Tag Archives: reiner

Tribalism on Display: A Response

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Why am I sticking my nose in this? Why do I care about it? Not only because folks are taking time out of their apparently not-so-busy work day to come after me by email now, but because it matters.

What doesn’t matter is what Rob Reiner bemoaningly said about Donald Trump in the past. His name-calling does not matter. It also does not matter what he said about Rush Limbaugh’s death, no matter how cruel. None of those words supply anyone with moral permission to cheer someone’s murder.

But do me a favor and keep reading. Don’t skim. Read, because some are already sensing the urge to object to what I just wrote.

Yes, Reiner’s rhetoric probably helped fuel the kind of violence that got Charlie killed. Yes, words can inflame unstable people, and I have criticized that recklessness for, well, forever. But inherent to my point is that causal responsibility is not moral permission. Cruel or deceitful speech may be blameworthy, but it is never a license for murder. It’s certainly never grounds for celebrating it. And if you cannot discern these things, you are not dealing in moral clarity. You are trapped in an emotional tribalism, and you are a part of the Woke Right.

The Woke Right, just like the Woke Left, can decide that a man’s death is funny, or deserved, or useful, or whatever. But once you cross into that borderland, every protest that follows rings ridiculously hollow—because you’ve already proven that your moral claims only apply when it is your tribe member lying dead on the ground.

Interestingly, someone decided to email me and say something like, “Well, what about being glad about Hitler’s death? What if someone could’ve killed him to stop him? Can we cheer for that?” I’ll respond right here.

Yes, there are such things as stupid questions, and you just asked one. Why is it stupid? Because in this context, your question is an evasive attempt to justify your cheering for Reiner’s murder. How so? Because none of this is even remotely comparable to stopping (or being glad someone stopped) a man like Hitler while he was actively murdering millions. There is a categorical difference between restraining or killing someone in order to halt ongoing mass slaughter and cheering the death of a movie director because you despised what he said about the leader of your tribe. The former is tragic necessity in the face of evil. The latter is moral rot. And conflating the two is either careless and accidental, because you didn’t think it through, or you didn’t know any better, or it’s deliberately dishonest. Whatever the case may be, if you cannot tell the difference between preventing slaughter and celebrating murder, then the problem is not the complexity of the situation. It is your collapsed moral framework.

In the end, it’s pretty simple for me. If my commitment to human dignity evaporates the moment it costs my side something, then it was never a conviction at all. I’m not going to live that way. And that’s how I’m different than the folks coming after me. I don’t care what you’ve said about me. Your life still matters to me, and I’m going to do everything I can to protect it. Not because I like you, but because Christ considered you worthy of every single drop of blood in His holy veins, and I’m on His side.

A Time to Mourn

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There are very important moments when leadership is not measured by how loudly we speak, but by how carefully we choose our words. Rob Reiner was verbally cruel to President Trump. He had been for many years. No one argues this. But his and his wife’s rather gruesome deaths required words of reverent sobriety, not mockery.

This really could have been a time for President Trump to shine. Simplicity, or maybe even silence, would have been the wiser course. Of course, silence would’ve prompted backlash, so what’s the harm in a brief acknowledgment of loss? A recognition of grief, even for an outspoken enemy? That’s it. I mean, there is a time to argue, and there is a time to mourn.

I should say that I’ve stood before my congregation on countless occasions and in various contexts and shared the characteristics I appreciate most in people. Two in particular stand out right now. I think the best way to relay the first is to say that leadership isn’t always about how quickly a person responds in the middle of a crisis. It’s about whether the person actually understands the moment requiring a response. That said, the ability to exercise restraint when restraint is hardest—when emotion, and even a long history of provocation, seem to beg for a sharp response. Leadership we can call “good” knows when to tone down and hold back. Even better, I think it takes more guts to lower your voice than to shout one’s apparent vindication. That’s by no means a sign of weakness. It demonstrates strength under control.

Trump made a huge mistake. The moment called for restraint, and he blew it. That leads to another characteristic I admire in people. Those with the ability to admit to a mistake and seek to amend that mistake are the truly courageous among us. They are also the wisest, and I trust them above all others.

If I were advising Trump, I’d tell him an apology here would not weaken him. It would show that even a man accustomed to fighting understands when the fight needs to stop. It would communicate that there are moments when compassion must take precedence over score-settling. That kind of humility is already too rare in public life, which is precisely why it matters right now, and why it would strengthen President Trump, not weaken him.

Again, the strongest people I know can admit to being wrong and say, “I’m sorry.” They own their errors. And they correct course. When they do, they earn my trust rather than lose it. In this particular moment, a sincere apology would not erase what President Trump wrote, but it would demonstrate that he does, in fact, understand the gravity of the moment he first failed to recognize. I’ll pray that someone in his immediate circle encourages him to do this.