In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.
Have you heard of the “Pence Rule”? The term comes from
a 2002 interview of current American Vice-President Mike Pence
in which he confirmed that he never eats alone with a woman other than his wife.
Tom: This idea didn’t originate with VP Pence. It has Christian roots. Way back in 1948, Billy Graham and team members George Beverly Shea, Cliff
Barrows and Grady Wilson agreed to something called the “Modesto Manifesto”, which obligated each man on the Graham team to never be alone with a woman
other than his wife.
Naturally, today’s media find the Pence Rule scandalous.
Taking Us in the Wrong Direction
CNN says, “Isolating and excluding women in the workplace will take us in the wrong direction.” American Lawyer says, “Mike Pence is a prude.” Vox says the Pence Rule is
“probably illegal”.
Fine and dandy then: Pence is just an old out-of-touch fuddy-duddy. But then came the #MeToo scandal, along with the revelation that many male Democrats and their supporters are not much better than predatory animals. Women in business and government
are claiming sexual harassment on an unprecedented scale. And suddenly the
Pence Rule looks like not such a bad idea.
IC, how do you feel about having dinner
alone with a woman you’re not married to? More importantly, how does your wife
feel about it?
Immanuel Can: My wife would tend to trust me if I did that. But I wouldn’t ask her to. I’d make sure it
didn’t happen.
Tom: Wow. Is that because you’re concerned that you might lose control if you’re around an attractive woman unsupervised?
IC: No. It’s because marriage vows mean something … and one of the things they mean is that
nobody and nothing comes before my wife. The Lord, yeah … but nobody else.
Gnats, Camels and Wheel-less Baggage
Tom: I was amused to see that Katelyn Beaty had written a piece for the New York Times critiquing the Pence Rule
from a “Christian” perspective. One objection she raises is that being sticklers about appearances might discourage male colleagues from carrying heavy suitcases into hotel rooms for women with bad backs, something Ms Beaty calls “straining
out a gnat and swallowing a camel” and “neglecting justice, mercy and
faithfulness”. (Your mileage may vary on such arguments, since almost every
hotel in the world has dollies and bellhops, and most suitcases these days have
wheels.) Another objection is that having a third party at every business
meeting between parties of the opposite sex makes things “awkward”, which is
certainly a position one might take, though not a particularly Christian one.
IC: Well, for me it holds no water. Business is important, but not
more important than wife. Carrying bags is important, but not more important
than wife. Equality is laudable, but wife is not the equal of any woman. And if
any putative Christian doesn’t understand that, then maybe we want to think
again about why he’s so concerned to play bellhop.
Tom: Okay, well, you and Katelyn Beaty are actually on the same page
here then. The issues for you both are faithfulness and unblemished testimony,
and I agree that both are important.
Mr. Brown is Out of Town
That said, there’s another related issue that’s becoming huge, and that’s the #MeToo movement. This week, Ontario provincial conservative leader Patrick Brown stepped down amidst sexual misconduct allegations. He’s just the latest in a long line: worldwide, the number of men similarly
accused in the last few months is well into the hundreds.
IC: I hate to ask, but has anything like due process or even an investigation taken place? Does
anybody know with any degree of certainty that he actually did what he’s
accused of doing, other than the ones accusing him?
Tom: No, nothing has
been established. His staff threw him under the bus, turned in their
resignations and left him with no choice but to resign. And I’m not saying he’s
innocent: we simply don’t know yet, and may never know. The circumstances of these
cases are all over the map. Some allegations are substantiated; some are not.
Some of the men accused have made public confessions and apologies; some have
absolutely denied any wrongdoing. Some of the situations were rape or sexual
assault; in others the accusations of sexual harassment were so nebulous and
dodgy that it’s questionable whether there was any wrongdoing at all. At least
one or two of these accusations, and maybe more, almost surely involve politically-motivated
shenanigans or spite.
The common thread here is that due process has been thrown completely out the
window. The accusation alone is sufficient to end political candidacy or get
you fired from your job — unless you’re Mike Pence. Suddenly the Pence
Rule looks useful for another reason entirely.
Guillotines and Children of the Revolution
IC: That’s extremely ominous. If a person can be publicly excoriated and have his career tanked on
the mere say-so of an accuser, from what kind of slander or allegation is
anyone safe? The whole reason due process was created was to ensure that we don’t
convict the innocent and that we prevent people from successfully bearing false
witness. If the “all accusers must be believed” meme is now taking over from
that, it’s a very, very dangerous turn of affairs … for everyone.
Tom: Absolutely. I got a little concerned when this whole thing first blew up. We had Harvey Weinstein
and Kevin Spacey and Al Franken and Garrison Keillor one after another, all
hardcore Democrats. If we consider only
the outcome for the accused, what’s not to like about the Left eating its own?
So as the numbers mounted and the accused remained almost exclusively in the
Progressivist camp, the Right got on the bandwagon, cheering along the process
in the media with very few reservations about how this new inquisition was being conducted, because after all its
targets were primarily undesirables. And I started to wonder what the endgame
is here, because prior to #MeToo, the Left has always circled the wagons when
their own were charged with sexual misconduct — look at the way they
protected Bill Clinton and pilloried his accusers.
IC: Well, and from history, we know that the guillotines always get
used against children of the revolution, and even before all the enemies are
dead. Nothing in the entirety of human history has been so bloody in its
effect as unrestrained Leftist ideology — 148 million, at least, died that way in the last century
alone. Yet I wonder how much lower the count could have been had there
been any kind of due process in place.
Due Process Meets Its Maker
Tom: Just so. And as it turns out, the endgame was just that: the destruction of due process, which is
a legal principle with its roots firmly planted in scripture. Now that the Right has accepted that the “new normal” is destroying a
person’s life on the basis of nothing more than an unproven accusation, the
Left is going to be free and clear to weaponize false accusations against
virtually any political enemy. The ongoing demolition of the “patriarchy” is
just kind of a lucky bonus that comes with it.
IC: So you’re suggesting that Christians ought to be very careful not
to jump on the gleeful, right-wing dismissal of due process, just as they ought
to be opposed to the Leftist version?
Tom: I think it’s too late for that here. The speedy denouncements of
Patrick Brown from his staff suggest that ship has already sailed, at least in
the Canadian public square. And who knows, maybe they know something about him
we don’t. But if they did and were willing to work for him anyway up to the
point he was accused, they certainly owed it to him to let due process play out
rather than hurling him under the bus in order to virtue signal. I’d say
the Canadian Right has already adopted the Left’s frame, and big time.
IC: Uh oh.
Two or Three Witnesses
Tom: But whether or not the claims against Brown turn out to have any
substance, false accusations can happen in our churches as easily as they are
happening in politics, business and Hollywood. I’m surprised they haven’t
already.
So before we find ourselves being urged to remove our own leadership, we should
remind ourselves that due process is commanded by the Head of the Church
through his apostles: “Do not admit a charge against an elder except on the evidence of two or three witnesses.” And that’s two or three witnesses to EACH CHARGE, not two or three individuals
coming with completely different personal stories on a similar overarching theme.
IC: Yes. We’ve also forgotten that this is consistent with the OT too. One of the Big Ten is “You shall not bear false witness.” And that’s explained by the later injunction, “On the evidence of two or three witnesses a matter shall be confirmed”, where it also says, “A single witness shall not rise up against a man on
account of any iniquity or any sin which he has committed.” That’s pretty clear, and covers all cases; and it’s Old Covenant and New.
I don’t think the Lord is planning on changing that one in order to cater to
Leftists or right-wingers, do you?
Turnabout Is Fair Play
Tom: I don’t, not in the least. And our society has forgotten the best one of all:
“The judges shall inquire diligently, and if the witness is a false witness and has accused his brother falsely, then you shall do to him as he had meant to do to his brother. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.”
I suspect that would
effectively cure any future false accusation problem.
IC: It sure would. And don’t tell me God just “doesn’t understand” that all
accusers “deserve to be believed”. They deserve to be believed only if
what they said proves true. If it does not, then what they deserve is
to pay the price they tried to inflict on the innocent. Now that’s
social justice.
Tom: Tell me: It seems archaic, I know, but do
you think something like the Pence Rule might be a good common sense move for
church leaders?
IC: Absolutely. In order to avoid all appearance of evil, I would argue that married men, in particular, should choose not to
have any private interviews with women at all. If you can’t say or do
something with a third person in the room, then I would suggest that’s a
thing there’s just no need to do. The Pence rule rules.
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