If a person fails to practice self-control, he/she shall be disciplined*(see footnote below). That is a brief synopsis of what God’s word says about this phenomenon of humans living chastened lives, ones that hew to a Godly standard. Self-control comes, as this hyphenated compound word suggests, from within a person’s own disposition to live correctly; while discipline, according to the biblical usage of the term, arises most often as God observes bad behavior and consequently chastises one or more persons. One term indicates a willingness to submit, to restrict one’s ego; in contrast, the other indicates no effort to yield to others, but rather to pursue whatever and wherever one’s self-interest draws him or her, until someone else imposes punishment. Look for a few moments at the biblical character Daniel (chapter 1) as an exile in Babylon, who determined that he would exercise self-control and obey the dietary laws of his Jewish faith, in contrast to the Babylonian ways. (See here an artistic representation of this incident, Daniel refusing the King's Food, by Otto Adolph Stemler in early 1900s.) Not only were Daniel (known in Babylonia as Belteshazzar) and his three companions (Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah; alternately known as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego) not punished for challenging the Babylonians, but their obedience to eating as God directed ultimately won them the approval and admiration of the king. Self-control and loyalty to the true God was a consistent trait for these Jews – shown again in chapter 3 (the fiery furnace incident) and chapter 6 (the den of lions incident). In contrast to self-control, note how the two Babylonian kings -- Nebuchadnezzar (chapter 4) and Belshazzar (chapter 5) -- were punished by God for their arrogance and ego-driven attitudes; isn’t it ironic that they recognized the righteous nature of Daniel, but still brought God’s wrath upon themselves (Nebuchadnezzar did repent eventually; while Belshazzar died). In short, is it better to be humble or humiliated, self-controlled or disciplined?
In our American civil-political culture, any lack of self-control, depending on the severity of the offense, should bring on some kind of penalty, some discipline that might even mean time behind bars or a monetary fine (for civil lawsuits, like malpractice). This concept of equal justice for illegal activity – a basic lack of self-control that violates some legal standard in a law + order society -- was addressed earlier (see blog entry of 11/15/2024 re: equal justice and fairness). Let’s think further about why this is culturally accepted. Our popular culture has often presented entertainment (cinematically) that reveals the inner world of criminal enterprises like the Mafia; some of them have even won the movie industry’s highest acclaim, like 1972’s The Godfather. Or, how about 1973’s The Sting, with popular actors Paul Newman and Robert Redford? And yet, 1987’s The Untouchables (starring Robert DeNiro as gangster Al Capone, and Kevin Costner as a federal agent trying to enforce Prohibition in 1930 in Chicago) reminds us and helps us recenter ourselves culturally, that criminals are the antagonists, and the law enforcers are the protagonists. In an even older TV show, Star Trek, an episode dubbed ‘A Piece of the Action’ was well-played for humor, precisely because its proposition was so absurd – that a culture would willingly allow brazen criminals to assume leadership roles in civil society. Would this be even more preposterous for a culture that had been practicing the rule of law and order, and then decided that leadership by criminals was preferable? At least in ‘A Piece of the Action’, that planet’s culture had never seen a law + order alternative, so they had an excuse; all they had to guide themselves was ‘the book’ about Chicago mobs of the 1920s, which had contaminated their cultural education about what was ‘normal’. If this almost inconceivable situation actually ensued, a socio-political culture would need to ask itself ‘what has gone wrong’, ‘what is motivating people to actually make such an irrational choice’?
Getting at the root cause of why a culture chooses one leader over another – including a choice for a convicted criminal -- might involve several avenues of investigation: distrust of the criminal justice system and its resulting convictions; political tribalism that runs so deep that people will excuse any and all bad behavior; a political agenda that myopically focuses a voting public’s vision on one or a few issues that the ‘bad’ candidate supports; dysfunction in the establishment politics, which could be viewed as unbalanced budgets, continuing budget resolutions, or other domestic and foreign policies that seem to have no foreseeable positive outcomes; and finally, belief that all politics includes bad actors, so what’s the difference if there’s one more. There are probably others, right? There’s lots of things that are wrong with American politics, but maybe we should work on fixing the processes, along with doing something that the Christian author Rubel Shelly advised in his 1994 work Written in Stone: Ethics for the Heart: It’s character [of people] stupid! That’s the real issue in this world!”(p. 201) Shelly was observing Bill Clinton at the time, and Shelly’s advice was still more relevant some few years later, when the ugly truth about President Clinton came to light and he was impeached (though not convicted in the subsequent Senate trial). So, for my Republican friends out there reading this, if the issue in Bill Clinton’s term was his character, should the same yardstick still apply here in the mid-2020s to measure the newly-elected president? Does Donald Trump have more, or less, or about the same level of trustworthiness as the president 30 years ago, or how about the ones since then? Pick up your bible, and find an episode of a bad leader who facilitated good in a nation’s actions. (Nonsense, right?) Choosing someone ‘after God’s own heart’ was the recipe for success in Israel (1 Samuel 13:14 and Acts 13:22). Although the U.S. is not a theocracy, the principle of choosing someone who practices some humility could improve the relationship between the two major parties. Would that not help to foster an environment in which arrogance and acrimony are minimized, in which ideas can be shared and solutions attained? A Democratic-Republican form of government has been in place too long for one of the two parties to long submit to a chief executive who tries to act without some semblance of cooperation and self-control. Bullying others, including other nations, should not characterize a nation filled with Christian people. Will America be a nation characterized by the principle Lex Rex (the Law is King), or instead as Rex Lex (the King is [above] Law)? Lex Rex in Wikipedia article discussion
*See Titus 2:11-12 for Paul’s admonition to live a self-controlled life. (‘Self-control’ is used 13 times in bible [in the NIV], including 5 times in Titus.) (Note that ‘discipline’ is used 49 times, including 16 times in Proverbs, and 8 times in Hebrews 12…most often discipline comes from outside of a person, and most often from God; and that ‘self-control’ obviously is a person’s ability to discipline oneself, especially in order to lead a people [as in elders/overseers, see Titus1:8 and 1 Tim. 3:2] and to live righteously.) See also the fruits of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22-23.
See information on picture of Daniel here: File:Daniel refuse kingsfood.jpg - Wikimedia Commons …This work is in the public domain because it was published in the United States between 1929 and 1963, and although there may or may not have been a copyright notice, the copyright was not renewed.
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