Abraham Lincoln was the most eloquent president American has ever had. He may also be the most eloquent American ever. Others, like Patrick Henry, Daniel Webster, Edward Everett, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., and Ronald Reagan, undoubtedly were gifted and powerful speakers, yet none of these men have produced a body of work—both written and spoken—that has so profoundly affected the consciousness of our nation. Lincoln’s words remain not because they came from the voice of one silenced through assassination. Other presidents have been assassinated and we can’t remember a word they said. When’s the last time you quoted James Garfield or William McKinley? Nor do we remember Lincoln’s words because he shepherded our country through the most perilous time in our nation’s history. Other presidents have also guided us through turbulent times. But few remember anything George Washington said or wrote during the American Revolution, or a speech from Woodrow Wilson during World War I, or very many things Franklin D. Roosevelt said during World War II.
No, it is Lincoln’s words that remain. He had what William Jennings Bryan (another notable speaker) described as true eloquence: the ability to set thoughts on fire. For those who love words and know the power of words then Lincoln is your man—study him. And there are very few resources better to the study of how Lincoln used words than Ronald C. White Jr.’s The Eloquent President: A Portrait of Lincoln Through His Words.
White has made a career out of writing about Lincoln and his use of rhetoric. In The Eloquent President, White paints a pen portrait of Lincoln’s creative genius by analyzing eleven of Lincoln’s greatest speeches and papers. Helping the reader understand the historical context and how it shaped Lincoln’s thinking as he prepared these addresses, coupled with a careful and thoughtful treatment of the various rhetorical elements in each address, White paints a portrait of Lincoln greater and more humble than we might have ever imagined.
What becomes apparent in White’s analysis of Lincoln’s words is Lincoln was a master of simplicity. Not necessarily using short sentences, but short words. Lincoln primarily employed one syllable words, adhering to the dictum that short words are the best words. Rarely did Lincoln deviate from that practice, maintaining, what White called, a strict custom of using the “Anglo Saxon” and not the Latin or Greek forms of words, which tend to be longer. Beyond this, however, Lincoln’s two greatest rhetorical devises were parallelism and alliteration. Lincoln simply had an ear for words, reading his text out loud to hear the sound in each word and how those individual sounds mixed together to create the music that was his distinctive voice. But more than the mechanics of selecting the right words to work together, White reminds us that “In the end, Lincoln’s eloquence . . . is rooted in one compelling reality. People came to trust Lincoln’s judgment because, in Aristotle’s words, ‘Persuasion is achieved by means of moral character, when the speech shall have been spoken in such a way as to render the speaker worthy of confidence.’” In other words, Honest Abe was indeed honest—we could trust him.
After reading White’s book it is easy to understand why Lincoln remains our greatest president, perhaps only surpassed by Washington. He certainly is our most eloquent. As was said of Winston Churchill (perhaps Great Britain’s most eloquent leader), so could be said of Lincoln: “He mobilized the English language and sent into battle.” Wouldn’t be great if we could have a president today so eloquent as Lincoln? Perhaps we could if we had one we could trust as much as we trust Lincoln.
We live during trying times, amidst economic difficulties, political drift, international dangers, moral deviancy, and natural disasters. The recent earthquake in Haiti has raised questions that haven’t been thought about or discussed since the Christmas tsunami in 2004 and the terrorist attacks on 9/11 in 2001. Questions like: “Does God what us to suffer?” and, “Doesn’t God want us to be happy?”
The answer to the first question is yes. The answer to the second question is yes and no, depending on what you mean by happiness. The biblical idea is God wants us to suffer so that we might be happy. Does that surprise you? Let me put it another way, the purpose of suffering is happiness—the painful process of making us good. So we could say, God brings suffering into our lives to produce happiness, and happiness is goodness.
The reason we find this truth so hard to choke down is because have turned happiness into sugar and spice, and everything nice. We simply misunderstand what happiness is. We think about happiness subjectively, as a feeling. If you feel happy then you are happy. Our word “happiness” comes from the Old English word “hap”—meaning chance or luck: it “happens.” For us, happiness depends on what happens to us from the outside material world, from circumstances, and not within our own souls. Happiness, then, comes and goes—its uncontrollable and transient.
The ancient notion of happiness comes from the Greek word, eudaimonia, literally meaning good spirit or good soul. “To be happy is to be good,” Peter Kreeft wrote. “By this definition, Job on his dung heap is happy. Socrates unjustly condemned to die is happy. Hitler exulting over the conquest of France is not happy. Happiness is not a warm puppy. Happiness is goodness.” This view of happiness isn’t concerned with what is happening to us on the outside; its only concern is with what God is doing on the inside. Our modern idea of happiness is too shallow to keep us rooted when the strong winds of suffering blow. But the ancient idea of happiness is deep and rich, and will keep us firmly planted and growing.
This is why the purpose of suffering is happiness, to make us good—to make us, in the Christian sense, like Christ. We are rebels at heart, preferring our own way rather than God’s way. Because God loves us too much to allow us to continue in a rebellion that will ultimately lead to death, He must get our attention and turn us back to Himself. He often does this through suffering. In The Problem of Pain, C. S. Lewis wrote, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” Or, as Lewis later wrote, “[Pain] plants the flag of truth within the fortress of a rebel soul.”
Once God has our attention, what is He trying to accomplish? He’s trying to mold us into the character of His Son, Jesus. The writer to the Hebrews put it like this: “He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness . . . [and] yield the peaceful fruit of righteousness” (Hebrews 12:10–11). And Paul wrote, within a context of suffering, that “God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28). What is God’s purpose in bringing together all things, including our suffering, for good? That we might “become conformed to the image of His Son” (8:29). And becoming conformed into the image of Christ, though not always a pleasant experience, will, in the end, make us good—it will make us happy.
“Behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord God,
“When I will send a famine on the land,
Not a famine for bread or a thirst for water,
But rather for hearing the words of the Lord.
And people will stagger from sea to sea,
And from north even to the east;
They will go to and fro to seek the word of the Lord,
But they will not find it” (Amos 8:11–12).
In a lawless land, at a lawless time where everyone did what was right in their own eyes, a man came, carrying on his back the last Bible on the face of the earth. Years before, all Bibles had been burned because the people who had survived the war and the subsequent world-wide ecological fallout believed the Book was the cause of human hatred and warfare. How wrong they were. Without the truth of God’s Word the survivors became no better than animals—feasting (figuratively and literarily) on their fellow man in an evolutionary-like struggle: simple survival of the fittest. The keeper of the Book, Eli his name, is on a quest to the west, to a place where the Bible can be protected and its truths disseminated to a starving humanity.
This is the basic premise of The Book of Eli, the post-apocalyptic movie starring and produced by Denzel Washington. Many reviews have called this a Christian movie—the most Christian film to come out of Hollywood since Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ. Don’t be fooled however, if you see the movie, it is not a Christian movie; not because it is filled with violence (which it is) or with offensive language (which it is), but because there is no expression of faith in the death and resurrection of Christ. Though the image of the cross appears briefly, its significance is never explained. But this doesn’t diminish the message of the movie. While Eli’s faith is not specifically Christian, it is biblical. And coming from the generally faithless factories of Hollywood there is much to admire in that.
Eli is a believer in the Book, reading it at night and protecting it during the day, from evil men like Carnegie, played by Gary Oldman, who would use the Bible for his own evil ends. As we journey with Eli throughout the film, those who have some knowledge of the Bible will recognize key biblical allusions. Eli is from the east and traveling to a land in the west under the direction of a voice that came from within him, to a place he doesn’t know but will know when he arrives. This is the story of Abraham leaving the land of Ur in response to God’s call. “Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go forth from your country, / And from your relatives / And from your father’s house, / To a land which I will show you’” (Genesis 12:1). Along the way, Eli’s Abraham-like travels quickly reveal that he is also on an Exodus or Moses-like journey. Eli has been walking for thirty-one years in a wilderness wasteland, hoping to make it to the promised land (see Numbers 14:32–34).
Other allusions, perhaps not as well known, are also visible in the movie. Though the movie never says, I suspect that Eli is short for Elijah. Like that prophet of old, this Eli metes out justice and believes that he alone is the possessor of God’s Word (see 1 Kings 18:20–40; 19:10, 14). At the end of the film, Eli’s protégé, Solara (Sun), takes on Eli’s responsibilities as Elisha did after Elijah was taken up into heaven (see 2 Kings 2:9–14). When asked how he came to be the keeper of the Book, Eli explained that a voice—the one that came from within—directed him to a pile of rubble, where he discovered the Bible buried, to keep it from falling into the hands of the the Bible-burners. This is an allusion of the Old Testament priest, Hilkiah who uncovered the Torah (the Law of God), which had been hidden away years before to preserve it from wicked king Manasseh’s perversion of Jewish worship (2 Kings 22:8–13; 2 Chronicles 34:14–21).
The Bible is the central theme in the movie, and while it isn’t held up as the inspired Word of God, the respect it receives from both Eli and Carnegie (though for different reasons) is a refreshing breeze being blown from Hollywood. The movie makes clear the importance of the Bible as a builder of civilized societies—and the tragic personal and societal repercussions if its truths were lost. Of course it is more than just the book itself that is respected in the film. Any book that sits on a shelf and is never read, studied, understood, and applied is useless. The same is true of the Bible in a person’s life. Eli reads, studies, and memorizes the Bible, and struggles to live the truths he’s discovered there. This message is an important one for Christians, many of whom have become so familiar with the Scriptures that it has lost all allure intellectually and spiritually. But this is a radical message for non-Christians, who see little to no value in spending time in the pages of the Bible, which begs the question: “What would be lost if the Bible were lost?” The Book of Eli paints a grim picture in answer to that question.
Not only does The Book of Eli honor the Scriptures, the movie also honors faith. During one scene when Eli and Solara are walking, he tells her that “we walk by faith, not by sight.” This simple idea, from the pen of Paul to the Corinthian church (2 Corinthians 5:7) is weighed down with profound meaning, both for the movie and for life. In a world devoid of faith—the world in which Eli and Solara must navigate—Eli’s unshakable faith in the truths of the Bible and in his calling offer the audience a glimpse that biblical faith is not something to fear or scorn. Biblical faith becomes, for Eli (and possibly for Solara), a cornerstone upon which one can build a truly meaningful life—even in a wilderness where everyone is doing what is right in their own eyes. And Eli’s last words, a confession every faithful person would wish to utter, proves that thirty-one years spent alone in a wasteland with nothing but his Bible (and an iPod) in answer to a call believed in faith can be a significant life indeed: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith” (2 Timothy 4:7).
Though it is too much to ask for a Hollywood movie to begin a revival of Bible reading and memorization, perhaps The Book of Eli will at least persuade some to peruse through that old and ever relevant book and discover what so many of us already know, that the Bible is “profitable” for life and society (see 2 Timothy 3:16). And if that were to happen then maybe the famine could be forestalled a little while longer.
Martin Luther King Jr. had a marvelously rich voice. As was, and is, the tradition and style for black preachers, King “pulled” his sermons—drawing out the vowels to underscore important words, then increasing the cadence on subsequent words: “Mine eeeeeyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.” Such wonderfully lyrical preaching elicited emotion from the congregation, and though some might think it emotionalism it’s intent was never to manipulate the audience. It was a style of preaching that emotionally harkened back to the hard toil and heaven burden of slavery. For King, it wasn’t pretense, as something to put on; even in private conversation King retained that sermonic lilt in his voice, drawing you into his commanding presence and demanding that you listen.
As a preacher, King was easy on the ears, but not on the conscious. He spoke with the voice of a prophet, and very few people can stand a prophet in their midst. Prophets have a way of upsetting long established apple carts.
Of course, most of us remember King for his famous “I Have a Dream Speech”—and it’s right that we do so, if for no other reason than for this one magnificent work of rhetoric. But there are many more reasons why we should remember him. During the turbulent times that were the Sixties, King was the the leading voice for African Americans; their most articulate leader since Fredrick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, or W. E. B. Dubious. As a public speaker, King was persuasive and eloquent; not so much delivering his speeches as “preaching” his speeches. What many don’t know, however, was that King was just as persuasive and eloquent with his pen as he was with his voice.
As a civil rights advocate, King was deeply moved and impressed with Mahatma Gandhi’s dedication to non-violent resistance to British rule in India. Adopting the same strategy as Gandhi, King began marches and boycotts to draw attention to the inequality of America’s laws as they applied to blacks. His activities often landed him in jail—arrested thirty times. One of these times would produce an essay on social justice and a carefully articulated argument as to when and how citizens of the United States could rebel against those in charge of the government.
On April 16, 1963, after King was arrested for “parading without a permit” in the city of Birmingham, Alabama, he answered an open letter written by eight local clergymen that they had published that January. These clergymen pressed upon King to allow the issue of segregation and integration to processed through the courts without marches or boycotts from his Southern Christian Leadership Conference. They branded King as an “outsider,” charging that a march in their city would be “untimely” and potential destructive. King’s response, “Letter from Birmingham City Jail,” masterfully laid waste their claim. logic of natural law and the rights of man to rebel against those laws which violate the law of God.
After deftly setting aside the charge of interloper and bringing these clergymen to task for decrying the demonstrations taking place within the city, while remaining silent concerning the injustices that brought about the demonstrations, King overwhelmed them with a 310-word description as to why their insistence for patience was so repugnant to the black community.
But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brother at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick, brutalize and even kill your black brothers and sister with impunity; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can’t go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her little eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see the depressing clouds of inferiority begin to form in her little mental sky, and see her begin to distort her little personality by unconsciously developing a bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son asking in agonizing pathos: “Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?”; when you take a cross-country drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading “white” and “colored”; when your first name becomes “nigger” and your middle name becomes “boy” (however old you are) and your last name becomes “John,” and when your wife and mother are never given the respected title “Mrs.”; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance never quite knowing what to expect next, and plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of “nobodiness”; then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait.
In the most famous section of the letter, in answer to his critic’s concerns about breaking the law, King established the framework of civil disobedience by laying down the logic of the laws of nature and the rights of man to rebel against those laws which violate the law of God.
You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court’s decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, it is rather strange and paradoxical to find us consciously breaking laws. One may well ask, “How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?” The answer is found in the fact that there are two types of laws: there are just and there are unjust laws. I would agree with Saint Augustine that “An unjust law is no law at all.”
Now what is the difference between the two? How does one determine when a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of Saint Thomas Aquinas, an unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality. . . .
Let us turn to a more concrete example of just and unjust laws. An unjust law is a code that a majority inflicts on a minority that is not binding on itself. This is difference made legal. On the other hand a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow that it is willing to follow itself. This is sameness made legal. . . .
In no sense do I advocate evading or defying the law as the rabid segregationist would do. This would lead to anarchy. One who breaks an unjust law must do it openly, lovingly . . ., and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tell him is unjust, and willingly accepts the penalty by staying in jail to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the very highest respect for law.
Segregation, King argued was unjust because it stripped an individual’s soul of humanity. And while many more powerful things are found in King’s letter—especially concerning the modern church’s passivity in the face of evil and injustice—it is his arguments on civil disobedience that continue to echo down the decades.
Carved into the granite fountain of the Civil Right Memorial, in Montgomery, Alabama, are these words: “until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a might stream.” This line from “I Have a Dream” (and taken from Amos 5:24) captures King’s fight for all Americans, for what he tried to live in his own life: “to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with [his] God” (Micah 6:8). For King, and many others like him, this meant walking against the prevailing and powerful winds of prejudice. To have done otherwise would have stripped his soul of humanity and would have spit on the justice of law.
In 1774, the great Irish statesman, Edmund Burke said, the “passion for fame [is] a passion which is the instinct of all great souls.” This very well may be true, but it is clearly the instinct of all small souls, especially these days. We live during curious times, when the passion for fame has become all consuming. I wonder if there has ever been a more self-absorbed and narcissistic time in history. Perhaps when the whole earth gathered in Shinar and decided to build a tower in order to make a name for themselves (see Genesis 11:1–4).
Andy Warhorl may have made famous the quip about everyone having their fifteen minutes of fame, but he didn’t foresee the technology of MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, nor the onslaught of “reality” television programs, which potentially gives virtually everyone more than fifteen minutes of fame. For example, I opened a Facebook account at the beginning of this year and within a couple of weeks I could boast of more than 150 “friends.” This certainly doesn’t make me famous—I don’t even have enough “friends” to warrant a “fan” page—but it could make me narcissistic, especially if I compare my number of “friends” with someone who has fewer “friends.” Of course, there is always someone else who’ll have more “friends” than I do, but narcissism doesn’t care about that, it might only spur me on to finding and friending more people—whether I know them or not. Isn’t it curious, just as a side note, that we’ve reduced the richness and tenderness of the word “friend,” which once stood for an intimate relationship between two people, to one of course acquaintance, to say nothing about turning a noun and into a verb: “I’m going to friend you on Facebook.” I was joking with my true friend, Randy Peck, who lives in Alaska, and with whom I’ve known for almost forty years, that we could start a real friendship now because Facebook says we’re friends.
But back to my point. A few years after Edmund Burke’s comment on fame, Alexander Hamilton wrote, “the love of fame, the ruling passion of the noblest minds . . . would prompt a man to plan and undertake extensive and arduous enterprises.” And today, apparently stupid enterprises as well. Back in Burke’s and Hamilton’s day, and even up until a number of years ago, fame only came to those who actually had accomplished something. In times past there was an unmistakable link between fame and achievement, if not actual greatness. It used to be that a famous person’s well of skill or talent was deep enough that any drawn bucket was full of recognizable substance. Today, you just have to have the talent for being a jackass—for making a fool of yourself. That, coupled with a good publicist or enough hits on YouTube, will propel you into the low lights of reality stardom. These days we are dipping our bucket into the shallow and muddy waters of a pothole. Don’t believe me? Just watch one of the many mind-numbing “reality” shows on television like The Bachelor with the parade of blonde nitwits who are sure they are in love with a man they just met. Or, how about one of the many The Real Housewives Of . . . (New York, New Jersey, Atlanta, Orange County) offerings. Could anything be more idiotic then following the lives of rich, whining, narcissistic women? Perhaps watching almost anything on MTV. But if this doesn’t convince you that we are living in a time of faux-fame pay attention to the news. For example, a father and mother foist a hoax on local and state law enforcement by pretending their son was floating across the Colorado sky in a homemade balloon, which landed them on CNN’s Larry King Live. Or this from another couple: crash a White House State Dinner in hopes of generating enough publicity to win the staring role in another fake reality show—Housewives of Washington D. C.
None of these fake-fame factories requires talent, character, nobility, sacrifice, or courage; they merely require hutzpah and an unhealthy dose of self-importance. These poor souls who’ve sold their integrity for fame are content with a Paris Hilton type of fame—the distinction of being famous for being famous. But what they haven’t learned is the truth that a life of accomplishments without fame can be a good life, yet fame without accomplishments is no life at all—it is the shadow of substance, ephemeral and meaningless.
Those looking for easy fame, whether through “reality” television, YouTube, or even Facebook, have also failed to consider that fame is fickle and fleeting. The famous always fade from memory. At one time Henry Ward Beecher was consider the most famous man in America. And though an award winning biography about him has been published within the past couple years, few could tell me anything about this once famous man without first having to Google him or turn to Wikipedia. H. L. Mencken, who was also a once famous man, wrote, “When I hear a man applauded by the mob I always feel a pang of pity for him. All he has to do to be hissed is to live long enough. . . . The mob is faithful only in its infidelity. It always stones those it has worshiped.” Just ask Tiger Woods.
Wise ol’ Solomon, a still somewhat famous man, prudently said, “There is no remembrance of earlier things; / And also of the later things which will occur, / There will be for them no remembrance / Among those who will come later still” (Ecclesiastes 1:11). Later he repeated this theme and applied it to people: “For there is no lasting remembrance of the wise man as with the fool, inasmuch as in the coming days all will be forgotten. And how the wise man and the fool alike die!” (2:16). All of us, the famous and the anonymous, will die . . . and will be forgotten. Can you name your great-great-great-great-great-grandparents? Few can. We forget. And if this essay were, by some miracle, to be discovered and read 50, 75, or 100 years hence few, if any, would know who Paris Hilton or Tiger Woods was, just as most of us today can’t say anything intelligent about Henry Ward Beecher or H. L. Mencken.
Does all this seem too fatalistic and depressing? If so, let’s listen to one more piece of advice from ancient Solomon: “The conclusion, when all has been heard, is: fear God and keep his commandments, because this applies to every person. For God will bring every act to judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil” (12:13–14).
The flower of fame is sure to fad—no matter how many “friends” you have—because people forget. But God doesn’t. And He will either applaud or boo based on whether we remember Him.
Oh, and by the way, Beecher was a preacher, social reformer, and abolitionist during the American Civil War. And Mencken was a reporter who coined the famous phrase, “The Scopes Monkey-Trial.” Just in case anyone asks.
The air is blowing hot these days around New York and Washington, D.C. Not the outside air mind you—that’s rather chilly this time of year. I’m talking about the hot air emanating from the pompous, pseudo-intellectuals who make their livings wind-bagging about things they little understand and little care to learn. I’m talking about the professional critic and cynic—the babbling brainless rabble who nightly demonstrate their stupidity on the airwaves. I’m talking about the talking heads, not the ones who from a coherent opinion and give it with civility and tact, but the ones who know little of civility, tact, or coherence. I’m talking about the Keith Olbermanns of American opinion-making.
Perhaps you heard about, or saw Brit Hume, Sr. Political Analysts for Fox News, commit the unpardonable sin of saying that Jesus Christ was the unique means of forgiveness and redemption for human sin. On January 3, 2010, Hume appeared on Chris Wallace’s Fox News Sunday and the topic turned to Tiger Woods and the current scandal swirling around the revelations of his many dalliances. Hume said, “The extent to which he [Tiger Woods] can recover, it seems to me, depends on his faith. He is said to be a Buddhist. I don’t think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith. So, my message to Tiger would be, ‘Tiger, turn to the Christian faith and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world.’”
This comment generated some blowback and awarded him an invitation to appear on the O’Reilly Factor, with Bill O’Reilly, the following evening. There, Hume explained and expanded on his comment the day before:
My sense about Tiger is that he needs something that Christianity, especially provides and gives and offers, and that is redemption and forgiveness. I was really meaning to say in those comments yesterday more about Christianity than I was about anything else. I mentioned Buddhism only because his mother is a Buddhist and he has apparently said that he is a Buddhist; I’m not sure how serious he practices that. But I think that Jesus Christ offers Tiger Woods something that Tiger Woods badly needs. . . .
If Tiger Woods were to make a true conversion we would know it; it would show through his being and he would know it above all. And he would feel the extraordinary blessing that that would be, and he would shine because he is so prominent. It would be a shining light and would be a magnificent thing to witness.
Now I confess, I just about wet my pants when I heard him say this! But I also knew that others would wet their pants waiting for a chance to criticize him for his “bizarre on-air attempt to threaten Tiger Woods into converting to Christianity,” in the words of Keith Olbermann. These remarks were merely prelude to an interview Olbermann had with the President of the Interfaith Alliance, Welton Gaddy, who had also written an Op-Ed in the “On Faith” section of the Washington Post. In that piece, Gaddy concluded that “Mr. Hume’s comments were not that of a news reporter so much as that of a televangelist.”
I should say, before I exam Mr. Gaddy’s criticism of Brit Hume, that Mr. Hume doesn’t need my defense; he’s a big boy, who knew what he was saying and knew the consequences of his opinion. Frankly, Brit Hume isn’t even the issue, he just happened to be the mouthpiece announcing the issue. What is at stake in this little controversy is whether Christianity can be presented positively in the public square. As Peter Wehner argued convincingly in the National Review Online, Christopher Hitchens, when he was touting his atheistic screed, god is Not Great, damned Christianity with nary-a-peep of criticism from the like of Keith Olbermann or Welton Gaddy. Yet, Brit Hume’s placid comments about Buddhism in comparison to Christianity have damned him.
Gaddy, according to his Op-Ed, which he basically reiterated on Keith Olbermann’s show, has two problems with what Hume said. First, Hume’s statement was made on “a news program [which] should deal with news, not evangelism, whatever religion is involved.” He cites the use of the “Fox News” logo on the O’Reilly Factor as proof that that program is a “news program.” After reading this I was left with the question of whether I was to take this seriously. Does Mr. Gaddy really mean to assert that Hume should have remained mum because the use of the Fox News insignia “proves” that the O’Reilly Factor is a “news” show and not an opinion show? This is too silly and simplistic by half. One might give Gaddy a pass if his criticism on this score were childlike, but this is simply childish. Anyone who has ever watched the O’Reilly Factor knows that it is an opinion show, and while news may be “reported” it is only as context for commentary. Brit Hume appeared on Bill O’Reilly’s show, not as a “news anchor,” as Gaddy would classify him, but as a man with an opinion about Tiger Woods’ situation.
The supposed abuse of “news” is not the real issue, however. Gaddy, both in his opinion piece and interview with Olbermann, articulated the real rub he has with Hume’s comments. In the interview, in which Olbermann called Hume “holier than thou,” Gaddy said:
I would defend Mr. Hume’s right to confess his faith however he wants to, but all of us know that with rights and freedom come responsibility. And he’s talking on a national news program, he’s giving his opinion as he has the right to do, but anybody who is pro-American, who loves liberty and this nation wants to support the unity of religions and not contribute to their divisiveness. And his statement—though he backed up on it a little bit last night—his statement was still a judgment about another religion; a judgment he really doesn’t have the authority to make.”
Apparently Mr. Gaddy is confused. On the one hand Hume shouldn’t give his opinion on a “news program,” but on the other hand Hume has every “right to confess his faith however he wants to” and presumably wherever he wants to—and Gaddy would even defend Hume’s First Amendment right to do so. And yet, some how in expressing his opinion, Hume is somehow not supportive of “the unity of religions” but is in fact contributing “to their divisiveness,” though he “really doesn’t have the authority” to make such judgments. And to cap it all off, Brit Hume, who shouldn’t have expressed his opinion on a “new program” though he has a right to, even though he’s not qualified to give his opinion, which was really divisive, is un-American. Oh, . . . I see . . . the logic now . . . I think. . . .
But Gaddy’s illogic is richer still. He wrote:
The implication of Mr. Hume’s suggestion to Mr. Woods is utilitarian—you will get a better deal related to forgiveness in Christianity than you can get in Buddhism. Christianity is not a means to an end; it is a holistic faith to be embraced and lived. Seeking the easiest form of forgiveness—though such a description of forgiveness in Christianity is woefully inadequate and misleading—is not a reason to become a Christian. The life of a Christian involves far more than a response to wrongdoing.
Gaddy would have us believe that “all religions are basically the same, . . . / They all believe in love and goodness. / They only differ on matters of / creation sin heaven hell God and salvation.” You know, the minor issues. . . . I’m being facetious here, but Mr. Gaddy, who claims to be a Christian minister for the past 50 years, seriously misunderstands the nature of Christianity. Would Tiger Woods get a “better deal” in Christianity than he would in Buddhism? You bet! Hume’s judgment about Buddhism’s lack of forgiveness and redemption was correct—it doesn’t exist. Buddhism teaches that individuals must work off karma—bad energy—that we carry over from previous lives before we can reaching enlightenment. There is no room for love and grace in Buddhism; and if there is no room for love and grace then there can be no room for forgiveness and redemption, for these cannot be had without love and grace. Christianity, on the other hand, is defined by love and grace—that a holy God would sacrifice His only Son to satisfy His holy judgment upon human sin so that we might be forgiven, redeemed, and reconciled to God is the supreme act of gracious love. What other religion is based on the death and resurrection of a Savior who willingly, lovingly, graciously sacrificed Himself, not for His sins but for the sins of others? None! In this regard, Gaddy is strikingly confused because Christianity is a means to an end—the salvation of the human soul. While Christianity may be a “faith to be embraced and lived” it can only be embraced and lived through faith in Jesus Christ, which is what Hume articulated. Gaddy should know this if he’s been a Christian minister for 50 years.
But it’s worse than this. Gaddy says, “Seeking the easiest form of forgiveness—though such a description of forgiveness in Christianity is woefully inadequate and misleading—is not a reason to become a Christian.” If it isn’t, then I wish he would tell us what is. Would he have Tiger Woods and the rest of us perform or work for forgiveness? That isn’t Christianity! When it comes to forgiveness leading to salvation, which was Hume’s point, “easy” depends on which side of the ledger you’re reading. It’s easy for us to accept God’s forgiveness through Christ, but it was a forgiveness harshly bought in the death of Jesus.
Finally, Gaddy reminds us that the Christian life “involves far more than a response to wrongdoing.” He is correct, Christianity must be more than a response to wrongdoing, but can’t be less than a response to wrongdoing. The first response in the Christian faith is alway to wrongdoing . . . my wrongdoing, my sin. Without that I can never live the life of a Christian, at least not the kind of Christian that follows the biblical Christ, because that kind of Christian believes that forgiveness and redemption is found in none other than Jesus Christ . . . just as Brit Hume said.
Another year has gone and a new one has dawned. And sometime between the New Years parades and the football bowl games men and women across the country will make a list of resolutions they hope will guide their life through 2010. Most of the resolutions will be standard fare: lose weight, get out of debt, find a job they really love, watch TV less and read more, and generally try to be a better person. Each resolution will be made with a solemn commit by each person on January 1 . . . and most will be resolutely broken on January 2.
For some, the thought of making resolutions they know they can’t keep leads them to the only resolution worth keeping—make no resolutions. For me, I’m going to take a different tact this year. Instead of making my own resolutions, I’m going to try and fulfill some resolutions written others.
For example, Moses’s resolutions from Exodus 20:3–17:
- Make God the only god in your life.
- Worship God only—He sees and hears; idols are deaf and dumb.
- Treat God’s name as holy, it represents His holy character.
- Take a break from work one day a week and worship God.
- Respect your mom and dad, your life will be richer for it.
- Root out all hatred from your heart, it’s too heavy a burden to carry.
- Remain faithful, in body and mind, to the one God has given to you.
- Return things that aren’t yours, or make restitution for things taken and used.
- Tell the truth—always: at all times, in all places, and in all circumstances.
- Be content with your life—with your spouse and with your house.
Here’s a list from someone who knew a thing or two about wise living, even if he didn’t always put it into practice—Solomon (Proverbs 6:16–19).
- Be humble.
- Be honest.
- Stay calm.
- Promote good.
- Remain pure.
- Report truth.
- Spread joy.
Micah’s list of resolutions is short, but not simple to live out (Micah 6:8).
- Do justice—don’t play favorites or develop enemy lists.
- Love kindness—don’t be mean-spirited or ugly.
- Walk humble before God—don’t strut your stuff, it isn’t that great anyway.
The Apostle Paul has many lists of resolutions—all good and practical—but this short list from Philippians 4:4–8 is challenging enough.
- Learn to rejoice in everything and at all times, any fool can complain and most do.
- Treat everyone with gentleness, the world is rough enough as it is.
- Replace worry with prayer, you’ll find peace emotionally and mentally.
- Keep these things in the forefront of your mind: truth, honor, righteousness, purity, beauty, reputation, excellence, and praiseworthiness.
Finally, Peter offers worthy resolutions in 2 Peter 1:5–8:
- Be diligent.
- Keep the faith.
- Demonstrate moral excellence.
- Keep learning.
- Get control of your impulses.
- Stay at it—never give up, never give in.
- Live godly.
- Treat others as brothers, kind heartedly.
- Love as Christ loved—unconditionally and sacrificially.
If you’d like to make 2010 a truly life changing year then you might consider taking one of these lists and resolving to live by it. Who knows, others might notice something more remarkable about you than simply your flat abs. They might find a person who’s been changed from the inside out.
