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

​“…The heart of the sons of men
is full of evil,
and madness is in their heart
while they live…”
(Ecclesiastes 9.3)
 
Wherewith shall I come before the LORD,
and bow myself before the high God?
He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good;
and what doth the LORD require of thee,
but to do justly, and to love mercy,
and to walk humbly with thy God?
 (Micah 6.6, 8)
​

​america’s love affair with criminality

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.

“…The heart of the sons of men
is full of evil,
and madness is in their heart
while they live…”
(Ecclesiastes 9.3)
 
Wherewith shall I come before the LORD,
and bow myself before the high God?
He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good;
and what doth the LORD require of thee,
but to do justly, and to love mercy,
and to walk humbly with thy God?
 (Micah 6.6, 8)
​

​the company you keep
​

“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.

It ought to be abundantly clear that the entire MAGA movement with its messianic expectations of tRUMP is a cult. It is an American Christian heresy of epic and historic proportions. One for the history books. This was brought home to me again this week as I have prepared for the holiest week of the Christian calendar in lead up to its holiest holiday, Easter.
 
As I scanned through my Twitter feed, I was jolted by this tweet from an ardent supporter of one of the greatest con artists; one of the most committed and consistent criminals; to one of the most immoral individuals in American history:
 
“Jesus was arrested Easter week. Trump will be arrested Easter Week.”
 
I am not making this up. It is beyond my humble ability to make up something so grotesque and blasphemous. To call it grotesque and blasphemous is an understatement of gargantuan proportions. I cannot begin to say how repulsed and disgusted I am at such heresy and blasphemy—or, if I can say, I dare not, lest I issue forth with the most offensive profanity I can string together.
 
I thought of this grotesquery as I read the passage above. It is part and parcel of antisemitism’s hateful doctrine that Jews are fair game for violence because they killed Jesus. And, when given a chance, they sacrificed him in order to deliver a thief and gangster. But our blasphemous Tweeter reminds us just how complicit are we all—Jew, Christian, atheist, etc., etc.—in Jesus’ death.
 
Tragically, and destructively, this blasphemous Tweeter has done as the multitude did all those years ago. He has chosen a criminal over Jesus. But, far different than that multitude of long ago, who probably did not know the criminal before and never heard of or saw him again, this Twitting blasphemer has followed and intends to follow this American criminal to the bitter end—and the end will be bitter.
 
Yes, this ungodly blasphemer has shouted aloud from his rooftop; sent it out for all the world to hear: “Crucify him. Crucify Jesus of Nazareth, Son of God, the Holiest and Kindest and most Faithful of friends.” In choosing to follow this American criminal, he with his fellow MAGA heretics crucify Jesus anew.
 
Such Tweets as this MAGA Tweeter’s convinces one that the Lord was within His rights when He warned that “the wrath of God shall be poured out upon the wicked without measure.”[1] What punishment can be deemed to severe for such blasphemers? How long can it be before the Romans come and burn down all the Christian churches and temples? If things continue as they are, it can’t come too soon or too fast or too brutal as far as I am concerned. I am beyond the point of praying for the MAGA mob. They are past feeling, it seems. I pray against them.
 
O God, how long shall the adversary reproach? 
   shall the enemy blaspheme thy name for ever?[2]
 
Break thou the arm of the wicked and the evil man:
   seek out his wickedness till thou find none.[3]
 
Break his teeth, O God, in his mouth:
   break out the great teeth of the young lions, O LORD.
As a snail which melteth, let him pass away:
   like the untimely birth of a woman, that he may not see the sun.[4]
 
Let him be as chaff before the wind:
   and let the angel of the LORD chase him.
Let his way be dark and slippery:
   and let the angel of the LORD persecute him.[5]
 
As smoke is driven away,
   so drive him away:
as wax melteth before the fire,
   so let the wicked perish at the presence of God.[6]
 
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!
 

[1] DC 1.9
[2] Psalm 74.10
[3] Psalm 10.3-7
[4] Psalm 58.6, 8
[5] Psalm 35.5-6
[6] Psalm 68.2

This blog post is a meditation that serves as introduction to a series of meditations entitled, “The Righteousness of being Woke: Resisting the Un-biblical Anti-woke Heresy.”
 
These days, it is fashionable on America’s political and cultural right to complain about and rage against what it calls “wokeness,” or “woke culture” —as if sleeping and slumbering are somehow preferable to being awake! It is bizarre. And this is really saying something about a political and cultural movement that is increasing drunken in and addicted to the most bizarre and easily refuted conspiracy theories in America’s long history of infatuation with conspiracy theories.
 
Challenged by and fearful of ideas and individuals that they cannot understand and will not countenance, those on America’s political and cultural right use “woke” as its latest catch-all pejorative for the political left and its defense of those very same challenging and fear-inducing ideas and individuals. Nevertheless, they seem often to struggle to clearly define, explain, or articulate the meaning of the political and cultural phenomena that they so fear and loath.
 
But the word, “woke,” as used in a political and cultural setting is easy to understand and explain. “Woke,” as a political and cultural phenomenon has a nearly hundred-year history. For most of that history it existed in obscurity. For most of its long and rather silent history, “woke” indicated the  awareness and acknowledgement of the oppressive racism America has practiced against African Americans from its inception. The Black Lives Matter movement resurrected the term from its obscurity and expanded the meaning to include not only awareness and acknowledgement of racist oppression, but resistance to it as well. More recently “woke” awareness has expanded to include past and present oppression, injustice, and wrong committed against other vulnerable groups such as women and the LBGTQ community.
 
To be “woke,” then, is to remember. To remember and resist oppression. It is to acknowledge, and, most importantly, repent of social injustices and wrongs committed against any individual or group—in America’s case, African Americans, women, and LBGTQ, past and present, have been particularly vulnerable to oppression. In using the term in a pejorative manner, America’s political and cultural right confesses, unbeknownst to itself, its preference for forgetfulness, ignorance, and sin. To be anti-woke represents the refusal to engage in the process of repentance. It calls for spiritual sleepiness and slumber. It is nocturnal, a creature of the night, an inhabitant of dark places. In avoiding the light of day, its slumber is the sleep of hell.
 
One of the foundational tenets of this right-wing anti-woke heresy involves America’s history with slavery and racism. There is an attempt on the part of the slumbering right to deny this history; to deny the oppression African Americans have and do endure; and to deny that much of America’s economic “greatness” was built on the back of the immorality of free and forced labor. More, it wishes to forget and deny present racism and its deleterious effects upon its targets. The movement wishes to remove such truths from school curriculums and public discourse. It wishes to keep our children asleep. Forgetful. Ignorant. Wicked.
 
All of this, one suspects, it does in order to maintain an oppressive order in service to an ungodly white supremacy that has dominated America from its inception. In so doing, it becomes the defender  of oppression—not only of African Americans, but of all vulnerable groups. America’s anti-woke mob seeks oppression. It is an oppressor.
 
While most of those who complain loudly of “wokeness” are undisciplined in their rage, tragically, there are some, like Florida’s DeSantis, who, more wickedly crafty than most, cynically seek personal and political gain by further enflaming and manipulating the frenzied and fearful anti-woke or slumbering mind—often making appeal to those deemed more reasonable by dressing up the hateful anti-woke heresy in the language of “parental rights” and other pleasant sounding lies.
 
Whether wielded in an undisciplined or cynical or crafty way, the anti-woke heresy is dangerous to society and the soul of its people. It must be challenged, resisted, and overcome. In this series of meditations, we resist the aspect of the anti-woke heresy that challenges the remembrance of America’s historical and systemic oppression of African Americans. We resist the anti-woke heresy with the Bible—a Book that so many anti-woke heretics claim to know and love. It is yet one more of many sad commentaries on American Christianity that so many who claim the title, “Christian” have adopted the hateful anti-woke heresy that is so incompatible with the Bible.
 
For, make no mistake about it. The anti-woke heresy that seeks to forget America’s past oppression and ignore America’s present oppression of African Americans is decidedly at odds with the Bible. It is unbiblical. It is, in fact, about as unbiblical as one can get. To forget and ignore social injustice is antithetical to every Biblical and Christian principle. It is utterly un-Christian. If it is un-American to remember our own or any oppressive past or ignore our own or any oppressive present, then large swaths of America’s population is unbiblical and un-Christian.
 
So, we will begin this series of meditations and our resistance of the anti-woke movement’s slumbering denial and forgetfulness of America’s oppressive history toward African Americans with a story that is familiar to all of us: the story of Israel’s exodus from Egyptian bondage. The story is a staple of western culture. It is the central story of the Hebrew Bible. The story’s point is central to not only the Hebrew Bible, but the Christian Bible as well. It is the central point of Christian doctrine. To wit:
 
God is a Savior, a Redeemer, a Rescuer, a Liberator, an Emancipator. This reality is more than central to the Biblical witness, it is central to the Divine Character. But, for every Savior, Redeemer, Rescuer, Liberator, and Emancipator, there is an enslaver, an oppressor that must be humbled, resisted, defeated, halted and, where necessary due to the hardness of heart, annihilated. The two messages—Liberator and oppressor—go together, hand in glove. One cannot remember one without remembering the other. Nor should one. The remembrance of salvation and liberation without a thorough understanding and remembrance of what it is one is saved and liberated from is meaningless and nonsensical on its face.
 
The battle over wakefulness or slumber in matters related to social justice has a very long history, pre-dating, even, America’s existence. America’s re-branded dalliance with forgetfulness and ignorance is not new. Forgetfulness and ignorance are exactly what one would expect of every oppressor. In its wish to oppress and keep oppression from coming to light, America’s right imitates the great oppressors of the Hebrew Bible, especially Egypt, as we will see in the upcoming meditations.
 
But Israel, the victim of Egyptian oppression, was called out of oppression to stand against oppression. The first step of this resistance to oppression is the remembrance, awareness, and acknowledgement of oppression. Israel was never to forget, sleep, or slumber in relation to its own oppression. It was to remain awake to the possibility of newer oppression of newer vulnerable groups. It was always to remember. It was never to forget. Israel was, then, to be and remain “woke.” The laws and ordinances that God gave to Israel were intended as a safeguard against its falling asleep to oppression and thus becoming the next in history’s long line of oppressors.
 
Like ancient Israel, America is called away from injustice and oppression. Americans, like Israelites are called to remember. They are called away from forgetfulness. They are called to wokeness. They are called to woke remembrance. This series of meditations lends but one more voice to that call. This call to woke remembrance is not simply a matter of righting past wrongs. It is a matter of imagining and carrying out a more just future.
 
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!

strange notions of diversity and unity
 
 
While I call today's blog a meditation, it might more accurately be called a jeremiad.
 
Upon returning from a month long tour across the southern part of the subcontinent of India, I was interested to learn of the little dust up over Dallin Oak’s here-today-gone-tomorrow video (unfortunately, he says and does nothing in it to earn the title “Elder,” “Apostle,” or “President”) in which he seemed to poopoo diversity and any notion of the Lord’s responsibility for, interest in, or use of diversity within the body of Christ.
 
“Jesus did not pray that his followers would be diverse,” he intones. “He prayed that they would be one…”
 
His declaration is so knuckleheaded on so many fronts that it is hard to know where to even begin a discussion. Hearing his unfortunate declaration concerning diversity, unity, and the relationship between them, my wife wondered out loud, “What does that even mean?” 
 
While I have some sympathy for my wife’s sense that the declaration was nonsensical and off kilter, I nevertheless find significance in it. It seems to me an example of the quiet part being spoken out loud. I would be willing to bet that this ugly and inciting aphorism has been bandying about the echo chambers of the church’s highest leadership councils for some time. In this rarified, artificial, and vanilla environment of self-perpetuation devoid of self-reflection, it has almost certainly reverberated back and forth with little or no resistance. But when tried out and uttered outside in the real world where such declarations enter rather than bounce off actual human beings it landed with a deafening thud rather than exalted echoes.
 
Enter the public affairs wizards to attempt a white wash.
 
I have little doubt that this and many other ugly assertions that seek to justify a host of institutional errors and defame those perceived as threats to the status quo bounce around uninhibited inside the carefully maintained echo chambers of church leadership. I would be willing to bet that, while those “who seem to be somewhat”[1] lament the decrease in new members entering and the increase in old members exiting, within the leadership echo chambers there is a wizened, self-satisfied, and self-righteous nod of the head that this decrease in coming and increase in going is, in the end, inevitable—simply a matter of prophecy being fulfilled: an increasing and clearer demarcation between the goats and the sheep, the wheat and the tares. 
 
Convenient echo, this, since it allows the shouters to continue the status quo and avoid the sort of change that we call repentance and associate with progression. Here we recall that it was this same man who asserted that the church felt no need to apologize for past church errors—probably as much a dig at, say, the Catholic Church and its willingness to admit past errors as belligerent refusal to confess sin and error and ask for forgiveness. We also call to mind the church’s passive, responsibility-avoiding “mistakes were made” rather than the active and accountable “we made mistakes” when addressing its twenty-year-long fraudulent and unethical investment practices that have recently come to light. Those who lead the church simply seem incapable and/ or unwilling to admit error and make godly confession of sin as God requires of disciples.[2]
 
Troubling, to say the least.
 
It is such maintenance of the status quo and avoidance of repentance and progression that Oak’s latest howl concerning diversity seems intent on setting in concrete. But through scripture, we can easily identify the sophistry of his strange assertion and that has likely bounced about and then escaped the self-perpetuating echo chambers of the church’s leading councils. We can call to mind scripture’s insight that it is God, Himself, who appreciates, creates, and utilizes diversity. 
 
“For the body is not one member, but many. If the foot shall say, “Because  I am not the hand, I am not of  the body;” is it therefore not of the body? And if the ear shall say, “Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body;” is it therefore not of the  body? If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling? But now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him. 
And if they were all one member, where were the body? But now are they many members, yet but one body. And the eye cannot say unto the hand, “I have no need of thee:” nor again the a head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” Nay, much more those members of the body, which seem to be more feeble, are necessary: and those members of the body, which we think to be less honourable, upon these we bestow more abundant honour; and our uncomely parts have more abundant comeliness. For our comely parts have no need: but God hath tempered the body together, having given more abundant honour to that part which lacked: that there should be no schism in the body; but that the members should have the same care one for another. And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it. Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular.”[3]
 
If this is not a paean to diversity, I don’t know what is. 
 
“Jesus did not pray that his followers would be diverse,” but one, you say? Well duh. Of course, Jesus does not pray for diversity within the church. There is no need! He created diversity; built diversity into it from the very beginning! He is pleased with diversity. Finds it necessary. Mixes and combines diverse elements to form a healthy whole. Diversity keeps the more “valued” and “honorable” members—those such as Oaks?—from thinking more of themselves than they ought and allows the less valued members to think more of themselves than they are otherwise inclined to do.
 
“Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all. But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal.”[4]
 
And you do know, don’t you, that diversity and unity are not mutually exclusive? That, in fact, they belong together, go hand in hand? All are profited; all are blessed through the diversity God makes and cherishes as part of His Kingdom. Diversity is fundamental to the advancement of the institutional church and its individual members.
 
Oak’s sophistry rejects divinely ordained diversity and falsely characterizes unity and oneness. But the sophistry goes further. Whether intentionally or unintentionally, it defames those who laud diversity, suggesting that they are somehow uninterested in and even adverse to the idea of unity and oneness in Christ when, in fact, those who laud diversity actually assert that a recognition and respect for diversity is a key to unity and oneness. The sophistry is more than gaslighting. It is itself divisive and inciting. If left to stand, it will do as much as anything to create disunity.
 
Those who seem to be somewhat in the church seem to become ever more reactionary and irrational in their defense of a status quo that is increasingly indefensible. Here’s hoping they can be constrained in their irrational reactionary impulses by something more than a bunch of hired public affairs professionals. Here’s hoping they can find their way to humble acknowledgement of imperfection and error that leads to godly repentance.
 
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!
 

[1] See Galatians 2.6
[2] According to one GA’s recent ridiculous assertion, one can replace the name of the church with “Jesus.” It is, then, disconcerting to witness mere humans fining Jesus for fraudulent financial practices.
[3] 1 Corinthians 12.14-27
[4] 1 Corinthians 12.4-7

  text
1Warning! There are those who plot to abuse their power,
   those who spend the night planning crimes.
Come daylight, they act upon their plans
   because it is within their power.
2They covet tracts of farmland, and find a way to steal them.
   They covet houses, and seize them.
Thus, they extort a property owner of his home,       
   and an individual of their property.
3On account of this, YHWH has warned:
   “Understand that I am planning disaster for this people
such that you’ll not be able to remove it from around your necks
   or be able to walk upright.
      For it is a disastrous time.”
 
 
  introduction
Micah was a prophet who ministered to ancient Israel during the second half of the 8th century B.C. He was a younger contemporary of the prophet Amos and was roughly a contemporary of Hosea and the more famous Isaiah. Like all the prophets, he spoke in an elevated, poetic style as was customary and expected of those who claimed divine appointment to speak the word of God.
 
Poetry can be difficult to understand. However, there is nothing difficult about Micah’s poetry here. No doubt, the reader can easily understand Micah’s critique of and warning to Israelite society found in these verses. Nonetheless, we will begin this homily by restating Micah’s critique and warning in non-poetic and more contemporary terms.
 
We will then turn our attention to a more detailed look at the specific economic/ ethical issue Micah addressed—the purposeful and immoral dispossession and homelessness created by Israel’s wealthy, powerful, and influential manipulation of the “real estate sector” of their economy. In order to understand the broad nature of the threatened coming societal disaster, we will observe the choices that both individual and society write large made in creating dispossession and homelessness. Before concluding, we will consider the relevance of this passage to contemporary American society. For, though ancient Israelite laws regarding land possession and transfer were very different than ours today, there are, nonetheless, principles that apply across time and cultures so that Micah’s social critique and warning can be applied to modern society.
 
 
  a more contemporary restatement
Crimes are being committed in Micah’s Israel. The criminals committing the crimes are individuals of wealth, power, and influence. Indeed, they are using their wealth, power, and influence as tools to facilitate their criminality. The criminals are fully committed to their criminality. There is nothing haphazard, accidental, or lackadaisical about their crimes. Their crimes are premeditated, imaginative, and well thought out. That’s verse one.
 
The stage upon which the criminals act is the “real estate market.” Their victims are the less wealthy, powerful, and influential property holders. Through the actions of their wealthier, more powerful, and more influential fellow citizens, the less wealthy, powerful, and influential are left dispossessed and homeless. While the criminals use their wealth, power, and influence to victimize their fellow citizens, the driving force behind their crimes is unchecked desire and a disregard for the divinely granted value and dignity of their fellow citizens. That’s verse two.
 
Micah will brook no nonsense. The dispossession and homelessness that he finds in Israelite society are not the consequence of some theoretical or inevitable “market forces.” Dispossession and homelessness are a choice. They are a consequence of the choices that wealthy, powerful, and influential citizens make. They are the consequence of human desire, not some preordained inevitability of nature. That’s verses one and two.
 
However, with verse three and its warning of broad and sweeping societal disaster, we are reminded that the criminal choices that result in the dispossession and homelessness of vulnerable populations is not, in fact, limited to a few rogue individuals. They are choices of society writ large. It seems unlikely that the Lord would warn of broad societal disaster if it were a matter of a few bad apples. Indeed, this runs contrary to scripture’s testimony that Yahweh is a mercy God, full of compassion and patience. Thus, the warning of broad and sweeping societal disaster can only be explained by the presence of a broad and sweeping malignancy infecting the entire society.
 
 
  the choices are societal rather than simply private and individual
It takes two to tango, the say. The simple fact of the matter is that Israelite society’s wealthy, powerful, and influential could not do what they did on their own. They required help. Co-conspirators. They required the help of those who legislate and enforce the laws by which society functions—in this case, we are dealing with laws regulating economic, and particularly real estate affairs. Micah is clear that government officials of all strips were corrupted, and that their corruption was in part the result of bribes and kickbacks they received.
 
“Those of integrity have vanished from the land.
   There isn’t an upright individual among them.
All of them are involved in violent intrigues.
   Each of them prey upon his fellow citizen as if cursed.
Their palms are open to corruption.
   For a favorable decision, the government official demands,
      along with the government decision maker, bribes.
Also, the powerful makes known his hidden desire.
   They are united in what they do and want.”[1]
 
“I beg you to listen to this, you leaders of Yaʿaqōb,
   and you rulers of Yiśrāʾēl
who show abhorrence for justice
   and pervert all that is right;
shaping Ṣîyôn through violence,
   and Yerûšalāyim through injustice.
Its leaders make decisions based on bribery,
   its priests offer direction for a fee,
      and its prophets offer predictions for money.”[2]
 
Obviously, less wealthy citizens lacked the means to offer such bribes and kickbacks. The sort of bribes and kickbacks that Micah condemns surely came from the wealthier, more powerful and influential citizens who could afford them. Such underhanded expenses were simply written off as the price of doing business.
 
One could easily predict that individuals involved in business would have profit as their over-riding objective. One could even justify it, within reason. But their willingness to acquire profit/property through bribery and other unethical practices demonstrates that their desires for profits were not within reason, or decency, for that matter.
 
While one is not shocked at the wealthy’s actions, one is shocked at the behavior of those whom society expected to look after the welfare of all. Micah’s judgement is that every leader to whom people looked for leadership and guidance was motivated by their own economic interests and used their positions of trust for their own personal gain. There was total synchronicity between business and political leaders when it came to motivation, and complete cooperation when it came to the means by which immoderate economic desires were realized. Bribes were given and received so that laws would be passed that advantaged the wealthy and the governing at the expense of everyone else. Bribes were given and received to deny the less influential a just settlement in any case that might be brought to redress the abuses perpetrated by the wealthy, powerful, and influential.
 
Micah’s most famous contemporary prophet, Isaiah, complained of the immoral and unethical laws passed and upheld by the nation’s legislative and judicial leaders.
 
“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]
 
So, there you have it. Wealthy, powerful, and influential individuals used their wealth to buy legislators. Corrupted by their own lust for wealth and the “legalized” bribes/ kickbacks they accepted to fulfill their lusts, legislators and the judiciary passed and enforced laws that were, themselves, corrupt, unethical, and criminal—in the ancient world of Israel, the “legislative” and “judicial” functions of government were conducted by the same small group of officials as no equivalent to our modern “separation of powers” or “checks and balances” existed. Part of the corruption was found in the way the laws advantaged the wealthy and influential and disadvantaged the less wealthy and less influential. And this, ladies and gentlemen is how the dispossessed and homeless were created.
 
Nay, it is how the dispossessed and homeless ARE created.
 
 
  choosing dispossession and homelessness in contemporary America
If all of this sounds eerily familiar, it should. The first two verses of this reading could easily serve as text for a story found on the evening news of America’s news networks. We see the same personal desires and intentions, the same schemes and societal choices today that Micah saw in his day. Indeed, Micah could hardly better describe what has happened in America over the course of the past forty years. What is happening in America today. It has happened and is happening in every sector of the economy—banking, employment/ wages, insurance, healthcare, entertainment, retailing, manufacturing, food production and distribution, etc., etc., etc. But, as our thematic passage focuses on real estate and housing, we will limit ourselves to that sector of our economy, the immoral choices being made in and by it, and the attack it levels against the dignity of individuals created in the image of God.
 
The ability to buy a home and afford mortgage and rent payments has rarely been more difficult for more regular working people. Homelessness has grown accordingly and is growing exponentially. Tens of thousands of individuals who work hard, many even working two jobs, find paying a mortgage or rent payment impossible. By the thousands, even individuals who worked and studied hard to earn the all-important college education end up homeless because the cost of housing—both owned and rented— is out of reach (The old and somewhat dismissive belief that mental illness was the major cause for homelessness is no longer true). Many teachers, for example, have and are leaving the teaching profession because they cannot afford housing on their salary. Others are living in their cars. The horror stories are multiplying exponentially.
 
To a large extent, this state of affairs is the result of laws passed and policies implemented by legislators who have increasingly become beholden to the money provided by the wealthy. Legislators who have had their offices purchased by the wealthy have passed bills that advantage wealthy real estate manipulators and cause hardship and homelessness. Worse, as in many industries, legislators pass laws written by the very wealthy, powerful, and influential individuals and institutions that those laws are intended to oversee.
 
Talk about giving the fox the key to the hen house! Nay, rather it is like giving voracious and ravenous wolves a license to kill those created in the image of God.
 
It would require a book length manuscript to catalogue all the oppressive real estate/ associated banking laws and “regulations” that have been written in this manner and that cause dispossession and homelessness. Unfortunately such dastardliness is limited to the real estate sector of our economy. It permeates every economic sector.
 
As but only one example in the real estate sector, consider the matter of leverage. Individuals who wish to purchase a home are held to very strict rules about how leveraged they can be to purchase a home. Yet, huge corporations, banks, private equity firms, etc., are allowed to buy homes—whole neighborhoods of them—with very little control on how leveraged they are. This puts the private individual at a serious disadvantage in purchasing a home. With little regulation, such manufactured entities buy up so many homes that they control the price of homes. Soon, the price of housing goes up, putting the expectant individual home buyer at an even larger disadvantage.
 
But it does not end there. Oh, no. Even poorer individuals who are reduced to renting without any hope of buying a home are adversely impacted. The conglomerates that buy up homes by the millions also have no limit on how much they can extort renters. Rents go up, renters are evicted, people end up on the street or in cars or under cardboard boxes. Rental evictions are now at an all-time highs.
 
Just as in Micah’s day, all of this is permitted by legislators and legislatures. It has become “lawful.” However, there is at least one big difference between how all of this is achieved today verses how it was achieved then. For the most part ancient citizens had no ability to choose their leaders and thus no control over laws enacted or the gross violations of human dignity that they perpetrated. But we live in a free society in which legislators and legislatures are elected. This difference makes the “legal” violation of others even more vile and expands the accountability across broad swaths of American society. In America, the electorate is ultimately responsible.  We choose. And by electing individuals who then stay in office after passing such offensive laws that demean those created in the image of God, we choose—yes, CHOOSE—to assign hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens to the indignities of poverty, dispossession and homeless.
 
Our entire society will pay the price of such brutal and demeaning criminality. We. The. People. Choose. We. The. People. Are. Responsible. We. The. People. Will. Pay.
 
It is only right that it be so.
 
 
  conclusion
Micah witnessed first-hand the indignity of poverty, dispossession, and homelessness. As if this indignity were not enough, Micah observed wealthy, powerful, and influential citizens, fueled by their avarice, add to the indignity by vilely and purposefully scheming with lawmakers to pass and enforce laws that expanded the rolls of the poor, the dispossessed, and the homeless. By so doing, society’s leaders made legal what was immoral and unethical, called good what was evil, and abrogated the final and ultimate of the Ten Commandments:
 
“Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s.”[4]
 
In the short term, passage of such inhuman laws brought temporary advantages and benefits to the legislators who “legalized” them and the wealthy, powerful, and influential citizens that benefited from them to the disadvantage of those with less wealth, power, and influence. Micah’s contemporaries, Amos and Isaiah, witnessing the same people and the same vile behaviors, spoke of those who luxuriated on huge tracks of land[5] and were able to afford multiply homes—the “winter house” and the “summer house.”[6] Inside these “great houses” built with the finest in building materials—“hewn stone,”[7] “cedar,” and rooms “painted with vermilion”[8]—the wealthy, powerful, and influential schemers stretched themselves out on divans decorated with ivory, dressed themselves up with the finest in perfumes, and listened to live music while they ate the choicest cuts of meat money could buy and drank the finest of wines[9] which they had cultivated in their own magnificent vineyards.[10]
 
Sound familiar? The old adage rings true: “The more things change, the more they remain the same.”
 
But, such shenanigans brought great suffering to those dispossessed and made homeless by them. And, understanding that such living was akin to the cannibalizing of one’s fellow citizens,[11] Micah warned that in the long haul such immoral “legalities” were disastrous for rich and poor, powerful and weak, influential and ignored alike. The disastrous behavior of society’s wealthy, powerful, and influential would bring disaster on all—a disaster that would strangle the neck, cripple the body politic, and bring the end of a once great nation.
 
Notwithstanding the warning of history and the inspired counsels of ancient Hebrew prophets, America tragically follows in the footsteps of that once great nation turned cannibal to its own citizens and traitorous to God. If we do not repent and change our ways, we will follow in its footsteps into the heart of dark disaster.
 
Those in the halls of power, in the boardrooms of American business, and in the college classrooms of economic departments can proclaim until they are blue in the face and have convinced every undiscerning soul that the dispossession and homelessness of many of our fellow citizens is the consequence of objective, unfeeling, and inevitable market forces. But those who hear and know and discern the word of God know, as Micah did, that such vain and lying proclamations are those of false prophets interested only in filthy profit.  
 
Dispossession and homelessness in America is a choice. A conscious and devious and devilish choice. Not a choice made by those whose walls are made of interior car fabrics, canvas, and cardboard. But a choice made by the wealthy, powerful, and influential. A choice made by legislators, legislatures, and courts. A choice made by every single American who has the power through their vote to elect individuals who will respect the dignity of every living soul created in the image of God. 
 
Might does not make right, though the world would have us think otherwise and it is how, in this dark and dreary world, the rich grow richer, the powerful grow more powerful and the influential grow more influential. “Might makes right” is against everything that God stands for. The very first criminal in human history questioned whether he was expected to be his brother’s keeper. In his life, in his teachings, and in his death, Jesus taught that, yes, we are all our brother’s keeper. Indeed, the greater are to be servants to the lesser.
 
That’s the truth and the word of the Lord to which Micah would utter a loud and heartfelt, “Amen.”
 
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!
 

[1] Micah 7.2-3; author’s translation.
[2] Micah 3.9-11; author’s translation.
[3] Isaiah 10.1-2
[4] Exodus 20.17
[5] See Isaiah 5.8
[6] Amos 3.15
[7] Amos 5.11
[8] Isaiah 22.15
[9] See Amos 6.4-6
[10] See Amos 5.11
[11] Micah 3.2-3

26For 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.
27Just as a bird cage is full of birds,
   their houses are filled with deceit.
      This is how they have become powerful and wealthy.
28They 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.
29Should I not level a charge against these?--
   an oracle of YHWH--
      Should I not take vengeance on a nation such as this? (author’s translation)

Some words seem more “pregnant” with meaning than others. In scripture, words like “redemption” or “justice,” or “wicked,” or “righteousness,” or “temple,” or “miracle” grab all the headlines. We spend time analyzing and defining them. There are other words we hardly notice, as if they were but supporting actors. But sometimes these supporting actors can take on a starring role.
 
In this reading, the word, “therefore” (“for this reason,” “as a result”), my “this is how,” should be given a leading role. It carries a powerful punch, and contains one of the punch lines of the passage. The “wicked” or “ungodly” we are informed, are loaded. Their wealth allows them to eat well—so well that, unlike most of humanity for most of human history, they take on added weight. As they grow portly, their skin stretches to cover the additional area causing it to take on a certain “shine.” The “therefore” reminds us how they achieved their wealth and the comfort and even extravagance it provided. Their “good fortune” comes through deceit and corruption practiced against the vulnerable—orphans and the impoverished in this case.
 
As is so often the case in the Old Testament, the wealthy are portrayed here as predators who think of and act toward their prey as if they were something less than human. As a bird catcher captures birds with a trap, the tool the wealthy uses to fill their houses with vanities is deceit and fraud. But, with his imagery of a cage full of birds, Jeremiah reminds us that the materialistic gains the wealthy acquire through fraud are as trifling as their fraud is wicked. For, what, really, is more trivial than a cage full of birds? The wealthy inflict great harm on humans for the frivolous pleasure of the echo of chirps.
 
The false mythology of American style capitalism would have us believe that wealth comes to the virtuous—the more wealth, the more virtue. That virtue may take many forms, but one of its most common virtues, so the myth goes, is hard work. The fact is, in this world, as Cain discovered at the earlies stages of human existence, wealth is most often accumulated through violence against others. Capitalism’s false doctrine cannot silence or undo this Biblical truth, emphasized and illustrated over and over again in the sacred text.
 
“Therefore,” in today’s text, is, therefore, the bearer of a time-honored Biblical truth that has been under assault throughout its long career. Those who profess belief in and claim to honor the Bible must resists the siren song of capitalism’s myth of innocence and inevitability. They must not only resist its lies individually but must agitate in such a way as to make society uncertain of capitalism’s false pretentions of virtue.
 
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!

​For the past 6 years, I have been unsparing in my criticism of TFG, often referring to him as Caligula or tRUMP. He has done nothing to earn himself my softened criticism. Indeed, with each passing hour he has only dug himself a deeper hole into the bowels of hell. That said, in light of my recent meditations on DC 3.5-11, I would today like to offer a gentler reproach and a slightly hopeful invitation.
 
In case you missed the meditations, they can be found in the archive section at the bottom of my Homily and Meditation page. In them, I consider the serious and unrelenting  reproof that the Lord leveled against the young Joseph Smith as a result of his having lost 116 manuscript pages that contained a translation of the Book of Mormon (verses 1-8). Finally, in verse 9, the Lord begins to comfort Joseph by turning from Joseph’s past misdeeds to a provisionally hopeful future. The provisionally hopeful future is dependent on Joseph’s repentance which, itself, is reliant on God’s merciful nature. “For remember,” God encourages, “God is merciful.”
 
In our third meditation on DC 3, we saw a pattern of reproof and comfort that God recommends to his latter-day disciples. It is a pattern that is reflective of the Divine character and of anyone who desires to be like Him.
 
“Reproving betimes with sharpness, when moved upon by the Holy Ghost; and then showing forth afterwards an increase of love toward him whom thou hast reproved, lest he esteem thee to be his enemy; that he may know that thy faithfulness is stronger than the cords of a death” (DC 121.43-44).
 
 Now, I’ll not claim that I have been “moved upon by the Holy Ghost” in all my reproofs of TFG.  Nor will I deny having been so moved in some of them. In addition, I will not attempt to hoodwink the reader into thinking I love TFG. I do not. I can’t even bare to say his name. Even looking at photographs of him is difficult. I refuse to listen to or read anything he says. He disgusts me. He is as repulsive a being as I have ever seen in my lifetime. Nevertheless, I will this once soften my reproof and extend an invitation. An honest invitation to repent. I can’t say that I am hopeful, but here it goes.
 
So, Mr. Trump, I invite you to repent. Confess your countless sins and strive the rest of your days to undo the damage you have done to the individuals you have abused, the nation you have terrorized, and the planet you have further sullied. If you will do so, I promise I will pray for you. 
 
If your deep sociopathy is a mortal affliction like other mortal afflictions such as blindness or chronic clinical depression or cancer rather than an indication of an eternally blackened soul, then I will pray God’s mercy on you. I will pray that you spend a little less time in hell and not be cast into outer darkness after the resurrection. 
 
I am sorry, but given your lifetime of personal debauchery, fraud, cheating, lying, abusing others, using others as tools for your own selfish and narcissistic needs and ends, I can in good faith only pray that you spend less time rather than no time in hell. That, I think, is the best you can hope for, assuming, of course, that you are not one of the infamous third of heaven’s hosts who supported Lucifer and somehow flew under the radar to be granted a “second estate.”
 
But if your sociopathy here is indicative of a blackened and consuming eternal soul, then you and I are destined to be eternal enemies and I will pray for your defeat and destruction.
 
Amen.