Here’s my annual Thanksgiving post.
Even in tumultuous times, we have much to be thankful for.
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How to Parallel Park
Seriously.
I know a lot of people who don’t know how to parallel park. Some of them won’t even try.
And as I observe my world, I realize that a lot of people I don’t know also don’t know how to parallel park. I have seen remarkable things.
Since I like to throw in a light-hearted post every so often, and since I really believe that I’ve discovered the way to parallel park accurately, first time, every time—and in remarkably tight spaces—I want to share my technique here. It really works.
The first thing you need to do is ignore what your driving instructor told you. He wanted you to look back over your right shoulder out the rear window.
As you well know, that doesn’t work at all. You can’t see what you need to see to be accurate.
Here’s what you need to do.
My instructions assume you’re driving on the right side of the road. This will work in former British colonies as well—I’ve proved it in South Africa, with a standard transmission, on a hill—but you’ll need to reverse left and right references, of course.
- Pull up beside the car parked in the space in front of yours, a foot or two from it. Actually, the distance is not all that critical; if you’re farther away, your angle into the space will be sharper, but that doesn’t prevent a successful and efficient park. The key is that your rear bumper is even with the other vehicle’s.
- VERY IMPORTANT THING: Look carefully around to ensure that the area is clear of things you don’t want to run into, including living persons. That liability situation is the whole reason your driving instructor told you to look over your right shoulder and out the back.
- Turn the steering wheel all the way to the right, so that the rear end of your vehicle will move to the right as you back into the space.
- SECOND VERY IMPORTANT THING: Don’t look over your right shoulder. Look instead in the outside mirror on the driver’s side (your left, in the good ol’ USA). This is the key to the whole operation. Note that when you’re looking here, you can’t see if someone is standing in the space you’re aiming for. That’s why you need to clear the area visually before you start.
- Put ‘er in reverse and coast slowly back. As the back of your vehicle moves rightward into the space, locate in the mirror the left rear corner of the parking space. Aim the back left corner of your vehicle just inside that corner.
- When the corner of your vehicle is properly aimed to hit that spot, turn the steering wheel back to the left until the front wheels are straight, and proceed slowly straight back into the space.
- When your left rear tire is inside the side line of the space, and your front bumper is clear of the car parked in front of you, turn the steering wheel hard to the left to swivel the front of your vehicle into the spot.
- When your vehicle’s entire left side is inside the lines of the parking space, straighten the steering wheel and stop.
- Amateur level: You may need to move the car slightly backward or forward to get it completely inside the front and back lines of the space.
- Pro level: Turn off the engine. You’re completely inside the space as soon as you straighten the steering wheel.
I’m telling you, this works. First time, every time.
You’re welcome. :-)
Photo by Adam Griffith on Unsplash
On Muddling Through
8 By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going. 9 By faith he stayed for a time in the land he had been promised, as in a foreign land, living in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. 10 For he looked forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God (He 11).
I’ve heard a lot of people comment these days on the uncertainty of our lives. It seems unusual, they say, the degree to which things are in general upheaval. They tend to focus on Covid, of course, especially with the Delta variant and the looming return of restrictions of various kinds. But they note that there’s more to this feeling, especially in the significant societal and cultural changes that seem to be accelerating.
There’s a part of me that says there’s nothing new under the sun; I’ve always been skeptical of the constant claim that “young people these days have it harder than ever.” But it does seem that the pace of change is speeding up.
I know a lot of people who are pretty much in Full Bore Linear Panic over all this. At the risk of being accused of insufficient empathy, let me offer a few words of psychical stabilization. (And yes, I know that no one in the history of the world has ever been calmed down by being told to calm down.)
I’ve written before on the societal uncertainty that the pandemic has brought, but I’d like to share some further thoughts along that line.
There is a very real sense in the Scripture that we’re mostly blind and consequently just sort of muddling along through life. We’re constantly reminded that we’re not God—though by nature we’d very much like to be—and that our knowledge and wisdom are infinitesimal in comparison with his. Paul tells us that “we walk by faith, not by sight” (2Co 5.7), and the writer to the Hebrews develops that concept at considerable length in chapter 11, a portion of which appears above. Abraham, we’re told, went out, not knowing where he was going.
We all feel like that sometimes.
Maybe you know people who started life with a plan and executed it perfectly. My life, in contrast, began with making a plan and seeing it crash when I was 16, and then just sort of stumbling along as doors opened. At the time, it wouldn’t have impressed any career coaches. But in retrospect, it’s been a straight line and makes a lot of sense.
Life’s funny that way.
To one degree or another, we’re all Abraham. We come from somewhere else and are just resident aliens here, living in tents (most of us metaphorically).
Some immigrants cling tightly to their ethnic identity. When my people came over from the Rhine Valley in 1741, they settled in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, briefly but soon hiked down to a German colony in Newmarket, Virginia, where they helped start a Lutheran Church—that’s what Germans do, right?—and married other Germans. From my youth in Boston I recall fondly the Italian North End and Irish South Boston, and the clear cultural identity of those places.
But eventually, typically, immigrants blend in, intermarry, and assume the culture to which they’ve come. It happened to Judah in Babylon; it happened to the Olingers in America; and it happens pretty much everywhere.
In a spiritual sense, though, we don’t have that option.
We’re from someplace else, and we’ll always be from someplace else, and we can’t—mustn’t—make this place the determiner of our fortunes, our emotions, our spiritual health. The uncertainties that are part of living in a foreign place must not drive us to fear, because we have a Father who knows all and directs all, even though he often doesn’t clue us in to everything that’s going on. What looks like chaos to us looks like a beautiful fractal to him, and he’s doing something spectacular.
We don’t know what that something is, exactly, but we know whose work it is, and that fact gives us the ability to be calm in the midst of the storm, confident in the midst of uncertainty, joyous with anticipation in the midst of societal panic—not because we don’t care, or because we’re not empathetic, or because we’re just stupid, but because we know where it’s all heading.
In short, because we believe Dad—which, given his record, is a perfectly reasonable thing to do.
Photo by Katie Moum on Unsplash
E Pluribus Unum
My wife and I were eating lunch in a restaurant yesterday when a girl walked by in a T-shirt that said “Lexington Soccer.” I caught her eye and asked, “Lexington where?” She said, “Massachusetts”—as I hoped she would. I smiled and said, “I graduated from Lexington Christian.” She said, “So did my Dad.”
Small world.
And that got me to thinking about all the places I’ve lived and people I’ve known—which leads me to recycle what follows, a minor reworking of something I posted on Facebook on September 4, 2016.
I spent the first half my youth in the Pacific Northwest (Spokane, to be precise), and the second half in greater Boston (Newton, mostly). (And when I say “half,” I’m being precise; we headed east 3 days after my 10th birthday.)
But I’ve spent well over 2/3 of my life in the American South. There are lots of things I like about the region:
- Barbecue. And to my friends in California, bless your hearts, you’re not “barbecuing”; you’re grilling. It ain’t barbecue unless you’re usin’ wood and takin’ more than 8 hours.
- Side note: in South Africa they “braai,” and they use wood, but they cook hot and fast rather than low and slow, so that’s not barbecue either. Though it is delicious.
- The way Southerners soften their insults with “bless your heart.”
- Biscuits and sausage gravy for breakfast.
- Calling other adults “Sir” and “Ma’am,” even when they’re younger than you.
- Dinner on the grounds. And persimmon pudding. Preferably simultaneously.
- Fireflies.
- The good people in mill towns like Poe and Slater and Zoar and Lockhart. (RIP, Eunice Loudermilk.)
- The way everything’s sweeter here–cornbread and potato salad and of course iced tea.
- The sound of the kudzu growing on a dog day afternoon.
- Grits. Yes, really. Fresh and hot, with butter and pepper—and not a single crystal of sugar. What were you thinking!?
I am blessed for having lived in multiple regions. It’s helped me realize that despite our differences, we are all more alike than we think–that there really is more that unites us than that divides us. That reaching across regional boundaries and disbelieving stereotypes is good for the soul. And for the country. And that as polarized as we are in this country, “e pluribus unum” really is possible. But it starts with us, one at a time.
Our leaders, and our journalists, and social media are united in their efforts to keep us ginned up, angry and hostile toward the “other side.” They’re doing it almost entirely for the ratings, for the money, for the power. They’re posturing; they don’t believe half the things they’re saying, and you shouldn’t either.
Don’t buy it. You’re in the image of God; you’re not a beast. Think for yourself. And reach across the unbreachable boundary. Because they’re in the image of God too.
Photo by Joey Csunyo on Unsplash
It’s Not Martyrdom If You’re Being Obnoxious
There’s a lot of talk about Christians being persecuted these days.
I’d suggest a couple of moderating thoughts.
First, if you’re talking about in the US, then, no, they’re not being persecuted, relatively speaking. There are some instances of their being harassed, and that’s wrong. I think the well-known case of the Colorado baker is a pretty clear instance of that. But harassment, while condemnable on both ethical and legal grounds, is nothing like the persecution faced by the early church, or by the modern church in many places of the world. I’ve been in some of those places, and when American Christians cry “persecution,” it strikes me as just as inappropriate as calling an ID requirement for voting “voter suppression.”
Second, there’s some biblical wisdom that we can apply profitably to the matter of either harassment or persecution. To begin with the really big picture, God has designed the universe so that in general it rewards wise behavior and punishes foolishness. If you respect physical laws by not putting your hand into a flame or stepping in front of a city bus, you’ll live more comfortably—and probably longer. If you acknowledge the fact that your fellow humans are created in the image of God and therefore worthy of respect, courtesy, and care, you’ll have fewer interpersonal problems. Even in its pre-fallen state, the world may well have carried the potential of causing you pain if you didn’t pay attention. I suspect that if pre-fallen Adam had beat his head against an Edenic tree trunk for a while, he’d have decided not to do that anymore.
And in its post-fallen state, the potential rises exponentially. Now the world is broken. Creation groans (Ro 8.22), giving us earthquakes and tornados and tsunamis and pandemics. And we, as part of the broken world, engage in thinking and behavior that rejects the good God and denies his image in those around us. That kind of mistreatment and perversion of the designed order causes unfathomable pain. As Jesus’ half-brother James noted, “What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members? 2 You lust and do not have; so you commit murder. You are envious and cannot obtain; so you fight and quarrel” (Jam 4.1-2a).
All of this means that when Christians suffer, there are more possible reasons than just “suffering for Jesus.” Christians, individually or corporately, might be suffering because they’ve said or done stupid things, placing themselves under the divinely designed cosmic order, whereby life is tougher if you’re stupid (as John Wayne allegedly said). Or they might be suffering because they’ve engaged in sinful thinking or practices that have social or legal consequences.
I’m not making this up; the Bible actually warns God’s people against this very thing. Perhaps the most concentrated biblical teaching on Christian suffering is 1 Peter, which lays out the fact and causes of suffering and then applies it in the three major institutions of life: the home (1P 3.1-12), the state (1P 2.13-20), and the church (1P 4.7-5.11). As part of that instruction, Peter says,
14 If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. 15 Make sure that none of you suffers as a murderer, or thief, or evildoer, or a troublesome meddler; 16 but if anyone suffers as a Christian, he is not to be ashamed, but is to glorify God in this name (1P 4.14-16).
If you’re going to suffer—which is likely, he says—then suffer for a good reason. There’s no spiritual profit in suffering in itself—everybody suffers for one reason or another. So don’t suffer for stupid reasons.
Peter lists four behaviors here. Two of them are the specific sins—crimes, in fact—of murder and theft. The third item is a general term for evildoing. The fourth is a bit of a puzzle, what New Testament scholar Thomas Schreiner calls “one of the most difficult interpretive problems in the New Testament.” Because it’s a rare word, we don’t have much basis from usage for assigning it a meaning. Etymologically it’s “overseeing the affairs of others,” but what that means in a negative context isn’t clear. I’m inclined to read it as “being meddlesome,” “sticking your nose into other people’s business.”
Big sins will bring you trouble. So will little ones. I’d suggest that commenting on every passing social media post, whether or not you have any idea what you’re talking about, will bring you trouble. I’d also suggest that approaching people with a hostile attitude and confrontational speech will bring you trouble. And I’d suggest, finally, that blaming Jesus for your trouble in those cases is just wrong.
Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash
On Memorial Day
In Flanders Fields
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
John McCrae
Photo by Terence Burke on Unsplash
The Eye of the Storm, Part 2
Let’s take a closer look at Psalm 11, where we find ourselves faced with a stark choice as we deal with troublous times.
Stanza 1 includes verses 1-3. David’s advisors, having done a SWOT analysis, present him with what appears to be the only logical choice: “Run! Run for your life!”
Flee as a bird to your mountain!
And they give solid reasons: you have enemies, and they are preparing for action, which includes hidden threats to your very life. With weapons. Bad ones.
For, lo, the wicked bend their bow, they make ready their arrow upon the string, that they may privily shoot at the upright in heart.
They also note the consequences of inaction.
If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?!
This is, as we say these days, an “existential threat.” The consequences are world-shaking. What we’re facing is the end of all we know and love. Oblivion.
That’s their case.
Now David presents his.
I note that he doesn’t deny the truth of their facts. He’s not careless, disengaged, distracted, or apathetic. “There are no threats; no one’s after me; you people are a bunch of paranoid freaks.”
No. Accepting their major premise—that there’s a real threat out there—he presents rather a different perspective on it.
He brings in a variable that they haven’t mentioned. There is another actor on the battlefield; his name is YHWH, the ever-present and unchanging one, the one who keeps covenants. David views this God from three different perspectives.
His Person
David begins his response with a statement about who God is, what he is like:
The LORD is in his holy temple, the LORD’S throne is in heaven (v 4).
What is he like? Well, for starters, he has a temple—he’s God—and it’s “holy,” or unique. He’s not like everybody else; he’s in a class by himself. Adding him to the scene changes everything.
Second, he has a throne. That means he’s a king. And if he’s holy, then he’s not like any other king. He’s bigger, and stronger, and smarter, and better at kinging than any other king.
There’s a third factor. That throne is in heaven. That means, at least, that he’s above the battlefield and has a broader and clearer perspective on what’s going on down below. The high ground is militarily significant for many reasons, and one of them is the advantage that its perspective gives for strategic planning.
And heaven, of course, is not just any ordinary high ground. It’s the highest ground of all, the home of him who never loses.
So this is who the fearful have left out of their equation. A fairly significant oversight.
His Perspective
David also considers where God is looking—where his attention is focused. He actually bookends his thoughts—what scholars call an inclusio—with this idea.
His eyes behold, his eyelids try, the children of men (v 4).
His countenance doth behold the upright (v 7).
This powerful God, this master general, this unmatchable force, is paying attention. His eyes are focused like a laser on his people; he knows what’s going on, and his hands are poised on the armrests of his throne as he prepares to move against any and all threats to them. His silence is evidence not of distance or distraction, but of concentration.
The storm in which we find ourselves has an eye, a place of calm. And the eye belongs to God.
His Plan
God has plans for every actor on the battlefield.
God’s plan for the righteous is to strengthen him not by avoiding the exertion of battle, but by enduring it.
The Lord trieth the righteous (v 5).
We all know that athletes don’t become great by lying on the couch. They become great by building endurance through physical challenges—wind sprints, road work, scrimmages seemingly without end. And they build dexterity and skills by constant repetition at the blocking sled or doing layups or punching the timing bag.
They get tired.
But they get great.
That’s God’s loving plan for us through the dark days, through the frightening challenges (Ro 5.3-5).
God also has plans for those who threaten his people.
The wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth. 6 Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest: this shall be the portion of their cup (vv 5b-6).
They won’t prevail. They won’t even survive.
The foundations, in the end, cannot be destroyed. The battle may well be strenuous, and we may well pick up some Purple Hearts, or maybe even a Congressional Medal of Honor, along the way.
But the outcome is certain.
Fear not.
Photo by NASA. That’s Tropical Cyclone Eloise coming ashore in Mozambique on January 22, 2021.
The Eye of the Storm, Part 1
I’ve been meditating lately in Psalm 11, as part of my effort this year to memorize a few key Psalms. (So far, 1, 2, 8, 11, and 14; next is 19, d.v.)
Psalm 11 is most well known for its third verse: “If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?”
I’ve heard that verse used as a call to action against evil—typically, social or political action against evil policy proposals, national or regional. Some years ago I even spoke at a Christian-school conference that had chosen that verse as its theme.
But I’d like to suggest that those friends and others have taken this verse to say the very opposite of the intended meaning.
Here’s the whole Psalm—
1 In the LORD put I my trust: how say ye to my soul, “Flee as a bird to your mountain! 2 For, lo, the wicked bend their bow, they make ready their arrow upon the string, that they may privily shoot at the upright in heart. 3 If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?!”
4 The LORD is in his holy temple, the LORD’S throne is in heaven: his eyes behold, his eyelids try, the children of men. 5 The LORD trieth the righteous: but the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth. 6 Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest: this shall be the portion of their cup. 7 For the righteous LORD loveth righteousness; his countenance doth behold the upright.
I’ve modified the punctuation of the KJV text just a little: I’ve added quotation marks; I’ve changed the question mark at the end of verse 1 to an exclamation point; and I’ve added an exclamation point to the question mark at the end of verse 3.
It appears to me that the KJV translators viewed the quotation as ending in verse 1; that’s why they put the question mark there. (Note that there was no punctuation in the original manuscripts or in the early copies. All punctuation in the Bible is a later editorial decision.) What basis do I have for extending the quotation through verse 3?
Well, the first consideration in any such decision should always be the context. The contrast between verses 3 and 4 indicates a significant change of perspective—which is why all the major English translations that show paragraph breaks put one there, and all those that include quotation marks end the quotation at the end of verse 3. The fear and frustration expressed in verse 3 seems much more in tune with the quotation in verse 1 than the response in verse 4.
Since it’s always a good idea to run your ideas past experts, the next step is to check the commentaries. Of the technical commentaries I have at hand, Faussett, Keil & Delitzsch, Lange, Kidner (Tyndale), Futato (Cornerstone), Longman (Tyndale), and Motyer (New BC) all agree that the major break is between 3 and 4—in other words, that verse 3 belongs with verse 1.
Thus the psalm consists of two paragraphs, or more properly, two stanzas. In the first, David announces his life principle (“In the Lord do I put my trust”) and then questions those who question him. The words “what can the righteous do?!” are not David’s, but those of his questioners, his self-appointed advisors, who see the world as a much more frightening place than he does. They are words of fear, not of faith.
The second stanza is David’s reply to his fearful advisors. He answers calmly and logically—theologically—and gives reasons for his faith. The reasons are rooted in God’s person, his perspective, and his plan.
And in the face of that, the alarmed have nothing more to say.
I think this Psalm is timely for these days.
In the next post we’ll take a closer look at the words of both the fearful and the faithful. And then we’ll get to pick a side.
Photo by NASA. That’s Tropical Cyclone Eloise coming ashore in Mozambique on January 22, 2021.
On Deconversion
These days I’m noticing a lot of friends who are turning from the faith. These are people with apparent, even convincing previous commitments to Christianity who now welcome the label of unbelief.
I’ve been thinking about the phenomenon. Why so many? Why now?
One possibility, I suppose, is a culturally driven one–that the apparent increase in deconversions is an optical illusion, that there are no more today than there have been in the past. The illusion comes because most of my friends now have and use a personal publishing platform, and they live in a culture that encourages “authenticity” in the form of controversial public pronouncements and the consequent wave of affirmation, in the form of “likes,” from fellow travelers. In that environment, deconversions that in another time would have been kept relatively private are now out there for all the world to see.
Possible, I suppose. Though survey data seem to show that the number of professing evangelicals is indeed shrinking.
Another possibility is theologically driven. For those of us who find—with all due respect to our Arminian brothers and sisters—the Bible to be teaching that a genuine believer cannot finally be lost, the conclusion that someone who deconverts—and persists—was never genuinely a believer to begin with is pretty much unavoidable. And if that’s the case, what could explain all those false professions?
I offer a possibility.
For my increasingly lengthening lifetime, American evangelicalism has prioritized evangelism; it’s one of Bebbington’s four essentials of the movement. In a culture that values efficiency and effectiveness, after the model of Henry Ford, we want to make the process of evangelism fool-proof, so that any believer of any experience can successfully carry out the Great Commission. So we develop methods, and we teach them in little pamphlets in simple language. The Romans Road. The Wordless Book. Sunday school. And lots of others.
And Christian parents, who more than anything want their children to live without the noxiousness of sinful decisions and eventually to go to heaven, lay that simple process on their beloved ones from the earliest ages.
Now, at the age of 4 or 5, any child is going to follow the instructions of an authority figure that he loves and trusts, particularly if there’s no real cost to it.
“Do you want to burn in hell forever?”
“Well, um, no, I’d rather not.”
What sane person would answer any other way?
“Then you need to pray this prayer.”
“Um, okay.”
And the “Amen” is followed by the fervent statement, “You’ve asked Jesus into your heart! Don’t ever let anyone tell you that you’re not going to heaven!”
Scripture tells us that salvation is a divine work. The Spirit convicts of sin (Jn 16.8) and illumines the mind; the Father draws the convert to the Son (Jn 6.44). Unless God is acting on this convert, he’s not a convert at all.
Is it possible that we have a generation of people who grew up in Christian homes and made a “decision” that you’d have to be an idiot to say no to, but have never felt the convicting work of the Holy Spirit and the drawing (and keeping) power of the Father, the covenant-keeping God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? A generation that today sees professing “evangelicals” by the thousands engaging in behavior that they find deeply disgusting—most notably abusive sexual behavior, hypocrisy, lack of empathy, and the apotheoses of celebrities with prominent character flaws—and they say to themselves, and to their social circles, “Why am I associating with these people? What reason do I have to stay in a relationship to which I’ve never had any commitment beyond an intellectual one, and in my immature years at that?”
Of course it’s possible.
Maybe we should watch for evidence of God’s working in a young person before encouraging him to “pray the prayer.” Maybe we should show our devotion to carrying out the Great Commission by seeking genuine, not facile, conversions. Maybe we should be God’s servants, rather than his pushy facilitators, in this important work. Maybe we should be less frantic, less desperate, and more trusting and confident.
Good intentions don’t seem to be good enough.
On Certsitude, Part 2: “Well, Actually, You Are Both Right. Kinda.”
I’m meditating on the fact that I repeatedly see discussions on social media where my friends are taking directly opposing positions, yet I find that they’re both making legitimate points, ones worth considering. In a sense, they’re both right, even though their positions logically can’t both be true.
The Bible gives us reason not to be surprised by this.
According to the Scripture, humans are complicated; specifically, they’re characterized by a nature that’s in tension with itself.
- On the one hand, we’re created in the image of God (Gn 1.26-27). There’s considerable discussion about what that means precisely, but most would agree that it includes the abilities to think, feel, and decide, as well as an innate sense of right and wrong, and the ability to rule, to take dominion over the created world in various ways. We have the ability to seek truth and to discover it.
- On the other hand, we’ve been damaged by our sin, damaged in every corner of our being (Ro 3.23). Our thinker is busted and can’t be trusted; our feelings may misguide us; our decisions are not always based in truth.
We’ve all experienced this bifurcation; we want to do one thing—say, be kind to our extremely irritating neighbor—and we disappoint ourselves by snapping back at an unusually irritating remark from him. Even the Apostle Paul described this ongoing struggle in his own life (Ro 7.7ff): he wants to do one thing, but he does the other in spite of his good intentions.
Even more simply, we should expect that all of us are going to be right about some things and wrong about others. Nobody’s right all the time, and nobody’s wrong all the time, either.
But in public discussions we act as though that simple principle isn’t true. The other party’s guy is unremittingly and irredeemably evil, and I won’t give him an ounce of credit or an inch of slack. My party’s guy is unremittingly good, and everything he does can be justified. But this approach, based in utter falsehood, cannot bring good results.
I remember when this point was first driven home forcefully to me.
In 1983 Congress passed a federal statute making Martin Luther King’s birthday a federal holiday. Forty years later we don’t typically see that as controversial, but in those days the debate was heated. Opponents of the bill argued that King was characterized by low moral character; supporters argued that his accomplishments outweighed any imperfections. (I’m simplifying here.)
During the Senate debate, Sen. Jesse Helms (R-NC), an opponent of the bill, argued against the position of Sen Ted Kennedy (D-MA) by saying, “Senator Kennedy’s argument is not with the Senator from North Carolina. His argument is with his dead brother who was President and his dead brother who was Attorney General.”
Yikes.
I’m politically conservative; I believe in limited government and personal responsibility and a bunch of other ideas espoused by Russell Kirk and Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek and, yes, Jesse Helms.
But that outburst is just inexcusable.
And I’m not going to be forced, because someone agrees with me on philosophical ideas that I hold dear and deeply, to justify things he does that are just plain wrong.
Coming back to the present. The fact that Rush Limbaugh held some views that I also hold doesn’t mean that he’s exempt from the biblical command to “be kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake has forgiven you” (Ep 4.32) or to “let your speech be always with grace” (Co 4.6). On the other hand, the fact that he intentionally made people angry doesn’t mean that a person can’t appreciate the contribution he made to popularizing conservative philosophies like limited government or personal responsibility.
The fact that Ravi Zacharias was a moral monster does not mean that his apologetic arguments were invalid. But the fact that his arguments are helpful doesn’t mean that we minimize the horror of the damage he has done to women who didn’t encourage his reprobate behavior—or that people in position to know should have let him get away with that nonsense in the first place.
In short, we need to listen to one another rather than simply arguing. We need to recognize when people we disagree with are right, and we need to learn from them, even if we’ll never arrive at all their conclusions.
That’s sensible. It’s normal. It’s healthy.
It’s the only way we can have a society worth living in.
Photo by Icons8 Team on Unsplash
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