Can Religion Heal Impeachment Insanity?

     

Through a Republican lens the immediate race to the streets to cry "Not My President", and the calls for the impeachment of Trump are nothing but the response of immature individuals. 

Though the call for the impeachment of Donald Trump has been frequent, incessant and immediate, we must not forget that the most active opponents of Obama recurred to the same cries several times during his presidency.

We might have forgotten so let me remind you, since sometimes is hard to take a good look at our own selves. 

In fact, under Obama a number of Republican congressmen sought to impeach the President. The rationales ranged from the allegation that he was not born in the United States, failure to enforce immigration laws (despite the fact that during this presidency a record-number of people were deported), going on to a possible cover-up after the 2012 Benghazi attack. None of these proposals made it into the Judiciary Committee.

The very first call for impeaching Obama came from radio host Michael Savage. The Washington Post made the jest of giving him the award for attempt to impeach-the-president-I-don't-like competition. In a mere two months into Obama's presidency, Savage called for impeachment, to be conducted by the people (something totally unconstitutional) for Obama's "crimes against America".

Some Republicans had enjoyed the drive for impeaching Obama so much that they did not give Hillary a second thought, and talks of impeaching her began when she was still doing campaign. 

Congressman Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) gave birth to the pre-emptive argument for impeaching any President. He suggested that, if bad comes to worse, and Hillary wins, that Congress immediately moves to impeach her because she had committed "high crimes and misdemeanors."

No doubt, thinking ahead of time must include even complicated projects like impeachment. 

This turn the Republican President is on the receiving side. Most of the calls for his impeachment have not come from the opposing members in Congress but from the people in mass rallies.

This backlash was somewhat foreseen by John Dean, former White House Counsel to Richard Nixon. 

According to him, grounding calls for impeachment in political disagreements rather than actual impeachable offenses amounted to an abuse of this ultimate process for forcibly removing an elected official from public office. Playing games with the democratic system in this way would backfire upon the Republicans, Dean warned.

"Partisans promoting and pushing impeachment as a political solution to being out of power seem to forget that what comes around goes around. These people are not conservatives, who by definition seek to protect the system; rather they are radicals who are gaming our constitutional system," he wrote in Verdict. 

Though no one can excuse a President or a public official that may carry actions that merit impeachment, the entire process can be one highly politicized since the Constitution bestowed the sole power of impeachment upon the House of Representatives and not the courts. 

The question for us is how should Christians act in relation to this impeaching frenzy?

Should we join the chorus line and rise the call for impeaching those politicians we disagree with?

I suggest that we learn from people like Joseph, Daniel and other biblical figures on how to support even an unlikable and possibly criminal leader.

Each of these men remained calm as they worked with leaders holding absolute power.

In the case of Joseph one may be quick to say that nothing negative is directly said about the Pharaoh. However, we must recall that the King of Egypt was considered a son of God, possessing divine authority, and at the same time the religion of Egypt was politheistic. This condition confronted the supremacy of the God of Israel.

Yet we can only assume that, as Joseph interpreted the dream of Pharaoh and warned him about the impending disaster, the God of Jacob must have overlooked the religious differences and the despotic rule of the Pharaoh. In this manner the family of Jacob could enter into the protection of the most powerful nation of the region as they had to wait for the passing of 400 years. Though the descendants of Jacob would undergo slavery at first they were received with open arms. 

Daniel had to deal with a leader that displeased God. However, Daniel did not call upon other Jewish men or upon anyone to rise in rebellion against Nebuchadnezzar. .

Neither Daniel nor Joseph, or for that matter Jacob, cried out to God for the removal of the political leader of the land. They did the best under their conditions and trusted God. 

The stories in Genesis testify that these men of faith were highly rewarded for their faith.

Instead of supporting the groundless call for impeachment people of faith must join forces in leading a movement for reconciliation. 

We must rise up to the challenge posed by the lives of people like Joseph and Daniel and trust God that he will guide us through a path of peace and love. Perhaps a modern day Joseph may arise that will come to hold a position of great power with the ability to protect people of all faiths.