Fabian Mabaya, I hear you but I must warn you that some of the events I am going to describe here are too close to home. I pray that you will accommodate my views with grace and mercy.
When I came here, in 1976, as a refugee from Rhodesia and the racist regime of Ian Douglas Smith, the US welcomed me and my family with consideration and grace. Trinity United Methodist Church in Greenwood, South Carolina became my place of worship, fellowship and encouragement as we went through trials and tribulations of life.
As I conversed with common people, and the saints, I found that we were all in a whirlpool, being tossed here and thither, by the institutions which were supposed to provide us comfort and make pronouncements on moral issues.
The General Conference of the Methodist Church concluded its session last Sunday, and it became clear that “the people called Methodists” were traumatised.
Of the 30 000 churches, 6 000 had broken away. Mindy Denison, brought up in the church, a choir director and clergy wife, says the “ruling minority, who serve in high positions of leadership (showed) complete disregard and open contempt for clearly stated teachings in the Book of Discipline.”
One simple rule was that God created them man and woman. The elites, in their wisdom, had added more genders, gay, bi-sexual, lesbian, trans-gender and binary.
When they speak, pretending to be wiser than God, after throwing some rapes in their mouths, they speak through their noses, acting out and cutting up, sounding in their own ears to be learned as they dispute God’s word and nature itself.
I thought that I was the only one who felt uncomfortable. The issue here was that there was an elite ruling class which wrote the rules “for thee but not for me.” It also appeared that the congregations were supposed to serve the institution rather than the other way around.
A brother bishop, after closing 113 churches tried to show some grace. “For those who are leaving us, we bless you and send you on your way.”
A seminarian said that his professors openly challenged the historicity of the Bible. For instance, the virgin birth and the resurrection were thrown into a basket of mythologies. “My professors don’t trust the Bible and one told us adultery could be therapeutic.”
I stood there in awe at these revelations. But seeing that a lesbian bishop, Karen Oliveti and her “wife” took center stage and played a key role in conference deliberations, I realized that things fall apart, the center does not hold anymore.
President Biden Waterloo speech.
Given the background above, the moral voice of the once great protestant churches has fallen silent in the land, and every man commits wickedness under every green tree.
This, my dear Fabian, means that there is no moral voice to speak to power.
The great moral issue of the day, the slaughter of innocents in Gaza, has been left to students to fight. President Joe Biden's hold on power depended largely on people of color and the youth vote (80%) to make a difference. Failure to stop the slaughter in Gaza is driving away his passionate supporters.
The speech, therefore, to the Jewish lobby marks his high-water mark, or his Waterloo.
An Israeli army poses near Raffah ready to slaughter 1.3 million people, two thirds of them refugees from former Israeli bombing of their homes elsewhere. Over 33 000 deaths have been recorded and well over 100 000 Arabs, many of them women and children, hospitals have been destroyed, universities flattened in search of an invisible enemy.
Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, if he had any sympathy for Old Joe, could at least have waited until November election to resume the slaughter.
Netanyahu is contemptuous of Old Joe.
In his great speech today, Joe Biden sought to assure his Jewish supporters while at the same time assuring the black and Arab voters that he is a man of conscience.
He started by recounting his own life story and the many Jewish friends who have provided a role model for him. The slaughter of 1 200 Jews on October 7 by Hamas fighters was inexcusable. Sharp, appearing decisive, the Jewish Holocaust Museum in Washington was the proper place for the speech.
Biden recalled the memory of “1 200 innocent people-babies, parents, grandparents-slaughtered in their kibutz, massacred at a musical festival, brutally raped, mutilated and sexually assaulted.”
Applause, audience stands on their feet, as Biden promised never to forget the Jewish state, nor will he forsake them. His friendship for Israel was “ironclad”.
He condemned college students who have risen to provide some moral campus. “As Jews around the world still cope with the atrocities and trauma of that day… we have seen ferocious antisemitism in America and around the world, vicious propaganda on social media (and Jews) forced to hide their kippahs under their baseball hats.”
Spineless leadership.
Biden ignored the reason for the uptake of antisemitism, the slaughter of Arab children and women in Gaza. He forgot that he is personally complicit in the slaughter by providing weapons of mass slaughter to Israel as well as providing cover when the world condemns the mass slaughter of innocents and babes.
The moral of the holocaust was that no tribe, whether Jew nor Gentile nor Scythian nor Greek should ever be subjected to those atrocities again.
True, Biden has given a make-or-break speech but failed where it matters most. By continuing to provide weapons of slaughter to Israel, he has confirmed the worst fears of the people he needs most for his re-election. Arab lives are not worth a hoot to Biden.
He is two faced. He provides bombs to Israel and then wines about supplying food to those wounded and maimed by those bombs.
He is willing to sacrifice the lives of 2.3 million Arab lives to secure another four years in power.
If he fails to play this double game, Biden will meet his Waterloo in Wisconsin.
Ken Mufuka can be reached at mufukaken@gmail.com. A Zimbabwe patriot, he writes from the US.