Orethapedia

Usually this space is reserved for news about cheerful, happy news in CCM and gospel music.

This week, I felt the need to stop and jump off the beaten path. Vicki Yohe may have just thrown gasoline on a fire that is going to simmer for a while.

I couldn’t let this story pass me by.

First, let’s review the image that started the fire.

Now, let’s talk about how this less than a smart Christian move.

Under most circumstances you would chuckle and laugh off a meme like the above. The commentary is what made this a bitter pill to take. The issue at hand, is that President Donald John Trump is the singularly most polarizing figure in the history of politics. The picture implies Donald Trump as godly and President Obama as evil.  That is awful. It is awful because the man who now takes office is not a role model in the ‘Christian’ sense of the word. Donald Trump is the first seated man to have been married three times admitted to affairs, admitted to lust and pursuit of it.  President Obama has been a faithful husband and father.  No one can dispute that. President Trump has continuously lusted and leered. Coincidentally, lust is one of the deadly sins. I am sure you heard the ‘Access Hollywood’ Tapes. I am sure you have heard him talk about all the women in his surroundings.  Mr. Trump helped lower the bar with his conversation. It does not matter whether it was private or not.

Scripture says:

1 Corinthians 8:12 When you sin against other believers in this way and harm their weak consciences, you are sinning against Christ. 

Decency matters.t is through believing the facts in these statements of Scripture, and in the love of God, shown and commanded by our Lord Jesus Christ, and exercised in our love for each other as we are empowered by the Holy Spirit, that Christians have “unity of the Spirit” and can “attain to the unity of the faith.”

I don’t know Mr. Trump personally, but in full admission, I did have the chance to spend an afternoon with him when I was seventeen years old. It was a full afternoon of a one on one conversation. I recall that  he was fairly decent to me, as he listened to a precocious teenager with big dreams assault him with a myriad of questions.

Now, let’s fast forward to the present. As an adult I am insulted by his antics.

Here is why:

• He ridiculed a war hero, who is a party mate. (John McCain)
• He made a mockery of a reporter’s menstrual cycle.
• He made fun of a disabled reporter.
• He referred to the former first lady, Barbara Bush as “mommy,” and belittled Jeb Bush for bringing her on the campaign trail.
• He routinely calls people “stupid,” and “dummy.”
• One writer catalogued sixty-four occasions that he called someone “loser.”

These were not off-line, backstage, overheard, not-to-be-repeated comments. They were publicly and intentionally tweeted, recorded, and presented. We are all saw how he handled a CNN reporter recently.

Such insensitivities wouldn’t be acceptable in a school, office or public space. You would be written up for behaving the way he does. Why should they be acceptable for the Oval Office? Mr. Trump’s success is this: he has tapped into the anger of the American people. As one man said, “We are voting with our middle finger.”

You should have thought  about all of this before posting. When you are a public person, there is a certain amount of discretion you must use.

Yes, I saw the apology tour yesterday.  Yes, I saw the live broadcast from Erica and Warren Campbell. Sure, you can be forgiven for the indiscretion.  I do want you to reflect on the what happened though. When you think of the ‘Godly man’ you helped elect,  remember he wrote this:

“Oftentimes when I was sleeping with one of the top women in the world I would say to myself, thinking about me as a boy from Queens, ‘Can you believe what I am getting?’” (Donald Trump, Think Big: Make it Happen in Business and Life, p. 272)?”

Now, want to tell me how Jesus is moving into the heart of someone like that? After all that was what you were trying to imply.  Sure we are all flawed. When I was younger the good nuns of Notre Dame taught me that if I wanted to be salt and light of the world I had to not dull down my flavor and hide under a shade.

You dimmed the lights and knocked the plate on the floor.