If God, then impeachment

By Dan Popp

"For if you remain completely silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father's house will perish. Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?" Then Esther told them to reply to Mordecai: "Go, gather all the Jews who are present in Shushan, and fast for me; neither eat nor drink for three days, night or day. My maids and I will fast likewise. And so I will go to the king, which is against the law; and if I perish, I perish!" (Esther 4:14-16, NKJV)

Barack Obama deserves to be impeached. He deserves to be tried. And in my opinion he deserves to be removed from office. (So do many of the folks who would be impeaching and trying him, by the way.) If Obama were a Republican, Democrats would think so, too. That's one factor in the discussion on impeachment: the justice factor.

Then there's the political factor. Impeachment would be a fundraising bonanza for the Democrats. The public might rally around the beleaguered underdog (as happened with Bill Clinton), and this could be very bad for Republicans.

These are the two sides of the national dialog, and even the dialog inside my own head at times. But aren't we missing something? Isn't there a third consideration besides justice and politics?

What about God?

What if Moses had thought better of defying his Obama, knowing that the consequence might be a more severe slavery for his brethren, rather than freedom? What if David had come to a reasonable conclusion about his prospects of victory over the nine-foot-tall Obama before him? – or Daniel, or Gideon, or Elijah, or the Apostles? What if the early Christian martyrs had looked at their approval ratings?

If these examples seem too remote, how about George Washington with his frostbitten few facing the greatest military in the world? Or those Christians who dared to try to eradicate chattel slavery, a tragedy that must have seemed like a permanent part of the human condition? How about Martin Luther King, Jr.'s renewal of their struggle? What of the young man in front of the tank in Tiananmen Square?

What if any of these had balked at the insurmountable "political realities" before them?

Sad to say, these days most of the politics of the left and the right seem to operate on the assumption that there is no God. "In Polls We Trust." If we believe there is a God, we'll move toward the right with the assurance that He will either help us gain a miraculous victory, or use our defeat for a greater good.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego answered and said to the king, "O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If that is the case, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us from your hand, O king. But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we do not serve your gods, nor will we worship the gold image which you have set up." (Daniel 3:16-18)

We teach that to children. But have we lost our child-like faith?

If there is a God, then what is right should trump any other consideration. He is the One who determines the rise and fall of nations, after all. If God exists, and if it appears that the President – any President – has misused his authority, then we must do what is right and impeach him.

Conversely, if there is no God, then it's silly to whine about the supposed abuses of President Obama or Eric Holder or Lois Lerner. If there is no ultimate moral Authority, then there is no morality. That means that there are no rights to be respected or abused, only power to be wielded. If Barack Obama has the power and the will to grind you into dust, you will lie there and die like a sheep. Or perhaps you'll find some of your own moral power and will. However you were to use that power and will, we could pass no ethical judgments on it.

You see, leftists want it both ways. They want you to believe in God, in a future reckoning, in playing by the rules, in respecting authority as coming from Him; but they believe in raw power. Their "good" is whatever they want today. What you want is good if it's the same thing they want, and damnable if it's anything else.

I think that many on the right want it both ways, as well. They believe in right and wrong, and so ultimately believe in God, but they apparently don't believe that God works through people to achieve the right. They acknowledge the rules, but don't have the faith to carry them out. They may be in danger of becoming those who "have a form of godliness but deny its power." (See 2 Timothy 3:2-5)

We need a boatload of Esthers today. If I perish, I perish, but this has to be stopped.

Yes, we must be wise about how we go about trying to achieve the right. But we must also have faith. Looking at the polls and not to the heavens is a losing strategy for America.

© Dan Popp