For the Glory of Old State

A rant for sports lovers, education lovers, and lovers of truth:


1. Nobody wants to “pile on” after a tragedy like that at Penn State, but it’s hard to be silent when it's constantly before us in the news.

2. As good a man as I think Joe Paterno actually was and is, he chose to abide by an old dictum that needs to die: the code of silence. It isn’t right on the elementary school playground, and it isn’t right in the faculty offices of a major university.

3. Without Christ, there is no repentance and no redemption; hence the mixed reactions by those want either the extreme of absolving (in light of his many successes) or the extreme of vilifying (in spite of his many successes).

4. I am sick to death of the way we countenance the pretense of secular institutions. Penn State’s vaunted “Victory with Honor” motto is tarnished, but so should be the “faith” of those who believed that an institution of purely human and frail origins could guarantee any kind of purity or truth.

5. Nowhere is this better exemplified than in these words from the Penn State Alma Mater (sung to the tune of a Christian hymn, by the way): “…our hopes that, bright and free, Rest, O Mother dear, with thee, All with thee, all with thee.” And people think we’re “over the top” when we say we are trusting Jesus and Him only for our eternal security. Make no mistake, American universities are religious organizations…perpetrators of a gospel with no forgiveness, no repentance, no redemption (and a sometimes arbitrary list of sins).

6. Speaking of the Alma Mater, it was sung with reverent enthusiasm by the 100,000+ fans at the Penn State-Nebraska football game Saturday. Did they sense the irony of the words, “May no act of ours bring shame to one heart that loves thy name…”?

7. As heavy as the burden may be, we are not just sports coaches, academic and life skill instructors, birth fathers, breadwinners….we must ALL be men who fear God. That means protecting the innocent, not the perpetrator.