Taking His Name In Vain: KevinH

You can arguably call this democracy at work, but don’t bring God into it.

You can call this the majority will of the electorate, but don’t bring God into it.

You can call this a triumph for the Religious Right, but don’t dare bring God into this.

Yes, God grants earthly governments the power of the sword to restrain and punish evildoers, and that includes restraining and punishing wrongful behavior that takes place at or in relation to our borders.  Yet, so much of what is happening to migrants right now goes so far beyond fairly and justly restraining and punishing evil.  Refugee and asylum programs have been essentially shut down.  Many immigrants who had been granted legal stay of some kind are having those statuses suddenly stripped away and being deported back to dangerous and dire circumstances.  Families who have lived here quietly and peacefully for many years, productively contributing to society and without a hint of crime are being violently and permanently ripped apart for a violation of law that is on the same level as a speeding ticket.

Immigrants as a whole (“legal”, “illegal”, and those not even here yet but desiring to be) have been demonized with wicked and unseemly lies depicting them as an invasion, an infestation, a collection of dastardly disease carriers, criminals, and pet-eaters who are destroying our society, despite copious mountains of facts and evidence testifying to the opposite.

Yes, there are people who lazily live off the government and fraudulently collect government benefits and it is right for the government to cut off such people from receiving benefits.  However, to suddenly and substantially cut back on medical and food benefits that primarily help the poor and needy without first having formulated some kind of analysis showing the approximate amount of fraud is that is supposedly taking place and can be cost effectively eliminated, is not a prudent or righteous action.  Especially when such an action is taking place to help pay for tax cuts that overwhelmingly help people who are far better off than the poor and needy and also to help fund even more action to crack down on immigrants which is already taking place at unrighteously amplified levels.

Yes, a government’s primary responsibility should always be to the people of its own land.  However, nowhere in the Scriptures do we ever see that a government’s responsibility should or must ONLY ever be for its own people and that it can rightfully ignore the rest of the world.  It is arrogant depraved wickedness when the richest nation with the most resources in the world shuts down programs like USAID and PEPFAR and others which have proven to save millions and millions of lives and relief from suffering for people around the world, in order to save what is essentially a drop in the bucket of its overall budget.  It is one thing to identify and end programs which show to be fraudulent or relatively ineffective.  It is another thing, and quite an evil one, to suddenly rip away previously promised life-giving and life-saving aid to millions of people around the globe, in the name of America First or dishonest allegations of fraud.

It is necessary for the government to enact punishment that may not be, and probably never should be attractive or pleasurable, in order to maintain justice and righteousness.  It is necessary for the government to make tough calls as to where to draw the line in helping people, as they do not have endless resources to help every last person with every last need that they have.  It is necessary for the government to make tough calls as to what wars and conflicts it will involve itself in and whom it will support, as again, even the richest nation has limited resources, and many wars and conflicts contain much gray, often making it difficult to discern exactly what all are the just and righteous causes.  However, the necessity for the government to make tough calls which are never going to please everybody and to sometimes take actions that are not very pleasurable, does not give license to the government to conduct itself cruelly, vengefully, arrogantly, and without any manner of mercy and compassion.

So it can be claimed that what is happening in our country right now is democracy at work (at least in some ways, although certainly not all) and that it is the majority will of the people.  However, to claim that this excessively wicked crackdown on immigrants, that the ending of refugee and asylum programs, that the passage of this “One Big Beautiful Bill”, that the ending of life saving aid to millions of people, and that the joyful antagonistic implementation of cruelty upon one’s enemies, opponents, and the “least of these” by Donald Trump and his administration and the Republican controlled Congress is somehow of God, is to blaspheme God’s name.

Many “Bible-believing” Christians who are cheering on this depravity right now seemingly either don’t know what their Bible says or actually just don’t believe it.  The Beatitudes and the Fruits of the Spirit are seen as weak and woke.  The immigrant, the needy, and the “least of these” are treated like enemies or a scourge upon our land, or at the very least a nuisance and collateral damage.  Claims are made that this is a “Christian nation”, yet many of the commands that God gave to Israel, a nation that He actually claimed as His own, are conveniently ignored.

America is what it is right now, and it wouldn’t be so if not for the influence and actions of many “Bible-believing” Christians.  But please do not claim that these are things of God.  To do so would be to violate the Second Commandment….. Yes, the second one of those Commandments that are desired by many to be posted in every schoolroom.

Celebrity preachers can gather around the President and offer up a photo-op prayer as they heap platitudes upon Him and bask in their proximity to power.  Supposedly Christian Congressman and Congresswomen can huddle up and piously pray before they pass a bill that forsakes the poor and needy and brings more pain and violation upon immigrants.  Pastors in their pulpits and Christians in their pews and everyone on their social media can denigrate the Woke, the “illegal” immigrants, and all those who they claim do not love America.  But these things are not of God….. rather they are of the Father of Lies.

May the church open up their Bibles and learn the difference.

“You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.” – Exodus 20:7