This Week
Hot Takes - Surrenderer in Chief; Biden Presser; Some Americans No Longer Believe in the Common Good; Lil Nas X and Tony Hawk; Harvard chaplain
Feature: Character Still Counts…and Costs
Post(erity) - Possibly in Need of a Little Persecution?
Fun & Random Linkage - The Milk Crate Challenge
Dear Reader,
I’ve been sick across the majority of the week - not strep, not Covid (though I was tested for both) - with a terribly sore throat that has thankfully eased into a nagging dry cough. I share this not for pity but preface: I wrote this week’s edition of Second Drafts under the influence of multiple brands of cough drops, so if anything seems out-of-whack, now you know why.
Thanks for understanding…and for reading (now please pass the NyQuil).
Craig
P.S.: As a reminder, you’re welcome and encouraged to email me directly with feedback, ideas, links, etc. at cmdunham [at] gmail [dot] com. Just know that, unless you specifically tell me not to, I may quote you here (though it will always be anonymously).
Hot Takes
A few from the week:
“Surrenderer in Chief” - Yesterday, former President Donald Trump released his unofficial announcement that he is running for President in 2024. At least that’s how I interpret this powerful video (with only a few out-of-context clips) that captures a litany of President Biden’s failures over the past seven months:
As exciting as the release of this video may be for Trump’s base, it’s not necessary for them; they already despise Biden, are still convinced he won the 2020 election illegitimately, and will vote for Trump in 2024 in a Manhattan second.
But how does the video play for conservatives who are not Trumpers? Well, for this one, it comes off as opportunistic and its own special brand of propaganda. True, it’s a visual reminder of Biden’s failures (which are many and significant), but those who didn’t vote for Biden or Trump in 2020 aren’t looking for more of the same from either man in 2024; we’re looking for a better man (or woman).
This is just politics as usual.
That said, if you watched yesterday’s press conference after the bombing that killed 13 Marines and 95 others in Kabul, let’s agree it’s time for Biden to resign or be removed from office, as he is simply unfit for the role and responsibilities (and don’t get me started on his Christian Nationalistic misappropriation of Isaiah 6). Bring Kamala back from the Rainbow Tour, fire every military general and civilian defense leader involved, and let’s prepare for the fall-out of what’s ahead, because there is much to come.
“Some Americans No Longer Believe in the Common Good” - An overly feel-good piece, but one still worth reading for the purpose of self-reflection:
“Those who are unwilling to sacrifice a small part of their daily comforts for the good of our country seem to be the loudest right now. But the statistics show that they are not in the majority. Most of us are thinking of one another. My grandmother would be proud.”
The issue is the definition of the “common good” and who gets to determine what that is. I'm an advocate for public health, and part of that is recognizing the psychological struggles that accompany a masked society (particularly when the risk of death - particularly in children - is so very low).
I've been vaccinated, not made a big deal about wearing masks, and have done my best to contribute to the common good (or at least what I hear the writer describing as such) in trying to bring resolution to the pandemic. I would take it all more seriously if our so-called “elite” did as well, playing by the same rules they so easily enjoy inflicting on us little people.
“Lil Nas X Calls Out the Double Standard of Tony Hawk’s Blood-Infused Skateboard” - I confess that I may be guilty of having different responses here, but not for the reasons put forward:
“There’s a blood war happening in celebrity culture right now and it’s highlighting a massive double standard. In March, Lil Nas X came under fire by many conservatives for partnering with Nike to release a limited-edition line of Air Max 97s that contained a drop of human blood. The rapper, who is Black and openly gay, was heavily criticized for his Satan Shoes. Just this week, professional skateboarder and straight white man Tony Hawk released a limited-edition skateboard painted with his blood and sold out in minutes with little to no criticism. Lil Nas X noticed the vast difference in reactions to the two launches and is calling out those who previously criticized him and have been silent about Hawk’s new product.”
My initial response to Lil Nas X had nothing to do with the fact that he’s black or gay (I didn’t know he was gay until a few days later); it had everything to do (as does my critique here of Tony Hawk, who is white and “straight” - a term I never use as we’re all sexually broken) with the fact that Nas (and Hawk) seem to want to blur the lines between being mortal and immortal, creature and Creator.
Let’s be honest: Wouldn’t you say that Nas’ photo shoot was maybe a little more satanic and provocative than Hawk’s? I think so. Regardless, they both seem to have egos their respective marketing departments are glad to exploit.
Rapper Little Nas X with his “satanic” shoe from spring. 
Skateboarder Tony Hawk’s blood draw and paint contribution.
“New Chief Chaplain at Harvard University is an Atheist” - If you’re familiar with Harvard’s long apostasy from its Christian founding, this will not surprise:
“The Puritan colonists who settled in New England in the 1630s had a nagging concern about the churches they were building: How would they ensure that the clergymen would be literate? Their answer was Harvard University, a school that was established to educate the ministry and adopted the motto ‘Truth for Christ and the Church.’ It was named after a pastor, John Harvard, and it would be more than 70 years before the school had a president who was not a clergyman.
Nearly four centuries later, Harvard’s organization of chaplains has elected as its next president an atheist named Greg Epstein, who takes on the job this week.”
Finally! It’s time we recognize atheism for what it is - a faith system and religion - and not some innocuous “absence of belief” given a free pass for far too long.
Greg Epstein has been Harvard’s humanist chaplain since 2005.
Character Still Counts…and Costs
“There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job, and that man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil.” (Job 1:1)
I start with this one line Scriptural description of Job, as it sums up well what we understand to be his character. But in throwing out that word, “character,” we should define our terms, as there is much confusion about what “character” actually is.
In speaking of “Job’s character,” we do not mean to imply that he was merely a fictional or literary “character” who exists only in our imaginations; the person of Job was quite real. No, when we speak of Job’s “character” (or anyone else’s, for that matter), we speak of what Aristotle called a “state concerned with choice”…or what the Oxford English Dictionary defines as “the mental and moral qualities distinctive to an individual”…or what Anthony Krouman at Yale University describes as “an ensemble of settled dispositions – of habitual feelings and desires.”
In other words (and here’s my own five-cent definition), when we speak of “character,” we speak of who we are and what we choose to do as a result of who we are.
In Job’s case, the Scriptures tell us that “who he was” was blameless and upright, and “what he chose to do as a result of who he was” was to fear God and turn away from evil; thus, we could say Job’s character was godly and god-fearing, both of which should interest us as Christians.
Unfortunately, we are limited here in considering the fullness of Job’s character, but if we were to study who Job was and what Job chose to do as a result of who he was, we would find two very important truths: character still counts…and costs.
Character Still Counts
Several years ago, I taught high school sophomores in a class called Biblical Ethics, a year-long course centered around the Ten Commandments. We covered topics like idol worship, self-image, language, addictive behaviors, Sabbath, family, relationship to civil law and authorities, abortion and murder, capital punishment, war and self-defense, animal rights, marriage and sexuality, work and leisure, wealth and poverty, and truth-telling to name a few.
Just for fun (kind of), I used to tell my students that if they failed my class, they would fail life. Some of them believed me then; all of them believe me now. They believe me now because they - like you and me - have had to orient their ethics in relation to real-world issues. And as if the external dilemmas aren’t confusing enough, they were also wrestling with deep internal questions like those author and cultural commentator David Brooks posed in his book, The Road to Character:
“Toward what should I orient my life? Who am I, and what is my nature? How do I mold my nature to make it gradually better day-by-day? What virtues are the most important to cultivate and what weaknesses should I fear the most?”
Epictetus, a first-century Greek Stoic philosopher, was convinced of the importance of divine virtues in answering these questions when he writes,
“To live in the presence of great truths and eternal laws, to be led by permanent ideals, that is what keeps a man patient when the world ignores him and calm and unspoiled when the world praises him.”
Saint Peter is even more specific in 2 Peter 1:3-11, reminding us there is practical benefit to living in light of transcendent truth and God-given guidance. He writes:
“His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.
For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.
For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins.
Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall. For in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” (2 Peter 1:3-11 ESV)
A Talent for Admiration
If we want to impact others, we need to make every effort to supplement our faith as Peter admonishes, not because our faith is insufficient by itself, but because it is completely sufficient to be the foundation for what is key to human flourishing – virtue, knowledge, self-control, steadfastness, godliness, brotherly affection, and love.
People need this kind of flourishing – not just from us, but in us. They need to see us wrestle with our own questions as we help them wrestle with theirs. They want heroes, not celebrities. And guess what? We do, too, but finding them starts with possessing and cultivating what Brooks calls “a talent for admiration.” He writes,
“The work of the Roman biographer Plutarch is based on the premise that the tales of the excellent can lift the ambitions of the living. Thomas Aquinas argued that in order to lead a good life, it is necessary to focus more on our exemplars than on ourselves, imitating their actions as much as possible. The philosopher Alfred North Whitehead argued that, ‘Moral education is impossible without the habitual vision of greatness.’”
How do we develop our talent for admiration and habitually view greatness? About whom are we going to read? With whom are we going to walk, talk, and pray...and pray about what? Whose example are we going to consider and follow? If no one comes to mind, here’s a point of application: find a hero.
Character Still Costs
Character still counts...and costs.
The etymology – that is, the study of the origin of words – of the word “character” is interesting. According to The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy,
“The English word ‘character’ is derived from the Greek word ‘character,’ which was originally used of a mark impressed upon a coin. Later and more generally, ‘character’ came to mean a distinctive mark by which one thing was distinguished from others, and then primarily to mean the assemblage of qualities that distinguish one individual from another.”
When we think of something being shaped – of something being forged – we’d rather prefer imagining the process on a penny than on our person. Brooks, however, writes,
“When people remember the crucial events that formed them, they don’t usually talk about happiness. It is usually the ordeals that seem most significant. Most people shoot for happiness but feel formed through suffering.”
The Apostle Paul, writing to the Romans in the beginning of the fifth chapter, confirms our greatest fears of formation: character still costs, and what character costs – that is, what we pay for character acquisition – is endurance of suffering:
“Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” (Romans 5:1-5 ESV)
Ten years ago, my family and I moved from St. Louis – where I had just completed seminary and was enjoying teaching and coaching at one of the top college preparatory Christian high schools in the Midwest – to Oklahoma City, where I had been recruited to lead a small classical Christian school as well as help plant a new church downtown. By God’s favor, the school grew from 250 students to over 500 students in three-and-a-half years; likewise, the church grew from 12 to over 300. In addition, our family provided foster care for 14 different kids, 5 and under, and it seemed we had found our niche in a place we were prepared to be long-term.
But then in January of 2015 – out of the blue – the school board asked me to resign, as they had determined that I was “not a fit for the school going forward.” I was shocked and felt like a complete failure; I’d never been fired from a job before. There had been no job reviews, no meetings – informal or formal – in which the board had communicated concerns to me, and the one that was set to inform me of their decision had been called a “budget meeting” on a Saturday morning and was a complete ruse.
The lack of integrity was dumbfounding. When I asked to be able to face my accusers and meet with the board as a whole, they said they had lost confidence in me and refused to meet as a group. They were prepared for a legal battle, having formal papers drawn up and everything, but I had no desire to sue the school that I had loved and worked so hard to improve and lead. I signed their papers, cleaned out my office (which was literally the front third of a long storage closet), and turned in my keys.
Because there was so much confusion surrounding the suddenness of my resignation, rumors began to circulate as to what the “real” reasons were; one woman told Megan, “When it comes out what Craig really did, we’ll still love you.” We were damaged goods. The board allowed our girls to complete the school year and financially fulfilled the remainder of my contract while I looked for a new role, but it was “hush money” as laid out in the paperwork that I was not to share what had gone on behind closed doors to the hundreds of parents, staff, and students who we loved and who loved us.
I felt so betrayed. I had never been treated so poorly before. It hurt – tremendously – and I suffered and struggled with what might be next: having to find a new job, giving back the two-year-old and one-year-old foster boys who had been part of our family for nine months when we moved, selling our house, trying to pursue reconciliation with board members (three of whom were part of our church and eventually repented of what they did, not that the church had anything to do with that). But with Megan, the girls, and a few key friends, we sought to endure, praying God would make good on his promise to turn endurance into character and grow us as we needed to grow.
Character still counts…and costs; unfortunately, it almost always hurts.
Look to Christ
The good news is there’s hope, but only as we consider our character – who we are and what we choose to do as a result of who we are. As Christians, do we understand who we are? Paul tells us in Ephesians 5:1-2,
“Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”
Beloved children. Not tolerated children; not beloved perfect beings. We are beloved children in whom God delights and sings over and looks after and even likes because of Christ.
And how did Christ love us and give himself up for us? Philippians 2 reminds us that,
“…though he was in the form of God, (he) did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”
Make no mistake: Jesus’ character was formed in a Luke 2:52 way, as he “…grew in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man,’ enduring suffering from cradle to cross. “Therefore,” Paul continues,
“God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
Jesus’s character – who he was and what he chose to do as a result of who he was – should be our motivation and our example; it should be our means and our end. The person of Christ should be the ultimate focus of our admiration, for just as our guilt was imputed to Christ and he was punished accordingly, his righteousness was imputed to us and we are blessed and rewarded accordingly! Just as Jesus was reckoned as guilty, we are reckoned as righteous. Our sins were imputed to him; His righteousness was imputed to us, which is what Reformer Martin Luther called, “the Great Exchange.”
As we learn from Jesus’ life, character still counts and character still costs. So,
when we hesitate to do something because it’s “not our job,” we can whisper, “Character still counts…and costs,” and do it.
when we’re tempted to break a promise to our kids because we’re just too tired, we can say instead, “Character still counts…and costs,” and get up and keep it.
when we want to blow off reading the Bible because we just don’t feel like it, we can tell ourselves, “Character still counts…and costs,” and rearrange our priorities.
when we debate whether we’re going to talk slanderously and unfairly about someone, we can remind ourselves, “Character still counts…and costs,” and zip it.
And when we hear ourselves making up stories of how lucky God is to have us on his team, we can confess, “Character still counts…and costs,” and repent of arrogantly thinking God needs us more than we need the good news of the Gospel.
“There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job, and that man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil.” (Job 1:1)
Character still counts…and costs.
Lord, give us faith and endurance. We’ll need both if the above is still true.
Post(erity): “Possibly In Need of a Little Persecution?”
Each week, I choose a post from the past that seems apropos of something (of course, you’re always welcome to search the archives yourself whenever you like).
This week’s Post(erity) post, “Possibly in Need of a Little Persecution?,” comes from October 4, 2006, and some of my seminary study on Hebrews and hostility. An excerpt:
“To understand the will of God to the same (or at least similar) degree, I wonder if we are possibly in need of a little persecution? I'm not saying I'm asking for it, but I do wonder sometimes: if it came, how would I/we respond? Obviously, this is what the Church in China, North Korea, and other such places of tyranny could teach us, as I bet they understand Hebrews a lot better than I do, not because they choose to, but because they have to as Christians.”
Fresh & Random Linkage
“The Milk Crate Challenge is Exploding on Social Media. Some Platforms Are Trying to Remove It.” - I've read enough history to know there have been ancient versions of stupidity like this throughout time. I postulate that ours is the first to celebrate and record for posterity failures more than successes in the attempts.
Until next time.
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