Rex M Rogers - Discerning What Is Best

Discerning What Is Best
with Dr. Rex M. Rogers

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 11 November 2010

University of Tennessee basketball coach Bruce Pearl admitted that not only did he knowingly violate NCAA recruitment rules in 2008 but last June he lied to the NCAA about these incidents. He lied repeatedly. He even denied responsibility when shown pictures of a recruit at his home. In addition, he and his staff made numerous impermissible phone calls to recruits, some 34 by Pearl alone.

Later, Pearl approached university officials, admitted he lied, and asked for another meeting with the NCAA Committee on Infractions in order to inform them. Now he’s been suspended from recruitment activity, moved out of his coaching office, and is awaiting a verdict on whether he will suffer longer lasting sanctions from the NCAA or lose his job entirely at the university. Now he’s hoping for leniency.

What makes a highly successful person do things like this? The UT Athletic Director, Mike Hamilton, said, “I believe it is more a result of a significant error of judgment than the character of the person involved.” Maybe.

Both students and the coach have referred to his “error of judgment” as “mistakes.” This is the currently acceptable term for acknowledging wrong moral choices. A politician fathers a child with a woman not his wife, gets caught, denies it, eventually admits it and says, “Mistakes were made.” Mistakes? This is not a math problem. He didn’t sleep with the woman accidentally. It wasn’t happenstance gone awry. He made a choice.

The problem with “I made mistakes” is that it’s not the same as saying “I did something wrong.” In the former, you’re saying you’re a victim of human frailty. You couldn’t help it after all. In the latter, you're saying you acted; you’re owning responsibility.

Coach Pearl made conscious choices again and again, knowing the NCAA rules as well as anyone. And if he really somehow didn’t know the rules, than his leadership is even more suspect because the head coach is the one charged with assuring the program doesn’t inadvertently violate the rules.

Coach Pearl didn’t kill anyone. He didn’t commit other heinous crimes. But he did violate a trust placed in him as leader of the basketball program. He’s shamed himself and, by ripple effect, the university.

I’m for forgiveness and second chances, but I don’t think Coach Pearl should be maintained in his multi-million dollar position at UT. He didn’t just make a mistake. He acted unprofessionally with knowledge aforethought. If the university ever again expects to discipline wayward student athletes it better act responsibly now.

I’m not saying Coach Pearl is done, without worth, or should never coach again. I actually think he should and will coach again, just not at UT.

Leaders are given higher levels of opportunity, responsibility, and reward. They’re also given higher levels of expectation and accountability because their behavior influences more people, for good or for ill.

*This blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact Dr. Rogers or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com or follow Dr. Rogers at www.twitter.com/RexMRogers.

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 10 November 2010

Homosexuality is, according to the Bible, a sin. So are premarital or extramarital heterosexual sexual relationships. So is idolatry, anger, gossip, and using God’s name in vain. While some sins are more heinous than others from a human perspective, morally speaking, sin is sin. There's no hierarchy of "badness."

The mistake Christians and/or conservatives have made is either to consider homosexuality worse than other sins, including heterosexual sin, or to equate LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) individuals with homosexuality. Yet a human being's identity cannot be reduced to an individual moral choice, including sexual sin. In other words, a thief is a person who steals, but is a thief always and only a thief?

So, while I believe a Christian cannot embrace or condone homosexual behavior, I also believe we must not reject, run from, disrespect, or worse, ignore LGBT people.

OK, if that’s true, to borrow from the late Francis A. Schaeffer, “How shall we then live?” Here’s my latest effort to answer that question in terms of homosexuality: "Homosexuality Goes Mainstream--What Now?"

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 09 November 2010

The Republican Party euphoria following the comeuppance it gave the Democrat Party in last week’s national elections is understandable. Everyone likes to win and winning big is even more fun.

But a week later, wiser, cooler, more far-seeing heads should prevail. Yet there’s little evidence this is taking place and only minimal evidence it might.

Both Republicans and Democrats need only return to 1994 for worthwhile lessons of what to do and not to do in the wake of lopsided partisan victory versus the party of the incumbent President. That was the year of Newt Gingrich’s “Revolution.”

The problem was, while the Revolution seemed to some like a great leap forward for the republic it soon deteriorated into partisan pugnaciousness. A few months later, President Clinton got the upper hand over Gingrich and the Republicans in the infamous government shutdown showdown. Worse, even though President Clinton later nearly lost his presidency in the Monica Lewinsky scandal and subsequent impeachment, Republican leaders fared little better because of their own inordinate number of ethics and sex scandals.

Republicans need to learn from the foibles of Gingrich era partisanship. Democrats need to learn from the foibles of Clinton era hubris. Partisanship and hubris, it seems, too often go hand in hand and get the better of politicians, personally and politically. John Boehner and Barack Obama take note.

It’s a bit much to quote oneself, but I’ll risk it here because it fits so well. At the beginning of the Gingrich era in a column published January 8, 1995 in the “Grand Rapids Press” I said:

“Newly elected Republicans will make a major mistake if they think that Americans became tired of Democrats. They did not. Americans became tired of political tribalism masquerading as congressional law making. They became tired of business as usual. Americans want statesmanship. The jury is out on whether the Republicans have the character to provide it.”

I think the same is true today. I’m glad for gains by conservatives more than I’m glad for Republican gains. But either way, I’m not ready to celebrate just because more people with my view of government seem to have control of the teeter totter. I wish them well and I hope they have the character the moment calls for. I’m looking for leaders capable of statesmanship.

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 05 November 2010

More than 7.5 million opposite-sex couples are living together in the United States, an increase of 13% from 2009 according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Theoretically, the economy is the primary factor in this increase. This idea suggests the job market has made meeting living expenses more difficult so pooling unmarried couples’ expenses makes financial sense.

Cohabitation is much higher in the South (38 percent) than the West (23.2 percent), Midwest (15.8 percent), or Northeast (15.8 percent). Education as well as income comes into play, as do local cultural values.

Cohabitation, the act of living together without benefit of marriage, is not something Christians can embrace, even in the face of economic pressures.

Churches understandably haven’t been pleased. Some mega-churches, like Trinity Fellowship Church, Amarillo, Texas organized an event called “The Big Summer Wedding” for cohabiting couples. Some 32 couples were married in this event.

Cohabitation has grown in recent years among older retired adults in their 60s or 70s. The argument is made at times that it’s about keeping family finances cleanly divided for the children’s sake. Or the argument is made that “We’re older so it doesn’t matter that we’re living together”—in other words, sex is something for the young so the older aren’t acting in an immoral fashion. But of course older adults still engage in sexual activity and whether or not they do, Scripture still speaks clearly about male-female relationships.

Cohabitation is not the financial common sense it may seem. It can be demonstrated that by circumventing or delaying marriage cohabiting couples pay a greater price in the long run in the loss of marriage-related tax benefits, insurance coverage, or estate planning advantages. This is aside from any moral considerations.

Cohabitation may sound harmless but it’s a dead-end street, even if it takes place in a seniors retirement and healthcare home. Because people are older or even elderly doesn’t remove moral considerations in their relationships. There’s nothing in Scripture that suggests this.

The other disadvantage of cohabitation, and a significant one, is that it’s a terrible model for young people. In other words, if older adults can cohabit what’s the big deal about young adults cohabiting? Increasing numbers of unmarried couples is already a major social phenomenon with growing impact upon family health in Western countries. Encouraging it isn’t going to help the next generation because it magnifies the number of households in which children are maturing without benefit of family stability. Youth need examples of adult long-term commitment.

Cohabitation is not historically new, but it’s not any more valid or wise than it’s ever been.

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 04 November 2010

My wife and I aren't much for buying souvenirs, but we've purchased a few nice items here and there that we still own and still like. I have a set of carved elephants I bought in Thailand. They rank at the top of my list, probably because I like animals more than because they’re souvenirs. But then again, they’re well made, and it’s interesting to glance at them in my office and know some person in Thailand crafted them from a block of wood.

In one view, souvenirs aren’t worth much. In fact, I’ll offer a definition of a souvenir: “An item that makes you smile when you see it on the tourist shop shelf and makes you frown with befuddlement when you see it at home."

But in another view, they’re treasured remembrances of good experiences long ago and maybe in far away places. Nothing wrong with that.

So whatever happened to souvenirs? We’ve been privileged to travel to a few places and almost without exception the “souvenirs” one finds are items made somewhere else.

Why would I want to buy a souvenir in Thailand if the souvenir was made in Taiwan (or wherever) and can be found in every tourist shop this side of the equator? And probably points south too.

I was out and about in Cyprus today and found souvenirs made of everything-non-Cyprus and made everywhere-but-Cyprus. But this is not a Cypriot issue. I’ve seen this in the Bangkok, the Holy Land, Manila, Paris, Berlin, a host of Caribbean island ports, and more. I’ve seen this in virtually every tourist trap in the United States too.

Here’s what passes for souvenirs: trinkets, cheap, non-locally made, same ol same ol, plastic or soap stone, baseball caps and t-shirts (Do we really need more? Is “I’ve Been To Paphos” a good buy?), factory made, items that have nothing to do with the locale or culture, gag gifts. Gag gifts? Yes.

My favorite store name in Cyprus is “Romantic Supermarket and Suvenirs.” I’m not into their “suvenirs,” but they do have some romantic cashews and chocolate candy bars that are pretty good.

Of course, in some if not most destinations you can find shops that offer higher-end, which is to say expensive, souvenirs. But even in these shops many of the items and much of the art comes from non-local craftsmen or artists.

If I’m going to buy a souvenir I’d like it to be something that actually originated in country and represents the local culture. Folk art is great, but again, it’s hard to find, at least without going out of the way to non-tourist areas, something you cannot always do.

Well, so much for this ode to souvenirs with character. Original souvenirs, we hardly knew ye.

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 03 November 2010

I’m spending the week in Cyprus working with SAT-7 staff and board members and interacting at least here and there with Cypriots. The SAT-7 staff and board are an international group—Lebanese, Egyptian, Danish, English, Irish, American, Swedish, Palestinian, Syrian, Jordanian, and more. They speak a list of languages, Arabic mostly and English always as a second language, so they’re a smart assembly of people.

All the staff and board members, like me, bring their cultural backgrounds to the table. We can’t help it. Our culture is part of who we are and part of what makes us individually intrinsically interesting.

My interest in culture, which simply means “way of life,” began in high school and went into orbit in college. Culture encompasses anthropology and social science, which typically includes language, religion, politics, and economics. (Though one scholar, Henry Van Til, argued religion comes first and defined culture as “religion externalized.”) Culture is about human beings, their ethnicity, nationality, race, gender, and most importantly, worldview.

Culture shows up in how we eat, what we wear, how we marry and bury, what music we like, and how we rear our children. It’s a filter and an amplifier through which we view the world and life and everything within it.

Culture is powerful, sometimes it seems near overwhelmingly so. Though I concede it's an incredibly powerful influence, I do not believe in “cultural determinism.” This is the idea that where we live or how we’re raised dictates all that we are thereafter. My theology doesn’t let me go there. For Christians, for example, God places us “In the World,” but commands us to be “Not of the World” even as we go “Into the World.”(John 17). The idea and reality of the Christian faith belies the idea of cultural determinism, or for that matter, economic or any other determinism.

True Christian faith, empowered by the Holy Spirit, enables anyone to change, to become something different than they were before. This doesn’t mean all cultural practices are bad or wrong or must change with Christian faith. It simply means that some things must change and can change with God’s intervention. Theologians call it conversion, being “born again,” along with the sanctification (Romans 12:2) process that should follow thereafter.

So culture is, and when you travel, culture is fun. I enjoy hearing accents, seeing different dress, eating food I don’t recognize, not being able to get ice in my drinks, trying to understand why my approach to resolving an issue is so perplexing to my friends, or vice versa, hearing-but-not-understanding—and that’s in English, watching how spouses relate to one another, seeing wedding rings on right hands, driving on the left side of the road, not being able to find Half-and-Half, or in fact, seeing wrinkled brows when I say “cream.” I enjoy finding shampoo affixed to the wall in little dispensers, showering using a hose apparatus, surfing through television channels in Arabic, Russian, Greek, English, and I-don’t-know-what-that-one-was.

Culture is one of God’s blessings. It makes human beings different. So it makes us as varied as flowers in the wilderness and, therefore, forever fascinating. What a boring place the world would be if we were all alike.

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