concord with an infidel

“And what concord hath Christ with Belial? Or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?” (2 Corinthians 6.15)

​There was a time when I looked for and took advantage of every opportunity to teach and preach. Now I look for excuses not to, passing up one invitation after another with the flimsiest of excuses. I really don’t know what to say to them anymore.
 
What do I say to Mormons who voted for Caligula at a 60% clip? What do I say to Mormons whose support of the emperor tops any polled “Christian” group? (They seem determined to grant Caligula’s hope that “his people” will be as loyal to him as Kim’s people.) How do I think of such a population as “righteous” or “godly”? How do I preach at-one-ment with God and assure them of Father’s acceptance and approval as borne witness to by Christ? I find that I can’t. I am just not limber enough for it.
 
They can’t be one with Caligula and one with God. It is simply impossible. “What concord hath Christ with Belial?”
 
Do I cry out against them, then? Call them to repentance? Do from the lectern or the pulpit what I do on this site? Nope. They won’t hear of being wrong in their support of the anti-Christ, Caligula. As I have said elsewhere, in their delusion that their decisions are directed by the Spirit, to admit that they were and are wrong to support this evil little man, is to question their being led by the spirit. This is unthinkable. They are stuck. They will have to support him, as they supported Nixon before him, the Vietnam War, the anti-civil rights movement, the anti-gay rights movement (have they ever been on the right side of a social issue?) to the bitter end. They will, no doubt, find some justification for supporting him after he has shot someone on 5th Ave.
 
I sat in a Sunday School class recently in which I was informed how important it was to teach youth “how to act” upon the principles we teach so that they can be truly obedient. Such instruction needs to be very precise and detailed we were informed. Apparently, being godly is a very, very tricky business, only available to those who have painstaking knowledge of the most minute kind. “Righteousness” and “obedience” requires, it turns out, a good deal of knowledge. Simple, common sense decency counts for little.
 
What I really learned, or re-learned is that Mormonism is inclined to drift into Gnosticism. Righteousness is about knowing minutia and acting legalistically in response to the minutia. This goes some way in explaining Mormons’ support of the patently evil Caligula. While they support Therump as he harms tens, perhaps hundreds of millions of people the globe over, they can call themselves righteous because they know how to submit a tithing payment, or know how to use all the proper archaic pronouns in prayer, or endure sitting on their butts for three hours of meetings on Sunday, etc., etc., etc. Righteous becomes divorced from real—and simple—matters involving how others are treated.
 
It just doesn’t matter how enthusiastically the speak about or how skillfully they practice their meaningless Gnosticism, I can’t call them godly.
 
Of course, they will yell bloody murder: abortion… gay marriage.
 
I really will need to tackle these phony boogey men at some point.

“Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone. Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel” (Matthew 23.23-24).