Trump, Lavrov, Comey, and Flynn

May 22, 2017 at 5:15 am Leave a comment

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What a week it’s been at the White House. Last week brought what felt like a one-two punch of political crises. First, The Washington Post reported this past Monday that President Trump, in an Oval Office meeting, shared highly classified information concerning terrorist activity with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. Because the information the president shared was first shared with us by one of our allies, the potential exists, according to some experts, to compromise our intelligence sharing relationships with these allies. Then, the very next day, The New York Times published a story claiming that President Trump had asked the now former FBI director, James Comey, to end his investigation into the president’s fired national security advisor, Michael Flynn. As soon as the story broke, many began to raise questions about whether or not the president potentially obstructed justice. The president has since denied The New York Times’ report.

As politicians and pundits debate the consequences, the legality, and the constitutionality of the president’s alleged actions and their implications for our country, and as our political discourse continues down a path that seems to be increasingly marked by fear, distrust, and anger, here are a few reminders for us, as Christians, to help us navigate these heady times.

Pray for the president and for all our leaders.

Whether you love him, hate him, or are on the fence about him, President Trump needs our prayers. Scripture commands us to pray for him along with all those who serve in our nation’s government: “I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people – for kings and all those in authority” (1 Timothy 2:1-2). This means Republicans should be praying for Democrats and Democrats should be praying for Republicans. Political leadership is not only geopolitically treacherous because of the power it wields, it is spiritually perilous because of the prideful temptations it brings. Politicians need our prayers.

Love the truth more than you love your positions.

In February, Elizabeth Kolbert wrote a piece for The New Yorker titled, “Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds.” In it, she cites a Stanford study in which researchers rounded up two groups of students: one group that believed capital punishment deterred crime and another group that believed capital punishment did not deter crime. Both groups of students were then given two studies, one of which presented data that showed capital punishment did deter crime and the other of which presented data that showed capital punishment had no effect on crime. Interestingly, both of these studies were completely fabricated so the researchers could present, objectively speaking, equally compelling cases. So what happened? The students who were pro-capital punishment applauded the study that bolstered their position while dismissing the study that called it into question. Likewise, the students who were anti-capital punishment applauded the study that agreed with their position while dismissing the other study. These two groups were so entrenched in their positions that they dismissed, out of hand, any information that called their positions into question, even if that information was presented as factual. In other words, they loved their positions more than they loved the truth.

Politics seems to be custom-made for the kind of thinking that is more interested in holding positions than in seeking truth. I have seen several social media posts where people boast openly that they no longer watch this or that news channel. Instead, they receive their news only from outlets that are sympathetic to their positions. As Christians, we should humbly recognize that there is truth in all sorts of sources – even in sources that disagree with and call into question our political positions.

The nature of truth is that some of it will always make us uncomfortable. Sin, at its root, is based on lies, which means that some lies will inevitably appeal to us more than some truth, for all of us are sinners. Indeed, if some truth never makes us uncomfortable, then we are probably missing the truth!

Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska offered a great bit of moral clarity on the subject of truth in political discourse when he said recently on a morning news show:

Both of these parties, going back a couple of decades now, regularly act like your main duty is to – if here’s the truth, and you think the other side’s going to say this – you think you’re supposed to say this to try to counterbalance it. I think that’s a bunch of hooey … You’re supposed to say what you think is true and try to persuade people to come alongside with you. You’re not trying to counterbalance one falsehood with another.

This is exactly right. You don’t fight one political tall tale with a tall tale of your own. Truth trumps political posturing. In the words of the prophet Jeremiah, we are to “deal honestly and seek the truth” (Jeremiah 5:1). We are not to blindly and sycophantically defend the positions of our favorite politicians.

Trust in the Lord; not in an earthly leader.

In politics, crises will always abound. Politicians, after all, are fallen human beings who are prone to making the same mistakes we are and can, at times, even intentionally and malevolently sin. This is why we cannot trust in them for deliverance from our plights and blights. Only the Lord can deliver us from these things.

Perhaps the thing that disturbs me the most about our current political environment is not what our politicians do, but what so many of us believe our politicians can do. So many of us seem tempted to fashion our politicians not as public servants, but as civil saviors. Sometimes, we can be tempted to believe our politicians can usher in a humanly wrought utopia (think of some of the hopes that rested on the chant, “Yes, we can!”) while at other times, we can be tempted to believe our politicians can repristinate a bygone America full of wistful nostalgia (think of some of the discourse that surrounded the slogan, “Make America great again!”). As Christians, our hope lies not in utopia or in nostalgia, but in Parousia – the day when Christ will return and sin and death will be conquered by Him once and for all. That is our hope. He is our hope. So let’s devote ourselves to proclaiming Christ, Him crucified, Him resurrected, and Him coming again.