The Temptation of the Team

“Sure he tells lies,” he said, “but he is a good guy and on the team.”

So I was told when worried about Ben Carson’s “autobiography” and the errors it contains. Dr. Carson has done great work for the Kingdom of Heaven. Folks are right to keep his problems with veracity in perspective and I would:

If he had ever been sorry.

His book lies about his time at Yale. That’s a fact, but nobody cared about that fact. Why? No Christian thinks our saints are perfect, read the lives of the saints! We know David had to be confronted, Elijah was a complainer, and Moses messed up so badly he was not allowed into the Holy Land. There are many more serious errors than telling whoppers in your autobiography, though retelling them in the chapter on honesty was a bit much.

Why didn’t Dr. Carson say he was sorry, admit error, and move on?

First, nobody questions the errors. Second, the defense that it was “no big deal” compared to somebody else’s sins is a bad argument for children, let alone grownups with Ivy League degrees.

I think the answer is this: if he admits his sin, then he is a sinner. If he ignores the sin, or downplays it, or defends it, then the response will eventually be, “Dr. Carson is a valuable member of Team Jesus. Stop picking on small faults.”

It is the Clinton strategy: deny, admit a bit, ask why we cannot move on.

I think this is the temptation of the team: people who reach the right conclusions get a pass if they don’t force us to admit their mendacity. This is a lesson our Presidential candidates in both major parties have mastered. They do not admit anything, even when the facts are obvious. The most ludicrous spin is accepted if it keeps being made. Democrats blame the “crony media” or the “right wing conspiracy” and Republicans take on “media bias.”

Team tempters say:  “If you must admit an error, then minimize and move on. Never say you are sorry: you misspoke, you made an error in judgment.” The ultimate temptation of the team is to admit nothing until people grow sick of your critics.

David Barton has a book removed from publication and has a long track record of falsehoods about his own life.   We have accredited Christian colleges ranging from the fundamentalist to the fairly liberal and I can find no history department that defends his work. Barton admits what he must, challenges his critics with carping and liberalism, and then republishes his error ridden book. Homeschool groups continue to invite him to conferences.

Why?

He is on team conservative, Christian, and homeschool. We ignore his lies because he is our guy and (from what I hear) a nice person with whom to have lunch.

I have given two specific examples, but the list is very long. Again: I have sinned. I have made mistakes. I have made factual errors in things I have written. When confronted, God helping me, the response is not: “I am on the team,” but “I am sorry.”

As culture changed on sexual morality, the most frustrating argument to many traditional Christians was: “Prunella and Cain may be living together outside of marriage, but they are good people.” Indeed, Prunella might be jolly company and on the pro-life committee. Despite Cain’s fornication, he might be an excellent worship leader.

We hated it when other people made the argument, but now we make it about our celebrities.

I heard the story of  a conservative church where the divorced wife of a man had to sit in a pew watching her former husband continue in leadership. Meanwhile, he was not paying child support and would drive off with his new car and new wife.

When she complained, she heard things like:

He is a good guy. He gets along. He has the right views. Other than the marriage thing and the child support thing, he is a great guy. Who are we to judge? Why do you pick on people? Give him a chance. Old Cain is part of the team.

And Old Cain is part of the team. Meanwhile his wife, who had the misfortune of not having the talent everyone admired, was not on the team. She suffered, but her problems were recalled and used as the reason for her suffering. (“If I had been married to Prunella . . . well what Cain did was not right, but . . . “)

I am for healing, help, and restoration. Thank God for it, I have needed it, but real healing begins when we are wrong. If you claim a degree you did not earn, admit it, repent, and make restitution. Don’t lie in the books you write and when you make a mistake: fess up.

Most of all we must stop justifying our overlooking of evil, so the ministry may abound! People get hurt, but the teammate is protected, because that is the temptation of the team.

Why are homeschool conventions still inviting Barton or selling his error ridden materials? Is the excuse, sure he lies about history, but . . . what? We like his presentations? He dislikes the people we dislike, so ‘any stick to beat a dog?’ Why is the erroneous Ben Carson book still for sale?

There is no doubt that over the last few decades I have voted for David Barton and Ben Carson’s favored candidate more often than not. I am a Christian as they are Christians. Nobody need doubt their sincere faith, but we have enabled these men, and others like them, to become “experts” when they are not. We call people “intellectuals” who will not correct even basic errors and elevate men who refuse to repent and attack their critics instead of listening.

This is wrong. This is rotten and it is destroying us. As I am involved in starting a new organization, I have tried not to be merely Team Constantine. We make mistakes. We will make mistakes. Nobody should come to our school and college program expecting perfection, but we hope to be open, honest, and to act with integrity.

God help us avoid the temptation of the team.

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C.S. Lewis writes of the deeper problem of the “inner ring” in Abolition of Man and his most important novel That Hideous Strength.