I started writing this before the mess in Israel. I plan to write about it next. For now, I’ll say…
It is nice to be in a place like Texas, where you don’t hear as much of the moral equivalency nonsense you see in a lot of places, like the one we moved from. It is unfathomable that such wanton violence could be perpetrated on civilians, notably women in children. A lesson on chivalry won’t quite cut it.
But vengeance belongs to the LORD. And thank God that it does, because if it belonged to us, I don’t know that there is a version of justice that can be complete in human terms. I echo the apostle: “Come Lord Jesus.”
I’m having my middle school students read King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table, hoping that it grows on them. Stories of knights kept me interested in school before all the shows and movies of chivalry and honor became popular. A Knight’s Tale was my first favorite. Then came Vikings, a more complex take on knighthood and its worthy opposition in the Viking hordes. Later, Game of Thrones.
Really, any archetype of a hero was good enough. Cowboys, soldiers, superheroes. All of them had a code, some system they followed. I never cared for Hulk or Thor or Ironman. Cap I liked for his desire to uphold American values. I liked Batman because he was ruthlessly violent, but he would not kill anyone. The cowboy code, the soldier’s obsession with honor, always drew me in more than any of their codeless counterparts.
Even in real life the code called to me. I grew to like Chael Sonnen, a UFC fighter who won no championships and talked like a professional wrestler mixed with a cartoon villain. He would say outlandish things, even for a man who makes a living by fist fighting other men in a steel cage. (During the buildup to a fight with a Brazilian fighter, he mocked an opponent who bowed to him. “This guy is not from a bowing culture…You bow in Brazil, they hit you over the head and take your wallet out of your pocket.”)
But he had a code, and it was simple; he did not curse, and he did not back out of fights. He always showed up to the octagon to answer for everything he said.
We live in a world where people with codes are forced to lurk outside the mainstream, crafting their own way through various industries and cultural mores. Yet, people who are widely acknowledged as pretending to have a code are catapulted to stardom. Donald Trump, America First businessman who cannot seem to let the American people move on (read forward) from his whirlwind of half-truths and cult-of-personality politics. Grandpa Joe who pretends to be a grandfather to us all, who cannot muster the kindness to be a grandfather to all of his own grandchildren. Lauren Bobert. Bob Menendez. When a politician advocates a code, it is a safe bet to assume he or she adheres to the opposite.
I am a Christian, and as of about six weeks ago, a former pastor. I mean this quite literally when I say God only knows how many leaders in our faith have been or will be found out for not adhering to the code we put forward. My first job in ministry was plagued by fellow leaders who were found out to not be practicing what they preached. To my shame, myself included.
And then there are the famous ones, especially in recent history. Ravi Zacharias. Johnny Hunt. Carl Lentz. Then there are those that operate in the circles of influencer-dom adjacent to Christianity. Russell Brand and Tim Ballard, to take some recent examples, both innocent until proven guilty.
There is a great scene in King Arthur where Gawain (before the famous story of his triumph over the Green Knight) goes to prove his honor by chasing down another knight who has kidnapped a woman in the midst of King Arthur’s court. He catches the knight, beats him in combat, and looks to end his life in a flurry of anger. The man is beaten and fading, and Gawain has an opportunity to spare him. In his anger, Gawain moves to behead the knight. From the shadows the wife of the defeated, who has been tracking them, dives to cover her husband. Gawain beheads her by accident.
The hero is stricken with incredible shame. He started this adventure to protect the virtue of a maiden and to bring honor to himself and King Arthur’s court. But at this incredible mistake, he has forfeited both the virtue of the maiden and his own honor. He makes an agreement with the defeated knight, loads up the headless body of the innocent, and turns back to King Arthur’s court to embrace the fruits of his shame. His two sins are evident; the willful withholding of mercy, and the accidental killing of a woman. He will not recover.
What bothers me most about the code-breakers is their lack of shame. For most, there is a brazen disregard for their own hypocrisy because they have secured enough cultural capital to prevent any sort of backlash. The age old strategy of denial seems to work, even when the truth is in front of everyone’s eyes.
We are supposed to be the ones keeping them accountable, make no mistake. If our vote matters, then our politicians are accountable to us. If our dollars and eyes matter, then every view and cent we hand to a content creator is ours to withhold, ours to demand a standard in exchange for.
But what happens when those advocating for a code are found to be the most frequent violators? The answer seems obvious: our inner reaction to moral messaging becomes more dramatic, more crystallized.
Those of us who rejected the message are vindicated, shoved further into the camp that stands against. Readers in the Church will remember the early backlash to megachurches like Hillsong. So when their whole mess imploded, the fundamentalists were vindicated, turning evermore into their legalistic and false theology. And those non-Christians who always thought a church like that was all about the money and fame? Well, they are proved right too. On both sides of the message there are those who are driven further into their camp.
If you accepted the message wholesale, perhaps your fate is worse. Consider the old saying attributed to Harriet Tubman, “I have freed a thousand slaves and would have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves.” When a codebreaker reveals himself or herself, we would like to think that there is disillusionment and widespread frustration among the followers. Sometimes there is. Ravi Zacharias proved this amongst a lot of Christians influenced by his teaching. But just as often there is a zealotry that replaces interest. The crowd is again divided. Some fall away, and yet others throw themselves upon the pyre. Didn’t we see this with Trump? And Biden? And Hillary? And Tate? And Lake?
But if you have mixed codes, that is, assimilated the teaching of another with your own half-formed moral system, then what are you left with? I think, in the long run, you are left with a dangerous temptation toward hypocrisy at best, and barbarism at worst. The codebreaker’s hypocrisy comes natural. But what happens when one’s moral message about traditional family values is interlaced with another more insidious message, that a man can take whatever he wants from someone in his household, because he is the “leader”. Well then we are past hypocrisy, and into abuse and violence against the image of God in another. In short, when your moral code is confused, you will inevitably break it from one side or another, and you will possibly break it in the worst way.
Gawain returns home to King Arthur’s court. He presents his deed to Arthur, in all necessary repentance, and is forgiven. He goes on to do honorable deeds, such as his famed wager with the Green Knight, but he can never escape his mistake completely. He twice dishonors himself in his wager with the Green Knight, and would go on to struggle to resist the charms of women in his life. But that day, in King Arthur’s court, his shame carried him.
In his repentance, King Arthur allows for a new code to come forth. We call it chivalry. It is very simply put. Here is what Arthur decreed to his knights, in full:
“…do not ever depart from the high virtues of this realm. Do no outrage nor murder nor any cruel or wicked thing; fly from treason and all untruthfulness and dishonest dealing; give mercy unto those that seek it – or sit no more at this Table. And always give all help in your power to ladies and damsels, go out and succor gentlewomen and widows, turn from all else to right any wrong done to any woman in the world – and never, on pain of death and eternal disgrace, do you any ill thing to a woman, or suffer it to be done. Nor, for love or gain, fight in any quarrel that is not just and righteous.”
Gawain’s folly, the accidental slaying of an innocent woman, is the pretext for his incredible shame. His shame is so palpable in King Arthur’s court, so tangible, that it leads to the establishment of a new world order. The Code of Chivalry governs the conduct of all knights everywhere from that day forward.
But do not miss the point. If Gawain is not ashamed of his actions when he returns, Chivalry does not become the governing code of conduct, at least in this version of the narrative. If he hides his crime or justifies it, chivalry does not arise. One man’s shame leads to the reinvention of honor, the reestablishment of it as the chief guiding principle of knighthood.
I am reminded a phrase from the New Testament. “Godly sorrow leads to repentance.” Shame is a coopted word, usually meaning a negative idea of one’s self worth. But shame over wrong done to someone else? Over sin? Over hypocrisy? Isn’t this what is meant by Godly sorrow?
Maybe the reason why we do not see the changes we want in our politics, in our churches, in our culture, is the lack of shame in those who willfully violate the codes we all abide by. If shame over our sin is really Godly sorrow, and that sorrow leads to repentance, then our leaders need more shame, and maybe we do too.
Repentance is top to bottom change, to uproot one’s habits and desires and turn from them toward something greater. Shame on the codebreakers. Shame on the hypocrites. Shame on us for letting them do it.
And after the shame, repentance and change. Somewhere in the turning, there may be life.
Enjoyed it as always. Challenging to think through, particularly with similar experiences…
On another note, do you know the poet Malcolm Guite? He’s finishing up an Arthurian Epic, this made me want to dive into Arthur tales.