The Source of Corruption

Sunday, January 4, 2026

I entered the weekend expecting to write this Sunday morning, the first of the new year, about how alike Christian ministry and politics are since both require that you first raise money and how often that unfortunate fact results in corruption.  Not to mention the deep confusion between religion and politics that haunts us.  And then the capture of Maduro happened and the weekend fundamentally changed – the world fundamentally changed.  But has this post changed?  Not as much as you might think.

Yesterday was full of cries and coverage of how The President of the United States, the Commander in Chief of the entire United States military, lacked the authority to do such a thing.  These cries of outrage only accelerated as the President spoke of his intent to “run” Venezuela, at least for a while.  My mind ran immediately to the prior historical parallels.  The capture of Noriega in Panama by Bush 41 – the raid on Qaddafi in Libya under Reagan – Grenada.  Of course the President has the authority.  And, of course we are going to administer Venezuela for a while.  The purpose of this operation is to end the corruption in that nation that has been poisoning and killing Americans.  Maduro may be the top of the pyramid, but the corruption in that nation is organized and deep – we need to root it out – all of it.

The contemporary coverage of the historical precedents I just cited all focused on the military aspects of the operations, troop movements, units involved, the hardware used, etc.  I did not get a hint of that yesterday until I ran into this Substack just this morning.  (It is extraordinary reporting and a recommended read.)  And that is when it dawned on me.  Media these days is more focused on hating Trump than it is honoring this extraordinary military effort.  Which returned me to the theme I was going to write about this morning.

Said Jesus:

“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.”

That is perfectly on point in my initial thoughts about corruption in ministry and the analogy to politics is obvious.  But there is an analogy to the coverage of this operation as well.  Media cannot serve its hatred of Trump and perform its reporting duties, in this case about the military operations.  And while it is easy to allow the love of money to override other considerations I cannot help but wonder if it is not even easier to let hatred do so.  Clearly it has.

The first lesson of the morning is the effectiveness of the United States military.  A hearty and heartfelt “WELL DONE” is due.

Second lesson – church matters a lot.  If you build your weekly calendar around going to church, you establish God as your master, and nothing else.  How you prioritize your time, thoughts and effort determines who your actual master is.  Make it God.