Disgracebook
by Ted Slater on 07/10/2009 at 4:23 PM
Motte wrote about South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford's adulterous ways last week.
Today's featured Boundless article by J. Budziszewski, "Disgracebook," now has Professor Theophilus and a student mulling over the distressing situation.
Among other things, Theophilus asks, "Why are you so sure that a man who can't keep his marital vows will keep his oath of office?" I've wondered the same thing: If a man is not faithful to his wedding oath, how can we expect him to be faithful to his oath of office?
Professor Theophilus goes on:
"... statesmanship requires more than skill, and that's just like skill in other fields too. We want our accountants to be skillful in accountancy, but we also want them to be honest. When I call a statesman 'great' I don't mean that he holds power with great skill, but that he rules with great justice."
Lots going on in J. Budziszewski's narrative. I'm interested to know what parts resonated with you.
1. farmer Tom said the following at 4:48 PM on Jul 10:
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What is this "justice" thing whereof he speaks???
Is that similar to fair?
Is it a legal term?
One wonders how you can speak of justice and a politician, when most politicians have absolutely no clue what justice is?
Funny how a word search of justice in Scripture almost always links justice with truth, righteousness, judgment and mercy.
A political leader who was truthful, righteous, merciful and made just judgments is exactly the kind of leader we are looking for.
A dude who cheats on his wife is none of the above.
2. Giselle Aguiar said the following at 5:27 PM on Jul 10:
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"...rules with great justice."
Even tho God is the ultimate judge, we judge all the time. Mostly we judge character. We base our trust of a person on his/her character and integrity. How can we trust anyone in power who lies to his family and staff members - or asks his staff to lie for him? If your staff can't trust you, what kind of government is going to come out of there?
Sanford is politics as usual. Sarah Palin is NOT politics as usual. She put her state before her political gain. Sanford should do the same - think of his state - not himself - he already ruined himself.
3. david beldon said the following at 6:04 PM on Jul 10:
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The part that resonated the most is that we dont have a great view on what Christianity is all about. We seem to have a prideful viewpoint that world is full of good guys and bad guys and we think that Christians are the goods guys when in reality Jesus is the only good guy that ever lived. We are all bad guys christians and nonchristians alike. What I love about the old testament is the honesty that there are really no heroes. No one is perfect and it all points to Jesus. When a person meets Jesus and accepts them as their savior they are become sinless and as righteous as Jesus in God's eyes and God begins to change that person from the inside out with new desires and passions. We are never sinless until we die and go to heaven. I may not be as given to sin as I was in the past because of God's work but Im still a sinner completely dependent on God's mercy. I think and what I believe Jesus was talking about in Matthew is when judging others we first need to repent of our own sin and then judge (not condemn)others humbly.
I think the argument that the governor's adultery disqualifies him from being a governor is tough one. If we hold everyone in the church to the standard of staying married half of us would be unemployed. Would you distrust your accountant, police officer or mechanic if he had an affair? Their integrity affects me more than my governor. Having a father who has been divorced 4 times, I hate adultery and divorce more than anyone out there and I want to have a successful marriage and family really more than anything else. I know that in the end the success of it depends on the grace of God and not how good I am.
4. In Idaho said the following at 6:08 PM on Jul 10:
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This article reminds me of a line from a Babylon 5 episode: "You can't defend the bigger values if you compromise on the smaller ones". This article also has resonated with me on a personal level, as I had a very bad episode with someone aspiring to be involved in politics. She had been homeschooled, gone to Christian private schools all her life, and yet has treated me more poorly than most non-Christians (the phrase 'contemptuous harlot' comes to mind). Although we share a common ideology (conservative)and reliogious background, I would not trust her or back her for political office.
5. Callie said the following at 1:55 AM on Jul 11:
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The part about being a good statesman:
Being good in your field is greater than just being skilled... its also about doing all things unto the Lord and working with integrity and honor.
6. T.Smith said the following at 8:21 AM on Jul 11:
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I'm not sure about "honest," but John F. Kennedy was a wonderful president up until his assassination. At least the rumors assert that he fawned many ladies other than his spouse. He had a tendency to honor many of his idealistic views - in that sense, quite honestly.
Bill Clinton, too, was unfaithful, but managed the national debt better than any president we've had in the past 30 years. As far as honest is concerned, he was deceitful in some policies, but adroit and open in others - especially, many of his economic policies (not so much, however, in healthcare).
It seems that politicians, whether they are faithful or not, can still manage to do good for the country - some areas with honesty and openness, other areas, unfortunately not.
7. Kyle said the following at 11:46 AM on Jul 11:
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The article was well written and connected with me in various ways. One thing that caught my eye was the Professor's statement that, "knowing what (we) don't know is a good place to begin." I recall God's lament that we perish for our lack of knowledge. If we dedicated ourselves to a true understanding of our role as people pursuing the heart of God, I believe it would cause dramatic changes in our lives. People would begin to see a model of faithfully living by God's instruction to us.
Also, Professor Theophilus' statements on the Bible as a descriptive, instructive text, but not a collection of precedents or an encyclopedia, impacted me. As the product of a conservative Pentecostal church upbringing and a burgeoning academic, I have long wrestled with this inward drive to bring the life of the mind into the life of the spirit, such that my intellectual efforts contribute to the growth of my daily relationship with God. For all the talk of the body of Christ, it can often feel like the Scarecrow: if it only had a brain. What I mean is we have been given reason and understanding by way of God's design, and we must employ those tools so that our daily lives are not those of automatons, but of thinking, believing, praying people who are patterning themselves after Jesus Christ's example. We must be humbly aware of our lack of knowledge, and humbly determined to know more that our lives would reflect God's revealed light. Certainly we cannot think our way to God, but we must think about the path that draws us nearer to God.
8. Mike said the following at 12:25 PM on Jul 11:
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Jack Nicholson said it best as The Joker:
"Who do you trust?"
If I can't trust the man to stay faithful to his wife, how much trust can I place in him as the manager of the public trust?
Character counts.
9. rushncap said the following at 2:20 PM on Jul 11:
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A politician's desire or propensity to cheat has nothing to do with the job he's doing as a statesman. Again, Clinton, Jefferson, FDR and JFK all had affairs, yet are amongst the best statesmen our country has ever seen. Meanwhile Nixon and W are not known to have cheated on their wives, and were 2 of the worst Presidents ever. A man's desire to have sex is not at all a reflection on his ability to perform his job correctly.
10. Melisssa S. said the following at 8:57 PM on Jul 11:
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I agree with the article.
You know what? All the people I know who are cheaters or sexually promiscuous are also people who have generally weak characters in most other areas you could mention. I've seen the way they work and run departments. They aren't honest. They don't keep their word. They are flaky people that you can't rely on. In general, I don't trust much that they say about anything. It always turns out to be a tall tale, inaccurate, or a flat-out lie. And these are "nice" people! Respected by a lot of people. These aren't weirdos that no one can stand. By the world's standards, they manage to hold together a fairly nice life.
I do not think that people who have such huge areas of un-repented moral fissures and canyons in their lives can make good leaders of any kind.
11. BDB said the following at 11:10 PM on Jul 11:
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The genius of the U.S. Constitution is that it assumes men are fallen. The structure of the U.S. government was deliberately designed to result in gridlock if any one man, especially the President, tried to do too much to enrich his friends at the expense of his enemies.
The reality is that people like Newt Gingrich, John McCain, Ronald Reagan and Rush Limbaugh have had similar problems keeping their marriage vows.
Ironically, Arnold Schwarzenegger seems to be the one who has kept his marriage vows since he made them.
We should not look to politicians for salvation.
12. brx said the following at 1:01 AM on Jul 12:
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I recognize that people may stumble with their skill or stumble with their duty... but if a public official LIES while under oath to testify to the truth, that is in the crime category of High Treason. <--period
That's why what Bill Clinton did really _was_ such a big deal... if you'd lie about something that's merely very embarrassing, why should the public trust you in more important matters where a failure might be more serious? ...yet the public just swept it under the rug. I don't think the majority really cares about truth anymore; they just want a friendly looking person who seems to like them... and someone else to blame for their troubles.
Grace & truth
13. In Idaho said the following at 12:48 PM on Jul 12:
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Well said, #7. We (as individuals) are not just all body or mind or spirit, but our life and behavior reflects the intersection of these 3 components.
14. Adam said the following at 8:02 AM on Jul 13:
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"Why are you so sure that a man who can't keep his marital vows will keep his oath of office?" I've wondered the same thing: If a man is not faithful to his wedding oath, how can we expect him to be faithful to his oath of office?
What standard should politicians be held to? If one is caught speeding 5mph over the speed limit, does that constitute a big enough sin that the person is no longer qualified/trusted for office? What if he/she is seen losing their tempter after their kid knocks over a lamp?
Can someone who cheated on their spouse be trusted to make us coffee next time we go to Starbucks?
I'm not sure what the line should be. People are very capable of conforming their behavior at a job. I know people who are very respectable at work, yet get them away from work, and the language and attitude changes dramatically. I wear a different standard of clothes to work than I do at home.
15. Mike said the following at 4:11 PM on Jul 13:
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For those who think it doesn't matter whether a politician commits crimes in his personal life, allow me to relate a story:
While I was married, my ex-wife was having her hair done. This was during the Monica-Bill Clinton scandal, and the hairdresser was commenting along exactly that line: That it was nobody's business that he was sleeping around on his wife, and it didn't matter as long as he did his job well. My ex asked, "What would you do if your husband cheated on you?" The hairdresser replied, "I'd kill him!" "So why is it OK for the President to do something you'd kill your husband for doing?" She stopped, and said, "You know, I never thought about it that way."
Here's another one: 13-year-old schoolchildren are performing sex acts on each other on the school bus because the President said such things "aren't sex". Politicians are role models. Their behavior becomes the standard by which the country measures itself - whether they think it should or not.
Or how about this: They make laws they enforce on the rest of us. Why should they NOT be held accountable to follow them?
Folks, we simply cannot "look the other way" when our leaders demonstrate a casual disregard for illegal or immoral behavior. Since they are leaders, they MUST be held to a higher standard. In fact, Scripture has this to say about leaders in the Church:
"Now the overseer must be above reproach, the husband of but one wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him with proper respect. (If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God's church?) He must not be a recent convert, or he may become conceited and fall under the same judgment as the devil. He must also have a good reputation with outsiders, so that he will not fall into disgrace and into the devil's trap." (1 Timothy 3:2-7)
Given that government is appointed by God with certain duties and responsibilities, I'd say the same standards are probably not inappropriate for leaders in government. Otherwise, respect for the government and for its laws will dissolve. We lose trust in its ability to govern well - and anarchy prevails.