When asked to verify the accuracy of their soundbytes some people see an opportunity to sling accusations at the questioner and/or compare traitors and heroes, felons and innocents, and even Moses to Yeshua. If you compared my sins and crimes to yours  if I confronted you, it would prove you have more than one terminal disease. If you think that there are no incurable diseases you are incontrovertibly in the school and care of an illiterate scholar and a medical quack, certain to wail when the whirlwind of ineffective remedies, bottomless research and development funding, and empty promises of healing stops spinning fatality.

Well, what about dining with strangers and aliens?  No, we dare not.  Well, what about criminal tyrants at the helm of nations and mega corporations? There is nothing to see here. Well, what about God and country as equals?  We swear that there is no power to control our lust for power and curb the exercise of our military. Well, what about the idols we create, and revere daily, weekly, monthly and annually? They might swear that they are idolatry-proof, all because they say they keep the Ten Commandments, or they are convinced that they have checked all the boxes that make them eligible for divine approval. But what about those things that lurk inside both the sinner and the saint? Do you know the thatabout?

What a whirl! Get ready for the last twirl

Empires are typically the result of the forcible gathering of discrete languages, peoples, and nations into a functional whole. That is the principle behind family, village, town, nation. I suppose the expectations are that the rape and plunder of the pirates we love to idolize will continue until every Tom, Dick, and Harry has a kick at the colonial can or empire bucket. Sometimes the bucket comes first, as in the case of Syria trying to overrun Canaan, or even the great Egypt exercising control over trading routes into Palestine and the maritime lanes of global commerce. Note how the successors of Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome are still active in global affairs, without actually calling the shots everywhere, as they did when they each dominated the world they knew. They are going to kick the bucket at the same time. But note how Russia and China have cobbled together a number of Asian and East European nations respectively, with no empire emerging. A quick crash is all there is, and it happens without fanfare. Russia and China are past life support, waiting to kick the bucket because, like the great harlot who thinks herself to be beyond poverty and mourning, these will fall in quick time, and people will not know of the descent of these powers into irrelevance because the narrative of “my crime is no worse than yours” will have lulled the global population into accepting mediocrity as greatness and crime as nationalism and patriotism.

Perhaps the best example terminal whataboutism is the rampant self-talk by the very fractured UK and USA about strength when the only whiff of unity is the conspiracy to rob national treasuries, deny the essential movements of migrants, when in fact they have made their fortunes through the monumental forced migration of peoples and the unequal immigration policies they have encouraged.

It may seem that we can all tolerate one or two limitations on our ability to function, but having more death-dealing companions than we have fingers is pretty much the end of the road physically and the beginning of glory if we absorb the daily cross-initiated dying. We have no authorization to observe musch less decide when one of our fellow travellers no longer feels God’s prompts or no longer accepts the divine judgment on unbelief.

Internal and fatal whatabouts

• evil thoughts
• sexual immorality (prostitution, porneia)
• theft
• murder
• adultery (Mark 7:21)
• coveting
• wickedness
• deceit
• sensuality
• envy (evil eye)
• slander
• pride
• foolishness. (Mark 7:22)

Terminal whatabouts are essential to the hypocrite’s toolkit. A spiritual physician might say “the prognosis is devastating” and “the patient’s inside is caput”.