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have been breaking my cardinal rule recently about not (or at least trying not) to post political topics on social media. Why is it different this time?

For me, it is not an election about debating idea, but an election about hiding truth and rewriting reality.

Let me start off by saying that I have never been a real fan of Donald Trump. I didn’t vote for him the first time and reluctantly voted for him the second time. Though I agree with his policies, I wasn’t crazy about the man. It was kind of like Democrats/media said about Bill Clinton in the 90s when he perjured himself: character doesn’t matter; he was a “good president.” I didn’t agree then, and I hold to that now.

Personally, I wish he hadn’t run in this election. I felt that there were other good candidates. But Trump was nominated, and here we are.

I am told constantly what a bad man Trump is.

However, what bothers me is I am told this by people who will not hold their candidate to even a fraction of the same standards.

Truth is, I am tired—even fed up—with being lied to by institutions I should normally trust.

Beginning with COVID in 2020, it became clear that I was being fed a line by public health officials (and come to find politicians) about precautions and school closings—the latter of which we’re still dealing with the repercussions in education. People were being pressured with nazi-like tactics to receive a largely unproven vaccine. I remember vividly thinking then: if public health officials are behaving this way with covid, what’s going to happen when there is a far worse pandemic? Most—including myself—are no longer going to believe what they say.

I remember election night 2020. I went to sleep around 1 a.m. with Trump ahead of Biden. I woke up with Biden as President. I remember thinking: wow, in the remaining votes to be counted, over 80% broke for Biden—something statistically improbable. When I lived in Portland, I was always amazed how Multnomah election officials (and it was ALWAYS Multnomah County) constantly found boxes of uncounted ballots under the stairs somewhere in the building a couple hours after the polls closed. Can I prove something nefarious went on? No. Does that mean I trust the system? No, I don’t.

I try not to make accusation I can’t substantiate, but that doesn’t mean I am going to trust. I am particularly concerned that questions are not allowed to even being asked without mockery.

Next, in the last years, I am told constantly that everything is ok. It’s the greatest, fast-growing economy in history. Government officials state it, and the media mindlessly parrots it; however, walking out of Walmart with $200 worth of groceries that doesn’t even fill my cart or that the gas prices are still a dollar a gallon more than it was before 2020, it makes me wonder if the president isn’t trying out a Jedi mind trick on me (“this isn’t the economy your looking for”).

I have come to realize that government statements and quarterly reports are just spin and narrative control. Even on the rare occasion a sliver of truth is contained within, it will be spun to better fit a narrative. Even though, I might not be able to prove it, it doesn’t make me not suspect that I am being lied to.

Now we have a wildly unpopular, failure of a Vice-President overnight become a legitimate and visionary presidential candidate whose solely strategy is to not talk to her fawning media, hide her record (there is in-context video!), plagiarize at least three of Trump’s policies, and downright lie to us: “my values haven’t changed.” Even CNN had to call out her campaign after Harris released an ad in Arizona showing her support for a border wall that until July she had called racist. Last night was a debate that was a parody of itself. The media is not even trying to mask its intentions.

And though few people trust the media, we continue to let them.

Because our cause is greater than truth.

America cannot sustain itself on mistrust. We must demand truth from our leaders, our institutions, our media. We must hold them accountable for the deception they feed us daily. But in order to do so, we must be smarter.

And we must keep our moral compass.

Sadly, I am not sure that is even possible anymore.

I no longer have faith in the American people to make smart or moral choices. 2024 has shown that we as nation are heading for a cliff, and there seems little we can do to stop it. We cannot mandate intelligence; we cannot dictate morality. So we must let everything run its course and let this great nation implode.

I know I serve a God far bigger than this world. Yet I am also sad to see a great idea come to an end. Through history nations have crumbled due to their loss of a moral compass. America is no different.

We are history repeating itself.

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I’ve officially began binging the tv series “The X-Files,” something I do every four year during a presidential election to avoid, um, everything to do with a presidential election. Tonight, it struck me that the show’s tagline was “The truth is out there.”

Huh. The good ol’ days when the truth was something we’ve actively sought.

Nowadays, not so much.

It amazes and befuddles me how little truth is sought in America. Actually, the last thing we want is to find truth. We spend more time trying to quash or hide truth. Preferred outcomes is what we seek. And this is dangerous.

I am starting to feel a little seasick from being whipped about from the continual rewriting of truth before our very eyes.

In this election, I see one candidate planning her election through avoidance and outright deception. For three years, this candidate served as the “border czar,” acknowledged by widely by the press until she wasn’t. 20 million illegal border crossings later, including several on the terrorist watch list, this term was an utter failure. Now, before our very eyes, she was merely assigned to “look for root causes to illegal immigration,” which is absolutely not true (there is video). For the last couple of weeks, the media has completely run cover for her. Now, today, she is running ads in Arizona saying how successful she was at cracking down on border crossings.

Then, suddenly, out of the blue, she promised no taxes on tips, and the press had a collective orgasm over her compassion. Trump made that promise weeks ago. Well, they nuance, these are different scenarios. No. Not true at all. It’s the narrative that matters.

Further, this candidate’s primary strategy seems to hiding from the press. JD Vance on Sunday did three hostile interviews, but Harris is promising an interview “by the end of the month.” (She hasn’t had one in the four weeks she became the nominee.

I’m sorry, I thought elections were about debating policy, not deceiving or hiding truth. I get the feeling her strategy is just not to say something stupid in the next three months.

I have seen too many interviews this week asking Harris supporters what she might bring to the White House. Their response: “She brings good vibes.” Never mind that six weeks ago, Harris was the most unpopular vice president in recent history. Now she’s the one for the job.

God help us.

The X-Files tagline is correct: the truth is out there. But we no longer seek it. We merely seek preferred outcomes, and truth be damned.

We’re absolutely being lied to. But the problem is: it working. Running from truth is a successful strategy. America is completely and willingly falling for it.

Our nation cannot sustain itself without seeking truth. We are running hell-bent toward the cliff. And I am deeply afraid that as a nation America will not stop.

Pending a sudden change of direction, or a merciful act by God, we’re going over that cliff. No matter who wins in November, we are going to come crashing down. And it won’t be pretty.

All because we refuse to seek truth. We only have ourselves to blame.

For now, I will continue watching The X-Files, relishing in the irony that the search for truth is being done more honestly in fiction than in the media.

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In the TV series 1883’s final episode, a young Elsa Dutton, having been mortally wounded by an Indian’s arrow, watched a jack rabbit munching on some grass with not a care in the world, and asked: “What is death? What is this thing we all share? Rabbits. Birds. Horses. Trees. Everyone I love. And everyone who loves me. Even stars die. And we know absolutely nothing of it.”

For some reason, those words haunted me.

For much of my life, I have been relatively sheltered from death. Going to funerals sums up the vast majority of my experience.

In the last two years, I have had to look at death directly in the face. Not my own, but in others.

In the fall of 2020, during the COVID craze, I lost my dad. I was recovering from a double-whammy case of COVID and pneumonia which hospitalized me for a week and which included one night in intensive care.

Two months later, my sister passed, having suffered from Sepsis. She was 56—the same age as I am now.

In both occasions, I stood by their bedside the moment they slipped away. I saw the moment their eyes faded into that million mile stare and they expelled their last breath here on earth. I watched their struggling bodies simply cease all movement.

For me, this was traumatizing.

I experienced again recently, only this time with my thirteen-year-old dachshund. I was up most of the night watching her seize many times. I could see her organs shutting down. We got her to the vet the moment they opened. Again, I saw seizing body abruptly cease movement and the life go out of her eyes. Yet again, I witnessed her last breath.

And a plethora of past emotions utterly overwhelmed me.

I have been struggling with the idea of death the last couple of years. There’s 40-year-oldnothing fair about it. We don’t get to choose to enter into this thing called life, yet we all have to endure loved ones ripped from us through death, over and again, until we have to ultimately face it ourselves.

It seems such a senseless part of creation. It feels like a violent tearing away.

But it was never meant to be a part of creation in the first place.

In my head, I can recite the theology. Death is now a reality in the universe because of the first human’s desire to be like God and choose for themselves—ourselves—to be like God. We wanted to be the ones who decided to come up with our own definitions of good and evil.

And, contrary to the serpent’s promise to Eve that she wouldn’t die, death is a part of the universe.

Everything dies: a loved one, a close friend, even a beloved pet.

And even though Paul taunts death in his letter to the church in Corinth—“Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” (1 Corinthians 15:55)—death still stings.

There’s no getting around that.

As the aforementioned fictional character Elsa concluded: everything dies. We will face feel death’s tearing away sooner or later.

That seems pretty hopeless.

If everything and everyone dies, and death is one percent fatal, then what’s the point?

Why exist?

Why strive?

Why love?

Because for the Christ-follower, there is hope.

When Jesus left the tomb on the third day, he conquered death. When Paul asks where is death’s sting, he is looking to the not-yet. Death was no longer the final word.

However, we still live in the now.

Despite the different interpretations in the body of Christ, all would agree that the biblical worldview springs from scripture which tells God’s story in three acts.

Act One is Creation. Act Two is the Fall. And the third act is Redemption.

Act One provides the answer to the worldview questions: who are we? And what is our purpose? Humanity was created imago dei, in the image of God. We’re not God, but we are reflections of him. Our purpose is seen in Genesis 2, when the man and woman cared for the Garden of Eden and were in deep relationship with God. You will find Act Two in Genesis 1-2.

Act Two is the Fall, answering the worldview question: what’s wrong? It explains why the universe is so broken and chaotic. It also explains how and why death came into the world. Death entered into the second act, which means death was never a part of the original creation. This is why death stings so violently. Act Two covers Genesis 3-11.

Then come Act Three—Redemption. This is all about God restoring the Universe prior to Genesis 3. Through promises and covenants, God works within sinful humanity to redeem creation.

Here’s the amazing thing about Act Three: it starts with God telling him to go from his comfort zone and go to a foreign land. With this command comes the promise of being the father of a new nation (Genesis 12:1-4). Ultimately it is through Abraham’s seed that the Savior and Redeemer will come.

That act of redemption, starting with Abraham, climaxes in the life, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus. Amazingly, Act Three continues on from the resurrection, through Acts and all the way through Revelation, which has yet to happen.

One fascinating thing to take out of this is the Third Act covers all but the first eleven chapters of the Bible. In other words, the Bible is primarily about God’s redemptive work.

However, another point to come out of this is the book of Revelation hasn’t happened yet. In other words, we’re still living in Act Three. We are living in the now, not the not-yet.

That is why death still stings, contrary to Paul’s claim. Paul’s statement is true. Death has been defeated. Victory has been won through the cross and resurrection of Jesus.

But we are still in the battle. From Abraham to the present, everyone had to experience the sting of death. And we will continue to do so.

But only for a time.

And in this, the follower of Jesus has hope.

Death will continue to tear at creation. In the now. But we have the not-yet  to look forward to.

I wish there was a better immediate answer to the pain of death.

However, even though it is present, the final outcome is not. Unlike the naturalist worldview, we can take comfort in the fact that death does not get the final say. There is a better reality beyond our present one. There will be a new creation. We will, as followers of Jesus, one day take care of that new creation with God himself.

In the now, we just have each day given to us to celebrate with our loved ones. Then, when death comes, we can only run into the arms of our Savior and find comfort in the one who himself experienced the very same thing.

In the TV series 1883’s final episode, a young Elsa Dutton, having been mortally wounded by an Indian’s arrow, watched a jack rabbit munching on some grass with not a care in the world, and asked: “What is death? What is this thing we all share? Rabbits. Birds. Horses. Trees. Everyone I love. And everyone who loves me. Even stars die. And we know absolutely nothing of it.”

For some reason, those words haunted me.

For much of my life, I have been relatively sheltered from death. Going to funerals sums up the vast majority of my experience.

In the last two years, I have had to look at death directly in the face. Not my own, but in others.

In the fall of 2020, during the COVID craze, I lost my dad. I was recovering from a double-whammy case of COVID and pneumonia which hospitalized me for a week, and which included one night in intensive care.

Two months later, my sister passed, having suffered from Sepsis. She was 56—the same age as I am now.

In both occasions, I stood by their bedside the moment they slipped away. I saw the moment their eyes faded into that million-mile stare and they expelled their last breath here on earth. I watched their struggling bodies simply cease all movement.

For me, this was traumatizing.

I experienced again recently, only this time with my thirteen-year-old dachshund. I was up most of the night watching her seize many times. I could see her organs shutting down. We got her to the vet the moment they opened. Again, I saw seizing body abruptly cease movement and the life go out of her eyes. Yet again, I witnessed her last breath.

And a plethora of past emotions utterly overwhelmed me.

I have been struggling with the idea of death the last couple of years. There’s 40-year-oldnothing fair about it. We don’t get to choose to enter into this thing called life, yet we all have to endure loved ones ripped from us through death, over and again, until we have to ultimately face it ourselves.

It seems such a senseless part of creation. It feels like a violent tearing away.

But it was never meant to be a part of creation in the first place.

In my head, I can recite the theology. Death is now a reality in the universe because of the first human’s desire to be like God and choose for themselves—ourselves—to be like God. We wanted to be the ones who decided to come up with our own definitions of good and evil.

And, contrary to the serpent’s promise to Eve that she wouldn’t die, death is a part of the universe.

Everything dies: a loved one, a close friend, even a beloved pet.

And even though Paul taunts death in his letter to the church in Corinth—“Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” (1 Corinthians 15:55)—death still stings.

There’s no getting around that.

As the aforementioned fictional character Elsa concluded: everything dies. We will face feel death’s tearing away sooner or later.

That seems pretty hopeless.

If everything and everyone dies, and death is one percent fatal, then what’s the point?

Why exist?

Why strive?

Why love?

Because for the Christ-follower, there is hope.

When Jesus left the tomb on the third day, he conquered death. When Paul asks where is death’s sting, he is looking to the not-yet. Death was no longer the final word.

However, we still live in the now.

Despite the different interpretations in the body of Christ, all would agree that the biblical worldview springs from scripture which tells God’s story in three acts.

Act One is Creation. Act Two is the Fall. And the third act is Redemption.

Act One provides the answer to the worldview questions: who are we? And what is our purpose? Humanity was created imago dei, in the image of God. We’re not God, but we are reflections of him. Our purpose is seen in Genesis 2, when the man and woman cared for the Garden of Eden and were in deep relationship with God. You will find Act Two in Genesis 1-2.

Act Two is the Fall, answering the worldview question: what’s wrong? It explains why the universe is so broken and chaotic. It also explains how and why death came into the world. Death entered into the second act, which means death was never a part of the original creation. This is why death stings so violently. Act Two covers Genesis 3-11.

Then come Act Three—Redemption. This is all about God restoring the Universe prior to Genesis 3. Through promises and covenants, God works within sinful humanity to redeem creation.

Here’s the amazing thing about Act Three: it starts with God telling him to go from his comfort zone and go to a foreign land. With this command comes the promise of being the father of a new nation (Genesis 12:1-4). Ultimately it is through Abraham’s seed that the Savior and Redeemer will come.

That act of redemption, starting with Abraham, climaxes in the life, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus. Amazingly, Act Three continues on from the resurrection, through Acts and all the way through Revelation, which has yet to happen.

One fascinating thing to take out of this is the Third Act covers all but the first eleven chapters of the Bible. In other words, the Bible is primarily about God’s redemptive work.

However, another point to come out of this is the book of Revelation hasn’t happened yet. In other words, we’re still living in Act Three. We are living in the now, not the not-yet.

That is why death still stings, contrary to Paul’s claim. Paul’s statement is true. Death has been defeated. Victory has been won through the cross and resurrection of Jesus.

But we are still in the battle. From Abraham to the present, everyone had to experience the sting of death. And we will continue to do so.

But only for a time.

And in this, the follower of Jesus has hope.

Death will continue to tear at creation. In the now. But we have the not-yet to look forward to.

I wish there was a better immediate answer to the pain of death.

However, even though it is present, the final outcome is not. Unlike the naturalist worldview, we can take comfort in the fact that death does not get the final say. There is a better reality beyond our present one. There will be a new creation. We will, as followers of Jesus, one day take care of that new creation with God himself.

In the now, we just have each day given to us to celebrate with our loved ones. Then, when death comes, we can only run into the arms of our Savior and find comfort in the one who himself experienced the very same thing.

When we experience death, we can run for comfort into the arms of our Savior, who himself experienced the very same thing.

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Sin is frightening and dangerous. Its seed is within all of us, lurking and waiting for its moment to act. It slithers beneath the surface, never proclaiming its presence until it is too late. In many ways, it knows us better than we know ourselves, and it definitely knows what buttons to push.

Sin’s allure is hypnotic and seductive. It can even be beautiful. Sin appeals to our own hedonism and promises us the world. It assures us that there is nothing wrong with it, that it’s actions are victimless, and that it feels really, really wonderful. And most importantly, it assures us that we will never get caught—provided we are uber-cautious in covering our tracks, we have the power and finances to silence any witnesses or bury any evidence, or we have a good alibi or rationalization to at least minimalize our guilt and shame in the event we get caught.

In fact, sin is so good at convincing us to act on it that we never bother to ask the question, “If there is nothing wrong with my action, then why should I even worry about getting caught in the first place?”

However, there comes a point in every person’s life when sin comes full circle back on us, where its sirenic mask is ripped away exposing all its true ugliness. Sadly, this often happens in view of loved ones and sometimes, even worse, in the watchful eye of the camera.

In an instant, the tantalizing pleasure of your sin explodes with a humiliating flash. And when your life begins crumbling around you, you look with astonishment at your new friend Sin only to discover that it has betrayed you and now stands as your accuser.

With the dominance of social media, it doesn’t take long for one’s sins to go viral under the seething judgment of cyber-finger-pointers.

When word began to surface about the extracurricular activities of Hollywood film mogul Harvey Weinstein, I must admit my initial reaction was one of smugness. I became one of those finger-pointers. I have never really liked Weinstein for any number of reasons, primarily because we share very different political opinions. This in and of itself is not a problem. What bugs me, is his arrogant hyperbole against anyone who disagreed with his political agenda. He was an elitist, judging everyone to the right of him as little more than an ignorant rube who don’t know any better. His movies come across more like propaganda than art. He had an agenda, and he was never hesitant to throw money and vial words to achieve it. And I really grew tired of his—and other Hollywood elites—diatribes against us from behind every glitzy awards podium, reminding us idiots of all the evils of the world caused by, well, us.

Recently, sexual harassment accusations against Weinstein flew across cyberspace, gaining steam and picking up momentum—a snowball evolving into an avalanche. Only God knows how many more women might come forward. The liberal media were slow to cover the charges, but the conservative media were quick to fill in for the lapse.

In a matter of days, the board of his own company fired him and changed its name. Recently, it was announced that Weinstein’s wife left him. Words like “rape” are starting to be thrown around which would surely warrant a criminal investigation. News came out that Weinstein was flying to Europe or Arizona to enter rehab—the Hollywood euphemism for “damage control.”

Then, rumors swirled about police responding to a possible suicide call…

We can only guess what new developments will come out today.

With each new, sad revelation, I began to think more and more about Harvey Weinstein. I picture him standing within the smoldering rubble of what once had been his sparkling empire. I wonder what is going through his mind. Defiance? Panic? Bewilderment? Sadness? He was a very powerful man in Hollywood. He could make or break multi-million-dollar careers. He hobnobbed with presidents and other important people. He has more wealth than any of us could imagine. It was a kingdom he himself had built. And now it is a kingdom he himself had destroyed.

I no longer saw Harvey Weinstein the man standing there. I saw Harvey Weinstein the sinner.

Then, I saw myself standing there in the rubble of my own sin.

My smugness at his downfall started to wither. Suddenly, my perspective changed.

What filled me with glee that some elitist jerk finally got his come-uppance now became sadness of a man broken by his own sin. Not only has his sin destroyed and humiliated many lives, his sin had also destroyed his own.

So why would this make me happy? Why am I so smug? Why do I inwardly cheer at the immensity of his downfall?

What if that was me?

Harvey Weinstein man who needs a savior’s forgiveness, or even my forgiveness for that matter. This is a man who genuinely needs not my pointy fingers or smirking condemnation but my prayer.

Please believe me—I am not trying to minimize the damage that man brought on to others. What Weinstein did was disgusting, atrocious, and evil. If it warrants jail time, so be it. His actions were despicable.

Just like my own sins.

Granted, I can say with certainty that I have never sexually harassed a woman. But Jesus said that if a man lusts after a woman “has already committed adultery with her in his own heart” (Matthew 5:28). Sadly, I can’t say I am not guilty of that.

Rich and powerful Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein is no different than I.

Sin has placed us on the exact same level: sinful humans in need of the cross.

As this mess continue to unravel across the internet, my glee has turned morphed into remorse. In many ways, I am not writing about Weinstein’s sins. I am writing about my own. To watch fellow conservative media dance with glee at Weinstein’s downfall in the same way the liberal media dances over the grave of the fallen minister or politician troubles me. I am a sinner just as capable to committing the same sins. I need to treat Weinstein with the grace of Jesus, the same grace I hope others treat me with when my own sin catches up to me as accuser.

I find it interesting about how Jesus deals with the sinner. Standing over the woman caught in adultery, surrounded by a crowd ready to stone her, he offers her no condemnation, telling her to “Go now and leave your life of sin” (John 8:11). Jesus reserves his judgments for the accusing crowd eagerly waiting for permission to cast their stones at the sinner’s head and says, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone” (John 8:7).

Never should we celebrate someone else’s sinful downfall.

No matter how much we think they deserve it.

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