More Bad News for the GOP (The Truth About Ken Starr)

That foundation of integrity among conservative leaders was in fact a sludgy sinkhole. That is how we got Trump.

I’m not the least bit happy about this. In fact, it straight-up pisses me off.

In the first Bush Administration, Ken Starr was the Solicitor General and had an excellent reputation in DC as a straight-up, by-the-book, rule-of-law attorney. In fact, at one time, Bush had considered him for a Supreme Court nomination.

During the Clinton Administration, Starr was tapped as the Independent Counsel for the Whitewater investigation. In that capacity, Starr secured many indictiments and convictions. But the investigation seemed to be going nowhere.

But Clinton had another problem: Paula Jones, a former state employee, had an active sexual harassment suit against him. And that was working its way up the court system. Jones’ team had been tipped about an intern who allegedly carried on an affair with Clinton in 1996. Her name was Monica Lewinsky. Clinton made evasive denials in his deposition, and that set off an investigation by Starr.

Ultimately, the Starr report was damning to Clinton: providing explicit details of the acts in which Clinton and Lewinsky engaged. Many considered the report “TMI”, although I would argue that Clinton was the culprit: he insisted that he had no sexual relations, so that forced a detailed accounting of what the actual relations were.

(Folks, let’s get one thing straight: oral sex is sex. Some try to argue that this is not true because it technically was classified as sodomy; I disagree. Even if you accept that classification, sodomy is a form of sex, as even a perverted form of the act is still a form of the act.)

At the time, the left excoriated Starr for the tawdry details whereas the right lauded him for giving us the unvarnished truth. I was on the right (and still am): had Clinton simply admitted to the affair from the outset, none of the details would have been necessary. The blame on this is not on Starr, but rather on Clinton.

Starr was a hero of the right, and one of the most hated by the left.

To the left, he was a smear-master who produced porn as a legal filing. To the right, he was an God-and-country Eagle Scout who loved God, taught Sunday School, and was just doing his job.

He would go on to serve as the dean of the law school at Pepperdine, and the President and Chancellor at Baylor University. In 2016, he was forced to resign at Baylor due to the institutional mishandling of sexual assault cases.

At the time, some of us didn’t know to what extent he was culpable in that, although I believed he needed to resign: the buck stops at the top, and Baylor needed new leadership that would make the protection of victims a higher priority1.

When Trump was impeached, Ken Starr helped Trump’s defense.

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Sadly, the latest revelations–that Ken Starr himself carried on an affair with Judi Hershman, who was his public relations advisor during the impeachment of Clinton–are probably the last nail in the coffin of the Old Guard conservatives.

The Clinton impeachment was a Great Revealer. During that fracas–and its aftermath–many conservatives would have their own scandals laid bare for the world to notice:

  • Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN) was outed for a past affair that produced a child.
  • Rep. Henry Hyde (R-IL), one of the leading pro-life figures in Congress, was outed for a past affair that led to the divorce of the woman.
  • Rep. Helen Chenoweth (R-ID) was outed for her past affair.
  • House Speaker Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-GA) resigned, his affair being public knowledge. He also left his wife and married one of his aides.
  • Rep. Bob Livingston (R-LA), who took over as Speaker when Gingrich resigned, was himself forced to resign when his affair came to light.
  • Rep. Dennis Hastert (R-IL), who took over as Speaker when Livingston resigned, was eventually outed–after retiring–as having molested a high school student during his time as a wrestling coach.
  • Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) was exposed as a client of the D.C. Madame.
  • Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) was exposed for his affair with the wife of a staffer.
  • Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID) was busted for soliciting a homosexual act in an airport restroom.
  • Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) was caught sending seemingly-grooming messages to teenage pages.

That foundation of integrity among conservative leaders was in fact a sludgy sinkhole. That is how we got Trump.

And now, the man who exposed Clinton–who came off at the time as squeaky clean–has now been exposed. As a friend of mine put it: “He went from taking on the abuser (Clinton) to aiding and abetting the abusers (at Baylor) to defending the abuser (Trump).”

At best, conservatism is in crisis. I would contend that conservatism is dead. They aren’t “conserving” anything worth conserving. Right now, what passes as conservatism is QAnon anti-vax hackery.

Right now it’s the Party of Moloch on one end and the party of QAnon on the other. All while we have a Church that, die to her own scandal-ridden culture, has failed to provide a counter-culture alternative to the darkness, one of unity and love, affirming compassion, care for life, acting as a refuge from the world.

The outlook does not appear to be encouraging.

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1The interim President who succeeded him was David Garland, a New Testament scholar at Truett Theological Seminary, an arm of Baylor. He had been my NT professor during my days at SBTS. His wife–Diana Garland–was a social work professor and a scholar on the issue of clergy sexual abuse. She, sadly, passed away in 2015.

Book Review: “Simply Trinity”, by Matthew Barrett

Introduction

Over the course of my life, I’ve observed a wide spectrum of the evangelical world, and even some fringe groups, and even cults. While I’ve never been in a cult, I have been in churches that proved to be on the fringe. In those cases, I managed to get out “while the gettin’ was good”, before the implosion went down.

But here’s the thing: one of the telltale signs of a movement that is in danger of going off the reservation–or has already moved off the reservation–is abandonment of the fundamental understanding of the Trinity.

I realize that the Trinity is difficult–arguably impossible–to comprehend from the standpoint of our temporal, finite frame of reference. So being confounded by the complexity of it is understandable. On the other hand, if you’re going to be a minister or a teacher, you need to have a good understanding of Trinitarian theology, and that includes an appreciation for the amount of thought that the Early Church fathers put into articulating a Biblical understanding of the nature and character of God, one which culminated in the Nicene Creed.

The point I’m making here: when someone comes up with a novel articulation of the Trinity, you need to be very wary.

So, in 2016, when Dee Parsons alerted me to some high-flying complementarian leaders who were promoting the doctrine of Eternal Subordination of the Son (ESS, also known as Eternal Functional Subordination, or EFS*), I was immediately very skeptical of this doctrine.

Why was I skeptical?

  • In almost 1,600 years post-Nicea, which includes Medieval scholars, schisms, Reformation scholars, many Councils, and post-Reformation scholarship, the most iconic theologians never articulated such an understanding of the Trinity, and in fact they specifically rejected any premise of eternal subordination of the Son.
  • Particular leaders within the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW) were advancing ESS in order to provide theological support for their complementarian model for gender relations. While I identify as a patriarch–I believe that the husband is head of the wife as Christ is head of the Church, and that 1 Timothy 2 generally precludes women from eldership in the Church–I have a serious problem when people create God in their own image in order to justify their position. And that is exactly what the ESS proponents at CBMW were doing.

In the years since, I’ve kept the ESS debate on my radar. Also, during that time, I started reading some of the Nicene and Post-Nicene theologians, just to see what their takes were. What was really poignant: many of the arguments that the Arians made at the time–and the responses of the Nicene crowd–sounded eerily similar to the ESS debate today.

In more recent years, the ESS debate has heated up, with Bruce Ware, Wayne Grudem, Denny Burk, and Owen Strachan–of the CBMW–advancing the case for ESS. Ware and Burk are professors at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (Burk is at Boyce Bible College, which is part of SBTS), and Strachan was a theology professor at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (he left MBTS this past Spring to take on a position at a different seminary).

I also noticed some pastors in local churches advancing ESS. I warned one of them–whom I know–to RUN from ESS, and gave him a mach 5 version of why it is a very bad doctrine. Five years from now, he will either be thanking me or wishing he’d listened to me.

One of the reasons that ESS has taken hold in evangelical circles is that, at the ground level, Baptists and evangelicals don’t really understand the Trinity. Ministers barely get it, if at all. And most laypersons are totally clueless. Fact is, if I started talking about ESS to the average guy in my church experiences, they would look at me like a deer in the headlights. That has left a Church situation that is very susceptible to neo-Trinitarian heresy.

Enter Matthew Barrett, a theology professor at MBTS.

Barrett, who was once a student of Bruce Ware during his student days at SBTS, began to pick up on some of the neo-Trinitarian ideas coming from Ware and his camp. As a theology professor, he did his homework.

The fruit of that labor–Simply Trinity–is both an excellent primer on Trinitarian theology, and a theological and exegetical case against ESS.

In ST, Barrett does an excellent job highlighting some key concepts that form the bedrock for understanding the Trinity:

  • (a) eternal relations of origin;
  • (b) eternal generation;
  • (c) the difference between the immanant Trinity (the ontological nature and character of God) and economic Trinity (the expression of the Trinity toward the created order, especially in the economy of salvation); and
  • (d) simplicity: the premise that God is not made of parts, that God is one divine essence.

Throughout the book, Barrett brings the discussion back to these fundamental concepts. A very key point, that Barrett brings home, is the historical understanding that the only distinguishing characteristic among the members of the Trinity are their eternal relations of origin: The Father is eternally unbegotten, the Son is eternally begotten, and the Holy Spirit is eternally spirated; i.e., eternally proceeds from the Father and Son. (As Barrett says it: “These relations alone distinguish the persons, identifying each person’s personal property.”)

There was never a time when the Father was not; there was never a time when the Son or Holy Spirit were not. Each is all God, but they are not separate “Gods”: you do not get “more” by adding them up, and–even if you could subtract (and you can’t, because God is indivisible: He is one)–you would not get “less” God.

Barrett also describes how the evangelical world became susceptible to “Trinity Drift”; a dynamic in which the evangelical world subtly began slowly embracing novel ideas about the Trinity, allowing a fertile ground from which ESS would emerge.

One of the most damaging factors in Trinity Drift was the rise of a social understanding of the Trinity, also known as Social Trinity: that the Godhead is a society of persons. This became the theological basis for the egalitarian movement, as well as all variations of Liberation Theology, including sexual liberation. (I can affirm what Barrett says, because I have gone toe-to-toe with sexual liberationists and socialists for whom the Social Trinity of Liberation Theology is a foundational truth.)

From there, Barrett issues a severe indictment against EFS/ESS:

  • EFS is a variation of Social Trinity, the difference being that the EFSers cast Godhead as a heirarchical social Trinity whereas Liberation Theologians cast the Godhead as a society of equals.
  • EFS is reflecting of a proof-texting, eisegetical approach to the Scriptures that conflates the immanant Trinity with the economic Trinity.
  • By injecting a heirarchy in the Trinity, EFSers are flirting with multiple heresies that the Church has spent no small amount of time fighting.

The book is not something for easy reading; most theology books are not. Still, Barrett provides an excellent explication of Trinitarian fundamentals, with very solid exegesis of Scripture and well-researched highlights of key Trinitarian scholars from the Nicene era to today.

One of the most important points to ponder here is something that evangelicals have with tradition: to what extent do we value traditions of Church fathers of prior eras?

Unlike Catholics–who sometimes equate Tradition on the same level as Scripture–modern evangelicals tend to take a low view of Tradition. As a result, modern evangelicals are not high on the theological takes of scholars of prior eras, with perhaps some exceptions for Luther, Calvin, and a few key Reformation-era theolgians such as John Knox.

The problem is, this mindset has contributed to substantial ignorance of past theological battles, and the issues that led to them. This has led us to the mess we are in today. While none of the Fathers were infallable, I would suggest that, where key doctrines have stood the test of time, we must give those very strong weight. Because, as Solomon pointed out, “there is nothing new under the sun.”

Against this, Barrett provides a glimpse into history: using a Back to the Future style–he invokes the DeLorean–he takes the reader back in time to different eras, highlighting key scholars and their takes on the Trinity.

Where he proves exceptionally strong, however, is his exegesis of “aha” texts for ESS. His takedown of Ware is as thorough as it is brutal. The ESS/EFS model represents a manipulation of the Trinity, a case of theologians creating God in their image in order to advance their gender-relations model.

The conservative who subscribes to ESS will (rightfully) disagree with the liberal Liberation theologian who promotes socialism and sexual liberation. The problem is that while the two will disagree strenuously on the ends, they are in agreement on the means: each has molded the Trinity for their own purposes.

This is an ominous trend, as the ESS/EFS crowd, by embracing this model–which is the product of sloppy hermeneutics if not eisegesis–has left an otherwise conservative sector wide open to the threat of liberalism. This is because, if you embrace liberal frameworks, you undermine the foundations for conservatism, even as you outwardly affirm those.

One of my biggest areas of frustration with the neo-Calvinist movement–which is the sector that espouses ESS/EFS–is their stunning level of hubris in this matter.

If you’re going to advance a novel take on the Trinity, you’re going to need a very strong exegetical case. You have the burden of proof of showing that your claim of wisdom on this stands up to the Nicene fathers. You have the burden of proof to show why your exegesis justifies a paradigm that is mostly absent from the theological discourse of the last 1,600 years of a Church that has been patriarchal. (In other words, even a historically-patriarchal Church has not arrived at a consensus anything close to ESS in her two millennia of existence. So if you’re going to promote it, the bar is very, very high.)

Having studied the Scriptures, I see no case for eternal subordination of any member of the Trinity. While, in the economy of salvation, Jesus humbled Himself and gave up the glories of the eternal frame of reference to enter time and space as a man–living in submission as we all are subject (only without sin), dying for our sins, and coming back from the dead–what we see in Scriptures, from an eternal frame of reference, is an immanant Trinity that prsents the Three Persons as co-equal, not subordinate, with their distinctives solely in their eternal relations of origin.

This is the point that Barrett drives home thoughout Simply Trinity.

As a conservative, I see the Christian faith as a conservative one: we are committed to conserving the teachings of Jesus, going to great lengths in archaeology and scholarship to ensure that the Biblical text is solid, that we get meanings right, that we present God as revealed in Scripture. We also go to great lengths to ensure that we conserve foundational fundamentals: the Bible is not fake news, miracle accounts did happen; Jesus is God; Jesus was conceived/born of a virgin, Jesus did die for our sins, Jesus did come back from the dead; Jesus will come back again.

There is nothing conservative about ESS/EFS: it is a modern spin on an old-school heresy. It is the product of eisegesis, ironically coming from a crowd that exalts itself as committed to exegesis. The Trinity of ESS/EFS is man-made.

Barrett provides a call to the troops to return to home base, and embrace the Biblical, unmanipulated Trinity. And in the process, like Alexander in his rebuttal to Arius, Barrett–in his rebuttal of Grudem and Ware–provides a robust, Biblical explication of the Gospel.

I give it five stars.

*ESS/EFS is a doctrine that presents Jesus as eternally subordinate to the Father. In classical and historical understandints of the Trinity, Jesus is understood has being subordinate only in the economy of salvation whereas, in EFS/ESS, Jesus is subordinate to the Father not just in the economy of salvation, but also through all eternity. This is in conflict with Genesis, John, Colossians, and Revelation, which present a Jesus who is Creator and co-equal with the Father and Holy Spirit, with their eternal relations of origin being the only distinguishing factor. In my debate with a complementarian leader who insisted that EFS is not heretical, he insisted that EFS is not the same as ESS, which he believes is heretical. I disagree with him: EFS is an attempt at walking back ESS to make it seem more orthodox. But Barrett does a good job pointing out that this, itself has problems.

Details Emerge in Josh Duggar Case

Josh Duggar is in very serious trouble. There is no other way to spin this.

According to the evidence presented, he created a fairly sophisticated system for the purpose of crcumventing Covenent Eyes, a popular Christian anti-porn accountability platform. He created a separate Linux partition; the password was one that he made; he even covered it with a family screen saver. He used a Tor browser to access the “dark web”. He used BitTorrent for file sharing.* This is how people with these dark fantasies obtain the types of porn that Duggar obtained.

(I note this because it is important to point out that this type of porn is NOT something you will find on a conventional porn site. It is NOT something that you obtain accidentally. To obtain it, you have to be intentional in your methods. The people who exchange this type of media are very meticulous. Law enforcement goes to great lengths to track these guys down, and we are still miles behind.)

When the Department for Homeland Security raided his auto dealership in 2019, Duggar, without being told why they were there, asked them, “What is this about? Has someone been downloading child pornography?”

That was a confession.

Prosecutors claim the illegal images show child pornography involving minors ranging from the age of 12 to as young as toddlers of 18 months.

Faulkner testified that the images were exchanged via a peer-to-peer file sharing called BitTorrent. The forensic investigation also found a program on the desktop called Covenant Eyes, which allows a user to “quit porn” by reporting to an accountability partner — in this case wife Anna — if the user visits porn sites. To get around triggering a report, Josh allegedly installed a Linux partition, which divided the computer’s hard drive into two isolated sections to hide what was being viewed in one of them. He also used a TOR browser to surf the dark web. The way he accessed that part of the computer was by inputting a special password — and the one used was one Josh often used for other accounts, including for personal banking, which included his birth year in the password.

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/josh-duggar-child-pornography-case-trial-bail-home-confinement-000211966.html

Almost as bad: Duggar is not only out on bail, he also gets unlimited visitation with his children, as long as his wife supervises.

Rachael Denhollander has a great thread on the whole mess.

At this point, we know what Josh Duggar is, just as we know what O.J. Simpson is. Whereas O.J. skated on the murder charges, I strongly doubt that Duggar will skate here. What IS bothersome is the patriarchs who are doing–and have done–next to nothing to protect Anna and her 7 children. Her family made her stay with Josh in 2015–they refused to support her if she left him–even when it became apparent that he was a very dark man who had cheated on her, even sleeping with a porn star.

I don’t want to hear another word about how “patriarchy protects women and children.”

EVERY DAMN TIME we have an offender in the ranks, the only ones protected by the system are the perpetrators. When it’s time to kick ass for Jesus, the victims–even when they are boys–are the only ones taking the beatings.

Tell me, how much protection did Josh Duggar’s sisters get? Tell me, how much protection did Anna Duggar get? Tell me, how much protection did any #churchtoo victim get when they went forward?

Tell me: who is looking out for Anna Duggar and her kids? She has 7 kids, including the airplane in the hangar. She is married to a husband who is turned on by the torture of infants and toddlers. He hates children. He probably hates women, too.

And yet, no one–NO ONE–in her family is helping her leave that POS. They forced her to stay with him in 2015. This is clearly an abusive marriage, but where are the patriarchs in this major league who talk a great game? Where is Mohler? Piper? Grudem? Ware? Wilson? DeYoung?

Hell, WHERE ARE HER FAMILY? WHERE IS HER PASTOR AND CHURCH COMMUNITY?

A couple months ago, I remarked that it would have been nice if an evangelical leader had punched Ravi Zacharias in the mouth and told him where to stick his empire. Peter once told Simon the magician, “may your money perish with you.”

Where are the Christian leaders with the dump truck-sized balls to call these guys out?

Not too long ago, a good friend of mine remarked–in a conversation about domestic violence–that, while leaders are all focused on what the victim (often a woman) can and can’t do, they need to DO SOMETHING ABOUT THE ABUSER.

And she wasn’t wrong. For whatever reason, these chest-beating Manly Men are ALMOST ALWAYS mysteriously absent when it’s time to kick some ass.

During the war in Vietnam, one of the worst chapters in our involvement there was the My Lai Massacre: where two officers–Ernest Medina and William Calley–ordered and participated in the mass murder of as many as 500 South Vietnamese civilians. I would draw the comparson to #churchtoo.

My Lai Massacre#churchtoo
South Vietnamese terrorized by communists. They are taught that the Americans are the good guys who will protect them.People–particularly women and children–are taught that the world is evil, and that the Church is a refuge from the world.
A band of American soldiers targeted a village, killing everyone, and even raping the women.Clergy and other leaders, who should be protecting women and children, are instead taking sexual license with them.
The military sought to cover it up. Congress even tried to cover it up. President Nixon and the general public were sympathetic to the perpetrators (William Calley and Ernest Medina), even casting them as victims.Evangelical leaders have overwhelmingly covered for the abusive clergy. They often dismiss, attack, and malign the victims while casting themselves and the offending clergy as the real victims.
A helicopter crew–Hugh Thompson, Glenn Andreotta, and Lawrence Colburn–took decisive action to stop the massacre. They turned their guns on American soldiers, ordering them to stop the killing. Thompson reported this to his superiors, who sought to cover it up.A contingent of victims and advocates–mostly women, some men–have reported abuses and coverups, and have fought to expose the perpetrators.
Thompson and his crew received major blowback at the time, with at least one lawmaker seeking to court-martial Thompson. Public sentiment was overwhelmingly against them at the time. Thompson was considered a traitor in many circles.The victims and their advocates are largely dismissed as liberals and troublemakers, even heretics. They are subject to passive-aggressive attacks by evangelical leaders. Even the conservative ones are subject to attack.
Today, Thompson and his crew are regarded as heroes.The victims who came forward are slowly being recognized for their courage. The advocates are receiving qualified vindication.

Right now, what we need are leaders like Hugh Thompson, Glenn Andreotta, and Lawrence Colburn. THEY stopped the My Lai massacre. THEY turned their guns on Calley and ordered him to stop. THEY testified against Calley at his trial.

Where are the evangelical leaders who will stand up to the well-connected and financed network of abuse apologists, and the systems that enable them?

I’m anything but a liberal, an egalitarian, or a feminist. But as someone who identifies as a patriarch, I find the good-old-boy coverups to be evil on a very high scale. And Duggar is but the latest example.

*Tor and BitTorrent are NOT in and of themselves, evil applications. Good, upstanding software engineers and geeks use those every day without committing crimes.

Josh Duggar Charged for Child Porn

Back in 2015, when the news of Josh Duggar’s molestation of his sisters–and a babysitter–broke, I wanted to believe that he had put all of that behind him. He was 14 at the time he did that, a lot of folks wanted to think it was a case of adolescent sexual experimentation gone too far, he apparently faced the music, and by all indications at the time, those were not indicative of who he became as an adult.

At the time, I said this:

It would be fair, in his circle of accountability, to question him significantly about who he is today. Has he cheated on his wife? Does he use pornography? What changed in his conduct after his scrapes at age 14? Has he learned to control his passions in a way befitting a Christian gentleman?

Then, a couple months later, he was outed in the Ashley Madison hack. As horrible as that was, at least it was otherwise consensual sex with other adults. Yes, it was terrible; yes, it merited repudiation from the Church; yes, it merited derision from the outside world due to the hypocrisy of his acts. But at that point he had done nothing criminal, at least not as far as we knew.

Sadly, what we are seeing is that Duggar’s adolescent molestations were indicative of sexually-predatory inclinations, and he apparently developed a sexual attraction to children. He has been arrested on two federal charges of receiving and possessing child pornography.

Trust me on this: the truth of this is very dark. Adult porn is one thing: unless the parties are forced, at least the adults involved are engaging in consensual sex. They are degrading each other, and yes–the viewer of such needs to understand that viewing conventional porn is not innocuous: you are enjoying watching one or more people debase themselves for your pleasure. Repentance is more than just vowing to stop watching it, but rather learning to view people as Image Bearers–worthy of dignity–rather than sexual commodities.

Child porn, however, is a whole different circle of hell. A person who enjoys child porn is a person who enjoys seeing children harmed. Children do not consent to be used that way. This is full-on child abuse the magnitude of which is severe and unconscionable.

Book Review: Sheila Gregoire, “The Great Sex Rescue”

Over the last three years, I’ve made some very good friends in the #churchtoo wars. One of them has been Sheila Gregoire, who writes about marriage in general–sex in particular–from a Christian perspective. In the Twitter world, I’ve seen her take on some majorly wrongheaded teachings that have come from the more fundamentalist world, everything from “Biblical/nouthetic counseling” to some of the really toxic teachings regarding sex that are common in the evangelical world.

The latter served as a backdrop for her latest book, The Great Sex Rescue (GSR), co-written with her daughter (Rebecca Lindenbach) and epidemiologist Joanna Sawatsky, who helped design and conduct the scientific study that connected many problems faced by married women with the teachings of popular evangelical books. This was a common theme throughout the book: the toxicity in common evangelical books.

Before we get started, I would like to provide the following stipulations:

  • I am not a “sexpert.” Nor am I a sex therapist. While I will discuss sex here, I will discuss it from what I think a Christian mindset ought to look like.
  • If you suffer from physical or trauma issues, please see a physician and/or a therapist. If sex is painful for you, that is something for a physician to address. If memories from traumas are hurting you, there are therapies (such as EMDR) which are very effective, which were not available 30 years ago.
  • If you are in an abusive relationship, you need help. You need to consider pressing charges if the offenses constitute assault. You may even need an exit strategy.
  • This also applies to men who are victims. While we often associate abusive marriages with abusive husbands–they get all the press–it is also true that women can and do abuse their husbands. And if she is physically abusing you, it will be near impossible to salvage that.
  • Marital infidelity is never excusable.
  • Neither is porn use.
  • Contrary to popular perceptions, pornography is not exclusively a man’s vice. And when you factor in romance novels–which Sheila doesn’t–both sexes have a collective objectification problem. (I’ll have more to say on that.)
  • If she’s postpartum and you are trying to force her to have sex with you, then you are a douchebag.
  • While Sheila writes from a more egalitarian standpoint–and I am not an egalitarian–one need not be an egalitarian to be outraged at much of the toxicity in complementarian/patriarchal evangelical teachings on sex and their ramifications.

On one hand, Christians actually have better sex than other demographic groups. As we have pointed out here: married, conservative Protestant women are the most sexually-satisfied demographic group.

On the other hand, when you drill into some of those numbers, they still suck. Especially the “orgasm gap” (OG). While men reach orgasm over 95% of the time, women tend to lag well under 50%.

While Christians tend to fare better, it’s still pretty bad. GSR seeks to address the orgasm gap in specificity, and–in their research for the book–they sought to determine if teachings from popular evangelical books* were contributory to the orgasm gap among Christians. In their study, they also included secular marriage books to determine how the teachings in those books were received.

The bad and good news: the GSR team determined that a very large part of the OG among Christian women is tied to particular evangelical teachings.

Why is it bad news? Much of the evangelical world has transactionalized sex, using 1 Corinthians 7 as a pretext.

Why is it good news? If we can get folks to un-learn (in many cases simply re-frame) their understandings, then Christian women–who already have better sex than outsiders–would be violating noise ordinances on a more consistent basis.

While that last clause was only half-serious, my point is this: if husband and wife approach marriage in general–sex in particular–with the right mindset, we’d be collectively destroying every scientific study on the subject.

Early in the book, Sheila notes (correctly) that, while the penis is designed for both pleasure and procreation, the clitoris is designed specifically for pleasure. Husbands should look at that latter point as a good thing and run with it: make her pleasure a top priority.

(Her body was designed for it, right? You love her, right? So give her all she can handle, and make it your great honor and pleasure to help get her there. Arguing as a patriarch, you’re her head, right? So put your wants and needs on the backburner and serve her. Unless she has disdain for you–and yes, those types exist–she will appreciate that; and trust me: you’ll get yours.)

But here’s the problem, and we need to be honest about it: the OG is not simply about sex; it’s about the mindset with which men and women approach marriage in general, sex in particular. If her pleasure is not important to him, then HE is a major part of the problem. If she is using sex to control him, then then SHE is a major part of the problem. If pornography is contributory to this, then one or both of them have a degree of culpability.

But what are some of the toxic evangelical teachings?

Toxic Teaching 1: “Obligation Sex”

I’ll first give my take on the issue, and then present what Sheila had to say.

On one hand, 1 Corinthians 7 seems to support the premise of “obligation sex”, with Paul writing,

The husband must fulfill his duty to his wife, and likewise the wife also to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does; and likewise the husband also does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Stop depriving one another, except by agreement for a time so that you may devote yourselves to prayer, and come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. But this I say by way of concession, not of command.

1 Corinthians 7:3-6

This has fostered many teachings in this area (mostly at the women): “don’t deprive him or he’ll cheat”, “don’t deprive him or he’ll use porn”, “just have more sex”, etc.** It also fosters the “Every Man’s Battle” mindset that her riding him like a Derby horse is going to fix his lust problems.

And while having that sexual outlet in marriage can make the fight against lust easier, it is not a cure for the problem. (More on that later.)

Moreover, before you look at 1 Corinthians 7 and say, “AHA!”, no passage exists in a vacuum. Keep in mind that the same Paul writes of husbands:

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless. So husbands also ought to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, because we are parts of His body.

Ephesians 5:25-30

That same Paul also writes,

Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility consider one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, as He already existed in the form of God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but emptied Himself by taking the form of a bond-servant and being born in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death: death on a cross.

Philippians 2:3-8

And if that is not enough, I give you the words of Jesus:

But they kept silent, for on the way they had discussed with one another which of them was the greatest. And sitting down, He called the twelve and said to them, “If anyone wants to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all.

Mark 9:34-35

So let’s assume that, if you are the husband, you are the head of your wife. (That’s in the Bible.) That means the following principles apply to you:

  • You must love her as if she is your own body, because she is;
  • Her wellbeing comes before yours.
  • In the marriage bed, her pleasure needs to be your priority.

But let me ask you: is your wife just a means to your ends? If so, I would argue that you are violating the “husbands love your wives as Christ loved the Church” principles in Ephesians 5 and Philippians 2.

Now am I going to give the wives a blanket pass here? Of course not!

Fact is, wives have a tendency to be reductionist with their husbands, too. Dissatisfaction comes naturally. Fact is, he can do everything right, and she can still transactionalize her husband in terms of his ability to provide, his status, his social skills, etc. Wives can–and do–undercut their husbands. Don’t believe me? I’ve seen it happen firsthand. My co-admin here–Ame–has seen it happen firsthand. I’ve seen women use sex to control their husbands. I’ve seen women humiliate and backbite their husbands.

You don’t think that won’t spill into the bedroom?

I’m going to ask the wives the same question I asked the husbands: is your husband just a means to your ends? If so, you are also violating Ephesians 5 and Philippians 2.

The answer here is not simply, “have more sex”. The answer is CHANGE THE WAY YOU THINK ABOUT EACH OTHER!

Do you LOVE her (him)? Do you WANT THE BEST for her (him)? Then be kind to each other, enjoy each other’s company, and seek to express that to each other in the bedroom. If you are having problems, see a doctor or a therapist. But if you love each other, then bring some agape to go with that eros. That will bring the stress level down and things will be more enjoyable. But if she’s not reaching orgasm, then you need to be concerned that she is not enjoying it the way she ought to.

In GSR, Sheila and her team determined that, when the wives felt that they were having sex out of obligation, they were less likely to achieve orgasm, and were more likely to find sex painful. When they did not feel obligated, they were more likely to achieve orgasm even though they had sex as frequently. In some of the focus cases, the women were having sex because they felt that their husbands might cheat if they didn’t (that’s what they were taught). When their husbands re-assured them that this was not the case, they still had sex as often, but it was actually enjoyable, as intimacy was better.

My take on this: let’s use some common sense here.

Men: first of all, let’s assume that your wife is otherwise good, and you’re a decent husband. Do you really want your wife to “put out” for you? Of course not! YOU WANT HER TO WANT YOU.

That being the case, what good is it if sex becomes a Sword of Damocles? Do you think that will make sex more appealing or less appealing? That’s the problem with “obligation sex”.

What I suggest: cultivate a relationship where you are each generally deferential to the other in the bedroom. If you each have that mindset, then those times when he or she is too tired aren’t such a big deal. Those times when she’s physically incapable (postpartum) aren’t so bad.

I look at 1 Corinthians 7 as a general principle of deference out of love: it’s not a “I get to screw anytime I want it” mandate, but rather an admonition to cultivate a healthy marriage so that deference is the default mode that goes both ways.

Toxic Teaching 2: The 72-Hour Rule

This common teaching is in the same vain as “obligation sex”. As Sheila points out, it began with James Dobson, who recommended this in the late 1970s. As a result, Christian marriage writers jumped on that and used it. Ergo, Christians often marry with the wife expecting to “put out” every 72 hours “or else”.

In reality, the Scriptures make no such command.

As for frequency, that’s between the husband and wife to work out. And that leads me to

Toxic Teaching 3: “He’s Got the High Sex Drive”

While, in general, he may want it more, the problem is that Christian authors categorize men and women particular ways, while the research actually shows that–even though there is some variance–there are “high drive” women and “low drive” men, and oftentimes there isn’t a lot of variance in the two irrespective of who has the higher drive. Why is that a problem? They often enter marriage with expectations framed certain ways–bolstered by the teachings of their pators–and then find themselves wondering if they got it all wrong when it doesn’t play out the way they were taught.

Women can have higher sex drive than the men. And while some men may read that and think, “that would be an awwsumm problem to have”, if you’re a lower-drive man you may find yourself struggling to accommodate her. And worse, she may think she’s doing something wrong if she’s high-drive, because that is at variance with what she’s been taught.

Toxic Teaching 4: “Men are visual/women are not”

Sheila correctly points out that, while men are generally more visually-stimulated than women, that does not mean that women are not visually-stimulated. And some women ARE as visually-stimulated as the men.

This spills over into the teachings regarding lust and modesty. In Purity Culture, women are commonly taught to be modest in order to help men avoid lust. This is because lust is presented as Every Man’s Battle. To hear Arterburn say it, men just can’t help themselves. So many pastors will take this and tell women to dress conservatively in order to help those poor men.

While modesty is a good thing–it’s good for your self-respect as well as a way to honor God by respecting your dignity as an Image bearer–Jesus put the responsibility for lust on the the one doing the lusting. And in fact, anyone who has fought this good fight knows what I am talking about: if I’m given to lust, she could wear a full Hijab and I would still find a way to undress her in my heart and mind. In other words: irrespective of how she dresses; if I lust, that’s on me.

But here’s where I’m really going with this: women also lust. It ain’t the men who are buying all those romance novels. Oh, and if you think that pornography is exclusively a men’s vice, you’d be mistaken. While men remain the largest consumers of conventional pornography, women are catching up.

In this department, I have a couple of bones to pick with Sheila:

  • While she does point out that some women struggle with porn, she does not provide a lot of guidance to the women on this. And that is concerning, as they are the likely demographic target for her book.
  • The issue of lusting by women is a big deal, as it is with men. She does a fine job attacking the Every Man’s Battle paradigm–and it needs attacking–but I do think that what we need is a more concerted effort to call men and women to a higher ethic here.

In the #churchtoo wars, I have become very good friends with a pathology professor who has extensively studied the effects of porn. One of the most important things she points out is that porn addiction is almost never just an issue of lust, although it certainly has a lust component. Oftentimes, there are underlying trauma issues; sometimes that requires a therapist. But one of the most important areas to confront with someone who uses porn is the way they see the participants. Getting users to see them as bearers of the Imago Dei helps them to confront the heart issues that drive the lust.

But addressing that requires understanding that lust is a heart issue in the person doing the lusting. And lusting means reducing the object of that lust to something transactional. If it’s sexual lust, then you are reducing an Image-bearer to someone existing for your sexual service. If it’s material lust, then you are reducing an Image-bearer to someone existing for your material benefit.

The opposite of that is loving them and wanting the best for them (i.e., wanting for them what I want for myself). Getting there means confronting the collective tendency we all have to objectify others. That cuts to the heart of what it means to “love your neighbor as yourself”.

Can you objectify your spouse? Absolutely. Wives can do that to their husbands; husbands can do that to their wives. And left unchallenged, that will become a major problem in a marriage. Sex is but one pathway for that to happen.

The male reader of GSR will be outraged at the level of disregard that husbands have had for the wives of the Orgasm Gap. On the other hand, the male reader will also be frustrated that the male perspective seems to get minimized here. The GSR team does not address porn use by women in depth–they don’t really address the romance novel problem–even though women are the likely audience. In the same vain, they do not address women’s lust issues substantially.

And in even when they address obesity (pp. 208-209)–which is a problem in sex, and they give good, medical reasons–they address men who don’t take care of themselves more directly than they do with the women, even though statistically women are every bit as likely (slightly more so) to “let themselves go” as the men.

(In their defense: they were confronting the conventional evangelical books that focus on her need to take care of herself but not addressing his need. Still, the issue of obesity is a problem for both sexes, and it is something that needs to be said to both. I say that not to shame anyone–I have consistently addressed that issue evenhandedly here–but just pointing that out.)

IMHO, the biggest issue that they expose in the common evangelical books is that there is a LOT of emphasis placed on HER need to please and satisfy HIM–even including performing oral sex on him***–but NONE on HIS need to please and satisfy HER.

That, my friends, is a legitimate gripe. To me, that is a major omission.

Given that the woman’s sexual organ exists exclusively for pleasure, then it logically follows that the husband needs to be concerned about ensuring that she enjoys sex the way she was designed to enjoy it. Christian sex authors need to emphasize this. If we endorse male headship, then part of the husband’s responsibility is to do his best to help her in this department, putting his own pleasure secondary to hers.

Personally, I wish Sheila and her team would also survey the boyz and write a companion book.

Overall, this is a very good read, as it exposes a large amount of toxicity that exists in common evangelical teachings on sex. Sheila does an exceptional job with her “rescue and reframe” exercises at the end of each chapter.

I give it 4 stars out of 5.

*books such as The Act of Marriage; Love and Respect; Sheet Music; Intended for Pleasure, among others.

**By that, I am not implying that the Scriptures are wrong; the teachings which spring from improper handling of the Scriptures–such as looking at a passage “in a vacuum”; i.e., not taking into account related passages and guiding principles that are pertinent–are wrong.

***Mark Driscoll said that in a sermon. On p. 212, Sheila quotes Driscoll:

She [the wife] says, “I’ve never performed oral sex on my husband. I’ve refused to.” I said, “You need to go home and tell your husband that you’ve met Jesus and you’ve been studying the Bible, and that you’re convicted of a terrible sin in your life. And then you need to drop his trousers, and you need to serve your husband. And when he asks why, say, ‘Because I’m a repentant woman. God has changed my heart and I’m supposed to be a biblical wife.’” She says, “Really?” I said, “Yeah. First Peter three says if your husband is an unbeliever to serve him with deeds of kindness.”

Gregoire, Sheila Wray; Gregoire Lindenbach, Rebecca; Sawatsky, Joanna. The Great Sex Rescue (p. 212). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Book Review: “Thoughts of a Philosophical Fighter Pilot”, by Vice Admiral James Stockdale (USN)

My wife got me the perfect birthday present: Thoughts of a Philosophical Fighter Pilot, by James Stockdale.

Many people remember Stockdale as the VP Candidate for Ross Perot in his 1992 Presidential campaign, who appeared out of his league in the Vice Presidential debate that also featured Sen. Al Gore (D-TN) and Vice President Dan Quayle.

(My theory: Stockdale was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s Disease, which ultimately killed him in 2006.)

I was already familiar with some of Stockdale’s backstory. The book was a collection of essays and speeches after his release from the Hanoi Hilton, where he spent 7-1/2 years. The book left me all the more impressed with his accomplishments as well as his character under extreme pressure.

(While Stockdale was a Stoic, one need not be a Stoic–I’m not–to admire the man and his accomplishments. And many of his life lessons offer practical takeaways for the Christian.)

Aviation nuts will eat this up, as well they should. Stockdale was one of the great military pilots of his generation: a graduate of the Naval Academy, a Naval aviator, a test pilot, a fighter wing commander. (During his time at the Naval Test Pilot School at Patuxent River, he was a mathematics tutor for celebrated astronaut John Glenn.)

At the top of his game, the Navy sent him to Stanford for graduate studies. While there, he decided to learn philosophy on the side. One of the professors–Phil Rhinelander–obliged him, and got him hooked on Epictetus.

Three years later, he was in the thick of the Vietnam war. He was an eyewitness to the faux “Tonkin Gulf” incident that ignited the American involvement in the war. Stockdale led the first bombing raids. He was on a routine “milk run” bombing when he was shot down and became a POW, spending the ensuing 7-1/2 yrs in the “Hanoi Hilton.”

In his words, as he descended in his parachute to what he knew was certain capture, he was “entering the world of Epictetus.” His worst challenges as a POW were not physical but rather the battle to keep what he called “the good man inside” intact.

As a POW, he was the ranking officer among a group of Americans who were constantly tortured for political purposes: the Communists thrived on getting Americans to confess to crimes, to do propaganda videos, to rat out other prisoners.

Stockdale formulated a strategy for perseverance that he instilled in his fellow POWs: BACK US:

(1) Don’t BOW in public,

(2) Stay off the AIR,

(3) Confess to no CRIMES,

(4) Do not KISS them goodbye,

(5) UNITY over SELF.

It was accepted that everyone would break under torture, but the principle was MAKE THEM EARN IT. In other words, take as much torture as you can handle, then give them as little as possible, and then share that with everyone else for their safety, thereby preventing the enemy to use such triangulation to break other prisoners.

For his part, Stockdale went to great extremes to avoid being used for photo-ops: he beat his face to a pulp; he even slashed himself. At one point, when guards discovered a letter that gave them enough information that they could have tortured confessions out of him to burn others, he attempted suicide in order to protect his men. (Providentially, his wife had made a public statement in Paris regarding POW safety, and his captors–put on notice–found Stockdale bleeding to death. They were able to save him. According to Stockdale, the torture stopped at that point.)

He was the ringleader of a group of POWs who were so resistant to their captors that they were segregated from the other prisoners. They were dubbed “The Alcatraz Gang”. Another member of that gang included Rear Admiral Jeremiah Denton, who–forced to appear in a televised interview–blinked T-O-R-T-U-R-E in Morse Code, thus wrecking the photo-op. For that and other actions, Denton was awarded the Navy Cross.

For his dedication in captivity, Stockdale was awarded the Medal of Honor.

As a Stoic, Epictetus was Stockdale’s major influence. He focused less on his physical state but rather maintaining his self-respect, “the good man inside”.

For a Christian, Jesus taught something similar: “..do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that have no more that they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear: fear the One who, after He has killed, has authority to cast into hell” (Luke 12:4-5)

One of Stockdale’s first realizations as a POW was, “I am my brother’s keeper.” And that was a major driver of his conduct in the Hanoi Hilton. Again, the Christian should have no conflict with Stockdale here.

And while Stockdale drew more on Epictetus than from Scripture, the Christian reader of Stockdale will resonate with his takes on Job, and even Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, as they understood that (a) life is not fair, and (b) they need to stay the course no matter what.

For someone who was likely not a Christian–Stockdale was a Stoic philosopher who nominally acknowledged Jesus–he understood suffering better than most evangelicals do.

In fact, what we know today as the “Stockdale Paradox”, is a reality that Job, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, the prophets, and Jesus and the Apostles understood long before Stockdale arrived.

You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford to lose—with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.

Vice Admiral James Stockdale (USNR)

For Stockdale, that meant having the courage to withstand torture–and even years of solitary confinement–without betraying his men or his country. For the Christian, that means having the faith that God will give you the courage to face trials of all types as they come. We all aren’t going to face torture, or death by fire, stoning, hanging, or beheading; we can STILL face family tragedies, job losses, & other calamities.

In the pandemic, most of us have faced serious challenges with lockdowns and various policies centered around distancing. Many had to worship at home via livestream, missing out on contact with friends and family. Many people lost jobs and businesses. Many saw their pay slashed. Many ended up in the hospital; many COVID patients died in misery: alone in an ICU and on a ventilator.

Some of us, in the midst of all of that, had various personal traumas. Life on this earth is not fair. For the Christian, that Stockdale Paradox should resonate, as our faith is in a God who will provide what we need when we need it. And that need often includes perseverance.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego got that: they knew God COULD deliver them from the furnace. But even if He didn’t, they weren’t going to bow down to the statue.

They knew it could get a little warm before things got better. And they still trusted God.

The type of fitness required for this is not a function of your muscles, as the God we serve can deliver a child through a trial that will sink a Crossfitter. But if you have any preconceptions that life is fair, or that your devotion to God will insulate you from tragedies or hardships, then you are setting yourself up for major disappointments.

In fact, I would contend that if you think that life owes you fairness, then you are embracing a form of Prosperity Theology.

As most of the #churchtoo world can attest: life is not fair. You can do everything right and still suffer unjustly. You can be the perfect wife, but that doesn’t guarantee that your husband won’t cheat or beat you up. You can be the perfect husband, and that does not guarantee that your wife won’t ditch you.

When our child was in NICU clinging to life, a man in my church lost his wife–and the kids lost their mom–to cancer. Many years ago, I lost a longtime friend–an otherwise good Christian woman–to breast cancer. When Jesus was an infant, many mothers in Bethlehem could only watch as Herod and his thugs butchered their infants and newborns. Their weeping could be heard all the way in Ramah.

There is no indication from Scripture that those mothers deserved to see their children die. When a Stoic says that “the universe has no moral economy”, he is correct in this respect: there is no guarantee that good will be rewarded and evil will be punished on this earth. The Christian must accept that, in many cases, justice will not happen in this life. For many, the only justice we will see is on Judgment Day. And perseverance means keeping that finish line in sight.

A faith in God won’t necessarily keep you protected FROM tragedy; it WILL manifest itself in God giving you that “discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality.” And, as Paul said, “having done everything, to stand firm.”

Ravi Zacharias: Image Repair Analysis

In light of recent revelations about the late Ravi Zacharias–particularly the corroboration of the massage therapists who accused him of sexual abuse–I decided to separate my Image Repair Analysis of RZ’s public press release in the wake of his settlement of his RICO suit against Lori Anne Thompson.

“In October 2014, I spoke at a conference in Canada. At the conclusion of my talk, I met a couple who expressed an interest in our ministry. The wife asked if I would reach out to her husband because he had questions about the Christian faith. As requested, I followed up by sending an email and a book to him, and invited him to consider attending one of our educational programs at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM).”

  • “I spoke…my talk…I met…our ministry”.
    • That’s BOLSTERING: it puts him in the position of superiority over the couple.
  • “The wife asked if I would reach out to her husband”.
    • That’s BOLSTERING: that bolsters his superiority;
    • it is also ATTACKING: it is a veiled cheap shot at the husband.
  • “I followed up…sending..email…and book…invited him”.
    • That’s BOLSTERING: maintains his authority over the husband.

“Some months later, I traveled with my wife and one of our daughters to another part of Canada for a speaking engagement. The couple attended this event and invited my wife and me to dinner at a local restaurant afterwards. That was the second and last time I was ever in the same room with either of them.”

  • “I traveled with my wife and one of our daughters”.
    • That’s BOLSTERING: it creates the appearance of superiority and propriety, even though the facts indicate impropriety on his part.
  • “That was the second and last time I was ever in the same room with either of them.”
    • This is DIFFERENTIATION: he is pleading innocent to an act that of which he is not accused: the “I was never alone with her” defense is invalid, that is not the issue, as the offenses here are cyber in nature.

“Subsequently, she began to contact me via the email address I had used to contact her husband after first meeting them. My responses were usually brief. Then, last year, she shockingly sent me extremely inappropriate pictures of herself unsolicited. I clearly instructed her to stop contacting me in any form; I blocked her messages, and I resolved to terminate all contact with her.”

  • “Subsequently, she began to contact me via the email address I had used to contact her husband”
    • That’s ATTACKING: he’s alleging less-than-proper behavior from the outset.
  • “My responses were usually brief.”
    • That’s MINIMIZATION: he is minimizing his role in email communications with her.
  • “She shockingly sent me extremely inappropriate pictures of herself unsolicited.”
    • That’s ATTACKING: a simple release of all electronic communications would show context, as that would establish the nature of any conversations that might have led to the sending of such pictures. An unsolicited nude would be a scandal for her, not him. That is, unless they had carried on conversations that were sexual in nature, in which case it would be grooming behavior.
  • “unsolicited”
    • That’s DENYING and DEFEASIBILITY: he is denying any role in the picture exchange.

“In late 2016, she sent an email informing me she planned to tell her husband about the inappropriate pictures she had sent and to claim that I had solicited them.”

  • “claim that I had solicited them”
    • That’s DENYING and DEFEASIBILITY: He is denying any role in her sending the pictures.

“In April 2017, together they sent me, through an attorney, a letter demanding money. I immediately notified members of my board, and as they advised, I personally engaged legal counsel.”

  • “In April 2017, together they sent me, through an attorney, a letter demanding money.”
    • That’s ATTACKING: He’s accusing them of blackmail.

“In response to the demand for money, my attorneys filed a publicly available lawsuit under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). The other side requested mediation rather than going to trial. We agreed to mediation and we reached an agreement in November 2017 to resolve the matter and dismiss my lawsuit. All communication with both of them has concluded, and the legal matters have been resolved. However, at this time, unfortunately I am legally prevented from answering or even discussing the questions and claims being made by some, other than to say that each side paid for their own legal expenses and no ministry funds were used.

  • “In response to the demand for money”
    • That’s PROVOCATION: he’s suggesting that his ensuing lawsuit was in response to a provoked act.
  • “..my attorneys filed a publicly available lawsuit”
    • That’s ATTACKING: filing a lawsuit, using multiple attorneys, targeting a couple.
  • “The other side requested mediation rather than going to trial.”
    • That’s ATTACKING: He’s suggesting that, because they did not want to go to trial, that they are trying to hide something.
  • “unfortunately I am legally prevented from answering or even discussing the questions and claims being made by some”
    • That’s DEFEASIBILITY: He claims to have no control, preventing him from discussing details.
    • It’s also a form of DENIAL: he has denied allegations, and yet left obvious questions unanswered, all while using DEFEASIBILITY to avoid answering them.
  • “no ministry funds were used”
    • That’s MINIMIZATION: By suggesting that no ministry funds were involved, this makes the situation less important than it is.

“I have learned a difficult and painful lesson through this ordeal. As a husband, father, grandfather, and leader of a Christian ministry I should not have engaged in ongoing communication with a woman other than my wife. I failed to exercise wise caution and to protect myself from even the appearance of impropriety, and for that I am profoundly sorry. I have acknowledged this to my Lord, my wife, my children, our ministry board, and my colleagues.”

  • “As a husband, father, grandfather, and leader of a Christian ministry”
    • That’s BOLSTERING: he’s reminding you of his superior status in multiple realms.
  • “I should not have engaged in ongoing communication with a woman other than my wife”
    • This is DIFFERENTIATION and MINIMIZATION: he’s creating a lesser offense—which isn’t even an offense—to take your attention to the offense for which he is on the hook. (Also, it’s utter hogwash. He’s saying, “If I’d only followed the ‘Billy Graham Rule…’ How about NOT BEING A DIRTY OLD MAN???)
  • “I failed to exercise wise caution and to protect myself from even the appearance of impropriety”
    • This is DIFFERENTIATION and MINIMIZATION: he’s admitting to a lesser offense as opposed to the one of which he is accused.
    • It’s also MORTIFICATION, although in a false sense: he is confessing to a non-offense.
  • “I have acknowledged this to my Lord, my wife, my children, our ministry board, and my colleagues”
    • This is TRANSCENDENCE: appealing to a higher authority to avoid accountability to the very people to which he must otherwise answer.

“Let me state categorically that I never met this woman alone, publicly or privately. The question is not whether I solicited or sent any illicit photos or messages to another woman—I did not, and there is no evidence to the contrary—but rather, whether I should have been a willing participant in any extended communication with a woman not my wife. The answer, I can unequivocally say, is no, and I fully accept responsibility. In all my correspondence with thousands of people in 45 years of ministry, I have never been confronted with a situation such as this, and God and my family and close friends know how grieved I have been.”

  • “Let me state categorically that I never met this woman alone, publicly or privately.”
    • This is DIFFERENTIATION: he’s denying having committed an offense of which he has not been accused. (Note: whenever people use the word “categorically” in this context, it usually means they’re not being truthful.)
  • “The question is not whether I solicited or sent any illicit photos or messages to another woman…but rather, whether I should have been a willing participant in any extended communication with a woman not my wife”
    • This is DENIAL and DIFFERENTIATION: He is reframing the issue on his own terms, not addressing the obvious question: what led to the woman sending him those photos?
    • This is MORTIFICATION, although in a false sense. Jesus had many extended communications with women (Mary Magdalene anyone?), in spite of not being married to any of them.
  • “In all my correspondence with thousands of people in 45 years of ministry”
    • That’s BOLSTERING: re-reminding you of his superiority.
  • “I have never been confronted with a situation such as this”
    • That’s DEFEASIBILITY: he’s casting this as a situation that has come upon him—that he had no control over—rather than a crisis of his own making due to his own choices. He is casting himself as a victim.
  • “God and my family and close friends know how grieved I have been”
    • That’s REVERSING VICTIM AND OFFENDER ROLES: he is casting himself as a victim.

“In my 45 years of marriage to Margie, I have never engaged in any inappropriate behavior of any kind. I love my wife with all my heart and have been absolutely faithful to her these more than 16,000 days of marriage, and have exercised extreme caution in my daily life and travels, as everyone who knows me is aware. I have long made it my practice not to be alone with a woman other than Margie and our daughters—not in a car, a restaurant, or anywhere else. Upon reflection, I now realize that the physical safeguards I have long practiced to protect my integrity should have extended to include digital communications safeguards. I believe—and indeed would counsel others—that the standards of personal conduct are necessarily higher for Christian leaders.”

  • “In my 45 years of marriage to Margie… more than 16,000 days of marriage”
    • That’s BOLSTERING: re-reminding you of his awwsummness as a husband.
  • “everyone who knows me is aware”
    • That’s TRIANGULATION: appealing to other people to deflect from the real issue at hand.

“The Lord rescued me at the age of seventeen, and I promised to leave no stone unturned in my pursuit of truth. He entrusted me with this calling, it is His; any opportunities I have been given are from Him. My life is not my own, it belongs to God. As long as He gives me life and breath I will serve out this calling He has given me. I am committed to finishing well, using whatever years He grants me to share His love and forgiveness, truth and grace, with people everywhere who are looking for meaning and purpose and hope. I bear no ill will toward anybody. God is the God of healing, and He promises a new day. May that be true by His grace.”

  • “The Lord rescued me at the age of seventeen, and I promised to leave no stone unturned in my pursuit of truth”
    • I’ll take TRANSCENDENCE for $500, Alex: It’s all about the Lord now.
  • “He entrusted me with this calling, it is His; any opportunities I have been given are from Him”
    • I’ll take TRANSCENDENCE for $1,000, Alex: HE’s been entrusted with the calling, with the implication that YOU are but a peasant.
  • “My life is not my own, it belongs to God. As long as He gives me life and breath I will serve out this calling He has given me. I am committed to finishing well…”
    • I’ll take TRANSCENDENCE for $2,000..OH DAILY DOUBLE!!!!: He’s now all wrapped up in his calling from God, his remaining years, finishing the race, and bestowing all good things on peasants. He’s untouchable now.
  • “I bear no ill will toward anybody. God is the God of healing, and He promises a new day. May that be true by His grace.”
    • This is BOLSTERING: he is making himself the superior person in this.

Given the known facts in RZ’s case, and given the use of Image Repair in his public statement, the conclusion is that

  • Ravi Zacharias is being less than honest,
  • Ravi Zacharias is hiding the truth, and
  • Ravi Zacharias is using corporate damage control tactics in lieu of addressing hard questions.

Ravi Zacharias: “Some…Conduct…Is More Serious”

Three years ago, I had a sinking feeling about Ravi Zacharias. I blogged about it then.

At that time, I believed he had a serious problem. As I looked at the public details, this didn’t smell right.

Then, in 2019, Julie Anne Smith broke a story of 16-year-old Shirley Steward, who was pregnant with Ravi’s brother (Ramesh). Ravi counseled her to have an abortion, even made the arrangements.

I was convinced that the evangelical world would explode, as no one would tolerate that, not even from Ravi.

I was wrong. No major Christian media outlet covered the story. Not one Big Evangelical leader called out Ravi Zacharias.

In March 2020, he was diagnosed with cancer. Many of us reached out to him, calling him to repent and apologize and drop the NDA and make things right. We were ridiculed.

When he died in May, he was lauded by none other than Vice President Mike Pence.

In September, however, several massage therapists–who worked at spas that RZ had founded and co-owned–came forward and credibly accused him of sexually assaulting them. Their allegations had corroboration.

In addition, details in the Lori Anne Thompson case surfaced, details that corroborated her and discredited Ravi’s narrative. Julie Roys reported those. Part 1 and Part 2.

This time, Christianity Today covered the spa story.

At this point, Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM) commissioned a law firm (Miller & Martin) to investigate sexual misconduct.

On December 23, as several apologists with RZIM had apologized to Lori Anne and called RZIM to come clean, RZIM released an interim report from Miller & Martin that stated (emphasis added):

While some of the massage therapists we have tried to interview are not willing to share their experiences with us, many have spoken candidly and with great detail. Combining those interviews with our review of documents and electronic data, we have found significant, credible evidence that Mr. Zacharias engaged in sexual misconduct over the course of many years. Some of that misconduct is consistent with and corroborative of that which is reported in the news recently, and some of the conduct we have uncovered is more serious.

There is no pretty way to spin this.

Three years ago, I said Ravi had some ‘splainin’ to do. I had a feeling that the whole settlement with Lori Anne had been engineered to cover the truth.

When Julie Anne broke the forced abortion story, I thought he was done. The story was credible; the receipts were there; combined with the academic/vitae fraud, surely major evangelical leaders were going to call him to account.

When I revisited his public statement in his settlement–and did Image Repair Analysis on it–I found a LOT of Image Repair, which is a high indicator that he was lying.

No one was listening.

Now that the spa workers have been corroborated by a law firm–and now that the law firm has found even worse offenses, we are learning the truth about Ravi Zacharias.

I am thankful that the truth is being laid bare now. I am thankful for the sake of Shirley Steward and her child, for Lori Anne and Brad Thompson, for the spa workers, and for any other victims who suffered at the hands of Ravi Zacharias.

All of their lives matter.

SCOTUS, Roe, State of the Union, Where We’re Going

Background

In 1992, Then-Governor Bill Clinton (D-AR) was running as a Democrat against incumbent President George H.W. Bush for the Presidency.

At the time, we were in a short-lived recession that mainstream media was making out to be much worse than it was. Clinton was hailed as an economic savior who promised middle class tax cuts whereas Bush was cast as an aloof, uncaring rich man who couldn’t be trusted, as he broke his “Read My Lips, No New Taxes” pledge.

Socially, Clinton was very liberal–pro-abortion, pro-gay rights–and his wife was a very radical feminist who promised to be prominent in her husband’s administration and was rumored to have Presidential aspirations of her own.

But any attempts to hit Bill on that, or his extramarital affairs, or his wife’s radical views, were met with, “The economy, stupid!”

Character didn’t matter. All that mattered was The Economy, Stupid.

Meanwhile, as the media insisted that the incumbent Bush promise NOT to use Roe v. Wade as a “litmus test” for Supreme Court (SCOTUS) picks, Clinton promised to do exactly that. And no one in the gaslighting corps of Mainstream Media bothered to call him on that.

Complicating matters, that year SCOTUS decided the Planned Parenthood v. Casey case, which was the first major challenge to Roe v. Wade.

At the time, Roe appeared to be in trouble.

The Court had four sure-fire votes against Roe: William Rehnquist and Byron White (the two dissenting votes against Roe in 1973), and Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

Anthony Kennedy and David Souter, up to that point, had proven to be reliable conservatives. And Sandra Day O’Connor was thought to be leaning toward shooting down Roe. A 7-2 vote to kill Roe was not out of the realm of possibilities.

Instead, O’Connor could not get herself to overturn Roe. Kennedy and Souter joined her, turning a 7-2 vote to kill Roe into a 5-4 vote to keep it.

While this alarmed the pro-life stalwarts, they were drowned out by all debates about The Economy, Stupid.

I know this because, at the time, I was President of a county Right to Life chapter. I was also on the board for a maternity home and a counselor at a crisis pregnancy center. (Those were in addition to my day job as a systems engineer at a GM account.)

I worked hard to warn folks that a Clinton victory would result in liberal SCOTUS picks that would set us FARTHER back. The 1992 winner was all but guaranteed to get two SCOTUS picks.

That’s exactly what happened.

That November, Clinton won the 1992 election. While he only carried 43% of the popular vote, he gained plenty enough electoral votes. And Democrats controlled both the House and the Senate. My state went to Bush, but my district was very “blue”: GM workers–mostly UAW workers–provided that margin.

As I predicted, it didn’t take long for Clinton to get a SCOTUS opportunity. In fact, he got two of them:

  • 1993: Byron White (one of two dissenters in Roe) retired, and Clinton subsequently picked Ruth Bader Ginsburg to fill that slot.
  • 1994: Harry Blackmun (the architect of Roe) retired, and Clinton picked Stephen Breyer to fill that slot.

Elections have consequences.

To be honest, I expected Ruth Bader Ginsburg to live to age 150.

Ideologies aside, she was a badass: a total fitness nut. And while she was a reviled figure among conservatives, I often point out that, by the time she arrived at SCOTUS in 1993, all of the major abortion decisions had been made: Roe v. Wade (1973); Doe v. Bolton (1973); Planned Parenthood v. Akron, Ohio (1976); and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992).

RBG was appointed by President Clinton, who–while campaigning in 1992–promised to use support of Roe as a litmus test for his SCOTUS picks. And he won.

So, while I was at odds with RBG and Breyer, I have no issues with them being on the Court.

I’ll say it again: elections have consequences.

That is why I could not vote for Clinton in 1996 or Gore in 2000 or Kerry in 2004 or Obama in 2008 or 2012. During that time, Obama replaced two center-right picks (Souter and O’Connor) with two very left picks (Kagan and Sotomayor).


In 2016, Donald Trump–a longtime abortion advocate–embraced the pro-life cause in his pursuit of the White House. Many of us–myself and MrsLarijani included–doubted his sincerity on this issue. We felt he was pandering for votes. This is why we both voted against him in the Kentucky primary.

Complicating the race, Antonin Scalia–one of the most conservative members of the Supreme Court, and a Reagan appointee–died. President Obama–who already had two picks (Sotomayor and Kagan)–subsequently nominated Merrick Garland to fill that slot.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) decided to delay the confirmation vote until after the election, effectively making the Presidential election a referendum on SCOTUS.

From my vantage point? While I loathed Trump, I loathed Hillary even more. On the sexual abuse issue, I considered it a wash: Trump was the face of P*ssygate whereas Hillary built her political career on the backs of her husband’s victims.

I remembered the debacle of 1992: while Bush was uninspiring, I would have trusted his SCOTUS picks over anyone Bill Clinton was set to nominate. I also remembered the radicals that the Clintons appointed to the apparatus of government, Donna Shalala and Janet Reno being at the top of the list. I remembered FileGate: it stood out as proof that the Clintons were not above using the apparatus of government to harass their political opponents, thus bringing back the era of “Black Bag” jobs.

While I had no special affinity for Trump, I would have taken a shotgun blast to the balls before voting for Hillary.

I decided that #NeverTrump == #HillaryWins.

And so I held my nose and voted for Trump. It’s a vote I do not regret.

Again, elections have consequences.

Because Trump won, instead of Merrick Garland (a hard liberal) we ended up with Neil Gorsuch, a generally-reliable conservative.

In 2018, when Anthony Kennedy retired, Trump picked Brett Kavanaugh. While Kavanaugh would not have been my choice–I was hoping for Amy Coney Barrett–I would trust him more than any pick Hillary would have made.

Am I in the MAGA camp? Not by a long shot. What I CAN tell you: I’ll take him over Hillary Clinton 10 times out of 10.


But here we are, less than 3 weeks away from the 2020 election. Trump has had three SCOTUS picks: Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett (pending). Barring a last-minute snag, Barrett will be confirmed.


But let’s assume we get Barrett.

That leaves us with a SCOTUS lineup that features SIX Republican appointees: Clarence Thomas (Bush I), Samuel Alito (Bush II), John Roberts (Bush II), Neil Gorsuch (Trump), Brett Kavanaugh (Trump), and Amy Coney Barrett (Trump) and three Democrat appointees: Stephen Breyer (Clinton), Elena Kagan (Obama), and Sonia Sotomayor (Obama).

Some pro-life enthusiasts are licking their chops, thinking that if all six of those BushI/Bush II/Trump appointees vote to kill Roe, it’s a 6-3 vote and Roe is dead.

Some have hung their hat on Amy Coney Barrett as the savior of the unborn. I do not share their confidence.

While, at face value, ACB seems to be an excellent pick, I am not holding my breath in expectation of Roe going down. I’ll believe it when I see it.

Like I said, I remember 1992. It’s very easy for armchair quarterbacks to say how easy it is to kill Roe. Trust me: even if you’re a die-harder, it won’t be easy.

You and I don’t face death threats for being pro-life. You and I won’t have our kids targeted because we’re pro-life. ACB will have a bounty on her head. Her husband will have a bounty on his head. All seven of their kids will have bounties on their heads.

If ACB kills Roe–and I hope she does–then her courage will outshine the late, great Col. John Ripley (USMC).

Also, you need to remember that the chances of Roe going down will depend on the quality of the cases presented by the Attorneys General of the states who will challenge Roe. One of the reasons we ended up with Roe: the crew in the anti-abortion side didn’t care, and put up a tepid defense.

And all it takes for Roe to stand is two of those “right-leaning” Justices to get too cute by half–appealing to “international law”, catering to multiple whataboutisms, deciding that precedent has made any challenge insurmountable. And if that happens, then Roe will live by at least a 5-4 vote. Combined with Planned Parenthood v. Casey, stare decisis will make future challenges very difficult if not unlikely.

If that happens, mark my words:

  • Barring a breakup of the country altogether, Roe will not go down in our lifetimes. Abortion will be a modern “high place” that not even a “good” ruler can take down.
  • It will be the end of the GOP. Pro-life conservatives will have no more incentive to vote Republican. That will have major implications for a variety of issues, both local and national.
  • The acceleration to Civil War II will intensify.
  • The fight within the Church on this issue will also intensify.

If Roe DOES go down, then what happens next will depend on the scope of the reversal.

  • If SCOTUS merely punts the issue back to the states, then not much will change except in states that are pro-life at least marginally (mostly “red” states). “Blue” states will see no change. (I mean seriously: do you honestly think New York or California–the most baby-killing states in the union–are going to lift a finger to ban abortion?)
  • If SCOTUS declares children in utero to have 14th Amendment protections as persons, then all Hell will break loose. A breakup of the union is entirely possible. If Dems control the House, Senate, and White House, then you’ll see an attempt at a federal law (a) codifying abortion rights and (b) precluding the federal courts from addressing the issue. If the Senate has a filibuster-proof majority, this is very much a possibility.

As for where the country is heading, that’s a different ballgame.

In the wake of the Civil War, President Lincoln once suggested that the bloodshed in the war was God’s demanded price of America for slavery. Ann Coulter, remarking about that, wondered what the price would be for abortion.

While I do not want to get into the game of blaming this or that catastrophe on abortion or [fill in the blank with your pet peeve sin], I’m going to posit some principles from Scripture:

  • The shedding of blood always carries a price.
  • There will always be a reckoning for that bloodshed.

In Genesis, Cain became the first murderer, killing his brother Abel. A few generations later, we have Lamech, committing two murders and bragging about it to his two wives. By the time we get to Genesis 6, the violence was so bad that it was one of the motivating factors for the Flood. After the flood, as God established a new covenant with Noah, He said:

Whoever sheds man’s blood,

By man his blood shall be shed,

For in the image of God

He made man.

Genesis 9:6

When God handed the Law to Moses, the Law was emphatic about bloodshed: wanton killing (murder) was punishable by death, and even unintentional killing (manslaughter) carried a price: one had to flee to a city of refuge.

The principle: homicide always carries a price.

When you look at the lives of people who had a lot of blood on their hands–including the good guys such as David–the bloodshed had an effect on them. (I posit that it made David cavalier in his dealing with Uriah when faced with his impregnation of Uriah’s wife.)

Why do I say this? homicide always carries a price. Even justifiable homicide is still homicide. Anyone who is cavalier about killing people–even people who deserve it–doesn’t know Scripture well. Jehu killed off a lot of bad people, but even his mass bloodshed was condemned by God through the prophet Hosea.

Even worse, when nations enshrine mass bloodshed, there is always a reckoning. And nothing says “enshrine mass bloodshed” like legalized, subsidized abortion.

Now keep in mind, I’m not piling onto women who’ve had abortions, as I’m not referring to individual baggages.

Oh noes, I’m referring to the establishments that have enshrined abortion. On top of government, you have the players who gave us the Sexual Revolution, feminism, progressivist elements with big academic and corporate ties and monetary incentive to profit from abortion here and abroad (Planned Parenthood), and even religious groups that either (a) support abortion or (b) whose opposition to it barely rose to the level of rhetorical.

The apparatus that clings to abortion rights is much like the apparatus that clung to slavery, and the arguments from the pro-slavery side were almost identical to those coming from the pro-aborts.

But just as the 250 years of enshrined, institutionalized human trafficking that was American slavery came with a price, the almost 50 years of enshrined, institutionalized abortion–which has claimed at least 60 million–will not come without a price.

What that price will be is anyone’s guess. But if you look at how destabilized the United States has become, I’d say we are getting a glimpse of what that price could be.

My prediction: we are heading for a catastrophic division that will make the Civil War pale in comparison. If we’re lucky, we’ll have a soft breakup of the country.

The worst part: we are on the front end of a post-Christian generation. As the Church continues its decline, Christendom will also decline. And while many will call that a good thing–as Christendom had many hypocrisies and inconsistencies–the downside is that, for all its faults, Christendom helped put the Civilization in Western Civilization.

My take: we are heading toward an era of barbarism, and real persecution of Christians will become reality in America within the next 20 years.

Is institutional, legalized abortion the only cause of this? Not hardly. I would suggest that it’s a number of factors. But 60 million dead, that’s got a Hell of a price. That alone should cause all of us to shudder.

Reflecting on the destruction of Russia by Communists, Alexandr Solzhenitsyn had this to say:

Over a half century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of old people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: “Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.” Since then I have spent well-nigh 50 years working on the history of our revolution; in the process I have read hundreds of books, collected hundreds of personal testimonies, and have already contributed eight volumes of my own toward the effort of clearing away the rubble left by that upheaval. But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous revolution that swallowed up some 60 million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: “Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.”

Think long and hard about what happened to Russia.

What was once a hub for a major sector of Christianity was hijacked by radical, militant atheist government for 70 years. The persecution against Christians was severe: Orthodox priests were shot, skinned alive, boiled alive, fed into furnaces, frozen to death, and had their innards fed to rodents. The Red Terror alone claimed over a million Russian lives. The Church in Russia was a major recipient of the reprisals.

Don’t think for one second that it can’t happen here.

While I would hesitate to say that America was ever a Christian nation, we have been a nation with a Christian consensus. But that consensus is waning, and hostility to Christendom is rising.

Make no mistake: the nearly 50 years of institutionalized, enshrined mass bloodshed will have a price.

Minus Great Awakening III, the trajectory in the United States is dire.

Random Thoughts on COVID-19

Originally, when I heard the reports of the SARS-Cov-2 virus and the outbreak of COVID-19 coming out of Wuhan, China, I didn’t expect this to be a big deal in the United States. (Dr. Anthony Fauci didn’t even think so either.)

Why did I not initially think this would materialize here?

This would not have been the first time that a nasty virus originated in Asia (MERS, SARS, Hong Kong Flu). And, in each previous case, very little of note materialized in the US.

But in late February, I ran into a friend at the gym, who works in infectious disease control: he remembered me from the NICU days when I worked out at the Planet Fitness in Lexington. We made some small talk. Then the issue of C19 came up.

Him: “Are you ready for this coronavirus?”

Me: “I don’t think it’s going to be a big deal. It’s all hype. This is not a new thing.”

Him: “Trust me: this is going to be a national clusterf**k. The health officials on the West Coast didn’t have the right training. We don’t have the testing capacity. There’s no way to contain this now.”

Me: “What do you think is going to happpen?”

Him: “The whole country will be shut down.”

Me: “Is this by design?”

Him: “Yes and no. If they had the training and tests ready, we could have stopped this. But to be honest, a lot of folks in government WANT this to go to s**t. They want control of your life.”

A few days later, a friend of mine on FB, whose wife is an anesthesiologist and whose politics are VERY right-leaning, issued a warning to everyone in our FB group: SARS-Cov-2 is indeed a Big Flippin’ Deal and this is a major threat to a large part of America. He said “social distancing” is the only way to deal with this, as the testing capacity simply was not there.

I’m pretty good friends with a pathology professor on one of my social media lives. I flat-out asked her, given my situation–I’m 53, have asthma, have had multiple bouts with pneumonia (one of which almost killed me), and have lungs that are crap–if I was overreacting by wanting to work from home.

She advised me to do exactly that.

Ergo, since March 10, I’ve been working from home.


Not long after that, most of the country was shut down, with only “essential businesses” open. It’s a given that the economic blowback is going to be nasty. Heck, it already IS nasty.

In just a few short weeks, the United States went from being the greatest economic superpower the world has ever seen–with full employment–to what will likely amount as, at the very least, a collapse that will feature unemployment exceeding Great Depression levels. Hopefully, that unemployment will be short-lived.

Think of it this way: the greatest economic superpower in world history as been brought to a grinding halt by a microscopic enemy. This is worse than a massive WMD strike.

And of course, almost immediately, many Americans became concerned about (a) whether we are overreacting, and (b) when can we re-start the economy?

Others, from Christian circles, railed about the government frowning on–even banning–large gatherings, as this would preclude regular church assemblies. Some pastors defied these orders, others livestreamed their services, while others cancelled services altogether and complained of persecution.

Many, from the right, are contending that the shutdowns will kill more people than the virus would, and that we should never have shut anything down.

Stoking that anger was glaring inconstency from government over what constitutes “essential business”.

Abortion clinics were not shut down, so slaughtering babies in utero is “essential”? Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) called abortion “life-sustaining” in her decision to keep abortion mills open.

In Kentucky, chiropractors, dentists, and dermatologists are “non-essential” whereas abortion mills are “essential”, all while “elective medical procedures” have been suspended. (So abortion is not “elective”?)

The shutdown of “elective procedures” has had blowbacks all its own: physicians, nurses, and technicians are being furloughed; dentists are being hit particularly hard.

And while the ban on gatherings of 10 or more people is a measure to promote “social distancing” and has legitimate scientific basis–as several “clusters” of C19 outbreaks occurred from church gatherings–some state and local governments sought to ban “drive-in” church services, a ban which has no scientific basis, as there have been NO outbreaks tied to drive-in services.

(FTR: I don’t endorse drive-in services; I just don’t see a good reason to shut those down.)

Meanwhile, the GDP, as well as tax revenues going into state coffers, is collapsing. The blowback from this will be severe.

Toward that end, the questions arise: do we save the economy or do we save lives? Which approach actually saves the most lives?

Along those lines: can we save lives while at least mitigating the economic carnage?

Even then, it’s fair to ask whether the shutdowns were necessary. Sweden–yes, SOCIALIST SWEDEN–did not even shut down the way we have.

They informed people to socially distance themselves, gave them the proper advice to do the right thing, and–for the most part–they have.

(The downside: the story of Sweden on this is not all rosy, as their death rate per million people is more than twice that of the U.S. On that front, the United States is actually pretty solid.)

Some have argued that the seasonal flu often kills more people. To date, COVID-19 has killed 60,000 Americans whereas the CDC estimates that the flu typically kills between 15,000 and 40,000. In 2018, the estimate was closer to 80,000.

The problem with that comparison: (a) the COVID numbers are actual counts whereas the flu numbers are algorithmic estimates; (b) the COVID numbers include the effect of social distancing; and (c) even in 2018, the seasonal flu did not overwhelm ICUs in urban areas: you did not have the meltdowns in multiple Western countries with advanced health care systems.

Complicating matters is the inconsistent message we have received from our own government.

As of today (4/30), government is effectively telling us that we MUST wear masks if we go to stores or to work, in order to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. Trouble is, that’s not what they were saying before.

And while people have to eat and therefore must be allowed to get groceries, I can also tell you that grocery stores are quite dangerous from a social distancing standpoint. Wal-Mart has better protocols in place now, but I can tell you that this was not the case two weeks ago.

Meanwhile, you have pastors at prominent churches, who have been crying persecution, as government bans on group gatherings of 10 or more have effectively shut down most in-person church services.


First, for the record, I will make the following stipulations:

(1) I DO believe that the social distancing mitigation strategies–IN GENERAL–were necessary and HAVE saved lives.

(2) I also believe that our government has exceeded its Constitutional authority in its quest for control over our lives.

Those two statements can be true at the same time.

The shutdowns need not have been Draconian, and in fact most businesses could have stayed open, with hygienal and social distancing measures in place.

(3) Government shutdowns amount to a Constitutional taking of private property for public purpose. At the same time, the Fifth Amendment requires that government compensate us for this taking of our property. The realist in me says we will never be compensated for this, and that the current “stimulus” is akin to “bread and circuses”.

Having said all of that, here is where I stand:

  • I’m for saving lives first. Public action on this must focus on saving lives.
  • I am willing to sacrifice my economic well-being to save lives.
  • I do believe that, minus social distancing, we’d have at least 5 times the number of cases–and deaths–that we have now.

Skeptics will contend that 90% of the COVID infections are mild and are no big deal. And while that is true, the problem is that remaining 10%.

And COVID is killing people in very weird ways. Yes, the COVID pneumonia that results in respiratory failure is prominent. But many are also dying of blood clots, or organ failure due to those clots. Cytokine storms–which were a major culprit in the 1918 flu pandemic–are also prominent in COVID infections, claiming a number of lives.

And then there’s the issue of when (or whether) we will develop immunity. What made COVID-19 dangerous is that it is a novel coronavirus: humans had no prior exposure and therefore no immune response.

But then one can fairly ask (a) are we ever going to get a vaccine for this? (b) What about herd immunity? (c) Does social distancing help or hurt along those lines? (d) Will this virus come back in multiple waves? (e) Are there other treatments for COVID that are effective?

So far, there appears to be a vaccine in the making, but I am not putting any stock in it anytime soon. For the record: I’m a pro-vaxxer; I just think it’s going to take time–at least a year, possibly two–before we know if this vaccine is going to be any good.

The issue is what are we going to do for the next 3-6 months? A vaccine is not going to be in play for that horizon. The issue is what can we do in the near-term?

The concept of herd immunity is not difficult to understand: for a lot of viruses, if a large number of people have antibodies and are immune, then that protects others in the population. So getting people vaccinated or otherwise exposed to the virus so they’ll develop antibodies, should–in theory–help stoke that immunity so that this “novel” coronavirus will lose its novelty.

The problem? We’re not sure that having antibodies necessarily gives you immunity. There have been reports of people surviving COVID-19 and then getting re-infected. Even the WHO is now sounding the alarm on this.

If that report is true, then this could be a gift that keeps on giving: we will almost certainly get multiple waves, and–unless we have the testing capacity in place to quickly shut it down–any future outbreak will cause major disruption. Nursing homes will be dangerous places for the foreseeable future.

And given the economic carnage–which will be very substantial–skeptics will question the veracity of the math models that predicted mass deaths, whether all of these shutdowns were worth it.


First off, I generally question all macro-level predictive math models coming from scientists of any stripe. Why?

As we have seen–more times than I care to count–predictive models at the macro-level are usually a fool’s game. Whether it’s climate change, whether it’s virology, wher it’s macroeconometrics, predictive models are usually off by very large margins.

(If macro models were reliable, then the human race would be near-extinct from Climate Change, what few would have survived would have been decimated by Ebola, and those survivors would be broke from all the hyperinflation.)

So with C19, I found myself initially skeptical for those reasons.

But what changed my mind? It wasn’t what the friend of mine from the gym said. It wasn’t what the anesthesiologist’s husband said. It wasn’t even what my pathologist friend said.

You know what changed my mind? It was what we had going on in real-time: Italy, Spain, France, and England–each a Western nation, each with a modern health care system–had COVID-19 meltdowns, as hospitals were overwhelmed with patients needing ventilators.

In those regions, physicians were having to literally decide who lives and who dies, as there were more patients than resources.

So yes, we had a legitimate threat in COVID-19, and yes, social distancing was/is necessary.

The critics, however, are right to call to account a government that has used a meat axe approach to shutdowns when a scalpel would have minimized the pain.

What do I think should have happened?

We already had established social distancing standards and hygienal protocols. It would have been a simple matter to require businesses to comply with those protocols as a matter of Due Diligence in order to continue operations. What would that look like?

  • Every employee who can work from home, is now working from home;
  • Increase spacing of cubicles; convert as many to offices as possible.
  • For offices that have two or more people, ensure that they are spaced at least 10 feet apart and not facing each other;
  • Provide appropriate cleaning agents in plenteous supply.
  • Ensure that employees get tested every two weeks. Positives need to stay home for at least 3 weeks.
  • All meetings need to be held electronically.
  • Manufacturing plants and warehouses must ensure proper separation and hygiene to promote a clean environment.
  • All medical and dental establishments may stay open, provided they have PPE.
  • All elective procedures may proceed, with the understanding that those can be shut down if locales end up with an “all hands on deck” situation.
  • All nursing homes are in full lockdown. All visitation is electronic. Employees must be tested every week.
  • Gatherings of 10 or more people should be highly-discouraged, with the warning that, if such a gathering results in an outbreak, the organizers could be liable for civil or even criminal charges.

Would that have prevented all shutdowns? No. It would have saved lives while minimizing the economic pain.

As for churches and other places of worship?

While respecting First Amendment rights, I’d put them on notice about being “That Guy” who started a major outbreak by being reckless. I would strongly advise them to limit gatherings to no more than 10, keeping people distanced. That may require having multiple services and/or reverting to livestreaming. If outbreaks occur–especially if they result in fatalities–then shutdowns may be on the table. I’d call churches to remember their heritage in saving lives, and use that to encourage livestreaming.

As for me? I was gung-ho about doing church from home. Why? I took it as an opportunity to do Church the way Christians in persecuted regions have been doing it for decades.

I told folks on Twitter to look at this as a firedrill for the day when churches WILL have to meet this way due to REAL persecution.

I hope I’m wrong, but my cynical side says we are on the front-end of a post-Christian generation that will last at least 50 years and will become severe. If we end up with Totalitarian government, we will experience real persecution. Otherwise, encroachments on religious freedoms are still imminent.

The day is coming when it will be on you to lead Bible study/worship in your own home. This is a good time for you to take stock in whether you are ready for that day.

If you are not, then this would be a great time to get into Inductive Bible Study.

What is more ominous to me than the medical or economic fallout is this: in both the secular world and even within the Church itself, I do not see a lot of humility.

Within the Church, I see little desire to seek God and repent for any personal or collective sins. And there are many of both.

No, I’m not the one who’s going to tell you that this is all about abortion or homosexuality. Yes, those are big deals, but those are far from the only “national sins”.

Materialism, anyone? How about trying to serve God and Mammon? How about racism? How about the monetizing of the Gospel?

How about the deluge of narcissist and/or sexually predatory pastors in the evangelical ranks? How about the ranks of clergy who are using porn? How about the coverups of sexual abuse?

In all of this COVID-19 pandemic, I have seen close to zero movement from pastors about any of this. And that doesn’t square with what we see in Scripture.

Jesus called attention to those aware of the collapse of the Tower of Siloam, which killed 18 people. His warning: “Do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you, but unless you repent, you will likewise perish.”

In Revelation, we read of a world that gets hit by plague and calamity, and yet, at the end of chapter 9:

The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands nor give up worshiping demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood, which cannot see or hear or walk, nor did they repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts.

And no, I’m not saying that we are in the middle of Revelation 9; I am, however, pointing to a troubling dynamic that we see now, that is representative of a people hardened to the point where they care not about the things of God.

Of course, Jesus predicted that this would happen: “because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.”

It’s like our country has been overrun by Nietzchke, Ayn Rand, and Peter Singer, all at the same time. And a large sector of the Church has bought into one or more of them.

The world is burning down, and the Church is in little or no position to provide the Answer.

Like Capt. Chesley Sullenburger–who parked US Airways 1529 in the Hudson River after a double bird strike–I’m a “long-term optimist but a short-term realist.”

I’m not hopeful for the short-term.