{"id":13776,"date":"2014-10-13T08:10:14","date_gmt":"2014-10-13T13:10:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/simchafisher\/?p=13776"},"modified":"2015-01-10T18:42:38","modified_gmt":"2015-01-10T23:42:38","slug":"brilliant-men-in-dark-boxes-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/simchafisher\/2014\/10\/13\/brilliant-men-in-dark-boxes-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Brilliant men in dark boxes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Anybody remember when this happened?<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

PIC statue behind box<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

This was back in 2011, when the\u00a0NAACP hid a prominent statue of George Washington inside a wooden box<\/a>\u00a0during a MLK Day rally, offering the terminally lame excuse that the box that shielded the crowd from Washington\u2019s face would make a more suitable backdrop for the rally\u2019s speakers.\u00a0\u00a0 The NAACP denies any intention of disrespect, but their narrow view of history is no secret:\u00a0 anyone who owned slaves is a racist, and anyone who is a racist cannot be called a great man.\u00a0 This is what is taught in history class, and several generations have been nourished on these junk food ideas.<\/p>\n

Students are taught that they must not squander their exquisite admiration on someone who owned slaves.\u00a0 They are taught, by implication, that it\u2019s not enough for a man to give up his family and his safety for the noble cause of independence.\u00a0 It\u2019s not enough to inspire and command.\u00a0 It\u2019s not even enough to triumph in a way that directly benefits millions of people today.<\/p>\n

He must also be . . . EVERYTHING MAN.<\/p>\n

He must leap out of his time, and see with the eyes of every possible future type of enlightenment.\u00a0 Did he accomplish the massive victories that his generation desperately needed?\u00a0 Not good enough.\u00a0 We also require him to be the role model for solving any type of conflict that might ever turn up, or else he\u2019s no good to us.\u00a0 Into the box you go, little George.\u00a0 You don\u2019t impress us anymore.<\/p>\n

Where else do we see this same lazy, self-absorbed analysis of history?\u00a0 In the sour voices that grumble over John Paul II\u2019s beatification. \u00a0 He may have been good, they say, but oh, he was not great.\u00a0 Oh, sure, he was very charismatic and all.\u00a0 He clearly prayed a lot, and that\u2019s commendable.\u00a0 But what a hash he made of the Church!\u00a0 It\u2019s all his fault!\u00a0 He\u2019s the one who wrote all those lame hymns, he\u2019s the one who offered free butch haircuts to nuns, if you\u2019ll recall.\u00a0 And who can forget those Woodstock-style World Youth Day rallies, where he encouraged the youth to hold hands during the Our Father?\u00a0 Never mind that\u00a0the number of Catholics worldwide grew from 700 million to 1.2 billion while he was Pope<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 the guy was a squish, a pushover, a washout.<\/p>\n

Listen to me.\u00a0 God sends certain men to achieve certain great deeds while they live.\u00a0 They are not responsible for what future generations may require:\u00a0 that is up to the heroes born of\u00a0those<\/em>\u00a0generations.\u00a0 Great men are great because they do what needs to be done\u00a0at the time<\/em>.\u00a0 They put their own desires and frailties aside, and they make the world new with their particular strengths, their particular form of brilliance.\u00a0 Heck, that\u2019s what Martin Luther King Jr. did.\u00a0 A holy man?\u00a0 No.\u00a0 He was a serial adulterer.\u00a0 And Washington owned slaves, and John Paul II allowed the monster Maciel to flourish.<\/p>\n

But they were great men.\u00a0 They took their personal, God-given talents and turned them into something immense \u2014 something that made the world better.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just that we should forgive the wrong they did because they did so much good (although that is also true).\u00a0 No.\u00a0 I\u2019m saying that these men were good in the way that they were designed to be good, great according to their own natures.\u00a0 George Washington\u2019s great strength wasn\u2019t as an abolitionist, you know?\u00a0 John Paul II\u2019s great strength wasn\u2019t as a disciplinarian.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t his calling.<\/p>\n

Do we criticize Fra Angelico for not figuring out how to split the atom?\u00a0 Or do we sneer at Herman Melville because he couldn\u2019t outrun Carl Lewis?\u00a0 I mean, what do we\u00a0want\u00a0<\/em>from these guys?\u00a0 And can\u2019t we even imagine that whatever\u00a0 heroes we admire today may someday be judged harshly by our great great grandchildren \u2014 and wouldn\u2019t that seem unfair?\u00a0 Men are men, and they live when they live.\u00a0\u00a0 Who is good enough for us?\u00a0 Who can escape our endlessly dissatisfied dissection?<\/p>\n

There was only one perfect Man. \u00a0 The other great men of the world \u2014 Washington, King, John Paul II, and any hero you can name \u2014 are only mirrors, who catch and show to us a little bit of His radiant light.\u00a0 The world is dark enough already.\u00a0 Let\u2019s not become so enlightened that we spend our time setting up boxes around the brilliance of great men.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

****
\nThis post originally ran in 2011.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anybody remember when this happened? \u00a0 \u00a0 PIC statue behind box \u00a0 This was back in 2011, when the\u00a0NAACP hid a prominent statue of George Washington inside a wooden box\u00a0during a MLK Day rally, offering the terminally lame excuse that the box that shielded the crowd from Washington\u2019s face would make a more suitable backdrop […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1533,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[835,834,839,838,77,298,836,837],"class_list":["post-13776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-christopher-columbus","tag-george-washington","tag-great-men","tag-heroes","tag-history","tag-john-paul-ii","tag-racism","tag-slavery"],"yoast_head":"\nBrilliant men in dark boxes<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Anybody remember when this happened?     PIC statue behind box   This was back in 2011, when the\u00a0NAACP hid a prominent statue of George\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/simchafisher\/2014\/10\/13\/brilliant-men-in-dark-boxes-2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Brilliant men in dark boxes\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Anybody remember when this happened? 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