People of the Lie in Psalm 144:8 and the 2020 Election and January 6 Storming of the US Capitol

When I came to Psalm 144:8 in my Psalm prayer cycle this morning, I had a conversation with God about the emerging information and incompatible versions of the 2020 election and the storming of the US Capitol on January 6. The Psalmist invokes God’s judgment on those “whose mouths speak lies, who right hands are false.” That conversation took me back several years to reading M. Scott Peck’s 1983 book “The People of the Lie.” He wrote how from his psychiatric practice he came to distinguish between those who were “sick” (mentally ill) and those who were “evil” (purposely and knowingly doing or saying what they themselves knew was wrong). I asked God not only how I could distinguish between those whose words and actions (about the election and January 6) were “sick” (e.g. delusional) and “evil” (knowing what they were saying was untrue), but also what would be an appropriate, Christ-like response to the “sick” and to the “evil.”