Joe Paterno and My Faith

This week will be the funeral service for Joe Paterno. I have kept pretty quiet about this entire series of events over the past fall, but finally feel it is time to state some of my opinions, for me if for no one else.

Let me begin with a few disclaimers. First of all, I am not and have never been a Penn State fan. I am originally from North Carolina, so I hold no particular allegiance there. The truth be told, I actually dislike Penn State from an athletic perspective. I have always however had great respect for Joe Paterno as a person. I have admired him from afar. I say that because I have no particular axe to grind here in relation to the school.

Secondly, and I say this in spite of the sports writer pundits who keep saying, “It is about the kids who were molested.” Let’s not forget the kids. Yeah, and let’s not forget the ratings either.

I am not in any way putting down the impact of what happened to those kids. Lest you doubt those words and say, “You cannot understand what it is like to be sexually molested by an adult.” Well, actually, yes I can. You see, I myself and a victim of sexual abuse. I experienced this when I was a young adolescent, so I know full well what that feels like to be in a position where an adult abuses you and you feel powerless to say or do or feel anything. So you do not say, or do or feel anything.

I am not an impartial observer when it comes to this issue. I know it is horrific beyond words. It is indefensible and should never ever ever occur. But it does. As bad as it is, it is not unforgivable. I myself had to forgive those who were responsible for my abuse when as an adult I came to grips with what had happened. I confronted one of the responsible parties in order to state that forgiveness. This entire incident has caused me to relive some of those moments in my mind, and be hurt again, but I released the anger years ago and have never picked it back up.

Back to my thoughts on the Joe Paterno situation. The day this entire episode broke, I told some co-workers that Joe would be dead within a year. This was before it was released that he had cancer. I just knew it. The job, and the people around it, was who he was. His family and the football team were all he cared about. When that was taken away, and he was terminated for a “neglect” that he himself wishes has never happened, the clock began to tick. The following week, I had the church where I serve to take some time praying for Penn State, for the coaches, for the leaders and for the young men who were molested.

I am not going to write a new exposé or bring up and angles you have not thought of before, but I want to hinge my thoughts on two questions and go from there.

Question #1: How did we get to the point that we define someone’s life by their worst moment?

I am not making light of what APPEARS to be Joe Paterno’s failure to follow up further in a situation that should have been followed up on. I have read so many articles where folks talked about his deeds and caring that were beyond selfless. He cared for others. He gave to others. He was a man of wonderful character. But for this one incident he would have received accolades in Happy Valley that would be tough to match.

It is amazing for me now that we are taking an 85 year old man’s life and summing it all up in one incident. One terrible oversight. One horrible neglect. But one out of thousands if incidents in his life.

When I look at Scripture I see people with great lives who had horrible acts of failure and then I read where God calls them righteous or even better. How does that happen? How can Abraham, Moses and David, repeat liars and murderers, be called “the friend of God,” "the most humble man on the earth," and “a man after God’s own heart?”

It is a matter of perspective . . . ours versus God’s. We view life in linear fashion. We see how a life is lived out one incident after another. We have a difficult time doing anything else. We are bound up in our temporal world. Time limits us. We have a hard time stepping back since we live in time. This makes us see the most recent items more clearly than the more distant.

God is not bound up by time. God created time. This allows God to view our life in panorama. God sees us as a child and as an adolescent as a young adult and as an older adult at the same time. God sees our entire life at once. God does not see one incident after another like we do. This perspective difference allows him to judge a life “as a whole,” and not by the latest act.

I wish we had more of that. It may allow us to see Joe Paterno’s life in more clear perspective. It would not make the incidents a decade ago any more right, or any less heinous, or resolve anyone of deserved guilt, but it would give a man’s life perspective.

Question #2: What would Jesus say about this entire situation?

This question is just as tough as the first one. Jesus had some serious words to say about anyone who harms a child. He used harming a child as an illustration of harming a child of his. The words Jesus directed at those who harm children, are arguably the harshest words to come from his mouth. He made his thoughts pretty clear on the matter.

While that is true, Jesus also spoke about faith and forgiveness always being available when it is genuinely requested. He told a man who was wicked and breathing his last breaths that he would be with him in paradise later that same day.

If Jesus were here, he would in no way make light of the horrible incidents that appear to have transpired. I also do not think he would allow us to sit in condemnation of anyone from a morally superior position, because we are not in one, no matter how much we may feel we are.

Is there a legal process to play out? Yes. Are the consequences for such horrible acts of violence? Of course. But let us be careful that we do not put ourselves in a position higher that we ought to  while this plays out.

I am very saddened by the entire sordid affair. It dredges up pain from my past, but it also reminds me of forgiveness I was able to extend and still extend today.