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Opinion

The Beatles, Bobby Knight and Christmas Mean People Matter … And They Should Live That Way

How can such strangely diverse ideas fit together? Steve explains:

A little girl, some iconic musicians and a now-deceased coach … did wh-a-a-a-ttt?

National Review magazine’s November 2023 issue featured three squibs in a row which caught my attention:

The first tidbit:

According to Business Insider, twelve-year-old Shanya Gill created “a fire-detection device that could identify fires faster than an average smoke detector and send a text to users to alert them of a fire.” Her invention … was chosen out of 65,000 entries … in the Thermo Fisher Scientific Junior Innovators Challenge. She hopes to use her $25,000 in prize money to launch her invention as a commercial product. 

Next, this:  In the 1990s, the then-three surviving Beatles attempted to polish and release a ballad John Lennon had composed and recorded — on a boom box(!) — nearly twenty years previously.

“[T]he quality of the original sound was too poor,” continues NR.

George Harrison called it “rubbish.” Fast-forward a few decades. New audio-restoration technology has enabled engineers to isolate Lennon’s voice from the piano music and clarify it. They mixed it with tracks from the abandoned effort to salvage the song in 1995 and then with new parts from the two surviving Beatles, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, as well as with bits and pieces from some of the band’s early classics. Their label, Apple, has now released it as the Beatles’ last recorded song and paired it with their first, “Love Me Do,” on a double-A-side single.

Even if one doesn’t care for the Fab Four … C’mon; utterly remarkable. 

Finally, this note on the loss of NCAA basketball legend Bobby Knight:

Underneath his relentless driving of his players and the notorious outbursts of temper that eventually cost him his job, he was also an innovator who did for basketball what Bill Walsh did for football. Knight’s creation, the motion offense, choreographed passing and screening to overwhelm defenses’ capacity to react, changing the sport.  …Knight retired as the winningest coach in college-basketball history. … Knight passed on his legacy by coaching other influential figures including Mike Krzyzewski, Isiah Thomas, Quinn Buckner, Steve Alford, and Randy Wittman. 

The conservative journal thus offers three examples of rousing stuff; the type of rousing stuff of which flawed humans are occasionally capable. It’s been a mainstay for millennia: Imperfect men and women somehow generating worthwhile material, objects or outcomes.

For a long time, alongside blood-chilling atrocities — about which the Mainstream Media, Hollywood, Academia and assorted other Culture-Shapers never stop kyoodling — people have also been accomplishing astonishing feats. They don’t exclusively screw up; once in a while they get it done impressively; even gloriously.

Creators, inventors, innovators, improvers, problem-solvers, restorers … You select the term of choice. These all point to the same coruscating truth: Human beings have been made in the “image of God” (Genesis 1: 26-27); (the familiar Latin translation is Imago Dei.) They’re designed to be like Him, to reflect His character and attributes in key ways. Sure, they continually fall short, but that doesn’t mean they only always fall short in every way. Followers of the Lord of the Universe regularly — with His help — get things right. In God’s sovereignty, sometimes even those who don’t or won’t obey Him manage to produce results, to achieve heights — on a human level at least — that make life better for themselves and others.

Apropos of this not-insubstantial revelation, during the Christmas season we formally remember God paid mankind the impossible compliment of becoming one of us. The problem, it seems, is not “humanness” per se, but what sin has done to it. The first people were the handiwork of a holy and loving God. Their disobedience recklessly and viscerally corrupted that pristine ideal. The Representative or Federal man was created “good” (Genesis 1:31) — then opted to go bad.  The rest, as is said, is history; sordid history.

Coincidentally, I came across a testimony just a few days ago from Rev. Elizabeth Woning, co-founder of ChangedMovement.com. She’d been a practicing lesbian at one time. Since 2005, however, she has been married to a man and, along the way, is “shar[ing] her journey of faith, healing, and happiness”.

“I felt the Lord was pursuing me,” Woning admits.

And I remember thinking, “If I could have communion with this God … I would have purpose, there would be meaning to my life, but there would especially be value” … [B]eing valued by One Who was the most valuable. … And that was it. … From that point, I burnt every bridge that I had into the LGBT movement.”

Did you catch that? This woman was set on the road to healthy living when she realized the Creator cared about her; that He valued her.

Truth told, God validated humanity’s importance — that we matter — ages ago; that includes everyone who falls under that heading. One way He did this is? By becoming one of us. In taking on flesh and blood, the God-Man dignified same.

Jesus became a full member of so-called homo sapiens sapiens as a part of His Father’s wonderful rescue mission. An innocent, guilt-free Man willingly took the deserved punishment of sinful men.

Let’s see, what’s the most appropriate word, technically, for responding to that realization? How about “Wow“?

Jesus paid that ghastly price because, as much as possible in this damaged world, He wants to return us to that first, unspoiled state. The Living God longs to bring us to that place where we each live as fruitfully, as redemptively, as healingly as able (1 Peter 2:24).

Although there is some controversy about the modern application of the venerable Jewish notion of tikkum olam, those who contend it includes efforts to “repair or mend the world” are probably on to something. The Creator Who intended splendid blessings for the planet He fashioned, presently wants to set straight everything that is “out of joint” (Hebrews 12:13) upon it; largely through the sanctified involvement of those who know Him.

God has plowed that potential into individual men and women. It’s a piece of the raison d’etre for every person; those made to mirror His Person.  Believers with opened eyes and renewed minds understand this commission — and want to fulfill it. And periodically, that heavenly objective leaks out even through those who ignore or reject Him.

But what about lives that never discover that destiny? At best, they wind up hideously incomplete; missing the divinely-ordained mark. At worst: wasted.

If no one else, whenever godly folks spy a prolific person at work their reaction should be: That can be me! That ought to be me! The God Who gave all — Who gave His Son — to make it possible tells us so.

They should then proceed accordingly.

Steve Pauwels

Steve Pauwels is pastor of Church of the King, Londonderry, NH and host of Striker Radio with Steve Pauwels on the Red State Talk Radio Network. He's also husband to the lovely Maureen and proud father of three fine sons: Mike, Sam and Jake.