Category: Being Human

Speaking of Chaplains

Published on by D. G. Hart2 Comments

The authors of the Marriage Pledge are arguing that Christian (Protestant and Roman Catholic) ministers can no longer participate in civil wedding ceremonies because the new definition of marriage compromises the Christian one — never mind that Roman Catholics and Protestants do not actually agree on the definition of Christian marriage (sacrament or not?). They may have a point, though some people (more to come) worry that this is a retreat to a form of cultural isolation made plausible only by fundamentalists.

But since the churches that minister in the United States already supply military chaplains to work in settings where the definition of religion is hardly compatible with either the Protestant or Roman Catholic understanding of the faith, why here and why now? Isn’t it the case that whenever the church collaborates with the state the former winds up in some roll as collaborator?

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not at all happy as a citizen (as opposed to a Christian) with the new definition of marriage. Robbie George’s (et al) book on marriage makes pretty clear what stake the broader society has in marriage as the union between one man and one woman. But at the same time, marriage has been debased for years. Anyone can actually perform a wedding ceremony, as long as he or she files the right paperwork with American Marriage Ministries. Here is how to become ordained with AMM:

1. Become an Ordained Minister

American Marriage Ministries is a non-profit, interfaith and non-denominational church, with the mission to ensure that all people have the right to perform marriage. We offer ordination to all people, regardless of religious background or spiritual philosophy, that agree with our three tenets:

All people, regardless of race, gender, or sexual orientation, have the right to marry.
It is the right of every couple to choose who will solemnize their marriage.
All people have the right to solemnize marriage.
Applying to become an AMM Minister is not a declaration of exclusive faith, it is an act of allowing our tenets to coexist with personal beliefs. We encourage people of all backgrounds to find community within the simple tenets of our faith.

About Our Ordination

The AMM Ordination is free, requires no special course of study, and takes only a moment. Our goal is to help people on their path to performing marriage for friends and family.

A wedding is a momentus spiritual event, but the legal act of solemnizing marriage involves nothing more than signing a piece of paper. We believe that completion of this legal act does not necessitate the time, expense, and academia of a traditional seminarial degree. The act of solemnizing marriage historically belonged exclusively to the people; it is only recently that marriage has become the domain of the state.

Our ordination is informed by these facts – we exist to protect the right of all people to solemnize marriage. If you have been asked by people close to you to solemnize their marriage, we believe you have the right to.

So what should we do? Instead of telling the rest of society how to think about marriage and expecting the state to back us up, maybe officers and ministers in each Christian communion should work to guarantee that their congregants know the meaning and duties of marriage. That strategy might be especially valuable for those ministers in fellowship with the Bishop of Rome.

Piece o' Cake?

Published on by D. G. Hart79 Comments

Not only can Christians put sin to death, they can also take charge of email (and more and more and more). Tim Challies explains how.

Here’s point 7 out of 9 on the sin front:

#7. BATTLE
Battle hard against the first awakenings of that sin. Never, ever allow yourself to play with sin. Never think you will sin this far, but no farther. Do not toy with sin. Do not think you can control your sin and allow only so much of it. If you do that, sin will win every time. The very second you feel that sin awakening within you, slam it down with all your force and all your strength. Cry out to God in that very moment. Call for help from other Christians in that very moment. Sin is like water held back by a dam; the moment there is even a small crack in that dam, the weight of the water pushing against it will blow a hole right through it, and the entire structure will collapse.

Email may not be as significant as sin but it prevents us from glorifying God (which is a form of sin, right?) and requires a similar set of instructions:

I have said that productivity is effectively stewarding your gifts, talents, time, energy, and enthusiasm for the good of others and the glory of God, and to this point I have suggested many different ways of doing that (You can see a series round-up at the bottom of this article). Our topic for this article is taming the email beast.

I think we all have a love-hate relationship with email. On the one hand email brings many good things—it delivers exciting news, encouragement from friends, and fun little notes from family members. It also has immense practical value—it delivers confirmation that the ticket order went through, or that the book we want is on sale. But, of course, there is a dark side as well—the endless spam, the email discussions that go on for far too long, the newsletters we didn’t sign up for, the chain letters promising bad luck if we don’t forward it to twenty more people. Email has become a mess of function and dysfunction. We need it, and yet we hate it.

Is this what Christian counseling sounds like?

Tim Challies’ advice may be helpful on fronts both trivial and sublime (though I usually expect more from Canadians). But I find it troubling to see a mechanical approach to both the gadgets of this earthly existence and mysterious depths of the sin-plagued soul. For the sake of New Calvinism and in the interest of taking such an expression of Calvinism seriously, I suggest that Challies try to sound less like Martha Stewart and more like Paul (“oh, wretched man that I am”).

Women Grow Up

Published on by D. G. Hart7 Comments

The flower fades.

The photographs that comprise the New York Times’ story about a photographer, Nicholas Nixon, who as taken shots of his wife and her three sisters every year for four decades are truly remarkable (thanks to our domestic correspondent). It is the photographic version of the Up Series.

Throughout this series, we watch these women age, undergoing life’s most humbling experience. While many of us can, when pressed, name things we are grateful to Time for bestowing upon us, the lines bracketing our mouths and the loosening of our skin are not among them. So while a part of the spirit sinks at the slow appearance of these women’s jowls, another part is lifted: They are not undone by it. We detect more sorrow, perhaps, in the eyes, more weight in the once-fresh brows. But the more we study the images, the more we see that aging does not define these women. Even as the images tell us, in no uncertain terms, that this is what it looks like to grow old, this is the irrefutable truth, we also learn: This is what endurance looks like.

For those of us who are beginning to know what it means to take the over in the over-under of middle age, to avoid the sense of decline that these photos capture is difficult. (And they may sober those who are still comfortable taking the under of middle age — be careful what’s coming.)

The images are also a reminder of the increasing dependence that comes with age:

It is the endurance of sisterhood in particular. Nixon, who grew up a single child, says he has always been particularly intrigued by the sisterly unit, and it shows in these images. With each passing year, the sisters seem to present more of a united front. Earlier assertions of their individuality — the arms folded across the chest, the standing apart — give way to a literal leaning on one another, as if independence is no longer such a concern. We see what goes on between the sisters in their bodies, particularly their limbs. A hand clasps a sister’s waist, arms embrace arms or are slung in casual solidarity over a shoulder. A palm steadies another’s neck, reassuring. The cumulative effect is dizzying and powerful. When 36 prints were exhibited in a gallery in Granada, Spain, viewers openly wept.

Hard not to.

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Why Don't Hard Questions Occur to Christians?

Published on by D. G. Hart17 Comments

So if you were a historic Southern Baptist institution located in one of the former border states — think Kentucky — where would you want to start a branch campus? Dunbar, Wisconsin? You betcha.

The town was founded in 1888 during a period of thriving logging industry in the Wisconsin northern woods. At that time the railroad was the main means of transporting logs from Dunbar to the southern part of the state and Illinois. Before the town was officially founded there was a restaurant where a cook with the surname Dunbar worked. Whenever the railroad stopped at that part of the area they brought food and supplies for the restaurant. The railroad workers said they were bringing things “to Dunbar” the cook. Eventually when the town was founded it was after the cook’s surname.

And this is the place where Southern Baptist Theological Seminary is going to branch out.

I don’t get it.

Northland International University, an evangelical Christian school located in Dunbar, Wisconsin, will become the first campus outside of Louisville for Boyce College, Southern’s undergraduate school. The action is effective Aug. 1, 2015.

“The fact that there will be a Boyce College and Southern Seminary campus located in Wisconsin on a campus of this stature is an enormous step forward for Southern Baptists,” said Southern Seminary President R. Albert Mohler Jr. “I can only imagine what the founders of the Southern Baptist Convention would think to know that the reach of the SBC and its mother seminary is now of this magnitude in the upper Midwest.”

Daniel Patz, president of Northland since 2013, attended the meeting and told trustees, “This is a gift from Northland to The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. But really, I feel almost, even more so, it is gift to us in order for this legacy and this mission to continue; it is the greatest mission in the world, to bring the gospel to the ends of the earth.”

Paul Patz, the grandfather of Daniel Patz, founded Northland in 1958 as a camp and expanded it in 1976 to become Northland Baptist Bible Institute. One year later, Northland became an undergraduate college, adding a graduate program in 1988. Throughout its history, the school has continued to operate Northland Camp & Conference Center, which hosts camps, Bible conferences, and other ministry events. Northland has produced nearly 2,900 alumni serving in ministry across the world.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not insinuating that something shady is at play here. In this economy, any gift that an institution receives is a blessing. But when you think about the pattern of branch campuses that Reformed Theological Seminary established, first Orlando, then Charlotte, then Atlanta, then Washington, then Houston, then New York, then planet earth — I’m not sure this is the order or if these are the real campuses, but you get the point — you’re not thinking Dunbar, Wisconsin or Hillsdale, Michigan.

In which case, someone needs to ask why Dunbar? Why a place roughly twenty-five miles from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula? Why not Green Bay?

More important, why isn’t anyone scratching their heads?

On the Upside

Published on by D. G. Hart122 Comments

James White takes an I-told-you-so pose in the face of Jason Stellman’s post about how difficult life as a Roman Catholic convert has been. On the one hand, Jason seems to have no sense for how he comes across. First, he was surprised that his Chamber of Commerce posts on behalf of his new religious hometown would strike those in his old Protestant neighborhood as infuriating. Why not simply follow your conscience and shut up about it? Now he also provides his former co-religionists with an excuse for grandstanding. (Hey, wait a minute. Maybe Jason was playing the tempter. Pretty clever.)

On the other hand, White does not refuse the temptation but decides to gloat:

Rome never satisfies. It can’t. All the pomp and circumstance, all the liturgical fanfare, can never truly answer to the true needs of man. Since Rome has abandoned the gospel of grace and replaced it with a synergistic man-centered sacramentalism, she will never be able to offer to men anything but distractions, never true answers, to his real need. . . .

When it comes to Jason Stellman, I know one thing: I warned him, clearly, passionately, without question.

Actually, Mr. White, if you read Jason’s post, how can you say that Roman Catholicism doesn’t satisfy when Jason affirms explicitly that it does? And how can you, Mr. White, make it seem as if adversity for religious convictions is somehow a vindication of sola gratia? After all, didn’t our Lord say:

“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. (Matt 10:34-39)

But there is a silver lining here for Protestants who don’t spiritualize everything and turn a blind eye to human suffering. It is that Jason must have been a heck of a Presbyterian pastor:

. . . I am denied entrance into the church I planted (where my family still attends on Sundays) — I wasn’t even allowed to attend the Christmas Eve service last year and just sit and sing the hymns. To most of my old Calvinistic friends I am simply a traitor to the gospel.

That sounds pretty rough and Jason’s original cheerleading for Rome likely accounts for some of this roughness, though I am only speculating. But that sort of resolve on the part of Jason’s family and former congregation, as painful as it is for him, is likely a tribute to his ability to minister the word and cultivate in both his family and congregants a commitment to what the Bible teaches. Is it any consolation to Jason that he was seemingly a successful Protestant pastor?

If I Were More Sanctified, Would Wife Like My Music?

Published on by D. G. Hart50 Comments

How far does sanctity go? How extensive is w-w? All of me belongs to Jesus and I am a new man in Christ, but what does this mean for taste? Can holiness account for taste?

Last night I was listening to a sequence of Klangkarussell mixes on Youtube. Who the Hades are Klangkarussell, you ask? I’m not sure but ever since I started listening to Rob da Bank I’ve become aware of contemporary dub step, dance and electronic performers that take me back to the days of Mike Oldfield and Klaus Schulze (and yes, Brian Eno). Since Rob has not yet started is weekly show on BBC Radio 6 (moving from Radio 1), I have had to look for alternatives. Pandora and Spotify have their moments. But at some points their musical memes become repetitive (even though so much better than Taylor Swift).

But that is exactly what the missus thought last night as I became energized by one of the mixes by Klangkarussell. “Turn that racket down,” was the kind charge I heard coming from the kitchen.

And here I thought we were on the same cultural plane. We grew up with the same television shows, cut our teeth cinematically on Woody Allen and Ingmar Bergman, and identified as Preppy’s in early adulthood. We just finished Happy Valley, a terrific BBC/Netflix production that puts the drama in dramatic, and we both had similar assessments — four thumbs up (so much better than Season Three of The Killing). (Cordelia missed most of the series while snoozing upstairs.) We also recently traveled to Ann Arbor to see The Trip to Italy, the Steve Coogan, Rob Bryden sequel to The Trip. The wife and I thoroughly enjoyed this movie as much as the first, and thought that maybe even the second was better.

So if we can be so close on the same page of television series and cinema, why can’t we be closer on music. Her tastes run to Motown and sentimental (in my estimate) crooners. Mine run to minimalism whether coming from Philip Glass or Moderat.

If everything deep down is religious or spiritual, then what accounts for the difference? Or if lots of life is merely creaturely and natural, maybe even the Obedience Boys and the cultural transformationalists can’t explain our cultural (and other spheres) lives.

Is Grace Everywhere?

Published on by D. G. Hart123 Comments

So Mark Jones keeps telling us and since we have no way to comment at his blog we will once again adopt the role of servants serving servers by opening up comments here.

First, Jones says that lots of Reformed theologians, backed up by Richard Muller — apparently Jones favorite strategy for finding room to affirm a contested point — said grace existed before the fall and that Adam needed grace to comply with the Covenant of Works:

Most seventeenth-century Reformed theologians understood grace in a more general sense than simply equating it with redemptive favor. But they did make important distinctions on the grace of God before and after the Fall, such as the way Adam possessed the Spirit in contrast to how we possess the Spirit.

Anthony Burgess argues that Adam needed help from God to obey the law and then notes, “Some learned Divines, as [David] Pareus…deny the holiness Adam had, or the help God gave Adam, to be truly and properly called grace.” Pareus believed that grace only comes from Christ to sinners. Burgess shies away from the dispute, but he does insist that Adam could not persevere “without help from God.” . . .

Richard Muller has suggested that not only does the language of “voluntary condescension” rule out human merit, but that the “presence of divine grace prior to the fall was a fundamental assumption of most of the Reformed thinkers of that era.” The evidence cited above sustains Muller’s contention.

“Voluntary condescension” (WCF 7.1) was consistent with the idea, espoused by William (“Exception to WCF 7.1”) Bridge, that “out of free love and grace [God] was pleased to condescend to enter into Covenant with man.”

Great. But if Adam had the Holy Spirit then how did he sin? Did God remove the Holy Spirit and thus make Adam susceptible? If so, is God implicated in the introduction of sin among his creation?

Also, I wonder if Dr. Jones has considered what the Confession of Faith says about Adam in his state of innocency:

After God had made all other creatures, he created man, male and female, with reasonable and immortal souls [e], endued with knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness, after his own image [f]; having the law of God written in their hearts [g], and power to fulfill it [h]: and yet under a possibility of transgressing, being left to the liberty of their own will, which was subject unto change [i]. Beside this law written in their hearts, they received a command, not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; which while they kept, they were happy in their communion with God, and had dominion over the creatures. (4.2)

If you had to describe this as gracious or natural, I am pressed to understand why someone would choose grace. And why did the divines, some of whom did (I gather from Dr. Jones) talk about Adam being endued with the Holy Spirit, fail to mention that in the Confession? When you look at the proof texts (supplied by the Orthodox Presbyterian Church anyway), you don’t see much that would add support to Dr. Jones’ formulation on grace before the fall:

d. Gen. 1:27. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

e. Gen. 2:7. And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. Eccl. 12:7. Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it. Luke 23:43. And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise. Matt. 10:28. And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

f. Gen. 1:26. And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. Col. 3:10. And [ye] have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him. Eph. 4:24. … and that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.

g. Rom. 2:14–15. For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another.

h. Gen. 2:17. But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. Eccl. 7:29. Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions.

Yes, I do understand that the references to the Christian putting on the “new man” is a gracious work of the Holy Spirit. But surprise (and beware the valleys and mountains). I am not Adam who was without sin. I need grace and the Holy Spirit to live in a holy manner. If Adam did, what does it say about the inherent goodness of human nature at creation?

Jones’ flattening continues when he likens Christ’s experience to that of the believer:

Jesus was and is the man of the Spirit, par excellence. Christ’s obedience – all of it – was done in the power of the Spirit. Thus, the Holy Spirit is the “immediate operator of all divine acts of the Son himself, even on his own human nature. Whatever the Son of God wrought in, by, or upon the human nature, he did it by the Holy Ghost, who is his Spirit” (Owen). . . . The Second Adam, Jesus Christ, possessed the Spirit in greater measure and was, as far as I am concerned, the greatest believer who ever lived.

For good measure, he adds a quotation from Bavinck (on the virgin birth, mind you, not on Christ’s human nature):

At this point it is important to note that this activity of the Holy Spirit with respect to Christ’s human nature absolutely does not stand by itself. Though it began with the conception, it did not stop there. It continued throughout his entire life, even right into the state of exaltation. Generally speaking, the necessity of this activity can be inferred already from the fact that the Holy Spirit is the author of all creaturely life and specifically of the religious-ethical life in humans. The true human who bears God’s image is inconceivable even for a moment without the indwelling of the Holy Spirit…. If humans in general cannot have communion with God except by the Holy Spirit, then this applies even more powerfully to Christ’s human nature.

Does this mean, as one Old Lifer asked me by email, that the work of the Holy Spirit in Christ’s life is comparable to mine and that we can think of Christ’s life of sanctity like the work of sanctification in the believer? Remember what the Confession says about sanctification:

2. This sanctification is throughout, in the whole man; yet imperfect in this life, there abiding still some remnants of corruption in every part; whence ariseth a continual and irreconcilable war, the flesh lusting against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh.

3. In which war, although the remaining corruption, for a time, may much prevail; yet, through the continual supply of strength from the sanctifying Spirit of Christ, the regenerate part doth overcome; and so, the saints grow in grace, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.

And is Jones aware that he may be straying into Roman Catholic territory in the way he construes the two Adams and their natures? That may seem like a stretch but if you follow Bavinck on Adam’s original righteousness as the Reformers conceived it, you may want to counsel Dr. Jones back from the ledge. First, Bavinck acknowledges that Adam’s righteousness was a free gift of God and “only possessed . . . by and in the Holy Spirit.” But Bavinck is aware of the danger of flattening:

Granted, between the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in man before sin and in the state of sin, there is a big difference. Now that indwelling, after all, is “above nature” (supra naturam) because the Holy Spirit has to come to humans as it were from without and is diametrically opposed to sinful nature. In the case of Adam that entire contrast did not exist; his nature was holy and did not, as in the case of believers, have to be made holy. . . (Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 2, 558)

It doesn’t take a Ph.D. in systematic theology to think that the same contrast between Adam and us applies to Christ and us, or that Christ’s righteousness was not above nature but natural to the righteousness of an unfallen human nature.

To construe this original righteousness, furthermore, as gracious in the sense of having to right what was defective, is also a mistake of important proportions for Bavinck. He explains the nature of the dispute between Rome and Protestants over Adam’s original nature:

The dispute concerned the question of whether that original righteousness was natural or, at least in part, supernatural. . . . they used this term [natural] to maintain the conviction that the image of God, that is, original righteousness, was inseparable from the idea of man as such and that it referred to the normal state, the harmony, the health of a human being; that without it a human cannot be true, complete, or normal. . . . [Man] is either a son of God, his offspring, his image, or he is a child of wrath, dead in sins and trespasses. When that human being again by faith receives that perfect righteousness in Christ, that benefit is indeed a supernatural gift, but it is supernature “as an accident,” “incidentally”; he regains that which belongs to his being. . . (551)

For good measure, Bavinck adds that if Adam’s original humanity was incapable of obeying God’s commands, you wind up having to do what Roman Catholicism does and add grace to Adam’s original constitution:

From these two ideas, the mystical view of man’s final destiny and the meritoriousness of good works, was born the Catholic doctrine of the “superadded gift” . . . . The heavenly blessedness and the vision of God, which is man’s final destiny — and was so for Adam — can be merited ex condigno only by such good works as are in accord with that final destiny. . . . The righteousness that Adam possessed as a human, earthly being by virtue of creation was not, of course, sufficient to that end. So for Adam to reach his final destiny he too needed to be giving a supernatural grace, that is, the gratia gratum faciens (“the grace that renders one engraced or pleasing to God”), the image of God. (539-40)

Of course, simply quoting Bavinck doesn’t make any of this so. But what is instructive about Bavinck is the danger he sees in talking about grace before the fall or Adam in his original righteousness needing something extra to obey God (or by implication discussing Christ’s holy life as analogous to a believer’s sanctification). Would that Dr. Jones in his historical surveys would be that cautious.

A W-w App?

Published on by D. G. Hart3 Comments

If this story is any indication, we may not have much longer to wait:

PURITANISM, wrote H.L. Mencken, is “the haunting fear that someone, somewhere may be happy.” Half a century later, the prissiest Americans are haunted by a different fear: that they may buy cheese made by someone whose opinions they do not share. To help people avoid this calamity, a new app called BuyPartisan reveals whether any given product is made by Republicans or Democrats.

Using an iPhone’s camera, it scans the barcode and reports back on the ideology (as measured by donations to political parties) of the directors and staff of the company in question. Obsessive partisans can then demonstrate their commitment to diversity by boycotting firms with which they disagree. “We vote every day with our wallets,” trills an advert.

Show Me the Currency!

Published on by D. G. Hart20 Comments

Why the Scots should listen to economists more than pastors when it comes to temporal affairs:

One of the strongest practical arguments against Scottish independence, made by Paul Krugman this weekend, is that an independent Scotland would actually wind up with less control over its economy than it does now – because it would have no more say in British monetary policy, but, so long as it kept the pound, would be as affected by that policy as it is now. And the “yes” advocates have been very clear that they intend to keep the pound.

I think he’s right. I’ve argued for some time that if anyone is interested in saving “Europe,” then “Europe” needs some kind of fiscal union – not by any means a powerful centralized state like France, but some kind of confederal or federal arrangement, with limited but real powers and direct accountability to voters. If Europe’s states don’t want to cede national sovereignty in that way, then they really do need to rethink the whole currency union thing – or just settle in to a quasi-colonial relationship with Germany and be done with it.

But if all of the foregoing is true, then why would Scotland seek an independent government but remain tied to a foreign currency? Why would “ditch Westminster, keep the pound” be a reassuring platform, rather than an ominous one?

The answer doesn’t just relate to what constitutes an optimal currency area or how integrated Scotland is with England, economically. It relates to transition costs. And it relates to what degree of confidence Scotland’s electorate has in their own, new political culture. Keeping the pound, at least initially, is much cheaper than ditching it. And the prospect of ditching it in the future would mean higher borrowing costs today. Why, after all, would you want to ditch a solid, respectable currency unless you planned to devalue? And if you wanted to tie the hands of a new government that might otherwise open the spigot a bit too wide, what better way than to force them to borrow in a foreign currency?

Precious few seceding states in recent years have adopted a truly independent monetary policy. Many have ditched their own newly-minted currencies entirely. Slovakia adopted the Euro before the Czech Republic has. Montenegro and Kosovo adopted it unilaterally. The Baltic states have rushed to adopt it as swiftly as possible. Croatia is hammering at the door to get in, notwithstanding all the nastiness of the past five years. Countries also continue to adopt the dollar as either their official currency (e.g. Ecuador, El Salvador) or as legal tender alongside a pegged local currency.

Indeed, not that many years ago, the question was whether Britain would ultimately join the Euro, not whether the Euro would ultimately collapse. If it had, then what I am calling one of the strongest practical arguments against Scottish independence would be entirely nugatory. If the UK had adopted the Euro, then leaving the UK would have exactly zero implications for Scotland’s control over its monetary policy. Even as, on one level, monetary union has made deeper European political integration more necessary, it has also made political separatism, from Catalonia to Flanders to Lombardy, vastly more plausible. But these ever-smaller political entities will perforce have even less control over the forces that largely determine their destiny than they once did as part of a national community with direct accountability to voters.

But such a calculation winds up making Scotland just as money-grubbing as London, no?

The Old Testament Solution to the NFL's Ray Rice Problem

Published on by D. G. Hart9 Comments

Don’t fire him. Keep him on the team and playing with the starters.

Let me explain.

I have yet to see anyone opine that this imbroglio reflects the ongoing problem of race relations in the U.S. but I am not sure why. When did professional sports’ servant leaders come down as hard on white players or managers who also beat their wives? Or when did the public outrage become as heated over white incidents of domestic violence as in this case of Ray Rice? I’ll leave the African-American pastors to figure this one out, but I could see them making a plausible case — except, a big exception, that it is hard to turn Ray Rice into a victim.

But he is (and so is his wife) in a way. Everyone well knows by now that the NFL reversed its decision on Rice once the video went public. Then and only then did the NFL and the Ravens need to save face (in a way that can’t be good for the Rice marriage). And despite the hypocrisy that all those with logs in their own eyes can see in the NFL’s timely dismissal of Rice, most of those same viewers will be right back in the stadiums and in front of their televisions this Thursday night and Sunday afternoon (unless they are Old School Presbyterians), looking past those logs. We Americans love our moral purity even as much as we adore a sport that is riddled with hypocrisy. And here’s the kicker — the hypocrisy of the NFL depends on the hypocrisy of football fans. I assume most fans will be glad for the harsh penalty against Rice, and now will feel the league has achieved enough moral balance to permit ongoing viewing, betting, and fantasy league managing. They may not know it, but unless they give up the game, the NFL’s fans are as much implicated in this face saving as the league’s commissioner, Roger Goodell.

The Old Testament way of handling this would not have been to seek relief by cutting losses or players. It would have been to treat Ray Rice like King David. After David’s affair with Bathsheba and the death of her husband, Uriah, what happened to David? Things went south in the family and he and the Israelites suffered for his infidelity. But he remained the dominant figure in the OT narrative, even to the extent that Matthew shows Christ’s genealogical ties to David. What is striking about Matthew’s birth narrative is that he also mentions Uriah. Like the Hebrew narratives, Matthew does not try to shield readers from knowing the worst about their biblical heroes. At the same time, those biblical heroes remain heroes despite their failings.

Americans cannot handle such truth. George Washington never lied. And then he owned slaves and there goes American greatness. Abraham Lincoln was a devout Christian. He has yet to come down from that pedestal (except in certain sectors of the South) even though Lincoln’s beliefs were pretty squishy. The NFL is a great league with a great product. But heaven forbid that the league employs a wife beater as one of its stars.

The best punishment for Rice’s crimes would have been to have him still part of the team and part of the weekend television package. That way the NFL would have had to suffer, along with Rice. And fans would have had to experience the strange mixture of revulsion and delight, offended by Rice’s behavior off the field and ecstatic over his football success. Oh, wretched people that we are.