Matt’s Marvelous Mailbag seeks to provide marginally adequate answers to much better questions about politics, economics, social life, theology, or any potpourri you see fit to have answered. Send questions to mailbag.bereans@gmail.com.
Q: Daniel asks: “Thoughts regarding the recent revelations surrounding Martin Luther King Jr.? How do we reconcile revelations like this regarding people, who we might deem heroes, who have helped bring about great changes and done great things but have massive flaws in their lives such as this? Can we still look up to them?
A: This question actually came in a few weeks ago, and I purposefully held off on answering it for a while because the accusations involved were, shall we say, explosive. Thanks for your patience, Daniel. For those who don’t know, recent reports have been emerging that (a) expand the known philandering of MLK, and (b) report that he was present during the rape of a young woman by a Baltimore pastor during which he laughed and offered advice to the rapist. In short, the allegations are brutal. I’d offer this Politico article to you all to read on the topic. It offers an adequate, reasonable summary in my opinion. Now, as for my thoughts, I have two:
- It’s not like this is the first time in history that people have been confronted with discomforting revelations about beloved, historical figures, and it certainly won’t be the last. The solution in dealing with these revelations, I think, does not change. It’s so simple as to be scandalous; we acknowledge both the good and bad elements together. Two things can be true at once. MLK can be both a powerful, public figure who courageously led the fight for civil rights and ultimately paid for it with his life and a scoundrel who participated in rank immorality and perversion. Overemphasizing one element just won’t do full justice to MLK or to any other
flawed, historical figurehuman. The past is often tragic and always fixed. Provided these allegations are true, what ramifications could be made nowadays that would be pragmatically beneficial to the nation? Getting rid of MLK day is not going to make this better and would almost certainly seem like a slap in the face to large swaths of the country. What we can do is learn from the failures and success of past men and strive for excellence, virtue, and charity in our own lives. - But, since I’m feeling sardonic, let’s talk about inconsistency. Provided you read that Politico piece, you’ll notice the rather measured way in which they handled the allegations. “Good on them,” says I. And now I present to you a Google result of Politico sliming Brett Kavanaugh like a dog over an event that had happened in the similarly distant past. Where, oh where Politico was this measured investigation and careful thought you so eagerly display now? Sorry, I forgot. Kavanaugh is a conservative Supreme Court nominee who might oppose your political proclivities. Well, carry on then with the sliming; don’t mind us average folk out here. Or maybe we should go to the New York Times, which spent more time drubbing the author than investigating the claims but was willing to say Kavanaugh shouldn’t be on the Court, not primarily because of the allegations but because he was ‘partisan’ because judges are apparently supposed to be robots. Oh, silly me. I forgot ‘partisan’ means ‘Republican.’ Matt, when will you learn?
As with many, if not most of my harpings upon the press, my issue is not so much with their take as it is with their rank inconsistency. Do we make sexual misconduct a disqualifier? Yes if it’s Kavanaugh, no if it’s MLK, maybe for Hollywood and the press but only after covering it up for years, definitely for Trump, no for Bill Clinton until he becomes dead weight and can be chucked to the wolves, yes for the Lt. Gov of Virginia except that a Republican was eventually in line for the governorship because the Democratic leadership was filled with perfidious dunderwhelps, so not really….I could go on, but you get the point. Don’t get me wrong, plenty of right-leaning sites are inconsistent like this too. But, when the press is as powerful, influential, and vocal about their ‘impartiality’ as they are, I expect far more from them than what I’m getting.
Q: Daniel also asks: “Thoughts on Arthur Laffer being picked to get Presidential Medal of Freedom?”
A: It’s a good pick, and I have no qualms about it. Arthur (Art) Laffer, for the uninitiated, was an economic adviser to Reagan back in his heyday and developed what we know as the Laffer curve. The Laffer curve basically makes the case that the optimal tax rate for maximizing revenue is neither 100% nor just a simple parabola, thus it may be possible, depending where you are on the Laffer curve to raise revenue by cutting taxes. Anyway, the reason this is a relevant question right now is because a bunch of economists, with apparently little else to do with their time, decided, “Grrr, we don’t like Art Laffer. This award damages the econ profession. (Murmur, murmur, murmur, choke on spittle, cough, adjust glasses, snore), to which I offer a heartfelt, “Nyuck, nyuck, nyuck,” for two reasons:
- If you don’t believe the premise of the Laffer curve, you simply don’t know your econ history. Thomas Sowell has demonstrated with primary, government sources that tax cuts have led to increased revenues in the past. No, that’s not a guarantee that a tax cut now will raise revenues, but it does show that it can be done. So, whine all you want about the Laffer curve; it is a legitimate model, one for which I think Laffer can be rewarded.
- Big, stinkin’ whoop if you don’t like Laffer’s economics. I don’t like Galbraith’s post-Keynesian mumbo-jumbo, but he got a Medal of Freedom, and you don’t hear me griping and making an apocalypse out of it. Maybe, just maybe (gasp), the award has a political function to it, and the President can use it as he darn well pleases. So yes, cry all you want, you Keynesian chumps. I will drink from your rivers of tears so long as you do, and it will be mightily refreshing.
Marcus Aurelius asks: “What are your thoughts on the Confederate flag?”
A: I’m going to take this as I presume you are inferring, namely you’re more interested in the socio-political implications of it than its design (which by the way I’d give decent marks for, but I don’t think is anything special). As with many things, context is king on this issue. I have no issue with the flag being flown or displayed for historical reasons or being used on monuments, but, admittedly, I also have little connection to any of its implications.
The trouble is this: the appropriateness of flying the Confederate flag boils down to what the motivation is, and, beyond the historical or keepsake motivation, I’m not sure what a good motivation for flying it would be. Is there anything constructive that comes from flying it outside of a historical context? I’m not sure there is, especially for Christians who are supposed to be focused on unity in Christ. Regardless of your religious affiliation, however, there just doesn’t seem to be an edifying reason to fly the Confederate flag outside of a historical context. Even if the intent isn’t malicious, the act still isn’t wise.
Q: Sergei Efremovich asks: “How do you handle critics?”
A: By nailing their dissenting gizzards to the mast and salting their lot of earth with holy vengeance! Or…something like that. No, realistically it depends on who you’re dealing with:
- Some people are genuinely interested in your opinion and critiquing it in good faith. I like to think that most of the commentators on this blog are of this sort, and that just speaks to the quality audience we’ve cultivated here. In that case, you’re task is fairly straightforward. Take the criticism, see if it’s appropriate for your argument, and offer a reasonable rebuttal.
- In trying to build bridges, you will find on occasion that trolls have taken up residence. Here, the spinsters of fairy tales have done us very little good in teaching us how to deal with them. Far from being inevitable obstacles, I find trolls are best dealt with by walking straight past and even through them since there is hardly any real substance to them anyway. Trolls, in actuality, subsist on noise and cannot survive long without it. Moreover, they are begetting creatures if given the chance, hence the doubly important task of starving them out quickly, though I confess that a well-managed troll can be amusing if handled properly.
- You will also find some people who are not trolls but do act in bad faith in critiquing you, generally due to some variant of malice or ignorance. In such case, it is your duty to refrain from reprisal. Stay on message, adjust its complexity or form as necessary, and resist the urge to join the person in ad hominem exercises. The danger in debating people in such a manner is that they often drag you down to their level and beat you with experience. Resist the temptation to stoop low as best you can.
Beyond that general grouping, the exact methods you employ will necessarily vary as well. Satire is powerful but requires certain conditions and proficiencies to be utilized well, brute force and empathy both have their respective roles, and I find it rarely hurts to appeal to your critic’s humanity with some form of pleasantries when trying to win them over.
A Final Reflection:
So, to start our June reflections on homosexuality and Christians, let’s begin with wrong approach #1. A little while back, a friend and I were discussing the church’s handling of homosexuality, and he made the rather insightful point that many Christians do not treat divorce or even adultery the same way homosexuality is treated, even though we would say that both are forms of sexual immorality. I don’t disagree with him, but I think the problem runs even deeper than that. It’s not just that we’ve treated homosexuality differently; it’s more that we seem to have made it a boogeyman for all that is wrong.
One of the most difficult parts of living the Christian life is how to measure your response to someone else’s sin. It’s pretty clear that we are to keep one another accountable on this front, but there’s also seems to be a general notion that, if you’re not part of the kingdom, the rules of the kingdom don’t apply to you. This is where I think the church made its big mistake. When Christianity went mainstream in the AD 300s, it tried to immanentize the eschaton by attempting to make kingdom rules applicable to both believers and non-believers. This approach was and is still fatally flawed from its outset. In order to live by kingdom rules, you need a kingdom heart and a kingdom family. Instituting those rules on a national level involves neither of those, so such an approach is doomed to failure.
More specifically for America, I wonder if part of the problem of why our segment of the church has botched its response to homosexuality so badly is because of the view that America is somehow specially favored by God as a new Israel or something like it. I can’t recall the number of times I heard Scripture used to talk about how judgment would come on America if it legalized homosexuality, and there was always a part of me that thought that was a little narrow-sighted. Just America? Just for homosexuality, not anything else? The whole idea of the Day of the Lord in Scripture is that all nations are rightly judged so that the righteous are vindicated and the wicked punished. Yet, if you think of America as not one of one nations but a new Israel, I can see where the idea of nationally enforcing the Christian ethic starts to creep in. Look, I love America, but she is not a new Israel, and the church is not called to enforce its morality at a national level.
Some virtues (most I suspect) simply cannot be taught at the governmental level, and sexual purity is certainly one of those. As such, the national prohibition against homosexual behavior just is not going to cut it. If Christians are to win more people to Christ, I don’t think a national crusade against homosexuals is going to do the trick. After all, we’re after something much deeper than surface compliance.
