Getting Redemption Wrong

Why won't Mark Sanford shut up?

I was a fan (as much as one could be) of the disgraced South Carolina governor's initial public confession his marital infidelity. He rambled a bit, but he gave the impression of someone who knew he had sinned before God and his family.

But then he kept talking. First came the meeting with his cabinet where he compared himself to King David. Next, he told the AP that he'd also "crossed the line" -- but not "the sex line" -- with other women, and that although he believes his Argentine mistress was his "soul mate," he's "trying to fall back in love" with his wife. Now (h/t NRO) comes this, explaining why he decided not to leave office:

Immediately after all this unfolded last week I had thought I would resign — as I believe in the military model of leadership and when trust of any form is broken one lays down the sword. A long list of close friends have suggested otherwise - that for God to really work in my life I shouldn’t be getting off so lightly. While it would be personally easier to exit stage left, their point has been that my larger sin was the sin of pride. ...

Accordingly, [these friends] suggested that there was a very different life script that would be lived and learned by our boys, and thousands like them, if this story simply ended with scandal and then the end of office — versus a fall from grace and then renewal and rebuilding and growth in its aftermath.

Right: God is punishing me by making me be governor -- but think of all the kids I'll inspire! This is, first and foremost, a scary degree of narcissism for any public official -- but I wonder if there isn't something cultural going on as well.

What's fascinating here is the way Sanford -- a man, lest we forget, who was not weeks ago considered presidential material -- so seamlessly wraps his exhibitionist impulses in the language of Biblical Christianity.

Others have written far more eloquently about the dangers posed to American Christianity -- and perhaps American society -- by the sort of therapeutic, Oprah-fied deism marketed by folks like Joel Osteen. My read of Sanford is that he fits squarely in that tradition, updated for the age of Twitter. In other words, while many fallen public figures have likely convinced themselves with the same self-serving logic, Sanford is one of the first to do so under the cultural expectation -- real or imagined -- that he keep the public posted on it in real time.

For Christians, this should be seen as the ultimate mockery of the proud tradition of public personal testimony.

"Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope," urges St. Peter. For most, this takes the form of a story: this is what God has done in my life.

Nothing wrong with that. But anyone who's hung around evangelical circles long enough knows of instances where someone shares just a bit too much information, or rambles on a bit too long. Most of the time, of course, this happens due to excusable enthusiasm and in perfectly good faith. But it's also not hard to see the danger lurking, especially in today's therapeutic culture.

The temptation is always to set up one's testimony itself as a sort of idol; to substitute the self-referential cultivation of one's "faith journey" for the direct, fearsome worship of God.

This phenomenon has probably only been aggrivated by the arrival of Twitter-style instant self-broadcasting. Indeed, for us to talk about God's redemption at all anymore, it needs to come quick and easy.

Thus, Sanford compares himself to King David with Bathsheeba the day after he gets caught, proving once and for all that he doesn't understand the story. If there's one thing we learn from King David, it's that truly receiving God's forgiveness is a lengthy and painful process. I, for one, couldn't imagine what it must have been like to lose a child as God's direct punishment for my sin, and yet be able to sing, "Let the bones you have crushed rejoice."

There's a deep, deep mystery here that's more than a little unseemly to throw around so lightly. But you'd think, listening to Sanford, that whatever lessons God needs us to learn come in quick, 140-character sound bytes just in time for the next news cycle.

This is not to say that redemption doesn't happen, or that it can't one day make for an amazing testimony to God's faithfulness -- just that it comes, for anyone, at great cost. Some of us might even suffer the great indignity of not being seen as a role model for "thousands" of children.

"Work out your salvation in fear and trembling," says St. Paul. If he could see us today, he might add, "in private."

Jesus, Mary & Josephus

I like Jews. I've had occasion recently to ponder why this is.

Typically, one of my biggest pet peeves is when people confuse the terms "ecumenism" and "interreligious dialogue." The latter, obviously, concerns conversations aimed at mutual understanding and whatnot between adherents to different faiths. The former is just like it, only between Christians of different denominations. Except that it's not. What sets ecumenism apart is that those who engage in it can not only talk but worship together, thanks to the centrality of their common faith in Jesus Christ. Thus, sloppiness about ecumenism often foretells a broader confusion about Christ himself.

An interesting middle case, however, is in Christian relations with the people of Jacob. We don't share Christ, yet there's no question that Christians and Jews worship very much the same God. Plus, without the ways of worship and belief that the Jewish people, by and large, continue to keep alive, God's self-revelation in Christ would never have made sense in the first place.

This was all brought home to me quite vividly in reading Jerusalem's Traitor: Josephus, Masada, and the Fall of Judea, by British historian Desmond Seward. Josephus, his subject, must be one of the more fascinating figures in antiquity. A philo-Roman upper-class Jew born in Jerusalem shortly after the death of Christ, he served half-heartedly as military governor of Galilee after the Jewish uprising of 66 AD. After feuding incessantly with Galilee's more zealous, err, Zealots, he was captured by the Romans and immediately turned state's evidence, advising future emperors Vespasian and Titus as they laid seige to Jerusalem.

You get the feeling that this guy would have made a great character study: one of the many cooperative figures among Rome's conquered peoples, but one who nonetheless took for himself the dignity of a prophet, depicting Rome's destruction of Jerusalem as God's punishment for the sins of the Zealot leaders -- who indeed, Josephus tells us, spent much of their time under seige feuding with each other and slaughtering their own people. Seward doesn't do a great job of this; then again, his only source for much of the history was Josephus himself.

It's an amazing -- and heartbreaking -- story anyway, particularly when it comes to the final storming of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple. A Christian remembers that Jesus foretold as much -- but also that he wept for the city as he did so. And why not? There would have been no Jesus Christ without Jerusalem and its Temple.

The meaning of the Temple, especially to Christians, is apparent from its first dedication under King Solomon. "Can it indeed be," he asks, "that God dwells among men on earth?" (1 Kings 8:27) Oh, I don't know ... maybe? For a Christian, God's presence in the Holy of Holies prefigures his presence in Christ himself.

I think you could say a similar thing about the entire Jewish people -- that there are hints of the Incarnation in the mere fact that God chose them. The beauty of the Incarnation is its earthiness -- the idea that God physically became one of us to redeem every aspect of human existence. So it really only makes sense that to prepare us for such a thing, he would choose not to rule from on high like some evenhanded, abstract watchmaker, but rather to stick his nose into every corner of the life of one nation.

(This, by the way, is how I've come to appreciate the Virgin Mary -- as the ultimate Jew. In other words, just as God blessed and set apart a certain people as the means by which he would come into the world, so, when the time was imminent, he blessed and set apart one woman from that people, to get the job done.)

So, what does all this have to do with Jews today? It's certainly been a blessing of my two years in New York to get to know so many of them and to see how my Jewish friends cling to God's law -- and the idea of themselves as a people. (Though they'd doubtless disagree with my gloss on some of our shared scriptures.) This is fairly hard to miss: By one count, the New York metropolitan area holds 15% of the world's Jewish population.

What's surprised me is how edifying a strong Jewish presence has been for my Christian faith. I think that's because there's a sacramental reality going on here -- that's to say, and outward sign of an inner truth. To wit: The perseverance of God's original Chosen People is a living reminder of the long and laborious care he took to reveal his ways to man.

(Note: The late great Richard John Neuhaus says some simlar things, much better, here.)

A Man for All Seasons

My handy parish calendar informs me that today's the feast day of St. Thomas More. How could I have nearly forgotten?

One quick thought, reliant (as ever) on Robert Bolt's wonderful play:

It seems quaint, in our great enlightened age of religious toleration -- and toleration of every other sort -- to see a man go to the gallows over his king's intention to change his wife and change his church. Then again, it was probably pretty quaint back then, too. Every age has plenty of perfectly sincere religious folks who'd swear to you that this or that aspect of doctrine or practice isn't that big a deal.

So: How does one keep the faith, simply, without falling into the opposing trap of judgmental legalism? There's a hint of it in Bolt's More, the evening he cuts ties with his closest friend:

And what would you do with a water spaniel that was afraid off water? You'd hang it! Well, as a spaniel is to water, so is a man to his own self. I will not give in because I oppose it -- I do -- not my pride, not my spleen, nor any other of my appetites but I do -- I! [Grabbing hold of Norfolk] Is there no single sinew in the midst of this that serves no appetite of Norfolk's but is just Norfolk? There is? Give that some exercise, my lord!

And later in the Tower, asked by his daughter whether he hasn't already done all that God could reasonably expect: "Well, finally, it isn't a matter of reason; finally it's a matter of love."

That's to say, when one truly puts on Christ, to deny him anything becomes as unnatural as to deny one's own self.

Yeah, can't say I've quite figured it out, either.

Too clever by half

What is it about a good speech that makes a man willing to die for you?

That's the question I kept coming back to as I re-watched Kenneth Branagh's wonderful production of Shakespeare's Henry V recently. Henry's "band of brothers" speech at Agincourt justly takes pride of place, but nearly as famous -- and nearly as good -- is his rallying cry at the siege of Harfleur:

"Once more into the breach, dear friends, once more,
Or close the wall up with English dead!
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility.
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger:
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favor'd rage...
Hold hard the breath, and bend up every spirit
To his full height. On, on you noblest English,
Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof!
Fathers that, like so many Alexanders,
Have in these parts from morn till even fought,
And sheath'd their swords for lack of argument.
Dishonor not your mothers; now attest
That those whom you call'd fathers did beget you.
Be copy now to men of grosser blood,
And teach them how to war. And you, good yeomen,
Whose limbs were made in England, show us here
The mettle of your pasture. Let us swear
That you are worth your breeding, which I doubt not,
For there is none of you so mean and base
That hath not noble luster in your eyes.
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game's afoot!
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge
Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!'"

To watch Branagh's performance is to realize that such speeches are not mere rhetorical frills on Shakespeare's part; they're as essential a military asset as any cannon. The bit to the peasantry about the "noble luster in [their] eyes" is especially interesting. The play is full of instances where Henry invites -- acknowledges? -- such social levelling as a consequence of action in which death plays the ultimate equalizer.

It's hard not to think about the power of this kind of rhetoric in light of the current unrest in Iran -- and, specifically, the debate over what President Obama should be saying about it. I'll concede at the outset that I don't know what, specifically, he should say, but what I simply don't understand is all the hand-wringing going on about how any statement in support of the protesters would simply "play into the regime's hands."

I'll leave it to others to size up precisely what's lacking in Obama's current approach. My question's a simpler one: Assuming that Khameni, Ahmadinejad & Co. would try to exploit any message of support for their own purposes, why is everyone just assuming they'd succeed?

The case could be made (though I'm in no position to make it) that invoking the "Great Satan" in the face of hundreds of thousands of people in the street would just look desperate -- while expressing solidarity with the protesters is an important move for us to get on the good side of the country's new pro-Western power base.

What I think it clear, though, is that the "don't meddle" crowd fundamentally misunderstands the power and purpose of rhetoric. Theirs is an incredibly static analysis: If we say this, they'll say that, so let's just not say this in the first place. You saw the same sort of thing, in part, with Obama's "Address to the Muslim World" in Cairo a few weeks ago, where he went so far as to apologize for the CIA's interference in the Iranian coup of 1953. To what purpose? Well, they have a grievance, the thought goes, so I need to clear it out of the way before we can all move on.

This is all very sophisticated and "historically aware," but really, it's too clever by half. Politics, even international geopolitics, has always been a question of "what have you done for me lately?" The folks on the streets aren't likely to spurn our goodwill just because we did some sketchy things in their country 30 years before they were born. History is simply too fluid and unpredictable to keep playing catch-up like that. (And go figure: Khameni wound up denouncing our "meddling" anyway.)

The power of rhetoric, rather, is in shaping a narrative. Henry's arguments at Harfleur and Agincourt were essentially the same: In this battle, you're just like a king. Fight to claim your rightful honor. Our job now, it seems, is simply to articulate a principle -- that we stand with the peaceful, democratic aspirations of the Iranian people. We won't know how this ends until the dust settles, but the advantage of having a solid, noble position on the whole thing -- if we're convincing about it -- is that it gives us much firmer ground from which to act when we see our opening.

Plus, solid principle and goodwill, resolutely expressed, have their own gravitational pull. If that past seven days of protests have reminded us of nothing else, it's that the higher longings of the human soul can be a huge force in politics. After all, if reports of a coming crackdown are true, a large number of Iranians are getting ready to die for their country tomorrow. They need all the reasons they can get -- and I doubt a kind word from the President of the United States would hurt.

Up

It's been nearly a decade now since Pixar eclipsed Disney's traditional animated-film studio as the genius behind the company's big-name family releases, and I'm starting to wonder what that means. Disney films were a huge deal when I was growing up; I only learned later that I was living through the second golden age of Disney film.

You could make the case that the streak never ended, that the what-are-they-putting-out-next-year excitement -- and critical acclaim -- was simply transplanted to Toy Story's successors around the time I got my driver's license (and I took dates to both Monsters, Inc. and Finding Nemo).

But the two shops are very different. Much as I love the Pixar canon, we haven't seen another sweeping epic like Beauty & the Beast or The Lion King. Maybe robots, fish, and domesticated superheroes don't have that kind of acting chops. Pixar films can be just as mature, but they tend to sell it in a lighthearted, ironic manner.

Briefly, I thought their latest offering, Up, was about as good as most people are saying. Which is to say it was very, very good: deep, affecting, heartbreaking, delightful, and so on. Beauty & the Beast scored a best-picture Oscar nomination for the 90s Disney films; you could make the case that it's Pixar's turn.

And Up is a very adult movie. Peter Suderman makes the case that Pixar has essentially turned the family film formula on its head: Whereas typically such a film aims for a second-grade level, with just enough inside jokes to keep the parents entertained, Pixar movies tend to explore grown-up themes through the conventions of childrens' entertainment.

Suderman, granted, wants Pixar to dispense with the flying houses and talking dogs entirely and make a serious adult film. I'm not so sure, mainly because I keep thinking about how good it must be for kids to see this.

It's clear that the studio takes its role as an educator very seriously. WALL*E, essentially a crunchy-con morality tale, proved that sufficiently. Up, meanwhile, upends the typical "believe in your dreams" pablum we like to forcefeed the kiddies by using Carl's unfulfilled dream to explore adult themes like loss and regret. That's one of the many wonderful things about the opening montage of scenes from Carl and Ellie's life together: It puts in front of its youthful audience, in a direct but understated manner, a whole range of emotions they haven't felt yet.

Especially powerful (and technically impressive) was the time the opening devoted to the couple losing their unborn child. In no more than 10 seconds, the film clears a major plot hurdle (why doesn't Carl have kids who can take care of him?), delivers an emotional beatdown, and teaches an important lesson about the responsibilities of adulthood. Without it, the rest of the film becomes problematic, and Carl and Ellie's dream of seeing Paradise Falls looks more like selfish escapism than the ennobling aspiration of a couple that was denied the adventure of raising children. With it, it's no surprise that the film ends with Carl experiencing a sort of December fatherhood.

Again, this is no Beauty & the Beast, with its ever-present themes of sacrifice and honor and its dramatically magical landscape. (One of the endearing things about Up is that it only wants you to suspend disbelief so much: Talking dogs are out of the question, for instance -- unless they have nifty GPS/translator collars.) Pixar movies in general have been almost aggressively bourgeious, with the nuclear family unit -- think The Incredibles -- often the central setting.

What does such a shift betoken? I could only guess. I think I've heard it remarked that film is often an exercise in nostalgia -- in trying to capture for the future a world that's quickly fading away. Maybe we're seeing such a phenomenon with Pixar: a sudden golden age of childrens' films that reflect deeply on the values and choices that shaped past generations just as that society is on its last legs. Or it could be evidence of the staying power of such values.

Of course, none of this really matters unless the kids actually watch it. That, I'd imagine, is the lurking fear behind my former colleague John Podhoretz's semi-contrarian review, in which he argues that, for all its just acclaim, Up is at points a fairly boring movie.

I don't quite see it. Then again, I was one of the few people I knew who thought the opening sequence in WALL*E -- in which the eponymous robot wanders alone over a deserted Earth -- was far too short.

But Podhoretz's main thesis is still an intriguing one. He argues that even if Up were a boring film, no one would say it; so powerful is the Pixar brand. Pixar movies, he says, are now an "object of cultural piety," something that everyone in polite society is simply required to acclaim. He worries that, long-term, reaching such status means death for an institution's creative power.

So: Does that mean Pixar gets its Oscar nod after all? I could think of worse things.

Once more into the breach...

If a man is going to start spewing words into cyberspace for public consumption, he should probably make some effort to explain why.

I suppose you could call me a reluctant blogger. This is my second attempt at the craft; the first, a little rag called The Exotericist, I discontinued about a year ago after an OK run. I had envisioned it as a forum for my scattered thoughts on the passing scene, as well as a way for friends and family to keep up with me as I started out in New York. I stopped because I couldn't find a way to make of it anything more than an undisciplined, infrequent expression of whatever was on my mind at the moment.

I had a sense going in that blogging would be a risky experiment. Ours is a narcisistic age, and the ease and instancy of communcation has already caused too many reasonably intelligent twentysomethings with limited life experience to believe that what they have to say is automatically worthwhile. I found myself lacking the discipline to avoid that trap, so I stopped.

So, why the comeback? Maybe Twitter has something to do with it. The bar for meaningful communcation is now set so low that any blog would seem scholarly by comparison. If a United States senator is allowed to address the president like a 13-year-old girl, then I'm sure as heck entitled to try stringing together a few meaningful sentences now and again.

Besides, it's good practice. I write nearly every day as an editorialist for the New York Post, but I started my first blog largely to keep in the discipline of composing in my own voice, with my own original ideas. That's still worthwhile.

This blog, though, is going to be a bit different. It's a book blog: I'll be limiting myself (as much as I can) to short, discrete thoughts based around a book I'm reading or a movie I've seen. Keeping it simple, in other words -- and far less topical. But be warned: This could cover everything from Scripture to Steinbeck to the latest episode of "The Office." I promise at least two a week, and I'll keep the comment sections open. Who knows? Maybe I'll say something useful. If not, feel free to pass on by.

Deal?