introduction

Judicial inequality and injustice. Economic inequality and injustice. Rampant greed and fraud on the part of wealthy individuals and essential institutions. Bribery and corruption of government officials. Inordinate influence of the wealthy on laws and public policy. Unjust laws and policies favoring the powerful and influential while disadvantaging the less powerful and influential. The infliction of the vulnerable with hunger, homelessness, sickness, and anxiety. Out of control materialism. Self-righteous justification of the mad state of rebellion. Stubborn refusal to acknowledge these and a host of other societal ills.
 
No, I am not talking about America of 2024. However, if the shoe fits…
 
I am talking about the ancient nations of Israel and Judah. These, and many other evils came to undermine the temporal, moral, and spiritual health of the nations. All the signs were there. The nations were on the verge of collapse. They were in desperate need of truth, however sour it might be to the national palate. But the nations’ shepherds fed the populace an empty diet of propagandistic myths of state. Many of Israel’s and Judah’s prophets joined the fray. Judah’s watchmen, Jeremiah charged,
 
“Heal my people’s brokenness inadequately, asserting:
   ‘It’s OK! It’s OK!’”
 
“But nothing,” Jeremiah replies, “is OK!”
 
Does this, too, sound familiar? Strike close to home? It should. Too often, today’s religious leaders—whether they go by the name, “prophet,” “priest,” or “pastor”— seem to lack both discernment and courage. They seem utterly blind to and mute about sin and evil, unless, of course, it involves some form of real or imagined sexual deviance. If they do speak out on matters of real social ills, it is often with muted, vague, delicate, and generalized voices and statements. These shepherds seem not up to the challenging task of bold and clear truth telling of the sort that our society so desperately needs. Now is not the time for delicacy and caution.
 
This homily is the eighth in an ongoing series entitled, “Healing Our Brokenness Inadequately,” based on Jeremiah 6.14. In this series, we explore specific examples of destructive individual and societal sins about which political and religious leaders all too often remain willfully blind or, if sighted, stubbornly mute… and therefore complicit. Tragically, sometimes their complicity is even active and enthusiastic.
 
With specific societal evils in mind, we call upon the Hebrew prophets to speak as if from the dust. We read these discerning writings in light of the societal ills and injustices that abound in our modern world. Sometimes we even imagine and take a stab at replicating what a Hebrew prophet might have to say if he were to come to us from the past.
 
In today’s homily, we offer another example of our national brokenness about which too many remain silent and worse, in which too many engage themselves. Such moments as ours desperately cry out for the type of discernment, boldness, and truth-telling so characteristic of the Hebrew prophets.
 

  how many strikes is that?

The Washington Post recently reported that “Allen Weisselberg, the former longtime top financial officer of Donald Trump’s company, pleaded guilty Monday to perjury, admitting that he lied under oath to the New York attorney general’s office while it was investigating the former president.” The piece reminded us that this is not the first time Weisselberg has been found lying to authorities. Indeed, he has in the past  pled “guilty to multiple felonies in a different case.” As a result, he served “months behind bars” and faced “stiff sanctions, including a $1 million penalty, following a separate civil fraud trial.”[1]
 
So, here we have a man who has been found guilty of multiple—that’s multiple as in a whole bunch—felonies—that’s felonies as in way worse than misdemeanors. In fact, in this latest case, Weisselberg was charged with five—that’s five in just sort of half-a-dozen—counts of perjury in the first degree—that’s perjury of the worse kind, committed with “intent and premeditation.” “He is,” according to the Post, “expected to receive a five-month sentence—that’s (presumably) several months short of the rest of his life.
 
Sounds like justice was served. No?
 
Well… maybe. I mention a sentence that is “several months short of the rest of his life” because his sentence is so short compared to many poorer and less well represented repeat offenders. Indeed, one recalls the now discredited “three-strikes-and-your-out” laws that many of the so-called “law and order” folks on the right want to resurrect. Perhaps you remember, as I do, the petty thief who ended up with life in prison because of a “third strike” in which the thief was guilty of the heinous crime of stealing a few videos from a video rental store. Or maybe, as a more contemporary example, you will consider the many repeat drug addicts who are currently serving long—sometimes life—prison sentences because they were caught in possession of a few measly ounces of some illegal drug one time too many.
 
But how many strikes has Weisselberg against him? So, let’s hear it, America. Let’s hear it, you true blue law-and-order cranks! Let’s hear you get fired up and demand that the repeat offender, the repetitious violator of just law, the habitual criminal, Alan Weisselberg, who has, in fact, struck out with three strikes against him more than once—Let’s hear you call him out on strikes. Let’s hear you call for a longer, maybe even life sentence.
 
But, I won’t hold my breath. No, neither these law-and-order pretenders nor the legal system that they have helped to craft and corrupt over the past several decades will call for such “extreme” treatment of rich white men. This would be fine, I guess, if America had an equal judicial system for rich and poor criminals alike. But it doesn’t. America has two legal systems: one for the haves and one for the have nots. One for the wealthy and influential and one for the poor, whose poverty denies them influence. One for those who buy the best and most unscrupulous attorneys money can buy and those who cannot afford counsel—indeed, those who are often not provided any legal counsel at all, contrary to constitutional principles.
 

  the return of hebrew prophets

How fortunate for the many repeat “white-collar” criminals that there are no Hebrew prophets around today. How very fortunate for them, too, that those who call themselves prophets, priests, and pastors stubbornly and cowardly remain mute about the white-collar criminal class. How fortunate for them that too many prophets, priests, and pastors are, themselves, engaged in the same greedy and unscrupulous business and legal practices, making them a peculiar kind of “white-collar” criminal.
 
Just as justice and equity before the law is fundamental to the American judicial system, justice and equity was one of the foundational principles and expectations of Israel’s covenant relationship with God. Deuteronomy stipulated,
 
“And I charged your judges at that time, saying, Hear the causes between your brethren, and judge righteously between every man and his brother, and the stranger that is with him. He shall not respect persons in judgment; but ye shall hear the small as well as the great; ye shall not be afraid of the face of man…”[2]
 
Similarly, Leviticus says,
 
“Do not act with inequity in any legal procedure. You are not to give advantage to the vulnerable, or show favoritism toward the influential. You are to adjudicate each citizen’s case with justice.”[3]
 
Unfortunately, these expectations were not met in Israel any better than they are in 21st century America. Isaiah made the following complaint.
 
“Warning! To those who issue oppressive statutes
   and continuously write laws that afflict;
that put redress out of the reach of the underprivileged
   and rob the poor among my people of justice,
making prey of widows
   and plundering orphans”[4]
 
More than a century later, Jeremiah complained,
 
“For there can be found among my people ungodly individuals.
   They keep watch, like bird catchers watching a trap.
      They place traps, they capture human beings.
Just as a bird cage is full of birds,
   their houses are filled with deceit.
      This is how they have become powerful and wealthy.
They have grown fat and plump,
   having gone beyond, even, the wicked words they speak.
They will not hear a legal case—
   such as that of an orphan—and yet they enjoy success.
      Nor will they bring the cases of the impoverished to trial.
Should I not level a charge against these?—
   an oracle of YHWH—
      Should I not take vengeance on a nation such as this?”[5]
 
The little-known prophet with the funny name, Habakkuk, lamented,
 
How long, Lord, must I call for help,
    but you do not listen?
Or cry out to you, “Violence!”
    but you do not save?
Why do you make me look at injustice?
    Why do you tolerate wrongdoing?
Destruction and violence are before me;
    there is strife, and conflict abounds.
Therefore the law is paralyzed,
    and justice never prevails.
The wicked hem in the righteous,
    so that justice is perverted.”[6]
 
Such lamentation is heartbreaking. And all too familiar.
 

  conclusion

There are far, far too many examples of injustice in America’s judicial system and in society at large. Our example of Alan Weisselberg and the preferential treatment he has received at the bar of our courts is but one. There is simply no doubting that he, like so many wealthy and influential citizens, has been treated differently than so many less affluent and poorer represented defendants.  
 
The Hebrew prophets did not brook any type of injustice in ancient Israel. Nor should we or our contemporary prophets, priests, or pastors. We need bold and clear renunciation of injustice, both private and institutional. We need our prophets, priests, and pastors to take their head out of the sand and see the injustices that inhabit every facet of our society. We need our prophets, priests, and pastors to unbind their tongue and speak truth to power.
 
Without justice and equity, America cannot stand. Without justice, America is guilty, its sin as scarlet as blood and as black as night. Only through justice can the stain of sin be removed from the belligerent nation. This, anyway, is Isaiah’s view.
 
“Wash yourselves! 
   Clear yourselves!
Remove your evil deeds from my sight.
   Stop doing evil.
Learn to do good.
   Seek after justice.
      Set things right for those treated unjustly.
Take the side of the orphan.
   Plead for the widow.
 
‘Come! Let us reason together,’ says Yahweh.
   ‘Though your sins be as scarlet,
      they shall be as white as snow.
Though they are as red as scarlet died fabric,
   they shall be as wool.
If you are willing and listen,
   you can eat the good of the land.
If your refuse and rebel,
   you will be consumed by sword.’
This comes from Yahweh’s own mouth.”[7]
 
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!


[1] “Longtime Trump Executive Pleads guilty again, this time to perjury charges,” El M. Calabrese and Mark Berman.
[2] 1.16-17
[3] 19.15, author’s translation.
[4] Isaiah 10.1-2, author’s translation.
[5] Jeremiah 5.26-29, author’s translation
[6] Habakkuk 1.2-4, NIV.
[7] Isaiah 1.16-20

introduction

In his famous soliloquy and song, “If I Were a Rich Man,” Tevye dreams of a “big, tall house with rooms by the dozen,” with a “fine tin roof with real wooden floors.” Outside the house, he dreams of a “yard with chicks and turkeys and geese and ducks.” He dreams of a wife with plenty to eat and “a proper double-chin.” As for himself, Tevye dreams of having “the time that I lack to sit in the synagogue and pray… discuss the holy books with the learned men, several hours every day” To him, “that would be the sweetest thing of all.”
 
We all have dreams. Even at nearly 70, I still do. One of my dreams involves Hebrew prophets. I wish they would come back; return in a renaissance of prophetic discernment and courage. Prophets like Jeremiah, Amos, Micah, and Isaiah. Today’s religious leaders—whether the go by prophet, priest, or pastor—seem not up to the task, lacking both discernment and courage. They seem utterly blind and mute to sin, unless it involves human genitals.
 
This Mad State post is the sixth in an ongoing series entitled, “Healing Our Brokenness Inadequately” The title takes its cue from Jeremiah 6.14 in which the prophet laments the ineffectual and specious ministry of Judah’s prophets. In this series, we explore specific examples of individual and societal sins about which religious leaders remain willfully blind or, if sighted, stubbornly mute… and therefore complicit. Tragically, sometimes their complicity is active and enthusiastic. With these examples in mind, we will imagine what a Hebrew prophet might have to say if he were to come to us from the past. Here, then, is our next example.
 


  the character of this world

In homily and meditation, we have discussed scripture’s characterization of this planet as a place of violence; of “wars and rumors of wars.”[1] If possible, this characterization is even more true of the “latter days” than former days. Observing the rebelliousness of America’s southern states in his lifetime, Joseph Smith could see that, sooner or later, “the rebellion of South Carolina [would] eventually terminate in the death and misery of many souls.”[2] But this was but the tip of the iceberg. Joseph’s discernment went far beyond the tragedy of the American civil war. “The time will come,” Josephj saw, “that war will be poured out upon all nations, beginning at this place.”[3] Joseph discerned that the latter-days were to be an era of war and rumor of war. Time has vindicated this ugly and unwelcome insight.
 
So common is war and rumor of war that we have become immune to their horrors. Many, not immune, are infected with the supposed heroism of war and rumors of wars. Many simply stick their head in the sand and pretend that things are normal and inevitable. I thought of this world’s characterization and the many responses to it when I read this recent headline, “Congress Is Poised to Cede Even More of Its Oversight of Foreign Weapons Sales.”[4]
 
According to U.S. law, the executive branch of the U.S. government must clear all arms sales above a certain amount with congress—we have to ask why all sales, whatever their dollar amount, do not come under this law. A new proposed law—written and backed, surprise, surprise, by the arms industry—raises by 66 percent the dollar amount of an arms sale before the executive branch must inform congress of the sale. “In short,” the authors of the article observe, “this proposed legislation would speed up the delivery of deadly weapons while scaling back the ability of our elected representatives to assess the security implications of such transfers”—and it isn’t as though those elected representatives have acted responsibly in the past.
 
Not only, then, would this proposed law keep congress ignorant of much of the mayhem that the American executive branch, in collusion with profiteering American arms dealers,  unleashes the world over, but the American people would remain ignorant of the diabolical and murderous mayhem of their own government.
 
As bad as this is for governance, accountability, the equal separation of powers, and the health of American democracy, it is even worse for the planet. There can be no doubt that the planet, already flooded with violence and murderous weaponry, would be further deluged if such a law was enacted. Neither can there be any doubt that more weapons means more use of those weapons—just as Secretary of State, Madeline Albright, a supposed “progressive,” once asked in all seriousness, “What’s the point of having this superb military you’re always talking about, if we can’t use it?”
 
More weapons means more use of weapons, more violence, more war, and more death. This bill is most certainly not pro-life. It is anti-life. It is pro-death. It is satanic. It is utterly consistent with the satanic spirit and intent to “buy up armies and navies and reign with blood and horror on earth,” as Satan promised to do according to the LDS temple endowment.
 
 

  renouncing war and proclaiming peace

Discerning religious leaders—whether the go by the name, “prophet,” “priest,” “pope,” or “pastor”—would speak out against such satanic deviancy. To be sure, those who have sat in the LDS temple and been forewarned would, you would think, have something to say about such satanic deviancy being conducted in a nation that claims to be Christian.
 
Indeed, speaking out against this satanic deviancy is not simply wise and prudent. It is a commandment.
 
“Therefore, be not afraid of your enemies, for I have decreed in my heart, saith the Lord, that I will prove you in all things, whether you will abide in my covenant, even unto death, that you may be found worthy. For if ye will not abide in my covenant ye are not worthy of me.
Therefore, renounce war and proclaim peace, and seek diligently to turn the hearts of the children to their fathers, and the hearts of the fathers to the children; and again, the hearts of the Jews unto the prophets, and the prophets unto the Jews; lest I come and smite the whole earth with a curse, and all flesh be consumed before me.”[5]
 
One must ask if those who refuse to “renounce war and proclaim peace”—which must certainly extend to the grotesquely massive arms sales in which the U.S., the world’s largest weapons dealer, is engaged—are, in fact, guilty of being afraid of their enemies, may not be abiding in the Lord’s covenant, and may not be worthy of him. Neither do they seem true to the central aspect of the “spirit of Elijah,” about which the LDS church likes so much to speak. For, as the preceding passage makes clear, the linkage that the spirit of Elijah seeks to form goes far beyond moms and dads, parents and children, grandparents and grandchildren, etc. The spirit of Elijah seeks to form linkages between all human beings of whatever nation or era. The spirit of Elijah is intended to end war and bring peace between nations.[6] This world-wide peace inspired by the spirit of Elijah is at the very heart of the temple’s message. Speaking of the temple, Isaiah discerned,
 
“All nations will come streaming to it;
   many peoples will come, saying:
‘Come! Let’s go up to Yahweh’s mountain;
   to the temple of the God of Ya‘qōb.
He will teach us his ways,
   and we shall walk in his paths.
For Torah will come out of Ṣîyôn,
   and the word of Yahweh from Yerûšālāyim.’
Then will He mediate between nations;
   He will reconcile many peoples,
so that they will retool their swords into plow blades
   and their spears into pruning instruments.
One nation will no longer lift the sword against another,
   nor will they any longer train for warfare” (Is. 2.2-4).
 


  conclusion and imprecation

While the proposed law discussed here is utterly consistent with this world’s characterization as a place of wars and rumors of wars as well as the satanic spirit foreshadowed in the LDS temple, it most certainly stands in stark and belligerent opposition to all that is godly—to the spirit of Elijah, to the message of the temple, and to God, Himself, and His wishes for humankind. It is yet one more step in a long line of steps toward the fulfillment of Malachi’s warning.
 
“Understand: I am going to send ’ēlîyâ, the prophet, to you before the coming, totally awe-inspiring day of YHWH. He is to restore the love of parents for children and the love of children for parents so that when I arrive, I need not strike the earth with annihilation.”[7]
 
Of course, at the rate we’re going, God will have no need to strike the earth with annihilation. We are on our way to doing it just fine all by ourselves.
 
Let us make new and better laws
say the invisible mammon loving puppeteers
of murderous weapons and mayhem
to their well-paid puppets in corrupted Washington.
Laws that hide, conceal, shroud, bury
our murderous mayhem
from politician, from patrician, from plebe.
Let us deliver death faster,
more efficiently,
and more profitable,
in selling our instruments of death and murderous mayhem.
More violent death
means more hatred,
More hatred
means more calls for “justice” and retribution.
More calls for “justice” and retribution
means more arms sales.
More deaths, yes,
but shush,
keep your eyes on the ball:
more Mammon, the world’s adored god.
 
But hear this tragic warning,
you masters of death and mayhem.
You cannot hide, conceal, shroud, or bury
your murderous mayhem
from the One, True God.
He sees all—all the more, more, more
You crave;
the death you create
in your boardrooms, your factories, your hangers,
your congressional offices, your senate chambers,
and your oval offices.
You will come to know,
Fear, and loath
the true meaning of justice and retribution.
Though you make your home with dirt-dwelling rodents
and plead for mountains to cover and hide
you from the all-seeing God,
you will be seen and named, as was your father,
“Master Mahan,” the master of this great secret:
“I may murder and get gain;”
with your end being to dwell in a deeper hole,
a bottomless pit,
with something far worse and more devouring
than the dirt-dwelling rodents to whom you are kin.
 
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!
 


[1] See, for example, my meditation on 1 Nephi 12.1-3, my five meditations on Psalm 46, my five homilies on Revelation 6.1-8, entitled, “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.”
[2] DC 87.1
[3] DC 87.2
[4]  Lora Lumpe and William D. Hartung, Responsible Statecraft, Feb. 3, 2024.
[5] DC 98.14-17
[6] I have spoken at length of an expanded view of the spirit of Elijah. See my homily based on Malachi 4.5-6, entitled, “The spirit of Elijah: An Expanded View.”
[7] Malachi 4.5-6

  rehoboam’s thigh in circa 900 b.c.

1 Kings 12 reports a fascinating bit of ancient Israelite history. Unfortunately, it is more than history. It has been repeated over and over and over again in human history—both in private histories and in national histories. It is being reenacted even as we speak.
 
After a long reign, king Solomon is dead. The text found in 1 Kings 1-11 portrays his reign as one of deterioration, starting out good and ending badly. Probably, this is too kind by far. There are indications a plenty in these chapters that Solomon’s reign more likely went from not great to greatly worse.[1] There is much to indicate that his reign was particularly bad for those who lived in the north—the people who would become the independent nation of Israel north of the independent nation of Judah.
 
Upon Solomon’s death, northern Israelites sent ambassadors to Judah. They agreed to pledge allegiance to the new king, Solomon’s son, Rehoboam. They had only one very reasonable request.
 
“Thy father made our yoke grievous: now therefore make thou the grievous service of thy father, and his heavy yoke which he put upon us, lighter, and we will serve thee” (1 Kg. 12.4).
 
They did not demand immediate concessions. They gave Rehoboam and his advisors time to consider their response. Solomon began by consulting with the experienced advisors who had advised his father, Solomon. They advised him to act more the part of a servant king than his father had done. By seeking to serve better the interest of his norther subjects, Rehoboam would win over those skeptical of the David/Solomon dynasty and find peace and unity in his kingdom (12.6-7).
 
Apparently unhappy with this counsel, Rehoboam then consulted some of the entitled young men with whom he had grown up. They advised a response to the north’s reasonable request that could not be more diametrically opposed to that of the more experienced advisors.
 
“Thus shalt thou speak unto this people that spake unto thee, saying, ‘Thy father made our yoke heavy, but make thou it lighter unto us;’ thus shalt thou say unto them, ‘My little finger shall be thicker than my father’s loins. And now whereas my father did lade you with a heavy yoke [note there is no denial of Solomon’s oppression of the north, but only justification], I will add to your yoke: my father hath chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions” (12.10-11).
 
The rest, as they say, is history. Rehoboam went with option two. The Kingdom of Israel split into two: the southern kingdom of Judah and the northern kingdom of Israel. If Solomon ever was a wise king—an assertion that was almost certainly more political propaganda than spiritual discernment—he produced a son who turned out to be one the more stupid nation leaders among the many stupid national leaders the world has witnessed… and with which it has suffered.
 
 
 
  israel’s thigh in circa 2023 a.d.

For years, I have bit my tongue, aware that in today’s twisted environment, one cannot be critical of the modern state of Israel without being labeled an antisemite. Modern Israel has long been an apartheid state. It is surely one of the great ironies and tragedies of history that a people who were wickedly forced to live in ghettos for a thousand years of European history have forced Palestinians into ghetto living for many years. This is a complete breach of their Mosaic covenant which, above all else, demands that they remember their captivity at the hands of oppressors and never act the part of oppressor toward others. This, as much as any dietary law, sabbath day observance, or national boundaries is what was to make them a peculiar people to the Lord—a nation apart from the rest of the nations and kingdoms of this world.
 
As we cross the 20,000 mark—that’s 20,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, killed over the past two months—I cannot remain silent. To do so would be wickedness. To remain silent would mean standing before God with blood on my hands. I have enough of my own sins to worry about. I don’t need to add others’ sins to my load.
 
Now, to be clear. The murderous actions taken by Hamas on October 7, 2023 were barbaric beyond words. What that perverted terror organization perpetrated against innocent civilians, men, women, children, and infants was wickedness of the darkest black. The actions taken on that day were far more than simply barbaric, or inhumane, or animalistic. They were as anti-Christ an action as can be conceived—and, in my book, that charge of “Anti-Christ,” is as bad as it gets and the worse I can say about anyone or anything. I cannot hope for anything but the deepest pit in hell for planners and attackers alike. Before that day, I am of a mind that the planners and attackers of that day should be hunted down and punished. If punishment means death, so be it.
 
But not like this. Not like it is being done at the present.
 
Israel’s October 7 is, as many have rightly stated, much like America’s 9/11. But the nation of Israel’s response to their 10/7 has gone too far—just as America’s response to 9/11 went too far. (Yes, in the aftermath of 9/11, I warned immediately against an ungodly and bloodthirsty response to it that would turn us into international law-breakers and, worse, make us indistinguishable from our attackers. With blood-lust, a generation of Americans did not heed such warnings, but engaged in crimes against humanity and the breach of many an international law so that we became little better than those we hated.)
 
Israel is making the same mistake. Like America, they have wasted an opportunity to unite the world against a vile enemy.
 
The barbarity of Hamas’ attacks on October 7, 2023 cannot be compared to the reasoned requests that ancient Israel made to Rehoboam in circa 900 B.C. Nevertheless, Israel’s response to those barbarous attacks has, itself, turned barbaric. They have put down a thigh when something less was needed. Israel’s leadership—often looking, like America’s, as much like a criminal enterprise as anything else—headstrong, arrogant, and blinded by rage and pride looks as stupid as their ancestral king, Rehoboam. One can’t help but wonder what the world, their world, might look like if they had chosen and would choose to take their thigh off the necks of Palestinians and look to the basic humanitarian needs of Palestinians. To be servants rather than tyrants, as their greatest of prophets, Moses, taught them. 
 
O.K. Fine. Israel has a law that calls for an eye for an eye—we hasten to say that Christians do not have such a law since Jesus rejected and reversed it. The international community would probably not bat an eye over Israel’s seeking an eye for every eye they lost on October 7. But really now. Even the least skilled or most cynical reader of the Bible surely would not seek to justify taking 20 eyes for every eye lost—and its likely to be 30 or 40 Palestinian eyes for every single Israeli eye before the tragedy is over.
 
Tragically and shamefully, America was not called to account for the twenty years of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and breach of international law that it committed in the aftermath of 9/11. Little wonder, then, that Israel follows America’s bad example in the aftermath of its 10/7. America has no authority by which it can call on Israel to repent, to abide by international law, to remove their thigh from the neck of Palestinians; to say nothing of being true to its higher ideals as found in Tora. It is left to the rest of the world, weak and ineffectual as it is, to try and talk sense to a nation driven mad through pain and grief.
 
​
 
  conclusion: the human thigh

There is a very old Scottish proverb that goes,
 
“No man harms me unharmed.”
 
Such shameful sentiments are spoke with pride and braggadocio. As if, such wickedness was heroic. Unfortunately, this is the human way. This is the way of fallen man. Even those individuals who manage to rise above such sentiments in their individual lives, nearly all fall prey in their corporate/group/national lives to the satanic spirit that inspires such thought and behavior.
 
The pragmatist among us might have to shrug and yield to a certain level of satanism such as this. Israel is allowed, justified by human law, to return harm for harm. But, like America and like Hamas, Israel now goes too far. It must reign in its hurt. The present hurt they inflict on those who hurt them can only bring more hurt. Hurt to its enemies and more hurt to itself. More hurt in the present and more hurt in the future. More hurt over the entire globe. This is directly contrary to the call God gave Israel and the hope he had for it.
 
“In days to come
      the Mountain on which stands Yahweh’s temple
will be fixed above any other Mountain;
      lifted above any other height.
All nations will come streaming to it;
      many peoples will come, saying:
‘Come! Let’s go up to Yahweh’s mountain;
      to the temple of the God of Ya‘qōb.
He will teach us his ways,
      and we shall walk in his paths.
For Torah will come out of Ṣîyôn,
      and the word of Yahweh from Yerûšālāyim.’
Then will He mediate between nations;
      He will reconcile many peoples,
so that they will retool their swords into plow blades
      and their spears into pruning instruments.
One nation will no longer lift the sword against another,
      nor will they any longer train for warfare.
 
Come, Oh House of Ya‘qōb, and let us walk in Yahweh’s light” (Is. 2.2-5).
 
Call me a dreamer. Call me an idealist. Call me utopian. But I refuse to give up on the word of God. I refuse to yield to arguments that enmity and barbarity are inevitable. The reader can think of this post as my attempt to be true to the Lord’s latter-day charge and to the expressed hopes of the angelic choir that so surprisingly appeared during that very first Christmas Season.
 
“Therefore, be not afraid of your enemies, for I have decreed in my heart, saith the Lord, that I will prove you in all things, whether you will abide in my covenant, even unto death, that you may be found worthy. For if ye will not abide in my covenant ye are not worthy of me.
Therefore, renounce war and proclaim peace, and seek diligently to turn the hearts of the children to their fathers, and the hearts of the fathers to the children; and again, the hearts of the Jews unto the prophets, and the prophets unto the Jews; lest I come and smite the whole earth with a curse, and all flesh be consumed before me” (DC 98.14-17).
 
“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men” (Lk. 2.14).
 
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!


[1] See, for example, our homily, entitled, “King Solomon and King Noah, two peas in a pod: ‘neoliberalism’ and the redistribution of wealth.”

  introduction

In his famous soliloquy and song, “If I Were a Rich Man,” Tevye dreams of a “big, tall house with rooms by the dozen,” with a “fine tin roof with real wooden floors.” Outside the house, he dreams of a “yard with chicks and turkeys and geese and ducks.” He dreams of a wife with plenty to eat and “a proper double-chin.” As for himself, Tevye dreams of having “the time that I lack to sit in the synagogue and pray… discuss the holy books with the learned men, several hours every day” To him, “that would be the sweetest thing of all.”
 
We all have dreams. Even at nearly 70, I still do. One of my dreams involves Hebrew prophets. I wish they would come back; return in a renaissance of prophetic discernment and courage. Prophets like Jeremiah, Amos, Micah, and Isaiah. Today’s religious leaders—whether the go by prophet, priest, or pastor—seem not up to the task, lacking both discernment and courage. They seem utterly blind and mute to sin, unless it involves human genitalia.
 
This Mad State post is the third in an ongoing series entitled, “Healing Our Brokenness Inadequately” The title takes its cue from Jeremiah 6.14 in which the prophet laments the ineffectual and specious ministry of Judah’s prophets. In this series, we explore specific examples of individual and societal sins about which religious leaders remain willfully blind or, if sighted, stubbornly mute… and therefore complicit. With these examples in mind, we will imagine what a Hebrew prophet might have to say if he were to come to us from the past. Here, then, is our third example.
 


  pessimistic consumption

Recent weeks have seen a number of headlines such as the following.
 
“Us Consumer Confidence Fell Again in October”[1]
 
“Consumers Remain Pessimistic About the Future—Even as They Continued to Spend”[2]
 
“Us consumers keep spending despite high prices and their own gloomy outlook. Can it last?”[3]
 
“Why Americans feel gloomy about the economy despite falling inflation and low unemployment”[4]
 
“Black Friday shoppers spent a record $9.8 billion in U.S. online sales, up 7.5% from last year”[5]
 
“Cyber Monday rings in 12.4 billion in sales as consumers hunt for bargains”[6]
 
The American public—they are called “consumers,” for good reason, rather than, say, “citizens,” by those who prey on their insatiable appetite for more, more, more—are “pessimistic,” have low “confidence” in the economy and the future, “feel gloomy,” and possess a “gloomy outlook.” The Consumer Confidence Index is down. The Present Situation Index is in decline, still.
 
But, spending is up! UP. UP. In two 24-hour periods, Friday, November 24 and Monday, November 27, 2023, Americans, or consumers, spent $22.2 billion. Purportedly, spending during these two days was in no small part credited to consumers looking for bargains. But, of course, the percentage of those purchasing on credit is way up—higher interest rates wiping out the meager savings from sale prices. As the Christmas Season continues and the year ebbs away, spending trends show no signs of letting up even as pessimism persists.
 
With the inflation rate at the lowest point in two and one-half years, unemployment below 4% for the longest stretch since the 1960s, new hiring up, many wages up, and consumers spending like there’s no tomorrow, economist are befuddled by the pessimistic surveys and the rabid spending habits of American consumers. The two seem irrationally contradictory.
 
The befuddlement is somewhat comical. For, as the name implies, Americans have become by nature “consumers.” Probably, their consumption is to be credited as much to habit as to any other factor, such as sale prices. Indeed, their habit of consumption looks very much like an addiction—out of control and irrational.
 
 

  consuming addiction

We have all heard, by now, that the brain has a “pleasure center”—the “nucleus accumbens” it is called. This “reward circuit” lets us know when something is enjoyable and reinforces the desire for us to perform the same pleasurable action again, and again, and again. We all also know, by now, that a brain stimulated by pornography releases pleasure-giving endorphins and dopamine. Individuals often become addicted to the euphoria that this chemical cocktail produces, irresistibly coming back to pornographic over, and over, and over again. We know, too, that similar processes are at work with the use of drugs—street or prescription—and drug addiction.
 
Modern research suggests that the brain releases the same euphoric chemical cocktail in our brain’s “pleasure center” during shopping, purchasing, acquiring, accumulating, and consuming that it does in drinking,  gambling, taking drugs, and viewing pornography for pornography or substance abuse. The neurotransmitter, dopamine, surges when we even consider buying something new.
 
Our American society, with its consumer economy, is, increasingly, built upon consumerism—as even those who see no harm, but only virtue in such an economy, admit. The economy, which has become, essentially, an idolatrous god, goes up and down, depending upon how diligently we obey materialistic laws and impulses to acquire. Watching our society’s enthusiastic struggle to acquire, we might be forgiven for wondering whether our entire society and many of us, its citizenry, are, in fact, addicted to the principle of acquiring, victims of euphoria producing and addictive endorphins and dopamine. We see nothing in it unhealthy, don’t recognize it as an addiction, because we are all in the same doped up state, addicted to the same drug. If we are all addicted, then it must not be addiction.
 
Such unwillingness to admit that we have a problem is, of course, typical. The addict always thinks they have things under control. But, once in a while, there is a moment of unusual honesty.
 
“How can you say,
   ‘I am not defiled;
       I have not run after the Baals’?
See how you behaved in the valley;
    consider what you have done.
You are a swift she-camel
    running here and there,
a wild donkey accustomed to the desert,
    sniffing the wind in her craving—
       in her heat who can restrain her?
Any males that pursue her need not tire themselves;
    at mating time they will find her.
Do not run until your feet are bare
    and your throat is dry.
But you said,
   ‘It’s no use!
 I love foreign gods,
    and I must go after them’” (Jer. 2.23-25, NIV).
 
Yes, the inconsistent and befuddling behavior of the American consumer can reasonably be chalked up to addiction. We are a culture of shopping addicts. And just as with any addiction, it takes more and more of the stimulant to maintain the desired highs. Dissatisfaction with the current fix and the need and demand for even more stimulation are inevitable. Hence, one reason the American consumer’s gloomy outlook and pessimistic perspective in the face of bounty that surpasses anything human society has ever seen.
 
 

  all things are become slippery

As I hear and read of consumers’ pessimistic grumblings about the economy, my mind naturally turns to the Book of Mormon and the consumers of Helaman 13. I have discussed these consumers and their consumption in detail elsewhere.[7] But, here, I liken their experiences and feelings to those of the American consumer.
 
Samuel the Lamanite foresees, or “forehears” the consumers of his day. He hears them “weep and howl.” He hears them “lament” that their “riches… have become slippery” and “are gone from us.”  “Behold,” they lament, “we lay a tool here and on the morrow it is gone; and behold, our swords are taken from us in the day we have sought them for battle. Yea, we have hid up our treasures and they have slipped away from us, because of the curse of the land.”
 
One hears in the American consumer’s pessimism an echo of this ancient and sad refrain,
 
“All things are become slippery, and we cannot hold them.”[8]
 
Samuel informs them of the real reason for the unhappiness and pessimism.
 
“Ye have sought all the days of your lives for that which ye could not obtain; and ye have sought for happiness in doing iniquity, which thing is contrary to the nature of that righteousness which is in our great and Eternal Head” (Hel. 13.38).
 
 

  conclusion

So it is with the American consumer. The consumption, having become in many cases a sinful addiction, cannot produce happiness—indeed, the consumption itself, with its deleterious impacts on the environment and the world’s poor, is sinful and bound to bring unhappiness through natural disasters, the devaluing and dehumanization of others, and human conflict. Anytime the consumer’s consumptive and consuming addiction is in anyway hampered, slowed, or reduced pessimism quite naturally ensues. It feels like things are slipping away from us.
 
Prophets, priests, and pastors have been asleep at the switch when it comes to addressing this most pervasive addiction in human history. They have no hesitation in screaming bloody murder about a few hundreds of thousands that might be addicted to pornography or a handful of substances, but they remain strangely silent about an addiction that afflicts billions of the globes’ inhabitants—an addiction that creates far, far more suffering than all the other addictions combined. Do they not see the addiction and its harmful effects on society? Or are they, perhaps, themselves caught up in the addiction to one degree or another?
 
“His watchmen are blind:   
   they are all ignorant,  
they are all dumb dogs,   
   they cannot bark;  
sleeping, lying down,   
   loving to slumber.
Yea, they are greedy dogs   
   which can never have enough,  
and they are shepherds that cannot understand:   
   they all look to their own way,    
      every one for his gain, from his quarter” (Is. 56.10-11).
 
 These recalcitrant and silent modern prophets, priests, and pastors could learn a thing or two from the Hebrew prophets about the evils of idolatrous consumption and how to address it. Here, is a sampling.
 
“You are they who lie upon ivory divans,
   sprawl out on your settees,
eat lambs from flocks,
   and specially fed calves,
pluck on the harp
   as Dāwid, invent for themselves musical instruments,
drink wine by the bowl full,
   apply the best of perfumes,
      while remaining unaffected by the nation’s collapse” (Amos 6.4-6, author’s translation).   
 
“That saith,
   ‘I will build me a wide house
      and large chambers,’
 
And cutteth him out windows;
   and it is cieled with cedar,
      and painted with vermilion” (Jer. 22.14).
 
“I will tear down the winter house
    along with the summer house;
the houses adorned with ivory will be destroyed
    and the mansions will be demolished,”
      declares the Lord.” (Amos 3.15)
 
We could use such voices. No, they would not be welcome any more than Samuel the Lamanite was. But the call is clear, and the need is great. Warnings about the addictive nature of consumerism could squelch a host of accompanying evils. Warnings about the addictive nature of consumerism could bring happiness, true happiness that far surpasses all the transitory dopamine highs that money and its purchasing power can buy.
 
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!


[1] The Conference Board
[2] The Conference Board
[3] Christopher Rugaber and Anne D’Innocenzio, Associated Press
[4] Christopher Rugaber, Associated Press
[5] Rebecca Picciotto, CNBC
[6] Brooke DiPalma, Yahoo
[7] See my homily on Helaman 13, entitled, “Society’s Slippery Slope” in the archive found on our Homilies and Just Society pages of this site.
[8] See Helaman 13.32-37.

  introduction

In his famous soliloquy and song, “If I Were a Rich Man,” Tevye dreams of a “big, tall house with rooms by the dozen,” with a “fine tin roof with real wooden floors.” Outside the house, he dreams of a “yard with chicks and turkeys and geese and ducks.” He dreams of a wife with plenty to eat and “a proper double-chin.” As for himself, Tevye dreams of having “the time that I lack to sit in the synagogue and pray… discuss the holy books with the learned men, several hours every day” To him, “that would be the sweetest thing of all.”
 
We all have dreams. Even at nearly 70, I still do. One of my dreams involves Hebrew prophets. I wish they would come back; return in a renaissance of prophetic discernment and courage. Prophets like Jeremiah, Amos, Micah, and Isaiah. Today’s religious leaders—whether the go by prophet, priest, or pastor—seem not up to the task, lacking both discernment and courage. They seem utterly blind and mute to sin, unless it involves human genitals.
 
This Mad State post is the third in an ongoing series entitled, “Healing Our Brokenness Inadequately” The title takes its cue from Jeremiah 6.14 in which the prophet laments the ineffectual and specious ministry of Judah’s prophets. In this series, we explore specific examples of individual and societal sins about which religious leaders remain willfully blind or, if sighted, stubbornly mute… and therefore complicit. With these examples in mind, we will imagine what a Hebrew prophet might have to say if he were to come to us from the past. Here, then, is our next example.
 

  season’s greetings from your state legislatures

Christmas Season 2023 is off to a rip roaring and jolly good start.
 
There’s the Ohio state legislature’s unreasoned rejection of the basic laws of physics. The more molecules in a fixed space, the more often they collide. The more cars on the road, the more accidents. The more guns in the state, the more shootings and deaths. Elementary math.
 
But after passing a new pro-gun law about every 15 minutes for the past ten years, the Ohio legislature has determined that gun ownership is still insufficiently protected in the wild, wild, rootin’ tootin’ state of Ohio. Hence its latest foray into madness—the highfalutin sounding “Second Amendment Preservation Act.” 
 
As any good Hebrew prophet might say,
 
Unsatisfied to have merely placed targets on the backs of its citizens 
that can only be seen in the light of day, 
the legislature wishes to slap glow in the dark targets on the backs of its citizens 
so that they can be shot to death in the dark of night as easily as in the light of day.
It is madness.
Irrational beyond description.
A sickness of the heart.
A cancer on the American soul.
May those who act so cynically as to create and pass such murderous laws find no preservation.
No, not for a second of any moment.
 
Meanwhile, a quick 15-minute magical sleigh ride to the southwest brings us to a land of make-believe pro-lifers whose laws force a mother of two, who very much wishes to be a mother of three, to carry a fetus that has no chance at life and threatens the health of the mother as well as her future prospects of having that much desired third child. And, of course, the jolly little elf of a State Attorney General who is so intent on enforcing the state’s godforsaken abortion laws that he would criminalize anyone who has the audacity to seek or practice healthcare that secures the health of women is, himself, a criminal of the first order.
 
You can’t make this stuff up.
It is madness.
Irrational beyond description.
A sickness of the heart.
A cancer on the American soul.
May these power hungry 
exercisers of unrighteousness dominion over woman
be made to carry their heavy burden of wickedness to full term
only then to have heaven abort them 
into the dark underbelly of hell.
 
But, of course, as is par for the course, prophet, priest, and pastor remain as silent about these abuses of human dignity as the silent night on which the One they claim to represent was born. They do and say nothing to heal the brokenness. Far from joining the angelic choirs in signing “peace on earth, good will to men,” too often, when they do open their mouths on such topics they only add to the disease, assist the cancer to grow.
 
So, already, barely half-way through the advent season, I can hardly sleep, so anxious am I to see what other gifts America’s wacko state legislators, governors, and supreme courts will bring us this Holiday Season.
 
Ho. Ho. Ho, everyone. And a Merry Christmas!

  introduction

In his famous soliloquy and song, “If I Were a Rich Man,” Tevye dreams of a “big, tall house with rooms by the dozen,” with a “fine tin roof with real wooden floors.” Outside the house, he dreams of a “yard with chicks and turkeys and geese and ducks.” He dreams of a wife with plenty to eat and “a proper double-chin.” As for himself, Tevye dreams of having “the time that I lack to sit in the synagogue and pray… discuss the holy books with the learned men, several hours every day” To him, “that would be the sweetest thing of all.”
 
We all have dreams. Even at nearly 70, I still do. One of my dreams involves Hebrew prophets. I wish they would come back; return in a renaissance of prophetic discernment and courage. Prophets like Jeremiah, Amos, Micah, and Isaiah. Today’s religious leaders—whether the go by prophet, priest, or pastor—seem not up to the task, lacking both discernment and courage. They seem utterly blind and mute to sin, unless it involves human genitalia.
 
This Mad State post is the third in an ongoing series entitled, “Healing Our Brokenness Inadequately” The title takes its cue from Jeremiah 6.14 in which the prophet laments the ineffectual and specious ministry of Judah’s prophets. In this series, we explore specific examples of individual and societal sins about which religious leaders remain willfully blind or, if sighted, stubbornly mute… and therefore complicit. With these examples in mind, we will imagine what a Hebrew prophet might have to say if he were to come to us from the past. Here, then, is our third example.
 
 

  the IRS, the national debt, and the GOP

The Hill recently posted a piece authored by Tobias Burns and Aris Folley entitled, “GOP plan to ‘offset’ Israel aid with IRS cuts would backfire, budget experts warn.” In it, the authors report that the alleged purpose of recently proposed GOP budget cuts to the IRS was to reduce the federal deficit. The piece pointed out that, in fact, the deficit would increase by tens of billions of dollars over the coming years, partly because a reduction in the IRS’ would stymy its efforts to collect tax dollars from rich tax cheats.
 
Now, we do not doubt the author’s reporting. No doubt, GOP leaders have spoken as the authors report. However, we are galled by the continued gullibility of the press, which continues to report the lie that the GOP cares anything about reducing the national debt—surely the unjust tax breaks given to the wealthy during TFG’s administration should have put that lie to bed once and for all. In fact, the GOP’s interest in reducing the IRS budget is much more sinister.
 
First off, the right simply wants to poke their finger in the left’s eye. It’s a fetish for them, really. So insecure are they in their own skin, that whether any action makes sense or not, it makes them feel good to think they might have gotten under a lib’s skin. So, because the left gave more money to the IRS, the right wants to take it away. The GOP is a party of immature pettiness and profound and pitiful insecurity. Tragically for our nation, even its highest leaders seem to have never matured beyond a high school level of student leadership.
 
Second, and more seriously, the modern GOP, including the House’ newest Speaker, does not believe in the federal government—imagine that! … voters putting anti-government insurgents in government positions, a trend that began a generation ago with Ronald Regan. But then, those who vote such traitors into office are “a stiffnecked people, insomuch that they [can] not be governed by the law nor justice, save it [is] to their destruction” (Hel. 5.3).
 
Speaker Johnson of the congress and his GOP marauders are like Book of Mormon kingmen who wish to alter the laws “in a manner to overthrown the free government” and establish an oligarchy (See Al. 51.5)—in the present case a “Christian” Nationalist autocracy akin to Hitler’s “National Socialists.” Cutting the IRS budget is meant to further this unhallowed aim. Many in the modern GOP are simply agents of chaos.
 
Neutering the IRS is intended to starve the federal government and assist in the GOP insurgency against the federal government. But neutering the IRS has a third goal. By neutering the IRS, the GOP can severely curtail the discovery of tax cheats and the holding of them accountable. After the blasphemous doctrine of such wicked wizards as Milton Friedman, the GOP believes that wealthy individuals and corporations, notoriously adept tax cheats and thus cheaters of the public weal, have no obligation to society, let alone to the federal government. Their only obligation is to other rich people, i.e., shareholders, and corporations. In addition, by sheltering the wealthy from having their fraud discovered and assisting them in avoiding their just responsibilities to society, the GOP can continue to be beneficiaries of the bribery that wealthy individuals and corporations are all too willing to pay for the privilege of not paying into the welfare of society.

 
 
  lies, lies, and more lies

Now, we could howl about any one of the multiple sins found in the GOP’s most recent attack on the IRS and the motives that inspire them. We could, for example, talk about how its love of money is the root of this and most other GOP evils. Or we could talk about the treachery of these modern-day king men and the danger they pose to American society and democracy. But, really, we have done all this many times over in the past. So, today, we choose to address the simple fact of their lying—and no, as we have stopped trying to keep up with the party leader’s… you know TFG… legendary and too-numerous-to-count lies, we will not address them.
 
AS we contemplate the stream of lies that come from the GOP, we think of the words spoken by the Hebrew prophet, Jeremiah.
 
“Take ye heed every one of his neighbour,
   and trust ye not in any brother:
for every brother will utterly supplant,
   and every neighbour will walk with slanders.
And they will deceive every one his neighbour,
   and will not speak the truth:
they have taught their tongue to speak lies,
   and weary themselves to commit iniquity.
Thine habitation is in the midst of deceit;
   through deceit they refuse to know me,
      saith the LORD” (9.4-6).
 
So untrustworthy, so steeped in a lying spirit did individuals of ancient Israelite society become that Micah went so far as to warn citizens against trusting even the wife who laid in bed next to them (See Mic. 7.5)—one cannot doubt that the man laying in bed next to his wife was no more trustworthy. We live in such days of deceit. Alternative facts abound. Silly and irrational conspiracy theories proliferate. Lying is as natural as breathing. It seems, sometimes, to be the default position. The new national pastime.
 
Some lie because they are simply liars. More often, perhaps, others lie because they believe they are being lied to. Scripture is clear about the fate of the first class of liars: “all liars, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie… shall have their part in that lake which burneth with fire and brimstone” (DC 63.17). The second class of liar is no better off as they have yielded to the satanic voice that says,
 
“‘Deceive and lie in wait to catch, that ye may destroy; behold, this is no harm.’”
 
“Thus,” the Lord charges,
 
“he flattereth them, and telleth them that it is no sin to lie that they may catch a man in a lie, that they may destroy him. And thus he flattereth them, and leadeth them along until he draggeth their souls down to hell…” (DC 10.25-26).
 
Now, to be clear, in the end, lying is not really about “alternative facts,” and “false data.” It is really less about speaking and more about doing. Lying is about doing harm. Those who knowingly lie possess a secret intent to harm other individuals and to disrupt society.
 
The Speaker of the House and his cronies mean to do harm when they lie about their motivation for cutting the IRS budget. They mean to harm the federal government. And they mean to harm our entire society, all for the sake of doing a favor for their wealthy bribers. Though I would disagree vehemently with them, I might respect them if they would tell the truth and own up to the true motivations for their proposed budget cuts—but, of course, they can’t tell the truth about their real motives because, though reasonably upset with it at times, most Americans believe the Federal government has an important role to play in society. Those Americans would run the liars out of town were they to tell the truth. The liars know this. Hence the lies.
 
So, what would the Hebrew prophets have to say about this were they to come back? Would they say anything? You bet they would. Any self-respecting prophet would. I am not prophet, but I can imagine it might sound something like this.
 

A cause of lamentation and warning!
Slaves to Master Mammon,
colluders with wealthy bribers—
for who can bribe but the monied?
Slaves, colluders, and bribers, together,
insurgent insiders,
mutineers inside the halls of governance
marauders inside American business
stingy, tight-fisted, greedy, lust-driven
plunder cherished institutions and structures
slashing holes in the fabric of society
razing protection of the defenseless,
creating chaos with their lies
and anarchy for the root of all evil.
 
Masters of lying lips,
virtuosos of the deceitful tongue
dress themselves in the garb of patriot,
cloak their mutiny in virtue,
their lying lips, poison,
their deceitful tongue, daggers,
their garb, camouflage,
cloaks to hide their vice.
 
May they be ripped, and razed;
plundered as they have plundered.
May the poison of their lips flow inward;
their daggers of deceit slash backwards.
May Lying Mammon abandon them;
leave them penniless and poor paupers 
shackled in darkness, cloaked in obscurity,
victims of the chaos they created.
 
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!

  introduction

In his famous soliloquy and song, “If I Were a Rich Man,” Tevye dreams of a “big, tall house with rooms by the dozen,” with a “fine tin roof with real wooden floors.” Outside the house, he dreams of a “yard with chicks and turkeys and geese and ducks.” He dreams of a wife with plenty to eat and “a proper double-chin.” As for himself, Tevye dreams of having “the time that I lack to sit in the synagogue and pray… discuss the holy books with the learned men, several hours every day” To him, “that would be the sweetest thing of all.”
 
We all have dreams. Even at nearly 70, I still do. One of my dreams involves Hebrew prophets. I wish they would come back; return in a renaissance of prophetic discernment and courage. Prophets like Jeremiah, Amos, Micah, and Isaiah. Today’s religious leaders—whether the go by prophet, priest, or pastor—seem not up to the task, lacking both discernment and courage. They seem utterly blind and mute to sin, unless it involves human genitalia.
 
This Mad State post is the second in an ongoing series entitled, “Healing Our Brokenness Inadequately” The title takes its cue from Jeremiah 6.14 in which the prophet laments the ineffectual and specious ministry of Judah’s prophets. In this series, we explore specific examples of individual and societal sins about which religious leaders remain willfully blind and stubbornly mute… and therefore complicit. With these examples in mind, we will imagine what a Hebrew prophet might have to say if he were to come to us from the past.
 
 
  billionaire row and housing insecurity

In an article by Liz Theoharis on the site, TomDispatch, entitled, “The US Government Has Abandoned the Nation’s Poor,” Theoharis reminds us of the existence of a grouping of tall ultra-luxury residential towers known as “Billionaires’ Row” that can be found at the southern end of New York City’s Central Park. 

​In these modern-day manors, the wealthy purchase luxurious condos and penthouses for 10’s of millions of dollars—some for well over 100 million dollars—or rent apartments for 10’s of thousands of dollars a month.

Several investigations and studies have revealed that many of the condos, penthouses, and apartments in these great and spacious buildings; these monuments to decadence remain unsold or unrented. Many of the condos, penthouses, and apartments that have been sold or rented remain without inhabitants. Many that have been sold, rented, and furnished remain unoccupied for all but a few weeks of the year, while others remain furnished and unoccupied year-round.
 
It is an open secret that for many developers and purchasers these condos and penthouses serve only as tax havens to hide money lest it be used for the public good and/or as laundry mats to clean dirty money. For the “less corrupt,” the condos, penthouses, and apartments are simply somewhere to put money that they have no earthly idea what else to do with.
 
Meanwhile, due to inadequate wages and predatory rent prices due—both, no doubt, championed and practiced by the very people buying space in the great and spacious buildings—on real planet earth and in New York City, 10’s of thousands of individuals and families are racked with anxiety and worry over the prospect of losing their homes, living in cars, tents, or cardboard boxes.
 
It is difficult to imagine how an actual Christian could countenance such corruption in a nation they claim as “Christian.” It is impossible to imagine an actual Christian participating in such corruption of individual integrity and public welfare. And it is the height of unfathomable grotesqueness that Christian leaders—prophet, priest, or pastors—should remain mute or refrain from just criticism of such immoral decadency and inhuman indecency.
 
To be sure, the Hebrew prophets would not be silenced by the intimidating arrogance of the self-promoting and self-justifying wealthy. Indeed, as we have commented elsewhere, Isaiah, for one, did address a kind of housing piracy not unlike this one.[1]
 
“A cause of lamentation and warning! There are those who merge homestead after homestead,
   combine property after property
until there’s nothing left
   and you dwell by yourself in the heart of the property” (Is. 5.8).
 
Though Isaiah does not mention it here, there can be little doubt that such ancient real estate practices did nothing to better the lives of vulnerable people, but only served to create additional insecurity and homelessness among them. But, here we are in New York, a few wealthy taking up enough resources and space to house thousands.
 
No, I don’t expect developers to invite the poor in to live in the palaces they built for the rarified. I expect, if not the developers, then those with conscience to build affordable living for the vulnerable. That’s what a real Christian nation would do. Jesus may have encouraged his disciples to be more anxious for their eternal soul than their temporal body, but he did not intend his disciples to live without physical shelter or to, themselves, direct a full-scale attack on the emotional peace or temporal existence of their fellow beings. 
 
Yes, these rich New Yorkers are like those ancient rich Israelites.
 
“They covet tracts of farmland, and find a way to steal them.
   They covet houses, and seize them.
Thus, they violently extort a property owner of their home,
   and an individual of their property” (Mic. 2.2, author’s translation).
 
Yes, that’s right. I accuse those rich New Yorkers (and the society that condones and even lionizes their behavior) of what is tantamount to violent extortion which robs others of the security of home. They are the modern-day equivalent of medieval barons living lavishly in their defended castles in complete disregard for the welfare of landless serfs. Yes, those rich New Yorkers would do well to answer the very pertinent question and heed the applicable warning issued by Jeremiah.
 
“Shalt thou reign,
   because thou closest thyself in cedar?
Did not thy father eat and drink,
   and do judgment and justice,
      and then it was well with him?
He judged the cause of the poor and needy;
   then it was well with him:
was not this to know me? 
   saith the LORD.
But thine eyes and thine heart are not but for
   thy covetousness,
and for to shed innocent blood,
   and for oppression, and for violence, to do it” (Jer. 22.15-17)
 
 
  conclusion

True followers of Jesus would see what has been happening on the south side of New York’s most famous park—and many other places from sea to shining sea—for what it is. Theft and pillage committed by the wealthy against the disadvantaged, vulnerable, and powerless. True Christians would not actively participate in such theft and pillage, nor become complicit in it through inaction or silence. They would not elect politicians who legislate in such ways as to make such behavior possible, and certainly not “legal.” Furthermore, it is certain that true prophets, priests, and pastors would speak up and denounce the decadent covetousness that does violence against the disadvantaged—a violence that has certainly led to many a failed heart and early death.
 
Yes, that’s right. We see red when we look up at those monstrosities of covetousness and greed and hubris that line the south side of Central Park. We see the red of human blood dripping from the shimmering windows of New York City’s Billionaire Row.
 
The cowardly silence of modern-day prophet’s, priests, and pastors is profoundly shameful and unlike the vocal courage of the Hebrew prophets as well as that of Jesus of Nazareth. If they were around today, we can imagine that we might hear something like this:
 

A cause of lamentation and warning!
Glittering palaces march in line on Billionaire’s Row.
Manors of lustful warlords.
Castles of entitled and privileged crusaders.
Plantations of merciless masters.
Idolatrous temples of human sacrifice.
 
Like shafts of biting steel,
shards of cutting glass
and long, jagged, and gnashing teeth,
they rend wind and sky,
and, worse, shred the flesh of everyday working people,
Declaring war on humanity.
 
Ordinary folks, seen as lesser,
lack capital, resources, and reserves,
and experience needless and unwarranted anxiety.
Will they lose what little they have, their humble abode?
Will the open sky become their only roof,
motor cars and cardboard boxes their bed?
 
But hardened lords of the manors,
masters of the high and haughty domains,
high priests and priestesses of fertility,
like those of babel’s tower,
build siege ramps to storm the heavens,
challenge God’s rule,
and defy His best wishes and just counsel.
 
Consumed by greed and lust, insatiable appetite,
hubris, pride, arrogance, self-centeredness, false self-importance,
and contempt for fellow citizens—
siblings for whom they have not a care—
they feed on their own unfortunate kin
engorge themselves with the flesh of the powerless.
 
May their mammon molder, their stocks slide,
and their glittering gold turn to fine dust.
May their edifices, monuments of ignominy,
and symbols of human depravity,
creak and crack, crumble and corrode;
totter, wobble, tilt and implode.
 
May the builders and their clientele with whom they collude
find no lasting abode
but in dark, and damp dungeons of lower earth,
patrolled by guards and jailers of like mind as they.
May they gnash their teeth in bottomless pits,
where light and sky ever hide from occupants,
 
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!


[1] See our meditations on Isaiah 5.8-10.

“They heal my people’s brokenness inadequately, announcing:
   “It’s OK! It’s OK!”
      But nothing is OK! (Jeremiah 6.14, author’s translation).


  introduction

​In his famous soliloquy and song, “If I Were a Rich Man,” Tevye dreams of a “big, tall house with rooms by the dozen,” with a “fine tin roof with real wooden floors.” Outside the house, he dreams of a “yard with chicks and turkeys and geese and ducks.” He dreams of a wife with plenty to eat and “a proper double-chin.” As for himself, Tevye dreams of having “the time that I lack to sit in the synagogue and pray… discuss the holy books with the learned men, several hours every day” To him, “that would be the sweetest thing of all.”
 
We all have dreams. Even at nearly 70, I still do. One of my dreams involves Hebrew prophets. I wish they would come back; return in a renaissance of prophetic discernment and courage. Prophets like Jeremiah, Amos, Micah, and Isaiah. Today’s religious leaders—whether the go by prophet, priest, or pastor—seem not up to the task, lacking both discernment and courage. They seem utterly blind and mute to sin, unless it involves human genitalia.
 
This Mad State post is the first in an ongoing series entitled, “Healing Our Brokenness Inadequately” The title takes its cue from Jeremiah 6.14 in which the prophet laments the ineffectual and specious ministry of Judah’s prophets. In this series, we explore specific examples of individual and societal sins about which religious leaders remain willfully blind and stubbornly mute… and therefore complicit. With these examples in mind, we will imagine what a Hebrew prophet might have to say if he were to come to us from the past. Here, then, is our first example.[1]
 
 

  CPAPs, ventilators, and mammon

Although Philips Respironics, a major provider of CPAP and ventilator machines, received thousands of complaints and numerous warnings from the Food and Drug Administration, they continued to produce breathing machines for over 10 years that they knew possessed engineering flaws and posed series health risks to users, including already sick children, the elderly, and veterans. Complaints and warnings spoke clearly and frequently of “black particles,” “dirt,” and “dust,” possibly “toxic and carcinogenic,” inside the machines that could find their way into the “noses, mouths, throats, and lungs” of their vulnerable users. “All the while, people using Philips machines were suffering from illnesses that no one could explain: vomiting, dizziness and headaches, along with newly diagnosed cancers of the lungs, throat, sinuses and esophagus.”
 
While ignoring these complaints, warnings, and preventable health risks for ten years, Philips engaged in aggressive and global marketing of these machines, allowing company stock prices to soar “to the highest levels in decades.”
 
Consistent with the mores of our entire culture, money came first and above all things. Health and human life took a backseat to greed.
 
Now, what, pray tell, do our priests, pastors, and prophets have to say about such antisocial behavior that so clearly denies the worth of every soul and is indicative of deep social, cultural, and spiritual transgression? Nada. Zip. Zilch. Zero.
 
The uninformed and undiscerning might think that the issue addressed here is something that should not be brought under the rubric of “sin.” They might imagine that this example of corporate misanthropic behavior does not come under the purview of priests or pastors or prophets. But they would be wrong, as even the most casual of readings in the Hebrew prophets demonstrates. The Hebrew prophets were keen observers and vociferous critics of private business practices and public policy makers that acted in ways harmful to individuals and society.
 
As one reads of Philips’ inferior, defective, and harmful devices, and the search for profit through them, one thinks of analogous situations in ancient Israel as commented on and criticized by the Hebrew prophets. Here is but one of dozens of examples that could be plied.
 
“Hear this, those who weary the impoverished
   to the end that they ruin the land’s downtrodden—
thinking: ‘when will the new moon sabbath be over
   so that we can sell grain;
and the weekly sabbath
   so that we can make our produce available,
while shrinking the size of the dry measure,
   increasing the weight of šeqel,
      and rigging fraudulent scales
to buy the underprivileged with money
   and the impoverished at the cost of a pair of sandals.
   We will even sell worthless debris mixed in with the grain!’”[2]
 
The context of this passage is, of course, different than that found in relation to the Philips supplied breathing machines. However, there are principled similarities. First, Philips managers sold an inferior product just as ancient Israel’s wheat merchant did. Second, the inferior product was sold with the highest priority given to profits and profit margins. Third, profits were prioritized over other’s needs, including health impacts that their actions and products might have on consumers.
 
There is ample prophetic evidence that those engaged in such malevolently immoral business practices as those of the Israelite wheat merchants were never held to account by those who had responsibility for looking out for the public’s interest. Philips managers have not and will not be held accountable for their malevolently immoral business practices which put health and life at risk for millions all around the globe. Not by the priests, pastors, or prophets and not by the legal system. White collar business crimes go almost universally unpunished. Indeed, so thoroughly have laws become corrupted by malevolently immoral policy and law makers that such crimes are not even called crime. This too has its ancient precedent.
 
“Warning! To those who issue oppressive statutes
   and continuously write laws that afflict;
that put redress out of the reach of the underprivileged
   and rob the poor among my people of justice,
making prey of widows
   and plundering orphans.”[3]
 
Laws are corrupted for filthy lucre. Those who put mammon above people are empowered and idolized. People suffer and die. Society becomes a hornet’s nest of sociopaths. And the priests, pastors, and prophets see no evil, hear no evil, speak not of the evil.
 

 
  conclusion and benediction

In our degenerate society, the sort of behavior in which Philips, or, more pointedly, its managers were engaged is simply chalked up to the cost of doing business. All is forgiven and justified as long as profits flow and stockholders are enriched. The victims of this warping and woofing of what is good and decent are martyrs, sacrificial victims of the materialistic fertility god known as capitalistic greed.
 
This is not OK. There is nothing OK about it, notwithstanding the mute silence of the prophetic voice in the face of such wickedness. There is no doubt that if any one of the Hebrew prophets returned today, they would have something, much of something to say about Philips’ business practices along with those of all the other global conglomerates that so often seek profits at the public’s expense, health, and even life.
 
Any priest, any pastor, any prophet worth their salt cannot remain silent. They must stand above the depravity. They can have no vested or invested interest in corporate profits, for these, surely, blind and debilitate them from fully engaging the ministry to which they are called—to be watchmen on the tower. Unfortunately, they are, themselves, all too often up to their necks in their own private and corporate investment portfolios and money management firms.
 
I am no prophet. Nor am I anywhere near as gifted a poet as those holy Hebrew prophets of yesteryear. Nevertheless, I cannot remain silent. And I can imagine what they might say were they to reappear today. It might go something like this.
 
A cause of lamentation and warning![4]
They build machines for gasping sleepers;
ventilators for the sick and dying.
But their inventions pump shards of black foam and fuzz;
spew filth and grime into deprived, damaged, and dying lungs.
Thousands of complaints year after year after year
and corporate knowledge of defects hidden
yield global campaigns for increased sales
and send profits soaring to unsurpassed heights
while innocents wheeze to breath life into corporate greed.
Let the bank accounts of the deceptive and lustful
match their moral bankruptcy. 
Let deceivers sleep the sleep of sulfurous hell.
Let those greedy for mammon breath the putrid air of Hades
until their lungs turn black with muck and mold and mildew,
and their souls choke on poisonous goop and goo
the sickly green of the color of mammon.
 
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!
 
 
[1] “Philips Kept Complaints About Dangerous Breathing Machines Secret While Company Profits Soared,” by Debbie Cenziper, ProPublica; Michael D. Sallah, Michael Korsh and Evan Robinson-Johnson, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; and Monica Sager, Northwestern University.
[2] Amos 8.4-6 (author’s translation). See our two-part homily series on this passage entitled, “Fraudulently selling bad product at inflated prices.”
[3] Isaiah 10.1-2.
[4] This is my rendering of the traditional, “Woe!”

Now, there’s a scripture you don’t hear read or referenced every week. Or once a year. Or once a decade. Come to think of it, I don’t know the last time I heard it read or referenced. Maybe never—except by me, of course. I’m rude like that. If you made a list of the top ten read or referenced scriptures in Mormondom, Moses 1.39 and a couple of 3.7s, one from 2 Nephi and one from Amos, would surely be on the list. If you made a list of the least ten read or referenced scriptures, this one might be on the list. Right along aside DC 70.14.
 
“Nevertheless, in your temporal things you shall be equal, and this not grudgingly, otherwise the abundance of the manifestations of the Spirit shall be withheld.”
 
Shoot, a passage from Leviticus about having sex with animals might be more often read or referenced than these two latter-day scriptures. They represent too great a danger to the mad status quo of our time.
 
But the absence of these two and other likeminded scriptures is revelatory. Tells you something about our culture. That something is not complimentary. It is something idolatrous. It’s almost like we don’t even understand those top ten most read and referenced scriptures we are so fond of.
 
All of this came to mind recently when an Associated Press headline caught my eye: “CEOs got smaller raises. It would still take a typical worker two lifetimes to make their annual pay.”[1] Among the eye-popping observations made in the piece was this tidbit.
 
“The median pay for workers at companies included in the AP survey was $77,178, up 1.3% from $76,160 the previous year. That means it would take that worker 186 years to make what a CEO making the median pay earned just last year. At the same group of companies in 2021, it would have taken 190 years.”
 
I am not sure how many things could more obviously NOT be part of “the plan of salvation” than this. While such perversion isn’t part of God’s economy, but that of a fallen, ungodly world, I’ll concede, reluctantly, to the boss making a little more than employees. But what the AP reports is criminal, from any perspective but the perverted. It is criminal and perverted on the part of the CEO. It is criminal  and perverted on the part of the companies that pay it. It is criminal and perverted on the part of the legislators that permit it. It is criminal and perverted on the part of the population that countenances it and does not righteously resist it.
 
It is difficult to find language sufficiently vile to describe such perversion and madness.
 
And not only does such inequality fly in the face of a just God, it flies in the face of all the propagandistic claims of our culture about merit and meritocracy. It is patently obvious to anyone with a brain and a heart that no one is so good at what they do that they are worth two lifetimes of their fellow human beings’ earnings. No one ever worked that much harder than anyone else. It’s simply not humanly possible. American businesses and the legislators that lap from their troughs can’t even be true to their own delusional and idolatrous ideas about merit and meritocracy, for God’s sake! They show remarkable skill in further corrupting what is already corrupt to begin with.
 
One might wonder how the wealthy and powerful so successfully get away with such ungodliness and infidelity to even pretended virtues. Part of the answer to this is the fact that the “liberal media” does not report on such madness—although the “radical leftist/socialist/communistic” media might. More important is the monied class’s ability to deflect and distract. Over nearly a half century, the monied interests, their well-funded think tanks, and the legislators they have bought have spent billions of their ill-gotten gains in stoking culture wars to distract attention from their thievery. It seems people can be made to feel satisfied being pillaged as long as they can beat up on those weaker than themselves—traditionally, African Americans, gays, transexuals, etc., and more recently school teachers and librarians.
 
It is all madness, just as the Bible bears witness in passages such as the one that heads all our just society posts.
 
“…The heart of the sons of men
   is full of evil,
and madness is in their heart
   while they live…” (Eccl. 9.3).
 
One would think that those religious leaders who claim to believe in and most understand scripture would step up and fulfill their prophetic role to expose and resist the ungodliness of inequality. But, alas, all too many of them have been bought off by these same monied interests and have bought into their delusional and idolatrous doctrines. So effective are the wizards of business that one begins to believe in sorcery.
 
But God be praised. We have scripture to teach and warn us against their sorcery.
 
“How sweet are thy words unto my taste! 
   yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth!
Through thy precepts I get understanding:
   therefore I hate every false way” (Ps. 119.103-104).
 
“Moreover by thy word is thy servant warned” (Ps. 19.11). 
 
Simply being a decent human being should be enough to reveal the evil of the thieving economic inequality that has infected our society. But it is certain that those who read scripture and claim to be disciples of the Lord, Jesus Christ, should be able to discern the sorcery that justifies the thieving economic inequality of our times. Even if such thieving inequality was not so clearly evil on the face of it, the word of God ought to cast aside all doubt. For it is most certainly “not given that one man should possess that which is above another.” Discerning believers should have no difficulty discerning that the economic inequality of our day in which a few individuals possess more than 95% of the world’s wealth and in which a few individuals make as much in a single year as all their fellow beings make in two lifetimes is proof that “the world lieth in sin.”
 
Those instructed and warned by the good word of God have no choice but to root and pray against such ungodly thieves and scoundrels. Indeed, they have responsibility to do so. They are called to do so. They must pray that the sorcerers who establish, maintain, and operate such vile and perverted and idolatrous schemes fail miserably in their perversions. They must so pray, not out of hate for the vile thief and scoundrel, but out of a desire for the happiness, security, and progress of all God’s children. Such prayer fulfills Jesus’ teaching that we pray,
 
“Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done in earth,
As it is in heaven” (Mt. 6.10).
 
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!
 
​
[1] By Alexandra Olson, May 31, 2023

In the short section encompassing Isaiah 1.21-26, Isaiah began with a lament over Jerusalem’s turn from fidelity toward Yahweh to the prostitution of idolatry, with its attendant ethical lapses and social injustices (1.21-23). It ended with the hope for a better future when the city would return to its fidelity toward Yahweh (1.24-26). The path from infidelity back to fidelity goes through the nation’s leadership. God would see the nation’s corrupt leadership removed and replaced with just leadership.
 
“I will take hold of you
   and smelt away your impurities with a purifying agent,
      remove all your contaminants,
and return to you the kind of leaders you had to begin with;
   the kind of advisors you had in the beginning” (1.25-26).
 
Judah’s leadership, then, was at the heart of the nation’s infidelity to God.
 
In reading this brief prophetic critique of Judah’s corrupt political leaders, it is impossible to not think of the perversion of America’s current political class. For example, bribery, dressed in the garb of campaign contributions, is rampant, and has thoroughly corrupted the political process. The monied class that can afford to pay into such legalized bribery benefit at the expense of the less advantaged. As a result of this American style legal bribery, vulnerable populations—the compassionate treatment of whom is central to any government’s legitimacy—are left without advocacy just as they were in Isaiah’s day (this is most recently exemplified by the Fed’s rising of interest rates to tame inflation, much to the disadvantage of the already disadvantaged and to the advantage of the already advantaged).
 
All of this is made possible, as Isaiah proclaims elsewhere, by corrupt laws.
 
“Warning! To those who issue oppressive statutes
   and continuously write laws that afflict;
that put redress out of the reach of the underprivileged
   and rob the poor among my people of justice,
making prey of widows
   and plundering orphans” (Is. 10.1-2).
 
But what really grabs our attention today is Isaiah’s charge that
 
“Your leaders are criminals,
    collaborators with thieves.”
 
Now, before considering this observation and its application to the present, we should make one very important point. Among the many differences between Isaiah’s time and ours, there is this one ginormous difference. In Isaiah’s time, political leaders were autocratic and unelected. The populace had little or no say as to who led them. Obviously, America’s leaders, albeit imperfect so, are elected by the people. The people can control who their leaders are. Thus, whatever America’s leaders are reflects the character of its people. Thus, whatever criticism is made of America’s leadership applies to its electorate. When applied to modern American society, whatever criticisms Isaiah made of Judah’s leadership extends to the entire populace. So, again,
 
“Your leaders are criminals,
    collaborators with thieves.”
 
It is impossible to read this without thinking of the life-long criminal and former president who currently leads all other GOP candidates as the GOP’s potential nominee for president of the United States. That this unholy man is a life-long criminal cannot be doubted by anyone with a whiff of discernment. We can declare him criminal with the same certainty that we testify, “the Book of Mormon is true, an inspired text containing the words of God. Amen.”
 
Having received the support of the party’s base and many of its leading politicians, his criminality has only grown over time. He attempted to undermine American democracy through theft of an election. In this attempted theft, he encouraged a sort of violence previously unknown in America’s 250 years of electoral history. Failing in his attempted coup, he arrogantly and petulantly stole documents, many related to national security. Challenged in his theft, he committed countless acts to obstruct justice.
 
In his attempts to defend the indefensible, he spouts lie after lie. This is fully consistent with this deformed character. Indeed, his greatest theft is his attempted theft of truth and reality themselves. He is a liar. As great a liar as human history has ever seen. Truth has never been known to escape his lips. Never. Not once. Every word he has ever spoken has been a lie. Every. Single. Word.
 
In a twisted way, his capacity to lie is truly marvelous. The consistency is impressive, nearly unimaginable. It borders on magical. His consistency in lying, though, has its usefulness since the truth can always be discerned in his spewing forth: the truth is always the exact opposite of what he says. Easy peasy.
 
His acolytes, great and small, powerful and pathetic, accept, repeat, and press his lies. Now, to be clear, when we speak of his and their lies, we are not referring so much to the fact that they are factually inaccurate. Factual error is not the same as a lie. What we mean by lie is that which does harm and is intended to destroy. He and his acolytes intend harm. They are agents of chaos and destruction. They are of the devil. He and they are, together, the maker of the lies and the lovers of the lies, on the dark path to hell.
 
“Wherefore, I, the Lord, have said that the fearful, and the unbelieving, and all liars, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie, and the whoremonger, and the sorcerer, shall have their part in that lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death” (DC 63.17).
 
What we are observing in this man’s character and actions is nothing short of sorcery. Tens of thousands have come under his spell, or curse. But no amount of sorcery can change the truth. No argument that denies or justifies this man’s life-long crime spree can be taken seriously. Any such argument can only be deemed to flow from the vain imagination of deranged minds.
 
Yet, tens of millions either claim his innocence or don’t care about his guilt. They lionize and laud him and the hundreds of, now, convicted felons who supported the criminal traitor during a violent insurrection. This brings us back to our earlier observation that in today’s political environment in which people choose their leaders, whatever criticisms are made of leaders can be applied to the people who put them in place.
 
“Your leaders are criminals,
    collaborators with thieves.”
 
One begins to suspect that the millions who dismiss the vile criminal’s guilt do so because they are, in their own right, guilty of criminal behavior. A little looking around suggests that our suspicion is not without merit. Just this week, for example, the Associated Press reported “that fraudsters potentially stole more than $280 billion in COVID-19 relief funding” accounting for roughly 10% of distributed relief funds. And, the AP reported, investigations continue so that the amount of fraud will certainly yet increase.[1]
 
America, it seems, has a healthy pool of criminals. The sorts of criminals who would possess the wherewithal to engage in such fraud as the AP reported likely outnumber traditional criminals—you know, the ones who rob convenience stores at gunpoint and hijack cars—many fold. We feel safe in concluding that many of them are MAGA, though not exclusively so, and that their criminality helps explain their uncaring response to the criminality of their cult leader.
 
During Jeremiah’s ministry, God sent him on a search through the capital city for anyone “that acts justly or seeks truth.” He began with the common people. After searching among them, he found none who acted justly or sought truth. Concluding that these were simply the “toiling masses who don’t know any better or understand YHWH’s ideals” (Jer. 5.4), he went searching among the “great”, the powerful and influential for those who acted justly and sought truth. This search, however, also came up blank. Among the powerful and influential, he was disappointed to find that they had “as one, broken restraints and ripped off controls” (Jer. 5.5).
 
So it is today. Whether we look to the powerful and influential or the common masses, far, far too many engage in criminality. Its spread through society has brought us to the place where tens of millions of Americans energetically, and perhaps not ignorantly, support a known and obvious criminal and agitate to place him in the highest seat in the land. Even if he were to falter, one suspects that his acolytes would go in search of another criminal—there are several waiting in the wings.   
 
It is impossible to observe the behavior of GOP leaders in their governance and in their support for a hardened criminal without thinking of Mormon’s observation. He saw
 
“Gadianton robbers filling the  judgment-seats… laying aside the commandments of God, and not in the least aright before him; doing no justice unto the children of men; condemning the righteous because of their righteousness; letting the guilty and the wicked go unpunished because of their money; and moreover to be held in office at the head of government, to rule and do according to their wills, that they might get gain and glory of the world, and, moreover, that they might the more easily commit adultery, and steal, and kill, and do according to their own wills…” (Hel. 7.4-5).
 
But, sadly, it is also impossible to see much of America’s electorate and not think of this prophetic lament.
 
“On the other hand, the Nephites did build them up and support them, beginning at the more wicked part of them, until they had overspread all the land of the Nephites, and had seduced the more part of the righteous until they had come down to believe in their works and partake of their spoils, and to join with them in their secret murders and combinations. And thus they did obtain the sole management of the government, insomuch that they did trample under their feet and smite and rend and turn their backs upon the poor and the meek, and the humble followers of God. And thus we see that they were in an awful state, and ripening for an everlasting destruction” (Hel. 6.38-40).
 
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!
 
 
[1] “The Great Grift: How Billions in COVID-19 Relief Aid was Stolen or Wasted,” Richard Lardner, Jennifer McDermott, and Aaron Kessler.

“I bring against you an indictment. And I am an expert witness concerning sorcerers, concerning adulterers, concerning false witnesses, concerning the extorter of a laborer’s wages, the oppressor of widows and orphans, the one who turns the foreigner away, and they who do not reverence me, says YHWH Ṣebāʾôt” (Malachi 3.5, author’s translation).
 
 
It has been a while since I last offered a Mad State post. My Mad State posts consider a passage of scripture in relation to some current social justice issue. The interruption in Mad State posts certainly has nothing to do with a lack of madness. The madness has only deepened, widened, metastasized to stage four. Time will tell if recovery is possible. I am increasingly pessimistic about the prospects. My pessimism does not stem from the state of modern institutions—sacred and secular—but from the character of individual members of those institutions. The people. It is their madness that is driving the institutional madness.
 
Now, for today’s passage and modern application. The Lord brings an indictment against several classes of sinners. First up is sorcery. Everyone knows that sorcery is way up there on the wickedness scale. It is up there not so much because of the sorcerer himself, but because of the wide impact sorcery has on its targets. Then there’s adultery. LDS doctrine would have use think of adultery way up there at number two of the worst sins. Even those involved in the betrayal that is adultery know adultery is wrong—except, of course, for 45th president of the United States, who thinks it a sign of manliness and has, hence, engaged serial acts of adultery (and what to do with the millions of “Christians” who give the serial adulterer a pass and reward him with the highest office in the land—a special kind of madness—is anyone’s guess.).
 
Anyway, when God, the most expert of witnesses, lumps those who cheat laborers of their earned wages with sorcerers and adulterers, I for one sit up a little straighter and take notice. It is an extraordinarily series piece of sinning.
 
Recently, the Guardian reported that according to the Economic Policy Institute, “Workers in the US have an estimated $50bn-plus stolen from them every year… surpassing all robberies, burglaries and motor vehicle thefts combined.”[1]
 
Millions of Americans, especially the FOX viewing audience, are regularly regaled with tales of inner-city youths robbing convenience stores of seventy-five bucks or of gangs of urban thieves smashing jewelry store cases and making off with thousands in precious jewels. They are appalled. Scandalized. Incensed. Secretly delighted, one suspects as such stories seem to confirm their vilest prejudices.
 
But FOX’s false prophets and their gullible audience speak nary a word about this theft of wage or the many other, larger, more damaging thefts of American’s wealthy business class. The attaché case and personal tablet are used to violate far more people than any snub-nose revolver. The business class’s many acts of theft impact far more people in equally profound ways.
 
But real prophets, true prophets, prophets worth listening to, they know. They know that cheating laborers is right up there with sorcery and adultery. Indeed, such fraud is a form of sorcery and adultery. They know that such fraud trickles down, impacting the vulnerable and helpless—widows, orphans, foreigners who are of special interest to God. They know that the practitioners of the dark art of wage theft have no reverence for God. They are godless. True prophets so speak. Loudly. Without compromise or equivocation.
 
We are no prophet. Yet we know. And we say, to quote an infamous scoundrel who is, himself, well known for his wage theft, “Lock them up!”
 
For all the harm they have done not only to individuals but to our entire society, let them all keep company with each other in the fiery inferno of Hades. Let them suffer the torment of Lazarus’ tormentor.
 
“And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.’
But Abraham said, ‘Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented’” (Lk. 16.23-25).
 
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!
 

[1] “‘I have not seen one cent’: billions stolen in wage theft from US workers.” This institute is by no means the only one to report such findings.