A little false witness

The bizarre world according to Steve King, a member of Congress.

"for every valedictorian DREAMer who has been brought to this country by his or her family, there’s another 100 out there who, they weigh 130 pounds and they’ve got calves the size of cantaloupes because they’re hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert."

A 100 to 1 ratio of bad to good is not ambiguous. Accusing immigrants of being a bunch of drug mules or pushers strikes me as deliberately bearing false witness to millions of people. Perhaps Steve King answers to a higher power that rewards lies.

Christ made an interesting observation about the words we use, particularly the ones about other people.

But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.

-- Matthew 15:18-19

Our words betray the greed and hatred inside us.

Now the funny thing is that Steve King loves to lecture people about Christian values. Here is part of a sermon he gave about our moral heritage on the floor of Congress.

But we’re unique here in the United States of America. Madam Speaker, we’re a unique people. And, yes, we are the progeny of Western Europe, and we are the progeny that came from primarily Western European stock. And at the time that we received the best that Western Europe had to offer, we also received a fundamental Christian faith as the core of our moral values. 

This is a Judeo-Christian Nation, Madam Speaker. The core of our moral values is embodied within the culture. Whatever church people go to or whether they go to church, wherever they worship or whether they worship, we still have the American people who, as a culture, understand Christian values and Christian principles, the Judeo-Christian values that are timeless. 

So I would illustrate that, Madam Speaker, in this way. An example would be this: Let’s just say if an honorable man from Texas were to pull into his driveway and his neighbor’s dog had gotten loose and had run underneath the tire of his car. If you’re in Texas or Iowa or most of the places in the country, if you run over your neighbor’s dog, what do you do? This is how I’m going to illustrate this is a  Christian Nation. You go over and knock on your neighbor’s door and you say, Well, Joe, I just killed your dog. I’m sorry. 

Well, there are two things that happened there. One of them is confession, I just killed your dog. I’m sorry, his repentance. The third thing you say is, Will you forgive me? I didn’t mean to. It was an accident. So you would have confession, repentance, and you ask for forgiveness. And the neighbor, Joe, will say, Well, it wasn’t your fault. Of course you’re forgiven. And that is the path of Christian forgiveness that takes place even when we run over our neighbor’s dog. 

This is a Christian Nation, and the foundation of Western civilization are those kinds of values.

Gosh. Christian values. I wonder what the Lord would say about someone that disparages millions of people. We should place bets as to when Steve King will confess his slander, repent, and beg for forgiveness. He holds those Christian values near and dear. He even said so on the Congressional record.

Here we have a public figure that waves their Christian banner for all to see. Despite his Christian values, his public discourse is filled with slanderous comments about immigrants, Muslims, and the poor. These attitudes are also reflected in the policy initiatives he pursues in Congress.

When a high profile figure invokes Christ and then behaves like Roman nobility, the hypocrisy casts the body of Christ in an unfavorable light. That negative perception is strengthened by the silence of Christian leaders about the hateful behavior of this powerful politician and others like him. People like Steve King are quickly becoming the public face of Christianity in America. Big Microphone Christians (BMC). Small wonder younger generations are turning away from organized religion in droves. They are not seeing Christ in the BMCs. More and more of these young people think of Christians as prudish, uncaring and hypocritical.