Superhuman Speed

One of my former students at the University of Arkansas, Tyson Gay, is currently the fastest man in the world in 2007. He recently ran the 100-meter dash in 9.84 seconds into a headwind.

Not only is this the fastest time in the 100-meter dash by anyone in the world this year, it ranks as the second-fastest time ever run into a headwind. The fastest time ever run into a headwind was by Maurice Green in 2001 when he ran a 9.82 into a headwind of 0.45 mph. Tyson ran his into a wind of 1.12 mph.

Tyson took my Western Civ II class in the spring of 2005. I gave the class the assignment of reading the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, in order to illustrate the Romantic time period. One of the interesting aspects of the novel is the way that Shelley actually portrays her monster, in contrast to the way the monster is perceived in popular culture. In our class discussion we talked about the monster’s characteristics. Tyson raised his hand; the thing which stuck out in his mind, naturally enough, was how fast the monster was:

“As I said this, I suddenly beheld the figure of a man, at some distance, advancing towards me with superhuman speed. He bounded over the crevices in the ice, among which I had walked with caution; …” (Frankenstein, Chapter 10)

Tyson Gay knows a thing or two about speed himself.

If Christians Were Like Christ

Ronald Sider, in his 2004 book The Scandal Of The Evangelical Conscience, writes that “evangelical” Christians are about as likely as the population at large to view porn, have sex outside of marriage, exhibit racism, get divorced, and abuse their wives. Sadly, Jesus can still say, as he did in the days of old, “This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far away from me.” (Mark 7.6)

The word Christian carries the name Christ embedded in it. Peter said that Christ “suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in his steps.” (1 Peter 2.21) How might things be different today, if Christians behaved more like Christ, and less like themselves?

What if Christians actually led lives of moral purity? Peter says in 1 Peter 2.22 that Jesus “committed no sin, nor was any deceit found in His mouth.” What if there were no more public scandals involving famous evangelists?

What if Christians, instead of dealing in gossip and obscenity, actually let their “speech always be with grace, as though seasoned with salt”? (Colossians 4.6) If gracious words fell from our lips, as they did from Christ’s, would not the world also speak well of us, and wonder? (Luke 4.22)

What if Christians actually placed no faith in earthly things? Jesus once told a rich young ruler to sell all that he had and to give to the poor. We try to rationalize away this scripture, forgetting that Christ himself was homeless and owned only the clothes on his back. What if we cared little for material possessions?

What if Christians actually turned the other cheek? This is another commandment we like to soften. But Peter says of Jesus that, “while being reviled, He did not revile in return; while suffering, He uttered no threats.” (1 Peter 2.23)

What if Christians had the same burning sense of urgency that their Lord possessed? “We must work the works of him who sent Me as long as it is day;” Jesus once said; “night is coming when no one can work.” (John 9.4)

What if Christians actually went about doing good? What if they spent the night in prayer? What if they actually told the truth, no matter the personal consequences? What if they were so familiar with scripture they could recall passages to help them fight daily battles? What if they reached out to the desperate?

Mahatma Gandhi once said, “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike Christ.” But what if Christians really were like Christ?

When Freemen Shall Stand

Sixty three years ago today, some of the finest young men that the democracies of Britain, Canada and the United States have ever produced were hurled against Adolf Hitler’s vaunted Atlantic Wall on the northern coast of France.

They did so at awful cost. On Omaha Beach (one of five landing sites) Americans lost 2,000 casualties that sixth day of June, in 1944. Casualties in the opening wave at Omaha Beach were especially appalling.

Many of the Americans killed that day and on days to come are buried in the American cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer, on a cliff overlooking Omaha Beach. (The French government has turned the cemetery grounds into sovereign American territory, proof that the French are not as ungrateful as we sometimes suppose.)

A bronze statue representing the “Spirit of American Youth” stands guard over the 9,387 dead Americans, whose graves face westward to the country they left to defend but would never see again. In the unfamiliar fourth verse of the Star-Spangled Banner, Francis Scott Key speaks of occasions “when freemen shall stand between their loved home and the war's desolation.” That is what happened that deadly morning.

But it was not just for their own loved homes that these men of D-Day spilled their blood. Europe had fallen into "the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister … by the lights of perverted science," to borrow words from Churchill. That the Nazis had brought about a new Dark Age is undeniable; it is estimated that they murdered as many as 6 million Jews and as many as 5 million non-Jews. Such evil had to be stopped.

One of the most dramatic moments of the invasion came at Ponte du Hoc, when members of the 2nd Ranger Battalion scaled cliffs a hundred feet high to seek and destroy powerful German artillery pieces. Forty years later, President Ronald Reagan commemorated the event with a speech in which he said:

Behind me is a memorial that symbolizes the Ranger daggers that were thrust into the top of these cliffs. And before me are the men who put them there. These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc. These are the men who took the cliffs. These are the champions who helped free a continent. These are the heroes who helped end a war.

Gentlemen, I look at you and I think of the words of Stephen Spender’s poem. You are men who in your “lives fought for life ... and left the vivid air signed with your honor.”

It is now 23 years since Reagan spoke those words and 63 years since the boys of Pointe du Hoc and their thousands of comrades stormed ashore and delivered a continent. We are left with the reminder that overcoming evil will always require the blood of good men.