If you thought that this week’s 4-3 vote by the Lynchburg City Council to censure two members, strip them of seniority and ban them from some proceedings would lead to council members putting their disagreements behind them and joining together to sing “Kumbaya,” you’re wrong.
That’s not the song they’re talking about.
Instead, some members are arguing about the lyrics to a popular Christian song — with the campaign of Rep. Bob Good, R-Prince Edward County, weighing in.
When Tuesdays’s two-hour special meeting to deal with the censure turned particularly tense, Lynchburg Mayor Stephanie Reed started singing “Goodness of God,” a song written and released by Bethel Music and Jenn Johnson in 2019 and later covered by CeCe Winans in 2021.
On Wednesday, the Bob Good for Congress campaign posted on Facebook that Reed got the lyrics wrong, intimating that she had done so intentionally.
The relevant lyrics of the song go like this:
All my life you have been faithful
And all my life you have been so, so good
What Reed sang was:
All my life I have been faithful
And all my life I have been so, so good
Here’s what the Good campaign posted:
You may have seen that the RINOs on Lynchburg City Council voted 4-3 with the Democrats yesterday to punish conservative fighters Jeff Helgeson and Marty Misjuns, who are apparently guilty of exposing the RINOs’ continued betrayal of Republican voters. However, it has been misreported that Stephanie Reed oddly sang a Christian hymn during the proceedings. Actually, the Christian hymn praises and glorifies the Lord, while Ms. Reed changed the lyrics to praise and glorify herself. Watch the clip:
Included was a link to a WSET-TV report. You can see the full council meeting here; the singing begins at the 1:25 mark.
This isn’t the first time Good has gotten involved in Lynchburg City Council matters. In early 2023, he tried to persuade Republicans on the council to elect Helgeson as mayor; Reed and Chris Faraldi wouldn’t go along with that and they ended up being elected mayor and vice mayor. During the recent primary, both Reed and Faraldi endorsed Good’s opponent, John McGuire, who eventually won. Good, meanwhile, backed an unsuccessful primary challenger to Faraldi. That’s a long way of saying there’s a lot of bad blood between these Republican factions, so this latest flap is really about more than just whether the mayor correctly sang a popular Christian song.
As of Thursday night, Good’s post had generated 41 comments, most of them in favor of Good and against the four council members (including two Republicans) who voted for the censure. Typical of those comments: “A RINO is nothing more than a Progressive Communist DemoRat in disguise that keeps fooling their loyal [sheep icon]”
Reed posted on Facebook that she simply got the lyrics wrong:
Even if I get the words wrong sometimes, this is still one of my favorite praise songs!! If you need encouragement tonight, I urge you to watch this video and focus on the true meaning of the song. HE is faithful and is so, so good, even in the darkness, He is there. This song brings me such comfort. I loved this performance on American Idol this year!! Sending out love to you all Lynchburg @followers.
She included a link to CeCe Winans and Roman Collins singing the song on “American Idol.”
Her post generated 98 comments, the first one of which came from Misjuns, who asked: “Were you intoxicated? I think we should all submit to drug and alcohol tests at every meeting.”
Misjuns and several other people then engaged in a back-and-forth round of posts about the Lynchburg City Council. Here’s part of that exchange:
Commenter using what appears to be an alias: “I think all of you were! We have waited a long time to get Republican/Conservative representation in the City. And the whole time it’s been nothing but chaos & dissension. A virtual kangaroo court. Shame on all of you! P.S. maybe you should try to get a little religion … or maybe just anger management!”
Misjuns: “I wasn’t. I’m asking a question. Will she answer? I asked a lot of questions last night. Reasonable ones.
I was told I lied last night.
She wouldn’t respond when I asked what the lie was.
She claimed I defamed someone.
She wouldn’t respond when I asked what the defamatory statement was.
If Chris and Stephanie wanted the truth, we have a mechanism to get there.
They don’t want the truth. They have a lust for power and are absolutely willing to abuse it — or they are incredibly incompetent and being used by the city attorney, or maybe even both.”
Some commenters criticized Reed: “I wonder, how much did you sell your soul for? Judas sold Jesus out for 30 pieces of silver. I guess your price was the Mayorship.”
Others criticized Misjuns: “You’re a Christian? Shame on you for this post and trying to spread rumor. Handle your issues directly with her, not on Facebook.”
Others debated whether it was appropriate for Reed to sing a praise song — or sing at all — during the meeting.
From one commenter: “I think that it was very inappropriate to attempt to sing two lines of a praise song during a city council meeting. What did it do to bring the council back together as one? As I watched it, I laughed. I’ve never seen such discord in a group of paid individuals elected to serve such a great city.”
From another: “If you laughed then you are part of the problem. She sang instead of taking the bait of evil crap. The song replaced retorting to the bullying of the crowd. She was surrounded and did the right thing …”
At this week’s council meeting, both sides said they wanted to “bury the hatchet.” At the moment, though, the only place the proverbial hatchet seems buried is in each other.
In this week’s West of the Capital
I write a weekly political newsletter, West of the Capital, that goes out every Friday afternoon. This week I’ll look at:
- The rural pushback against solar energy.
- How Ohio is doing something that Virginia could have done (and might yet do) and how it’s working out.
- Congressional fundraising.
- A trivia question that will test your knowledge of Virginia governors.
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