The Express

My family and I sat down Friday night to watch our weekly movie. This weeks pick was the Elmira Express, a movie about the first black American football player to win the Heisman Trophy. It got a thumbs up from all us. I was particularly touched by one of the first scenes in the movies which involved a situation that we would all do well to contemplate more. When all the colleges come calling to court this young player to their schools they are all talking about what they can offer him but the grandfather looks one of the coaches in his eye and asks him what kind of a man he is. His grandson is going to be learning under him, listening to him, asking him for advice. What type of a man is he and should he want his grandson being influenced by him. We would all do well to consider that question in the lives of our children! How many of us simply turn our children over to someone we don't know and give them the responsibility for their character formation without ever considering what type of a person they are! Youth groups, sports, friends, other parents, daycare, school teachers and numerous other situations where our children spend inordinate amounts of time with people whose character is unproven.


Schoolteachers used to be vetted on their character. They were required to attend church, not date and have unquestionable morals. Now we separate their character out as if it is irrelevant to the process of education when in reality it is the cornerstone of the education. A teacher who is an atheist will react to every situation differently than a teacher who has a Christian worldview. Is the coach there as a mentor to encourage Christian value or is he out to win and is willing to sacrifice the child's health and mental well being to achieve it. When that person is sought out for advice in life's drama's what will they tell your child? When there is a conflict in the classroom or on the sports field how will it be handled? These life experience accumulate and add up to form our children's character. Character is not formed in a vacuum. It is a daily accumulation of situations and teaching that build upon each other. Who is your child spending time with?

Situational ethics in real life

I spent the day outside yesterday raking and cleaning out flower beds. At one point the neighbor man stopped by and chatted for a few minutes. During this conversation he mentioned our apple trees and how loaded they had been. I shared that we had canned applesauce, pie filling, and dehydrated over 300 pounds of apples. He smiled and as calm as you please he mentioned that he had taken some of our apples. He didn't figure that we would mind because we had so much. He didn't figure that we would miss them. What does one say when your neighbor informs you without remorse that he has stolen from you and thinks it was perfectly okay because, well you had so much. This man came onto our property, and took apples out of trees that we own. Our neighbor did not ask our permission nor by his own admission did he see anything wrong with what he had done.

In sharing this story with people I have come to discover that people are completely disconnected from the concept of food production as a means to provide food for a family. We live in town and every year increase the amount of food that we produce to provide for our family on our lot. It is not a hobby to us. It is a serious undertaking to provide healthy food for our own family. All of which is actually irrelevant. The entire point could and should stand on ownership. The apples belong to us. PERIOD.

This is a perfect example of situational ethics which by definition is a system of ethics that evaluates acts in light of their situational context rather than by the application of moral absolutes. One lady told us a story of how she was walking down a sidewalk and she saw several large red tomatoes hanging over a fence. They were virtually over ripe and about to fall off so she took one. She did not understand why the person who owned the tomato plant felt she had done anything wrong. He hadn't harvested the tomato's yet and the plant had grown over the fence. Another example of this in news lately was a comment made by our now presidential elect when he said that it was not wrong to steal food if you were hungry.

It would be fun to go out into the world and actually try to apply this in real life. For instance I wanted to buy a hot dog with cheese at a local craft show but I had limited cash and alas was a quarter short to add the cheese to my dog. They have so much cheese, I have no cheese, therefore I should be able to just take the cheese. They did not think so. What if I had just reached over and taken a piece of cheese. Following my neighbors logic, I was hungry, I had no cheese, they had more than they would need so there was nothing wrong with me helping myself to the bounty. Can you imagine what Walmart would think if their customers used that logic when attempting to get items that they felt they needed.

Really, what is the world coming to? Stealing used to be stealing. A basic underpinning of a Christian culture that is now in demise and the world is all the uglier for it.