Dear Friends,
My baseball team is ghastly. That’s a big downer so far this Spring. It’s a long season, sure, but they’re digging quite a hole for themselves. I still think we’ll be okay come September.
I’m writing this from Dallas, Texas, where the weather is, I’m told, quite unseasonable. It isn’t blazing hot, the humidity is tolerable, and the sun is shining. It has been such a blessing to catch up with a number of friends, some of whom we haven’t seen in an embarrassingly long time. We’re so grateful for these long-term connections.
There isn’t much in the news that I find very exciting. But just one brief note.
The GOP has decided to persist in their battered-spouse syndrome by likely ousting Liz Cheney from her House leadership position because she insists on criticizing Donald Trump when she is asked. I only have one thing to say about that: It is a simple fact that the GOP lost in 2020 because they lost suburban voters who didn’t like Donald Trump. If the GOP thinks the way to success is to make loyalty to Donald Trump the litmus test, they’ll get what they deserve.
If I were a campaign consultant, I’d counsel a clean break with DJT and a laser-like focus on the increasingly bizarre craziness on the left. I’d talk about nothing else. “Ladies and gentlemen, my opponent insists on calling ‘mothers’ birthing people. Is that someone you want representing you?” And so on. In televised debates: “Mr. So-and-So, what is a ‘woman’?” “Do you believe transgender males should compete against women in sports?” Make them say it out loud, in public. When they hand you a rope, do something with it. But I’m not a political consultant, so never mind. They certainly don’t listen to me.
Institutional Protection
You want to hear a conspiracy theory? The Covid-19 virus was manufactured in a lab in Wuhan, China. And it escaped. Before I go on, I need to make an important announcement: if you are someone who has been running around calling the virus a “hoax” (you know who you are), I know that I’ve just tickled the pleasure centers of your brain. But I will not allow you to embrace this particular theory. You see, if you’ve been saying that it is a “hoax,” you are now barred from ever speaking of a “virus” that “escaped” from “China.” You don’t get to have it both ways.
Now, I know you’ve heard loud denunciations of this theory—nonsense! Ludicrous! How dare you!? I myself am not into conspiracies generally, and I’d be perfectly satisfied if it could be shown that the virus somehow made a “jump” from bats to humans. That would be that. But this, most definitely, is not that.
If you have the time (it takes about 45 minutes), I recommend that you read Nicholas Wade’s lengthy exploration of the possible origins of Covid-19. Wade is one of the most respected science reporters in the world, having worked for Nature and The New York Times. Hardly a basement-dwelling moon landing hoaxer.
In this article he lays out the evidence for two different explanations of how the virus originated. He very carefully refuses to make an ironclad conclusion. Any “smoking gun” resides in a file cabinet at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and the Chinese authorities are not about to let anyone peruse those materials. But the overwhelming preponderance of the evidence points to the lab. He names names, he cites the grant proposals that say exactly what the lab is proposing to do, explains how their research is directly related to creating such a virus, and pokes giant holes in the infectious disease industry’s denials. It is quite the read.
Something I’ve become more experientially convinced of over the past few years is that “institutional protection” is a hard-wired, default setting for fallen human beings. When institutional authority, control, or reputation is threatened in any way, the impulse is to circle the wagons and do whatever it takes to maintain that authority, control, and reputation. It means spinning self-serving narratives, slandering and discrediting the naysayers, and, well, lying.
And it has been a tsunami in recent years. Churches protecting abusive celebrity pastors. Hollywood and countless other organizations (like para-church ministries) protecting sexual predators. The media protecting politicians they like. It’s all about insulating abusive people from scrutiny and accountability. This trend is so bad we expect institutions to behave this way. And you know what? It spawns conspiracy theories, the great bane of our cultural existence. Institutional protection rackets breed the conspiratorial mindset.
All too often, there is a conspiracy underneath it all. No, not “totalizing” conspiracies about a global cabal of Illuminati pulling the strings behind every event, but far more “miniature” conspiracies of real institutional guilds protecting their turf, their reputations, and their colleagues. And that, my friends, is the conclusion to which Mr. Wade’s essay points. The infectious disease industry “doth protest too much,” in the words of Shakespeare. The protection racket stirred to action immediately at the discovery of Covid-19, and produced open letters with hundreds of signatories shouting, “Nothing to see here!” “Ridiculous!” “Crazy!”
It’s understandable. What if your name or your research interest was on a paper trail of a science experiment that killed 3 million people and counting? At very least, Nicholas Wade has raised powerful questions that demand answers.
While this dynamic of institutional protection is lamentable, it is perfectly understandable when we recognize our sinful human propensity to downplay and blame-shift our own sins. The real tragedy, in my view, is just how often this dynamic shows up in Christian institutions. After all, we believe in the forgiveness of sins. We believe the cross of Jesus Christ is the ultimate verdict on our shortcomings and failures. We believe the gospel frees us from guilt and shame. We believe that no human judgment on us can compare to the judgment of God displayed at Calvary. That is what our sins deserve, and that is what we have been spared. We believe that one day everything will be laid bare before the judgment seat of Christ; no secret shall remain hid.
Yet people who pay lip-service to those doctrines hide, deny, lash out, blame-shift, spin, lie, protect, gaslight, and abuse. Those are signs of walking in darkness, not the light. Jesus said the church is like a lamp-stand and a city on a hill to be seen from miles around. And yet how many times have we seen church and ministry leadership do the opposite: cover up and obfuscate?
In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Fred and George Weasley import “Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder,” which is, they say, “handy if you need to make a quick escape.” It is naturally resistant to light-creation spells. You just throw the powder and it turns everything dark. Too many institutions and their leadership reach for their supply of Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder the moment anyone scrutinizes anything.
Light, as they say, is the best (pardon the pun, given the topic) disinfectant; it is a tragic thing when Christians, of all people, are content with darkness.
Miscellany
Here’s the link again to Nicholas Wade’s article.
Three cheers for this Tweet:
Magnus Carlsen’s grasp of Chess history is unfathomable to me.
When the lights go out / and you throw yourself about / in the darkness where you learn to see
When the lights go out / don’t you ever doubt / the light that we can really be
—U2, “The Blackout