WTE: Christmas is for everyone

The secular celebration of Christmas kicked off on Black Friday and ended Wednesday. As prelude to the twelve days of Christmas, just begun, it makes all of December a time of self-conscious generosity and “good will toward men.”

In a culture fraught with self-seeking, Christmas turns our thoughts to friends and family, to coworkers, postal workers and next-door neighbors. Hearts weighed down with pain and emptiness, are blessed with an opportunity to think of ways to bring joy to others.

Total strangers wish one another a merry Christmas and happy holy days. Nobody asks, as a condition of kindness, how you voted in the last election or your policy preferences. Christmas is for everybody.

What kind of force can “bid our sad divisions cease”? How it is that Christ’s mass is named by so many people who have never even been to mass? How is it that even those who consciously avoid the word, Christmas, nevertheless acknowledge these are holy days?

Many might dismiss this as a mere holdover from a more Christian time. That may be true. Customs do have a way of carrying on long after the ideas that inspired them have been forgotten. Still, if the customs of December are holdovers from a more Christian time, they remind us that such a time once existed, and they offer us hope that it could exist again.

They also give us an opportunity to reflect on our actions and rediscover the meaning of Christmas. Gift-giving is at its center. This points to God’s gift for all people--a newborn child.

No serious historian disputes the fact of Jesus’ birth. It is reported in both pagan Roman and in Jewish sources. It is reported in books that were written and widely circulated while many who personally knew Jesus were still alive. While historians both within and without Christianity debate the actual date of his birth, they do not deny that he was born.

Nor do many deny that Jesus is a gift to the world. Of course, each person who has ever been conceived has added some value to the world. But Jesus is special. Agnostics, Muslims, Jews—even atheists—all acknowledge this. Some value him as a moral teacher. Others, as a great prophet.

No single man in the history of the whole world has influenced as many people as Jesus has. Unlike philosophies and religions that were spread by cultural expansion and military might, Jesus’ influence is cross cultural. It did not capture people and cities, but hearts and minds.

Christian ideas gave rise to our most merciful and cherished institutions. Hospitals and orphanages, education and science, the dignity of women and of marriage, human freedom and the defeat of slavery—all these blessings are in the world because of Christ’s birth.

Another custom of Christmas is that the gifts we receive are wrapped. Colorful paper hides the content and value of a gift at its presentation. It is in our possession, but we don’t enjoy its full benefit without unwrapping it, learning what it is, and making it part of our life.

While anyone can plainly see Jesus’ beautiful influence on Western Civilization, the fullness of God’s gift to the world is not discovered until one looks beneath this wrapping to see the gift himself. This reveals the distinctly Christian truth.

Unlike other cultural influencers who came and went, Jesus impacted the world after his disappearance more than during his time in Galilee. That’s because unlike any other, Jesus’ disappearance does not mean that he is dead and buried. His crucifixion was only the beginning of the story. After that his tomb was found empty and no one—ever again—found his corpse.

Instead, hundreds of people said that they saw him walking and talking and eating with them—both singly and in groups. Some of these reported that after forty days his disappearance took the form of an ascent into the clouds. All of this leads to the Christian understanding that God’s gift to the world was not just a great man, but God Himself.

If you thought the wrapping was pretty, look at what’s contained in it! “For God so loved the world, that He gave his only begotten Son” (John 3:16 KJV). If you appreciate the perks of Western Civilization, you will be blown away by the God who is celebrated at its heart.

In Jesus we learn that all the kindness, charity, generosity and selflessness of the Christmas season is because the Creator himself is kind, charitable, generous and selfless. He gave himself to the world as its rescuer. “That whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). This gift is for everyone, especially you.

Christmas is for everyone

The secular celebration of Christmas kicked off weeks ago, on Black Friday. The real celebration of Christmas begins tonight. As a Lutheran pastor, I don’t begrudge the secular season. It has many beneficial features.

It makes December a time of self-conscious generosity and “good will toward men.” The downside of Christmas commercialization is that retailers use consumerism run amok in order to meet their annual profit margin. The upside, however, is that three hundred million people spend December thinking about other people.

In a culture where feelings of entitlement constantly turn our attention inward, Christmas shopping turns our thoughts to friends and family, to coworkers, postal workers and next-door neighbors. Hearts weighed down with pain and emptiness, are blessed with an opportunity to think of ways to bring joy to others.

These feelings of good will are not confined to mere thought. Pocketbooks are opened to make them real. Every charitable agency also uses the Christmas season to conduct a year-end appeal for donations. This is most visible in the red kettles and bell-ringers in front of retail stores. The Angel Tree buys gifts for local kids while Operation Christmas Child sends necessities to the poor in third-world countries.

All this generosity and selfless focus has the additional effect of making people speak and feel warm thoughts toward others. Total strangers wish one another a merry Christmas and happy holy days. Nobody asks, as a condition of kindness, how you voted in the last election or what your worldview might be. Christmas is for everybody.

This makes me smile. What kind of force could induce such widespread feelings of good cheer despite the most rancorous political and social climate in our generation? How it is that Christ’s mass is named by so many people who have never even been to mass? How is it that even those who consciously avoid the word, Christmas, nevertheless acknowledge the holiness of these days?

Many might dismiss this as a mere holdover from a more Christian time. That may be true. Customs do have an inertia of their own. They have a way of carrying on long after the ideas that inspired them have been forgotten. Nevertheless, they never cease bringing those original ideas back into consciousness.

If the customs of December are holdovers from a more Christian time, they remind us that such a time once existed, and they offer us hope that it could exist again. They give us an opportunity to reflect on our actions and rediscover their meaning and value.

Gift-giving is the most obvious action of the season. It signals the fact that God gave a gift to the world. The gift in view is the gift of a newborn child. His parents were from Nazareth, but he was born while they were travelling in Bethlehem.

No serious historian disputes the fact of Jesus’ birth. It is reported in both pagan Roman and in Jewish Roman sources. It is reported in books that were written and widely circulated while many of those who personally knew Jesus were still alive.

That Jesus was a real man, and not a myth, is simply historical fact. While historians both within and without Christianity debate the actual date of his birth, that does not deny the fact that he was born. Nor are there many who would dispute that Jesus is a gift to the world.

Of course, every child is a gift of God to the world. That’s not a uniquely Christian assertion. Each person who has ever been conceived has added some value to the world. Agnostics, Muslims, Jews—even atheists—can acknowledge that Christmas celebrates the gift of Jesus to the world.

Some value him as a moral teacher. Others, as a great prophet. Both are true. But they do not exhaust the truth. Still, let’s take a moment to develop these first thoughts.

It is a fact of history that no single man in the history of the whole world has influenced as many people as Jesus has. Prior to his birth, philosophers, kings and religious figures might exert regional influence, but most never broke out of the borders of their own country. Those that did lost influence soon after they died.

But Jesus is unique. His impact on the world did not diminish after his disappearance. In fact, unlike anyone before or since, Jesus’ influence spread across continents not by military conquest or by accident of birth. It spread by the sheer power of the ideas themselves.

And the ideas associated with Jesus gave rise to our most merciful and highly cherished institutions. Hospitals and orphanages, education and science, the dignity of women and of marriage, human freedom and the defeat of slavery—all these blessings are in the world because of Christ’s birth.

Among the customs of Christmas is that the gifts we exchange are wrapped. This also has a very deep meaning. It means that the exact content and value of a gift is hidden when we first receive it. The gift is in our possession, but we don’t enjoy its full benefit without unwrapping it, learning what it is, and making it part of our life.

While any secular historian can plainly see the “wrapping paper” of Jesus’ influence on Western Civilization, the fullness of God’s gift to the world is not discovered until one looks beneath the wrapping to see the gift himself. Finally, here we come to the distinctly Christian view of Christmas.

When we look at the man himself and his historical life, we see that the way he disappeared from the world was unlike any other man. All know that he was crucified and put to death. But after that comes a mystery that demands explanation. His tomb was found empty and no one—ever again—found his corpse.

Instead, hundreds of people said that they saw him walking and talking and eating with them—both singly and in groups. Some of these reported that after forty days his disappearance took the form of an ascent into the clouds. All of this leads to the Christian understanding that God’s gift to the world was not just a human child. Rather, the gift was God Himself.

If you thought the wrapping was pretty, look at what’s contained in it! “For God so loved the world, that He gave his only begotten Son” (John 3:16 KJV). If you appreciate the perks of Western Civilization, you will be blown away by the God who is celebrated at its heart.

In Jesus we learn that all the kindness, charity, generosity and selflessness of the Christmas season is the result of the only God in the world, who is kind, charitable, generous and selfless. He gave himself as gift not like a Trojan horse, but as a rescuer behind enemy lines. “That whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).

After weeks of secular Christmas observances, the Christian Christmas begins today. It would be a great time to read the Christmas gospel in Luke, chapter 2. Better yet, join us for Christmas Eve Lessons and Carols (December 24, 2019).

St. Paul's Lutheran Church in Kemmerer at 5:30 P.M.
Our Saviour Lutheran Church in Evanston at 8:00 P.M.

WTE: What I learned singing in the community choir

Last night I was blessed to sing in Evanston’s annual Christmas concert. Volunteer musicians from all walks of life rehearsed for months. They came from as far as an hour away for the pure joy of making music together.

In a world of individualism, live music requires togetherness. Sheet music is only paper and ink until real people in real space and in real time bring it to life. In the beginning, it’s not pretty.

Sour notes, missed cues, nasal tones and a thousand other personal sins muddle the music in the early going. Every singer makes more than his or her share of mistakes. “No one is righteous. No, not one.” Practice makes it better, but not as quickly as you might think.

We submit to correction and cajoling from the director and from one another. Rarely do tempers flare. Mostly the flubs are acknowledged with self-deprecating humor. We are striving for excellence, but happiness does not depend on it. Joy is found in the striving.

I think that we all start rehearsals hoping that our mistakes will be hidden in the general cacophony. But the closer we get to the performance, the more we realize that there is no place to hide. To enjoy the chorus means that we each take full responsibility for our own part in it.

What started as pressure from the director turns to an internal desire to learn the music. Once that shift occurs, people roll up their sleeves and do the hard work behind the scenes. That’s when the community chorus begins to gel, and real music begins to happen.

What is true of a chorus is true of every community. It may start off with rules and regulations. But unless the desire to work together comes from each individual member, it will never gel as a community and “make music.”

In a community, just as in a chorus, every member will make plenty of mistakes. As a result, we all need both to bear with the mistakes of others gracefully and to help lift them up with gentleness and love. Most of all, each member of the community is responsible to work behind the scenes at developing habits of the heart that come out when we come together.

This kind of community-building cannot come from coercive rules. Laws can only set boundaries that provide a framework. Community depends on a personal willingness to do what cannot be enforced. It also comes with a dawning realization that there is no place to hide.

As in the community chorus, we may start off thinking that our own sins will be hidden by the background noise of everybody else’s sins. With this mindset, our only motivation is to be mediocre. We tell ourselves, “Don’t do anything stupid that will make you stick out of the crowd.” This is easily accomplished by doing nothing at all.

But eventually you come to realize that if you want to contribute to the chorus, you must risk blurting out a wrong note. If nobody is willing to take that risk, we will mumble through life without ever having the joy of making actual music.

The truth is that all the world’s a stage. There is no place to hide. Every person matters. Your voice and your actions impact everyone around you. Silence speaks as loudly as a scream. Inactivity does just as much as action. You are on the stage by virtue of your birth. You can play your part or not, but either way you remain on the stage.

As each member of the community learns this lesson for himself, he comes to enjoy the unique note that he is given to contribute. As he confidently sounds it out while blending it with the other notes around him, he contributes to the living harmony.

Ever since the advent of recording technology, we have been tempted to skip live performances in favor or perfect recordings experienced privately. Yet, such sessions can never deliver the same impact. A live concert touches the heart like nothing else can.

That’s because at the human heart is the heart of music. Music is not about the perfect arrangement of sound waves, but about human beings working in harmony.

Every day we are saturated with recordings of people we don’t know. They fill our minds with disembodied thoughts that churn away and distract us from the actual people in our lives. These recordings do not create community, they fragment and frustrate it.

But an old-fashioned community concert gives an opportunity to witness human hearts in harmony. It creates a sound that reaches not just your ears but your very heart. And it draws you into the harmony.

Also published in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle on December 20, 2019.

What I learned singing in the community choir

Evanston Civic Chorus, 2019

The Evanston Civic Orchestra and Chorus is ready to perform a Christmas program called “Carols and Fantasies.” It will be held at the Davis Middle School Auditorium at 7:00 P.M., Thursday, December 19, 2019. You may have seen flyers in shop windows around town and shared on Facebook. This is your personal invitation to join the fun.

Of course, you will hear seasonal favorites like, “Twas the night before Christmas,” and the “Nutcracker.” You will hear the glories of “Angels we have heard on high.” You will experience a medley of English carols and an arrangement of “Jingle Bells” that will make you laugh out loud.

Musicians and singers have been gathering on Thursday nights for months to prepare for the occasion. They drive in from Kemmerer and from Morgan, Utah. They come from our middle schools and high school, businesses and churches. They come for the pure joy of making music together.

In a world of increasing individualism and fragmentation, live music is something that requires togetherness. Sheet music is only paper and ink until real people in real space and in real time bring it to life. In the beginning, it’s not pretty.

Sour notes, missed cues, nasal tones and a thousand other personal sins muddle the music in the early going. Every singer makes more than his or her share of mistakes. “No one is righteous. No, not one.” Practice makes it better, but not as quickly as you might think.

We submit to correction and cajoling from the director and from one another. Rarely do tempers flare. Mostly the flubs are acknowledged with self-depreciating humor. After all, we are there because we want to be there. While we are striving toward a common goal, happiness does not depend on perfection. Joy is found in the striving.

I think that we all start rehearsals hoping that our mistakes will be hidden in the general cacophony. But the closer we get to the performance, the more we realize that there is no place to hide. To enjoy the chorus means that we each take full responsibility for our own part in it.

What started as external pressure and admonition to learn the music turns into an internal desire. Once that shift occurs, people roll up their sleeves and do the nitty-gritty work behind the scenes. That’s when the community chorus begins to gel, and real music begins to happen.

What is true of a chorus is true of every community. It may start off with laws and law-enforcers. But unless the desire to work together comes from each individual member, it will never gel as a community and “make music.”

In a community, just as in a chorus, every member will make plenty of mistakes. As a result, we are all responsible both to bear with the mistakes of others gracefully as well as to help lift them up with gentleness and love. Most of all, each member of the community is responsible to work behind the scenes at developing habits of the heart that come out when we come together.

This kind of community-building cannot come from coercive rules and forced participation. Laws can only set boundaries that provide a framework. Community depends on a personal willingness to do what cannot be enforced. It also comes with a dawning realization that there is no place to hide.

As in the community chorus, we may start off thinking that our own sins will be hidden by the background noise of everybody else’s sins. With this mindset, our only motivation is to be mediocre. We tell ourselves, “Don’t do anything stupid that will make you stick out of the crowd.” This is easily accomplished by doing nothing at all.

But eventually everyone comes to realize that if you want to contribute to the chorus, you must risk blurting out a wrong note. If nobody is willing to take that risk, we will mumble through life without ever having the joy of making actual music.

ECOC performs the Messiah, 2012

The truth is that all the world’s a stage. There is no place to hide. Every person matters. Your voice and your actions impact everyone around you. Silence speaks as loudly as a scream. Inactivity does just as much as action. You are on the stage by virtue of your birth. You can play your part or not, but either way you remain on the stage.

As each member of the community learns this lesson for himself, he comes to enjoy the unique note that he is given to contribute. As he confidently sounds it out while blending it with the other notes around him, he contributes to the richness of the harmony.

But enough of the lessons about life. What about the concert itself? Sure, the performers may be having the time of their life, but can’t we hear the same songs with perfect acoustics and perfect performances downloaded from the internet?

Ever since audio recording was invented in the nineteenth century, we have been tempted to believe that music can be distilled into the pure physics of sound waves carried through the air. If that’s true, a pair of ear buds can give you the very same experience as a live concert.

Yet, no matter how far technology advances, recorded audio will always leave the hearer disappointed. There is something intangible in a live concert that touches the heart like nothing else.

That’s because at the heart of all music is the human heart. Music is not about the perfect arrangement of sound waves. Music is about human beings working in harmony.

No matter how perfectly the sounds may be reproduced, no recording can convey the united hearts. Conversely, even where an audience member may sneeze during a solo or a baritone strike a sour note, the exuberance of the players is not diminished in the least.

Before the invention of audio recordings, music could only be experienced live. From a harmonica on the front porch to an orchestra at symphony hall, people listed to people. The musicians were not performing for a machine, they were connecting with other people. Likewise, the audience was never listening to magnets and paper, they were listening to friends and neighbors.

Every hour of every day we are saturated with audio and visual recordings of people that we don’t know. They fill our minds with disembodied thoughts that churn away and distract us from the actual people in our lives. These recordings do not create community, they fragment and frustrate it.

But on Thursday night, all of Evanston has a special, one-time opportunity. We can turn off our cell phones and pull the plastic from our ears for one special hour.

It will be an hour of great music with great friends. Most of all, it is an opportunity to witness human hearts in harmony create a sound that reaches not just your ears but your very heart. That little community on the stage of DMS will draw you into the experience of community that music was made to give.

WTE: Respect for ICE detainees starts by respecting one another

CoreCivic's Otay Mesa Detention Center, San Diego, CA

The Uinta County Commissioners recently hosted an informational meeting for the public concerning an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility proposed to be built near Evanston. After nearly two years of speculation, the first official document was filed by CoreCivic in late November. Given two years of negative press, I went to learn the facts.

The first thing that struck me was how we, the people, have asked ICE to enforce our laws but have never given them any facilities of their own. For decades ICE has had no choice but to lock up foreign nationals in county jails and state-run facilities—often alongside hardened criminals.

Ten years ago, ICE announced an overhaul of its Performance-Based National Detention Standards (PBNDS 2008). According to the ICE website, “They were drafted with the input of many ICE personnel across the nation, as well as the perspectives of nongovernmental organizations. PBNDS 2011 is crafted to improve medical and mental health services, increase access to legal services and religious opportunities, improve communication with detainees with limited English proficiency, improve the process for reporting and responding to complaints, reinforce protections against sexual abuse and assault, and increase recreation and visitation.”

These 2011 standards authorize ICE to contract with private companies to build and operate facilities that meet the 2011 PBNDS standards. Out of 24 ICE regions across the U.S.A, 11 of them now have such contracted facilities. ICE’s Salt Lake region is looking to become the 12th.

Currently, more than 500 detainees are scattered in county jails and state-run detention centers from Nevada to Montana. ICE hopes to correct this with a new 1,000-bed facility somewhere in northern Utah or southwest Wyoming.

Current holder of ICE detainees in the SLC region

Let that sink in. Humanitarian upgrades approved by the Obama administration and enjoyed by nearly half of ICE’s jurisdiction are suddenly reported as sinister actions against the very people they were designed to help. Have the 2011 improvements of humanitarian standards suddenly become evil? Or has Wyoming’s press corps failed to report the facts?

Facts require context. In a vacuum, it is easy to criticize anything or anybody. But we don’t live in a vacuum. Currently, there are real people stuck in county jails. They should be consulted about whether moving from a county jail to a detention center improves their quality of life.

The same goes for our treatment of potential contractors. No doubt, terrible wrongs have taken place in—state-run, county-run, and private detention centers. The salient question is: which arrangement has the better track record? Decisions made without an actual comparison of facts may, in reality, make matters worse for detainees.

Ten years ago, multiple government agencies and NGOs did, in fact, examine these questions. The Obama administration concluded that companies like CoreCivic and MTC actually served the detainees better than the current archipelago of county jails. Until a similarly rigorous study overturns that conclusion, it is manifestly unfair to accuse those who act on the 2011 PBNDS of being uncaring, immoral people motivated by greed or animus.

To be clear, it is not my intention to advocate either for, or against the Evanston facility. Others are better equipped for that job. There may be good reasons that the people of Uinta County support it or oppose it. There may also be sound reasons why the 2011 PBNDS should be reconsidered. If so, let us hear them and help ICE do its job in the most humane way possible.

Only, let the discussion be fair and civil. Denouncing one’s policy opponents in categorical, moral terms is always polarizing. Doing so without a careful consideration of history and context is irresponsible. I have very good friends on both sides of the issue. Each one deserves respect and a careful hearing.

I don’t believe that those who express concern for the people detained by ICE are uncaring about the welfare of Evanston and her citizens. Nor do I believe that the people concerned about Evanston’s future are uncaring about the people who could be housed in the proposed facility. These concerns are not mutually exclusive. Ad hominem attacks to the contrary are beneath the dignity of Wyoming.

We all agree that the first goal is to find the best way to respect and care for the ICE detainees in the Salt Lake region. That starts with respecting and caring for one another.


PUBLISHED IN...
Wyoming Tribune Eagle (behind a paywall)
Laramie Boomerang

Conversation over ICE facility offers community an opportunity

The Portland Rose room at the Roundhouse saw a marathon meeting of the Uinta County Commissioners on Monday, December 2, 2019. For the most part, the capacity crowd consisted of Uinta County residents from all walks of life. There were, however, a few others. I spotted a reporter from Laramie, two lawyers from Salt Lake City, and two professional lobbyists—to name a few.

It has been a while since so many people attended a commissioners meeting. That alone is reason to commend the good people of Uinta County. Lately, America has been so focused on national politics that local involvement suffers. If Monday’s meeting helps to reinvigorate everything from the school board to the city council, that would be its greatest benefit.

ICE regional map

The crowd gathered for an informational meeting concerning a proposed Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility. ICE has two dozen regional offices scattered around the United States. None of these regional offices operate any detention facilities of their own. All our detainees are housed in state- and county-run jails that contract with ICE.

Since the early days of the Obama administration, ICE has been working a plan to improve this housing situation. It has both raised the humanitarian standards of our detention facilities and contracted with private companies to build and operate new ones to meet these standards. Nearly half of ICE’s regions now have such contracted facilities. A new, centralized detention facility for the Salt Lake region would bring us to the halfway mark.

The Salt Lake region serves Utah, Nevada, Idaho and Montana. Currently, we hold over 500 detainees who are housed in six county jails and four state-run detention centers scattered through the region. ICE is expected to put out a Request for Proposal (RFP) in the very near future. It will contract with a private company to build and operate a 1,000-bed facility within a specified radius of Salt Lake City.

Management Training Corporation (MTC) originally contacted city and county leaders to inquire whether there were any suitable sites around Evanston. After identifying one possible site east of Bear River State Park, it decided to bow out of the process.

More recently, CoreCivic has begun looking into the project. It recently filed an environmental plan with the federal government. While awaiting an answer, it sent a team of managers to talk with the people of Evanston. After presenting some drawings and discussing what such a facility would likely entail, they and the commissioners answered questions and heard comments.

Proposed facility, night rendering

Almost immediately, the plan to distinguish the question period from the comment period went out the window. That was not a bad thing. It allowed a genuine dialog so that the comments could be informed by factual answers to clarifying questions. County Attorney, Loretta Howieson, should be commended for moderating a meeting that allowed people to speak their minds, while also allowing room to correct misinformation.

Comments were divided into two basic concerns. Many were concerned with the impact of the proposed facility on the ICE detainees, while others were concerned about its impact on the citizens of Evanston. While the comments were divided along these lines, it would be unfair to assume that the people commenting were divided in this way.

I don’t believe that those who expressed concern for the people detained by ICE are uncaring about the welfare of Evanston and her citizens. Nor do I believe that the people who spoke about Evanston’s future are uncaring about the people who could be housed in the proposed facility.

A just and decent society never pits one people-group against another. Human beings are created by God to be in community. Therefore, what is truly good for one is truly good for all. The key to building community lies in the phrase “truly good.” Truth itself is both the unifying force and the liberating principle that knits people into communities.

Sadly, there are very strong currents in our culture that deny the existence of truth, at all. To the extent that we fall under the spell of such nihilism, we lose hope of either unity or freedom. This is poison to community.

For several days, I have been talking with people on both sides of the issue and reflecting on Monday’s conversation. The most distressing pattern that I have noticed is a widespread cynicism and distrust of everybody and every institution from the federal government to townspeople that some have known all their lives.

In such an environment, there is no statement of ICE, CoreCivic, the County Commission—or anyone else for that matter—that can serve to build community. Rather than statements being verified as factual or discarded as lies, statements are either accepted or denied based on which side of the debate we want to believe. Personal will substitutes for objective truth and community is replaced by one group imposing power on another.

Perhaps that’s why many have told me that they are reluctant to voice their opinion. They are unwilling to be bullied into submission or silence. Alternately, they are afraid that long-time friends will interpret their own opinions as mere bullying in return.

Uinta County Commission

There is no simple answer to this problem. Surely, every single reader of this column has experienced enough lies and broken promises to justify a cynical view of the world. No government agency, news source or person—myself included—can be the final arbiter of trustworthiness. So-called “fact checkers” are just as biased and unreliable those they label as “fake news.”

But that does not mean we are without hope. Community starts with a personal confidence that the truth exists and that it is knowable. Such confidence overcomes the despair of nihilism. It sets our feet on the path of a mutual and hopeful search for common truth.

Once we have rejected the poisonous notion that nothing is true, we are freed from the tyranny of pure power. Life is not about one person exerting force over others. Life together is made possible by both people gladly acknowledging the authority of truth.

In turn, mutual respect for the truth makes room for mutual respect of persons. The most unkind statements made at Monday’s meeting were personal attacks on the integrity and intelligence of those on the other side of the issue. Such comments were like hammer blows that insulted people and shattered community.

Respect of persons allows people to speak freely about what they truly believe without bludgeoning them as “immoral” or “ignorant.” It removes the walls of our own self-defense while avoiding words that cause reflexive defensiveness in others.

This may seem like a pipe dream, but it was not very long ago that America enjoyed much more of it than she does now. To return there is not an impossible dream. Nor does it require us to remove offending speakers from the debate by force. Rather, the return of civility lies within the power of every citizen.

By committing to learn the truth and eschew every lie, half-truth and exaggeration, you become a force for rebuilding communal confidence in the knowability of truth. By committing to respect your fellow citizen as a fellow seeker of the truth, you tear down barriers and repair the bonds of community.

Michael Mann's defamation suit chills the free press

Photo by Matt Popovich on Unsplash

When newspapers are under threat of lawsuit for any opinion that a jury might find objectionable, what remains of freedom of the press? How will public pursuit of the truth be advanced if anyone can sue for defamation to shield himself from honest critique?

Monday, November 25, the US Supreme Court denied Certiorari to National Review Inc. (NRO) v. Mann and the parallel case, Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) v. Mann. Their decision means that climate scientist, Dr. Michael Mann, can go forward in his defamation lawsuit. He is suing these news outlets for two opinion columns printed on July 13, 2012 and July 15, 2012.

Justice Samuel Alito dissented. He wrote that this case goes “to the very heart of the constitutional guarantee of freedom of speech and freedom of the press: the protection afforded to journalists and others who use harsh language in criticizing opposing advocacy on one of the most important public issues of the day.”

Alito supported this statement with two basic arguments. First, he questions whether a jury, untrained in science, is competent to judge “[w]hether an academic’s use and presentation of data falls within the range deemed reasonable by those in the field.” Juries judge matters of justice and common sense, but they should not be expected to judge the validity of data and methods hotly and politically contested.

Second, Alito writes that even the best-case scenario for the accused journalist is a burden that could suppress freedom of expression. “A journalist who prevails after trial in a defamation case will still have been required to shoulder all the burdens of difficult litigation and may be faced with hefty attorney’s fees. Those prospects may deter the uninhibited expression of views that would contribute to healthy public debate.”

Alito’s dissent is spot on. In fact, his concerns are not only theoretical possibilities. I recently watched these twin pressures operate in real time to scrub my own true and verifiable words from the public record. This is my story.

*   *   *

On September 3, 2019, I published an article in the Uinta County Herald titled, “Is man-made global warming Mann-made?” It discussed how Mann’s years-long, multimillion-dollar suit against fellow scientist Dr. Timothy Ball had recently been dismissed with prejudice from the Supreme Court of British Columbia.

Michael Mann

The article described how Mann had drastically rewritten surface temperature data for the past millennia by publishing his “hockey stick graph” in 1998. This became an iconic rallying cry in debates about man-made global warming. The article asserted that Mann has kept some details of his data from public scrutiny by asserting the rights of “intellectual property.”

The central claim of the article was that “In January 2017, a judge agreed that Mann would have to hand over the data and gave him two years to do so... The deadline came and went with no data ever produced. In May, Ball’s legal team asked the judge to throw out the lawsuit based on Mann’s refusal to release the data. On August 23, the judge granted the motion to dismiss. Not only that, but he also took the unusual step of requiring Mann to reimburse all of Dr. Ball’s legal costs.”

A shortened version of that article was subsequently published in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle later that week. That’s when the fireworks began. Hours after the article appeared in Cheyenne, Mann wrote an email to the editor and publicist of the Uinta County Herald which he then copied to Brian Martin, editor of the Wyoming Tribune Eagle: “Your newspaper has just published a commentary that makes false and defamatory statements about me and my research. The claims made in the piece that our data are not available or that we did not provide materials requested by the court are provably false. And they are libelous.”

Mann concluded the email with an implicit threat, “I expect the column to be taken down immediately. I have copied my lawyers John B Williams of Williams Lopatto PLLC, Peter Fontaine of Cozen-O’Connor, and Roger McConchie of McConchie Law.”

Less than an hour and a half after receiving the menacing email, the Cheyenne paper informed me that my article was taken offline. At some point, the Uinta County Herald also took it down. For evidence of error Mann supplied two links. First was an FTP site with reams of numerical data. Second was an article from a fellow scientist who wrote about the “robustness” of Mann’s research.

Robust is not the same as infallible. Nor is a data-dump equivalent to full disclosure. But name recognition and legal threat caused both papers not only to amend some specific point of error, but to quietly scrub an entire published article.

Asked to comment on the publisher’s decision, I sent my sources to Martin with the following note:

Dr. Timothy Ball

I believe that my article accurately represents the data presented above. Specific to Dr. Mann's assertion about data disclosure, Dr. Ball reports, “We agreed to an adjournment with conditions. The major one was that he [Mann] produce all documents including computer codes by February 20th, 2017. He failed to meet the deadline.” If Ball spoke wrongly in this published statement, Dr. Mann has had two years to prove it in open court. He obviously has not proven this before the British Columbia Supreme Court. 

I waited for the paper to weigh the evidence and either repost the article or ask for a correction. After several days, I called Martin directly. He informed me that the newspaper simply did not have either time or manpower to check the sources.

This is precisely Alito’s point. If a capitol newspaper, staffed by investigative reporters with decades of combined experience, does not feel competent to judge the falsifiability of a claim, how can jurors, picked from the untrained public, be expected to do the same?

The Wyoming Tribune Eagle also forward my note to Mann with the following inquiry: “Mr. Mann, The column has been taken down, but here is the columnist’s response. Do you have any response to this? Are his sources all biased against climate change?”

Mann’s reply is telling: “These are a list of right-wing blogs, not a single legitimate media source in that list. The claims made in the piece are, as I explained and demonstrated to you previously, false and defamatory, and would readily be shown as such in court. I trust that is adequate to resolve this matter.”

To a newspaper with the circulation of only 14,000 the words “defamatory” and “court” must be frightening. Martin confirmed this to me by noting that the Tribune Eagle is not in a position to mount legal defense against a libel lawsuit. Alito’s dissent anticipated exactly this response. But what does it matter? After all, it’s only a couple of small newspapers.

Consider that despite Mann’s strong language, he never directly disputed the quote from his adversary. Dr. Timothy Ball was the only other party in the courtroom. His public statement, published over two years ago, is that Mann did not “produce all documents including computer codes by February 20^th, 2016.” At my suggestion, Martin specifically asked Mann about that. He responded, “I’m happy to let things stand where they are.”

Four days later, I wrote Mann directly. I sought to know his specific objections and address them honestly. Then, I concluded, “I am not happy to let things stand as they are. I would rather either retract or clarify my article than to allow false information to stand uncorrected… If Dr. Ball’s statement is untrue, I stand ready to correct or retract the article. I am even willing to issue an apology for the public record.” That email went unanswered. Three days later, I re-sent it—this time with a subject line sure to get Mann’s attention.

As of this writing, Mann has never once disputed Dr. Ball’s published statement. Nor has he ever asked for a retraction or correction. He, rather, ignored my offers to make one. His final word on the matter remains, “I’m happy to let things stand where they are.”

Newseum Washington, D.C. - Closing Dec. 31, 2019

As things are, two “legitimate media sources” have printed over 15,000 copies of a statement that is undisputed by Mann or anyone else present in the courtroom. And yet, nobody could know that fact by executing an internet search.

Without retraction or correction, it has simply disappeared into the memory hole. By threatening to sue a couple of struggling newspapers one party to an important and vigorous debate has succeeded in keeping critical words off established print-news websites. As far as internet users are concerned, this information has never been published in a “legitimate media source,” but only in “right-wing blogs.”

If the US Supreme Court will not deny participants in public discourse this power to silence opponents, it will happen with increasing frequency. Justice Alito was absolutely right to dissent. What he presented as a possible scenario has, in fact, already happened.  

___________________________________________________________

Published in the 11/29/2019 edition of the Uinta County Herald,

"Alito's dissent is not hypothetical, it's happening"

___________________________________________________________

Final Unanswered Email

From: Jonathan Lange

Sent: Wednesday, September 18, 2019 5:42 PM
To: Mann, Michael
Subject: Re: Your paper has published a false and defamatory commentary about me

Dear Dr. Mann,

Greetings from Evanston, WY.

After nearly a week of email exchanges, I realized that we are unfairly using Mr. Brian Martin as mediator. This is never the best way to address an issue and it is needlessly costing Mr. Martin time and energy.  On one prior occasion when I committed a factual error in an article, I was contacted directly by the aggrieved person and immediately took numerous steps to correct my error. If I have similarly published something wrong about you, I am eager to make any clarifications or corrections necessary to bring my article in line with the truth.

Toward this end, I am seeking clarification from you so that I can understand more exactly the points that you would like me to correct.

As I understand it, your first communication to Publisher Mark Tessoro and Editor Glathar found two faults with my article:

1. “The claims made in the piece that our data are not available [are provably false]”
2. “that we did not provide materials requested by the court are provably false.”

In support of your first point, you linked them to an FTP site of data that apparently has been available for 15 years. In addition, you supplied an article from the journal “Climatic Change” meant to impeach my assertions. I did not, however, see any material supplied in support of the second statement.

So, let me address the first complaint.

I fully acknowledge that you released a substantial amount of information both at the first publishing of the “hockey stick graph” (the graph, by definition contained many data points.) I, further, accept that you released additional data that has been available for more than 6 years prior to your lawsuit with Dr. Ball.

While my article did, indeed, contain the sentence “Mann still has not released his data to the public.” I did not mean to imply that you have released no data whatsoever. I believe that a fair reading of the article makes it clear from the immediate context and the repeated use of the phrases “the data” and “this data” that I was referring to some very specific intellectual property above and beyond what you have already released.

I even republished your statement that “I have made available all of the research data that I am required to under United States policy as set by the National Science Foundation…. I maintain the right to decline to release any computer codes, which are my intellectual property…” I had hoped that this would stipulate that you have released enough data to satisfy the NSF. However, if you think otherwise, I am willing to clarify the article. Perhaps you would be satisfied by amending the sentence to read, “Mann still has not released enough data to satisfy the skeptics.”

The second piece of evidence that you offer is a journal article that supports the robustness of your claims. My article does not challenge this point. I certainly do not claim to be a climate scientist. While it is easily demonstrated that climate scientists have differing views on the relative robustness of your work, I am a parish pastor and do not claim the ability to enter into that conversation.

The second complaint seems to say that it is provably false that you “did not provide materials requested by the court.” This would, indeed, be significant. Are you asserting that there is absolutely no material that the court requested of you which you did not supply?

Dr. Ball has publicly claimed (and reasserted by personal contact) that “Michael Mann moved for an adjournment of the trial scheduled for February 20, 2017. We had little choice because Canadian courts always grant adjournments before a trial in their belief that an out of court settlement is preferable. We agreed to an adjournment with conditions. The major one was that he [Mann] produce all documents including computer codes by February 20th, 2017. He failed to meet the deadline.” This is the central fact of my article. If this assertion is wrong, I will publicly and humbly retract the entire piece.

I went to press based on my judgement that Dr. Ball would be foolish to publish such a statement if it where false. Additionally, your public rejoinder did not contradict this specific claim.

Because this is so central to the article, I suggested to Mr. Martin that he ask you directly whether you dispute Dr. Ball’s claim. In your response to him, you chose not to directly answer. Instead, you responded “His [Lange’s] claims are demonstrably false and defamatory and I have no interest in providing him any further opportunities to promote them.” But the fundamental question is not about my claims but about Dr. Ball’s claim. So, please clarify for me your answer to Dr. Ball’s statement quoted above.

If there is something false and defamatory in my article, I am not happy to let things stand as they are. I would rather either retract or clarify my article than to allow false information to stand uncorrected.

In sum, I am willing to clarify the extent to which you have already released data. And, if Dr. Ball’s statement is untrue, I stand ready to correct or retract the article. I am even willing to issue an apology for the public record. I have nothing against you, Dr. Mann, and nothing to gain by clinging to even one erroneous statement.

Sdg

Jonathan Lange

________________________

(This was the second time is sent this identical email. The first time was on September 15, 2019 at 3:52 PM. That one had the subject line: "Clarification." The offer still stands.)

WTE: The Manhattan Declaration after ten years

Millions of men, women and children have been robbed by state and federal governments. I am not referring either to taxes or inflation. I am referring to the government’s dereliction of one of its most basic duties: to enforce marriage contracts.

When a woman enters motherhood, (Latin: “matrimony,” French: “marriage”), the physical, psychological and emotional demands of pregnancy and child rearing impact every area of her life. Marriage serves as a legal contract to guarantee her the support of the child’s father both during these affected years and beyond.

When a man enters fatherhood, his life changes as well. Paternity creates a legal and social obligation that is enforceable by law, whether he is married to the mother or not. Marriage seals his obligations to the mother while promising her cooperation in raising the child.

These mutual obligations benefit children most of all. When mother and father are cooperating on a child’s behalf, that child’s “right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” is protected. The greater the cooperation, the more the children benefit. Conversely, uncooperative parents rob children of their birthright.

Families have the right to expect that government will enforce marriage contracts. But so-called “no-fault divorce” laws renege on this basic duty.

Libertarians and libertines urged these laws by claiming that people who want to get a divorce should be free to do so. But almost always, one party doesn’t want the divorce. No-fault divorce laws do not make the government neutral. They put it on the side of whoever values the marriage least.

This is unjust for couples who shouldered the burdens of child-rearing believing their marriage would last for life. Breaking the marriage vow defrauds both the faithful spouse and the children in the home. The government becomes party to fraud when it fails to enforce the contract.

Divorce courts that should support the faithful spouse typically rubber stamp the breakup instead. This leaves the welfare state clumsily to micromanage the broken home. It throws money at the children as if this could compensate for the loss of a parent.

Ten years ago, the late Chuck Colson and others connected the dots between government’s abdication of its duties toward marriage and its parallel abdication of its duty to protect the youngest and most vulnerable people—children, the unborn, and frozen embryos. They also recognized that the more government abandoned families, the more it attacked religious liberty.

Colson decided to do something bold. He asked Drs. Robert George and Timothy George (unrelated) to draft a document that encouraged Christians to defend the vulnerable. Called the Manhattan Declaration, it was released on November 20, 2009. Since then, over a half-million others have signed it. I am one of them.

It is an appeal, to everyone who considers himself a Christian, to recognize that the sacred nature of marriage is no reason to be silent about its secular benefits. Rather, precisely because Christians understand the value of marriage, they have a duty of love to defend all who have been defrauded by a government derelict in its duties.

“Because the sanctity of human life, the dignity of marriage as a union of husband and wife, and the freedom of conscience and religion are foundational principles of justice and the common good,” says the Declaration, “we are compelled by our Christian faith to speak and act in their defense… We pledge to each other, and to our fellow believers, that no power on earth, be it cultural or political, will intimidate us into silence or acquiescence.”

Attempts to intimidate Christians into silence have only increased since these words were written. Radical new laws strip infants of legal defense both before and after birth. A never-ending parade of government-sanctioned indoctrination seems calculated to destroy marriage for generations to come.

To shield these policies from criticism, anti-family forces routinely bludgeon good people with labels meant to intimidate and silence. Anyone who dares to stand for marriage, life and religious freedom is attacked personally, economically and even legally. Since the Manhattan Declaration was released, the ever-increasing shrillness of its detractors testifies to its truth.

Frederica Matthewes-Green wrote in her essay commemorating the Declaration’s release: “[E]very generation faces an issue that draws a line between those who will stand up for what is right, and those who just go along. It’s only the bravest who take a stand, and continue to bear witness even when others mock them and misrepresent them; only the bravest keep standing when, from a worldly perspective, the cause looks lost.”

The challenge of our generation is to defend our neighbors’ lives and marriages in the face of slander, verbal abuse and economic pressure. The Manhattan Declaration invites you to rise to that challenge. It is as relevant today as ten years ago.

Also published in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle on November 22, 2019.