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- Written by: Rex M. Rogers
Following the now infamous Harvey Weinstein, we’re hearing calls for Hollywood organizations, including the Academy, to set up policies and protocols “to make sure this doesn’t happen again.” This is an admirable goal, if a day late and a dollar short. But I have a question, how exactly do you do this in an industry based upon moral relativism?
If an industry spends millions saying, “anything goes,” and then it does, on what grounds does it now condemn virtually any behaviors? And why do we believe policies generated in H.R., or therapy for that matter, will make the problem go away?
And lest we single out Hollywood and miss the greater problem, men in Sports, Military, Politics—on both sides of the partisan aisle—Business, Media, and even Religion have done and likely are still doing what Weinstein did.
In 2005, Access Hollywood caught then businessman-turned-TV-star Donald Trump on video tape, which later surfaced during the 2016 presidential campaign. On tape, Trump said, "I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.” He went on in this tape to make significantly more lewd remarks. He was referencing kissing and groping, along with conquest attempts, women without their consent. All this he later dismissed as just "locker room talk,” but the talk show host in the same video, Billy Bush, lost his job.
The Catholic Church was engulfed in the early 2000s (though other scandals occurred earlier) with a sexual abuse scandal that eventually reached worldwide proportions. Dozens of men accused priests of exploiting them when they were children in the church. Millions were spent in closed settlements and periodically similar sex abuse scandals continue to plague the Catholic Church.
In 2011-2012, the Jerry Sandusky sexual abuse scandal broke, badly tarnishing the reputation of Penn State University and legendary football coach Joe Paterno, who died at age 85 in January 2012, some said of a broken heart. Sandusky is now in prison, but the hurt among scores of young men and their families continues.
American professional sports, especially the NFL, has its own boatload of now seemingly regular sex harassment or assault or related domestic violence issues. Among the highest profile recently is Dallas Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliott. And even the U.S. military is plagued by sexual harassment and assault scandals, including at the highest ranks featuring “the swinging general” and “flirtatious” texts involving both married and non-married troops.
Since at least Francis A Schaeffer and others in the 1960s, some philosophers, theologians, or Christian pundits, including women, have warned us about moral relativism, the idea there is no right or wrong. This view sounded good to a culture that wished to throw off all restraints, especially sexual. But here we are in 2017 and we’re being overwhelmed by polarization, hyper-partisanship, crudeness, fake news, lack of integrity and character in “leadership,” declining free speech, racism, sexual harassment or assault...
None of what’s threatening us is a surprise. We’ve known all along that if we throw off moral categories what we have left is “everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (Judges 17:6).
The solution is not TV psychologists. It’s not more stringent H.R. policies, though these may be needed. The solution is certainly not Democrat or Republican.
The solution is nothing short of a revival of public cultural consensus re the idea of objective truth—the idea right and wrong—truth—existing outside ourselves and that we all are held individually responsible and accountable. This comes first and foremost from the Bible, the Word of God, and secondly from the Church teaching moral principles, speaking the truth with love, but by all means speaking the truth without compromise.
The Word of God long ago specified how men and women should relate morally, socially, physically, and in terms of mutual respect. We don’t need new standards. We need a revival of commitment to old, eternal standards.
Without this renewal of belief in truth, meaning there is identifiable right and wrong, the centrifugal forces in our culture will continue to spin toward irrationality.
Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2017
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Somehow, we’ve come to a point in our culture where historical figures must be fully aligned with our ideology or they are not worthy of consideration, much less honor. If such people are, from the point of view of current trends, no longer considered worthy, or they failed in some aspect of life, then no matter what their achievement, they must be rejected, condemned, or simply ignored.
The problem with this all-or-none, you’ve-got-to-love-me-AND-love-my-dog approach is that virtually no one qualifies. So, no achievement, irrespective of its value to humankind, can be lauded because, well, the achievers were flawed, meaning most often that they didn’t agree with me or I don’t agree with everything they said or did.
But let’s do a reality check. No human leader or scholar or philosopher or hero or inventor or change agent or world class athlete or beauty queen or artist or politician, preacher, or professor, much less celebrity, has it all together and is without flaw. None.
The Scripture puts it this way: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one” (Rom. 3:10-12). Yet God loves us all: “But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). God understands the tug-of-war of good and evil in every human heart.
In the current cultural zeitgeist, it seems no historical figure, despite considerable laudable achievement, like Columbus or Martin Luther, the until recently properly appreciated Founding Fathers, the revered Washington or Lincoln or TR, or latter day MLK Jr, not even the earlier day Moses, David, or chief of sinners the Apostle Paul, is truly worthy of recognition if they are perceived as imperfect per our ideology, e.g., they owned slaves, they were a womanizer, they were rich…
I am not, of course, defending wrong-doing or misjudgments or outright sin. I am simply saying no person is perfect, no one fully and completely aligns with all other people’s ideological perspectives, which by definition are many, distinct, and perhaps contradictory.
Certainly, I am not perfect, nor is the person who lives for a time in the White House or sits on the throne of the United Kingdom. In fact, the only human being who lived a perfect life is God-Incarnate Jesus Christ.
So pulling down statues might be appropriate or it might not—either way, the decision should be made by duly elected representatives, not mobs—but this, along with sanitizing history books or museums of the presence of certain people, don’t accomplish much, unless indeed a serious review has taken place that can demonstrate the figure’s bad outweighs the good. I’m not closing the door on this, just saying kneejerk social media reactions aren’t the best way to determine who should or should not be honored.
This discussion brings to mind one of my highly-respected grandfathers, who served as a wise deacon for 40 years, and was regularly sought out for counsel by young and old from several counties around. He is the spiritual patriarch of our family. Yet when I was very young I twice heard him make comments about race or Catholicism that in contrast to the rest of his gracious life and jovial personality were and remain rather shocking. But I understand these comments as representing areas of his life that his well-developed Christian worldview and the Spirit of God had not yet penetrated. Had not yet convicted. Had not yet transformed. They do not discount all else that he did. And the memory makes me consider, what will my grandchildren remember about me?
It is possible to give honor to whom honor is due without lifting the person(s) to a godlike pedestal. It is possible to appreciate and value human achievement and legacies without certifying the person(s) who gave us these gifts as perfect. It is certainly possible and admirable to recognize and appreciate people whose contributions blessed the world, even if those people did not necessarily, even in fact likely did not, align with yours or my views. To reject such people is to miss the opportunity to demonstrate grace, perspective, and nuanced understanding of the interplay of good and evil in the heart of every human being since Adam and Eve.
Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2017
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Rags Are Memories
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- Written by: Rex M. Rogers
Soon after we got married at 21, I decided to wash the car and discovered I had no rags. Back home, we just went to the bottomless “rag barrel” in the basement. Now, everything Good (Brand New) Wife and I owned was also new. Wasn’t long, though, before rag-less-ness wasn’t a problem. Nor is it now after 43 yrs of marital bliss.
Today I discovered one can buy rags. But who wants to use a soulless “rag”? No, this is just cloth. A rag is a long worn, beloved, and promoted T-shirt or even towel that continues to be part of the family story. As you work, you remember. Can’t do this w/new material.
Seems to me buying “rags” robs young marrieds of a key life experience.
Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2017
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Aging Well As Husband And Wife
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- Written by: Rex M. Rogers
I like watching old couples (define “old” as you wish).
In a mall coffee shop a while back, I watched a late-70s couple. Wife helped positioned Husband in his motorized chair at a coffee shop table. Then she briefly massaged his ankle because he said it was hurting. After this, she went for his Grande-something.
When Wife returned with Husband’s order, he refused to drink until she got hers and told her he’d wait until she returned. She smiled and patted his shoulder and a bit later came back with her drink. Then they tapped cups, said, "Cheers," and enjoyed their coffee.
Why do I like watching old couples? Because you learn a lot about lasting relationships. I’ve been in malls in south Florida where I was the youngest one in the mall. 80-somethings walk around holding hands. If you haven’t seen this, you don’t know what you’re missing.
I like watching old couples because with my Good Wife I hope to be one of them some day, and that day doesn’t seem as far off as it once did. I want to age well, but more specifically, I want to age well with her, together, not just in the same room, but in the same spirit, mutually respecting and listening and connected.
Old couples can teach us all what love and commitment are all about in what feels like an increasingly unloving and rootless world. The coffee shop couple’s kind of love is one too many people sadly know nothing about.
Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2017
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Genuine HOPE
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- Written by: Rex M. Rogers
A Christian's hope is not a "vain wish" regarding something about which you can do nothing, as for example, "I hope my team wins next Friday."
People place their hope in many things: themselves, their “inner strength,” people—who always fail and falter, talent—drive—wealth—education—beauty—success, false gods. But none of these things can ultimately provide hope in the face of hopelessness.
However, a Christian's hope is based not upon earthly and temporal and limited things, not upon what might be, but upon what has been, the already accomplished fact of Christ's sacrificial death, burial, and resurrection. Jesus Christ conquered sin and death and in this demonstrated the victory of HOPE over hopeless then, now, and forever.
So, when you choose hope based upon the omnipotent Sovereign God, you are not irrational, emotional, or even mystical. You are rational, reasoning and reasonable because you are opting for fact over fiction.
Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2017
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I support the 2nd Amendment. I even support Concealed Carry laws.
If someone at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Jun 12, 2016, had had a CCW the outcome of that tragedy may have been different. Same might be said about the San Bernardino office shootings, December 2, 2015. But, of course, the idea someone on site might have made a difference with a legal weapon cannot be proven.
As to the lone gunman Stephan Paddock who slaughtered 58 and injured 500 more in Las Vegas, October 1, 2017, who can say what, if anything, could have stopped him. A Mandalay Bay Resort security guard tried and took a bullet in his leg for doing so, but it’s all but impossible to thwart a loner who plans, prepares, and acts so methodically and surreptitiously.
I've hunted and I own guns. I’m not an anti-gun person. But I’m not opposed to reasonable discussion of how to limit access to lethal weaponry by certain at-risk categories of people.
For the record, I believe people's hearts are a bigger issue than their weapons. But that said, I don't think an either/or hardline stance regarding sensible gun control vs 2nd Amendment rights is necessary or productive. The binary that’s currently beleaguering discussion is a product of our ideologically polarized, all-or-nothing political culture, and it doesn’t make for good debate, much less good policy.
Take for example so-called assault rifles with high-capacity magazines. It seems to me that we could make it far more difficult for people—most mass murder perpetrators have some kind of criminal record—on watch lists or struggling with mental disorders to acquire these weapons, and that we could do this without fear of undermining law-abiding citizens' right to own a gun. Why is the Left so bent upon eliminating guns and the Right so bent on opposing all common sense proposals?
People loved liberal Democrat FDR because he tried, he acted. Not everything worked, but he acted. People loved conservative Republican Ronald Regan because he was faithful to his principles, but also because he was eminently practical. He thought half a loaf was better than no loaf at all. He tried, he acted. Current political leaders seem conflicted, paralyzed by analysis, and most of all, afraid to offend some portion of the population who disagree with them, so they do not act.
It seems to me we need enforcement of laws on the books, and maybe a few new laws that reduce the possibility of watch list people or mentally disturbed people, or abusers acquiring certain types of guns, if any guns at all. This seems no more unreasonable to me than saying we should keep ARs out of the hands of children. Meanwhile, though, politicians on both Left and Right just talk, demonizing the opposition, and sadly, such talk will not curtail or stop evil.
Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2017
*This blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution
statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.