Every one of us has a moral bank account. Our good deeds are deposits, and our bad deeds are withdrawals. We therefore assess a person the same way we assess our bank account. If our good actions outweigh our bad actions, we are morally in the black; if our bad actions greatly outweigh our good actions, we are morally in the red.
~Dennis Prager, National Review
All of us have become like something unclean, and all our righteous acts are like a polluted garment; all of us wither like a leaf, and our iniquities carry us away like the wind.
~the Prophet Isaiah, 64:6
There is none righteous, not even one.
~the Apostle Paul, Romans 3:10
There is no moral bank account. This is foolishness. In the words of an old theologian, variously attributed, “The only thing I contribute to my own redemption is the sin from which I need to be redeemed.” There is no being in the red or black. The “moral bank account” philosophy is a way that seems right to people, but the end of it is death; just as the scripture says.
Tuesday, National Review Online, published Dennis Prager’s defense of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, under the title “The Charges against Judge Kavanaugh Should Be Ignored.” Support or opposition to Kavanaugh falls explicitly along party lines: for the DEMs he’s the second coming of Roger B. Taney, but for the GOP he’s Thomas Jefferson’s first cousin.
A defense from Prager is as expected as a defense from Erik Erickson. Many, if not most Conservatives, consider Kavanaugh a good pick. Or, they did before Christine Blasey Ford’s assault accusation against the nominee was made public. Now, the FBI might investigate the claim, while the senate committee has decided it will hear the he said/she said, if she so says.
Weaponized Reductionism
I do not know who is telling the truth and who is lying between Christine Blasey Ford and Brett Kavanaugh. Frankly, you don’t either. Likely, only one, two, or three, people do: Ford herself if she’s lying; or she, Kavanaugh, and the REDACTED name in her letter—subsequently identified as Kavanaugh’s then-classmate Mark Judge. What we do know is precisely what she claims happened in a bedroom at a party when she, Kavanaugh, and Judge were teens. She writes in her original letter:
Brett Kavanaugh physically and sexually assaulted me
Kavanaugh physically pushed me into a bedroom
They locked the door and played loud music precluding any successful attempt to yell for help.
Kavanaugh was on top of me
They both laughed as Kavanaugh tried to disrobe me in their highly inebriated state.
With Kavanaugh’s hand over my mouth I feared he may inadvertently kill me.
From across the room a very drunken REDACTED said mixed words to Kavanaugh ranging from “go for it” to “stop.”
At one point when REDACTED jumped onto the bed the weight on me was substantial.
Those are her words. These are Prager’s words:
a drunk teenager at a party groping a teenage girl
Nearly every woman past puberty has experienced a man trying to grope her.
My mother was groped by a physician.
When my wife was a waitress in her mid teens, the manager of her restaurant grabbed her breasts and squeezed them on numerous occasions.
Prager compares Ford’s description of violence, force, assault, and the cheering on of a drunken classmate to “go for it” to his mother and wife being “groped,” thereby, in his mind, lessening the accusation. Prager is practicing reductionism or reframing. He changes what Ford actually wrote, to what he believes happened (or what he wants others to believe happened), making it appear less than she claims. Prager was not there. His interpretive liberties should be rejected.
One honestly wonders why Prager has so little concern about women being groped by men that he advances a “boys will be boys” argument.
The fact that Prager has little concern about his own wife and mother leads to his unsurprising dismissal of Ford’s testimony. Perhaps the women in his family should have considered this response. Prager goes so far as to insist that true empowerment for women isn’t speaking out against harassment and assault, but continuing, as his wife did, to try and avoid situations where sexual assault occurs.
You know, the workplace.
Political Doublemindedness
Prager’s equal-turn argument is equally weak. He writes:
No honest American of any political persuasion believes that if a woman were to charge a Democrat-appointed judge such as Merrick Garland with doing to her 36 years ago in high school what Brett Kavanaugh is charged with having done 36 years ago in high school, the Democratic party and the media would be demanding that the confirmation vote be delayed or that the candidate withdraw.
But Merrick Garland wasn’t put before the committee because Mitch McConnell refused to schedule it. Had Garland (or any other final Obama nominee) been in the confirmation process and a woman accused him of sexually assaulting her, Prager would be handing out the pitchforks himself and the Republican majority would have done then what the Democrats are doing now.
Suggesting,
No matter how good and moral a life one has led for ten, 20, 30, 40, or even 50 years, it is nullified by a sin committed as teenager.
betrays Prager’s unwillingness or inability to be honest. It’s just an ignorant take.
Kavanaugh isn’t accused of committing a sin. Not even the Democrats are suggesting he should not be a Supreme Court justice because he gluttonized, skipped prayer time, or faked being sick to hit the beach. No, the questions are 1) did he commit sexual assault, and/or 2) attempted rape, and 3) is he lying about it?
Has Prager forgotten Neil Gorsuch was confirmed less than two years ago under the same congress?
Are the Democrats going to fight every Trump nomination at every turn? Yes. Will the Republicans try and get Kavanaugh confirmed as quickly as they practically can? Yes. Do either of these things support Prager’s proposition? No.
Bad Theology
It’s sad enough that Prager diminishes Ford’s account as a “weakening of the American female” and proposes typical political hackery, he marshals heretical theology to support the nomination. Kavanaugh should be supported even if the accusations are true (and he lied about it), according to Prager because:
These [Judeo-Christian] religious values taught us that all of us are sinners and, therefore, with the exception of those who have engaged in true evil, we need to be very careful in making moral evaluations of human beings.
This statement is problematic. Biblical theology teaches that all have sinned from the Sunday School teacher to the serial killer, from the farm worker to the stock trader, from the juror to the judge. What’s happening to Kavanaugh in these days is an evaluation as to whether he should sit on the Supreme Court.
Should Kavanaugh not be more qualified than the average person? Should we make sure he has not invested in a chain of brothels?
Prager’s theology of morality sounds a lot like that of Union Seminary, which, in a recent tweet-storm asserted that Jesus Christ is not the only way to God:
5. And this isn’t a “good people from other faiths are Christians and just don’t know it” argument, just an admission of Christian humility that the way we’ve come to know and follow God isn’t the only path. Admitting this, however, by no means precludes Christian identity.
— Union Seminary (@UnionSeminary) September 18, 2018
Prager’s “moral bank” example is another path, not the Jesus path. It’s the heresy Union Seminary embraces. His morality play is not different than the next Union tweet, excepting, perhaps, Prager does not see Jesus as necessary:
VI. Gospel
We affirm that the gospel is revealed through Jesus, and that liberation was central to Christ’s mission. In his own life, however, Jesus demonstrated that works—living justly in the world—are every bit as foundational to the gospel as faith: They cannot be separated.
— Union Seminary (@UnionSeminary) September 5, 2018
Christian theology has insisted since New Testament days that faith alone in Christ alone saves. Good works are not foundational to the gospel. Works—even good ones—are why we need the gospel (see Isaiah 64:6 at the top). Prager’s theology is summarized thusly:
[T]he highest moral achievement is moral improvement.
In the end, Kavanaugh may be confirmed. Or, three more women might speak out over the weekend.
Regardless to what happens to Kavanaugh, Prager’s position is untenable for a Christian. Sin matters. Jesus matters. Sola fide matters. And no amount of Judeo-Christian moralizing will change that.
