a reflection from the archives of The Saturday Morning Post
January 20, 2018
The Ghosts of Politicians Past, Present, and Yet to Come
The US Constitution provides for the dates on which newly elected federal legislators take an oath and begin their work in their respective office of government. The 20th Amendment, adopted on January 23, 1932, set the date of January 3 for members of Congress, and January 20 for the President and Vice-President.
Politics has always been at odds with Christian discipleship. Most likely it’s because the human will is at odds with the divine will, and has been since…well, forever. The history of the kings of Israel and Judah reveal that there’s a baseline sense of spirituality and morality that many struggled to reach and others tried to redefine.
Indeed, the earliest verses in the Bible deal with just that. Adam and Eve’s overwhelming desire for knowledge and the power that is associated with it becomes oppressive and tyrannical. Cain murders his brother Abel in jealousy over his perception of God’s pleasure with their sacrifices. Things become so evil in God’s sight that he floods the known world; sparing Noah, his family, and all the animals he can cram into the ark. Not too many generations later, Sodom and Gomorrah are set ablaze because somehow, wanton abandonment of God somehow seems worse than before the Flood. Even the two greatest of Israel's kings, David and Solomon, succumbed to the pitfalls often associated with privileged power. Jesus was utterly rejected and abandoned by the very people he had come to show the depth and power of divine truth and love.
In the 88 years since the passage of the 20th Amendment, the people of the United States saw their nation reach a sense of maturity. Its borders stretched across a continent and beyond. It took upon itself the burden of recovery from the Great Depression, fought to assist Europe and defend the principles of freedom during World War II. We seemed to be invincible, and began acting like we knew it.
Then we saw the consequences. Vietnam. Afghanistan, first as an ally and then as an adversary. Most, if not all of the Middle East…and in a big way not to protect people’s lives, but the crude oil sitting beneath the land, needed to maintain our automobiles and machinery.
An article I read written eight years ago placed blame for the state of the nation on about 570 people: the 535 members of Congress, the nine Supreme Court justices, the President and Vice President and their inner circle of advisers (the Cabinet). These are our elected representatives and their appointees. They have redefined when life begins and what constitutes the structure of the family. They have gone back and forth on issues ranging from how and what we teach our children to stewardship of our natural resources and the ecology. And we, as a nation, let them.
None of this seems to fit with Saint Paul’s declaration that as Christians we belong to Christ and our lives are not our own, but his. There are several lines of morality that have been crossed and more are challenged every day. Did we not understand lessons from history, biblical as well as recent? And in the struggles that deeply define a nation divided we are becoming less civil and dignified, and increasingly vulgar and obscene.
Ash Wednesday is less than a month away. We should start now to understand our role in making intolerance the practice of the land while preaching a false sense of tolerance. We should prepare ourselves for a repentance steeped in humility, that we might return to God with hearts truly longing for him…some for the first time. Otherwise, we will be haunted by the ghosts of the politics we embrace for generations to come.
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