Joe Gibbs Demonstrates No-Spin Responsibility
Chuck Colson
BreakPoint
August 22, 2008
You may have seen ads for an insurance company touting its commitment to responsibility. They feature people doing the right thing, such as returning lost property and helping strangers, simply because it is the right thing to do.
The ads have struck a nerve with the public—probably because personal responsibility is not one of the defining traits of our age.
There is another, equally important, aspect of good character and responsibility: that is, owning up to your mistakes and transgressions. Happily, there are real-world examples of this kind of responsibility in, of all places, the race track.
Earlier this year NASCAR ordered one team to reduce the horsepower generated by its engines in an attempt to make races more competitive. That team had won more than half of the races this season.
Compliance with the order was determined by what is known as a "chassis dynamometer" test—or "dyno test" for short.
In the competitive world of auto racing, where money, prestige, and pride are always on the line, such an order does not go down very well. Mechanics and technicians who have spent countless hours perfecting their cars might resent this attempt to level the playing field. They might even put a kind of moral spin on the issue: It is "unfair," maybe even "un-American," to "punish" excellence in this way.
So it comes as no surprise that someone might try to disobey the order while appearing to be in compliance by fooling the dynamometer. And that is exactly what happened: During "chassis dyno" tests after a recent race in Michigan, NASCAR inspectors found that the team's mechanics had rigged the cars to appear as if they were in compliance when they were not. In other words, they cheated.
While the cheating is not surprising, the name of the team is: Joe Gibbs Racing. It is surprising because Gibbs is an outspoken Christian who has gone into prisons with me. I know Joe well and respect his character and integrity—they are unimpeachable.
That is why I was not surprised at what followed: While neither Joe nor his son J. D. had any clue as to what their employees were doing, they took "full responsibility" for their employees' actions.
Joe said that the incident "goes against everything we stand for as an organization." He added that "we will take full responsibility and accept any penalties NASCAR levies against us."
That's it: no evasion, no excuses, no spin. It stands in marked contrast to the evasions and "damage control" we hear and read about all the time. People caught breaking the law or behaving badly blame everything from dyslexia, their disadvantaged upbringing, and even acid reflux for their failings. When they do acknowledge fault, they seek to mitigate their responsibility by citing "extenuating" circumstances—or, as we see with politicians, regularly they call sin just a "mistake."
It is not just celebrities and politicians. Americans talk about responsibility, but we are all-too-eager to pass the blame along, especially if there is punishment involved.
That is why I so admire Joe Gibbs's willingness to take his punishment without qualifiers. Joe and family are not only doing the right thing, they are setting a real-world example for the rest of us to emulate. Thank you, Joe, for your Christian witness and teaching the rest of us a lesson.
Chuck Colson’s daily BreakPoint commentary airs each weekday on more than one thousand outlets with an estimated listening audience of one million people. BreakPoint provides a Christian perspective on today’s news and trends via radio, interactive media, and print.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
The Spin Zone (Mart De Haan)
BEEN THINKING ABOUT: THE SPIN ZONE
The FOX News Network has made a name for itself by promising to present the news “fair and balanced.” Its anchors say, “We report. You decide.” Bill O’Reilly opens his hour-long program with, “You’re in the no spin zone.” He closes with a bit of a smile and twinkle in his eye, saying, “Remember, the spin stops here.”
Most of us would probably like to believe that “fair and balanced” is our style of news. But what do our actions say? How do we report our own stories? Isn’t it true that when we do our own anchoring . . .
We wonder. They’re nosy.
We’re cautious. They’re paranoid.
We’re composed. They’re stuffy.
We’re concerned. They gripe.
We’re determined. They’re bullheaded.
We don’t have to try to make such distinctions. They just happen. In unguarded, emotional, or self-protective moments, we naturally choose words that give the benefit of the doubt to ourselves at the expense of others. With little thought, we hide our own wrongs and exaggerate the faults of others.
What’s behind the spin?
How do we explain our tendency to be unfair and unbalanced? Has spin been necessary for the survival of the fittest? Or does the Bible give us a better explanation for why we, even unintentionally, color, slice, and dice the truth?
One evidence of the Bible’s credibility is that it doesn’t seem to hide or minimize the faults of its own people. From the Bible itself we learn that Moses was a killer, David was an adulterer, and Paul, in his own words, was the chief of sinners.
Let’s take this a step further. Could the Bible be the ultimate no-spin zone? Look at what it does. Without covering up the wrongs of its own “chosen people,” it tells a story that reflects not only our inclinations, but why we all aspire to something higher.
When did the spin begin?
According to Genesis, in the beginning the first two people had no reason to do anything but love life and truth. They were both created by a great Author who used His own words to compose a perfect story for them.
With the turn of the page, however, the Author’s real-life cast of characters walk out on Him. Instead of following His script, they decide to write their own story.
Who spun first?
The history of truth telling took a turn for the worse when the first man and woman met someone who claimed to know more about their Author’s motives than they did. Like a tennis player hitting an intentional slice, the stranger put his own spin on the only limitation the Author had given them. He asked the woman whether it was really true that the Author had told them they could not eat from every tree in the garden.
Because the couple had no experience with evil, the woman didn’t see the danger of talking to a stranger. While they may have wondered why the Author had put the tree of the knowledge of good and evil off limits, they had no reason to doubt His motives.
But the stranger raised an interesting question. Why didn’t the Author want them eating from that tree? What secrets was He keeping from them? Why didn’t He want them knowing as much as He knew?
They had entered a spin zone.
The spread of spin
When the Author found the couple and asked the man what he had done, the man blamed the woman. The woman, in turn, pointed her finger at the Serpent who, as we later learn, has his own issues with the Author (Job 1:9-11).
Even though neither of them saw it coming, the man and woman now had something in common with the blame-shifting devil whose name means “the accuser.”
Some would say the first couple bet the farm and lost it on bad advice. But being evicted from their home and land was the least of their growing problems. Something in them had died. For the first time, they were not on the same page with the Author. Their loss of innocence and knowledge of good and evil changed the way they thought and talked about one another.
From that time on, the first couple and their children had something to hide about themselves and to suspect in others. In an effort to avoid blame for what they had done, they would always tend to tell their story in a way that blurred the line between fact and fiction.
Today we are living out the legacy of our first parents’ spin. The use of half-truths to color our thinking is a commercial and political art. Urban legends multiply. Advertising plays with our minds. Truth is told and sold at a price none of us can afford.
The solution for spin
With such spinning of the truth running through our veins, how could our own story turn out well?
According to the Bible, the great Author and finisher of our faith offers to reverse and stop the spin for us (Romans 5:19; Hebrews 12:2). While we are inclined to project our guilt onto others, Jesus does the opposite. He takes our guilt upon Himself (2 Corinthians 5:21), accepts full responsibility for our spiritual debts, and gives His blamelessness to anyone who receives Him (John 1:12; 5:24).
With an offer that releases us from our addiction to sin and spin, Jesus says, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:31-32).
Father in heaven, the way we twist the truth about ourselves and others says so much about our need of You. We keep falling back into our old ways of favoring ourselves at the expense of others. Please help us to show increasingly an honesty of conversation and integrity of life demonstrating to our world that our hope and our security is not in our spin, and certainly not in our sin—but in You. — Mart De Haan
Click here to share your thoughts on Mart’s article or visit us online at www.rbc.org. We value your feedback.
The FOX News Network has made a name for itself by promising to present the news “fair and balanced.” Its anchors say, “We report. You decide.” Bill O’Reilly opens his hour-long program with, “You’re in the no spin zone.” He closes with a bit of a smile and twinkle in his eye, saying, “Remember, the spin stops here.”
Most of us would probably like to believe that “fair and balanced” is our style of news. But what do our actions say? How do we report our own stories? Isn’t it true that when we do our own anchoring . . .
We wonder. They’re nosy.
We’re cautious. They’re paranoid.
We’re composed. They’re stuffy.
We’re concerned. They gripe.
We’re determined. They’re bullheaded.
We don’t have to try to make such distinctions. They just happen. In unguarded, emotional, or self-protective moments, we naturally choose words that give the benefit of the doubt to ourselves at the expense of others. With little thought, we hide our own wrongs and exaggerate the faults of others.
What’s behind the spin?
How do we explain our tendency to be unfair and unbalanced? Has spin been necessary for the survival of the fittest? Or does the Bible give us a better explanation for why we, even unintentionally, color, slice, and dice the truth?
One evidence of the Bible’s credibility is that it doesn’t seem to hide or minimize the faults of its own people. From the Bible itself we learn that Moses was a killer, David was an adulterer, and Paul, in his own words, was the chief of sinners.
Let’s take this a step further. Could the Bible be the ultimate no-spin zone? Look at what it does. Without covering up the wrongs of its own “chosen people,” it tells a story that reflects not only our inclinations, but why we all aspire to something higher.
When did the spin begin?
According to Genesis, in the beginning the first two people had no reason to do anything but love life and truth. They were both created by a great Author who used His own words to compose a perfect story for them.
With the turn of the page, however, the Author’s real-life cast of characters walk out on Him. Instead of following His script, they decide to write their own story.
Who spun first?
The history of truth telling took a turn for the worse when the first man and woman met someone who claimed to know more about their Author’s motives than they did. Like a tennis player hitting an intentional slice, the stranger put his own spin on the only limitation the Author had given them. He asked the woman whether it was really true that the Author had told them they could not eat from every tree in the garden.
Because the couple had no experience with evil, the woman didn’t see the danger of talking to a stranger. While they may have wondered why the Author had put the tree of the knowledge of good and evil off limits, they had no reason to doubt His motives.
But the stranger raised an interesting question. Why didn’t the Author want them eating from that tree? What secrets was He keeping from them? Why didn’t He want them knowing as much as He knew?
They had entered a spin zone.
The spread of spin
When the Author found the couple and asked the man what he had done, the man blamed the woman. The woman, in turn, pointed her finger at the Serpent who, as we later learn, has his own issues with the Author (Job 1:9-11).
Even though neither of them saw it coming, the man and woman now had something in common with the blame-shifting devil whose name means “the accuser.”
Some would say the first couple bet the farm and lost it on bad advice. But being evicted from their home and land was the least of their growing problems. Something in them had died. For the first time, they were not on the same page with the Author. Their loss of innocence and knowledge of good and evil changed the way they thought and talked about one another.
From that time on, the first couple and their children had something to hide about themselves and to suspect in others. In an effort to avoid blame for what they had done, they would always tend to tell their story in a way that blurred the line between fact and fiction.
Today we are living out the legacy of our first parents’ spin. The use of half-truths to color our thinking is a commercial and political art. Urban legends multiply. Advertising plays with our minds. Truth is told and sold at a price none of us can afford.
The solution for spin
With such spinning of the truth running through our veins, how could our own story turn out well?
According to the Bible, the great Author and finisher of our faith offers to reverse and stop the spin for us (Romans 5:19; Hebrews 12:2). While we are inclined to project our guilt onto others, Jesus does the opposite. He takes our guilt upon Himself (2 Corinthians 5:21), accepts full responsibility for our spiritual debts, and gives His blamelessness to anyone who receives Him (John 1:12; 5:24).
With an offer that releases us from our addiction to sin and spin, Jesus says, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:31-32).
Father in heaven, the way we twist the truth about ourselves and others says so much about our need of You. We keep falling back into our old ways of favoring ourselves at the expense of others. Please help us to show increasingly an honesty of conversation and integrity of life demonstrating to our world that our hope and our security is not in our spin, and certainly not in our sin—but in You. — Mart De Haan
Click here to share your thoughts on Mart’s article or visit us online at www.rbc.org. We value your feedback.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Solzhenitsyn vs. Evil
Solzhenitsyn vs. Evil
Dr. Paul Kengor
Grove City College
August 4, 2008Alexander Solzhenitsyn, a great figure of the 20th century, is dead at the age of 89.How does one adequately honor the man? It’s impossible to capture in one column what Solzhenitsyn meant, experienced, and how he went about translating it to the West in an unprecedented way. Professors everywhere will struggle to fully convey his impact to their students. I will point to just a few things that stand out in my mind.
First was his creative, trenchant opening to his majestic, The Gulag Archipelago, the shocking firsthand account of the Soviet forced-labor-camp system, where tens of million innocents perished and countless more, like Solzhenitsyn himself, were held captive. Solzhenitsyn began his work with a mundane but instructive example: He cited an article in the journal Nature, which informed its readers, in a strictly scientific fashion, about a group of fleeing, desperate men in Siberia who, starving, happened upon a subterranean ice lens that held a perfectly preserved prehistoric fauna.“Flouting the higher claims of ichthyology,” narrated Solzhenitsyn, and “elbowing each other to be first,” they chipped away the ice, hurried the fish to a fire, cooked it, and bolted it down. No doubt, said Solzhenitsyn, Nature impressed its readers with this account of how 10,000-year-old fish could be kept fresh over such a long period.
But only a narrower group of readers could decipher the true meaning of this “incautious” report. That smaller club was the fellow gulag survivors—the “pitiable zeks,” as Solzhenitsyn called them. When your goal is survival, you survive, even if it means hurriedly devouring something that in a normal world would be carefully rushed to a museum.As Solzhenitsyn knew, however, and proceeded to make clear in the pages that followed, Soviet communism was no normal world. His groundbreaking work unearthed gem after gem to an outside world not yet fully acquainted with the “horror house” (Boris Yeltsin’s characterization) that was the Soviet Union.
Among the many other items worthy of mention from The Gulag Archipelago was how Solzhenitsyn literally did the Lord’s work by reporting on the Moscow “church trials” of the 1920s—classic, prototype communist show trials, aimed specifically at the Russian church. These were outrageous miscarriages of justice, the outcome always predetermined, and the goal to undermine communism’s most despised foe: God.
Solzhenitsyn’s reporting on these trials, including excerpts of exchanges between saintly priests and stooge apparatchiks, offered only one glimmer of solace each time another good man was sentenced to execution: every priest could identify with Christ’s passion.
There was never a need for witnesses. Guilty as charged.
Some, like Severian Baranyk, were killed with a cross-shaped slash across their chests, or, like Zenobius Kovalyk, in mock crucifixions.The Gulag Archipelago, plus other Solzhenitsyn masterpieces such as A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, may get a half-day-news-cycle worth of attention from our superficial media.
That’s too bad, since Solzhenitsyn’s unfiltered voice in our press frequently exploded like cannon fire at the Iron Curtain.
The Soviets recoiled each time Solzhenitsyn’s words were broadcast in the West. A striking case that enraged them twice over was when his words were (spiritually) employed inside the USSR by the visiting American president. This occurred on May 30, 1988 at the Moscow Summit, when President Ronald Reagan—who had been quoting Solzhenitsyn since the 1970s—met with Soviet religious leaders at the 700-year-old Danilov Monastery. Reagan said "There is a beautiful passage that I’d just like to read, if I may. It’s from one of this country’s great writers and believers, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, about the faith that is as elemental to this land as the dark and fertile soil."
He wrote: “When you travel the byroads of central Russia, you begin to understand the secret of the pacifying Russian countryside. It is in the churches. They lift their bell-towers—graceful, shapely, all different—high over mundane timber and thatch. From villages that are cut off and invisible to each other, they soar to the same heaven…. [T]he evening chimes used to ring out, floating over the villages, fields, and woods, reminding men that they must abandon trivial concerns of this world and give time and thought to eternity.”In our prayers we may keep that image in mind: the thought that the bells may ring again, sounding through Moscow and across the countryside, clamoring for joy in their new-found freedom.
The Soviets hated this. For Reagan to invoke Solzhenitsyn inside the USSR was bad enough, but to do so in behalf of religious liberty was galling. They wasted no time blasting this passage in editorials in their government-controlled newspapers. Reagan had dared cite Solzhenitsyn in the House of Lenin, an unacceptable blasphemy to the Gospel of Marx.
If a man’s achievements can be measured by the vicious un-holiness of his persecutors, then Alexander Solzhenitsyn will now enjoy a lifetime of heavenly rewards. Spared the martyrdom of the dead Russian believers who could not live to blow the whistle, it was left to him to witness to the outside world. It was a job that this faithful servant did better than any other zek.
May he rest in peace, free from pain and elevated high above his tormentors.
Editor’s Note: This article is also posted at National Review Online.
Paul Kengor is professor of political science and executive director of the Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College. His books include God and Ronald Reagan: A Spiritual Life (HarperCollins, 2004), The Judge: William P. Clark, Ronald Reagan's Top Hand (Ignatius Press, 2007), and The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism (HarperPerennial, 2007).
Dr. Paul Kengor
Grove City College
August 4, 2008Alexander Solzhenitsyn, a great figure of the 20th century, is dead at the age of 89.How does one adequately honor the man? It’s impossible to capture in one column what Solzhenitsyn meant, experienced, and how he went about translating it to the West in an unprecedented way. Professors everywhere will struggle to fully convey his impact to their students. I will point to just a few things that stand out in my mind.
First was his creative, trenchant opening to his majestic, The Gulag Archipelago, the shocking firsthand account of the Soviet forced-labor-camp system, where tens of million innocents perished and countless more, like Solzhenitsyn himself, were held captive. Solzhenitsyn began his work with a mundane but instructive example: He cited an article in the journal Nature, which informed its readers, in a strictly scientific fashion, about a group of fleeing, desperate men in Siberia who, starving, happened upon a subterranean ice lens that held a perfectly preserved prehistoric fauna.“Flouting the higher claims of ichthyology,” narrated Solzhenitsyn, and “elbowing each other to be first,” they chipped away the ice, hurried the fish to a fire, cooked it, and bolted it down. No doubt, said Solzhenitsyn, Nature impressed its readers with this account of how 10,000-year-old fish could be kept fresh over such a long period.
But only a narrower group of readers could decipher the true meaning of this “incautious” report. That smaller club was the fellow gulag survivors—the “pitiable zeks,” as Solzhenitsyn called them. When your goal is survival, you survive, even if it means hurriedly devouring something that in a normal world would be carefully rushed to a museum.As Solzhenitsyn knew, however, and proceeded to make clear in the pages that followed, Soviet communism was no normal world. His groundbreaking work unearthed gem after gem to an outside world not yet fully acquainted with the “horror house” (Boris Yeltsin’s characterization) that was the Soviet Union.
Among the many other items worthy of mention from The Gulag Archipelago was how Solzhenitsyn literally did the Lord’s work by reporting on the Moscow “church trials” of the 1920s—classic, prototype communist show trials, aimed specifically at the Russian church. These were outrageous miscarriages of justice, the outcome always predetermined, and the goal to undermine communism’s most despised foe: God.
Solzhenitsyn’s reporting on these trials, including excerpts of exchanges between saintly priests and stooge apparatchiks, offered only one glimmer of solace each time another good man was sentenced to execution: every priest could identify with Christ’s passion.
There was never a need for witnesses. Guilty as charged.
Some, like Severian Baranyk, were killed with a cross-shaped slash across their chests, or, like Zenobius Kovalyk, in mock crucifixions.The Gulag Archipelago, plus other Solzhenitsyn masterpieces such as A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, may get a half-day-news-cycle worth of attention from our superficial media.
That’s too bad, since Solzhenitsyn’s unfiltered voice in our press frequently exploded like cannon fire at the Iron Curtain.
The Soviets recoiled each time Solzhenitsyn’s words were broadcast in the West. A striking case that enraged them twice over was when his words were (spiritually) employed inside the USSR by the visiting American president. This occurred on May 30, 1988 at the Moscow Summit, when President Ronald Reagan—who had been quoting Solzhenitsyn since the 1970s—met with Soviet religious leaders at the 700-year-old Danilov Monastery. Reagan said "There is a beautiful passage that I’d just like to read, if I may. It’s from one of this country’s great writers and believers, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, about the faith that is as elemental to this land as the dark and fertile soil."
He wrote: “When you travel the byroads of central Russia, you begin to understand the secret of the pacifying Russian countryside. It is in the churches. They lift their bell-towers—graceful, shapely, all different—high over mundane timber and thatch. From villages that are cut off and invisible to each other, they soar to the same heaven…. [T]he evening chimes used to ring out, floating over the villages, fields, and woods, reminding men that they must abandon trivial concerns of this world and give time and thought to eternity.”In our prayers we may keep that image in mind: the thought that the bells may ring again, sounding through Moscow and across the countryside, clamoring for joy in their new-found freedom.
The Soviets hated this. For Reagan to invoke Solzhenitsyn inside the USSR was bad enough, but to do so in behalf of religious liberty was galling. They wasted no time blasting this passage in editorials in their government-controlled newspapers. Reagan had dared cite Solzhenitsyn in the House of Lenin, an unacceptable blasphemy to the Gospel of Marx.
If a man’s achievements can be measured by the vicious un-holiness of his persecutors, then Alexander Solzhenitsyn will now enjoy a lifetime of heavenly rewards. Spared the martyrdom of the dead Russian believers who could not live to blow the whistle, it was left to him to witness to the outside world. It was a job that this faithful servant did better than any other zek.
May he rest in peace, free from pain and elevated high above his tormentors.
Editor’s Note: This article is also posted at National Review Online.
Paul Kengor is professor of political science and executive director of the Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College. His books include God and Ronald Reagan: A Spiritual Life (HarperCollins, 2004), The Judge: William P. Clark, Ronald Reagan's Top Hand (Ignatius Press, 2007), and The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism (HarperPerennial, 2007).
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