The admonition not to tell falsehoods ( don't lie ) is enshrined in religious law. Of course we all lie every once in a while. There are fibs, whoppers and statistics. Those statistics are probably what were used to ignore the possibility the Mr. Trump could become President - speaking of liars.
Many years ago my step mother game me the secrets to her fruit cocktail recipe. There were two facets of the recipe that made it work and set it far above any other that I have ever had. I made it at one time for a mothers day brunch, a tradition I once held for the mothers of our family, now all long gone. My own mother asked me where I got the recipe for the fruit cocktail? Diplomacy or blatant lie, I told her that I had gotten the recipe from a co-worker. It seemed safer that way. My mother and my step mother never got along. So I lied. It seemed safer that way but it was indeed a lie. As lies go that might considered a white lie, certainly not a whopper and there was no malicious intent at all.
If lies are a symptom of turning from God, that was certainly a misstep on my part for which I think I have tried to dance towards God in repentance. But lies are a symptom. What are we to make then of 10,000 lies? That is the stack of whoppers amassed by our President just while in office, just the publicized and spoken in public fabrications.
I think I am glad that I am a man. It's not simply because I am gay either. In that respect I am practically gleeful. No, women have the hardest lot. If baring children were not so torturous that might be that but women are minimized, used and abused. So of course are men to some degree but not to the wholesale degree women are and not in the mass historical context that have made them a minority and never quite in control as they should be. Perhaps the most recent case in point is the control of woman genitals. Whether it is the demeaning words about being a lesbian, rules and laws restricting control over there own bodies or essentially being bartered off for marriage, women are subjected horribly to male domination.
Let's look at abortion. Bold I know. I am not an advocate of abortion. I think it is wrong. At the same time, I am not the one who can become pregnant. I will not have to bare a child in pain. In spite of the major role I played raising my own children, most women are looked at as the major, if not sole caretaker and responsible for raising children - in addition to their other full time job , whatever that may be. The truth is I really am not in a position to suggest what one person should do if they are raped, or have become pregnant. I think that there are people who think that abortion is an easy fix. It is no such thing and it is a decision that often haunts a person forever. No, I don't think there are cadres of women out there who on a Saturday night decide, 'let's all go downtown and get an abortion'. This is a huge decision. So many who are not involved have plenty to say and judgments are made without any concern for the person, the actual singular person involved. Tough decision. I am glad I am a man even while I may be embarrassed to be a man at times.
If there is a funny part of the 'pro-life' movement it is that it is a fallacy, a hypocritical lie. Most of these religious zealots are fixated merely on the birth of a baby. There is far less if not any concern at all for pre-natal care, post-natal care, money for school food programs, education, mental health, universal health or support of the aging. No, pro-life is a misnomer. These zealots are not in fact pro life, they are simply and solely, pro-birth.
I use the term zealot and I speak of lies that are symptomatic of bad faith because they were joined in one fantabulous whopper by that monumental liar of a President just the other day. In his quest to appeal to some far right religious hypocrite fringe, Mr. Trump uttered the revolting whopper about killing a baby while speaking at a rally in Wisconsin. It was a patent lie that once again showed what an truly unfaithful and horrible human being he is.
Lies are a symptom and no amount of proclamations or justifications will make him right or holy. He is a bold, sinful man. That the religious right want to claim him as a Herold of God is laughable and deeply saddening. It is a stain on the word Christianity.
The real Christians are not the ones thumping Bibles on peoples heads, quoting Scripture passages like weapons, demeaning and abusing humans. Real Christians know that words are meaningless and false words are symptomatic of deep dark souls. Real Christians act on love, emulate the life of Christ and convert lives by their actions, raising the voice of God like a beautiful choir.
For truth and love, compassion and mercy we pray.
1 John 2:1-11
My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.
Now by this we may be sure that we know him, if we obey his commandments. Whoever says, ‘I have come to know him’, but does not obey his commandments, is a liar, and in such a person the truth does not exist; but whoever obeys his word, truly in this person the love of God has reached perfection. By this we may be sure that we are in him:whoever says, ‘I abide in him’, ought to walk just as he walked.
Beloved, I am writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment that you have had from the beginning; the old commandment is the word that you have heard. Yet I am writing you a new commandment that is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. Whoever says, ‘I am in the light’, while hating a brother or sister, is still in the darkness.Whoever loves a brother or sister lives in the light, and in such a personthere is no cause for stumbling. But whoever hates another believer is in the darkness, walks in the darkness, and does not know the way to go, because the darkness has brought on blindness.
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