The power to be “something you have never been”
President Trump has confirmed that the Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles will be invited to the White House, stating, “They deserve to be down here.” The team has already said they will come if invited.
However, there is history between the Eagles and Mr. Trump, and not just because he picked the Chiefs to win the latest Super Bowl and he supports Patrick Mahomes and his wife Brittany. After the Eagles won Super Bowl LII in 2018, the team and Mr. Trump publicly clashed and no visit took place. But their past is apparently not restricting their future.
In other political news, Democratic political veteran James Carville writes in the New York Times that his party should “roll over and play dead” in the face of Republican domination of the political landscape. He advises his fellow Democrats to “allow the Republicans to crumble beneath their own weight and make the American people miss us.” Then they should “make like a pack of hyenas and go for the jugular.”
One more story contributes to the theme I’d like to discuss with you: Country singer Kelsea Ballerini recently stopped a concert to scold fans for cursing out her ex-husband, Morgan Evans. When she performed her song “Penthouse,” widely believed to be about her 2022 divorce from the Australian country singer, fans apparently shouted an obscenity about Morgan.
“Guys, we have to stop saying that,” she told them. “Seriously, we’re three years past it, everything’s fine now.” As the crowd cheered, she continued: “Alright, for everyone that’s moving forward with their life, will you sing this with me?”
The moral dilemma that frames our culture
Past behavior is often identified as the best predictor of future behavior, but this does not have to be true. A strategic consultant to our ministry once told our team, “When you get new information, you can make a new decision.”
The Philadelphia Eagles and President Trump are apparently making a new decision. Kelsea Ballerini is obviously charting a new path regarding her former marriage. James Carville, by contrast, continues to advocate the acerbic politics for which he is famous.
At its heart, we are dealing with a moral dilemma as old as Western culture.
- Bradley Thompsonis an author and political science professor at Clemson University. In his latest “Redneck Intellectual” column, he explainsthat Plato and Aristotle posited very different approaches to selfishness, which he calls the “moral issue of our time.”
In the Republic, Plato advocated for acting selflessly for the sake of others as our highest moral obligation. In the Nicomachean Ethics, by contrast, Aristotle taught that our first and most important relationship is with ourselves as we seek to act in the noblest ways and to possess what is objectively good.
To summarize his discussion: Should we do what is best for others or for ourselves?
Christianity answers, “Yes.”
“Martyrs” or “terrorists”?
The problem with both Plato’s and Aristotle’s theories is that they have no objective referent outside the individual who seeks to follow them. How are we to know when, for example, forgiving others is in their best interest? This seems to be the kind of sacrificial service Plato would commend. But if our forgiveness only reinforces and facilitates destructive behavior, it is in neither the best interest of those we forgive nor ourselves.
I’m sure James Carville would say that for Democrats to “forgive” Republicans and try to work with them would harm the nation and, ultimately, the Republicans who live in it. By contrast, the Eagles and President Trump seem to feel that forging a new relationship is in everyone’s best interest. Kelsea Ballerini certainly thinks so with regard to her former husband.
On the other hand, Aristotle wants us to do what is most noble and to possess what is objectively good. But how are we to define each? What the Islamic State calls “martyrs,” the rest of us call “terrorists.” Wealth can be either a means of doing good in the world or an idol that possesses those who possess it.
And, even when we know when it is best to forgive and sacrifice for others, or when we can identify what is most noble and best, how do we find the character and strength to follow through on these choices?
We have had the moral theories of Plato and Aristotle for two millennia, but we’re no better as a race than we were. What are we missing?
“Harking back to what you once were”
The central “brand promise” of Christianity is that we can be “born again” (John 3:3) as a “new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17) by the grace of Christ through faith (Ephesians 2:8–9). The living Lord Jesus can make us the children of God (John 1:12) and manifest in our lives a character that changes us and changes our world (Galatians 5:22–23). When we submit to God’s Spirit (Ephesians 5:18), he guides us into “all truth” (John 16:13) and empowers us to do what we then know to be best (Acts 1:8).
Of course, the skeptic might protest that, as with Plato and Aristotle, we have had these biblical teachings for two millennia as well, but the human race does not seem to have improved. How are we to respond?
This decision to submit our lives to God as a “living sacrifice” (Romans 12:1) runs against the “will to power” that dominates our fallen nature (Genesis 3:5). This is a daily “dying to self” that positions and empowers us to experience and emulate the “abundant life” only Christ can give.
- K. Chesterton noted, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.”
But when it has been “tried,” it has changed hearts and lives. It has turned cowardly followers into courageous apostles (Acts 4) and prejudiced skeptics into grace-centered evangelists (Acts 9–11). It “turned the world upside down” (John 17:6) and birthed the mightiest spiritual movement the world has ever seen.
In light of such grace, Oswald Chambers’ observation is both relevant and empowering:
“Beware of harking back to what you once were when God wants you to be something you have never been.”
Will you follow his advice today
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