The Vindication of Governor Bob McDonnell, Persevering Faith and the Friends of Job

On June 27, 2016, a unanimous United States Supreme Court threw out the conviction of former Governor Bob McDonnell.

In 2014, the former Governor of Virginia, a genuine Catholic Christian named Robert "Bob" McDonnell, was wrongfully convicted of committing a federal offense while in office. Both as his friend and as a constitutional lawyer, I paid very close attention to the legal case. I attended the courtroom proceedings as I was able to, in order to support him and to pray. The conviction was wrongful - and the Court proceedings were woefully unjust. The ordeal was devastating to Bob - and to his wonderful family.However, through it all, I watched Bob McDonnell live the depth of his real Christian faith and convictions. He persevered - and allowed the injustice to refine him, as if by fire. For Bob, it all became an invitation to engage in reflective self-examination. By God's grace, he stayed open to ongoing conversion. His reaction throughout the ordeal was a source of great inspiration to me.

CHESAPEAKE, VA (Catholic Online) - In 2014, the former Governor of Virginia, a genuine Catholic Christian named Robert "Bob" McDonnell, was wrongfully convicted of committing a federal offense while in office. Both as his friend and as a constitutional lawyer, I paid very close attention to the legal case. I attended the courtroom proceedings as I was able to, in order to support him and to pray. The conviction was wrongful - and the Court proceedings were woefully unjust.

The whole ordeal was devastating to Bob - and to his wonderful family.

However, through it all, I watched Bob McDonnell live the depth of his real Christian faith and convictions. He persevered - and allowed the injustice to refine him, as if by fire. For Bob, it all became an invitation to engage in reflective self-examination. By God's grace, he stayed open to ongoing conversion. His reaction throughout the ordeal was a source of great inspiration to me.

On June 27, 2016, a unanimous United States Supreme Court threw out the conviction of former Governor Bob McDonnell. After years of intense struggle, this long legal case finally came to an end, at least in the courtrooms. However, this experience went way beyond the Courtroom trials and the appeals. It turned former Governor Bob McDonnell's life upside down and shook him to the core. It revealed the mettle of the man and the power of living faith. It also uncovers an important lesson about the reality of a real life lived with real faith.

Suffering and Struggle

I watched Bob suffer on several fronts. I will only mention a few.

He had to bear the pain of public ridicule in this age where the propaganda media relishes any opportunity to kick a man or a woman when they are down, especially when they are politically "conservative" and openly Christian. For example, the local Press was brutally unfair in their treatment of the former Governor and national media sites associated with what is called "progressive" in the Orwellian newspeak of our current political atmosphere, regularly mocked him with glee.

And, he lost what we often call "fair-weather friends". They are there with you when everything is flourishing, claiming they have your back. They want to be there in the photograph with you, smiling and enjoying identification with someone who is perceived as successful. However, when the storms come and the leaves begin to fall, when the difficulties of life throw a proverbial wrench in the works, they are quickly gone, having dropped you, as they say, like a bad habit.

Bob endured another kind of suffering. It came from fellow Christians who were only too eager to tell him why all of this suffering and struggle had befallen him. These are the ones I refer to as the friends of Job in this article. Bob's reaction to all of this reminded me of the Biblical story of Job in the Hebrew Scriptures. Job was wrongly accused. He lost everything, but would never turn against God.

These kinds of "friends" claim to have figured God all out - as though the Christian life and vocation were some kind of puzzle - and they are only too willing to tell you why things are not going easily in your life when difficulties come along.

Some claim that following the Lord Jesus Christ involves a kind of formula which can be figured out. If you do it right, you will be successful. If not, you will suffer. They fail to understand the reality of struggle and the deeper meaning of the Cross of Jesus Christ. They often forget that those who embrace His Way will walk, as He did, along a rugged road. After all, Christians follow  a Savior who, in His greatest act of Love, His self-giving embrace of death on a Cross, was deemed by most who witnessed it to be His complete failure. These friends of Job are quick to wrongly judge when difficulties come into the lives of good people - as they inevitably do. And they are not helpful.

The Book of Job

The Book of Job reminds us that the path to mature faith often travels through adversity. The background of the Book is a dispute between Satan, whom the New Testament rightly refers to as the accuser of the brethren (Rev. 12:10), and God. Satan contends that Job served God for what He got from Him not for who God is. How rampant is this kind of self-interested service of God in some Christian circles in our own time? How many self-styled teachers seek to reduce Christian living to formulas?

At the beginning of the book we find the heart of authentic spirituality. After his own wife told him to "curse God and die" Job spoke these words of caution and wisdom to her, "Are even you going to speak as senseless women do? We accept good things from God; and should we not accept evil?" (Job 2:10)

Later, in the midst of his discourse with three friends he added the following acclamation which gets to the heart of the mettle of this man named Job, "even if he slays me, I will hope in Him. (Job 13:15) These words were spoken to the self-professed experts who had come to tell him how he could get out of the mess if he just followed their formulaic approach to religious living. However, they could not see that Job was fully surrendered to God. He simply refused to turn God into an object for His own use. He grasped the true mystery of a mature faith.

The Friends of Job

When we encounter the friends of Job at the beginning of the Book they seem to be empathetic, tearing their cloaks, weeping and even spending a week with Job in his anguish. But, their feigned compassion ends all too soon. They have something to tell Job, that is why they came to be with him. They were not really compassionate, in the Biblical sense. The ancient words in Hebrew and Greek, translated as compassion in English, mean to suffer with.

They had no interest in entering into Jobs' pain, just in blaming him and his behavior for causing it. They thought that they had this whole faith thing figured out and they were going to enlighten him with their higher knowledge. Sound familiar? Perhaps in contemporary Christian circles they would have given him the latest teaching from some superstar making the circuit who had it all figured out, along with some formulaic use of bible texts to prove their point.

Or, perhaps they would have given him the latest popular book from the local Christian book store promising that if he just followed these seven, or eight or even twelve steps, all the pain would go away. After all, Jobs life was a mess, right? He was obviously not really living for God or he would not be suffering or abandoned. Right?

Wrong! Bad Things Sometimes Happen to Good people.

These "wearisome comforters" (Job 16:2-4), as Job later calls them, reveal their real agendas in their errant assessment of Jobs' suffering and their false recommendations for his deliverance from them. They think they have the answer for life's deepest mystery, suffering and struggle. But they do not! No one does. In their counterfeit answers we find one of the dangers we still face, false teaching on suffering and pain. Such false teaching can wreak havoc.

In response to their long winded discourse, Job tells them all to be to be silent because they are -uttering falsehoods- and offering -vain remedies. So, too, in our day, the self-appointed guardians of the same kinds of formulas are still wrong. Oh, for the voice of a Job in some of our contemporary Christian communities. Enough of the formulas, along with the claims to hidden knowledge (a new form of Gnosticism) and the claims of being able to manipulate the power of God to achieve our own ends (a new kind of simony)!

The byways of our churches and communities are filled with wounded people who have suffered as a result of such poor teaching in our own age. Too many have been wounded by such "friends".

False Advice from Misguided "Friends"

Let's look at the friends of Jobs' explanations of the cause of his difficulties for a moment. I know they will sound familiar to many of my readers.
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Elephaz the Temanite tells Job that God is "mad at Him" (Job 5). Bildad the Shuhite tells Job that "his misfortunes are his own fault." (Job 8). Finally, Zophar the Naamathite tells Job "that he is being punished". (Job 11). All of them were wrong then - and their spiritual descendants are just as wrong today.

Job was living in the heart of God's will. When Job was stripped of what his friends believed were the "proofs" of Gods favor, he found the greatest treasure of all, the beautiful poverty of a purified Love. He found the richness reserved for those who love God - simply for God's sake. Jobs friends told him that his loss and difficulties were his fault, but Job knew better. In his unwavering hope in God's love and mercy we can find the path to purified, living faith for our own lives.

The Lord not only heard the prayer of this faithful servant Job but He also spoke to these friends of Job in these words which were addressed to Elephaz the Temanite: "I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has. So now take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and sacrifice a burnt offering for yourselves. My servant Job will pray for you and I will accept his prayer and not deal with you according to your folly. You have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has."

Living Contrition and God's Restoration

With sincere, living, contrition, Job acknowledged in a profound dialogue with God that he simply did not understand His mind on these kinds of matters. He repented for his lack of trust and even interceded for these friends who had wrongly accused him (Job 42:8). After Job had prayed for his friends, the Lord again made him prosperous. Oh, there was quite an encounter between Job and the Lord. It is well worth reading the entire account.

Job showed his humility and the Lord restored him - but after strongly, but lovingly, instructing him. His brothers, sisters and those who knew him before the struggles came and dined with him. The Lord gave him double what he had lost; fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen and a thousand donkeys. He had seven sons, three daughters and lived a hundred and forty years. He saw his children and his grandchildren to the fourth generation.

However, the greatest gift that God gave to Job was real, purified faith. God answered Jobs' sincere, heartfelt prayer for insight into his struggles when He spoke to him - out of a storm (Job 38). That's right, God was right there in that storm! He still is. He always turns the difficulties, struggles, pain, betrayals, loss in each of our lives to good, as St Paul would centuries later remind the early Christians (Romans 8:28).

This stormy encounter between Job and God is reminiscent of another storm, the one we read about in the New Testament on the Sea of Galilee. There, the disciples were with God Incarnate, Jesus Christ in a boat (Matthew 8: 23-27). He was asleep. Terrified, they woke Him and He calmed the storm. In His sacred humanity, asleep in that boat, he showed them an important truth they would later come to grasp as they lived their lives as witnesses for Jesus Christ.

He was already there, right in the storm, they just needed to trust and rest in Him. In Jesus Christ, this God of Job came among us in the flesh. In His sacred humanity He reveals the way to live free of fear, even in the midst of the struggles and storms of life. He emptied Himself out of perfect love for the whole human race.

Jesus Christ seeks men and women who will love in that very same way, following Him along His Way and not their own. He calls them the poor in spirit and gives them His kingdom. These are the ones who really know how to love - and how to live. They do not love for a return but love for Loves' sake.

Job did not follow God just because He was so good to him, but simply because He is God. So should we. When we encounter the inevitability of loss, suffering, difficulties and persecution in our lives, as we certainly will, we must always beware of the friends of Job. We must also choose to follow the One who never sleeps nor slumbers.

My friend, former Governor Bob McDonnell showed this truth about the Christian life to me once again in how he dealt with his own long, painful ordeal. I am deeply grateful. I ask you to join with me in praying for him - and for his dear family as he continues on his Christian journey. This is a good and gifted man with a call from the Lord. Stay tuned! 

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Deacon Keith A. Fournier is an ordained minister, a Catholic Deacon, who works with other Christian leaders across confessional lines. He is the Founder and Chairman of Common Good Foundation and Common Good Alliance. He and his wife Laurine have five grown children and seven grandchildren. He is a human rights lawyer and public policy advocate who served as the first and founding Executive Director of the American Center for Law and Justice in the nineteen nineties and has long been active at the intersection of faith and culture. He is a senior contributing writer to The Stream.

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