INTRODUCTION
“Young men wanted. Must be willing to hoist the Jolly Roger and Johnny Cash’s favorite finger whenever faced with idolatry.” If you haven’t seen these words at least a dozen times within the past week, then you’re probably not on Reformed social media. They are found in an ad for New Saint Andrews college, briefly accompanied by the famous photo of Johnny Cash brandishing a stout middle finger. The drag queen tableau from the recent Paris Olympics is then exhibited as a case-in-point for idolatry.
In a response to the controversy that followed, Doug Wilson said:
“There were not a few critics who are friends of the college, who like what we do, who loved the rest of the ad, but who also thought that this nano-second was a juvenile distraction and not worth it. With all such, we are happy to discuss, and we only hope that their beards grow ever more luxuriant.”
Thank you, sir. That is exactly the conversation I’m here for.
OUT OF HIS MOUTH GO BURNING LIGHTS
Proverbs 26:4
Do not answer a fool according to his folly,
Lest you also be like him.
Some have argued against the ad by reason of political correctness. The middle finger means a bad word, they say, and Ephesians 4:29 forbids corrupt speech. But if you ask them what constitutes “corrupt speech,” they’ll say something that translates to “whatever words people agree to get offended by.” The conversation will take a similar form if you ask them what constitutes “that which is edifying.” They will pull from their true moral standard for how to govern our mouths: “Out of the eater, something sweet.”
By the way, they’re offended by the words “definition” and “context,” so don’t even ask. And this, of course, is where the standard becomes hypocritical: it’s never about what is being communicated, but how much badness has been assigned to one word over another. You may freely blaspheme the name of the Lord Jesus Christ on live TV, but if you say the wrong word for “poop,” you’ve crossed the line. This should be enough to tell Christians that political correctness has no seat at this table.
Conversely, some have argued for the ad on the grounds of the imprecatory Psalms and, of course, that good ol’ trusty verse in Ezekiel about equine inches and ounces. To them, true Christian liberty would be living in a world where they could utter any irreverence, any slur, or any pornographic joke, and all God’s people said, “based.” And if you don’t like that, well, you’re just a legalist and you’d better never read Ezekiel!
But by Biblical standards, words do matter; and the middle finger stands for a word. Because the minefield is still smoking and our ears are still ringing, I will refrain from quoting the word, even in reference. But come on. We all know what it is, and we all know it’s a derogatory sexual term. Some will contend that that it’s not anymore, because it has evolved into an all-purpose expression of contempt. But it isn’t a word that had dirty origins hundreds of years ago that have since drifted into obscurity. We live in a generation that still frequently and salaciously uses it in its original form.
Even if it were nothing more than a filler curse that could mean whatever you please, it would still be a meaningless word. An idle word uttered with passion is just passionately idle. So don’t meet idolatry with idleness. But the worse reality is that such abuses of the word participate in the world’s treatment of what it means. Your indignation over the drag queens at the Paris Olympics may be righteous, but don’t confront them with words that stand in the path of their degeneracy. This is the world’s way of cursing, not the Bible’s.
And yes, there is a Biblical way to curse. Notice I didn’t say “cuss,” the casual corruption of “curse.” A Biblical curse is a pronouncement of condemnation, such as Jesus saying “woe to you” or Paul saying “anathema.” Some will protest that we are not Jesus or Paul, an astute observation. But we are called to imitate both, and someone who cannot give wholehearted condemnation should not be trusted to give wholehearted praise.
The moment in the ad very well meets the criterion of a fitting occasion; and had it said “to Hell with idolatry” or “idolatry be damned,” it would have had full Biblical precedent. For that matter, the ghastly sexual analogy in Ezekiel carries meaning that points to idolatry’s affront against the Almighty. But the gesture of earthly disapproval in the ad falls far short of this. In this sense, rather than going too far, it didn’t go far enough, because it could not be backed by the authority of Scripture.
Proverbs 26:5
Answer a fool according to his folly,
Lest he be wise in his own eyes.
ONE FOR THE WARDEN
There’s another word that needs to be addressed, and that word is “favorite.” The discussion among leadership since the ad’s release has continued to refer to the gesture as “Johnny Cash’s favorite finger,” but this misrepresents the Man in Black.
In 1969, Johnny Cash was a novice to the Christian faith and barely recovered from his drug addiction. When asked to do a photo for the warden at the San Quentin Prison, he let his passion for prison reform get a little extreme. The photo was barely seen by anyone until almost 30 years later, when Rick Rubin circulated it in response to the people who had dismissed Cash’s career.
Bill Miller, a close friend of Cash and the curator of the Johnny Cash museum in Nashville, made the following statement about the photo in question. Citation can be found at the end of the article and in the video description.
“He didn’t like that picture even though the estate licensed it. He told me he didn’t like it, so out of respect, that picture won’t be in here.”
~ Bill Miller
It is well-known that Johnny Cash was a Christian who openly confessed his ongoing downfalls. Could it be that the reason he didn’t like the photo had something to do with his faith? In any case, a Christian college should know better, both in terms of research and integrity, than to put that photo to such a use.
SHIPPING UP TO MOSCOW
No matter what position I take, some camps on social media will get hot under the collar. If I make any critiques whatsoever, I’m going to get called a “limp-wristed white knight” or other regurgitative rhetoric by theobros who heard it on podcasts they listen to for the wrong reasons. If I make any attempt to be understanding or give benefit of the doubt, I may wake up tomorrow morning to find there’s a Facebook page “examining” me and everyone who’s ever shaken my hand. So I may as well go big.
To my brothers at New Saint Andrews College: I do not believe you should scrap the ad in its entirety, nor do I believe you should apologize for treating spiritual warfare as warfare. I know you had good intentions behind this tactic. But, as I’m sure you’d remind us if the issue of pronouns came up, definitions cannot be ignored; and intentions do not change this.
You’ve appealed to the image’s brevity on multiple occasions, pointing out that critics with precise screenshot skills have circulated it far wider than you have. You’re not wrong about this. But your sister institution, Canon Press, highlighted the line in text when it reshared the post. So some additional responsibility lies here for drawing extra attention to it.
My sensibility to both sides is not an attempt to meet in the middle (no pun intended) or to end this discourse on a position of neutrality. I’ve known where I stand from the start, and I care enough about you and your work to make this clear. You don’t want young men to become the next Mark Driscoll. I realize you are not accountable to every stranger on social media; but you have an abundance of counselors in the Reformed community that are of one mind on this (Proverbs 27:9, Philippians 2:2). I encourage you to revise the ad and apologize for this particular indiscretion. It was badly done, Emma. Badly done indeed.