Leaders Need To Repent
by Wes White
Colin Powell died from Covid complications yesterday. In many ways, he was a good guy.
But let’s talk about Colin Powell in light of repentance. I am not trying to start a debate on race, Covid, vaccinations, conspiracy theories, etc. Again, the issue at the moment is repentance.
Powell was flat-out wrong when he told the UN that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. He admitted this error years later.
Apologists for Powell say that he was stating the truth as he saw it. They say he genuinely believed at the time of his UN speech that Hussein did indeed possess weapons of mass destruction. Let’s assume this is correct.
My question is this: “Why did Powell not eventually apologize for the damage done because of the promotion of this lie?”
Sure, he admitted his error, but I can’t find that he ever apologized. There is a difference between admitting error and an apology. And if he really did apologize for all the damage he contributed to, then I will request that this post be deleted from Banned.
This false claim that he promoted caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. It mentally and physically crippled hundreds of thousands more. It impoverished untold thousands of Iraqi citizens. It cost the US trillions of dollars. It enriched thieves thru graft and corruption. It destabilized the Middle East. It reduced America’s standing in the world. It made Iran stronger.
Now, this is not to say that Powell was SOLEY responsible for all the bad that came from this lie. There are others who bear more blame than he. That’s not my focus.
The point is that Powell should have apologized for his lie, whether it was deliberate or inadvertent.
One of the WCG blog sites has a ministerial Hall of Shame. It lists all the WCG ministers who contributed (large or small) to the damage done by WCG’s unchristian leadership. If a man wants to be removed from this wall of shame, he must apologize for his role in the hurt that was inflicted on innocent people by the WCG. And that is not too much to ask. So this Wall of Shame is a good thing.
Armstrongites have two major problems:
1) They are not willing to hold these ministers accountable for their past actions. They continue to follow these false teachers long after it had been made obvious that they are/were bad shepherds.
2) They are too willing to deify imperfect men such as HWA, GTA, Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Churchill, etc. If one is a Christian, the only person who should be held in such high esteem is Jesus — the only one who never needed repentance.
I heard one east Texas minister say that he can never admit he made a mistake. He said such an admission would be taken by his enemies as a sign of weakness. This attitude encapsulates so much of what is wrong with the Armstrongite ministry — past and present. They do not understand repentance. In Christianity, repentance is vital.
Without repentance, Christianity cannot exist. Without repentance, a person cannot be a Christian.
39 comments:
Personally, I'd not use General Colin Powell as an example for non-repentance etc. He has addressed the issue over the years and seems an honest and dedicated man. I believe, as seems to be the case, he was given bad information and went with it to his regret. Perhaps too trusting.
Anyway, I'd leave General Powell out of the topic. There are bigger fish to fry as examples of never being able to say to admit being mistaken, flat wrong, deceptive or duplicitous. A few politicians come to mind.
Good people sometimes do very bad things (Christians too), and Pastor White is absolutely correct that repentance is foundational to Christianity. As indicated in this post, Powell acknowledged that the information he presented was not accurate, and he described that as a "painful" blot on his record. Even so, Mr. White is also correct that real/heart-felt repentance must recognize the harm which has been inflicted (and the easiest way to demonstrate that is with a clear/undiluted apology).
Unfortunately, as was the case with Satan before us, humans often experience blind spots/delusions relative to their thoughts/motivations/behaviors. The truth is that we are great at deluding ourselves into believing that our own actions aren't bad or weren't that bad. Christians have to fight this tendency to justify and excuse bad behavior. How much delusion will God tolerate? Judging from our history as a species and the record preserved in Scripture, the answer seems to be a great deal. However, just as grace should not be viewed as a license to sin, repentance and forgiveness should not be allowed to subvert the introspection and honest evaluation of our own behavior which God clearly expects from "His" children. Moreover, Scripture strongly implies that whether it happens in this life or the next, we will all have to eventually confront/acknowledge our sins - ALL of them!
Powell had cancer, so dying from "COVID complications" is questionable.
Powell attacking Iraq was of God's doing. It's a repetition of 1Kings 22:19-23 where God put a lying spirit into the mouths of Ahab's prophets in order to get him to attack Syria. God wanted Iraq weakened in order to allow the rise of Iran, the prophesied "king of the South" in Daniel. The delusion to attack Iraq was from God. Powell is not to blame.
The Hall of Shame was in the previous owners Painful Truth blog. I'm not sure whether it's still there. Former ministers voluntarily put their names on that page as an expression of repentance and apology to their victims..
The administration was determined to go to war with Iraq with or without General Powell. Pres. Bush admitted Iraq had nothing to do with 911. There is your responsible guy.
It really was under the leadership of Bush and Blair. But yea you’re right, they act like Churchill was a saint in the church if God. It’s laughable.
Point number one reads as if you are blaming the brethren Wes. Not an angle Ron Dart would have supported.
It was mainly the Bush and Blair administrations at fault
Leave Colin aaaaloooooone!
There are two disjoint threads in this statement by this Splinterist preacher. One thread has to do with repentance and the other with apology. These should not be equated. Repentance may lead to an apoloogy if appropriate. An apology by itself may not be evidence of repentance.
Armstrongist have a strange idea about what repentance is. For Armstrongists repentance is a discontinutation of a behavior. For Christians, repentance is a change in mind. Under the Christian model, one can be totally convinced that smoking is wrong and spiritually unacceptable and still, in tempting circumstances, fall off the wagon. They were repentant, they just made a mistake. For Armstrongists, falling off the wagon is unrepentance in itself.
Colin Powell was in a chain of command. He was vouchsafed erroneous intelligence from the CIA. It was his job to pass it on before the United Nations. Former CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell apologized for Powell for putting him on the spot. Does this sound like Colin Powell was an unrepentant and persistent liar like you know who? I don't think so.
This was about an honest mistake not an unrepentant frame of mind.
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Anon 11:50 AM
Iran the ‘king of the South’.
Love this blog, brings out a great assortment of thoughts and ideas.
I will go on record as saying that’s nonsense, but I will not provide any evidence supporting my position as you did not yours,lol.
Keep safe out there folks, and get vaccinated.
With or without Powell, the Rumsfield, Bush, Cheney threesome were going to have a war in Iraq come hell or high water.
NEO states: " Under the Christian model, one can be totally convinced that smoking is wrong and spiritually unacceptable and still, in tempting circumstances, fall off the wagon. They were repentant, they just made a mistake. For Armstrongists, falling off the wagon is unrepentance in itself.'
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In my experience this is simply not true. "falling off wagons" was never considered unrepentance itself. It was just as others where one made mistakes and it is considered as such and had nothing to do with being unrepentant or as we might say, "never converted". "Never converted" was usually reserved for those that left and never came back. It was not used in any sense for personal failings nor connected with being unrepentant in some huge way different from how other churches view of simply "missing marks".
NEO,
Like you, I admired Colin Powell. He appeared to me to be a very gifted leader and a good man. Even so, we must always guard against putting those we admire on too high of a pedestal. Yes, we want to commend their good works to the imitation of other folks, but we also do not want to excuse or dismiss their failures. We are all human, and humans make mistakes. Moreover, we can readily see the negative effects of hero worship in both the religious and political realm. Some of our brother and sisters have simply placed too high of a premium on the character and qualities of the apostles. Likewise, some of our fellow citizens have elevated the Founding Fathers of this nation to semi-Divine status. And most of the folks who read and comment here have witnessed first-hand the destructive impact a charlatan/demagogue can have (Armstrong and Trump).
In a sense, we are all in a chain-of-command. We are all responsible to one degree or another for obeying commands and implementing the orders of our superiors. That does NOT, however, excuse us of any responsibility relative to the performance of our duties. We are all still responsible for discerning right from wrong and attempting to hold fast to the right. We are all responsible to a higher power and to give priority to his will over those who are below him in the chain-of-command and above us. Like soldiers in the United States Army, we are responsible for NOT following unlawful orders. And, on those occasions when we make mistakes/get things wrong/manifest errors in judgement, we MUST own up to them.
True repentance is a recognition/acknowledgement of failure and is accompanied by real sorrow for that failure. And, although it may not appear at first glance to be a part of the equation, Scripture makes plain that the repentant person will ask God for forgiveness. Indeed, the weight of the Scriptural evidence suggets that it is always appropriate to apologize for wrongdoing. Moreover, it appears to this commentator that anyone who has a problem with apologizing probably isn't in a truly repentant frame of mind.
I was in the Air Force during the Gulf war, and I can say from personal experience that
we had great nuclear proliferation detection capability back then. Along comes the Clinton administration- mass military base closings including a nuclear lab that processed the
enriched uranium detected and confiscated during the Gulf war, and an electronics repair
facility that serviced equipment from nuclear detection sites worldwide. I worked there
back in the day.
After putting the screws to the DOD, we were left with the CIA and we know how that turned out.
4.28 PM
It's in Daniel 11:40. The soon to be ten nation United States of Europe will over run most of the Middle East.
Anon 9:32 PM
Bizarre. Daniel 11:40 doesn’t mention Iran at all, lol.
Now back to my knitting, but that beer is looking tempting,lol.
International geopolitics is not theology or gospel. America is not a theocracy. The mistake Mr. White makes is in attempting to hold leaders in a totally different field to the same standards as we hold leaders of an allegedly Christian organization. Obviously, many high stakes games are played on a daily basis to maintain the standing of our nation with our enemies and our allies. It is all part of preserving pax Americana around the globe. When Colin Powell was active, America was a vastly different nation from the nation we became years later when we elected a president who shat upon all of our traditional allies and our guiding principles and disrupted all of the time honored treaties which collectively had prevented World War III for 70 years. Fortunately, we are in recovery (sort of) now, but more leaders such as General Powell are sorely needed if we are to continue our strengths and status as an international beacon of goodness into the future.
I served in the military for 32 years, spending much of that time as a staff officer. The Commander is the person who is responsible for what happens. His staff officers have authority delegated to them to act on his/her behalf, but the responsibility remains the Commanders'. The Commander in Chief (President) is the person held responsible for what happens. Presidents delegate authority, but not resonsibility.
The President knows that some of the information that he receives in his daily CIA briefing might be biased, incomplete and not entirely accurate. And, the people he surrounds himself with are like minded people who suffer from group think. They agree with whatever is suggested by the President for the sake of their careers.
I wonder if it might be healthy for the government if whoever loses the election for president must become a senior member of the presidents' staff. This way, there would be at least one person in the room who is going to be willing to say to the president what he needs to hear.
Anonymous 10/19 @ 11:37,
I agree with you about about underscoring the difference between geopolitics and theology. In this world, an effective President or Secretary of Sate must have the capacity to be calculating and ruthless if necessary. That said, I think that Mr. White was thinking strictly in terms of morality, and the audience of mostly current and former Armstrongites whom he would be addressing with this post. Within that realm, his points about repentance and apologies stand. There has been a lot of harm inflicted under the banner of God and Jesus Christ within the Armstrong Churches of God over the last eighty years, and we have tended not to hear many apologies forthcoming from the many folks who were/are willing participants in perpetrating those harms.
Dennis:
I defer to your pastoral experience. But let me tell you about the view from the pews on repentance. It is, we were told many times, about turning. It was not so much a change in mind as it was a change in action. As Les McCullough stated in his article "Just What Do You Mean - Repentance?:
"Godly repentance means to stop sinning, to turn and go the other way . . ."
This statement equates the state of repentance with behavior rather than a changed state of mind. I had a look at another article published in 1983 (there was no by line) titled "This is Real Repentance" that seemed to be for the most part in conformance with traditional Christianity in the sense that it did emphasis a change in heart and mind. But it did strike a subtle note supporting the idea of behavior as repentance:
"We will, in moments of weakness or carelessness, sin again. And then we must again repent and ask God to allow Christ's precious blood to cover the sin..."
My point is that the person who sins may or may not be unrepentant. Most likely the person is repentant and made an error. So there is no need to "again repent" there is rather the need to seek strength from God to do better. To equate repentance with behavior is a diminishment of what repentance really is and focuses on the outward, measurable activity rather that the state of the heart.
What we heard from the pews is that repentance simply means "to turn." This creates a purely behavioral emphasis. The logic is this:
1. If you sin then you are not repentant.
2. If you are repentant, then you will not sin.
I believe both of these propositions to be simplistic and misleading. Yet this is where the emphasis is in Armstrongist preaching if not in pastoral practice.
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Whiskey Tango Foxtrot did I just read?
Saddam had already used WMDs against his own people. It was obvious that he had them.
Where he hid them is still a matter of speculation. Because of the politics involved the admission of error seems suspect to me.
This is what happens when religious leaders stick their noses into areas of which they have little to no understanding.
Miller:
While I agree in substance with what you have written I feel the application of these principles to Colin Powell's case is an uneasy exercise. For a reason that is illustrated in this hypothetical but plausible scenario:
You're on the Big Sandy campus of Ambassador College back in the Seventies. You are a student working on the gardening crew. A crew member discovers that some plants are being destroyed by aphids over by the Redwood Building. He tells you to go and let the head of gardening know that this is what is happening. So you trot over to the gardening building and find the boss and tell him. The boss, based on your message, issues an order to take action. A frenzy of activity ensues. Then the word comes back that there are no aphids. The boss goes out and has a look for himself and discovers that there are no aphids but a mis-identification has occurred. The frenzy of activity was a costly waste of time.
What exactly does the student apologize for? What exactly does he repent of? The student regrets the fact that he had a role in this comedy of errors. He realizes the message he delivered was unsound. Powell has done both publicly. But is it then necessary to have him stand up before the assembled gardening crew and issue an apology?
Maybe I have assumed that Colin Powell was less a participant than he actually was. But rather than focus on Colin Powell, I would like this Splinterist preacher to write about the many things that Donald Trump did where he was clearly the source of the problem that he has never apologized for. Trump is the world's premier non-apologizer.
Just saying...
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Neo 7:37
I would like this Splinterist preacher to write about the many things that Donald Trump did where he was clearly the source of the problem that he has never apologized for.
Name one! Trump wasn't perfect but his policies made him one of our greatest presidents.
Ministerial apologies
Same thing with doctrinal changes, to admit something was wrong is to suggest that other points of doctrine are wrong.
The first minister who visited me was recalled to Pasadena for further training. The next time I saw him he was giving a FOT sermon. One of the first things he did was apologize to those attending who he may have offended when he was in that church area. I think the local minister took offense, found something he didn't like about his sermon (Prodigal Son), and said he'd give a sermon that refuted his sermon... never happened to my knowledge.
Colin Powell - I was a little disappointed when I heard some of his mistakes. I knew he made some blunders, but from the info on Democracy Now, there were a few doozies.
Powell was pure evil.
Due to the extreme censorship by mainstream media and big tech, the truth about the Iraq war and Powell and a zillion other things will never be known to the average pathetic American zombie-head. Yet this is where COG fools get much of their information about the supposed "full-filment of prophecy."
Anonymous 8:55 wrote, "Name one!"
How about two:
1. The Access Hollywood tapes.
2. His ad homoneim attacks on Fauci while Fauci was trying to war against Covid 19.
The list is huge. Enormous. It is creepy that you would say "Name one!"
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Neo 12:28 said
How about two:
1. The Access Hollywood tapes.
2. His ad homoneim attacks on Fauci while Fauci was trying to war against Covid 19.
Trump did apologize for his "locker room" remarks. His wife was furious and saw to it.
And it's well documented that Dr. Falsie was involved in funding the lab's gain of function "research", despite his denials.
NEO,
I appreciate the point you are trying to make, but can we please agree that an action which leads to the death and maiming of thousands upon thousands of humans who were made in the image of God is in no way equivalent to an error in horticulture? We are, however, in complete agreement that Donald Trump is the poster boy for being completely unrepentant and unapologetic! And, as the old saying goes, Trump isn't worthy to untie Colin Powell's sandals! And, for that Anonymous commentator who tried to tell you that Trump was one of our greatest presidents, I call Bull Sh-t! As a lifelong student of history and political science, I would rank him at the absolute bottom (Yes, below James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson and Warren Harding)!
I would suggest a ‘weakness’ with historiography and political science is an over-emphasis on political figures as opposed to trends.
Herbert Hoover seemed a capable person but he became president during a time of hegemonic transfer and technological restructuring of an economy that was carrying too much debt.
The forces of political and creative destruction were too much for any human-being to adequate to deal with on both sides of the Atlantic.
Concerning Trump, the real question is how this unlikely outsider became president in the first place.
I would suggest that there was so much frustration with both sides of politics that when Trump put up his hand it gave people an opportunity to vent their frustration at Washington’s political system; a system so out-of-touch that it was blind-sided.
Perhaps this is where the real frustration should be concentrated, not on Trump per se.
"If I wanted to destroy a nation, I would give it too much and I would have it on its knees, miserable, greedy and sick..." John Steinbeck.
Trump’s election really brought out into the open how deeply divided America rally is; which is only going to get worse when the economy declines; eventually leading to its break-up.
A type for the future:
"Yet Roosevelt himself stood before the world in 1938 as a badly weakened leader, unable to summon the imagination or to secure the political strength to cure his own country's apparently endless economic crisis. In the ninth year of the Great Depression and the sixth year of Roosevelt's New Deal, with more than ten million workers still unemployed, America had still not found a formula for economic recovery. From such a leader, what could the democracies hope? From such a troubled nation, what did the dictators have to fear" (David M. Kennedy, Freedom from fear, The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945, p.362).
Powell and his Christian Zionist friends killed 500 million Iraqi children for no good reason. Trump kept us out of wars. He was a better Christian.
Miller:
My little gardening example, of course, does not scale up to the Invasion of Iraq. I was not looking for a comparison in scale but to exemplify the logical sequence of events with whatever attendant responsibility. In fact, I scaled it down on purpose so the dire outcome of the Invasion of Iraq could be held to the side. The next question is does the gravity of the Iraq War somehow offset the logical sequence of events? My guess is that there are a range of views on that.
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Anonymous (1:02) wrote, "And it's well documented that Dr. Falsie was involved in funding the lab's gain of function "research", despite his denials."
The reason why the people in Trump's base seem to never hold him accountable is that he wraps himself in a mantle of disinformation. Your statement is a good example. And further I have always wondered how Armstrongists, who are serious about sin and repentance, feel about Trump's denial that he had anything that he needed to ask God's forgiveness for. He could apologize for that tawdry fiction. It is clear that he does not understand anything about Christianity or, for that matter, about himself. Or maybe the Evangelical and Armstrongist followers of Trump believe he is without sin like Jesus. Trump could apologize for lying almost every day he was in office. Etc. Etc. Etc.
But Donald doesn't really need Jesus. I should not try to place him on the human level after he is been so ardently apotheosized by his glassy-eyed followers. The fact that he hates Blacks and Browns is something that forgives all his sins, at least in the eyes of the people in his base.
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How did Trump get elected president? The Democrats nominated Hilary Clinton. That just about did it.
Anonymous 10/20 @ 3:05,
I'm glad you framed the play between personalities and trends as one of emphasis, because of course they both represent important forces in shaping events/history. And your example of Herbert Hoover is a good case in point. Yes, he was confronted with a business cycle and titanic shifts in the world economy which he didn't cause. Nevertheless, his political and economic philosophies definitely impacted the ways in which he sought to address the challenges which confronted him. Moreover, as you well know, perception can be more important than reality in the realm of politics. The actual effectiveness of FDR's New Deal is debatable, but there is little debate among historians that he fundamentally changed the narrative of the Great Depression (and, ultimately, the course of American economics and politics).
Yes, regarding Trump, there were a number of developments over the course of the last forty years that made his presidency possible. I would agree with you that frustration with the entrenched political elite in Washington was one of those factors, but I would also suggest a few others. For instance, the development of conservative talk radio and Fox News conditioned a large portion of our populace to be receptive to his brand of populism and nationalism. Also, the chronic failure of both parties to adequately address the problem of illegal immigration was another important factor. Moreover, the evolution of both parties into more homogeneous and ideologically rigid groups served to further radicalize the political extremes and make compromise a bad word. Finally, the steady erosion of respect for the role/work/objectivity of the mainstream media, and the rise of the internet and social media prepared the way for a demagogue to come along and take advantage of the opportunities for mass manipulation of the public which these developments made possible.
Nevertheless, having said all of that, the perfect storm required a personality with the inclination and will to take advantage of these trends (Trump). And, as we have all observed, the introduction of an amoral and ruthless personality proved to be very toxic to long established rules/traditions/alliances/decorum/policies. In other words, YES, these trends made Donald Trump possible. Even so, it is hard to imagine the four years of his presidency going the way that it did with ANY other American politician at the helm. Trump's presidency did underscore the divisions within the American body politic which already existed, but it is also hard to argue with a straight face that he didn't greatly exacerbate those differences.
"The point is that Powell should have apologized for his lie, whether it was deliberate or inadvertent."
There is no such thing as an inadvertent lie. A lie is a deliberate attempt to pass off, as true, what you KNOW is NOT true. If he sincerely believed that what he said was factual, and he wasn't trying to deceive anyone, then he was mistaken, not lying.
Dear Wes: I liked the title of your post, while I found the premise to be COG-odd.
I do give you much credit for mentioning, "Armstrongites have two major problems”" - however, by your definition, your statement is a lie.
You wrote that you would assume Powell was stating the truth as he saw it and then wrote that Powell's statement was a lie, whether it was deliberate or inadvertent.
The truth is that Armstrongites have many more than two major problems. Two examples of major Armstrongite problems are their misunderstanding of repentance and their rejection of justification by the blood of Jesus.
I assume you inadvertently misstated the number of Armstrongite problems, or were just citing a few of the facts, as you saw them - but to transpose your logic about Powell onto to your writing, you remain an unrepentant liar.
I find this mixing religion with politics very messy and unsavory - though we're all prone to merging the two in our heads. Because I liked Powell and believe he was, ever is, a Christian, I assume he was not lying due to any untruths being unintentional; while if perchance he did lie, he would have apologized and repented to God.
Wes, you have the chance to repent, whether your misstating of the number of Armstrongite problems was an inadvertent or deliberate lie, or just a matter of different people interpreting the actions of others through their own differently functioning brains.
Armstrongites usually acknowledge that God calls people to repentance. They stop at the call and then use repentance as one work to earn their salvation. As a kid under the untruthful control of the WCG, I, like many others have expressed, was hopelessly scared of sinning and then dying before I had a chance to repent and thereby be doomed to the lake of fire.
When I went beyond COG theology, I read about a Savior who does all the work needed for salvation. I learned that God does call people to repentance and makes the repentance possible - that repentance is a result of grace, not a means to earn salvation. I also learned that although I am in the condition of a human who sins continually, I am positionally righteous before God because of the blood of Jesus and his righteousness covering me.
I give the COGs credit for seeking first the Kingdom of God, as commanded in Matthew 6:33; however, they mangle the second part of the verse by seeking their own righteousness while rejecting being justified, being made righteous by the righteousness of Jesus.
Because Collin Powell was a Christian, regardless of his inadvertent or deliberate failings on earth, he is justified, made right in God's sight by the righteousness of Jesus.
If you, Wes, are moved to repentance for your inadvertent or deliberate lying in your post, I would love for you to post another piece about the biblical topic of justification, as a help to clear all the damage the COGs have caused with their misconceptions on repentance.
If you are not inclined to write on the topic of justification, perhaps you would be so kind to post a link to previous writings or sermons in which you or your church have covered the topic.
Regardless of what you decide to do about the topic of Justification, I hope you will share more thoughts on this website. May you continue to grow in grace and knowledge!
Romans 5:8-9 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him!
VERY WELL SAID!! đź‘Ťđź‘Ťđź‘Ťđź‘Ťđź‘Ťđź‘Ťđź‘Ťđź‘Ťđź‘Ťđź‘Ťđź‘Ťđź‘Ťđź‘Ťđź‘Ťđź‘Ťđź‘Ťđź‘Ť They do not apologize because they THINK they are ABOVE the brethren and unfortunately some of the brethren LOVE TO HAVE IT SO!! So SAD!!
"One of the WCG blog sites has a ministerial Hall of Shame. It lists all the WCG ministers who contributed (large or small) to the damage done by WCG’s unchristian leadership. If a man wants to be removed from this wall of shame, he must apologize for his role in the hurt that was inflicted on innocent people by the WCG. And that is not too much to ask. So this Wall of Shame is a good thing."
So I don't understand why their names are removed if they apologize? If they're guilty of inflicting damage to others and repent that's well and good. But, that doesn't erase history. And it doesn't heal the victims of whatever physical and/or mental trauma they've suffered for the rest of their lives even. So why should the facts of WCG history be censored to appease the feelings of a few offenders who might show contrition for their past sins? To use David as an example. He had sex with Uriah's wife and got her pregnant. Then he conspired to murder Uriah to cover up his sin. Later David repents upon confrontation of his immorality by God's prophet Nathan. But, was his actions expunged from God's Word and Biblical history? No. The damage was done. And what is done cannot be undone. It's like I can forgive someone for doing me harm whether intentional or not, but until the effects of their harm is removed I cannot forget. And to prevent future victims from being harmed by those same offenders or by other perps in a similar situation I think their names and the harm they've caused remain visible so others learn not to repeat those same mistakes.
Re the comments over Trump and Fauci I watched the solid doco the other day What Really Happened in Wuhan and found enlightening how Trump asserts he'd give Fauci an A+ as a promoter and a D as a doctor. But, then when confronted by the reporter's own investigation over Fauci's connection to Daszak, the WIV and its "gain of function" genetic engineering he basically excuses his own administration for lifting Obama's embargo on GOF in 2017 and asserts he "shut it off" by stopping sending payments to Wuhan that had been approved by previous American administrations and thus he praises his own administration for doing "an incredible job" re the vaccine and "operation warp speed" (see 5:30-47:55). From this alone I would give Trump exactly the same result as he'd give Fauci!
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