This article from over thirty years ago, is included because it continues to speak to modern day situations on respect toward our government officials.
Editorial
October/December, 1973
Volume 8, Number 4
Watergate will likely be in the news for a long time. The Senate resolution creating the Ervin Committee requires that a report be filed by February 28, 1974. Thus several months remain for more investigations, hearings, and headlines.
The passage at the center of the Bible’s 31,175 verses is Psalm 118:8, “It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man.” One of the clear lessons from Watergate is that holding high office does not prevent human beings from succumbing to temptation. We naturally tend to expect a better performance from people who are entrusted with great responsibility. It seems that some admire those in high office with such a sanctity that it becomes unthinkable to believe that their idols might take part in wrongdoing. This kind of idolizing is certainly part of what the Psalmist had in mind when he cautioned that ultimate reliance should be placed in God alone.
Comments on Watergate
by Sanford G. Shetler
Like a person experiencing a relapse after a serious ailment, so America just barely recovered from the Vietnam War, has for the past number of months been suffering the chills and fever of Watergate.
“It’s awful — simply awful,” exclaims one; “A part of the times,” another; “The truth has finally come out on Nixon,” says a third; and a fourth – “All Washington is corrupt!”
America’s enemies within and without are having their heyday, “rejoicing in iniquity.” Even in the comments of Christian writers and editors — men who might be expected to take a somewhat redemptive view toward the offenders (whoever they may prove to be) – there doesn’t seem to be any note of sympathy, only of contempt and scorn.
Even if the Watergate proceedings ultimately reveal the worst, this will by no means be the first government scandal. Many of us remember the Teapot Dome Scandal in Harding’s administration, and recall from our reading of history, Grant’s Credit Mobilier, the sixty-year Cameron-to-Penrose political machine in Pennsylvania (18602920). Then there was New York’s Boss Tweed and Tammany Hall and Missouri’s Pendergast ring. History, in fact, is full of examples of intrigue, chicanery, and immorality in high and low places. And this, it should be noted, includes the sins of other nations’ leaders and citizens – a fact that seems to be overlooked by those who love to accuse America.
It includes the treacherous villanies of the various Communist and Fascist regimes of the past fifty years, and the current secretive revolutionary activities of many subversive (now a dirty word) groups. “Coverup” is not a new word coined to fit Watergate. It has been pointed out that many of Stalin’s secretive dealings were not revealed until long after his death. It includes Roosevelt and Yalta and the numerous secret agreements made which allowed Communism to gain such a strong foothold in the post-World-War-II era. The world will never know the sordid story of the atrocities and crimes committed in the establishment of the various “people’s republics throughout the world, including Cuba and Castro right at our back door. And even in the so-called good nations, the list of shady dealings and wrong doings is long and disturbing. The recent sex scandals in Britain are an example. Kipling, in his time, had seen enough of misdoing in England that he penned these familiar lines:
The craft that we call modern,
The crimes that we call new;
John Bunyan had them typed and filed In 1682.
Certainly one scandal does not erase another, but looking at the record of history helps to keep our judgments clear. At least we learn that righteousness is not the monopoly of one nation or of one political party. America is not necessarily the bad boy among the nations. It is still a nation many oppressed peoples long to flee to, and not from – and this includes many who currently seek amnesty so they can return to the U.S.A.
Sin invades all levels of government and society. While the less publicized crimes and misdemeanors in homes, churches, schools, and governments are generally forgotten, they are no less heinous. History makes much of Hiroshima, but says little of the dreadful bombing of Dresden, ordered by Churchill–a catastrophe which took more lives than the bombing of the Japanese city.
Churches and church organizations themselves have no lily white hands to offer in these matters. One needs only to read of the deception and “cover-up operations” of certain church officials in church-controlled institutions of higher learning, who have sold out their own faiths by the renunciation of sound biblical traditions. And one cannot soon forget how churches and ecumenical organizations (against the wishes of their constituencies) have supported revolutionary organizations, under the guise of helping the underprivileged.
There seems to be a general breakdown today in morals. Lying and perjury, theft and burglary, have become regular currency in government and society.
One of the judges interviewed on Watergate lamented the “fall-out” that will follow the present proceedings when young people learn of the loss of scruples of men in high places. He sees a new cynicism developing against government. But the commentator should have broadened his comments to include other men and incidents of the past decade. If the present Watergate hearings and trials are supposed to show American democracy at work — the fact that such things can be exposed and dealt with — one must be staggered at the blatant partiality of a system that impugns one group and whitewashes another. Where was Sam Ervin when the Bay of Pigs Invasion was staged by President Kennedy? This operation incidentally, included some of the present Watergate defendants. Is democracy really at work when individuals and groups can steal important government papers and have them published, or burglarize draft board offices and be praised for their conscience and courage, instead of being labeled for what they were — thieves and burglars, and vandals? And has America so soon forgotten the mystery hanging over Chappaquiddick? Someone has noted that the “Sam Ervin Show” (so labeled by Stewart Alsop, “The Case for Nixon,” Newsweek, May 28, 1973) seems to be a new version of the McCarthy trials of two decades ago. Who, anyway, are the good guys and the bad guys?
A number of lessons are emerging from the Watergate affair. In the first place, no man should be judged guilty until he is proved guilty. This privilege should be extended to include the President of our country. We cannot make any definite judgments until all the facts are in. It still remains to be proved whether indeed there was not some subversive infiltration of both political parties by both parties. The break-in and bugging, though by no means justified by the usual ethical standards and normal circumstances, are nevertheless part of the regular security operations carried on by all governments. The point in question, of course, in the Watergate incident, is whether or not there were any security risks at stake. Most commentators are quick to say there were not.
A lamentable outcome of all this, is the further depreciating of those in authority — particularly of the President and the two leading security agencies, the FBI and the CIA. Without attempting to justify them by any legal or ethical standards, the eroding respect for these agencies which were established for the security of the American government and people, is bound to have a kind of “fall-out” that this nation can ill afford. We have seen ample signs of this erosion in the Berrigan and Watergate burglary trials, and the Ellsburg thievery trial.
From the Christian standpoint, it is also quite apparent that we have not prayed enough for “all those in authority.” it is easy to criticize but hard to pray. Also, once again we have learned that we must never put our trust in earthly politics or in any given party or regime. We have had a stark reminder of the nature of man and of earthly kingdoms. The very term “politics” has come to mean, for the man on the street, corruption. Yet in all fairness, we must state that this by no means applies to all statesmen and politicians. As Christians however, we seek an everlasting kingdom, “wherein dwelleth righteousness.”
Lastly, the church should remind herself of her chief role in the world, which is to bring the Good News to a lost humanity. This job, if well done, will keep everyone working overtime — with not moment left to run the affairs of government, a task which seems to baffle even the most astute and seasoned statesmen. We all have a right to our opinions as citizens of two worlds, but the realm of the church’s activity is not politics but “religion.”
