approval of evangelicals and other Christian dominionist types who have no idea what the word “repent” actually means.

The moral failure of the election is vast and deep. Not because of actual candidate, mind you, but the total collapse of any moral claims that evangelicals can make about anything. Their lust for power is too great to be concerned about the social gospel...ah, there’s that filthy word! “Social.” As in “social justice,” a phrase that is spat out like a curse word among the evangelicals and other religious god-botherers whose desire to be near centers of power overrides the very spiritual claims they consider to be their own.

You see, the ability to repent of one’s actions presupposes a moral center, a certain self-awareness. You need to look into yourself and take stock of your actions in order to correct what is wrong about your actions or your attitude. Some people need others to point this out; some people can be reflective about what they do and arrive at that need to change on their own.

But not evangelicals. No, evangelicals are of the opinion that they absolutely know the mind of their god and that they are capable only of good. And everything they do is good; everything else is evil. Everyone *else* is evil. They find the actions of the devil everywhere but never in their own homes, or in their own minds. They are convinced beyond any doubt that they alone are good. What is the old saying? Oh, yes: pride goeth before a fall.

For a nation that loves to incessantly blather about divine judgement, it is a curious thing that no one knows how to be repentant. Instead, the nation’s religious leaders—that endless supply of pious frauds—have focused their energies on three things to get them closer to power: homosexuals, abortion, and the Pill. That’s it. That is the extent of their phony jeremiads about their god intending to punish the nation for its sins when it comes to their infernal trinity. You never heard such wailing during slavery. You never heard the hue and cry against the persistent discrimination against black people during and after Reconstruction. You never heard a generational curse on those who helped to exterminate First Nations. But you do hear the strongest condemnations against gay marriage and abortion and contraception. The old harangues about eternal hellfire have lost a general luster for evangelicals (but old habits are hard to break), yet the culture wars offer renewed hope. And their hope is to control society through political machinations. For a Democrat who supports a woman’s right to choose or have her employer provide contraception options for her, no preacher/priest/rabbi/mullah can run fast enough to a microphone and condemn that Democrat to utter perdition (and deny that person any sacraments as well.) But get a right winger who cheats on his wife, doesn’t pay his taxes and is an overall hypocrite, well, this person cannot be courted enough by the religious as a moral champion.

And this brings us to the new president, whose breathtaking disqualifications has both the Founding Fathers *and* even Jefferson Davis rolling in their graves. The Office of the President has now been irrevocably stained with a fraud whose primary goal is to profit from the presidency and nothing else. For this alone, he deserves an asterisk next to his number, 45. Still, he is not the subject of this theme. It’s the utter failure of evangelicals to condemn such a racist birther en masse. Instead, evangelicals, buttressed by their own racist attitudes against Barack Obama, have embraced him. Decided to help him and to vilify those who resist such a caricature of a statesman. But most importantly, they have deliberately abetted the racism and the lying because they are attracted to the idea of having power to hurt other people. Unlike the people of Nineveh, to whom God sends the prophet Jonah, is it not that they don’t know their right hand from the left, but they do not care about that at all. And were Jonah to go to them and demand they repent, the evangelicals would no doubt want to throw him overboard so that he would drown. These are people who are convinced, as I have pointed out, in their inherent goodness and because they are so sure of this, it’s impossible for them to consider the error of their own ways.

The greatest trick the devil ever pulled isn’t getting one to believe he doesn’t exist. It’s getting evangelicals to think their shit doesn’t stink.

This putrefying stink comes from their unrepentant world view, one where they alone are good. They do not care one iota about the social fabric at all, nor are they concerned about any semblance of justice. Their god and their motivations are equal: pettiness, nastiness and an exceedingly high tolerance for injustice. And it is for these reasons that they will flock to a racist birther fraud and promoter of sexual assault as if nothing is wrong. These are the same men who never stood up against the constant bearing of false witness against Barack Obama. A normal person who is convinced he “lives in the Spirit” might be weighed down at some point by this blatant contradiction and repent of his actions. Ah, but remember: these people are incapable of repentance.

Whatever the people of Nineveh did to provoke God to send Jonah to them in order to warn them is not specified. But the moment that the prophet eventually does get there and abjures them, the reaction is immediate: from the king on down, everyone repents. Everyone is sorry and wishes to avoid a calamity. Can you imagine evangelicals doing such a thing? Not only would they deny needing to be repentant (because “they’re good with the Lord”), but turn and curse their accuser.

You have failed, evangelicals. You have completely failed to uphold any tenet of the religious beliefs you have, but then again, they’re only focused on three topics. You no longer have any claim to moral authority or superiority. You have aided and abetted a racist fraud into the White House. You have stoked the hatred of your fellow man so that you could pull the curtain on peoples’ civic rights as some fair-smelling offering to your god. But you have neither righteousness nor basic goodness. You cannot repent because you lack the simple ability to look inward or walk humbly with your god. You are, in the end, condemned by your own unjust actions and no amount of self-deceptive denial will overcome it. You have failed.

Maybe the judgement you often wish to wreak upon your fellow man will be visited, instead, upon you, in the form of a modern Nebuchadnezzar, whose madness will become readily apparent. But one is certain you will never blame yourselves.