First, understand that this is a nonpartisan message as it questions not a particular political party or candidate for office, but this overall “nation under God.” Consequently, I question the dangerous societal trend of the American PEOPLE who have long claimed to pursue “liberty and justice for all.” We, the oppressed and the oppressor, must therefore accept the need for a Christ-like spirit that exemplifies decency and order and whose Constitution, under the 14th Amendment, requires “equal protection under laws.” Where is that spirit that requires honesty and an indiscriminate standard of integrity that demands accountability for those we elect or promote as our leaders?
When I say we need a Christ-like spirit, it is not to say I only accept Christians as my brothers, sisters, and partners within the interwoven family of humanity, I am saying, we need a spirit where the truth matters; a spirit that seeks to prevent and reject corruption; a spirit that gives the utmost consideration to the poor, the oppressed, the weak, the elderly, the child, and the struggles of “the least [powerful] of these,” amongst thy people, while taking action accordingly.
Known as the world’s “superpower,” who has historically initiated military occupations and wars overseas as if it was the “World’s Police;” also has proclaimed itself as the international leader in “The War on Terrorism,” and the epitome of “democracy,” America has sent a loud and dangerous message that could be heard around the world, via the election of Donald J. Trump as U.S. President and Commander-In-Chief, regardless of one’s political views.
The American people have placed into its highest office, a man who has nearly 100 indictments; charged and convicted of 34 felonious crimes; received, not just one, but two impeachments during his previous 4-year tenure; criminally incited a riot near the end the said tenure that included a violent insurrection against his own U.S. Government that amongst other crimes, violently attacked over 200 law enforcement officers; caused over 2 billion in damages toward governmental property (U.S. Capitol), and attempted to assassinate or “hang Mike Pence” – the sitting U.S. Vice President, in addition to a litany of other infamous acts or crimes.
We are now to pretend as if none of the aforementioned egregious acts from this one man and influential leader matter? We, along with the rest of the world, are supposed to fall in line and see this President as our ultimate enforcer of international, national, state, and local “law and order,” no matter how unlawful and disorderly he becomes.
Simultaneously, millions of Americans and our youth who are poor, of African descent, immigrants of color, and the least powerful, are systematically packed into prisons and detention centers throughout the nation for allegedly perpetrating far less criminal activity than the man who has again propelled to the nation’s highest office as the nation’s President and Commander-In-Chief.
The point of this message is not to further exacerbate the nation’s divisive partisan politics and the choice between so-called “Right Wing Conservatives” and “Left Wing Liberals,” but to instead ask ourselves, at what point do we as a nation or society reexamine the humanitarian choice between truth over lies and God’s simple choice between “Right” and wrong?
The aforementioned atrocities are coupled with the evils of an entertainment industry that “entertains” the most dispiriting attributes of satan and is hell-bent toward making our gullible youth more vulgar, violent, and visionless.
History and God’s divine word have taught us that liars and evil beings should not be given the distinct privilege of having daily access to millions of eardrums. Neither should we allow the constant absorption of evil messaging poisoning our airwaves and trickling down into our spirits and mental space.
We must not feel obligated to listen to political foolery and spiritually digest boldface lies channeled through our televisions, electronic devices, or in our private or public spaces. We should instead “study to show ourselves approved, rightly dividing the word of truth.”
We must go forward and not be weary while enthusiastically thinking of the “prophets who came before us,” who came that we might be set free indeed, through the goodness and “Spirit of Lord.”
The people of God must never cowardly succumb to an unjust policy or a lying tongue, regardless of the political party from whence it was uttered. “For God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of a sound mind.”
The people of God should believe that David defeated Goliath despite the unequal presence of physical size, weaponry, or one’s thoughts of being “superior.” Similarly, we are children of God-believing protesters like those men, women, and youth who waged a 365-day boycott against an oppressive transit system in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955.
Similarly, in 2025, some 70 years later, we can defeat today’s enemy without regard to the size of his political position, physical body, economic strength, or possession of violent weapons.
We are the children of those like Moses who, with God on his side, could free slaves from beneath an oppressive Pharaoh and the world’s mightiest army; or like a little woman named Harriet Tubman who had the same God on her side when she freed hundreds of slaves from beneath the most blistering forms of physical slavery, it’s daily acts of racial domestic terrorism, and the intergenerational horrors involving the savagery of LIE-enforcement toward institutional “White Supremacy.”
We are the children of those such as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego (A-Bad-Negro), who refused to bow to corrupt power and could withstand being thrown into a fiery furnace by a powerful bully like King Nebuchadnezzar, who worshipped his gold instead of our God.
Similarly, we can withstand today’s “fire” of hatred ignited by the flames of a renewed “Trumped” up form of spiritual warfare, where oppressive rich men think we must bow before them like kings as they worship themselves, their money, and their wealth. Then and now, men who have chosen gold over God have underestimated the power of spiritual wealth over financial wealth; they have underestimated the power of a rich spirit whose accumulative dividends pay high interests in rates of integrity, truth, morality, courage, justice, and insurmountable victories. Therefore, we must prepare for victory on the battlefield of faith like the ancestors who “came this far by faith,” where we have historically found our “wealth,” strength, weaponry, and victory. “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places (Ephesians 6:12).”
Rev. Curtis E. Gatewood