What to Believe?

I didn't have time to watch the whole day of testimony yesterday, neither could my heart take such a thing. Dr. Christine Blasey Ford's testimony was more convincing than I expected, and Kavanaugh's refutation of said testimony was at least as vehement as I expected.  I still don't know where the truth is in all of this, but yesterday didn't seem to change too many minds, least of all the minds that matter in the immediate context.  Out there in this nation of ours there may have been minds changed, or there may have just been bitterness magnified.  The impact of that can only be seen with time and distance.
What I offer here are some observations based on what I do know, I do not expect they will change your mind, in fact, I am still reserving judgment about Mr. Kavanaugh's guilt or innocence, I have no proof beyond the words of two people, neither of whom I know well enough to really say whether they are telling the truth. I do have some professional experience with hearing people's stories, including stories about trauma, and I have observed, on a few occasions, the different ways that the perpetrators of abuse and their victims can perceive the same events.
Let's start with Dr. Ford. Her demeanor, the way that she presented her testimony, including the obvious trepidation that she had about it, was entirely consistent with what one would expect from a survivor of sexual assault after over 30 years, therapy and some obvious healing work.  Her composure in such a scenario was admirable.  If she was sitting in my office, telling me as her pastor about this occurrence, I would believe her.  I have had that actual experience over the years, women with different degrees of distance from the trauma, telling me what happened to them, and Dr. Ford's testimony was absolutely within the range of what I would consider truthfulness.  Could she fake it? Maybe, but not likely.  I think most people that watched, even the skeptics, would have to admit that she seemed like a woman who was telling the truth.
I think the Republican senators on the committee were wise to have a woman do their questioning for them. Today there are the usual post-mortem critiques of Mitchell and her questioning techniques, but honestly, the optic of a bunch of old men trying to break Ford down would have been even more disastrous than what took place yesterday.  And I do believe that it was disastrous, but more on that in a moment.
So on to Kavanaugh, as you may gather from earlier posts, I do have some sympathy for Brett Kavanaugh.  Most of that went out the window yesterday, as I watched him let his anger get the best of him.  It's not that I blame him for being angry, especially if he is falsely accused, but I would hope that in testimony such as this he would have been able to keep it together.  He understands the legal system as well as anyone in the room, and he was evasive about whether or not the FBI should investigate this matter. If he is innocent, indeed, if he wasn't even in the house where the alleged assault took place, he should be as interested in having dispositive proof of such a claim uncovered as anyone.  He seemed to know that his buddies hold the majority and that the people who support him will do so without proof.  He is also probably fairly certain that dispositive proof is going to be hard to come by, and is understandably anxious to avoid more of what has been going on this past week.
Emotionally his testimony was not as convincing, because he seems awfully sure of something that I would have a hard time being sure of myself.  For me, it would be hard to say that I wasn't at some random gathering of kids at someone's house when I was in high school.  I would have a hard time saying for sure that I was never with a certain assortment of people, and I wasn't even much of a drinker in High School, nor was I often at the sort of gatherings described, because unlike Kavanaugh, I wasn't a football player or the sort of person who spent a lot of time sort of hanging out with my bros, I didn't really have bros.  Still, I went places on occasion and at this point, I can't really remember much about that.
You know who would remember?  A girl who was traumatized at one of those gatherings, a fifteen year old who got pulled into a room and pawed at, by two guys who thought it was hilarious.  And that is where this sort of breaks for me, for Kavanaugh this evening might have been totally and utterly unremarkable.  Kavanaugh himself mentioned that Animal House and  Fast Times at Ridgemont High were current movies in those days and that they informed the sense of humor that he and his friends shared when they put crude inside jokes in their yearbook. From the perspective of a couple of 17 year old boys who had "a few too many beers," a brief tussle with a pretty young blonde might not be much of a memory at all.  Ford's account is that Kavanaugh grabbed her and groped her and then Judge jumped on top of them and knocked him off and allowed her to escape, neither of them pursued her.  To them, especially if they were inebriated (not to the level of black out intoxication mind you, just enough to be fuzzy) this might have been thirty seconds to a minute of foolishness.  Nothing ever came of it, she didn't go to the cops or her parents or anyone for a long time, it passed out of their memory because there were no consequences.  Nothing else would have been strange for anyone at the house, except maybe for them wondering where Christine went suddenly.  People suddenly leave parties all the time without explanation, it's called "ghosting," it is unremarkable.
My point is that there is a very real and plausible explanation for Kavanaugh having no recollection of this event, but for Ford it became a trauma that she had to deal with for decades.  Let's say this is the truth: it happened, but to everyone except Christine Blasey, it was such a nothing evening that they can't even remember it.  Kavanaugh isn't exactly lying, and he may not be the sexual predator that some of the other accusers are trying to make him, but should he be on the Supreme Court?
My answer based on his testimony yesterday is no, not because I don't believe him, but because he appears to be so very angry at the wrong people, and that makes me question his ability to put his personal feelings to the side and be an impartial arbiter of the law.  That's what the Supreme Court is supposed to be and do, and it has become something rather different, it has become a de-facto legislative body. A few weeks ago a Republican Senator, Ben Sasse gave this speech at the beginning of this confirmation hearing:

I agree with pretty much everything Sasse says about the current state of our politics, which is a strange thing for me to agree that thoroughly with a Republican.  What he says at around the 10 minute mark though is that he believes Kavanaugh has the ability to put his politics "in a box marked irrelevant," as he puts on the black robes of a judge.  I do not believe, after watching Kavanaugh explode at the Democratic minority on the Judicial commission, that he has that ability.  I think his past as an extremely partisan operative for the Republican party makes him rather unsuitable for the Supreme Court, and that is regardless of whether or not I believe Dr. Ford.

I do, in fact, believe her.  As for Kavanaugh, I'll give him the benefit of some kind of doubt, and I suspect he's probably safe in the reality that he is innocent until proven guilty and proof is going to be really hard to come by at this point.  He's also safe in that he has an invertebrate Senate majority and a tight network of ivy-league power on his side.  He's safe in that the Democrats like Diane Feinstein and Nancy Pelosi rub the MAGA crowd so wrong that anything they say must be conspiracy against the good, hard working people of America. 

Kavanaugh is probably going to be confirmed, and we will have a second Supreme Court Justice who has been credibly accused of treating a woman badly.  I'm just going to have to vote, and tell my daughter that I will always believe her.

Skeletons in the Closet

To live outside the law, you must be honest.

-Bob Dylan

The monstrous fear that exists in the age of #metoo, is that the public reaction to accusations is going to ruin people who are innocent and falsely accused.  Indeed, in my line of work, I can certainly recognize the reality that someone with a grudge or a hostile motive could cause a lot of pain by leveling the type of charge that has been tossed at Brett Kavanaugh.  But what I also know about that sort of situation is that, if and when it comes up, transparency and integrity become very important.  We must approach situations like this without pre-judging the truth, because the truth, despite much current evidence to the contrary, is a powerful weight in how things eventually pan out.

I got into some of the reasons why the accuser's story sounds plausible in the last post, but today I would like to offer an opinion about what Mr. Kavanaugh should be doing if he is indeed innocent of the charges leveled at him.  The first thing that he should do is sort of the exact opposite of what he actually did in his interview with Fox News.  He should acknowledge what he was actually like in High School and College, even if there are some unflattering aspects to be told.  There are simply too many people who knew him then, and despite the fact that many of his Frat Bros have, in good Bro fashion, stood up for him as a stand up guy who could hold his liquor, some of the people, even some who initially supported him, aren't buying his clean cut kid routine.

As someone who probably would not like to have incidents from his college years replayed for all to see, I find it far more wise to simply acknowledge that I did some things I am not proud of when I was young rather than trying to paint myself as a young St. Francis.  I don't need Kavanaugh to come out and give a soul-wrenching confession of puking in the bushes at Yale or detailing every time he got a little too drunk.  I would like to see some harmony between the stories that witnesses tell and what he "remembers" about himself.  I kind of wish we didn't have to go here in this particular process, but as they say, here we are.

General ribaldry in one's late teens is not something that would disqualify a 50 year old man from just about anything.  This includes the idea that perhaps young Mr. Kavanaugh was not always quite as "gentlemanly" as he would want his grandmother to believe.  I do not doubt that now, as a husband, father and respected figure, he treats women with respect and dignity, I have no reason to believe otherwise.  Whether he did as a teenager in the early 1980's is and entirely different matter. Again though, Bro behavior would not necessarily disqualify him, but dishonesty and perhaps even perjury about said Bro behavior in the here and now is another matter.

So Brett, as hard as it may be, you need to be super honest with us and with yourself I think.  If the accusations are false it is even more important to be honest. The simple fact is that everything about this is going to be hard to prove, but don't bank on the technical protections of the law, this isn't a trial. If you want to take your seat on the bench of the highest court in this land, and serve there with your integrity in tact, you're going to have to navigate a world of ideas and assumptions that fall outside of the technical boundaries of the law.  If you actually did what Dr. Ford says you did, then you might as well keep lying, because you're going to answer to a higher justice than the Supreme Court.

What Is Wrong With Us?

If I'm honest I really don't know what to think about this whole Brett Kavanaugh business, other than it is, beyond a doubt, a supreme sort of a mess. There is not likely to be an adequate resolution to the matter that befits the austerity of the Supreme Court, but then again, Clarence Thomas has been a justice for nearly 30 years.  As a teenager I chuckled through watching Ted Koppel dourly discuss "Long Dong Silver," and pubic hair laden cans of Coke.  Honestly, I thought it was funny then (because I was 14), but that joke isn't funny any more.  There are a lot of jokes that aren't funny anymore when you're concerned that the honor and function of important institutions may not survive human stupidity.
As to the question(s) surrounding Mr. Kavanaugh, they are important questions that need answers, not things that should be brushed aside because one political party is afraid they're about to get their butts handed to them in November.  I make no presumption of guilt or innocence, nor do I necessarily think there can be a completely satisfactory verdict based on proof in this case.  The things that weigh against him, are highly subjective, but given what I know about the times, the setting, and the general behavior of Prep School rich kids and College Frat boys, I do not find the accusations utterly unbelievable.  In fact, I might even go so far as to conjecture that they are believable, because such behavior, in the era of my youth, rather commonplace.  So much so that, given a bit of alcohol and the guise of goofing around, Mr. Kavanaugh and Mr. Judge, might have done such a thing to a young girl, and thought very little about it.
It's effect on the victim however, would have been rather different.  Do you remember a time you got bullied?  In my school it was rather common place for certain people to walk by and punch other people in the arm, or shove them in the back, sometimes pushing them into metal lockers, violent acts that sometimes hurt.  As the victim of those actions, I remember them, but I'm reasonably sure that the people who did them do not.  What about gossip and taunting? Do you remember everyone you ever whispered foul things about or teased in High School?  I will bet the victims probably do.
Which leads me to the first thing that bothers me about the whole thing: the categorical denial.  I have done some drinking in my time, during the college years it was rarely well controlled social drinking.  I know there are things that happened while I was drinking that I am not proud of, and there is a fair to middling possibility that there are some of those sorts of things which I do not remember.  I'm not talking about black out drunk either, but in the course of an evening of party hopping there are just things that you might forget very easily, especially if you, in your addled mind, didn't really think they were all that memorable.  I know why Kavanaugh categorically denied it, but I would feel a lot more comfortable if he at least acknowledged that his accuser might have some grounds for making such a claim.  Once he categorically denies it, any evidence, however slim, that confirms an encounter between the himself and young Ms Blasey, makes him a liar in the here and now.  It speaks to a lack of humility and repentance if he did actually do what his accuser claims he did.  That, and not whether he was a 17 year old idiot (most of us are idiots at 17) is what would disqualify him from being a Supreme Court Justice.
The second thing that actually bothers me a lot more than anything Mr. Kavanaugh has done, or might have done in the past, is the way that our systems of government are demonstrating their own decrepitude.  George Will makes this point rather well in a column from Friday's Washington Post regardless of what the truth might be here, the process is being revealed as deeply flawed and partisan in a way it is not intended to be, ever.  He traces the root of this phenomenon back to the failed nomination of Robert Bork by Ronald Reagan.  Bork was the guy who finally helped Nixon commit the "Saturday Night Massacre" and thus had a political taint on him that was a bit of a bridge too far for congress back in those days, but the confirmation hearings were something of a farce, as were the Thomas hearings, as was the stonewalling of Merrick Garland.  Farce and Supreme Court of the United States of America are not things that should ever go together.  As Will lays out though, perhaps we have already crossed that line.
If the Senate treats Dr. Ford in a similar way to how they treated Anita Hill, the legitimacy of the court will be called into question, not because of Mr. Kavanaugh, but because of the process by which he was confirmed.  This would be true, whether or not Mr. Kavanaugh was the depraved Frat boy from a John Hughes film, or whether he was actually a virtuous young man who was falsely accused.  The process deserves time to be done properly, after all, they kept Scalia's seat open for over a year, so what's the hurry?
The consequences the Judicial panel not doing their duty are grave, even if Kavanaugh is an honorable man, in fact, they may be more grave for any legacy he leaves on the court if he always has an unproven and yet un-disproven allegation, as Ross Douthat argued in the NY Times last week, hanging over his tenure.  I have a bad feeling that the truth, as has happened so often lately, is going to go begging in the halls of our government.  The old white men in charge seem to be committed to trashing the integrity of the system of late, and the Diane Feinstein's of the world aren't exactly stopping them by mismanaging and grandstanding.
The aftermath of the Thomas/Hill "investigation" was that some people believed him, and some people believed her, the lines of who believed what tended to be largely drawn down the liberal/conservative divide.  Division is what happens when people can't agree on the facts, in those moments the process by which you make decisions becomes very important.  We have an obvious problem with agreeing on facts right now, and thus this abuse and abrogation of the processes of our most important institutions is all that much more dangerous.

Welcome to the Club

For years I have been marking the start of football (American style) in a two sided manner.  On the one hand, as a fan, I watch games I don't really care about much, just because football is back, and because I'm trying to sort out my fantasy football team.  On the other hand, as a pastor, the church being in a sort of erstwhile competition with the NFL for the Sundays of America, I have made jokes about how church will be done before kickoff. But this year, I came to a conclusion that it has perhaps taken me too long to finally admit, but it's time to acknowledge something, and do so without any bitterness or resentment: sports is a religion.
Not only is sports a religion, but in many cases, especially in affluent western countries like the United States, it's kicking the Church's butt.  The two things that people call football are perhaps the most obvious competition.  The American version is played mostly on Sundays, and I very rarely hear people complaining about it taking too much of their time.  Soccer (the other football), may not be quite as much of a phenomenon in this country as it is abroad, but give it time, the concussion issue and the fact that we are now shifting so much of our emphasis with kids to soccer is going to make an impact going forward.  I have been to Europe though, and I have seen the devotion that Real Madrid and La Liga evoke in Spain.  I have learned a bit about the zeal that many Brits have, not just for the Premiere league, but for local clubs, which consist of plumbers and accountants booting it around the pitch, and frankly, any church would be glad to have such energy about its mission. And even in less crowd oriented games, like golf, the religious intention shows through.  I'm always impressed with the advertising that leads up to the Master's Tournament. It's practically liturgical in style and substance, except it's about a bunch of guys hitting a little ball around a very beautiful and expensive series of lawns.
But you know what? It's not worth fighting any more, so I'm going to offer some friendly advice to the latest addition to the world of religion.  I mean this quite seriously, even if my sarcasm peeks out at times.  Take this advice sports world, you're going to need it, because you have decided to wade into the waters of human hopes, dreams and devotion, and this can get deep quickly.

1. You're going to have to develop a social conscience.  No matter how much you might want to just play ball, people are assigning significance to what you do and what you say.  You want to be about equality and fair play and good sportsmanship, those are important for sure, but they are going to come into conflict with the larger cultural events of our society. Your players and coaches are going to say things and do things that reflect their values, and sometimes they're going to make people mad and sometimes they're going to inspire people.  A lot of the time this will happen concurrently.  You're going to get people who tell you that you shouldn't be so political, and you're going to have to decide whether or not to ignore them. This is not always easy, the church often gets this one wrong, one way or another.  Over the course of time, values are what matter, pleasing people is an unwinnable game.
2. You're going to have to be super vigilant about protecting the vulnerable, and I'm not just talking about player safety, in fact, I'm not really talking about player safety at all.  I'm talking about the fact that people are trusting you with their children.  Seriously, we can barely pull together Sunday School and Youth Group stuff any more because people have got their kids going to some sort of sports practice or game almost every night of the week.  And I see you embracing this role too, with your little commercials about kids who benefit from the discipline and and purpose that sports gives you, but when people trust you with their kids, you had better protect those kids, or else stuff is going to go down. Larry Nassar and Jerry Sandusky have proven that sports can be a fertile hunting ground for pederasts, any place that young people are tends to become that way.  I know you think it's never going to happen in your program, but let me tell you, it very well might, and when it does, you had better learn to stop trying to quash the news and hide it in the closet. Take it from the Roman Catholics, that is going to make it much, much worse in the long run.  Remember that Joe Paterno was practically the Pope of College football and his refusal to see what Sandusky was up to brought him down.  Until JoePa, I didn't believe it was possible to actually die of shame, but I think that's what happened.
3. You should also learn how to treat women.  I know, coming from a member of clergy, this seems really hypocritical.  Historically the church is about as patriarchal and often misogynistic as you can get, but I'm trying to give you the benefit of a wisdom that took us nearly 2000 year to realize.  I get it, men and women are different, the WNBA and the NBA practically look like different sports, but there are places in all of sport where the glass ceiling just seems way too thick.  You had better learn to recognize that, every once in a while, a female sports figure can transcend our usual sexism.  You're missing the boat on Serena Williams right now, I know you think you're glowing about her, but that lady could and probably should be Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods rolled into one (and without the baggage).  She should be your high priestess right now, you're only letting her be an impressive sideshow.
4. Finally, put your ego aside, and don't think you are in competition with other sports or other religions.  That's not how this works, and I do so wish that the church would actually understand this too.  The reservoir of human hopes and faith is massive, in fact, I would go so far as to say infinite.  We have a deep need to believe in things.  We have a profound ability to hope that's why there are still Cleveland Browns fans. (until last year I could have said Philadelphia Eagle's fans, but I don't have to any more!) At our very best we want to invest in something bigger than ourselves, the church has squandered this in ways too many and too painful to count.  Don't make that same mistake.

In the spirit of trying to follow #4, I am offering you these pieces of advice in good faith. I might still get a little frustrated when I have to re-schedule church activities because of a playoff game, but I am done trying to swim against the tide.  Welcome to the gang Sports.

Adventures in Missing the Point, Part Whatever

Just when you thought it was safe to start a football season... it's back, going on year three, the kneeling thing. The kneelers have clearly stated that they are not protesting the flag, the anthem, the military or our country.  They are not even protesting police per se, they are protesting the rather rampant injustice against brown people that seems to hit the news every couple of weeks.  They, starting with Colin Kaepernick, have pretty clearly stated their purpose, even if they don't always know how exactly to go about reaching the goal of equality. That's a big job, and I think we all sort of need to get behind the mule on that one to really make any progress.
The reaction to these protests remains as stubbornly racist and deliberately obtuse as ever. In the beginning I was on board with understanding that some people have deep feelings about the symbols of our nation, but as time goes by, as reflexive and even reactionary anger at C.K. and now Nike for daring to use his image, is not showing the other side in a good light. I understand that some people are offended by athletes kneeling during the anthem, but those people are steadily losing credibility and possibly losing the whole debate.  It's not that they don't have a valid point, even if the point is just, "This offends me," it is their misunderstanding of the principles of our nation.
We do not live in a monarchy or a dictatorship where one is required to bend the knee in allegiance to anything in order to be a citizen.  You do not have to pledge allegiance to the flag, or show deference to senators, congressmen or the President, that's not who we are. The NFL has the prerogative not to employ players that kneel, but when the player in question is more than just a backup quarterback, they have shown very few teeth on that issue.  They have chosen to bully and maybe blackball Kaepernick, but now he is beyond their reach, and has found another way to continue his crusade with the help of Nike.
Sorry NFL and all of you who are outraged about this, but there is nothing you can do about it.  Ain't freedom grand?  You can boycott Nike if you want, knowing what I know about the company though, I bet they did the math on that one and have a pretty solid guess that they will sell more shoes to people who dig their vibe than they will not sell to the anger mafia.  Oh yeah, Nike didn't go into this like some poor innocent who had no idea that plastering Colin's face with the words, "Believe in something, even if you have to sacrifice everything," was going to start a howling fit among the red, white and blue MAGA crowd.  This is pretty much the inverse of "owning the libs," why are all y'all snowflakes so triggered?
Burning your shoes? Really? You do know you already shelled out your money to Nike for those right?
I've seen people try and re-direct this thing onto Pat Tillman (NFL player who quit his playing career to become an Army Ranger and died in action in Afghanistan).  I've seen pictures of soldier's graves with some inscription about what it really means to sacrifice everything, and yeah, I get that, there are others who sacrificed more than Kaepernick, a lot more, but that, as it has been from the beginning of this, is missing the point entirely. In fact, I find people using false equivalence to connect a football player kneeling for two minutes while a song plays in any way with a soldier dying in service to our country pretty darn offensive (but you do have a right to be that kind of wrong if it suits you).
If anything it drags the sacrifice of soldiers into an obtuse argument that deliberately misinterprets the ethos of the protest in the first place, and it misses the fact that if our nation is going to live up to the values that inspired their sacrifice, everyone should be free to kneel or stand any time they want. Even if someone did want to protest the military, or the constitution, they should be allowed.  The First Amendment gives you the right to say what you will as long as you can bear the consequences. Anger makes you do stupid things, racist anger doubles down on that. Sometimes people have to do things you don't like to make broken things better.  A lot of people didn't like MLK sitting at the whites only lunch counter, or marching through their streets, how do they look now?
Kaepernick is not MLK, but take a clue from this, if Nike is willing to deliberately anger a group of people, they probably think he might be worth it.  They are a corporation not known for taking big risks, but every once in while they do take a stand on something.  They have probably learned that being on the side of human dignity and justice is probably also a good marketing strategy.  I'm guessing they have done the market research and know that they are going to get more out of this than they are going to lose. Kaepernick is winning this argument, if he hadn't done what he did he might still be a backup quarterback that had his fifteen minutes of fame.  Because he knelt and because he talked, and because he is now letting the racist reactionaries hoist themselves by their own petard while his stoic stare confronts us in millions of ads, he is still someone we have to pay attention to, Nike is going to make us.