By James Wilson
A man was brought to see a psycho-therapist due to his repeated claims to be dead. When the therapist allowed as how the man was clearly alive and standing before him his newest patient maintained his claim without skipping a beat. The therapist tried asking if dead men could bleed; when the man agreed they could not the therapist promptly stuck the patient in his index finger. The man stared at his blood in shocked surprise before gasping, “I have been wrong all this time. Dead men do bleed.” Such is the delusional invulnerability of the true believer.
True believers – as opposed to people of authentic faith – are so stubbornly bound to a rationally unsustainable worldview no light of reason can penetrate. People of Christian faith can cite evidence of thousands of healing and other miracles as evidence the God who uniquely claims to heal actually does that. We who believe our scriptures speak truth can demonstrate their accuracy on everything from science to politics. The nature of wind – for example – as cleansing the atmosphere through cyclonic rather than wall-front movement was written into the Old Testament millennia before science finally abandoned the wall-front hypothesis in the 1840s; modern understandings of justice and law are the gift of God’s ancient prophets. People who believe the Intelligent Design Theory – that a Purposeful Being created all there is for persons made in His image – can point to multiple factors that are mathematically impossible through random chance – such as water being lighter in solid than liquid form; this is unique among natural chemical compounds. This feature makes possible the survival of water-borne creatures on whom so many species depend following each winter freeze and speaks volumes about intentionality for life.
True believers, on the other hand, are addicted to their current narrative. Popular now is that America is essentially a racist and homophobic culture.
Believers are unimpressed when confronted with evidence Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, and other alleged black victims of vigilantism were actually the murderous aggressors whose behavior led to their own deaths. They are equally unmoved at news the celebrated murder of homosexual prostitute Mathew Shepard was actually the fruit of a drug deal gone bad and the perpetrator Shepard’s former homosexual lover, or the tragic massacre at an Orlando, Florida, gay club was the work of a club patron and Islamo-fascist who shouted, “Allah is great,” as he killed. In the circular reasoning of the TB evidence that contradicts the narrative proves only the bias of the evidence gatherer; nothing is permitted to weaken the narrative.
The narrative is sacred because only within its terms can the true believer sustain his faux-faith that rescue of the world depends on punishing the racists and homophobes who pollute it. The admission that racism and homophobia have indeed polluted our culture in days past coupled with the assertion most Americans have repented and actually changed is itself an attack on the narrative and cannot be permitted; it must be shouted down. Which brings us to Perth, Australia, an Aussie sports legend named Nic Naitanui, and a nine-year-old boy who adores him.
Naitanui is indigenous – a black man – admired and loved by Australians of all ages. The nine-year-old Perth boy who is white dreams of becoming the man he idolizes. His mother dressed him in Naitanui’s team colors and colored his skin for a school costume event. The boy won first prize in the event but the true believers were outraged.
They took to social media to denounce this as a racist act; there were even death threats against the mother. The flaw in the narrative is Nic Naitanui himself. The alleged victim of the racism of the boy and his mother has been nothing but supportive. He sees no racist plot in the boy’s fan-crush; he has expressed the desire to meet this young fan, and to use the uproar to address his nation’s racist past in a serious and constructive way. He has said repeatedly he sees nothing sinister in what the boy and his mum did.
Sporting stars like Nic Naitanui – and Olympians like Mac Horton and American Michael Phelps – who win gold medals and use their platform to call out drug abuse and cheating in sport and culture while giving glory to God – are prime reasons high performance athletics can and should be positive icons for our culture. Let those – in sport and culture – who think it all about no-holds-barred physical achievement generated by and for the athlete to entertain the fans – get a clue.
Dead men can only bleed if they are fleeing from real life.
James A. Wilson is the author of Living As Ambassadors of Relationships, The Holy Spirit and the End Times, and Kingdom in Pursuit – available at local bookstores or by e-mailing him at praynorthstate@gmail.com
