Author Archives: Gordon C. Stewart

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About Gordon C. Stewart

I've always liked quiet. And, like most people, I've experienced the world's madness. "Be Still! Departure from Collective Madness" (Wipf and Stock Publishers, Jan. 2017) distills 47 years of experiencing stillness and madness as a campus minister and Presbyterian pastor (IL, WI, NY, OH, and MN), poverty criminal law firm executive director, and social commentator. Our cat Lady Barclay reminds me to calm down and be much more still than I would be without her.

The World as a Beehive

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“That which is not good for the beehive cannot be good for the bees.“


— Marcus Aurelius (A.D, 121-180), Meditations

60 MINUTES SPECIAL ON AUSTRALIA

”Everyone has known this,” said former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. “We’ve been warned by the climate scientists. Everyone has been aware of this except for those who, well, the climate change deniers are aware of it, but they choose to deny reality.”

The fires in Australia are out of control, burning 27 million acres to the ground, and killing an estimated billion animals and 33 people. He was warned, he said, during his term in office (2015 – 2018) that fires in his country were getting worse because of climate change.

Malcom Turnbull is a member of Australia’s conservative party, whose growing right wing turned against him for braking ranks with his party’s denial of climate change.  He was replaced by a climate-denying party loyalist, Scott Morrison, whose hand few people shook after he took a vacation as the fires raged.

“The right wing climate deniers treat an issue of science and physics and fact as though it was a question of ideology, and their conduct is not just idiotic,” Turnbull said. “It is downright dangerous. Dangerous for us here in Australia and around the world.”

“You’re talking about people in your own party,” Williams said.

“Of course I am. Yeah. Absolutely,” Turnbull confirmed.

“Dangerous and idiotic,” Williams said.

“Well, of course it is dangerous and idiotic not to be taking the strongest action to reduce your greenhouse gas emissions,” Turnbull said.

LITTLE BOY BLUE ON AIR FORCE ONE

The 60 Minutes’s special report on Australia competed with the NBA All-Star game in Chicago, and NASCAR’s Daytona 500 in Daytona when the focus on basketball and racing were trumped by an eye-catching stunt. 

Air Force One was strafing Daytona, drawing everyone’s attention to the entertaining climate-denying president blowing his horn in the air.

It was a Little Boy Blue scene from “Mother Goose.” –1901 illustration by William Wallace Denslow.

Little boy blue,
Come blow your horn,
The sheep's in the meadow,
The cow's in the corn.
But where is the boy
Who looks after the sheep?
He's under a haystack,
Fast asleep.

-- Mother Goose

While the Aussies were asking the whereabouts of the Little Boy Blue they elected to look after their sheep and meadows, cows and corn, kangaroos, and koala bears, America’s own Little Boy Blue was strafing Daytona at dangerously low altitude, summoning media attention to Air Force One spewing emissions while the fires burn and the floods rise across his country. It was dangerous and idiotic.

WHAT IS THE ECONOMY?

“This is the greatest economy in the history of the world,” boasts the American president and his party in the U.S.A. 

It’s not.

Science and theology now agree with Marcus Aurelius that what’s not good for the beehive is not good for the bees. Economic success is not measured by stock markets or unemployment rates. It is measured by the health of the beehive and the bees.

The origins of the English words ‘economy’ and ‘economics’ date back to the classical Greek words oikos (house), and oikonomia (household management). “Before anything else, economics is a perspective, a frame of reference. Economics concerns the well-being of the residents of the same house. Before it decides anything about household management, it knows that there is only one house. Good household management  — good economics — pays attention to the entire house and all of its residents.” –“The Economy: Only One House,” Be Still! Departure from Collective Madness.

THE PLANET IS OUR BEEHIVE

The planet is our beehive. The bees are in trouble everywhere. “In the long-term,” said Mollie Beatty, former director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, “the economy and the environment are the same thing. If it’s unenvironmental, it’s uneconomical. That is a rule of nature.”

James Gillray, “SHAKESPEARE SACRIFICED; or THE OFFERING OF AVARICE

“When we forget what an economy and economics really are, we enshrine greed as the essential virtue, ignoring and imperiling everyone else and the house in which we all live.” — Be Still! Departure from Collective Madness)

  • Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, Feb. 21, 2020.

“Madness is in the saddle now”

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“Our real choice is between holy and unholy madness: open your eyes and look around you — madness is in the saddle anyhow.”

Norman O. Brown,“Apocalypse: the Place of Mystery in the Mind” address at Columbia University, May 31, 1960

Every one of us is at least a little bit mad: sanctum and sputum

People of my Judeo-Christian tradition are prone to agree with Franz Kafka’s out of the ordinary observation: “the Bible is a sanctum; the world, sputum.” But, whether religious or not, many whose eyes are open and looking around agree with the sentiment that what we see in the world of 2020 is sputum.

  • Franz Kafka

The Bible which Kafka called a ‘sanctum’ was not the witness to wrath and vengeance. Nor was ‘the world’ the planet. It was society as we humans have configured it. I write with the Bible in one hand and Kafka’s works in the other. As I read their texts, It seems clear that madness is in the saddle in America and that this madness has turned to vengeance against those who voted to convict him, and to pardons and interference with the justice system, on a rampage. This madness has a history. So does resistance to it. You cannot serve two masters.

Belief means decision

Photograph of Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer with his confirmation class, provided to Wikimedia Commons by the German Federal Archive.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906 – 1945) addressed his Confirmation class (seen in this picture) in a sermon preached after when a minority party and widening fear had put a madman in the saddle.

“You have only one master now…But with this ‘yes’ to God belongs just as clear a ‘no.’ Your ‘yes’ to God requires your ‘no’ to all injustice, to all evil, to all lies, to all oppression and violation of the weak and poor, to all ungodliness, and to all mockery of what is holy. Your ‘yes’ to God requires a ‘no’ to everything that tries to interfere with your serving God alone, even if that is your job, your possessions, your home, or your honour in the world. Belief means decision.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “The Gift of Faith,” sermon to confirmation class, Germany, April 9, 1938.

Our real choice is between holy and unholy madness

Yesterday the American president granted a commutation and pardons to men whose offenses look like his own: abuse of power, betraying public trust, soliciting a quid pro quo, fudging tax returns, and lying to investigators. The timing of that announcement is cunning, coming as it does days following, and in the midst of a storm of protest about the president’s or attorney general’ intervention in sentencing of Mr. Trump’s loyal dirty-trickster friend Roger Stone.

Belief means decision

“Open your eyes and look around you.” Madness is in the saddle anyhow. Only a people seeking a ‘holy madness’ can knock him off our horse.

Gordon C. Stewart, Be Still! Departure from Collective Madness, Chaska, MN, Feb. 19, 2020.

EMERGENCY MEETING TODAY

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Today is not any other day. It’s the day the Federal Judges Association Executive Committee meets in EMERGENCY SESSION to protect and defend the federal courts from political interference.

United States Supreme Court Building

EXCERPT FROM HUFFINGTON POST

“An association of federal judges is holding an emergency meeting Tuesday to address concerns about the interventions in politically sensitive cases by Attorney General William Barr and President Donald Trump, USA Today reported.

“The Federal Judges Association, which has about 1,100 members, called for the meeting last week after Trump attacked federal prosecutors’ sentencing recommendation for his longtime pal and convicted felon Roger Stone and then soon after the Justice Department pulled back the recommendation. 

“Trump also criticized the judge who is presiding over Stone’s case.” — Huffington Post, 2.18.20.

SHOW YOUR SUPPORT FOR ATTORNEY GENERAL BARR’S RESIGNATION

E-mails and tweets to members of the FJA Board of Directors will show public support. Click this LINK for FJA officers, executive committee members. Unfortunately, the list does not provide contact information, but I can say with certainty that your computer skills exceed mine.

Thanks for listening,

Gordon C. Stewart, Be Still! Departure from Collective Madness, Chaska, MN, Feb. 18, 2020.

P.S. If you are a lawyer, please ask the U.S. Bar Association and Federal Bar Association to call for Attorney General Barr’s immediate resignation.

The Ghost Writer — Mrs. Roger Stone’s Letter

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“‘Do you see me now through my dis-gweeze… dis-gwize? Dis-quize?’ Man! This guy writes some weird letters!” – Hector Carrero

How and why the e-mail came to me is a mystery. I don’t know Mrs. Stone. Or her husband Roger, except for the documentary Get Me Roger Stone. I’ve never known a wife repeatedly refer to her husband by his full name, as a reporter would. I found it curious. Its timing was equally curious.

photo of Roger Stone flashing his Nixon V-sign after his indictment.

Department of Justice “senior officials” interfering with the DOJ’s prosecutors’ sentence recommendation is anathema to the administration of “blind justice” under the Rule of Law, especially when the interference immediately follows the president’s tweets calling the Roger Stone case a miscarriage of justice.

The tone and language of the e-mail from “Mrs. Roger Stone” sounded familiar. Who, I wondered, is the ghost writer? Who was the writer in ‘dis-quize’? Then I remembered Ridley Pearson’s line from Hard Fall about the instincts and timing of a cornered snake:

President Trump's hand pointing

“He had the instincts and timing of a cornered snake.” -Ridley Pearson, Hard Fall.

E-MAIL FROM “MRS. ROGER STONE” featuring DJT TWEET — FEB. 14, 2020

Dear Gordon, 

On February 10th, the Federal Prosecutors in the case of my husband Roger Stone recommended a prison sentence of 7 to 9 years! The President himself said it was a miscarriage of Justice in a tweet! 

__________________________________________


DJT: THIS IS A HORRIBLE AND VERY UNFAIR SITUATION. THE REAL CRIMES WERE ON THE OTHER SIDE, AS NOTHING HAPPENS TO THEM. CANNOT ALLOW THIS MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE.
CHUCK ROSS: PROSECUTORS RECOMMEND UP TO NINE YEARS IN PRISON. THEY CALL  ELECTION INTERFERENCE A "DEADLY ADVERSARY" EVEN THOUGH ST....

1:48 AM  02/11/20  TWITTER FOR IPHONE
7008  SHARES  23.7 LIKES

_____________________________________________


We learned the Forewoman of the Jury was an active Democrat who ran for Congress and had posted anti-Roger Stone and Anti-Trump posts on Facebook and Twitter and lied about it during Jury selection. His whole trial was rigged! 

Without a pardon or a new trial Roger Stone will die in prison! The President hasn’t said whether he will issue a pardon to my husband. We must be prepared to file a motion in Court for a new trial immediately. 

Sentencing is next Thursday! We must act now!

HELP US NOW> (link)

Unfortunately, virtually every penny in our Legal Defense Fund was used in the first trial which was rigged by a far-Left Obama Judge who stacked the ALL DEMOCRAT DC Jury! 

Will you help us raise the badly needed funds for an immediate legal motion for a new trial based on the misconduct of this juror?

Because of the Fake News black-out of Roger Stone’s trial very few Americans know how flimsy the charges against him are, how biased the Judge was and how a DC Jury was carefully stacked with Trump-hating Democrats. Now the truth is coming out! 

Few people know that my husband could have saved his own skin by agreeing to provide false testimony against the President regarding 25 phone calls between them in 2016. He was prosecuted because he refused to lie. 

HELP US NOW>

He was convicted of lying to Congress when there was no Russian Collusion or WikiLeaks collaboration to lie about! It was a total set-up perjury trap by Congressman Adam Schiff! 

Meanwhile Comey, Brennan, McCabe, Hillary, Rosenstein and Mueller himself lied to Congress under oath but face no charges. 

God bless you for all you have done for my husband and the President. We are fighting for Roger's life

MRS. ROGER STONE

PS – As you know the Judge has a strict gag order on Roger Stone. He is not allowed to defend himself while CNN and MSNBC attack us with lies and smears. This emergency e-mail is from me and I mean every word of it.

PAID FOR BY
THE ROGER STONE
DEFENSE FUND

FYI: The links take you to gopfortrump.com.

“You never felt that you saw all around him; you always suspected . . . some ingenuity in ambush, behind his lucid frankness.” — H.G. Wells, The Time Machine

Man, this guy . . . or the GOP for Trump . . . writes some weird letters! But no one can be dis-quized forever!

By Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, Feb. 15, 2020

Blazing Bright or Brightly Blazing?

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The phrase “blazing bright” in the 2020 State of the Union Address, followed by the Senate’s impeachment acquittal, the president’s claim of total exoneration, and his promise to take revenge on “evil people” prompt this reflection.

THE ROMAN EMPEROR-ENTERTAINER

Bust of Nero

Whether Nero ( 37 CE – 68 CE) burned Rome to the ground is disputed, but Suetonius claimed he did, and that’s good enough for me. Suetonius’s claim that Nero was mad, devious, and cruel entertainer remains undisputed.

Suetonius tells the story of the Rome brightly blazing:

Pretending to be disgusted by the drab old buildings and narrow, winding streets of Rome, he brazenly set fire to the City; and though a group of ex-consuls caught his attendants, armed with oakum and blazing torches, trespassing on their property, they dared not interfere. He also coveted the sites of several granaries, solidly built of stone, near the Golden House [Nero’s palace]; having knocked down their walls with seige-engines, he set the interiors ablaze. The terror lasted for six days and seven nights, causing many people to take shelter in the tombs . . . . Nero watched the conflagration from the Tower of Maecenas, enraptured by what he called “the beauty of the flames; then put on his tragedian’s costume and sang “The Fall of Ilium” from beginning to end.

Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus (c. 69 – c. 130/140 CE)
The Fire of Rome, 18 July 64 AD’ by Hubert Robert, 1733-1808 CE. (Musee des Beaux-Arts Andre Malraux, Le Havre, France)

BRIGHTLY BLAZING

Centuries after Nero’s demise, the president of the new republic claimed a greatness that would have reminded Nero and the Roman Senators of themselves and the burning of Rome. “America’s enemies are on the run,” said the president, “America’s fortunes are on the rise and America’s future is blazing bright” [DJT State of the Union Address, 2020].

The president was right. The future is blazing bright . . . in California and Australia . . . . Belittling his predecessor’s belief in the climate change, the president attributes the fires to someone’s failure to rake the leaves.

“Elk Bath” – A wildfire on the East Fork of the Bitterroot River on the Sula Complex in the Bitterroot National Forest in Montana, United States

CANCELLING HIS PREDECESSOR’S EDICTS AND DECREES

Among Nero’s first acts as emperor was to cancel many of Claudius’ edicts and decrees, referring to his predecessor as a “doddering old fool.” To the general public Nero was a welcomed change. Like those before him, the early part of Nero’s reign was considered by many to be a mini-golden age; the populace believed him to be generous, kind, and accessible. There were lavish games, plays, concerts, chariot races and gladiatorial tournaments, and taxes were even reduced. He restored much of the Roman Senate’s power that had been lost over the years, but this restoration had a hidden agenda; it was only done to enable the young emperor to pursue his worldly pleasures, to sing (he did not possess a great voice) and play his lyre. While he sang, no one in the audience was permitted to leave the performance.

Nero, Wikipedia summary of Suetonius and Tacitus.

MICHELANGELO AND THE MASTER OF CEREMONIES

As Nero prepared to commit suicide with the assistance of his aide, he paced rhe halls, repeating the line that boasted of his greatness as an entertainer: greatness as an entertainer: “Qualis artifex pereo!” (“What an artist dies in me!”). First and last, the emperor was an entertainer.

Years later, a REAL artist, Michelangelo, was painting The Last Judgment fresco on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel when Biagio da Cesena, the pope’s master of ceremonies, pestered him for a special privilege: a glimpse of the veiled painting. Michelangelo finally acceded to his request, after which Biagio complained to the pope that a painting of nudes was inappropriate for so holy a place.

When the finished fresco was unveiled, Biagio da Cesena — with donkey ears, and a snake covering his nakedness — appeared prominently among the damned in hell, tormented by devils. When he complained to Pope Paul III, the pope replied, “God has given me authority in heaven and on earth, but my writ does not extend to hell. You will just have to put up with it.”

The Last Judgment, Michelangelo — Group of the damned, with Biagio da Cesena as  Minos on the right

In 2020, the paint on the fresco is still wet. How “Blazing Bright” will be finished remains a work in process. The American people will finish the painting in November. Between now and then the world is Brightly Blazing while Nero continues to celebrate his greatness as an entertainer: “Qualis artifex pereo!“

Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, Feb. 8, 2020

The Big Lie and Spasms of Spite

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IF I ONLY HAD A SHOE

The president’s spasms of spite at Friday’s post-acquittal White House celebration sent my soul into spasms of its own. Hearing the president claiming that the impeachment trial’s acquittal exonerates him of all wrongdoing, calling out Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff as “evil people” on his enemies list, and belittling the conscience and religious conviction of Sen. Mitt Romney — his party’s only senator to break ranks — with the cheering peanut gallery that knows, but will not publicly recognize, the president’s sociopathic character was more than I could take. The party that swallowed a fly gave credence to the lie.

“Telling a big enough lie, and telling it often enough that people will believe it” has a history. So do spite and scapegoating. If in Germany the scapegoats were communists, Jews, gypsies, and “homosexuals”; and if in the McCarthy Era, they were leftist traitors hiding within the federal government, the entertainment industry, and the media, today in the Trump Era the scapegoats are Muslims, Central American migrants, “illegal aliens,” sanctuary cities, climate change believers, Congress, the courts, politicians, previous presidents, “the Deep State,” Democrats and … and traitors like Mitt Romney.

Sen. Joseph McCarthy, Feb. 9, 1950 Lincoln Day speech to the Republican Women’s Club of Wheeling, West Virginia:

“The State Department is infested with communists. I have here in my hand a list of 205—a list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department.

I couldn’t watch. I was 10 years old watching Joseph McCarthy. We paid good money for that television. I had to walk away.

A FUNDAMENTAL PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEM

Donald Trump does have a fundamental psychological problem. He needs to be loved all the time, he needs to have power over everyone all the time. Once you get that idea down, the rest of his behavior and his speech makes sense…

He also doesn’t have any respect for the truth or for honesty. They don’t mean anything to him because he can’t care about them. His focus, again, is always on himself and to be — to care about being honest to people rather than lying to them means you’d have to care about your effect on them. Are you going to harm them? Are you going to mislead them? But since he has no conscience for that kind of thing, he never expresses regret.

He does terrible things to people, the children who are being detained in cages are a good example…The children, of course, really amount to a crime against humanity. If you think about it psychologically, this is what some of us once called soul murder. That’s what he’s doing to these children. His ability to do that fits perfectly with this kind of very deep sickness where other people don’t matter, and he can hurt them to whatever extent he wants.

-- Harvard Professor of Psychiatry,

“We may liken an adult’s temper tantrum to that of a ‘big baby’,” writes Garret Keizer in The Enigma of Anger, “but even a big baby does not yet know what it truly means to be angry. I say this because I define anger as an emotion of extreme frustration (something a baby knows) poised at the possibility of action (something a baby cannot know, or cannot fully know.). … Might the purpose of anger be to enable us to break loose, to struggle free, and at the most basic level to survive?”

“ZEAL FOR YOUR HOUSE WILL CONSUME ME”

Spasms do not rise to the level of anger. They indicate frustration, but they do not yet qualify as anger as Keizer defines it, or as the Gospel of John points to it in the scene of Jesus’s raid of the money-changers who were scalping the poor in the Temple. The raid in the Temple was not impulsive. It was not a spasm. Jesus first braided a whip of cords before he turned over the money-changers’ tables and drove out their merchandise.

The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple He found those who were selling oxen and sheep and doves, and the moneychangers sitting there. When He had made a whip of cords, He drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. He poured out the changers’ money and overturned the tables. He said to those who sold doves, “Take these things away! Do not make my Father’s house a house of merchandise!” His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for Your house will consume Me.

Gospel of John 2:13-17 MEV

It was the monetary system that abuse the poor that Jesus was attacking. “He said to those who sold doves (the only sacrifice the poor could afford) that Jesus addresses his words: “Take these things (the doves) away! Don not make of my Father’s house a house of merchandise!”

The event described by John is not a temper tantrum. Jesus did not throw his shoe at the television. He paused to turn his extreme frustration into anger at the monetary system that turned a profit on the poor who could only afford a bird:–“Take these things away! Do not make my Father’s house a house of merchandise!”

STRIKING AT THE ROOT

“There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who strikes at the root,” wrote Henry David Thoreau in Walden. There still are, and I’m one of them. How do we strike at the root of evil?

Emotional spasms of extreme frustration (something a baby knows) are not anger until they lead the American people to make the whip to drive out the money-changers. In a constitutional republic the whip is woven from elections, or revolutions, that strike at the roots of an economy of geed, the Big Lie, and soul murder.

In the year 2020, the house desecrated by merchandise is bigger than a temple, church, mosque, or nation. The desecrated house is the planet itself.

  • Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, Feb. 7, 2020

A Time for Anger

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MITT ROMNEY’S ACT OF CONSCIENCE

Mitt Romney’s speech as a Senator-juror in the impeachment trial came as a surprise because he broke with his party’s ranks, and because he appealed to conscience and religion. No Senator-juror in the history of impeachment had stepped out of line from the party line. Citing the seriousness of the articles of impeachment against President Trump, Mr. Romney explained his reasons for voting to convict the president:

As a Senator-juror, I swore an oath, before God, to exercise “impartial justice.” I am a profoundly religious person. I take an oath before God as enormously consequential. I knew from the outset that being tasked with judging the president, the leader of my own party, would be the most difficult decision I have ever faced. I was not wrong.

Senate Mitt Romney (R), February 5, 2020

VIOLATION, DESPAIR, AND ANGER

Jesus cleansing the temple painting

In The Enigma of Anger: Essays on a Sometimes Deadly Sin Garrett Keizer offers a description of ‘anger’ that fits the moment.

“Anger is an emotion arising from a refusal to permit violation…poised at the place where frustration is ready to become action.”

REFUSAL TO PERMIT VIOLATION

One might say the dissenting senator’s vote rose from a refusal to permit violation of the Constitution, a violation the Republican House minority and Senate Majority at first denied without exception. Later, after the House managers presented a compelling case, the Republicans changed their position from complete denial of the allegations to arguing that, though they were wrong, they did not “rise to the standard of high crimes and misdemeanors”. All members of the president’s party held their noses, crossed their fingers, and voted for acquittal on both Articles of Impeachment. Except for one betrayer who is now the target of the man he voted to convict.

“I am a profoundly religious person. I take an oath before God as enormously consequential.”

The oath of office and the subsequent impeachment trial oath to “do impartial justice” places the mantle of conscience on the shoulders of all who “solemnly swear” them. Repeated violations of the oath of office have driven public trust in Congress and the Presidency to a point of despair or anger. Only a public recovery of anger, as Keizer defines it, will lift us from the reign of despair and tyranny.

Views from the Edge called attention to James Madison, John Winthrop, and ethical principles of conscience (“God alone is Lord of the conscience”), and truth (“Truth is in order to goodness. Nothing is more pernicious or absurd than the opinion that truth and falsehood exist upon a level, and that it is of no consequence what a man’s [sic] opinions are”). Conscientious pursuit of truth and courage to speak truth have become the exceptions to the prevailing norms of power and privilege, and the pursuit and maintenance of them.

FRUSTRATION READY TO BECOME ACTION

Mitt Romney’s exceptional vote for what has gone out of style (integrity) is akin to Garret Keizer’s case for what has gone out of style in religion, mischaracterized by the ranting street corner preacher who thunders about the fires of hell: the wrath of God.

“I am unwilling to commit to any messiah who does not knock over tables,” writes Keizer, referencing the scene of Jesus with the money-changers. “The wrath of God is not the wrath of the abusive parent or of power abused. It is the absolute claim of personhood asserting itself in the face of power and chaos alike.”

“There is such a thing as killing someone with kindness. The thoroughly gentle God, the unceasingly kind God, the God of the unalterable smile is also the fairy God, the clown God, the stuffed animal God — perhaps not a great deal more helpful than the threadbare giraffe that a child clutches in his dark room….”

Garret Keizer, The Enigma of Anger

THE WRATH OF GOD AND DELIVERANCE FROM OUR DARK ROOM

For years I have felt the folly of a theology which deletes the first part of the biblical claim that God is “slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love,” leaving the abused woman or child, or nation to swim in empty concrete pools of kindness unfilled without the tears of justice.

Our country has become a dark room. But occasionally, as happened yesterday on the Senate floor, a candle is lit for justice, goodness, and truth. This room need not stay dark if we, the abused, claim again the wrath of God and the place of anger: “the refusal to permit violation…poised at the place where frustration is ready to become action.” To refuse anger will kill us with kindness, leaving us each clutching our stuffed animals in a dark room owned by a tyrant.

Gordon C. Stewart, author of “Be Still! Departure from Collective Madness” (2017 Wipf & Stock) — available in kindle and paperback through the publisher or Amazon — Chaska, MN Feb. 6, 2020

“Sham on you!” — a word from the Founders

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A WORD TO SENATORS ABOUT PUBLIC TRUST

Public trust that you will tell the truth and seek the truth, no matter where it leads, was already dangerously low. Although we know that it is your constitutional right to set the rules for an impeachment trial, the American people know that a “trial” without witnesses and evidence is not a trial. Those still paying attention knew how it would end. Majority Leader McConnell told us. Some of us have stopped watching because we don’t care anymore. Others care but have tuned out to manage their blood pressure and keep their dinners down. We all could use an infusion of wisdom to guide us through this national crisis.

In Declaration of Independence by John Trumbull (1818), John Witherspoon is the second seated figure from the (viewer’s) right among those shown in the background facing the large table.

JOHN WITHERSPOON and JAMES MADISON

I write as a pastor in the tradition of John Witherspoon. Witherspoon was the only religious leader to sign the Declaration of Independence, whose moral philosophy influenced James Madison, the Founding Father of the U.S. Constitution. As President of The College of New Jersey (Princeton), Witherspoon taught moral philosophy. James Madison and other students took Witherspoon’s “Common Sense” philosophy of public morality into the courtrooms of 37 judges (including three Supreme Court justices), and onto the floors of the Continental Congress (12), the U.S. House of Representatives (49), and the United States Senate (28 Senators) where you now serve.

THE CONSTITUTION AND PRELIMINARY PRINCIPLES

In 1787 John Witherspoon participated in two simultaneous national meetings within four blocks from each other in Philadelphia. At Independence Hall the Continental Congress was preparing the U.S. Constitution. Down the street, the first national assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the Unites States of America was adopting the “Preliminary Principles” to guide the church through times of divided opinion and disharmony. There are eight (8) Preliminary Principles. I lift up for your attention the First (conscience) Fourth (truth) , and Fifth (mutual forbearance) Preliminary Principles.

PRINCIPLE: CONSCIENCE

“God alone is Lord of the conscience…” — First Preliminary Principle (1787)

One morning Henry Ward Beecher cut himself shaving. He didn’t like what he saw in the mirror. The public man and the private man were at odds. Public scandal and conscience formed the razor’s edge that cut through his defenses.

Everything hinges on the right and duty of conscience. One need not believe in God to avow the primacy of conscience.

The tight internal discipline and uniformity of the GOP caucus against calling witnesses and admitting evidence in the impeachment trial looks no different from the enforced cohesiveness of the Mafia, the Gangster Disciples, and other street gangs. Step out of line and you’re “going to go through some things.” Courage and conscience are not part of the code. Compliance and scheming have taken their place. We, the people, lose hope watching the gang-banging in the highest places of authority and power.

PRINCIPLE: TRUTH AND GOODNESS

“Truth is in order to goodness….” — Fourth Preliminary Principle (1787)

Truth-telling and truth-seeking are essential building blocks of a good society. The road to goodness is not falsehood, misinformation, disinformation, and concealment. Without truth-telling and truth-seeking we become a society built on quicksand.

“The Fourth Principle continues:

“No opinion can be either more pernicious or absurd, than that which brings truth and falsehood upon a level, and represents it as of no consequence what a man’s (sic) opinions are.” — Fourth Preliminary Principle (1787)

Some opinions are pernicious (highly injurious or destructive: deadly). Others are simply absurd (ridiculous, silly, incredible). Some opinions are both. The exercise of one’s duties by means of falsehood is injurious to goodness. Truth is the plumb line against which an opinion is tested. Truth matters. Falsehood matters. Facts matter. Reality matters. There is no such thing as an alternative facts.

“On the contrary, we are persuaded, that there is an inseparable connection between faith and practice, truth and duty. Otherwise, it would be of no consequence either to discover truth, or to embrace it.” — Fourth Preliminary Principle (1787 –)

There is a direct connection between truth-telling, truth-seeking, and public life. The connection is essential for a civil society. When partisan interests displace truth and conscience, the result is a society with neither a moral code nor a functional Constitution. Watching the Senate impeachment trial tells a different story to the American people: power trumps principle.

PRINCIPLE: MUTUAL FORBEARANCE

“There are truths and forms with respect to which [people] of good characters and principles may differ. And in all these we think it the duty both of private Christians and societies, to exercise mutual forbearance towards each other.” — Fifth Preliminary Principle (1787)

‘Forbearance’ — i.e., patience, tolerance, continuing in relationship — is no longer a household word in 2020. Neither is it frequently practiced. Mutual forbearance is rarer still. Mutual forbearance is essential to achieving E pluribus unum (i.e. “one out of many), which Cicero saw as basic to relational bonds and thriving societies and states.

If God alone is Lord of the conscience, those who differ with respect to those “truths and forms” that are not universally accepted, i.e. political philosophy, owe it to each other and to the body politic to continue in respectful, peaceful relationship.

Illustration of the original First Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia located on High Street (now Market Street). First Presbyterian was the meeting place for both the first presbytery and first synod.

WHAT IS AT STAKE IN THE IMPEACHMENT TRIAL?

Mutual forbearance with people of good character and principles is embedded in the history of the Senate. But your good character is on trial. The impeachment trial is a test of the Senate’s conscience, commitment to truth and goodness, character and principles, and mutual forbearance. The great institution in which you are privileged to serve, and a general population that expects a trial to be a trial are at stake in your decisions. The Senate’s good character and principles, as well as Donald Trump’s, is on trial in the court of public opinion. Those who know their history can hear a long shout from James Madison and John Winthrop:

“Sham on you!”

— Gordon C. Stewart, author of Be Still! Departure from Collective Madness (2017 Wipf & Stock), Chaska, MN, February 3, 2020.

Truth — Live & Learn

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Introducing Live & Learn’s post

The Senate majority party scored high on the Rotten Tomatoes scale for mocking truth in the impeachment trial that was not a trial. When truth is mocked, we rage against the sham or fall silent in despair. The poets say what we feel. God loves real tomatoes. God loves truth. Have a look at this re-blog. — GCS, Views from the Edge: To See More Clearly.

This is the blessing for the first garden tomato: Those green boxes of tasteless acid the store sells in January, those red things with the savor of wet chalk, they mock your fragrant name. How fat and sweet you are weighing down my palm, warm as the flank of a cow in the sun. You […]

Truth — Live & Learn

-Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, Feb. 2, 2020

The Impeachment Tiebreaker: Four Thoughts

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INTRODUCING GUEST COMMENTATOR

John Miller is Pastor of The Chapel Without Walls on Hilton Head Island, SC. More of his writings may be viewed at www.chapelwithoutwalls.org. The Views from the Edge is pleased to republish this social commentary. Photographs have been added by Views from the Edge.

COMMENTARY BY JOHN MILLER: The Impeachment Tiebreaker: Four Thoughts

This short essay was begun on Saturday morning, Jan. 25, 2020, starting at 12:27 AM. This was after the writer had nearly overdosed on the prosecutors’ wrap-up, and listening to the three major cable news networks’ commentary on the proceedings.

The House Managers (i.e., the prosecution) finished their presentation on Friday evening at about 10 PM, Jan. 24,  in what has been alleged to be the impeachment trial of President Trump. On Saturday afternoon the President’s lawyers (i.e., the defense) will begin their presentation regarding the defendant (i.e., the President).

The House of Representatives prosecution team has claimed almost ad infinitum that the President has prevented more important witnesses and documents from appearing in the Senate trial. They claim he desperately does not want anyone to testify, or to have any incriminating documents to be placed into the trial record. Therefore, they say, with no further evidence presented, there can be no proper trial. 

Up to now nearly all CNN/MSNBC/FoxNews talking heads have said they think that none of the 53 Republican Senators will capitulate on the impeachment vote, and that the President therefore will be cleared of all charges. The CNN/MSNBCers postulate that will prevent a genuine impeachment trial if witnesses and documents are suppressed. The FoxNewsers are delighted if the suppression occurs, because “the impeachment hatchet job” will have ended.

But let us suppose that the magical number of three Republicans were to vote to allow witnesses and documents. Further, imagine that no suddenly timorous Democrats were to vote to suppress the potentially damaging evidence. Then what would happen?

Thought Clump # 1

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will try to hurry this trial through to its conclusion as soon as politically practicable. Might the sitting judge in the trial, Chief Justice John Roberts of the Supreme Court, rule that constitutionally an honest impeachment trial necessitates that witnesses and documents be provided? Should he conclude that? Constitutionally, could he make that ruling? He will have heard every word uttered in this historic proceeding, and thus such thoughts might be running through his head. No one can know at the moment what he is thinking, nor perhaps is it yet fully formed within his brilliant mind. Nevertheless, those might be very interesting questions upon which Mr. Roberts might now be cogitating.

Thought Clump # 2

If a majority of at least 51 Senators of both parties vote to produce new witnesses and documents, Chief Justice Roberts would not be the tiebreaker on that issue. Instead, the 51+ Senators would assume that role. Thus witnesses and documents would be subpoenaed.

Thought Clump # 3

If Adam Schiff and the House Managers are as effective as CNN and MSNBC (but certainly not Fox News) say they are, and witnesses and documents are subpoenaed, there is a very slight possibility that a two-thirds majority of at least 67 Senators might convict Donald John Trump of the two Articles of Impeachment after a considerably-longer-than-predicted genuine trial. Mr. Trump then would be removed from office. This, however, is so slight a possibility that those who favor such an eventuality should probably stifle such apparently outlandish thoughts.

RADICAL Thought Clump # 4

Should the Senate exonerate the President, as expected, in effect the entire constitutional concept of separation of powers itself will then indirectly have failed in the impeachment trial. Are the executive, legislative, and judicial branches separate but equal? However, the Senate will astonishingly have found that the executive branch has the sole ultimate power in American government, with Congress and the federal courts clearly being only also-rans in constitutional governmental authority. It could be argued that such a conclusion might even be colossally irresponsible. The Chief Justice might also conclude that before the trial concludes.

In that instance, Chief Justice Roberts, representing his understanding of the Constitution and the judiciary, might rule that the Senate is constitutionally required to subpoena witnesses and documents before the impeachment trial can end.

Furthermore, the Chief Justice might decide such a ruling would eliminate the appearance of political partisanship, which in these rancorous times would be a Very Good Thing. He might say that only then would the Senate be a in a valid position as a one-hundred-person jury to vote fairly and equitably on the innocence or guilt of Defendant Trump.

Were any of these hypotheticals actually to happen, would that be a completely unforeseen result in these tense, tedious days, or what? Keep listening and watching, citizens. The fate of the republic hangs in the balance of Lady Justice.