Month: December 2025

A few conservative friends have said they wish the president would tone down his rhetoric, that it makes them uncomfortable. That isn’t going to happen. Tweets, texts, and public speeches reveal the authentic Trump. They are the most transparent representations of who Trump truly is—as the ancient philosophers might have said, behold the man.

Among the sad tragedies of our time is that his most ardently loyal followers are held in utter contempt by a man committed only to what benefits him and those who support him not with loyalty, but with cash. Now that their votes are no longer relevant, they have become disposable commodities—except for one lingering usefulness. As long as they are willing to swarm about him, lavishing him with praise and applause, they remain useful. When that ends, Trump will have no further use for them.

What about his policies? My guess is that he has none, other than the completion of transactions beneficial to himself. In the meantime, he is surrounded by toadies intent on remaking the United States in the neo-Nazi image of Project 2025. Toxic though they may be, they are not stupid. They are skilled at exploiting Trump’s vanity and his need for constant praise to their own advantage, fully aware that he has only a limited understanding of the work they are doing. Nor does he understand much of American or world history, the role of constitutional republican democracy, or the importance of the basic freedoms guaranteed by our Constitution and the rule of law. In short, I doubt he understands the difference between our democracy and the neo-Nazi authoritarianism being engineered by those who surround him.

I suspect the Trump era will be remembered as one of the most astonishing acts of legerdemain in political history. The magic act pulled off by Trump, the Project 2025 mob, and the billionaires who cluster at the center keeping the cash flowing is that they performed all their tricks in public view, hiding nothing. They are even public about what they intend to hide—but they rely on the public not seeing, or not wanting to know. The brazenness is so complete that they get away with it, aided by their influence over federal law-enforcement agencies and a majority on the Supreme Court.

The next administration will no doubt attempt to restore the rule of law and our beleaguered democracy, but what has been done is unlikely to have serious consequences for those responsible. Had former Senator Menendez been this publicly brazen with his schemes, he might not have ended up in prison. The same is probably true for other public figures who have served prison time under similar circumstances. Bribery conducted in plain sight appears to be less of a sin than bribery attempted in secret. Go figure.

It may seem counterintuitive, but I have some sympathy for what will happen to Trump after he leaves office. Once he has no further use for his most loyal true believers, the nation will have no further use for him. His name will be removed from public buildings. The billionaires and tech moguls who financed him will have no further use for him. The Project 2025 gang will have no further use for him. Heads of state around the world will have no further use for him. Mar-a-Lago will no longer be a magnet for those seeking influence or favors. Everything that has meant so much to him will have evaporated. He will become a broken, lonely man.

Perhaps it will not be too late for him to discover the wonderful gift of love—received and given, out of love and for love. I hope so.

May this holy night make known to you once again that the God whose help and presence we so urgently need has come to us—to live and die as one of us.

In our annual remembrance of his birth, we are reminded that he took on the body and blood of his mother Mary, that he might be born into this life, so that we might feed on him and be born into life eternal. In humility we remember that he lay homeless in a borrowed feeding trough, as helpless as any newborn child.

In his death and resurrection, he was revealed as the power through which the universe has its very existence—the power of abundant and steadfast love beyond all imagining.

There is little sentimental in our remembrance of this wondrous moment. Here the destiny of the world and all its creatures is revealed: in love and for love. There is no force of darkness that can overcome it, even as many forces of darkness continue to try.

Merry Christmas.

Country Parson

wrote an article five or six years ago about the difference between believing in Jesus Christ and actually following him. Every now and then I return to it and realize it was not as well written as I would have liked. Yet, by some strange coincidence, it has become the most frequently read piece I’ve written, even after all these years. I suspect that means at least some people sense there is a difference—and that the difference matters.

I thought of it again when I read accounts of J. D. Vance’s speech at a recent Turning Point conference. He was loudly cheered when he declared that the United States was, is, and always will be a Christian nation. As a Harvard-trained lawyer, he should know better—and surely does. This was clearly not a call to Christian faith, but a speech in service of a political agenda that has little to do with following in the way of Jesus Christ.

A conservative friend challenged me on this point. While I may disagree with Turning Point’s political aims, he argued, the movement is at least bringing young people back to Jesus. On the surface, he may be right—judging by how often the name of Jesus is invoked at their conferences. But one has to ask: which Jesus?

The Jesus being proclaimed often appears to be a hoped-for Messiah wielding sword and shield, ready to unleash the wrath of God on unbelievers. The Jesus whose birth we are about to celebrate did not live up to that image—and refused it outright. The Jesus we believe in and try to follow is the one who said, “Go and tell John what you see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news preached to them.”

So what does following Jesus actually look like?

Jesus answered that himself. To follow him is to:

• See the poor, be with the poor, and be for the poor
• See those who mourn, be with them, and be for them
• Practice humility with confidence, without needing to prove oneself at the expense of others
• Recognize those who are good and just—and stand with them
• Recognize those who work for peace and harmony among all people—and be one with them
• Have courage when following Jesus is condemned, and stay the course

There is more, of course, but this is a faithful summary—and one given to us by Christ himself.

Any proclamation of Jesus that does not center on these commitments is suspect. Above all, any version of Christianity that excludes portions of humanity from the circle of those whom God loves must be rejected outright. For those who believe only “the elect” will see God: do not presume to tell God—or anyone else—who is included and who is not.

We are warned that some will come knocking at the door, claiming they prophesied and healed in Christ’s name, only to hear the response: “Go away from me; I never knew you.”

To follow Christ is to be content to let God be God, and to live into the mystery of a steadfast and abundant love for the creation God made—and declared good.

Whatever Became of Sin? is a book written in 1973 by the pioneering psychiatrist Karl Menninger. He believed the American public was increasingly unable to discern what was right and wrong amid competing values. Menninger suspected this was because Americans no longer recognized a higher moral authority, leaving each individual to declare personal standards of morality as the only authority that counted. The result, he feared, would be a tendency to blame destructive behavior on illness or misfortune, thereby absolving individuals of personal accountability.

In 1993, Daniel Patrick Moynihan published an article in The Atlantic titled “Defining Deviancy Down.” Writing from memory, I recall that Moynihan was primarily concerned with beliefs and behaviors that had become normative in American society but would have been morally unacceptable just a few decades earlier. To him, it appeared that American society was losing its anchor in established civic virtues and normalizing behavior that led to social disintegration.

The decades since suggest that both men were right—but also that they missed the most serious threat to our moral life together.

Many of the behaviors that troubled them were connected to social norms around sex and gender, norms once thought to hold the moral fabric of society together. In reality, those norms often oppressed, subjugated, and denied rights to large numbers of people who, for the most part, wanted to live responsibly, be held accountable, and participate fully in civic life. Issues surrounding homosexuality were the most obvious example. Breaking down rigid restrictions on the roles of men and women in the workplace and the home was another. Neither of these broad areas posed a serious threat to the soundness of our social fabric, despite the anxiety and fear they provoked.

Where Menninger and Moynihan were most perceptive—but did not go far enough—was in recognizing how standards shift. Over the past two decades, we have defined deviancy down in a far more dangerous way. We have normalized cruel, vicious, and vindictive language as acceptable expressions of free speech across the public arena. Worse still, such language has become the dominant idiom of political leadership, most notably in the wake of Donald Trump.

Trump did not invent this language. It has always rumbled beneath the surface, restrained by social norms that recognized it as dangerous to the common good. What Trump did was to normalize it, making it acceptable as part of the moral vocabulary of American public life.

Language has power. The old adage that the pen is mightier than the sword is true. Language builds up and tears down. Through language we assert authority, establish norms, and shape the moral imagination of our communities. Language moves public opinion and creates momentum—for good or for ill. We have defined deviancy in language so far downward that its destructive force now dominates at least one part of the body politic, while the rest struggles to preserve what remains of the good and regain moral momentum.

Menninger and Moynihan were also right about something else. For much of American history, a shallow and unsophisticated generic Protestantism functioned as our de facto national religion. If nothing else, it lifted up the Ten Commandments as an authoritative moral standard for both private and public life—honored more in the breach than the practice, but present nonetheless.

That civic religion has largely disappeared. Polling suggests that 80 to 90 percent of Americans still believe in God in some form, but adherence to particular religious traditions continues to decline. It is difficult to know whether those who worship regularly observe the moral teachings of their faith in public or private life. Meanwhile, some denominations claiming the Christian name have subordinated their faith to right-wing nationalism, a posture far removed from the teachings of Christ and the church.

At the same time, believers of every sort wander about creating personal religions and personal gods—little make-believe deities with make-believe moralities—bumping into one another with no shared moral grammar.

Some respond by insisting the United States must declare itself a Christian nation. That would be a grave mistake. There would be little that is genuinely Christian about it, and it would undermine our constitutional democracy. Still, this does not mean we are without hope.

Jews and Christians share a universal moral vision anchored in the Ten Commandments and the prophets. Everything Jesus Christ taught and embodied was a fulfillment of the law and the prophets, leaving Christians with no excuse to accept any other moral authority as higher. These are the ultimate standards by which we must measure our lives, public and private. We are not expected to be perfect, but we are expected to do our best and to accept accountability when our failures cause real harm.

It will surprise many Christians to learn that Islamic moral teaching is largely consistent with Jewish and Christian ethics, and that Buddhist moral ideals are often compatible as well. This means that the faithful—acting individually and together—can and must influence political and social life for the good. They may not impose their beliefs on others; that would itself be immoral. Christ did not coerce. He invited: I am the way.

I cannot speak for Jews, but as a Christian priest and pastor I can urge all of us to be of good courage. We are called to confront the evil before us with godly language—language that affirms universal moral standards, demands accountability, protects human dignity, and makes room for human freedom. We are called to speak in ways that allow people to flourish as the persons they are, as best they are able, while honoring the dignity of every other human being.

Why sacred space—and not activity alone—matters for human flourishing

We were walking to church one Sunday when a friend joined us for his morning stroll. He said he had done church and was now done with it. He had spent many years attending every Sunday, serving on boards, and doing his duty. He had done it all. Now he was finished.

It is one of the great tragedies of the church that doing things in the church and for the church has become a substitute for the church as sacred space—space in which communion with God is encountered in ways not available elsewhere. It is space made sacred by the shared prayers and presence of generations of the faithful, learning to believe in and trust the Lord Almighty through Jesus Christ our Lord. It is sacred space where the Holy Spirit is more fully present through the sacraments and the spoken word.

No doubt you have heard the saying that going to church can no more make one a Christian than sitting in a garage can make one a car. When church is merely a place to go and something to do because it is what one is supposed to do, it has no more importance than the Elks Club—and probably less than the country club. If the church is not holy space, sacred space, it has failed in its duty to proclaim the good news of God in Christ Jesus.

How can it be holy space if this has not been explained and made clear to the people who assemble there—if they do not understand that its purpose is devotion to worshipful encounter with God in ways uniquely its own?

I wonder whether those of us called into ordained and lay leadership have assumed too much about the people we welcome into the pews. Perhaps we assume they are reasonably well informed about the Christian faith and the purpose of worship. Perhaps we assume too much about their understanding of the space into which they are welcomed and the liturgy that guides our services. Perhaps we assume too much about why we do what we do—why we sit, stand, kneel, genuflect, bow, make the sign of the cross, raise our hands in prayer, shout “hallelujah,” shout “amen,” or, as we Episcopalians often do, mumble them quietly with what we regard as deep reverence.

This is not performance. It is entry into intimate communion with the power and presence of the Creator and Sustainer of all that is—the One who loves without measure and calls us to live fully and abundantly in the power of the Holy Spirit, who is God with us.

We can be very welcoming. We can offer many opportunities to get involved, to volunteer, and to develop friendships through fellowship. The country club and the bowling team do the same—and probably do it better. I am not dismissing the importance of this kind of welcome. It is essential. But more is required.

I suppose it is possible for faith in Christ to be absorbed by osmosis through weekly attendance. Every now and then I read public testimony suggesting this happens. I suspect it is relatively rare and not something on which the church should rely. What the church, as space and time, must provide is serious adult formation—opportunities to ask hard questions and receive answers grounded in the gospel, the traditions of the church, and the expectation that people can think for themselves, though not by themselves.

Perhaps most important, the church must be a time and place where people learn what makes for flourishing and abundant life. Jesus said that he came that we might have life, and have it abundantly. That abundance—that flourishing of life—is at the heart of the gospel. It may be a flourishing experienced in fullness only in the life to come, but by following in the way of Jesus Christ it can be known here and now, as much as this life will allow.

All of this brings to mind another friend who began wondering aloud what is needed for people to be happy in their daily lives. His tentative answer was enough money to feel reasonably secure and a small community of friends who truly care for one another, in spite of individual peculiarities. He was on the right track, but as Christ reminded us, we do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

The essentials of life are necessary, but they are not sufficient. They do not bring happiness; at best, they diminish dissatisfaction with life as it is. The pursuit of our own dreams, passions, and pleasures may do even more to constrain dissatisfaction, but they rarely deliver lasting fulfillment. They are the products of transient enthusiasms that inevitably collide with the reality that no level of success can produce the fruit we imagined it promised.

Jesus was clear: our basic needs are real and known to God. They are not to be rejected. But if we are to know the fullness of life—if we are to flourish—we must seek first the kingdom of God. And what does that require of us? God has already told us: to love kindness, to do justice, and to walk humbly with your God.

I’ve been reflecting on a question I asked recently during a weekly ecumenical scripture study session: “How will you (we) feel when white people are in the minority?” As one of us pointed out, that day is coming soon. To be clear, ours is a small group of older white clergy.  The more I thought about it, the more I realized that what I was really driving at is this: we—collectively and individually—still tend to approach these issues from a place of patronizing superiority. We assume we understand the problem, that we know how to fix it, and that we must be the ones to act because we hold the power.

Most of us on our Tuesday calls lean liberal, and I’m sure many would be offended by the suggestion that we operate out of an assumed superiority and power. I don’t mean it as an accusation, nor do I intend offense. I simply believe this posture is so deeply embedded in American society that we rarely recognize it. There is no malevolent intent in it—not even racism in the ordinary sense. It is simply part of the cultural fabric.

But the day is coming—and soon—when people of other ethnicities and skin colors will remind mostly white thought-leaders, perhaps sternly, that they can speak for themselves and do not need us to do it for them. They will remind us that our voices carry no more inherent value than theirs. It won’t be a put-down. It will be a leveling of the field—uneven and uncomfortable for many, to be sure. I doubt anyone will demand a grand mea culpa from the former white majority. What will be expected is a willingness to take our place with some humility as one voice among many.

My question is whether this multitude of voices will find enough common ground in the promise of American constitutional democracy and its shared principles of citizenship. It will require accommodating cultural differences while respectfully celebrating each as part of what it means to be American. I’ve seen something like this approximated on Maui, where tensions certainly exist, but there is nonetheless a genuine sense that people can work together for the common good. Whether anything like that can happen in a nation as large and complicated as the United States remains an open question.

Europe, for example, seems to be having its own identity crisis—France, Germany, England, and others struggle to maintain their cultural heritage while absorbing immigrants from far-distant places who do not share the same historical experience. Other nations, such as China, Japan, and Korea, appear to have no intention of attempting such integration at all.

If the American political experiment has been a radical departure from world history, then this emerging diversity of ethnicities and skin colors is an even more radical departure—and a more difficult experiment in demonstrating how such a polyglot of people might live together in reasonable harmony as one nation with shared core values.

I don’t know what that future will look like, but I have some thoughts about it. For sixty years following World War II, national life was dominated by the ideal of the white middle class as the model to which all Americans were expected to aspire. The unspoken assumption was that immigrants and non-white persons would become more fully “American” when they assimilated into that ideal. It hasn’t worked for decades now, and it cannot be recovered despite efforts by white Christian nationalists and others. Yet the ideal did offer worthwhile elements: family stability, a desire for the best in public education, informed civic engagement, and a solid work ethic. Those are principles that can be broadly shared among different cultures, though expressed in different ways. A major failure of the old ideal was its assumption that these were inherently “white” characteristics, unlikely to be fully shared by others. The remnants of that prejudice continue to make progress difficult.

It seems to me that any new multicultural ideal of what it means to be American must use the old as building blocks for the new. Other cultures and ethnicities will add their own building blocks to create a more durable social structure for our remarkable country. But those other building blocks are not for me to define. They must be offered by others as treasured contributions, not as competitors for primacy.

Who will take the lead in helping this new American experiment succeed? I think it will have to come from public intellectuals and religious leaders. They may generate additional leadership within the political sector, but I wouldn’t count on politicians to take the lead by themselves. Moreover, I suspect the public intellectuals and religious leaders who will have the greatest influence will emerge from the local communities they serve rather than from national platforms.

It would help if the legacy press were a willing participant, but that seems unlikely given its consolidation under billionaire ownership with narrow political agendas. Whatever leadership emerges from that direction will come from individual journalists and authors who retain credibility across a broad spectrum of the population.

I am fond of the prophets whose words are recorded in the Hebrew texts of the Old Testament. They spoke God’s eternal truth, making their witness as valid today as it was nearly 3,000 years ago. The objection most often raised is they proclaim the words of an angry God, eager to smite all and sundry. How different, people say, from the healing and reconciling words of Jesus Christ. Why should their stern proclamations have any validity for us?

I don’t believe the prophets were speaking for an angry or vengeful God. They spoke for a God using every means possible to warn beloved people that they were heading toward self-destruction—destruction brought on by their own choices, desires, and devices, all of which deviated from the life God promised would be good. In God’s name, the prophets gave fair warning well in advance, urging the people to reconsider and avoid the disaster ahead.

As important as that may be, it is even more important to pay attention to what God said through the prophets about ways of life that were causing the problem. They are ways of life we, too, all too often choose. The warnings are as true today as they were then. So is the ample time God gives us to reconsider and change direction.

The self-destructive ways come in two related forms.

I. Personal Life

The first and most obvious concerns our personal beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors—the everyday choices in which we deviate from what is good for us. We often carry an unwarranted confidence that we don’t need anyone, least of all God, telling us how to live. Some confront God with a childish, “You’re not the boss of me.” Others boldly declare there is no God at all and that we are entirely on our own. The gods we create for ourselves have no power and ultimately serve only as excuses to do whatever we want while pretending it is divinely sanctioned. If one insists on denying God’s existence, at least be honest enough to admit the consequences. 

The godly way of life is surprisingly simple. Do yourself a favor: be kind to yourself. Take time for rest and restoration. Be a person of integrity in your relationships. Don’t take for your own use what you have no legitimate right to take or use.. Be as truthful as possible in all your dealings. Refrain from obsessing about what you cannot have. Treat every exchange and relationship with holy respect. And remember this: your well-being cannot be bought at the expense of someone else’s. That is the heart of it. It really is that simple.

II. Social and National Life

The second form is societal—political, if you want to use that word. Through the prophets, God has much to say about the policies and practices of nations and their leaders. The message is much the same: leaders often drive entire societies down paths inconsistent with God’s standards of social and economic justice.

To be clear, neither God nor the prophets show much interest in what form of government a nation uses. What God does make clear is what social and economic justice mean.

Taxation must be fair—neither burdening the poor nor benefiting the wealthy—yet adequate to meet the needs of the people. Laws and common practices must not trap the poor in conditions from which they cannot escape. Courts must judge without prejudice, unaffected by political influence. The fundamentals of life—food, water, clothing, shelter—must be accessible to all and never weaponized. Civil authority must be respected but also held accountable.

A particularly difficult expectation in our time is the command that aliens be treated with the same respect as citizens. And the prophets say more, of course, but the general pattern is unmistakable.

The Promise of a Just Life Together

Heeding the words of the prophets—individually and nationally—does not create paradise on earth. It does not eliminate disagreements or the hard work of reaching acceptable compromise. What it does promise are conditions in which people can trust one another and have confidence in their own security and opportunity. It promises a nation attentive to the needs of the poor and marginalized without diminishing the rights of others. A society in which courts, taxation, and economic practices are as fair and honest as fallible human beings can make them—and where those who violate the common good are held accountable.

Christians are called to heed these words and follow them as best they can, not only in private life but also in service to community and nation. It helps that our Constitution, as amended, approximates the prophets’ words in secular language. That means God’s eternal truths can be expressed in ways that make sense to people of other faiths or of no faith at all.

Where We Stand Now

It should be evident that in recent years the United States has turned away from the right path. The consequences are predictable and certain. Polling suggests that a large portion of the public understands the danger we are in, and that is the hopeful sign. It suggests the current administration and its shrinking circle of supporters no longer command the loyalty of the people.

There remains an opportunity for personal and national repentance. Yet we will still endure the humbling experience of being toppled from the peak of global power and leadership. That may not be entirely bad. It may require us to work harder to become a trusted member of the community of nations—one country living in cooperative partnership with others without the vanity of claiming to be first and greatest.

The nation is fully into the Christmas season. Our small city is decorated from one end to the other. Holiday events are stacked one on top of another. The Hallmark Channel is running nonstop Christmas movies in which love and kindness triumph over all. I am always surprised by how much people look forward to them. I think it’s more than the romance that inevitably develops between two unlikely people. It has more to do with a deep desire and abiding belief that a better way of life is possible, better than the one we experience day by day. Hallmark offers a facile facsimile of what that better life might be, but it should not be dismissed too quickly. It represents an honest and profound hunger.

That hunger is echoed in the annual stories of Jesus’ birth, repeated and performed in every church, where pews are filled with those who come once a year. Why? Because they want to hear again the promise of the Prince of Peace, born in a manger, who will deliver humanity from the trials and tribulations of this world into a new and better one. They want to hear the angels singing, “Peace on earth, goodwill to all.” I suspect many come with a wishful hope that this year it might finally be true—when 2026 dawns, the world will be set right. They will, of course, be disappointed, and I wonder if this is why many of them will not return until next Christmas.

The birth of Jesus is no facile romance produced by Hallmark. It is a real event in history. The fulfillment of its promise is sure and certain. The world was truly changed on that first Christmas Day. A new and better way of life for all humanity was born in a manger, one that would, in time, triumph over death itself, tearing down every barrier that separates the human condition from God’s redeeming and reconciling love for all eternity.

Hallmark at least gets one thing right: kindness, love, and humility do triumph over all obstacles. They cannot be defeated. The path to a better life passes through this life, with all its changes and chances, as followers of Christ proclaim and demonstrate a small portion of the kingdom of God toward which they journey. I am not persuaded everyone needs to be a Christian—nor do I think it possible—but I am persuaded that following in the way of Christ, however one may do it, is the only way humanity can live more peacefully, more harmoniously, and with greater shared prosperity. If nothing else, it would diminish the cruelty we inflict on one another.

It is that cruelty that makes this American Christmas season so difficult. What makes it more painful this year is the blatant cruelty inflicted on immigrants from non-white countries. Those familiar with the history of World War II know how appalled Americans were to discover the inhuman cruelty visited on vulnerable people by agents of the German Nazi Party. It served no purpose other than to be cruel, to inflict suffering on people who posed no threat to their oppressors.

How embarrassing and humiliating it is to discover that agents of our own government are treating equally vulnerable people with similar cruelty under the guise of law enforcement—people who pose no real threat to the nation. Their only offense is being offensive to the current president and his associates. They are the wrong color, from the wrong country, here without proper documentation. Claiming to target only “the worst of the worst,” the Gestapo of our own time rounds up immigrants who have no criminal record and who, despite lacking documentation, have proven themselves decent, law-abiding people. In the name of a war on drug traffickers they engage in extrajudicial killing, while pardoning convicted drug traffickers and “white-collar criminals” who are useful to them. They embody everything the Christ Child came to rescue us from. Equally humiliating is the degree of public complicity enabling the administration to act without fear of accountability.

May it pleaseGod, that this Christmas inspires the American people to set aside wishful hoping and turn with firm resolve to confront this offense against God and humanity—not in anger, but with determination to let the angels’ song be heard above the noise of strife and cruel hate.

As the 1849 hymn It Came Upon the Midnight Clear reminds us:

Yet with the woes of sin and strife
The world has suffered long;
Beneath the angel strain have rolled
Two thousand years of wrong;
And man, at war with man, hears not
The love-song which they bring;
Oh, hush the noise, ye men of strife,
And hear the angels sing.

“You Brood of Vipers”

Religious or not, most people know about the serpent that convinced Adam and Eve to eat the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. Serpents have ever since been symbols of dangerous seduction.

“You brood of vipers!” is what John the Baptist yelled at a gathering of religious leaders. Not just one serpent, but a whole brood of them. What was it that John was accusing them of doing?

I think he was accusing them of doing everything they could to distract ordinary people from receiving the blessing of God’s grace by demanding they adhere to rules and regulations so burdensome that ordinary people would have a hard time keeping them. In those days it had to do with ritual cleanliness and the observance of very strict rules of behavior before one could participate in temple services, the only place where they could be assured of forgiveness and enter into a right relationship with God.

John believed they were seductive serpents enticing people away from God’s presence and grace.

That was 2,000 years ago and much has changed, but broods of vipers are still among us, seducing us not only away from God and God’s grace, but away from our own well-being in the ordinary ways of everyday life.

Some broods of vipers are still religious leaders proclaiming ways of faith far removed from everything God has revealed to us through scripture, tradition, and reason. From gifted hucksters to the self-deluded, some believe they have mastered the art of combining entertainment with a vaguely religious message punctuated with frequent use of the holy name. They offer emotional promises with one hand while picking the pockets of their followers with the other. And it works because they know how to seduce.

What is true of some is not true of all. Most religious leaders are persons of faithful integrity who desire only to proclaim God’s authentic intent for the well-being of all God’s people, and to assist followers in making decisions and leading lives to the fullest of all they are capable of being. Out of love, in love, and for love of others is the fundamental motivation of most religious leaders in most denominations and congregations.

Like every human being, they have their strengths and weaknesses, successes and failures, but they are intent on trying to do the right things for the good of all. Perhaps their greatest weakness is that they are not as slick as the broods of vipers.

There are other broods of vipers in society. Indeed, that is where most of them live. They seduce people into making decisions contrary to their own best interests and well-being by promising what cannot be delivered. Each disappointment is followed by an even more generous promise of what cannot be delivered. It’s a repetitive cycle that works amazingly well for a long period of time.

The political arena is the most obvious example, but it is not the only one. Campaign promises have become the butt of many jokes, yet voters can be counted on to fall for them. These past few years have been a particularly difficult time because the nation has been led down a path of self-destruction by broods of vipers who have promised greatness, glory, and prosperity while producing the opposite for ordinary people. Meanwhile, they have lined their pockets with riches for themselves.

It would be easy to lump all political leaders into a basket of vipers. Many people do, and it is a grave mistake. The nation has been fortunate to have had so many citizens in public office offering their services for the good of the people they represent. We see it all the time in city councils, on school boards, and in state capitals. The same is true for Congress and the administrations of most presidents in the last 125 years.

That there have been congressional leaders and administrations dominated by broods of vipers is a sad commentary on our nation, but we have always awakened to the danger in time to recover, as I am sure we always will.

Broods of vipers also exist in the private sector. They seduce us by offering products of little value, products we don’t need, products that lack the nutrition they claim to have, and products that are truly dangerous to us. They are offered with such enticing skill that we are easily persuaded to hand over hard-earned money for things and services contrary to our own best interests and well-being.

Yet vipers slither among honest and equally hard-working producers of goods and services that we truly need. It isn’t always easy to tell the difference.

In what seems counterintuitive advice, scripture counsels us to be innocent as doves and wise as serpents. It means to be persons of integrity living into the way of God’s healing and reconciling love while being fully aware of the broods of vipers doing their best to distract us with things newer, better, bigger, and more satisfying.

We cannot be naïve. We need all the wisdom of which we are capable to avoid being seduced into making decisions against our own best interests and well-being.