Now let the fear of the LORD be upon you. Judge carefully, for
with the LORD our God there is no
injustice or partiality or bribery. (II Chronicles 19:7)
Do not pervert justice or show
partiality. Do not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and
twists the words of the righteous. (Deuteronomy 16:19)
But Abram said to the king of Sodom,
“I have raised my hand to the LORD,
God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth, and have taken an oath that I will
accept nothing belonging to you, not even a thread or the thong of a sandal, so
that you will never be able to say, ‘I made Abram rich.’ I will accept nothing
but what my men have eaten and the share that belongs to the men who went with
me—to Aner, Eshcol and Mamre. Let them have their share.” (Genesis 14:22-24)
This
afternoon, I watched part of a speech made by Mr. Trump, in which he said that
if Christians vote him into office, he will eliminate the threat of the loss of
tax exemption to a church if the pastor speaks on political matters from the
pulpit. I happen to think that the threat to take away a church's tax exemption
if the pastor speaks on political matters is wrong. It's extortion based on a
faulty understanding of the First Amendment of the Constitution. You'd think
I'd be doing a computer chair dance.
Instead,
I'm doing a computer chair squirm. "Vote for me, I'll set you free, I'll
give you power." I can't help but think of
two passages from the Lord of the Rings, in which Frodo offers the One Ring,
first to Gandalf, and then to Galadriel.
Gandalf' answered "Don't ...tempt
me Frodo! I dare not take it. Not even to keep it safe. Understand, Frodo, I
would use this ring from a desire to do good...But through me, it would wield a
power too great and terrible to imagine."
Galadriel said, "In place of a Dark Lord
you would have a Queen! Not dark but beautiful and terrible as the Morn.
Treacherous as the Seas! Stronger than the foundations of the Earth. All shall
love me and despair." She paused, and said, "I have passed the test. I will diminish and go into
the West, and remain Galadriel."
Of course, freeing pastors to speak without fear of harming their
congregations is not giving them power of the level of the One Ring. It would
not be an establishment of religion and therefore a violation of the First
Amendment (though some will claim it is.) It is simply a bribe, It is no more
or less a bribe than politicians have offered for as long as there have been
politicians.
I don't have an easy answer to suggest here. I'm not giving political
advice because I don't believe there is a good answer beyond, perhaps, this:
that to vote for Mr. Trump in order to obtain this power means that we are not
looking to God, but to man for our temporal salvation. Vote for him if you
choose, but do it for another, more compelling, less corrupt reason than to
garner promised power.
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