Posts Tagged ‘randy hasper’

Slouching Toward the Future

Posted: November 24, 2016 in journey
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“What if you just yack your way through the rest of your life?” I asked one of my good friends today.

“That would work,” she said. “That’s what I do best.”

I agree. She’s a yacker, and I love listening to her yackety yak. She goes on — and off, delightfully. I can only hope and pray she ardently devotes herself to it.

She told me today, “There are no bad words; there is only bad timing.” I’m good with that. I am always looking for the wrong word at the right time. It makes people laugh.

I took my time at the credit union today to talk to three different staff members, yacking it up about family, the holidays, church. It was a bit of verbal delectation — I tossed in a few bon mots — for me and for them. Like my friend, it’s what I do. More of that, in print, that’s what’s next for me.

What’s next? For any of us?

What’s next is what has been that wants to be more so —  but that which will take intention, choice and courage — and will come at a cost — really.

There must be a shedding of what has been that wants to be less so and a filling of that empty space with what wants to be that hasn’t been yet.

We wait too long.

We wait until the garage is full. We delay until someone has to call the doctor for us — or the therapist. We put off applying for the new job until we are sick to death of the old one. We delay the art project until it is too late to do it. We retire to late. It is easier to drift, to float than to act out something new. We hawk the past to ourselves to avoid buying our tickets to the good future.

We neglect our craft. We slouch toward the future.

I wonder. Is it time for you and me to stop doing what we are doing so we can start doing what we really want and need to be doing. — the good stuff, like more yacking?

What isn’t working?

What might be better?

Don’t slouch toward Bethlehem; don’t amble toward the future.

Run toward it!

Thriving In a Divided Country

Posted: November 20, 2016 in conflicts
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Since the November election many savvy American commentators have sagely noted that we are a divided country.

“Do ya think?”

The odds of running into people who think the opposite of what you do about politics are about fifty-fifty.

So what do you do when faced with a person espousing different views from your own?

How about if you say, “Will you tell me more about that?”

It’s a great line, the kind of verbiage that can help us all immensely, the kind of language that can help us to just get on with it, with the understanding part, without someone getting hurt.

Not every adversative is a casus belli.

When people say something that we disagree with socially, epistemologically, theologically — or God forbid, politically — when inside we react to that dissonant point-of-view fast-breathingly, jaw-clenchingly and froth-mouthingly, then I suggest that we all — including myself — stay seated, and that we lean in toward our perceived opponent, that we place our forearms on our knees in an open and relaxed posture, that we nod in a positive and inviting manner and looking straight into their ignorant, narrow-minded, uninformed eyes we say gently, “Tell me more about that.”

Here is the deal, for me and for you, oh wise ones,  first just, “Be quiet!” Do that to protect your hearts — and to give space for understanding and to protect other people’s sense of safety in our presence.

There will be plenty of opportunites to say what we think — which of course is okay to do, and which of course we will do at appropriate times — but first let’s take control of ourselves, first let’s stop thinking of what we want to say back, and then let’s go at it by asking questions, so we can breathe again. First let’s go into listening mode, first try to understand, first be curious, open, calm, investigative, smart.

Why?

We tend not to understand the other side — too much. We tend to think we are right — too much. We tend to argue when we should learn — too much. To get smart, to do well, to keep our friends — our work or school colleagues —  to keep our families together, to keep our churches together, to make new friends, to not have stress disorders and to get more wise and sagey, we need to open ourselves to people who think differently than we do.

It is a mark of maturity to listen to, to like, to love and even to adore people we disagree with. It is a mark of a good thinker to listen to all sides. The ancient, trustworthy and wise Holy Scripture itself tells us that true wisdom is “open to reason.”

Listening doesn’t mean we have to change our perspectives, our opinions or our values. It just means that we are open to understanding someone else’s viewpoint. This so helps; it helps us not to run off the steep and scary cliff of trying to make everyone else think like we do.

They won’t, much, or they will, sometimes, or not.

Give it a rest.

How do we survive the divisions in our country?

We get smart; we get back to learning from and about each other.

The Talking Cure

Posted: November 14, 2016 in family, healing
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This weekend one of my brother’s asked me an interesting question, “How do you think pain was handled in the family we grew up in?”

Fascinating!

After we threw this around for 45 minutes — my brother, his wife, my daughter, me — I can note a couple of things.

Siblings don’t grow up in the same family.

Each child has a unique experience of their family, based on the child’s own personality, based on what is going on in the family during the most vulnerable years, based on difference in how the parents relate to the children.

I had wonderful parents. They were loving, godly, present, good. But I didn’t always get what I needed when it came to processing pain. I needed more processing than I got. I needed for us to sit down and talk about the pain, the psychological pain, particularly how we experiencing it, what it was doing to us, how we felt about it. I think that I needed this because I am a very verbal processor and because I am sensitive to emotions. I am a thinker, but I am also a feeler.

When my mom got breast cancer, I was 15 or 16 years old. I remember sitting by her bed, in her bedroom, holding her hand, worrying about her — mom and I alone in a dark room. I never remember any helpful conversations about her cancer, with my dad, with her or with my brothers. My mom had a mastectomy. My dad worked, my brothers and I went to school, my mom recovered. We we’re a product of our times. We were workers, doers, not emotional processors, but even if we had wanted to talk, I would say that we didn’t even have the language we needed to talk about all this.

Only later in life did my mom tell me how emotionally painful the surgery was for her, how she felt horribly disfigured by it, how she suffered over that through the years. Only later in life did I realize how alone she was in that, and how alone I was during those years. My mom has always been a classy woman, always beautifully dressed, very conscious of her appearance, but she became a cancer survivor, a mastectomy survivor — with a hidden wound —  and her experience shaped my experience.

After finishing my undergrad, I fell in love with Linda, the woman I married, the love of my life. We started off talking, and we kept on talking. We talked, and talked and talked, about everything, always —  we still do. Talking is at the core of our relationship. We process life, it’s events, our emotions, our two daughter’s emotions with talk. Perhaps we over-process things, but talk, talk, talk — we go for the talking cure.

My kids aren’t perfect. They too didn’t get everything they needed from the family my wife and I created. Looking back, even with our penchant toward processing, some things in the family didn’t get adequately processed. At times, we simply didn’t know what the girls were feeling, or thinking or what they needed.

I love the family I grew up in. My parents are beautiful people. They absolutely did the best they could.  I love the family I created for myself. We too did the best we could. I come from good stock. Throughout my extended family, we have handled pain well enough to stay together, to have successful lives, to avoid addiction, to avoid separation. But I would say this, from my own, limited, needy perspective.

People need to talk.

More than we even know.

Talking helps.

Listening helps.

Talking and listening — this helps relieve pain.

It’s Simple: Keep Loving

Posted: November 9, 2016 in love
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“Love hurts.”

Pop music said so. Sometimes we say so.

The Bible never said that.

The Bible, while acknowledging the sacrifice that is often involved in love — for instance the death of Christ — sees more than pain in love.

The Bible mostly focuses on the good, not the hurt, that comes from love.

Colossians 3:14. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.

The Bible tells us love helps, heals and harmonizes. We need that today and everyday.

We may be the Tylenol generation, looking for pain relief, but the Bible prescribes it’s own a effective pain killer medicine and it isn’t a drug. It’s love.

A construction contractor came by church on Thursday to look at putting new flooring in room 5. This is where we hold our art class, Bible studies, support groups, REFINERY 101.

Cool because a church member donated $2,000 to do this. Who does that? Just up and says, “I’ll pay for a new floor. Christian people do.

Thats love!

Giving binds us together in a safe, beautiful place, in perfect harmony.

Love hugs us together. At a time when their are some pretty significant divisions in our country, we need that.

The Bible doesn’t say, “put on love so you can be bond to each other in painful relationships.”

The Bible says, “put on love that you may make beautiful music together.

Think of all the people who have loved you and the difference it has made in your life. Parents, kids, aunts and uncles, grandma’s, grandpa’s, friends, brothers, sisters, teachers, doctors, nurses

Their love is easy, good, natural.

Thinking that love will be hard, can cause us to hold back, to stay away from others, to isolate, to limit our relationships to just a few people.

For example, if I see love as hurtful, I might avoid avoid anyone I dislike or disagree with, and while it is true that relating to such people can become uncomfortable, uncomfortable is a small price to pay for connected.

Isolating brings a temporary feeling of safety, but that is not worth the loss in being alone.

God doesn’t want us to live alone, holding back, isolating. What hurts us most is not loving others.

This is important.

Think about it. The two greatest commandments of the Bible both involve love — love God, love your neighbor.

Being close to each other is at the core of God’s purpose for us.

1 John 4:7-8 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

The most classic, basic truth in the world is that God is love.

Last week my wife Linda ran into a guy named Chuck Casto at her work at Point Loma University.

Chuck’s daughter, Sonja, died of cancer a few years back, she was 43, had kids.

So when Linda saw Chuck last week, she asked him, “How are you doing Chuck? It’s been a couple of years.” She went there.

And Chuck said, “Not a day goes by that I don’t think of my daughter. The only thing that helps me is to know she is with God, and that God loves her more than I do.”

“It helps me to know that,” he said. “God love her more than me. That is what helps.”

When love hurts, love helps.

God is love and his love is the power that overcomes different views, disagreements, hurts, even death.

What is Christianity about?

Some people make their Christianity all about rules, or politics, or about Bible reading, or about spiritual gifts, or about signs and wonders, or about doctrine or discipline.

All good, but the Bible makes Christianity all about love.

When all else fails, at times when we fell separated from others, love helps. Love heals. Love keeps us warm, close, safe, satisfied, hopeful.

Last week, I asked my wife, “When did you feel most loved by me?”

She said, “When you came to the hospital and sat with me, and when I needed water and you went out and bought me some, and you had nothing else that was more important than being with me.”

It reminds us. Love is simple. As simple as water. Love is basic, memorable, accepting the other person, just being there.

It comes down to small, daily decisions.

Last week a friend called and wanted to go to coffee. We had trouble scheduling a time. Nothing seem to work.

Then I just made a decision. Pick a time that works for her, and just make it work for you. I choose to love.

We had a great time talking at Starbucks. She texted me after, “I always feel refreshed after talking to you.”

Love refreshes.

Sometimes it is so simple, a little time, just a shift of focus, away from ourselves, toward the other.

Romans 12:10 Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.

How?

Six simple ways.

1. Spend time together.

2. Be present.

3. Exude warmth.

4. Overlook differences.

5. Forgive the past.

6. Don’t quit

Loving hurts. I’ll give you that.

But not loving hurts more.

False Sincerity

Posted: November 2, 2016 in goodness, success
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“If you run after them then you create false sincerity,” she said — straight up, just  perfectly, “What?” — just what I needed to hear.

My brain turned over, picked up this verbal dollop, this insight topping, this perfectly selected accent of sweet wisdom, applied it to the person I have been over-pursuing, and laid it down in a neural groove for later retrieval.

“Bang!”

The neurons are firing now.

I’ve have learned the “false sincerity” lesson before, by another name, but I have forgotten it before too, and when she said it just right, I added the “false sincerity” moniker to my labeling file and considered it the morning’s bon mot, cup of proverbial tea, fine phrase and then I took it under advisement — and it helped.

Be advised.

Helping people is an fine art, a subtle art, a nuanced art.  If you do too much for them, if they do too little, if you ask them to do stuff like come to the recovery group, come to church, come to water aerobics, but too much, and they don’t want to, often they will still come — but with false sincerity, to please you, to assauage guilt, to look good — and then they won’t come again until asked again, shamed again or bribed.

All this wastes everybody’s time and trashes hope too. People must want to change to change. They must get it, inside, and want it, in their deep brain, and intend to go after it with all they have, or they won’t.

Sincerity of the real, good, person-changing type is self-motivated.

The Bible Never Said That

Posted: October 26, 2016 in mistakes, recovery
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You have heard the phrase, “Hate the sin, love the sinner.” The Bible never said that. Sorry.

This saying is actually derived from a quote by Gandhi.

Well, you might say, even though these precise words aren’t in the Bible, the principle of the saying is there, right? Yes, the concepts are there, but not in exactly that language.

Romans 12:9 says, Don’t just pretend to love others. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Hold tightly to what is good.

That is about the clearest verse that speaks of hating sin and loving people, but note that it doesn’t say sinners. It says others. I do believe we can say, it’s Biblical, to hate sin.

It is right, moral, appropriate to hate wrongs like rape, murder, incest, child abuse, torture and sex slavery. We hate the harm they do to precious people.We grieve over such sin. Allepo and Mosul, I grieve the harm to women, children, old.

But one of the dangers in “hate the sin,” mentality is that we have a tendency to hate other people’s sin — sin we don’t have — while tolerating, excusing, overlooking or even loving our own sin.

The other evening, my wife and I were coming home from concert, she was driving, and she took a longer route than I would have to avoid some traffic.

The backstory is that she has been hating her commute from Chula Vista to Point Loma, all the traffic, and has been telling me that a lot.

So, when she took a route that I wouldn’t have taken, on the way home from the concert, I said, with all the sensitivity and wisdom of a good husband, “If you choose routes like this, no wonder it takes you so long to get home from work.”

As soon as I said it, I knew I was a sinner.

And she being a saint, she didn’t explain that to me, except to say I had hurt her feelings.

My name is Randy Hasper, and I am a sinner. And I think the church would function better if it functioned like an AA group. Mostly, I need to not get ramped up about other people’s sin; I need to take care of my side of the street, my sin, and seek to make amends to the people I have wronged.

Ashamed of my own words, I apologized to my wife. Repent quickly.

I think of Ann Lamott: , “God put us together with other people on the planet to make us crazy enough that we give up on our own bad ways and surrender to his love and forgiveness.” The point? Be more concerned about your own sin than others.

But there is something else to say about our own sin. Be careful not to hate your own sin so much, that you end up hating yourself and shaming yourself and thinking that you can get holy by beating up on yourself.

The other day, one of my daughters dropped and broke my favorite espresso cup.

She knows how much my espresso means to me. Every morning, espresso brings me back from the dead.

She felt badly, felt some shame, some guilt.

But we have a thing in our house where if someone breaks something — because we are all a bit brain damaged in my house — nobody says anything except stuff like, “Oh, it’s just a cup, no big deal, here let me help you clean it up.”

Shame won’t bring the cup back. Beating up on ourselves or others for sin just weighs us down. Hate won’t make sin go away. After we fail, after we drop the moral cup, it is a looking to God that helps, not focusing on the sin, for then we hear him say, “Here, let me help you clean that up.

Putting our eyes back on God, forgives us, heals us, and helps us get back to doing the right thing.

So hate the sin … well … that’s right, but keep you eyes on God not on your sin.

The other problem with the “hate the sin, love the sinner,” thing is that the NT doesn’t encourage us to judge or condemn ourselves — or even other people — as sinners.

Matthew 7:1. Do not judge, or you too will be judged.

It’s true that we do all sin, and say they don’t, but to label someone a “sinner” puts us in an judging, “us versus them” position, where we become the “righteous” person looking down our nose at those poor, wretched, ignorant “sinners” who just cannot get their act together.

Forget that. We need to worry about our side of the street. We are only responsible for our side of things, not theirs.

Last night I took responsibility for my side of the street with my wife. She has been complaining that I don’t always hear her when she speaks.

I told her, “I know, babe, so for you I went to the doctor about this last week. He told me I now have a 95% to 100% hearing loss.

I told him about our problem, and he is recommending that from now on you just stop speaking to me. It’s not my fault. I will just have to suffer, in silence, in blissful silence, the rest of our married life.”

Finally, the last and biggest problem with the “sinner” label, in the “love the sinner” thing is that there is much more to us than sinner. We were all created in the image of God, and while sin has twisted and smudged that image, it hasn’t erased it.

There is gold in you. “There is gold in them thar hills.”

Think of how Jesus viewed us. Jesus hung out with unrighteousness people like us, but that isn’t how he labeled us. Jesus’s own billing, his marquee, it wasn’t “Jesus the Messiah: eating and drinking with prostitutes and sinners.”

That was the labeling used by the religiously judgmental. When he hung out with sinners, he didn’t act like they were sinners.

His sinner were his friends, not his projects. They were people with faces and names. They were his sheep in need of his care. They were beloved children. Jesus wasn’t their accuser. He left that to the devil — or the religious right.

Romans 5:8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Take the woman caught in a sexual sin. Sinner is not how Jesus saw her. When he told her to go and sin no more he was revealing that he saw that she was person who was capable of righteousness.

She sinned, I sin, and you sin, we all sin, but that is not our primary identity. Our primary identity, our root identity, is as the children of God. Getting back to that is what helps us stop sinning.

1 John 3:1 See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!

I remember once when life really beat me down, and I kind of lost myself, I called by friend Rob Mahan, and went to lunch with him.

I told him what had happened that made me lost my confidence, and he asked me, “So, then, who are you?”

I said, “Well, I am a pastor, a writer, a teacher,” and he was like, “Well, that’s what you do, but who are you?”

I was a bit confused. He was looking for a deeper answer. I’m dense sometimes. It took me some time to sort that out. I am — no matter what anyone thinks or says about me — a child of God. I am valuable, special, unique, useful, loved child of God. I am a person of value, not for what I do, but for who I am. Nobody can take that away from me.

This is true of you too. Never let anybody take that away from you. Nobody has that power over you, to proclaim you worthless, a failure, a mistake.

Sin is terrible, and the things we do to each other that take away worth are terrible, in fact they are so terrible they lead to the death of Jesus, but sin didn’t define him, and it doesn’t define you.

Jesus was the son of God, who triumphed over sin, and in him, you are a new creation, not a sinner.

Romans 8:1 There is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus.

I am  done with being critical, with putting myself down or others down for imperfection, for weaknesses. And I am done speaking of others as if they are sinners.

It’s not Christian to be full of judgment. “Hate the sin, love the sinner.” I don’t actually recommend calling anyone a “sinner.”

They, and you, and we are much, much more than sinners. You and everyone else on our planet are beautiful, and we were made for a redeeming, righteous, intimate relationship with God.

And close to God we are gold, we are forgiven, we become powerful, we are free, we are good and we are whole.

Something Else: A Modern Soliloquy

Posted: October 25, 2016 in politics
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The politicians up for election, how they clobber, club and crucify each other — the back room hacking, the in-your-face attacking, the under-the-table cracking, the character fracking and reputation hijacking.

Campaigns are pretty much a public brawl, in a skirt or a tie, on a hill, in a hall.

I long for something else — a quiet friend, who isn’t running for office, who isn’t telling other people off, who isn’t hiding smutty history, who has no record of groping or doping or wheeling or dealing, the wall or the hall or the floor or the ceiling.

I long for something unselfish, undivided, unbiased — something not frantic, forced, frothing, fierce.

I think of my father, now in his final years, bending over my mother in the bath, gently splashing water on her shriveled, shrunken, surgeried skin — softly, soapy sloshing what she can’t clean herself.

I think of my brother, at the City of Hope, wrist band 86, wasted wait again, the needle in the arm, the unexpected end — of work and wish and want. He will be going back to work in a few hours to make sure people are taken care of, to make sure things will be okay when he doesn’t get to go to the office anymore.

I think of my friend who lost her husband two years ago. Thirty years then gone. There she is in the therapy room after the group meeting, waiting until everyone is gone so that she can secretly pay for her disabled friend’s care, even though her own financial future isn’t certain.

Such pauses from ourselves, such thoughts of someone else, such quiet, unseen, brave campaigns — they rise up to the top and rule when all else is lost.

Such kindness as these are of great note.

Such kindnesses as these all have my vote.

Note: You can find my other modern soliloquies at  www.modernsoliloquies.com

Closed Door Politics

Posted: October 19, 2016 in news
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The New York Times recently ran an article explaining the rise of a voting base in the U.S. that is “characterized by a desire to shut out the world, ruthlessly promote American interests, reject cooperation and meet threats with overwhelming force.”

This constituency is afraid, angry and isolated. They want to close the door.

I’m not.

Why?

Because I’m a Christian.  Jesus said to go into the whole world and love people of all nations and bring the forgiveness and concern of Christ to them all.

You can’t do that if you shut the whole world out.

Christian’s aren’t called to promote only their own interests. Christians aren’t called to isolate themselves from people who are different from them. Christians aren’t called to fear and hate and harm. We would do well to remember that in the Old Testament God opposed and judged the nations who were overly harsh and brutal in battle with other nations.

According to Jesus, we Chritians are the people of the other cheek, we are the people of go-into-the-whole world, we are the people who are to be known for their compassion, their generosity and their love. Yes, we protect the weak and innocent, no we don’t shut out the world.

I’ve gotten out a little, as a Christian — to Nicaragua, to South Africa, to Swaziland, to Italy, to Canada, to Brazil, to Puerto Rico, to Mexico, to England and to France — and from the small slice of the world that I’ve seen, the nations are full of beautiful people, people just like me, people who enrich and add to me whenever I get to know them, people with the same hurts and hopes that I have.

Worshiping in Zulu in Johannesburg, in Spanish in Mexico City, in Portugese in Campinas, in English in London, I have been overwhelmed with a powerful, deep and meaningful connection with the nations. There is someting profound beyond words about how much we have in common with others who are different from us, rather  about how different we are from those who are the same as us.

Unfortunately, some Christians leave their Chritianity at the slamed door when they enter the political battlefield. But closed doors, closed minds and closed hearts  — there is nothing Christian about that.

 

The News Is Booze

Posted: October 17, 2016 in news
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The news is booze! It will make your head wooze.

Last week — being over-exposed to the Presidential election news — I found myself anxiously consulting the headlines several times a day. Not good. I  began to suffer a kind of polical poison-brain.

When my brother Steve told me he had read an article that said overexposure to negative, unsettling or  violent reports on the news has an ill effect on health, I unhooked.

I was suffering from toxic political waste. It can cause stress, anxiety and depression.

I’m better now.

Over the weekend I baked an excellent pizza,  I went to the park with my family, I settled down to reading a fine biography of Ben Franklin, I took in a fun and inspiring Christian music concert, and I had an excellent time at church yesterday surrounded by people who don’t thrive on insults. Last night I watched 60 Minutes where I saw that a church — guided by love not fear — was sponsoring Syrian refugees.  How refreshing!

This week I’m living differently. I am glancing at the political circus, but I’m not buying a ticket to the big tent. With the lack of integrity that characterizes some of our candidates, with the level of hostility, vitriol and brutality that defines this election, I think it is best for me to wean myself from political voyeurism.

Frankly, the whole mess makes me vow to eschew lying, to long to live and act more humbly, to honor everyone I can around me, to be kind to suffering people from other countries, to never be inappropriate with women, to give away more time and money to charity than I ever have before and finally to further open myself to the astonishingly compassionate and unselfish heart of God for all people.

It’s what we are supposed to do.

He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.

Micah 6:8

 

Character and Politics

Posted: October 9, 2016 in politics
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I’ve been watching the 2016 Presidential race play out over the last few months, and it has been been eye-opening, fascinating, astonishing really, a study in some of the worst traits of human nature. I’ve have been particularly interested in how my fellow Christians have reacted, what they have been willing to support and what they have been willing to overlook.

It appears to me that there is some degree of inability to judge character well.

Politicians who show a consistent pattern of insulting others, of lying about what they have said or not said in the past, of self-aggrandizement, of greed for excessive wealth, of exploiting those they hire, of harsh judgmentalism of other races, of belittling, objectifying and misusing women, of scoffing at other’s weaknesses but of not sincerely grieving and apologizing for their own — such leaders show not merely that they fail to say the right thing; they fail to be the right person. Such failures are failures of the most profound order. They are failures of character and failure of love, and they represent the exact opposite of the character of Jesus.

Jesus consistnely maintained an opposite pattern from this, a pattern of humility, a pattern of profound respect for the weak, for the poor, for the sick, for women, for children, for the mentally disabled, for other races, even for those from other religions — such as the Samaritan woman. He was consistently kind to people who weren’t like him — except, as you may note, that Jesus was hard on leaders who were self-seeking, harsh, domineering, greedy and judgmental.

Who should we support, politically? It is challenging. It requires good discernment. But I don’t believe that it is an issue that should be decided for us by a political party, or by how we have voted in the past, or by the preassure of others who fire off their political opinions with little thought or reason. Nor should our choice be decided by our own moral weakness, by what we excuse in ourselves, or by our need for hitching our wagon to someone powerful so that we might ourselves seem to gain a little power.

I’m not sure how it all sorts out, but I am sure that Christians should not blindly support anyone with a persistently harmful character, thinking that this doesn’t matter as long as that leader advocates  something they have traditionally favored. And I am sure of this: Character matters! Whatever our political biases, we should never align ourselves with any leader whose character has a pattern that is precisely the opposite of Jesus’s.

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