Ambrose’s Nixon: Ruin and Recovery 8

I have two items for my blog post today on Stephen Ambrose’s Nixon: Ruin and Recovery, 1973-1990.

1.  On page 224, Ambrose talks about Nixon speechwriter Pat Buchanan’s appearance before the Senate’s Ervin Committee, which was investigating Watergate:

“Committee counsel Sam Dash opened with some aggressive questioning about campaign tactics.  ‘What tactics would I be willing to use?’ Buchanan answered Dash.  ‘Anything that was not immoral, unethical, illegal or unprecedented in previous Democratic campaigns.’  He produced facts and figures to show that the Democrats had written the book on dirty tricks in American politics.  His bold, dogmatic style, his indignation that the Democrats dared accuse anyone of unfair or unethical practices, his good looks and strong voice, quite overwhelmed the Committee.  Dash got him off the stand as quickly as possible.  Nixon watched the hearing and was elated.  He called Buchanan and invited him over for a little celebration.  At 6:30 A.M., Buchanan came into the West Hall, where the Nixons were waiting for him.  Pat gave him a hug and whirled him around in a little dance.”

I was not alive during Watergate, but I watched that one part of Buchanan’s appearance before the Ervin Committee on A&E’s Biography, back when I was a college student in 1996.  Buchanan was running for the Republican nomination for President of the United States at the time, and he was doing quite well, which was probably why A&E did a Biography about him.  A&E’s Biography showed a young Pat Buchanan responding to Dash’s question about what campaign tactics he’d be willing to use, as Buchanan said, “Anything that was not immoral, unethical, illegal or unprecedented in previous Democratic campaigns”.  If my memory is correct, Buchanan’s response drew laughter!  The documentary was presenting this incident as an example of Buchanan’s quick wit and rhetorical skill.  Later, the documentary was highlighting other assets that Buchanan demonstrated on the TV debate show, Crossfire: he was telegenic.  Buchanan definitely had a strong presence, as Ambrose and A&E’s Biography noted.

Do I agree with what Buchanan said before the Ervin Committee?  Perhaps Nixon did well to argue that Democrats engaged in dirty tricks and wiretapping themselves, and thus had no right to get on their sanctimonious high horse.  But, as Ambrose said later in the book, this argument was having little effect on many Americans, who did not think that what Kennedy or Lyndon Johnson did exculpated Richard Nixon.

In any case, I liked this passage on page 224 because I tend to enjoy the times when underdogs have appeared before congressional committees and have ended up dazzling them, or (at the very least) dazzling many Americans.  When Oliver North appeared before Congress to answer questions about Iran-Contra, he impressed a number of people with his crisp military demeanor, to the point that many were heralding him as a national hero.  I watched Virginia’s Republican convention in 1994 that nominated North as the Republican candidate for Senate, and a speaker glorifying North was saying that North appeared before the Congress, with the result that “they blinked.”  (He meant Congress blinked.)

Then there was Condi Rice’s appearance before the 9/11 committee.  Liberal newspapers were acting like she was about to be put on trial and interrogated.  But, in my opinion at the time, she really shined.  Even one of my more liberal relatives said that Condi “kicked butt” with her testimony.  And I liked when I heard on the news that President George W. Bush had watched Condi on television and thought that she did a good job.  Nowadays, my impression is that her performance is quite critiqued.  It’s like Nixon’s Checkers Speech in 1952: it was lauded by many in 1952 as an impressive performance, but after 1952 it was retrospectively deemed to be not-so-impressive.  What many today remember from Condi’s appearance before the 9/11 committee was her statement that, prior to 9/11, there was a report about Bin-Laden preparing to attack inside of the United States.  Detractors were appealing to this statement to argue that the Bush Administration really dropped the ball on Bin-Laden, even though (if my understanding is correct) the report did not specify where Bin-Laden would strike.  (One could argue that the Bush Administration dropped the ball in other ways when it came to Bin-Laden, though.)

2.  I thought that something on page 232 was slightly humorous (though I can understand why some would think otherwise).  Carl Albert was the Speaker of the House during the Watergate scandal, and he would be President if Nixon was removed from office and did not have a Vice-President to take over.  The thing was, Albert did not want to be President.  Ambrose says that Albert “did not feel qualified and did not want to expose his personal life style to the glare of presidential publicity.”  As an example of Albert’s personal lifestyle, Ambrose notes that Albert “had just driven his car through a plate-glass saloon window.”

Was Albert drunk when this happened?  I don’t know, but this article does say that Albert was being treated for alcoholism during Watergate.

Incidentally, remember the Family Guy scene where Stewie and Brian were drunk and Stewie drove Brian’s car through the saloon?  See here.

Ambrose’s Nixon: The Triumph of a Politician 21

I have two items for my blog post today on Stephen Ambrose’s Nixon: The Triumph of a Politician, 1962-1972.  They both concern George McGovern, the Democrat who ran against Richard Nixon in the 1972 Presidential election.

1.  On page 628, Ambrose quotes a sobering statement that McGovern made about the Vietnam War:

“McGovern, himself a bomber pilot in World War II, spoke with great depth of feeling about the bombing.  ‘The reality of this war,’ he said, ‘is seen in the news photo of the little South Vietnamese girl…fleeing in terror from her bombed-out school…That picture ought to break the heart of every American.  How can we rest with the grim knowledge that the burning napalm that splashed over [her] and countless thousands of other children was dropped in the name of America?”

This reminds me a 1989 two-part TV movie that I watched back when I was a child, Guts and Glory: The Rise and Fall of Oliver North.  Near the end of the movie, someone is talking to North (played by David Keith), referring to the sale of arms to Iran.  He exclaims to North, “Shame on us!”  That was a powerful scene in the movie.  North in the movie sincerely believed that he was supporting freedom, and, when his wife showed him a newspaper story about Iran-Contra, he dismissed that as liberal propaganda.  But this guy near the end of the movie firmly expressed his conviction to North that selling arms to a regime such as Iran was wrong.  From what I remember, the movie ended with North looking crestfallen.  The quote of McGovern had the same effect on me as I was reading it: McGovern was confronting what he deemed to be an immoral war, saying (in effect) that Americans should be ashamed at what is occurring in the name of America.

2.  I read something on page 637 that was interesting: “McGovern had a Ph.D. in American history from Northwestern University.  His mentor had been Ray Allen Billington, one of the greatest historians of the American West and a student of the legendary Frederick Jackson Turner.”

I did not know that.  Wikipedia’s article about McGovern provided more information (and you can check the article itself for the footnotes): “McGovern earned a PhD in history from Northwestern University in 1953.  His 450-page dissertation, The Colorado Coal Strike, 1913–1914, was a sympathetic account of the miners’ revolt against Rockefeller interests in the Colorado Coalfield War.  His thesis advisor, noted historian Arthur S. Link, later said he had not seen a better student than McGovern in 26 years of teaching.”

They Should Be Bigger Challenges Than They Are!

Biblical scholar Pete Enns had a post this morning entitled 5 Main Challenges to Staying Christian, and moving forward anyway (part 1).  He was basing his list on responses he got to a blog post that he wrote.  The five challenges to staying Christian are:

1.  Problems with the idea that the Bible is inerrant.

2.  The conflict between the Bible and science.

3.  God’s apparent absence in the midst of suffering.

4.  Christians being jerks.

5.  Christian exclusivism.

One could take issue with how I conceptualized or phrased these challenges in summarizing them, but you can read Enns’ post for yourself to see how he defines the challenges.

Someone who read the article told me that she thought that number 3 was the biggest challenge for Christians, and that a number of Christians could reconcile the other challenges in their own minds.  I found this intriguing, since 1-2 and 4-5 have been huge challenges to me in my own Christian faith.  But I think that she’s right—-there are many Christians who are not particularly phased by 1-2 and 4-5.

Let’s look at the challenges:

1.  The Bible is inerrant.  I’m surprised that this is not a bigger challenge for Christians than it is.  After all, there are plenty of television documentaries that poke holes at a conservative Christian conception of Scripture, while highlighting the views of critical scholars.  The Internet can bring people of different persuasions together into dialogue and debate, such that a conservative Christian can be exposed to the views of an atheist or a non-Christian religious Jew.  Heck, even reading the Bible itself can expose one to its different tellings of the same stories, its contradictions, and its passages that offend today’s moral sensibilities.

Why, then, is biblical inerrancy not a problem for a number of Christians?  I think there are a variety of reasons.  For one, not every Christian is aware of every challenge to biblical inerrancy.  In some cases, that’s because they are busy living their lives, but there are also cases in which they’re reading or listening to people who don’t talk much about these challenges.  I know Christians who believe that the Old Testament’s prophecies have a solid record of coming to pass, and that Jesus fulfilled a number of Old Testament prophecies.  They are not aware that there are scholars who argue that Ezekiel’s prophecies about Tyre and Egypt did not come to pass, or that the Old Testament “prophecies” (supposedly) about Jesus mean something different in their original contexts than how Christians in the New Testament (and thereafter) applied them.  Come to think of it, I wasn’t aware of these issues, either, until they were thrown in my face, and I was one who went to church and read the Bible.

Second, on the television documentaries, you have to admit that sometimes they posit scenarios that can easily strike a person as speculative or even ridiculous!  Even seminarians and scholars make fun of many of these documentaries about the Bible.  A conservative Christian can easily watch them and conclude that the challenges to Christianity must not be particularly strong.

Third, conservative Christians have their own set of experts.  You think the Bible contradicts itself or has errors?  Check out Gleason Archer’s Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties, or read commentaries online that seek to reconcile biblical contradictions.  In a number of cases, conservative Christians go on believing because they think that their experts have come up with good answers to the objections against the Bible.  Many decide to go deeper and follow the debate further; many do not.  I wish, though, that more conservative Christians who place their faith in their experts would realize that a number of people who have problems with biblical inerrancy are well aware of what the conservative Christian experts argue and have found the arguments lacking.  I know of one conservative Christian student who was surprised to see Josh McDowell’s Evidence that Demands a Verdict on his liberal professor’s bookshelf.  So one can read Josh McDowell and walk away unconvinced?  Apparently so!

2.  The conflict between the Bible and science.  I think that much of what I said for 1 applies here.  There are a number of conservative Christians who believe that creationists have answered the challenges of evolutionists while upholding Genesis 1.  Some choose to go deeper in researching the topic; some don’t.

3.  God’s apparent absence in the midst of suffering.  This challenges the faith of many Christians, but I think that a number of Christians find ways to help them to deal with suffering: to chalk it up to God’s will or God’s plan.  The problem is that, sometimes, the burdens get to be too great, and the usual ways of dealing with suffering become less helpful.  While a number of Christians may be able to find some way to cope with (or avoid) intellectual challenges to their faith, coping with suffering is much more difficult.

4.  Christians being jerks.  Conservative Christians can just say that Christians aren’t perfect, only forgiven, or that being around jerks is a refining process that makes us more Christ-like.  Maybe they have a point, but number 4 is still a challenge to me.  For one, I wonder why many Christians are so smug about how right they are and how everyone else is wrong, when they themselves have the same flaws as others.  And, second, there are cases in which I believe that the content of Christian dogma itself encourages people to become jerks.  It’s easy to get an us vs. them mindset when reading the Bible!

5.  Christian exclusivism.  I’m surprised that this isn’t a bigger challenge than it is, since many Christians know and love non-Christians, even if they may live in an area that does not have too many people from other religions.  How can they make peace with the notion that these non-Christians will go to hell?  I think there are a variety of ways.  Some are satisfied with the idea that God is just to condemn them to hell.  Some hold out hope that their non-Christian family members, friends, and neighbors will accept Christ before they die.  Some may even adopt more inclusivistic versions of Christianity—-and these are becoming more popular (or such is my impression).

The Genesis Code: Overall Review

I recently watched the Genesis Code, which is a 2010 movie.  The movie explores the question of whether science and Genesis 1 are compatible.

I’m glad that I finally got to see it, for I was curious about it when I first watched its trailer online.  I learned about it as a result of doing an online search about Catherine Hicks, whom I love in Star Trek IV and 7th Heaven.  I wanted to see if she was in anything lately, and I saw that she was in the Genesis Code.  I also noticed that Fred Thompson, a 2008 Republican candidate for President, was in the movie, and, being someone who doesn’t watch much Law and Order, I wanted to see how good of an actor he was.   Later, I learned that actor Ernest Borgnine was in it as well, and I loved Borgnine in the 1955 movie Marty and the two-parter Little House on the Prairie episode, “The Lord Is My Shepherd” (see my post about Borgnine here).  Another noteworthy actor in the Genesis Code was Louise Fletcher, who won an Academy Award for playing the chilling Nurse Ratched in the 1973 movie, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

To be honest, when I first saw the trailer for the Genesis Code, I thought that it might be a Christian movie, but I was not entirely sure.  It looked to me like it might be an impartial exploration of the question of origins, with strong religious and skeptical characters.  After seeing it, and after learning about the immense support that elements of the right-wing gave to it (see here and here), I now know that it’s a Christian movie.  Moreover, the guy who plays the pastor in the movie, Jerry Zandstra, is the President of the company that produced The Genesis Code, American Epic Entertainment.  Zandstra, as you can see from the wikipedia article about him, is a minister and has a history in Republican politics.  See here for his thoughts on the film.

The thing is, this movie cannot be characterized as young-earth creationist propaganda.  Actually, it’s point is that science and Genesis 1 are compatible because time is relative, and so a day to God may be a much longer time for human beings.  The movie is essentially acknowledging an old earth.  And it also makes the point that the sequence of creation in Genesis 1 is similar to what science says about the order in which things came to be.  Moreover, the movie does not say that dinosaurs co-existed with human beings, but it places the existence and extinction of dinosaurs within the sixth “day” of creation, the sixth day being from 250 million years ago to the time of Adam.

Tomorrow, I’ll have a post addressing the question of whether the film fudges on science or Genesis 1 to make the two agree.  I think that it does, in a sense, and yet I am pleased that conservative Christians have become excited about a film that has such a progressive approach to the issue of science and Genesis 1 (though the movie has had its share of conservative Christian critics—-see here and here).  I wish that the film had gone a step further and affirmed the theory of evolution, but, unfortunately, it had a couple of swipes against macro-evolution, some of them pretty misinformed (i.e., humans descended from apes), and some of them exemplifying standard creationist or Intelligent Design arguments against macro-evolution.  But the scene in which the pastor, scientists, and students are talking about the age of the earth and the sequence of events in the universe’s history makes the movie worth watching (although I could have done without the Christian protagonist smugly saying at the end of the discussion that science has caught up with the Bible).  I wish I could find the entire scene online, but here is a YouTube video that contains pieces of it.

As far as the rest of the movie was concerned, I thought that it was way too long, but there were a couple of gems.  First, there was the scene in which a skeptical youth is talking with the pastor about faith.  The youth is saying that he was convinced by the presentation about the harmony between science and Genesis 1, but he expected for faith to be a heart-issue rather than something that proceeded from hard intellectual work.  The pastor responds that people come to faith in different ways, some of them pretty mundane.  I appreciated this scene because it highlights that one does not have to believe in God as a result of a flashy experience, as some evangelicals seem to imply.

Second, while I didn’t care for most of the inane banter in the movie, I did like one scene near the end, as one of the characters refers to the TNT movie Purgatory, in which an angel said that the creator is tough, but not blind.  I love Purgatory, and I’m glad there are other fans out there!

I’ll be writing another post about this movie tomorrow, and maybe more posts after that.  We’ll see!

Aaron Jastrow’s Sermon

I finished Herman Wouk’s The Language God Talks: On Science and Religion.

At the end of the book, Wouk quotes the sermon of Professor Aaron Jastrow, who was a character in Wouk’s book, War and Remembrance.  As I read the sermon, it seemed familiar to me, and that was because my family watched the War and Remembrance miniseries when it was on TV in 1988.  The miniseries was jarring to me at the time because it was the first time when I saw on television a depiction of the Holocaust, and I remember that I cried when Jews (including Professor Jastrow) were being gassed in the concentration camp.  I recall that Professor Jastrow was reciting Psalm 23 as he went to his death.

Professor Jastrow in his sermon spoke about Job.  Jastrow’s assumption was that Job was a Jew, which is not explicitly in the biblical text.  But his main point was that the Jews themselves are like Job, in that they praise God even when the universe does not make sense.  After my family watched the sermon scene, my Dad said that it was a good sermon.

I recently watched the miniseries’ depiction of the speech on YouTube (see here), and it was more pious than what I read in Wouk’s quotation of the sermon in The Language God Talks, for Jastrow in the book questions whether God’s reason for allowing the Satan to afflict Job (namely, to meet the Satan’s challenge) was a good enough reason.  But the main point in the book’s version of the sermon is the same as what was on the miniseries.

Although I finished The Language God Talks, I may still write another post about it, maybe even two.

Ambrose’s Nixon: The Triumph of a Politician 3

I’m reading Stephen Ambrose’s Nixon: The Triumph of a Politician, 1962-1972.  What especially stood out to me in my latest reading was Ambrose’s discussion of the 1960′s anti-war movement, an issue that Richard Nixon exploited in appealing to middle-class Republicans.

Here are some passages from pages 70-71.  Something to keep in mind as you read them is Ambrose’s portrayal earlier in the book of the common conceptualization of the United States soon after World War II: that the U.S. was a force for good in the world.

“No generation was ever worse prepared to accept the attitudes of the succeeding generation than the World War II parents of the Baby Boom generation.  To those parents, it was my country right or wrong, unconditional surrender, crew cuts, bobby sox, coats and ties, responsibility, hard work.”  Ambrose then mentions the challenges to this post-World War II culture in the 1960′s, such as co-ed dorms, rock-and-roll, the undermining of dress codes, and long hair.

“To the parents of the students of 1965, it was inconceivable that any American could fail to do his or her full duty in a war.  That being so, they were quite unable to deal with their own children, many of whom not only said they would not do their duty but denounced the war and insisted that America was fighting on the wrong side.  Their children questioned patriotism, even laughed at it.”

“By 1965, just as the World War II parents started turning over their kids to the colleges for an education, the New Left began doing much of the college teaching in the areas of politics and history…The New Left taught that America was imperialist, that America had caused the Cold War, that even in World War II American motives had been selfish and centered on improving capitalist exploitation of the masses around the world, that in Vietnam the Vietcong were freedom fighters while the GIs were suppressing the legitimate desire for national independence.”

A question that I have is why the unrest even took place in the 1960′s.  Ambrose says that “the draft for Vietnam was beginning to reach into the colleges, provoking antiwar demonstrations” (page 70).  Could that be one contributing factor to the unrest: young people feared that they would be drafted, and thus they became open to New Left rhetoric condemning the Vietnam War?  But Americans were drafted during World War II, and there wasn’t much unrest back then.  What exactly made the Baby Boom generation different?

On the World War II parents, broadly speaking, I accept Ambrose’s narrative.  Yet, I question it, somewhat.  It reminds me of the narrative that I’ve heard about American attitudes towards the President of the United States throughout history: that Americans used to hold the President in awe and reverence, but Watergate changed all that, making the President a target of criticism.  I myself don’t think that the World War II parents had an uncritical view of American government.  Joe McCarthy won support by saying that the State Department was infiltrated by Communists, and that was why our foreign policy was so wrongheaded!  That’s quite a criticism of the government, and many among the World War II parents bought it!  Republicans (including Nixon) attacked the Truman Administration as corrupt, and they also criticized the New Deal and Truman’s strategy for the Korean War.  There were people from among the World War II parents who disagreed with their government, or at least aspects of it.  They weren’t gullible.

And yet, there probably was a degree of patriotism and trust in the government among the World War II parents that was challenged by the Baby Boomers.  The conservative elements of the World War II parents most likely felt that, notwithstanding the pesky government controls, the United States was still the freest nation on earth and offered a significant number of economic opportunities.  Even if they thought that America was not as consistently tough on Communism as it should be, they also may have still believed that America did a lot of good in the world.

Here’s a powerful scene from the TV series The Wonder Years.  This episode is set in the late 1960′s.  Jack Arnold (a Korea War veteran) is debating his daughter and her boyfriend about the American government and the Vietnam War.  I have my doubts that Jack Arnold agreed with everything that the U.S. government did.  (In a later episode, he expresses a realistic cynicism about the military when his son Wayne enlists, after the military told Wayne that it wouldn’t send him to Vietnam.  Jack said it would ship Wayne to Vietnam right off the bat!)  But Jack had a faith in America and its institutions, which his daughter and her boyfriend were challenging.

Constitution USA: Did the Framers Intend a Living, Breathing Constitution?

I’ve been enjoying the PBS show, Constitution USA with Peter Sagal.  Essentially, Peter Sagal rides on a motorcycle and interviews people about the U.S. Constitution.

In a scene in last night’s episode, Peter is talking with a scholar.  The scholar referred to the Eighth Amendment’s ban on “cruel and unusual punishments”, arguing (if I understood him correctly) that the author of this Amendment was allowing for the interpretation and application of the Constitution to change with time (at least in this case).  After all, what was “unusual” back when this Amendment was written may not be “unusual” today, for what is common and what is unusual change.

In debates about the Constitution, some argue that we should base our interpretation on the intentions of the Constitution’s framers, whereas others hold that the Constitution is a living, breathing document, and thus that the interpretation of the Constitution should change with time.  But what if the framers themselves intended for the Constitution to be a living, breathing document, in some areas?  And is there a way for us to go beyond their original intentions, while still being faithful to them, on some level?

Peck on Exorcism

In my latest reading of People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil, M. Scott Peck talked about exorcism.  I did not finish Peck’s chapter on this subject, so I will be commenting on what I have read so far.

Peck distinguishes demonic possession from multiple-personality disorder.  One difference between the two is that, in multiple personality disorder, “the ‘core personality’ is virtually always unaware of the existence of the secondary personalities—-at least until close to the very end of prolonged, successful treatment” (page 192).  When people are possessed by demons, by contrast, they are often aware that there is an alien presence within them.  Another difference is that, in multiple-personality disorder, the personalities usually are not evil.  In demonic possession, however, the alien presence is evil.

I had to think about Peck’s distinction between multiple-personality disorder and demonic possession for a second, for I wondered if his characterization of multiple-personality disorder was correct (not that I have the knowledge or credentials to challenge him, but I have the right to ask questions).  I vaguely recalled that, in the movie Sybil, in which Sally Field played a woman named Sybil who had multiple-personality disorder, at least two of Sybil’s personalities were carrying on a conversation with each other, and that made me wonder if personalities within multiple-personality disorder were indeed unaware of each other.  But then I took a closer look at what Peck was saying: Peck didn’t say that none of the personalities was aware of the other, but rather that the “core personality” was unaware of the “secondary personalities”.  And, indeed, in Sybil, the two personalities who were talking with each other were secondary personalities.  But Sybil herself, if I recall correctly, was unaware of the other personalities, and it was like a black-out for her when another personality was taking over.

But back to Peck’s discussion of exorcism.  Why do people get possessed, according to Peck?  Peck listed at least three factors: loneliness, selling out on one’s morals, and involvement with the occult.  This made me think about an episode of Touched by an Angel called “The Occupant”, in which a man named Lonnie is possessed by Gregory, a demon.  How did Lonnie become possessed?  Lonnie grew up in a troubled home, so he was lonely.  A woman he met got him involved in the occult, and that’s when he met Gregory, who promised never to leave him.  Reading Peck worried me somewhat, since I myself have difficulty establishing relationships and can easily find myself becoming lonely.  At the same time, lonely people can reach out to God, so perhaps loneliness can have positive spiritual outcomes.  And yet, oddly enough, Peck says that some whom he knew who were possessed by demons had an extraordinary potential for holiness.  So what can I do?  Probably seek God’s protection, stay away from the occult, and nurture whatever healthy relationships with people that I have.

Peck also makes the point that those conducting the exorcism must be loving and compassionate people.  They’re not necessarily perfect, for one participant Peck mentions said that he had a cold element of his personality until helping to perform an exorcism cleansed him of that.  (Peck was saying here that exorcism not only cleanses the possessed person, but it also has a positive spiritual impact on those performing the exorcism, even though the activity is draining enough to them that they usually don’t want to conduct an exorcism ever again.)  Peck also says that God can use people’s imperfections amidst the exorcism.  Moreover, Peck denies that one has to be a Christian to conduct an exorcism successfully, for he knows of participants in exorcisms who were atheists, plus he notes that exorcisms occur in non-Christian contexts.  What is important is that one be loving and compassionate.  Not only does that create a proper atmosphere for an exorcism, but it would also help the person who has just been cleansed of the demon, for he longs for community, so it’s good when he has loving and compassionate people there to support him.

I doubt that I would be qualified to conduct an exorcism, for, although love, compassion, and empathy are within me, I can see myself getting puffed up when attempting an exorcism.  What’s odd is that I hear stories from people who claim to have cast out demons, and they sound pompous, self-promoting, and spiritually proud, so I wonder how they succeeded in performing exorcisms, if Peck’s criteria are true.  Maybe they’re just shooting off their mouths! 

Psalm 119: Tet

For my write-up today on Psalm 119: Tet, I’ll post the passage in the King James Version, then I’ll comment on select verses.

65 TETH. Thou hast dealt well with thy servant, O LORD, according unto thy word.

In my past posts on Psalm 119, I have wondered what divine word gives the Psalmist the assurance that God will help him personally.  Is it the Torah’s principle that God rewards the obedient but punishes the disobedient?  Is it God’s promise to David that David would be king, or that David would have an everlasting dynasty?  I don’t know.  It interests me that, in this verse, the Psalmist looks back and acknowledges that God has dealt well with him.  At lot of times in Psalm 119, the Psalmist is complaining about his enemies and his afflictions and is hoping that God will step in and deal well with him.  In v 65, by contrast, the Psalmist is saying that God has already been good to him.

That is a good incentive to keep God’s commandments: God’s goodness to us.  The Psalmist is not just aiming to obey mechanically a set of rules, for he is reminding himself that the source of those rules is the one who has been kind to him.

Do I remind myself of God’s past kindnesses to me?  I have difficulty with this, to tell you the truth.  The reason is that I have a problem attributing any good things in my life to God, per se.  Why would a God who loves everyone provide me with food, clothing, and shelter, when there are other people in the world who lack these things?  Are the good things that have happened to me thus far in my life truly from God, and thus I can take refuge in the notion that the God who has blessed me up to this point will continue to bless me in the future?  Or are those good things merely a thing of the past—-I could succeed back when things were easier, but now it’s a lot tougher in the real world!  Does God have a plan for people’s lives?  I know of one person who was a Christian, and he probably thought that God had a plan for his future.  What happened to him?  He died in a car accident.  Another friend thought that God had a grand political destiny mapped out for him, but he died of a disease at a fairly young age.  I am definitely appreciative of whatever good things I have in my life, but I struggle with saying that God is the source of those good things—-or that I can be assured of good things in the future.

66 Teach me good judgment and knowledge: for I have believed thy commandments.

What I see here is an affirmation of the principle that obedience to God breeds further obedience to God.  And, by obedience, I don’t just mean conformity to righteous rules, but also a belief in those rules, an appreciation of their value, and wisdom.  The Psalmist has already believed in God’s commandments.  Still, he apparently thinks that he can use more good judgment and knowledge than what he presently possesses.  Perhaps the lesson here is that there’s always more to learn.  Or, alternatively, maybe the Psalmist already believes that God has taught him good judgment and knowledge, but he wants for God to continue to do so.  He doesn’t want for God to let him go.  He needs fresh wisdom for whatever situation may come up, as well as God’s moral support.

67 Before I was afflicted I went astray: but now have I kept thy word.

E.W. Bullinger in his comment on this verse cites Hebrews 12:6-11, which is about God disciplining believers to make them more righteous.  I believe that suffering can draw people closer to God and make them more reflective about life and compassionate towards others.  It seems to me, however, that there is a lot of suffering or tragedy in the world that lacks an apparent purpose, and that some tragedies make people embittered rather than leading them to become righteous.  Moreover, if the reason that suffering exists in the world is to teach us character, why do animals suffer?

68 Thou art good, and doest good; teach me thy statutes.

I try to believe in a God who is good.  And, if there is a God, would he not be good?  There are these laws about how we are to be good and loving, so wouldn’t we expect for the originator of those laws to be benevolent himself?  But there are just times when the problem of evil disturbs me.  If God truly loves everyone, then why are there people in the world who lack, who die prematurely, or who suffer horribly?  One could say that this life is merely a preparation for the next, and so those who suffer and die will experience bliss after their death.  But couldn’t that notion lead to the mindset that this life does not matter, and so we should not stress out about people today who lack?  Perhaps.  At the same time, if God’s aim is to teach us compassion in preparation for the next life—-where we may find ourselves in a setting in which we would need to show compassion—-then keeping the afterlife in mind can encourage us to be loving to the needy now.

69 The proud have forged a lie against me: but I will keep thy precepts with my whole heart.

Peake’s Commentary says on this verse: “Lit. ‘have plastered falsehood over me,’ so that my real character cannot be recognized.”  This stood out to me because I have often felt that people get me wrong, that I’m a better person than they may think, that they read selfishness into my words and actions when that is not what I mean by them.  Of course, the reality is probably that I’m better than people think, and that I’m worse than people think—-paradoxical, I know.  But I can identify with the sentiment that people plaster us with their impressions, maybe even their slander, obscuring from public view whatever good aspects there may be in our character.

The word that the KJV translates as “have forged”, and what Peake’s commentary understands as “plastered”, is from the Hebrew root tet-pe-lamed.  Holladay defines the word in terms of besmearing or plastering, and another lexicon on my BibleWorks offers the definition of “to…glue.”  The Targum uses for this word a word from the root ch-b-r, which has to do with association, and the LXX and the Vulgate employ for it words that mean to multiply.  I can only guess about the diversity of understandings about this verse.  Maybe the Targum uses a word that means association because gluing implies closely associating two objects with one another.  From where do the LXX and the Vulgate get the idea of multiplication, though?  Maybe the idea is that falsehood after falsehood are being glued onto the Psalmist.  I don’t know.

The root appears only in two other places.  I’ll post the references in the KJV, Brenton’s translation of the LXX, and the Vulgate, emboldening where the root t-ph-l is translated:

Job 13:4: “But ye are forgers of lies, ye are all physicians of no value.” (KJV)

“But ye are all bad physicians, and healers of diseases.”  (Brenton’s translation of the LXX.  I don’t know what translates t-ph-l here.)

“prius vos ostendens fabricatores mendacii et cultores perversorum dogmatum”.  (Vulgate.  The idea is fabrication.)

Job 14:17: “My transgression is sealed up in a bag, and thou sewest up mine iniquity.” (KJV)

“And thou hast sealed up my transgressions in a bag, and marked if I have been guilty of any transgression unawares.” (Brenton’s translation of the LXX)

“signasti quasi in sacculo delicta mea sed curasti iniquitatem meam”.  (Vulgate.  The idea is that God cured Job’s iniquity.)

This information makes me more confused.  Next verse!

70 Their heart is as fat as grease; but I delight in thy law.

Commentaries I read said that the fat covers the hearts of the wicked such that God’s instruction cannot penetrate.  The LXX says that the heart of the proud was curdled like milk, and Augustine interprets that to mean that their hearts are hardened.

Some people may have gotten to the point where others cannot morally reason with them.  The Psalmist may envision light-hearted spoiled rich types who get a kick out of hurting people, like those rich teenagers on one episode of Walker: Texas Rangers who liked to beat up on the homeless.  They’re bored, and so they come up with evil designs to get a thrill.  But one can become closed off to moral exhortation (not all, but some) through other means: having a hard time forgiving a horrible deed, for instance.  These people don’t lack a moral sense, but they may have difficulty handling some supercilious moralizing Christian coming at them, without any attempt to empathize with them, and telling them that they need to forgive because that’s what God commanded.

71 It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn thy statutes.
72 The law of thy mouth is better unto me than thousands of gold and silver.

The Intervarsity Press Bible Background Commentary notes that a common wage in that time was ten silver shekels annually.  The Psalmist is saying that God’s law is better than an annual wage, multiplied by hundreds.  Imagine that!

I’ve talked before about whether or not I think that God’s law or God’s word is better than riches.  One thing I will say: a righteous standard is necessary.  I talked above about how there are suffering people in the world, including people who lack.  I don’t want to be the sort of person who would have a lot of money and not care about those who lack.  There should be values above having or gaining wealth, and God’s law teaches social justice.

God Provides When You Give?

I was watching Bill Maher’s Religulous recently, and one part of the documentary that stood out to me was when a televangelist was telling his television audience that he knew people on welfare who had committed to give his ministry $1,000, and they were paying it!

I would really like to believe that.  Wouldn’t it be reassuring to believe that God takes care of people, especially when they give to others?  And maybe there are stories about that taking place—-about God being with people and providing for them when they are faithful in giving their tithes and offerings.  I one time had dinner with a Seventh-Day Adventist couple, and they said that there were times when they looked at the books and did not think that they could afford to tithe.  But they tithed anyway, and they still got through.

But then I’ve heard other stories.  I know one person whose family ate popcorn rather than decent and wholesome food because he was giving a lot of money to his church.  And he made good money!

Regarding the people on welfare whom that televangelist mentioned, maybe they were giving to his ministry $1,000, but was it at a cost?  Did they have to forgo meals for themselves or their children in order to give that donation?  Or did they have to give up other necessities?  Or, alternatively, did God sustain them and provide for them during that time?

Then there’s the question of whether a church or ministry even deserves someone’s donation.  I don’t know enough about that televangelist to comment one way or the other, but I know of some churches and ministries in which the leadership got rich off of the donations of hardworking people and those who were on a fixed income.

At the same time, I don’t want to be hard-hearted towards those who truly need help, to just provide for me and my own while withholding money from those who may be going hungry, or who are struggling to get off their feet (which is not to say that I give substantial amounts to charity).  Does God provide for us when we give?  I hope that, on some level, he does.  Granted, what’s important is that we give, whether God rewards us or not.  But it’s hard to give when we ourselves are lacking and are struggling to stretch the little money that we have.  II Corinthians 9:8 states: “And God [is] able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all [things], may abound to every good work” (KJV), and some interpret that to mean that God will always provide us with something to give.  Is that how real life works, though?