A Response to Three Friends I Will Never Meet

It only takes a little nudge to latch onto a pro sports team. I was still in junior high school when one Larry Kenon played for my own hometown junior college before transferring to Memphis State University (now the University of Memphis). After a couple of seasons with the Nets, he became a San Antonio Spur and from that time forward, the Spurs bandwagon has been my bandwagon. As a native Texan, I had a choice of two teams to follow. Since 1980, I have had a choice of three, but to my knowledge, neither the Mavericks nor the Rockets have ever started an Amarillo College alumnus.

As a Spurs fan, other Spurs fans abide under the umbrella of my general affection. That is why it is troublesome that in recent weeks and months, my lack of intelligence and my inability to think freely have been blasted by three folks that I like. It’s as if I have been wounded by friends. Coach Gregg Popovich (Spurs head coach), Coach Steve Kerr (clutch three-point shooter and gritty defender at one time for the Spurs, now Golden State Warriors head coach), and Michelle Beadle (fellow Texan, die-hard Spurs fan and ESPN talking head) have each blasted President Trump against the ongoing backdrop of the NFL/National Anthem protest saga. They are free to criticize the president, but I wish they would be a little more careful to consider others that they might be insulting in the process.

You see, the crux of the criticism has suggested that Trump has MADE the anthem protest that is ABOUT racial and social injustice ABOUT other things like support for the military and patriotism. The implication seems to be that those who agree with him can only be sheep who follow in lock-step, hence, the danger of him being vocal on the matter.

Coach, Michelle, and Coach – Is it just possible that some folks could figure out that they are offended by the nature of the protest with or without the president’s help? Of course, he is going to throw red meat to his base. That’s what politicians from both sides of the political aisle do. Trump may very well be exploiting the controversy, but he did not create it. He has not influenced my thoughts on the matter one iota. I don’t care for the protest, and I am pretty sure that would be my posture with or without our president’s input.

Coach, Michelle, and Coach - Whether the USA adopted the right anthem or not is a matter for debate, but the one we have for now is about a flag surviving a battle from the War of 1812. Can you really not see why I and others might most easily connect the dots so as to conclude that the anthem is about support for the military and allegiance to the flag, and that a protest during the anthem is going to communicate aversion to those themes? (I know that there is a troublesome second stanza to the song, but it is never used.) I am not enraged by the protests as some clearly are. My reaction would probably be even more offensive to the protesters themselves. I think it’s dumb. The dots do not connect. It does not make the statement that I am told it is making. Ever since the Supreme Court gave flag-burning a pass, speech is protected, apparently, no matter how hurtful it is to some or how little sense it makes to others.

Coach, Michelle, and Coach – Do you realize how easy it is to speculate about what ticks in a person’s heart and mind with whom you disagree fiercely? I have some pretty clear thoughts about why the three of you might have said the things you did. In writing this, I agonized over how to articulate those thoughts without sounding snarky and without agitating those that come down on the other side of the anthem issue than me. These theories tend to suggest that I do not trust your ability to think for yourselves, or, that your agendas differ from what you put forth publicly. Then, I had an epiphany. My speculations could only come across as insulting, and since they are only my own uninformed and cranky imaginings, it is probably more useful not to speak them at all.

Coach, Michelle and Coach - It is very unlikely that any of the three of you will ever see this, but I still cannot articulate my idle, know-nothing speculations without offending someone I do know and care about. For the record, these speculations are real “zingers,” if indeed merely zinging one another is what the debates of this age are about. Instead I will only say, “Go Spurs!” We remain on that page together.

My mom and her sister were as far apart politically as two individuals could be. One was a Republican. One was a Democrat. One was liberal. One was quite conservative. My aunt was a Kansas City Chiefs fan. My mom was a Dallas Cowboys fan (I suspect that was more just a matter of being a contrarian as I am not convinced that Mom knew the difference between a quarterback, a switchback, fatback or the band Nickelback). But, I had the sense … in fact, I am quite sure of it … they would always have each other’s back.

Political discourse in America has always been vitriolic. Before the days of the Internet and social media, it was pretty much relegated to the politicians themselves. They would figuratively beat each other to a bloody pulp before accompanying one another to dinner or to the golf course. Now, they never seem to let up on one another. Perhaps, they really do hate each other more than they used to. However, another possibility is that they know that there are more eyes on them than ever before and they are convinced that strident bickering for the agendas of their respective constituencies is what we really expect of them.

I guess my greater point on this Memorial Day is this: Is it even possible that folks these days can disagree on political and social matters without utterly despising each other in the process? If we really love our nation, perhaps, we should consider what we as individuals might be contributing to the ripping asunder of its very fabric. There are causes I am ready to fight over. There are others that I should probably meet with a shrug. From time to time, I have to just step away from learning, ruminating on, and eventually stewing about current events. I figure that if I am a little bit in the dark, that is probably preferable to being in a chronic foul mood.

A Reliable Sexual Ethic

In the aftermath of the recent Bill Cosby verdicts, I heard a piece of a conversation between a women’s advocate and a talk show host. He voiced an observation that I have heard so many times, regarding so many sexual assaults, and from so many sources that it has begun to sound cliché. Somehow, crimes of this sort are not about sex, but about power.

I am always left scratching my head. No one would mistake the host I reference for being progressive. He is one of the most politically conservative voices on radio and television. So, trust me when I say this is not a political rant so much as a theological one. How are Cosby’s crimes, as well as other forms of rape, NOT about sex? I can see where power may factor into the overall anatomy of such an offense, as a means to an end. Still, these are, first and foremost, sexual offenses, and such offenders are sexual predators and deviants, even the once beloved Cosby.

If this seems like a distinction without a difference, bear with me. From where does this tendency to emphasize power abuse over sexual deviation come? Could it be that it is awkward to speak of the latter because “sexual deviation” demands the starting point of “a sexual standard,” and that defining such a standard is uncomfortable? After all, it seems that everyone these days is entitled to define his or her own sexual standard. That anything goes between “consenting adults” seems to be the one I hear most often.

Even in these days of shifting standards, there would probably be consensus that Cosby’s acts are deviant. Still, it is easier (and intellectually lazier) to couch the issue in terms of power, because any discussion of “deviancy” demands that we also define “normalcy.” Intuitively, people know that establishing such a starting point would be a hopelessly arbitrary endeavor unless it was already established for us.

For the Christian, there is only standard, that is, one normalcy:

¹⁸Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him” … ²¹So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh.²²And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. ²³Then the man said,

“This at last is bone of my bones
            and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called Woman,

because she was taken out of Man.”

²⁴Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.  – Genesis 2:18, 21-24

One male, one female, one new and enduring monogamous union; This is the standard of normalcy away from which everything else must be labelled “deviation.” Obviously, human beings have been moving this ancient boundary stone almost since the moment it was laid, but that only means that most moderns live by no standard at all. After all, a standard is not a standard if it can be altered tomorrow so as to accommodate some new movement, some new societal wind, some new lust, some new emotion, or some new circumstance. Like the ancient Hebrews in the days of the Judges, we think we are free to do what seems right in our own eyes.

The wheels in my head began to muse over this topic months ago, not because of Cosby, but because of the so-called “Me Too” movement. (My wife warned me about chiming-in. Words and motives are so easily misunderstood.) Allow me to make this disclaimer preemptively: What I am about to say has nothing to do with forcible rape, actions against a child or impaired person, or antics such as Cosby’s. These things incense, and in some instances, enrage me.

With that disclaimer out of the way, I must confess that I cannot get wound up by every claim of “victimization” that has surfaced recently. I recall the use of such terms as “the casting couch” and “sleeping one’s way to the top.” These phrases, often accompanied by a wink, implied a willingness on the part of a female to participate in an improper encounter so as to advance her own career. That does not absolve the man in power - that creepy producer, executive, politician, etc. He remains the same deviant cad most of us agree that he is. He may very well have abused his power as a means to his decadent end. But, if a woman chooses to pay such a price so as to achieve what she wants for herself, she has also relied on his power as a means to fulfilling her own dreams. She has consented to place her own ambition ahead of her chastity. She is no victim, and to claim such a status trivializes real victimhood regarding authentic sexual crimes.

Again, to couch these matters in terms of power rescues all of us from being placed in that awkward position of asserting a standard, from which sexual deviancy can be defined. But, none of these obfuscations will do any of us any good when the Judge of the World shines His light upon the issue. God’s people must pursue purity in all such matters, even the ones the world refuses to condemn.