WHAT WOULD YOU GIVE IN EXCHANGE FOR YOUR SOUL?

And now comes the news that Attorney General Jeff Sessions committed perjury during his confirmation hearings when he denied that he’d spoken to Russian officials during the campaign.  There’s no question about it, since his testimony is readily available on video.  It seems that quite a few of Trump’s Cabinet officials and other senior appointees lied to Congress about one thing or another.  That’s a crime.  Some of them lied to the FBI, which is also illegal.  Those particular crimes both carry a penalty of up to five years in prison. 

Will Sessions or any of the other perjurers in the Trump Administration serve time?  It is to laugh.  That would require a functioning legal system, in which the responsible officials are, you know, actually responsible.  Those charged with enforcing the law would have to take their job seriously.   

Instead, whether the issue is perjury, Russian interference in our elections, Trump’s violation of the emoluments clause, or Kellyanne Conway’s plug for Ivanka’s business, Republicans in Congress have responded with a collective shrug.  They’ve looked the other way so often that some of them must have whiplash.

Donald Trump has offered the Republican Party its fondest dream of earthly power, in the form of control of the Supreme Court, tax cuts for billionaires, and hostility to ethnic and religious minorities.  Earthly power looks good, no doubt about it.  But there’s a catch.  Jesus put it this way (Mark 8:36):  “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” 

Members of Congress take an oath of office when they’re sworn in.  All those Republicans who are desperately trying to ignore the Trump Administration’s rampant malfeasance?  Every one of them put their hands on a Bible and said “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.”

As Paul wrote in his Epistle to the Galatians (6:7), “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”  Donald Trump is Mephistopheles, and Republicans are Doctor Faustus – ambitious men and women who’ve made a deal with the devil, giving up their souls in exchange for some temporary earthly powers.  Spoiler alert:  It won’t end well.