Biden the Kind

Tonight was the town hall meeting which were supposed to be the second presidential debate in a series of three supervised by the Commission on Presidential Debates. Due to a rule change which made the debates by web, Trump declined to participate. As may suspected, if he was not allowed to interrupt, overrun his time, insult, and pressure his opponent, he was not interested.

So the Presidential Debates were actually two dueling town hall meetings at the same time at different locations on different channels. We tuned in to the Biden Town Hall because we have been exposed to too much of the Trump experience. Somehow we figured the time wrong and only got in on the last 1 hour of the two hour debate. In that one hour, I was deeply encouraged about him, our nation, and our future.

Joe Biden is a neighbor, a friend, a kind and caring person who has spent his years in public service because for him it was the right thing to do. He has “the common touch.” It is not pretense, but genuine. He is a man touched by the human experience of loss and deep grief, and yet with his faith, found the courage to go on and be a single father to his two sons after his wife and daughter died in a tragic car accident. Biden did not enter the 2016 election race because it was too close to the loss of his son Beau with cancer.

Biden is simply a man who has served and learned. He has made mistakes as a congressman and repented of those owning the error and apologizing for those mistakes. I like that because I too have made great mistakes in my life and they grieve me. He has been man enough to own those, repent of those, and move on.

Biden is a kind man. I saw it again tonight. He responded to each with thoughtfulness, and ownership of his position. He was not attacking or condescending. He did not belittle the questioner or the question.

Biden is a recovered stutterer. One of the tactics of Trump in the first debate was to pressure Biden in such a way he would stutter. However, tonight, in this forum, Biden was in his element.

I must say, I am drawn to the humble man, the honest man, the man who speaks my language, and does not belittle my question or my concern. I have never seen Biden be combative, but I have seen him addressing all, respecting all, and responding to all.

While I freely recognize he may not be the strongest of candidates; after the debacle of Trump and his arrogance, anyone would be better.

I believe that Joe Biden will surround himself with the smartest people in this country especially those who have given their lives to protecting this nation. He will listen, decide and then act.

That would be a revolutionary change from our last four years of arrogant ignorance.

 

Missing The Point

Today in worship, I helped by running the “jib camera” in both services.

Such service makes it a little difficult to enter the praise part of worship because I am focused on operating a camera so that others can enjoy the streaming of the service. During these times of service, I am reminded the mind can focus on only one subject. People who believe they are able to “multi-task” are generally referring to the ability to do something from rote, while thinking of something else. My wife Anna is a great example of that skill. She can sit on the couch, fold clothes and watch TV with me. Actually, we can only successfully focus on one thing.

However, after the praise part of worship is over, I get to sit down and listen to the message and I am blessed to get to hear it twice. Our lead pastor(read Senior Pastor) Keith Ferguson is preaching through the book of Revelation. It has been a powerful series. Today, we looked at the letters to Sardis and Philadelphia. What the Spirit hammered into me was the message that believers can become cold and indifferent to the movement of the Spirit in our midst.

I was convicted.

I have struggled with a lifetime of trying to establish a consistent reading of Scripture and ongoing prayer time. The deficiency has been in that all important area of “discipline.” Every believer struggles with that important discipline of spending time alone with the Word of God and with God. I learned a valuable lesson from my pastor who had a study apart from his office where he retreated to pray, study, read and prepare his messages. I was able to do that in three of the four churches I served. Moving into another realm of ministry made the discipline more difficult. Today, I was convicted of the lack of progress in my own life and the impact that has had on my overall spiritual well being.

I also got a deep, profound insight into the plight of the white evangelical religious right in America.

Let me try to put into words what I took away from the pastor's message today. Two words actually: coldness and indifference toward what God's heart rests upon.

Pharisees have always intrigued me because in the “study” of the law, they were flawless, without fault. In fact, it was not unusual for a Pharisee to have memorized significant portions of the law of God, the prophets, the history, and the wisdom literature. Some could even tell you how many times an alphabetic character appeared in something like the book of Isaiah. Yet, for all that wisdom, knowledge, and obedience, they missed the point of all they learned, memorized, and studied.

That is the plight of the American evangelical church.

We have missed the point. The crowds gather, the preachers preach, and still our hearts are not in sync with the heart of God. I felt the weight of that today.

That insight weighed heavy on my heart as this message burned in me. We are not really on board with Christ in the way He looked at people for whom He died. Our compassion has been constricted to our success and safety within our borders and some notion that compassion and justice somehow diminishes us.

Then I began to think(always dangerous territory for me). Would the Christ who gave his life as a ransom for the many really be pleased with allowing children and parents fleeing from danger to be separated from their parents and while putting both in cages? I can't help but think of my grand girls and their parents. How would I feel about a flight to safety that ends in a cruel imprisonment in cages separated from their parents? Where was the outrage from believers in America? Would the God who loved the world enough to send His only son into the world to save sinners, approve of our closing our borders to those fleeing oppression and violence? Where was the outrage from believers who understand the need for safety and the safety of our children? Would the Gospel of Christ leveling all men and women at the foot of the cross be pleased with an informal but powerful caste system in America where some are more valuable than others? Does Jesus really approve of marking Black men and women as targets of concern and over and over again stopping them for no apparent reason than they are black? I have been stopped by law enforcement only five times in my adult life. Each time was about speeding. Three times resulted in warnings, two in tickets. Nothing more. There was no disrespect, no searches of the automobile, no intrusions or disrespect.

Would Jesus approve of our cavalier approach to our treatment of those suffering serious mental illnesses finding themselves in prison primarily because they are mentally ill? Would the God who called on His people to “love justice and do mercy,” (Micah 6:8) really be pleased with the disparity in the prison population between Black offenders and white offenders, and sadly in our criminal justice system where influence and money is everything and poverty and mental illness is punished?

Would Jesus be pleased that an unusual number of black persons shot and killed by law enforcement whose only crimes at the end seemed to be “being Black.”

Sadly for many of the evangelical religious right, it is all about protecting our privilege, our possessions, our status than it is about justice for all!

As I grow older, I am more and more convinced the one debt our Founding Fathers owe is that the promise of freedom for all, equal treatment under the law, and the inalienable rights for all.

It still remains an unfulfilled dream.

However, the debt has come due. It is time, believers push this issue until all are treated as each, where color is no limitation, when origin is no barrier, and where all can believe and receive equal treatment by law enforcement and the justice system.

Wash your hands, wear your mask for others, mind the gap and be kind.

 

Bait and Switch

Bait and Switch is the name of the game.

As the world comes crashing down around Trump and his administration, those folks who voted for Trump in 2016 and consider themselves evangelical believers are pivoting to say they are electing the platform, not the person.

Ok, I will bite.

The MAGA movement, the Trump rallies, the cult of believing only him about his take on the world, the press, and his great achievements—were just about a platform. The crowds were about a platform. The rabid cult-like obedience was never about him, DJT, because well, that would be wrong or at the worst idolatry. Funny, now, it is wrong but not back in 2015 up to the disastrous present which has largely been created by an immoral, incompetent, corrupt president.

This election season it is about “the platform.” Most of all that platform supposedly is “pro life.”

And you can say that with a straight face while 215,00 people have died unnecessarily in America from covid. You say that when millions of wage earners have lost their jobs and cannot collect unemployment. You say that while you are attempting to remove pre-existing conditions from health care coverage while limiting health care insurance for millions who are uninsured.

Yea, that is truly believable. However, this election season, Trump and his Republicans don't have a new platform but rather are basically rubber stamping the disastrous “America First” positions from Trump's 2016 race. Disastrous because it has facilitated a world in turmoil, the United States withdrawing from its key leadership position among like minded democratic nations, unhealthy fixations with dictators and their regimes, as well as careless disregard for our men and women in service around the world. The Trump administration has been silent on the Putin bounty on dead American soldiers. However, Trump has spoken of those who died in the service of this nation as “suckers and losers.”

So that is the platform coming into this November election.

In the world of politics, of philosophies, of world views, of economics, of histories, even psychology, and medicine, there is room for people to have their personal and preferred opinions. It is a little different in the world of the Christian faith.

The options narrow.

Either the Scriptures are authoritative and accurate or they are not. If they are authoritative things narrow even more. There can be diverse understanding of key theological truths, key doctrines, and key teachings, but rarely is there a disagreement about ethics for ourselves, others in the fellowship and how we related to a lost and dying world. In fact, my experience is there is more agreement on the moral imperatives of our faith than any other facet of the Christian religion.

However, it is precisely these moral imperatives of our faith expressed in teaching after teaching of Jesus that seems to be the most ignored. What does Jesus teach about children—very young children? Is Christ in agreement with separating these children from their parents in a strange land and putting them in cages? What does Jesus teach about the foreigner who comes to our land? What does Jesus teach about the value of a human life? And on and on we could go. Nearly every action this administration has spoken about or acted on toward Blacks, Hispanics, women, immigrants offends the heart of God.

The very “America First” is an affront to the Gospel which points out the Kingdom Rule “the first will be last and the last will be first.” (Matthew 20:16) There are some of us who believe the progress, the favor, the affluence of America has been the result of our national will to be last fueled by a vital Christian Church who implemented that teaching of Jesus. That is why we have had a heart for the world, the hurting world, no matter what the politics of that nation. So, when tsunamis devastated nations, you could always count on the US to be one of the first onsite with aid. Hurricanes, the same, floods the same, earthquakes the same. While we were as a nation affluent enough to respond to our own domestic crises, we were generous with others, really expecting little in return. But in return, we had a world wide good will toward the American people. Even in these days of “holy war,” “international terrorism,” the rise of radical Islamic groups, America has been generally been well thought of—until now.

With that good will, has been a credible platform for the Gospel to leverage a hearing around the world.

An unspoken or referenced willingness to host American missionaries is the reputation of the US as being a compassionate and giving nation.

However, after the debacle of four years of Trump, the world looks with pity on a once great and gracious nation because of our Republican platform? Not exactly.

Rather it is because of a significant number of voters who felt disenfranchised from their federal government and with that frustration elected a deeply flawed, mentally unstable man who has single handily wrecked two hundred and forty four years in the making. Sowing fear, selfishness, and division, he may well bring an end to the American experience. With that decline will also go the evangelical church. Not because the platform was flawed which it was, but because the person who made the platform was deeply flawed. And the people who embraced such a candidate and platform were selfish.

Wash your hands, wear your mask for others, mind the gap, and be kind.

 

Trump on Steroids

How many warnings does one nation need?

That is a vital, relevant, and pressing question for our nation right now. How many warnings does one nation need?

Folks who live on the Gulf coast routinely listen to weather casters from June through October monitoring storms in the Gulf or along the Atlantic. I remember my first hurricane in 2008 after we had relocated to Livingston, Texas to allow Anna to help with the care of her mother. I believe I will always remember the name of that storm. It has been branded if you will into my memory. Hurricane Ike left us without power for five days, sultry humidity, downed trees, and power lines. In our 11 years in that community we had only one other hurricane, Harvey. It did substantial damage to the area.

People learned to listen to the experts and then make decisions on the best advice they could get.

Sadly, tragically that has not been true for the last five years in the national life of the United States. A year before the presidential election, in 2015 a book hit the market called “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump.” It was a compilation from 37 mental health experts on the psychological and psychiatric issues of then candidate Donald J Trump. He went on to be elected to the White House. As one person communicated to me, “He is just what this country needs.” I would not say I am an “expert” in mental health assessing especially from a distance, but as one of my sons says, “I can recognize when someone is a little whacky in the wicky woo.” 37 Mental Health clinicians drew the same conclusion. Not enough people heeded their warning.

Michael Wolff gave us an inside look at the Trump White House in “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House.” Many more books would come out, editorials penned by people close to the situation, an unprecedented book by Anonymous entitled “A Warning.” Bob Woodward gave us “Fear,” and “Rage” where Trump tells us he knew all along how dangerous Covid was but chose to keep that information from the people of the United States.

Most recently two other warning have been fired across the bow of our ship of state, by scientists and doctors. Scientific American for the first time in many years endorsed Joe Biden because of the utter failure of DJT and his rejection of science and what that has brought down on the heads of the American people, our economy, our culture, our businesses, and our families.

Then, in a spectacular move, the New England Journal of Medicine, published an editorial signed by all members of the editorial board to vote out the leadership of the nation. Not endorsing any person or party, it simply said our leadership had failed us and they needed to be removed from public office and leadership. Go here(https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/10/08/science-journal-endorsement-trump/)

So I ask you, “How many warnings does one nation need?”

Seven warnings but really more have given us the truth about this president, his mental instability, and his incompetence not just with Covid but really with everything. His narrative about being a successful businessman has been proven to be false by his tax returns. His narrative of being a great deal maker has been proven false by the “deals” he touts as being great steps. His breaking of treaties has made this world an unsafer place, and he has alienated our allies while drawing us closer to our historic enemies.

So, “how many warning does one nation need?” 

The President has emerged from his hospital stay less chastened but more irrational. He is literally “Trump on steroids,” which is never a good thing. “Trump as Trump,” was bad enough, but his irrationality, and behavior is even more bizarre, as he tries to pick up the pieces of his flagging and tattered re-election campaign.

So again I ask, “How many warning does a nation need?” 

Thoughts on Law Enforcement

Thoughts on Law enforcement in 2020

Law enforcement: both local police and sheriff deputies has come to be the focus of protests and sadly some rioting by lawless thugs whose use peaceful protests to mask their robbing, damaging, burning, and attempts to hurt individual police officers.

Additionally, Black men and women tell similar, sad, but consistent stories about being pulled over by law enforcement and detailed having to find out why they were pulled over and why they are being subjected to a traffic stop when they have done nothing wrong. For some men, they have lost count of how many times they have been stopped and questioned without reason.

Law enforcement in America is different than law enforcement in other places around the world. Some years ago, I was in and out of a South American country over a period of ten years where “Federales” had more presence than local police. Other nations have police which are the rule keepers of the King, or the Dictator. They are an extension of his power.

America has largely chosen a different path. In fact, in the United States, all law enforcement whether police, Sheriff's Officers, Constables, State Police, the FBI, and the National Guard have what is called “conferred” authority. That word “conferred” is essential to understanding the authority of law enforcement in this nation.

That is a significant statement because these groups of law enforcement do not have an inherent or intrinsic authority. The person who picks up a lost badge of a law enforcement officer does not possess any authority associated with that badge.

This is foundational truth as we consider law enforcement today. When authority is conferred, the question is “Who conferred that authority to those who represent the law in communities, counties, state and nation?”

The answer is simply, “We the people.” The further one moves away from a local community the larger the “We” becomes. We have police departments in communities throughout the nation because communities have come together to confer authority to a certain agency to protect, serve, and defend the whole community without bias and without bullying. The White community, the Black community, the Hispanic, Asian, Middle Eastern and other residents of the community depend on a diligent, courteous, and well trained law enforcement agency to enforce the community standards by which the community is providing ongoing input about needs and changes. It is that covenant between citizens that makes a community work. Such covenant says: “We want safe traffic laws and compliance; We want safety in our homes and businesses; We want gatherings to be safe and meeting community standards for such activities. That last one may be one of the most pressing at this time. We want law enforcement which reflects the values of our cultures within the community. We want from our law enforcement, respect to all, cooperation with all, justice for all. I am a very small voice in an area that has 400,000+ residents but I expect all to be treated respectfully and evenly. That is what sets the standard for “conferred authority” from me. The larger the area, the more people who participate in the conferring of authority. In the past, law enforcement in the South has been hampered by a select “we” which resulted in an unfair, skewed caste system with favoritism for some and no justice or rights for others.

When we speak of the “rule of law” we are speaking about a covenant between citizens and law enforcement that stresses a competence in what the law is, how it is applied to all, and how interaction with law enforcement will look like. The best law enforcement agencies have that standard. These agencies are “color blind, blind to ethnicity, or any other handle by which we classify or discriminate against others.

The second reality, which is huge, of modern day law enforcement is the profoundly sad refusal of our nation to control the weapons of war flooding our streets. First organized in Philadelphia in 1964, specially recruited 100 member team called Special Weapons and Tactics was formed because of a significant increase in bank robberies and in the process finding themselves seriously outgunned. From that first SWAT has grown a movement to a team in many cities and counties. With the exacerbating number of school shooting most memorialized in the Columbine shooting in 1999, we began to see a different method of dealing with shooters. Columbine was not the first school shooting in America, go here: (https://www.k12academics.com/school-shootings/history-school-shootings-united-states) but law enforcement procedures for protecting students and law enforcement escalated from wounding to “neutralizing” which basically meant killing with overwhelming certainty. With the additional fire power available to the local law enforcement officer, numerous shots could be placed into the suspect to guarantee the suspect was no longer a threat. I am not sure this has ever been fully discussed in the media or by law enforcement agencies but that really is why a suspect is shot “seven times.” The old days of wounding, disarming, and arresting suspects is long gone. It is literally too dangerous. Even with the shift in policy, there are still a lot of law enforcement deaths in the line of duty. Go here: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_law_enforcement_officers_killed_in_the_line_of_duty_in_the_United_States) Such numbers may not seem like a lot unless you are a family member of a law enforcement officer.

The other factor which is huge to me, is the lack of understanding of mental health crises when law enforcement responds to a call without knowledge from the family the person has a severe mental illness, not taking their medication, and not having that information comes into a situation which is far more complicated than a “hostage taking” or a shooter cornered following a robbery or break in. The most horrific example was a West Texas community where an officer responded to a call about a man with a gun in the front yard. The officer responded, was not told the man suffered from a severe mental illness and was hallucinating. The officer arrives, tells the man to drop the gun, get down on his knees with which he did not comply. The officer got closer, the man was refusing to take his directions, still held the gun, and so the officer used his TASER unaware the suspect had doused himself in gasoline. As soon as the TASER hit him he exploded in flames.(https://www.statesman.com/news/20170908/uncommon-but-horrific-when-tasers-set-their-targets-on-fire) In Texas right now, the people who routinely interact with the severely mentally ill are law enforcement and jailers. Sadly, law enforcement are woefully under-trained for such confrontations and families of the mentally ill reluctant to disclose such information. I remember a panicked mother calling me when she found out her son was to be released on parole from our prison. She and her husband were elderly and she was afraid he would have a mental health crisis when he came home. The offender refused to sign a consent for me to talk with his elderly mother, so I was left with not talking specifically about her son, but generally about people who suffer from such diagnoses. I walked her through how a parent of someone with this disorder would talk to law enforcement and what a parent would need to communicate to the law enforcement people or 911. Sadly, Texas is negligent in its services to the severely mentally ill, preferring instead to send them to prison for their care at the most recent cost of $30,000 per offender.

The bottom line is communities will continue to struggle with how law enforcement should respond to the complexities of our culture: violence, bodily harm, robberies, school shooters, gangs, and shootings of all kinds.

For me, it comes down to an openness from law enforcement to hear the people's concerns who conferred authority to them, and hear from law enforcement the challenges of defending, protecting, and serving a diverse community. The truth is, we can do this if we work together and realize we are all on the same team. We all want safer communities, fewer violent deaths, and communities thriving on opportunity instead of divisiveness.

We do have a ways to go, but working together, community by community trust can be built, conferred authority can be respected and we can all be the better for it.

Wash your hands, wear your mask for others, mind the gap, and be kind. We have a distance to go before our culture returns to normal.