A Debate 'Post-Mortem' By John Kundert
They say forgiveness warms the
heart and cools the sting, and they're right! I thank God for Rusty Miller,
and especially for Mark Roberts. Thanking God for these two brothers might
sound strange in light of all that's transpired, but I really do feel that
way about them! After all, if it had not been for Mr. Miller's ill-informed
article, and Mr. Roberts' unyielding insistence that we debate social nudism,
I might never have experienced this unique form of discourse, and I would
have been the poorer for it.
It seems to me that debating
is an art, a science and, at times, something resembling a street brawl.
It's not for the intellectually lazy, the thin-skinned, the easily-riled
or the faint of heart. Debating is tough, slogging work. It's also a realm
for the gifted, I think, and I remain uncertain whether either I or Mr.
Roberts possess that gift. I suppose that's for you, the reader, to determine.
I want to share some comments
about this debate, and about debating in general some insights discovered;
some behind-the-scenes stories revealed; some further thoughts about my
opponent's more interesting gambits. I hope they'll add some real-life
"depth" to the debate you've just read. I also hope they'll be helpful
to those of you who may one day find yourselves in a similar situation,
facing the crucible of vigorous debate. I'll conclude my comments with
a few thoughts about the whole notion of "Christian" debate.
I'll begin with a frank admission.
I knew from the outset that this debate was not going to result in any
positive utterances from Mr. Roberts about social nudism. Even if by some
miracle I were to succeed in convincing him of certain truths from the
Bible concerning voluntary non-sexual public nakedness, I knew he could
never acknowledge that fact. After all, at his insistence the debate
was to be posted on the Internet for all to see. For any "conservative"
preacher to publicly make a concession to the arguments of a nudist even
if those concessions were Scripturally valid would most certainly result
in immediate termination from their post within the church, and perhaps
even expulsion from their congregation. Such are the "Christian" times
that many of us still live in. When it came to being open to correction
concerning the Biblical truths underpinning Christian nudism, by his own
design Mr. Roberts had placed himself "between a rock and hard place,"
as the saying goes, with no way out except brutal and costly honesty.
As for Mr. Miller, the author
of "Does God Approve Of My Sin" and thus the catalyst behind this debate,
I never did hear from him. Strange. One would think an author would be
the very first to defend his own work. Why did Mr. Roberts have to do it
for him? Odder still was the fact that while Mr. Roberts so vehemently
contended that "lust is the core problem with social nudism," Mr. Miller
never even mentioned it in his article against Christian nudists. How can
that be if it's so critically important to this issue? Perhaps one day
he'll contact me with an explanation.
I must admit that I was totally
unprepared for the intricacies of debate. Unlike Mr. Roberts, a veteran
debater who admitted to having "Been there, done that (many times!)," I
knew virtually nothing about debate, and had never engaged in one. I soon
learned that there was much more to debating than simply agreeing to debate.
A proposition had to be formulated. Definitions needed to be struck. Guidelines
had to be established. Actually, I found the process of negotiating those
guidelines no less frustrating than the debate itself has been. I offer
this one small glimpse into the process to show why.
Mr. Roberts and I had a great
deal of difficulty agreeing upon word limits and the number of exchanges.
I realize now that in my inexperience I was asking for unreasonable word
limits. In fact, I was asking for no word limits! He, on the other hand,
was proposing word limits I felt were just too restrictive. "You can suggest
a large limit like 5000 words," he eventually concluded with finality,
"but we must have limits on every exchange." I finally decided to accept
his 5000 word proposal and shortly thereafter received this rejection:
"My note urged that you can 'suggest a large limit like 5000 words' but
it didn't mean we'd take it!" I was understandably upset. "Then why make
such a suggestion at all?" I wrote back. "Why even suggest 5000 words if
you already knew such a number was unacceptable? You took such umbrage
in [a previous] letter at my suggestion that you were 'playing games' with
me during this process. Is it any wonder that I should feel that way when
you do things like this to me? Is this what acting in the
spirit of Christ means to you?" And so it went. I suppose a smarter man
would have called it quits right there, but I really did want to engage
this brother in dialogue, and I continued to feel led to do just that
come what may.
I'm sure there are many of
you who are probably thinking, "After this kind of abuse, why didn't John
just forgo the idea of debating Mark Roberts and simply ask him again for
plain Christian dialogue that would include straightforward Biblical substantiation
of the accusations of sin made in 'Does God Approve Of My Sin?'" Actually,
Mr. Roberts closed the door on that possibility, too. "If we can't come
to terms here [regarding a debate]," he wrote, "we will post an article
proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that social nudism is wickedness and
a sin. However, we won't be able to go back and forth with you via e-mail
as a result of that article." In other words, "Debate with us or we'll
submit you to more one-sided public criticism and then cut you loose."
So much for the spirit of Galatians 6.1! Shortly after receiving this ultimatum
I decided the debate was more important then disputing over rules. I agreed
to his terms for the sake of expediency and the debate began.
I still remember eagerly
awaiting Mark Roberts' first affirmative. In my novice debater's naivetι
I expected that in it he would carefully state why he believed the Bible
condemned social nudism as sinful, and I in turn would similarly articulate
my position. We would each follow with two carefully crafted rebuttals
and the debate would be done. It would all be so genteel, so civilized,
so refined so Christian. Boy, was I in for a shock!
I thought I had signed up
for a debate and instead I got hit with what seemed like an interrogation.
What was with all those questions, and why did so many of them seem off-topic?
And what about those incessant demands? What were they all about? I was
stunned. Why the acrimony? Why the condescension? Why the ridicule? I thought
I had signed up for "Come now, let us reason together" (Isaiah 1.18) or
"As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another" (Proverbs 27.17).
Instead I felt like I got "Crucify him! Crucify him!" (Luke 23.21). I confess
I was wholly unprepared for such a confrontation by a brother in Christ.
It was days before I could
get my head wrapped around that first article and get some sense of what
to do next. I was learning the hard way, and as I look back now at my first
article it clearly showed. I foolishly used footnotes. I tried to address
way too much of what Mr. Roberts included in his first article, and thus
couldn't do justice to what was really important. And, of course, there
was that invitation for readers to contact me outside the debate. How could
I have written something so stupid? He was absolutely correct for calling
that blunder "outrageous"! Thankfully, though a bit "bruised and bewildered,"
I began to see things a little more clearly after emerging from that first
tangle in my very first debate.
Actually, doing a bit of
reading about debates and debating after our first go-round really helped
clear the fog. I began to learn more about Mr. Roberts' style of debating,
one characterized by a plethora of off-topic questions and insidious demands.
Knowing what I know now, I've come to believe that there was nothing random
or happenstance about this style of debating. I believe his questions and
demands, along with his reaction to much of what I wrote in reply, reflected
a cleverly calculated and shrewdly deployed strategy.
In their book, How To
Debate: A Textbook For Beginners, authors Summers, Whan and Rousse
discuss what they term "time-wasting strategies." These are strategies
"used for the purpose of causing opponents to waste time in a discussion
of trivialities of no particular importance in the debate" (p. 188). Time-wasting
strategies can be lethal because in formal debate time or words are limited
and precious. The rather unspectacular performance in my first article
is a testimony to how effective and distracting time-wasting strategies
can be.
The
question form
of time-wasting strategies is usually the most effective: "If questions
are asked in apparent good faith, they can hardly be ignored; undoubtedly
the same questions have been raised in the minds of your [audience]. But
if time is taken to answer them, your opponents have less time to consider
the really important points at issue in the debate" (How To Debate:
A Textbook For Beginners, p. 190). This ploy is most often used by
debaters when they know their position is weak and they need to do everything
possible to avoid having to discuss the essential point or points in the
proposition. Our proposition was "Social nudism is condemned by the Bible
as sinful." As I saw it, success or failure in the debate would hinge on
the answers to three questions:
2. If the answer to question one is yes, then is this nakedness or naked behavior condemned in the Bible as sinful or not?
3. If the answer to question one is no, then what more universal Biblical principles could be employed to determine if modern social nudism is condemned or allowed by God?
I believed it really was as
straightforward as that. In the debate Mr. Roberts unexpectedly admitted
that behavior which "dramatically parallels," "exactly parallels" and "mirrors
[social nudism] perfectly" was discussed in the Bible. That bit of candor
made his job immeasurably harder and mine easier. When something is actually
discussed in the Bible, one doesn't have to resort to applying Biblical
principles that are not directly related to the matter at hand. One can
go right to the source and settle things quickly. Or at least one would
think so.
Mr. Roberts' discovery that
the Bible talked about but did not directly condemn behavior which
he felt "dramatically parallels," "exactly parallels" and "mirrors [social
nudism] perfectly" was probably a shock for him. I believe that's why he
put so much time and energy into challenging me over what were really side
issues. Instead of "Here's where the Bible talks about nudism and here's
where it's condemned" we got "What about lust?" and "What about stumbling
blocks?" and "What about Christian influence?" In no way do I wish to diminish
the importance of these subjects, but in truth they are simply not at the
heart of the questions which would ultimately determine the outcome of
the debate: Does the Bible talk about social nudism or something like it,
and if so, is it condemned in the Bible as sinful? That's it! It's just
that simple.
Presenting "a detailed burden
of proof...including not only the issues which are vital, but also
points relating to minor details" is another time-wasting strategy talked
about in How To Debate: A Textbook For Beginners. The authors offered
a generic example of this strategy that concluded with these words:
Sound familiar? By peppering
an opponent with incessant demands for absolute proof, especially
as it concerns non-essential or peripheral issues, a debater positions
himself to later proclaim, "Look how Mr. _________ failed to prove _________
beyond a shadow of a doubt," or "Notice how Mr. _________ has failed to
address _________ to the satisfaction of all."
Here's a good example of
one of Mr. Roberts' burden of proof demands. After discussing lust at length,
with particular emphasis on the story of David and Bathsheba, he challenged,
"Can Mr. Kundert guarantee that tomorrow his Bathsheba won't come to the
nudist camp, leading him to adultery and the destruction of his marriage
and soul?" In truth, nudists make up a very tiny minority in society, yet
surveys tell us that adultery is widespread in North America. Clothing
is not the answer to avoiding lust, temptation and sexual misconduct, and
the Bible never makes such a claim. I could easily have countered Mr. Roberts
by asking him to guarantee that tomorrow his
"Bathsheba" (fresh from her bath and clothed, of course) won't come to
his church, leading him to adultery and the destruction of
his
marriage,
but that would have been playing the game by his rules, something I was
loathe to do.
The reality is that no one
is immune from sin, and that includes Mark Roberts and John Kundert. To
attempt to extract a guarantee of sinless behavior from someone before
permitting their participation in an activity not forbidden by God
is a totally unreasonable standard for one Christian to foist upon another.
No one can guarantee sinlessness in a particular area of their life, not
even Mr. Roberts. His call for a such a guarantee reminded me somewhat
of what Paul said a long time ago about a similarly unreasonable demand:
"Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of the disciples
a yoke that neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear?" (Acts 15.10).
So what's the antidote to
time-wasting strategies like Mr. Roberts was employing against me? Simply
stated, don't allow your opponent to lead you in the debate or dictate
its direction. Constantly bring him back to the proposition and the key
issues related to it. Hammer the proposition and those issues home again
and again. Never let up in this regard, and pray that your audience is
intelligent enough to get a sense of what your opponent is up to before
time or words run out.
Another somewhat devious
strategy in debate is to slyly provoke your opponent into making personal
attacks. One book calls attacking your opponent in a personal way "introducing
personalities" (How To Debate by Robert Dunbar): "Calling your opponents
'stupid,' for example, won't win you any points with...the audience" (p.
68). Being on the receiving end of personal attacks can actually be very
helpful in winning the audience to your side through the sheer weight of
sympathy, even in the absence of convincing arguments in support of your
position in the debate.
But what if your opponent
resists the temptation to engage in personal attacks? There are still ways
to make it appear like that's exactly what he's doing. Mr. Roberts'
opening remarks in his second article are a virtual lesson in how this
is done. Even though he had vigorously criticized my views on nudism and
Christian behavior in his first article, when I dared to criticize his
views on the same subjects with no less vigor he characterized what I had
done as "trashing him." In his first article he quoted me several times
and offered his personal analysis of those quotes, yet when I did the same
I was criticized for "putting words [in his] mouth." All of this he characterized
as "unkind writing," perhaps hoping that no one had taken critical notice
of the less-than-charitable tenor of his own performance in the debate.
Of course, any artificial gains of sympathy he may have realized early
on through this ploy were surely lost after the viscous and slanderous
attack he leveled at me in his "Rejoinder."
Before leaving that second
paragraph of Mr. Roberts' second affirmative, I really must comment on
something related to what I've already revealed about how the word limits
were "negotiated" before the debate, and about the ultimatum that was part
of that debacle. "No one forced Kundert to debate," he declared, "or to
agree to the limitations he accepted." Now there's an amazing little statement!
It's true, and yet it's also a complete distortion all at the same time!
A Washington DC "spin doctor" couldn't have done it better! I wonder if
Mark Roberts had a straight face when he wrote those words?
Not unexpected in his second
affirmative were the complaints about me not addressing "this" or answering
"that." Mr. Roberts was in fact reaping the fruit of the time-wasting strategies
he had sown in his first article. Despite being the victim of such cunning
strategies, I nevertheless did feel bad about not being able to address
every single point that he raised. As it turns out, I shouldn't have felt
that way. I've learned that not answering every point is pretty standard
fare in debating. Under the subtopic "Discarding Minor Points," the authors
of The Debater's Guide write:
So then, knowledgeable debate
audiences will actually expect that neither side will cover every point
raised by the other. What they especially look for instead is whether both
sides deal intelligently and convincingly with the main or key issues involved
in affirming or denying the debate proposition.
Being an experienced debater,
I suspect Mr. Roberts was well aware of this practice of discarding minor
or non-essential points in a debate. In fact, he did it himself numerous
times, which makes his severe criticism ring a little hollow. Observant
readers, for example, would have noticed that he failed to address what
I stated about Colossians 2.20-23 in my first article. My challenge for
him to provide credible and substantive evidence to back his claim that
Christian nudists were not living lives beyond legitimate reproach also
went unanswered. And, of course, there was his failure to disclose the
source of the alt.christnet.nudism post that he quoted out of context.
These are just three examples from just one article! What was it again
that Jesus said about casting the first stone?
Surprisingly, I occasionally
found humor in this debate. Really, I did! Sometimes Mr. Roberts wrote
things so amusing or astonishing that I just had to laugh! For instance,
there was his defense of the alt.christnet.nudism post that I mentioned
above. If you recall, this was a quote from a wide-open Internet newsgroup
where anyone could post. I investigated and found that the author of the
post was really like a little honeybee in a big flower bed, visiting this
group and that group, "pollinating" each of them with a few casual comments
before moving on to the next. I discovered that he had visited alt.christnet.nudism
(the only nudism related newsgroup he ever visited) on only one
day during a three year period and had left just four brief messages before
moving on to other groups. In his messages he never identified himself
as a nudist or a Christian. In defending against my criticism of this product
of his "research" Mr. Roberts proclaimed:
Ah, but there's just one little
problem with this defense. In his posts this fellow never gave any indication
that "he goes to nudist camps." So then, here's a guy who never identified
himself as a Christian, who never identified himself as a nudist,
and who never gave any indication that he had ever been to a nudist
camp in his entire life! Despite all this, Mr. Roberts feels the poster's
point still stands!!! Hmmmm!
Imagine what would have happened
if I approached Mr. Roberts with a post from a Christian newsgroup which
claimed that he was preaching heresy at Westside church of Christ. He investigates
the post and discovers that the author is not a Christian, that he's never
visited his church or heard him preach, and that he couldn't tell the difference
between heresy and orthodoxy if it bit him on his toe! After confronting
me with these facts, can you just imagine what Mr. Roberts' reaction
would be if I responded, "Yet the point still stands! You preach heresy
at Westside church of Christ!" His unbridled incredulity would have registered
nine on the Richter scale!
And then there were Mr. Roberts'
categorical declarations that "No one is modest when they
are naked" and that "a lack of modesty" was "indecency." Well I mean, really!
How could I resist taking his ideas to their logical conclusion! In his
third affirmative he sputtered a denial of "Kundert's outrageous charge
that my standards make nakedness in marriage wrong." Actually, I never
said nakedness in marriage was wrong, only immodest and indecent according
to his plainly articulated (and un-retracted) standards,
that is! Some wit once counseled people to be sure their brains were engaged
before putting their mouths in gear. No more sage advice could ever be
given to those involved in formal debate!
I was also amused by the
great umbrage taken by Mr. Roberts whenever I suggested that he had failed
to do his "homework" for the debate. Someone who had little or no prior
knowledge about social nudism may well have read the debate and accepted
his ideas on the subject as authoritative. However, anyone who has actually
experienced social nudism or has given it serious study would
have a real problem finding any representation of
reality in his various pronouncements. God forgive me, almost every time
he talked about his "research" I kept envisioning a little child adamantly
insisting that yes, he had done his arithmetic homework and yes, he had
learned his lesson for the day all the while stubbornly maintaining that
2 + 2 = 5! Anyone can claim to have studied a thing, but questions need
to be asked when the "fruit" of that study bears no resemblance to the
actual truth and substance of that thing.
On a more serious note, I
will admit that perhaps I may have been unfair to Mr. Roberts regarding
his "research." Maybe he really did put some serious time and effort into
studying social nudism. If this is true, however, his inaccurate descriptions
and incorrect conclusions about social nudism raise a serious possibility
that something far worse than ignorance was at play in his portion of the
debate: prejudice (defined here as "an opinion held in disregard
of facts that contradict it" Webster's Dictionary).
Clearly, research means nothing
if one is unwilling to accept the truths one encounters along the way.
It might surprise Mr. Roberts and readers of this debate to know that I
too was very skeptical of the claims made by social nudists
when I first encountered them. The idea of non-arousing, non-lust-provoking
nakedness was utterly foreign to my experience as a member of our clothing
compulsive society. Over and over again in my investigation I discovered
seemingly sincere testimonies from ordinary people regarding the true nature
of non-sexual nakedness. I couldn't at that time believe these claims,
but I knew well that unbelief did not equal untruth. Anyone
now a Christian who remembers what it was like being a stubborn unbeliever
in the face of overwhelming evidence supporting the claims of Christ and
Christianity will understand this important distinction.
In Issue One of Fig Leaf
Forum I listed curiosity as being one of my motivations for first trying
social nudism. I had read the claims of social nudists and though I definitely
found the wholesome description of nudism both intriguing and inviting,
I was still skeptical. I wanted real proof to settle my doubts, and I finally
determined that the proof I needed could only come from first-hand knowledge.
I took the next step and verified through eyewitness observation and personal
experience that the claims made by social nudists about their non-sexual
nakedness were indeed true.
So then, both Mr. Roberts
and I initially encountered seemingly unbelievable claims made by social
nudists, claims that were utterly foreign to our experience as responsible
Christian adults living in a clothed but worldly society. In order to confirm
or dismiss these claims, I mounted a thorough investigation that eventually
culminated in an actual visit to a nudist resort, all the while mindful
that whatever conclusions I might reach must be in accordance with clear
Biblical teaching. My research and my eyewitness observations found social
nudism to be what it claimed to be in all the literature I had previously
encountered.
If Mr. Roberts' assertions
that he has thoroughly researched social nudism are actually true, it's
an inescapable fact that he would have encountered the same kinds of honest,
sincere testimonies in nudist literature that I did and lots of them.
He would have found the same wholesome descriptions of life as a social
nudist, and the same lists of positive benefits afforded by the lifestyle.
If Mr. Roberts' research
was as extensive as it should have been he would also have encountered
totally unbiased descriptions of social nudism written by non-nudists who
investigated the practice and discovered it to be "as advertised." The
Associated Press religion reporter who wrote the newspaper article that
was the basis for Rusty Miller's "Does God Approve Of My Sin?", for instance,
did many interviews and actually visited the gathering of Christian nudists
that was the subject of his piece. There is nothing in his reporting to
indicate that he found social nudism to be anything other than what it
claimed to be.
Another example of unbiased,
fair investigation is found under the term "Nudity" in the New Dictionary
of Christian Ethics and Pastoral Theology from InterVarsity Press.
I know Mr. Roberts read this article because I provided it to him myself
early in our correspondence. Here's a portion:
These Christian authors had
no vested interest in social nudism, one way or the other. They simply
looked for the truth, discovered the truth, and reported the truth.
All this information and
more would have been read by Mr. Roberts if he had, in fact, thoroughly
researched social nudism. Yet in the face of all these
true and verifiable
claims, and in the face of his total inability to locate Scriptural condemnation
for behavior that he himself says "dramatically parallels," "exactly parallels"
and "mirrors [social nudism] perfectly," he concluded in his "Rejoinder"
that "deep forms of perversion are behind social nudism" and warns against
the "ungodliness that is social nudism." Such conclusions are and let
their be no mistake about it opinions held in complete disregard
of verifiable facts that contradict them.
Sadly, I believe ignorance
and/or prejudice played a role in what I view as an especially troubling
dark side to this debate. No, I'm not talking about the venomous personal
attack used by Mr. Roberts to end his part in it. This dark side in fact
has to do with something about nudists that continually seemed to perplex
him. He just couldn't figure out why many of us needed anonymity, why many
of us often complained about being misunderstood, or why many of us were
often distressed over the world's misconceptions about nudism. In reality,
the solution to his perplexity was always close at hand. All he ever needed
to do was look in the mirror. It's people with attitudes and beliefs like
his that cause such concerns in the lives of upstanding social nudists.
As a result of reading what Mr. Roberts has written for this debate, I
wonder how many Christian nudists will avoid broaching the subject with
friends, family or church leadership out of fear that they will encounter
the same kind of self-imposed ignorance, or the same kind of tightly-held
prejudice fueling the same kind of belligerence and bullying in the name
of Christ? Only God knows.
There's lots more I could
discuss in this debate 'post-mortem,' but that will have to suffice. So
much for the great or perhaps, not-so-great debate between Mark Roberts
and John Kundert.
Looking back, it's clear
that I never foresaw how "costly" this debate would prove to be for me.
It was something of a marathon, taking place over a period of more than
eight months. The debate virtually took over my life each time it was my
turn to do the writing. Each article went through countless drafts before
I finally felt that I had done my best. I lost sleep over the debate. I
fretted and I stewed over the debate. But do you know what? I think I also
discovered that I like debating almost as much as I like rebutting critics
in Fig Leaf Forum! I like how it feels to expose ill-conceived arguments
and absurd ideas and replace them with truth. I like showing how so much
of what Christian critics say or think about nudism is found neither in
the Bible nor in real life. I like demonstrating that almost always there's
more than one way to look at something. That is not to say that I'm fond
of the excruciatingly hard work involved in debate, and I certainly don't
like what the process does to me sometimes, but I have to admit that I
do like the feeling of accomplishment I get when the job's done, and done
well. I honestly do.
Have any minds been changed
as a result of this particular debate? Truthfully, I doubt it. I'm reasonably
confident that Mark Roberts still looks at John Kundert (and people like
him) and concludes, "They just don't get it!" And I know for a fact that
John Kundert still looks at Mark Roberts (and people like him) and concludes
"They just don't get it!" Are we back to square one, then? Not by a long
shot! Despite the acrimony, the questionable debate tactics and the blatant
character assassination, truths were discovered here. Truths
were
clarified here. And truths were proclaimed here. Two men's
beliefs about social nudism were placed in the crucible of debate and the
truth emerged. What also emerged and what must not be discounted were
revealing insights into the true character of the two participants. And
finally, much was learned about how to debate, and how not to debate. This
knowledge may prove very useful to me in the future, and perhaps to you,
too. I take satisfaction from all of these things, and many more besides.
How Then Should We Debate?
I'd like to conclude with
a few brief remarks about Christians and debating. What should be the purpose
of Christian debate? Should it be the same as worldly debate? Secular books
about debate universally and quite naturally stress the primacy of
prevailing over your opponent in the end. Can such a mundane goal reflect
the spirit of Christ in Christian debate? Somehow I don't think so. Perhaps
I'm being naive, but I really do think debate among Christians should take
place at a much higher level. Employing devious secular debate tactics
and strategies, incessantly quoting out of context, using unreliable or
irrelevant sources, distorting the truth, engaging in character assassination
all these things might be expected in the modern world of politics, TV
talk shows and supermarket tabloids, but in the realm of "Christian" debate
I believe such things should be greeted by surprise, shock and disgust.
Is it asking too much, I wonder, to expect Christian debate to reflect
higher ideals, like those expressed in Ephesians 4.29-32?
Can Christian debate live up
to such lofty principles? I would like to hope so, though I'll be the first
to admit that neither I nor Mr. Roberts measured up to Ephesians 4.29-32
in our debate, and that saddens me. If either of us should ever debate
again, my prayer is that Christ, truth and compassion will be held in higher
regard than pride and the need to win.
An earlier version of this article was published in Issue 55/56 (May/June,
2000) of Fig Leaf Forum.
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