Moral And Venial Mendacity
Who are these people and when did The Almighty designate them “Divine Declarers?”
Yes! We said “Divine Declarers” - a whole new theological category, separate from priests, prophets and kings.
In the era of the Great Lie of a Stolen Election, divine declarers are self-appointed to journey across the new Promised Land and announce that a thrice-divorced, multiply-bankrupted, self-admitted sexual abuser with no serious religious affiliation has been “anointed by God.”
Because there is little, if any, new demand for the Great Lie, Mendacity Manufacturers have produced their “Peaceful Protesters,” “Wandering Tourists” and “It Wasn’t An Insurrection” sequels and are attempting to resurrect an old favorite – the 45th president of the United States was “divinely anointed” and “the chosen one.”
The Roman Catholic bishops of the United States will soon issue a generally meaningless document on “Eucharistic coherence” in which – as a not-so-subtle attack on President Joe Biden – they will struggle to give new life to the equally meaningless themes of “mortal” and “venial” sins. The bishops will remind the few who actually read their treatise that folks in mortal sin should not receive Communion. Duh!
If the bishops’ true design were to aid believers in forming a mature voting conscience, they might address Mortal and Venial Mendacity and the consequences of perpetual lying.
The Great Lie is the essence of Mortal Mendacity; it has sucked the soul out of too many Americans, destroyed or attempted to destroy honest civil servants and elected officials and representatives, and irreparably damaged families and friendships.
In the Pantheon of Lies, the crown prince of mendacities is the declaration of any man or woman as “chosen” or “anointed” by God to be the president of the United States or any nation. Demi-but-equally-destructive-gods include the denial of COVID-19 and the lethality of the Coronavirus pandemic, the bull hockey refrains about LGBTQ men, women and children, unending racism and hatred, and the Mega-Mendacity that a former president will – despite the negative rulings of every court and the Constitutional impossibility – magically be returned to office.
On-going efforts to paint the January 6 insurrection and invasion of the Capitol and the corresponding attempts at over-throwing the rule of law and the Constitution are the consequences of the perpetuation of the Great Lie and the concept of an anointed leader.
Of course, with this new Mendacity of the Chosen One there comes a “limited liability” – “We know that he’s been divorced twice, that he’s been accused over and over again of sexual assaults, even rape, and that he curses enough to make Mike Pence feel as though he has a fever, but he’s chose by God.”
In November 2019, Religious News Service reported former Texas governor and U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry’s claim that the former president is the “chosen one.” “If you are a believing Christian,” he explained, “you understand God’s plan for the people who rule and judge over us on this planet and our government.” The secretary explained that he had given the president a memo listing the kings of Israel, none of whom, according to Perry, “were perfect.”
Pentecostal pastor Paula White, former head of the White House Faith and Opportunity Initiative, reported that saying no the to president “would be saying no to God, and I won’t do that.” “I think God was behind the last [2016] election,” the Rev. Franklin Graham has said, and Wayne Allyn Root, a conservative author and conspiracy theorist, has called the former president the “King of Israel” and “the second coming of God.”
In May 2019, Religious News Service (RNS) asked two questions in a survey of 1,000 American Protestants: Are all presidents anointed by God, and was Donald Trump specifically anointed by God to win the 2016 election. While just 21.4% believe Trump was specifically anointed by God, the percentage increased among groups who believe in modern-day prophets and a God who is active in the daily affairs of the world. Among Pentecostals, 29% agreed that Trump was anointed by God, but 53% of white Pentecostals accepted that premised.
Only ten percent of Protestants who attended church services less than once a month accepted the anointed premise, but four in ten who attend church more than once a week ascribe to the idea.
Among respondents who consider the Bible as inspired by God only 11% believe the former president was anointed; those who consider the Bible as the literal word of God were three times as likely to accept an anointed Trump presidency.
The theological waters become stormy when the survey revealed a surprising inconsistency: among white Protestants just 12% agreed that all presidents are anointed by God; 18% of white evangelicals and 30% among white Pentecostals considered all presidents as anointed.
At the same time, belief in Trump’s anointing and approval of his presidency were closely related. Forty percent of respondents who ranked Trump at 100 – warm/positive – believed him anointed by God; only 10% of those who gave him the highest ranking reported that all presidents are anointed by God.
In the end, there are more than a few problems with a theology or theologies of the Divine Favor determining winners and losers. Does God decide who takes home the Commissioner’s Trophy of the World Series, who gets the Stanley Cup and wins the College Football National Championship? Is The Divine only concerned about American politics and sports or does the Great Coach get involve in the World Cup and the Cricket World Championship?
If The Divine anoints some – or all – American presidents, what changed between 2016 – when he anointed a thrice-married, casino-bankrupter, who was caught on tape admitting to sexually assaulting women – and 2020? Did God decide to pour the rich oil of gladness over Joe Biden simply because he carries a rosary or did God sit out 2020?
And is God so indecisive that he takes a pass on some elections and flips a silver dollar to decide others?
In the Judeo-Christian traditions, to argue that God’s anointing can be bought through prayer, incense or a sacrifice of fatted calves is to claim that the Divine is not immutable – that The Divine is not unchanging but open to negotiations and can be bought off with a good deal. This is to deny the very eternal and unchanging nature of the Lord of History.
The 20 July 1944 plot of Claus von Stauffenberg and dozens of co-conspirators, popularly known as Operation Valkyrie, was intended to kill Adolph Hitler in his infamous Wolf’s Lair and wrest control of German armed forces from the Nazi Party, making peace with the Western Allies possible. Infamously, the bomb in von Stauffenberg’s briefcase was moved behind a solid-wood table leg and the wooden walls of Hitler’s conference room failed to contain the explosion. Hitler survived and, in the days immediately following the coup attempt, his Gestapo arrested more than 7,000 members of the military and civilians, men and women, 4980 of whom were executed.
Nine months later, Hitler and Eva Braun, his bride of less than forty hours, committed suicide in the Wolf’s Lair – he with a self-inflicted gunshot and she by cyanide poisoning.
German Admiral Donitz, who briefly succeeded Hitler as head of state, venomously attacked von Stauffenberg and his co-conspirators with words that find some echo today’s Merchants of Mendacity and declarers of divine anointings: “Holy wrath and immeasurable rage fill our hearts at the criminal assault which was intended to take the life of our beloved Führer. Providence wished to have it otherwise; Providence guarded and protected the Führer; thus Providence did not desert our German Fatherland in its fated hour.”
Theological “coherence” – a word the American Roman Catholic bishops will soon be batting around – means that either Rick Perry and Paula White and Franklin Graham are right, but so was Admiral Donitz or they were all wrong and, in the 21st Century, God doesn’t anoint the political leaders of any nation.
Either that or perhaps God doesn’t always get the message from his “prophets.”