Do Not Let the Slanderer Be Established in the Land

 I don’t think any special prophetic gift is required to predict we are headed into what may well be the most vicious and nasty political campaign of our lifetimes. My memory goes back to both Eisenhower/Stevenson campaigns. I won’t try to reach back farther into history. I know ugliness brews during political seasons, but I sense we are falling deeper and deeper into the muck.

I believe in good, vigorous political debate. I believe in holding politicians accountable for character issues such as competence and integrity, transparency and trustworthiness. I don’t really hold to any conventional political philosophy or approach but am concerned for justice and peace, compassion and mercy – especially for those who are weakest and most vulnerable.

I am feeling increasingly distressed at the name calling and rancorous distortions of political adversaries and their motives. Somehow the juxtaposition of covid-19 with this political season seems to have conjured up deep venomous malice. I am not going to identify the political persuasions that seem to me to be most culpable, for we much each examine our own houses before attacking those with whom we disagree. That is not at all to say that culpability is equally distributed. I see no place for permitting or even excusing any of this by any suggestion that “the other side is as bad or worse.” I will only say that yesterday I had several wonderful experiences of joy, and when I shut down my computer for the night the eruption of hate and anger on my Facebook feed threatened to steal my joy. I needed a definitive prayer discipline to reclaim the joy and have it wash out the pollution.

So there, I’ve got that out of my system. Then in my Psalm prayers this morning, I came to Psalm 140. This Psalm in total articulated my gut more eloquently and with greater grace than I was doing on my own. I recommend it to any who find the collapse of civility distressing. Verse 11 seemed so pointed, that as I pondered and prayed around it, I was prompted to write this piece. “Do not let the slanderer be established in the land.”