The Poetry of a Murderer

Most of us, I'm guessing, know about the logical fallacy known as ad hominem. Ad hominem is Latin for "to the man." According to Wikipedia an ad hominem "is an attempt to negate the truth of a claim by pointing out a negative characteristic or belief of the person supporting it." Basically, in an ad hominem you try to discount the message by attacking the messenger. On strictly logical grounds an ad hominem is a fallacy. That is, there is no logical connection between the content of a message and, say, the virtue or intelligence of the messenger. Flawed messengers can speak the truth. Consequently, each "message" (i.e., argument) should be treated on its own terms.

However, Wikipedia goes on to note that there are situations when what we know about the messenger is relevant to our assessment of the message. As Wikipedia says, an ad hominem "is not always fallacious; in some instances, questions of personal conduct, character, motives, etc., are legitimate and relevant to the issue."

For example, the other day I heard someone make a comment about the Presidency of Bill Clinton, dismissing his leadership because of his extramarital affairs. For many Christians Bill Clinton's moral failings cast a pall over anything good he might have done in office.

And here's the deal, moral failings are relevant data when it comes to leadership. But how relevant are various failings to those seeking elected office? Is any mistake in the past automatically disqualifying? Where's the line? How far back do we go?

What is legitimate data about character and what is voyeuristic mudslinging?

More, when do we forgive and allow people to move forward? I was thinking about this the other day after reading about Robert Downey Jr., during an awards ceremony, asking his industry to forgive Mel Gibson and allow him to work. You'll recall that Downey, due to his drug troubles, had to make his own way back into favor. Downey, now a forgiven industry darling, was asking the powers that be, in light of Gibson's drunken anti-Semitic rantings, to extend the forgiveness he had found to Gibson, his ostracized friend.

I bring up these ruminations about ad hominem because I'm always struck, when reading the psalms, that these are the poems of a murderer. More, a murderer and an adulterer. And I can't help but wonder, if King/President/Senator/Mega-Church Pastor/Movie Star...you name it...David were around today if we'd hold his poems and praise songs in such high esteem. I very much doubt it. I expect that we'd make an ad hominem appeal and shun the psalms. This would seem to be one of those cases where the moral character of the messenger is relevant to the message.

From time to time you do hear preachers point out that David's story is a story of forgiveness. We pause to feel amazed that, given the evil David had done, he's still described as a man after God's own heart. But such sentiments, as I've heard them, seem a bit too easy to me. Emotionally speaking, I think we are missing the scandal of the psalms. Would we, for instance, sing praise songs written by a known murderer and adulterer? I doubt it. So what makes the psalms any different? I think it's a willful act of forgetting and pretending on our part.

This is what I think is going on. I think we don't want to confront the moral scandal of the psalms. Why? Because if we really, truly confronted the scandal of the psalms we'd have to start taking a hard look at the ways we refuse to forgive those around us. It's pretty hard to take a swipe at, say, Bill Clinton, when you're singing the songs of a murderer on Sunday morning.

We shouldn't gloss, emotionally, over what David did. We should struggle to forgive David. We need to keep the scandal of the psalms--as a witness to the scandal of grace--firmly in view. For only then will the poetry of a murderer turn, at last, into the true poetry of praise.