Author: kevingdrendel

I am sixtiesh, an English Literature major in college and an attorney by profession. Faith informs my life, and this blog is about my faith journey.

Why I Am Speaking Out Now

Why I have not spoken out like this before

kevingdrendel2 Comments

People ask me why I didn’t speak out negatively against the Biden Administration. It’s true, I didn’t speak out (as much) against the Biden administration as I do now against the Trump administration.

To be clear, I did not vote for Joe Biden. I also did not vote for Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. I am a lifelong conservative and I have voted Republican most of the time throughout most of my life, with few exceptions, mostly on a local level.

I would be classified as a compassionate conservative. On some scales, I come out as a “classic liberal.” I believe in the freedom of speech, individual rights, and basic constitutional protections for all people, but I am not a Democrat, and I never have been.

As a conservative, and as a human being, I have some of the same concerns that Democrats do. We just approach things differently. For the most part, I am not confident in large government. I have seen too much bureaucracy, waste, and abuse in state governments and large municipalities to have much confidence in large government.

At the same time, I recognize weaknesses in my conservative position that have become accentuated over the years. For instance, large business is not any better than large government, and could be even worse.

A problem for the political system as a whole is the amount of money that pours into the political process. It has grown exponentially over my lifetime. Money begets greed, self-interest, and corruption in ways that are not healthy for our politics.

The amount of money accessible to politicians has a strong negative effect on our political system. If you look at the data of the wealth of politicians when they begin as “public servants” and retire, the amount of wealth that politicians accumulate is staggering and indicative of a major problem in American politics. I believe that the love of money is the root of all evil, as the Bible says, and the amount of money in the political system is a corrupting influence.

But , I digress. None of that explains why I have spoken out more over the last year against the Trump administration than I did against the Biden administration. I thought the Biden administration was inept. It seemed clear that Biden was being propped up and pushed forward, but he was not controlling what was going on. The disparate interest groups in the Biden administration and the Democratic Party as a whole that push extreme agendas that much of the country is uncomfortable with were problematic. But political processes still operated. There was a strong Republican Party, albeit with its own issues.

I did speak out about the fact that Congress has become a lame duck branch of government. Over many years, beginning at least with the Clinton administration going forward, presidents have wielded more and more executive power, issuing executive orders to make sweeping changes that were never intended to be part of the power of the executive branch.

I believe one reason for that is that Congress is often unable to reach a consensus that will pass both houses of Congress. We are more polarized now than we were 50 years ago. There is no middle ground. Politicians in the middle get taken out by their own party. So we have no consensus-building block that is essential to allow Congress to adopt laws and overhaul laws like our immigration law when needed. Therefore, presidents rule by the stroke of a pen with an executive order, and that has become the norm. I have been talking about that for many years.

What we are seeing now is the fallout of those many years of allowing Congress to languish in passivity while we became accustomed to presidents creating law with the stroke of a pen. Executive orders were never intended to be the way our system operates, but it is the present reality. The Trump administration is the natural result of that failure.

Donald Trump is taking the momentum of decades of American political processes and stretching them to their inevitable conclusions, which is a king-like authority in the executive branch, where the president can do just about whatever the president wants to do with impunity, including ignoring legal precedent and law and becoming a law unto himself.

Speaking of legal precedent, our Supreme Court process, our process for appointing Supreme Court justices and lower court justices has become more and more political over the years. Things took a turn for the worse with the Bork confirmation hearings, which was an absolute political circus. I have been speaking out against that for years, because it undermines the integrity of the judicial branch of government. It was never meant to be hyper-politicized. Justices were meant to be appointed because of their judicial reputation and acumen. Judges were not meant to be political hacks or political puppets. They were meant to be truly independent, the best and the brightest.

Of course, human nature being what it is, conservative presidents would tend to appoint conservative justices, and liberal presidents would tend to appoint liberal justices. But the history of American jurisprudence shows that merit, judicial acumen, and proven judicial ability were at the top of the list of qualifications. That is no longer the case. Presidents and parties make no bones about who they want as their judicial candidates. They want people who are going to decide cases according to the party line, and that is coming home to roost now also.

Donald Trump thinks that he can tell justices how to rule and how to apply the law, or, in some cases, how to ignore the law. Donald Trump just fired hundreds of immigration judges so that he can replace them with immigration judges who will rule exactly as he wants them to.

That is not how the executive branch and judicial branch should be interacting with each other. The judicial branch is specifically meant to be a foil to the executive branch. The judicial branch is meant to stand independently so that it can be a check and balance on the other branches of government.

What we are seeing today is the complete erosion of this check and balance system that was established in our Constitution. It is completely breaking down and devolving into supreme authority in the executive branch.

I don’t blame Donald Trump for the erosion of the check and balance system in our government. It’s been happening for a long time.

I do blame him for being an opportunistic extremist. He is an opportunist who sees the reality, and he has no qualms about exploiting and taking advantage of it. He is a bad actor, in my opinion, who is driving a proverbial truck through a gaping hole in our system.

When I speak out, I am not just speaking out against the Trump administration. I am speaking out as a warning signal about where we are in the history of our country.

We are at a tipping point. Our system is caving in and collapsing. I am afraid it’s already too late, and part of the problem is that we are so focused on our partisan politics, so willing to excuse and defend our own party and our own party line that we cannot see the collapse of our system of government as it is happening in front of our eyes. 

Perhaps, more personally, I have been a lifelong conservative because I thought the Republican Party would protect the rule of law and the integrity of the Constitution. I thought the Republicans would conserve the basic freedoms we have and hold us back from a progressive erosion of the foundational components of Constitution and law.

What alarms me most about the Trump Administration is that he has taken it the other direction and is knocking down whole walls and structural elements of our Constitution to impose his will on the country. He is intentionally pushing every boundary in the direction of expansive executive power, and the Republican party won’t stand up to him.

The Trump Administration is running rough shod over due process protections, ignoring the First Amendment, and actively attempting to reinterpret and rewrite the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments, among other things. These are staple protections of our freedom. Trump is undoing fundamental protections at breakneck speed and overwhelming the court system, and I see an immediate threat to the seams of our democracy that are ready to burst and break open. These actions betray every conservative nerve in my body, and that is why I am speaking out now.

Where are the conservative stalwarts standing up to him? Most conservatives are cheering or at least looking the other way as Trump and his motely crew of hacks dismantle the fabric of our law.

~~~~~~~~~~~

So, stepping down from my soapbox, let me know where I am coming unhinged. Give me some hope. Disagree me if you see it differently. I am not unable to listen to contrary voices, and (in fact) need some fresh perspective at times to balance me out. Thank you ahead of time.

Why I Write About Immigration Issues

The truth is complicated, but God’s heart is certain

kevingdrendel1 Comment
Mexican Border

I have friends who keep me honest, and I am grateful for that. They don’t always agree with me. In fact, they often disagree with me on various things, but they remain my friends, and I remain grateful for them.

Anyone who follows me on social media knows that I am virtually fixated on the issue of immigration right now. It may seem like a new thing—that all of a sudden I have become woke, liberal, or progressive. Some people who don’t know me well, I am sure, think that about me. The truth is more complicated than that.

I am a lifelong Republican and conservative by nature. I’m also a follower of Jesus, though, and I find that Jesus defies modern political categories and stereotypes. If Jesus looks to me like a Republican or Democrat, “my Jesus” probably is not the real Jesus, and my politics have likely influenced my view of Jesus.

Many people might look at my posts on immigration and feel like I have abandoned all sense of patriotism and national pride. They might think I have become a hater of the United States of America. Again, the truth is more complicated than that.

I grew up with a love for my country and a strong sense of patriotism and pride. I was educated, like most people my age, on the goodness of the United States of America, celebrating Christopher Columbus and Thanksgiving this time of year with idyllic depictions of pioneers living in harmony with Native Americans as our forefathers lived out their manifest destiny in keeping with a divine mandate from our creator to form the greatest, freest country on earth.

I still believe we live in the greatest, freest country on earth, but the truth is messier and more complicated than I once believed. I am grateful for a strong sense of the goodness of the United States of America I learned as a child, and I appreciate the positives in that idealized memory of America. But it’s more complicated than that.

Humanity is nothing if not messy. We are fallen, sinful creatures. We know that, but our idyllic, comforting images die hard.

The pioneers displaced the Native Americans who were here long before us. They were pushed out of their ancestral lands. They were marched in a “trail of tears” to godforsaken territories where they have had to scrape out a meager subsistence ever since then in the literal dust of the barren, rocky places to which they were consigned.

Slavery is a pox on our idyllic history. That it was supported, promoted, and defended by Christians who sought comfort in the Bible while they exploited, oppressed, and dehumanized people for the color of their skin (and wealth they could generate) is a testament to the utter bankruptcy of human beings – even religious ones.

Let’s be honest about this, also: religious people who use their religion to justify their unjust ways are not doing anything different than non-religious people who are unjust. It’s just more insidious for the fact that they contort love of neighbor to love of self.

I have learned to be honest and not to look away from these contrary images of our history and our past. God calls for repentance, and repentance requires honesty. Repentance and heart change are the only proper response to the evil of idolatry and injustice.

Honesty does not mean I do not love my country, and it does not mean that I am not thankful for being born here. I still believe that the good we have brought into the world is not any less good. It’s just complicated, and I want us to live up to the ideals we ascribe to.

In case you could not tell, I am not an idealist, though I certainly do have idealistic tendencies. Not that I am any different than anyone else. We are complicated and complex creatures; human beings. Despite the polarized simplicity of social media that pigeon holes us into two-dimensional, stereotypical ideologues, people and societies are complex.

On the issue of immigration, my “awakening” happened more than a decade ago – in 2014. During the Obama administration, as I watched the Syrian refugee crisis unfold in the news, I realized that didn’t have a robust biblical view on the subject of immigration. I have written about this often, so please bear with me if you have read what I have written before.

Continue reading “Why I Write About Immigration Issues” →

Unveiling the Mystery of the Hiddenness of God

Why would God be hidden to us?

kevingdrendel3 Comments

I have been meditating on the hiddenness of God lately and leaning into the mystery of God’s hiddenness. I am intrigued by it. The Bible is forthright about the hiddenness of God.

As I think about the hiddenness of God, the mind of the skeptic plays in my ear: “How do you know God exists? Why does God seem hidden? Maybe it’s because He doesn’t exist!” Believing in a “hidden” God is belief without evidence; it’s belief in the teeth of the evidence (as Dawkins says).

My response is that we all have faith in our basic assumptions about reality. The scientist assumes only matter and motion. He sees evidence for things like gravity and neutrinos, and dark matter and dark energy that cannot be seen. The scientist reasons to the best explanation for the things that cannot be seen in order to make sense of the reality in the world, and he does so within the “limitations” of materiality.

Science, after all, is the study of the material world. That is is the scope of science as it is defined in the modern world. Science is based on what is quantifiable, measurable, observable, and reproducible.

When I do theology or philosophy, I also start with assumptions. I start with an assumption, or a theory if you like, that God exists. The proof of God, however, is necessarily different than scientific proof.

God is not a substance in the universe to be quantified, measured, observed, or reproduced in the way we can study the natural world. He is not a component of the universe. He is not comprised of matter and motion like the universe. God is not a principle of physics that can be observed in its regularity and tested by its regularity.

If God exists and created the universe, He is separate and apart from the universe. That does not mean that God is not present in some way; it means that He is not present in the same way that you and I are present. Rather, God is transcendent. He is imminent (near in some way), but not contained within the creation.

God also must have agency to have determined to create. We understand the necessity for agency by our own agency. This makes sense of the question: why is there a universe; why is there something, rather than nothing.

For the life of me, I can make no sense of the assertion that a universe can create itself. What kind of voodoo magic is that? That conclusion is based on an assumption that matter and motion is all that exists, but we cannot prove that assumption.

To say that God must have agency is not to be anthropomorphic about it but to reason to the best explanation based upon what we know, which is our own agency and the way we conduct ourselves in the world. Where does a universe come from? The simple answer is that it comes from a creator who has agency, who has intentionality, and the ability to will and to act according to His purpose and design.

Where does intricate, fine-tuned complexity that is complex to the nth degree come from? It comes from a mind, from a creator who conceives a plan and then implements it. We know that from the way human beings create things. Where did we get that capacity? Like things produce or reproduce like things.

We know that the universe is “winding down”. That is what the law of thermodynamics tell us. Entropy is the rule. This means the universe is not getting more complex; it is breaking down, evening out, cooling, and becoming less complex over time.

Over course, this is occurring over a very, very long period of eons, so (perhaps) there is enough energy in the universe for complexity to form in areas of the universe even while entropy is working its very long way toward the inevitable heat death of the universe as a whole.

Maybe, but where did the energy come from to cause the so-called Big Bang? What triggered the universe to begin to begin with?

No one can explain that who doesn’t believe in a “Big Banger”, a Creator. It is the best explanation that we have. It makes the most sense of the reality that the Universe had a beginning.

The multiverse doesn’t solve the “problem” of a beginning. It just kicks the can back down the road further. What triggered the multiverse into being? It’s an endless regression.

The Christian (Jewish and Muslim) conception of God is that God is the timeless, eternal being who always existed and was never created who chose to trigger the universe (or multiverse) into existence.

This, frankly, makes much more sense than a past eternal, non-sentient universe that just poofed life into existence. How do you get life from nonliving matter? What animates that matter?

But the questions don’t stop there. What triggers consciousness from inert, non-conscious matter? How do the fundamental “building blocks” of matter develop consciousness? It’s a complete mystery, and there is no mechanism known to modern science to explain it – other than the brute fact that human beings and (to some lesser degree) animals (and maybe plants) are conscious beings.

Consciousness is proven by the sheer fact that we are conscious of ourselves. It seems to “reside” in or be attached to the brain, but the brain by itself is not consciousness. The brain is a perfect, intricate receptacle for consciousness, but the brain and consciousness are not perfectly coexistent. They are not the same things, and science has no adequate explanation for that.

Because these things suggest looking outside the limitations of the material world for our answers, we have theology and philosophy, which can be “scientific” loosely in method and approach, but defies the limitations of scientific inquiry.

That doesn’t mean that theology and philosophy should be divorced from science (or that science should be divorced from theology and philosophy). All reality must ultimately cohere harmoniously, or we cannot call it reality.

But, I have digressed (only slightly) from the point, which is the mystery of the hiddenness of God.

Continue reading “Unveiling the Mystery of the Hiddenness of God” →

Trust for Those Who Would Judge the World?

Living out our trust in God by waiting on Him

kevingdrendelLeave a comment

Do you trust God? Do you have faith? Those aren’t trite questions, and they don’t discount the desperation behind those who cry out to God for justice, for righteousness, for real change in the world and in our own circumstances.

Where is the justice in this world? The writer of Ecclesiastes looked for justice and observed, “In the place of justice – wickedness was there!” (Ecc. 3:16) I have seen injustice in the American court system myself. I see injustice every day in the news. Just today, I met with people who have suffered great injustice in the local legal aid clinic I run.

The injustice in this world is undeniable, and it can be utterly crushing for those on the wrong side of injustice. In truth, we have all been on the wrong side of injustice at times in our lives, big or small. Truly, the writer of Ecclesiastes was accurate when he said:

“I saw the tears of the oppressed—
    and they have no comforter;
power was on the side of their oppressors—
    and they have no comforter.“

(Ecclesiastes 4:1) Injustice feeds injustice in a seemingly never-ending cycle. (Think about the Hatfields and the McCoys or the Palestinians and the Israelis.)

In our human minds, we imagine that injustice must be met immediately with action and force. Justice cries out for redress. We lament when justice does not come. We pray and cry out to God. When justice does not come for us, we might even be tempted to believe that God does not care or worse – the God does not exist.

The questions I pose, therefore, are not glib or lightly asked: Do you trust God? Do you believe?

When we are tempted to take judgment into their own hands, we fail to trust God if we act on that temptation. We become judge and jury. We usurp God’s justice in the process. (Vengeance is mine sayeth the Lord.) And, when become the judge and executioner, we make a mess of it in the process. We warp God’s justice to our conceptions of justice.

“Justice is not God wielding ‘the stick.’ It’s His desire to restore, redeem, reconcile, and mend all that’s broken in the world.” Chris Gresham-Britt

When the world talks about justice, the focus is on punishment. We don’t realize it as Christians that our view of justice is often more colored by the world than by God. Worldly justice is punitive.

If we are going to trust and believe God, we accept what the prophet says: that God desires mercy, not sacrifice. (Hosea 6:6) God desires to save and not to judge. That is why God sent His only Son into the world: not to condemn the world, but to save the world. (John 3:17)

God’s goal is redemption and destruction. God is just, but justice seems to be lacking in the world. Why? Peter says, we need to trust and be patient, as God us patient with us:

“[T]he Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9)

God is waiting (longing) to have mercy on us! (Psalm 30:18) “[God takes] no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live.” (Ezekiel 33:11)

So, God waits patiently, withholding His judgment – withholding ultimate justice. He does this because He desires that none would perish, that all would turn to him and be saved. He waits to be gracious to us.

But we are impatient. We don’t want to wait. We want everything to be made right immediately, especially the injustices done to us, the people like us, and the people we know. “With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day” (2 Peter 3:8), but a day seems like a thousand years to us when are suffering or see suffering.

We cannot imagine the delicate and complex balance of God’s patience in waiting for people to come to repentance so that He can have mercy and the judgment that He will inevitably allow to be imposed on those who refuse to turn and repent. All the while, God hears the outcries of people suffering the injustices of their own folly and wickedness and the folly and wickedness of others – sowing the wind and reaping the whirlwind.

But, we do not see as God sees, and we do not know as God knows. Judgment is God’s business. It is not our business to judge the world. (1 Corinthians 5:12) That is where real faith comes – to leave the judging to God and to love the world as God loves the world, which is His instruction to us.

The whole law is summarized in two principles: love God, and love your neighbor. (Matthew 22:37-40; Romans 13:8-10; Galatians 5:14) That’s it. Just do it.

If you see a hurting neighbor, don’t judge; just help. Like the Good Samaritan, cross the road (go out of you way) to help your neighbor. Bear one another’s burdens. By doing these things, you will fulfill the law of love. (Romans 13:8-10)

In the end, justice will come quickly, but will God find faith on earth?

Do you trust God? Show it by loving others and leave the judgment to God. Do you have faith that God will bring justice? God’s justice is always colored by his desire to be gracious and compassionate. Be a vessel of God’s justice that is tempered by mercy and love, and love your neighbor.

An Exploration of God’s Hiddenness in the Bible

The Bible on the hiddenness of God

kevingdrendel2 Comments

Divine hiddenness is an argument suggesting that God does not exist. According to J.L. Schellenberg, if a perfectly loving God exists, He would desire a genuine relationship with every person He creates. A loving relationship requires, at minimum, awareness that God exists, so a perfectly loving God would make Himself known. Some sincere and willing people who want to know God are unable to find sufficient evidence that He exists to believe in Him. Therefore, either God does not exist or He is not perfectly loving.

I don’t buy it. I think the argument is flawed, but other people have provided robust responses to this argument, so I am not going to attempt to provide a counter argument here. I am also unconvinced that arguments are the best way to achieve understanding.

On that ground, I am intrigued by the hiddenness of God, and I am intrigued that the Bible is forthright about the hiddenness of God. The Prophet Isaiah says it plainly: “Truly, you are a God who hides himself, O God of Israel, the Savior.” (Is. 45:15)

The entire Book of Job is about God’s hiddenness. Job assumed that God existed and had blessed him until he lost everything. When Job sought God in the desperation of his circumstances, he lamented, “Behold, I go forward, but he is not there, and backward, but I do not perceive him… I cannot behold him.” (Job 23:8-9)

David, who is held up in the Bible as a man after God’s own heart, lamented the hiddenness of God at various times in his life: “Why, O LORD, do you stand far away? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?” (Psalm 10:1); “How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?” (Ps. 13:1); and “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?… I cry by day, but you do not answer.” (Ps. 22:1-2)

Those last words were famously echoed by Jesus on the cross. Imagine, Jesus, who demonstrated and expressed the deepest and most intimate relationship with the Father, experiencing the utter absence of God at the moment of his greatest need.

I saw early in a world religion class in college when I wasn’t a believer that the Bible purports to be about the unfolding story of God’s encounter and revelation of who God is to mankind. Elsewhere, I have written about how God found in Abram a man who was able to grasp that the God of the universe is not like the gods of the provincial tribes and nations with which Abram was familiar. (For example, Abraham, Isaac and Paradigm Shift; and The Story of Abraham and Isaac Revisited: Introduction)

The revelation of God unfolded slowly as God needed to dispel notions of divine arbitrariness, capriciousness, brutality, and uncaring of the gods that Abram and ancient humanity understood. The gods of human imagination are no gods at all, and God is noting like ancient Near Easterners imagined.

While it is true that God is completely OTHER, the true God who made the heavens and the earth desires the benefit of and reciprocal relationship with the pinnacle of His creation. How does a God who is so completely OTHER than His creation communication Himself?

Consider a God who could make our universe with its vastness and detailed complexity down to the minutia of the precise intricacy of living cells and the unseeable building blocks of the physical world, like neutrinos, that are so small they can pass through your body and the core of the earth without hitting another particle. How does such a God who created such a world reveal Himself to finite creatures who live on a tiny planet in a tiny solar system among more stars, planets, and whole solar systems than such a creature can even imagine – how does such a God reveal himself to delicate, ephemeral creatures with limited perspective?

Continue reading “An Exploration of God’s Hiddenness in the Bible” →