Thursday, May 15, 2025

Part I

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Pete Rose Removed from ‘Permanently Ineligible’ List for Major League Baseball. Hall of Fame Next? Commissioner’s Recent Statement Raises Big Moral Questions

Sometimes big worldview and moral issues explode just basically out of nowhere affecting all dimensions of life. No dimension of life Christians understand is immune from this kind of development. Even something as everyday as baseball can all of a sudden become a major moral question. That certainly became true this week when the Commissioner of Baseball, Robert D. Manfred Jr., released a considerable statement in the form of a letter to attorneys for the family of Pete Rose, basically saying that the Commissioner of Baseball was washing his hands of the situation about whether or not Pete Rose should be, for example, put into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Now, that’s not exactly what this letter addresses, but that is exactly what this letter addresses. So what’s the background here?

Well, the background has to do with the fact that when it comes to sin, even Major League Baseball recognizes some sins. Now, let’s just say that the sins that are of concern to Major League Baseball are not so much the sins of the flesh. Not so much disobedience to parents, not so much, wll, you can just go down the list. They’re very much about gambling, and at least that has been historically the case because there have been some massive scandals having to do with gambling that threaten the very existence of baseball as any kind of enterprise, any kind of respectable organization, any kind of respectable business. And so early in the 20th century, there was an extreme crisis over the issue of gambling, and baseball basically reconstituted itself on the other side by putting up a barrier to persons inside the sport.

In particular, you could say even the owners of the teams, but more crucially, the managers of the teams, people who worked in the organizations, and specifically the players could not be involved in any kind of gambling that might compromise the sport of baseball. This has come up again and again. And by the way, it’s come up again and again with other moral issues. So for example, when it comes to the sins of the flesh, well, Major League Baseball does seem to have a concern with, say, pharmaceuticals, performance-enhancing drugs. This has been a part of the scandal even in more recent decades. But the big issue with Pete Rose was gambling. And that’s not to say Pete Rose wasn’t involved in several other dimensions that would raise moral concerns, but when it comes to the moral concerns of Major League Baseball, well, the big issue is gambling. And he got into gambling in a big way.

Even people who didn’t love baseball knew of Pete Rose, and by any normal standard he would have been a shoo-in for the Hall of Fame and to have been honored by the sport that he represented for so long. But instead he died in dishonor. And the big question is, what now? And from a Christian perspective, these are some interesting questions. For example, Pete Rose was the recipient of a lifetime ban from baseball. And so who defines lifetime ban? Well, you would think that it was pretty straightforward. But on the other hand, the letter that came from the Commissioner of Baseball earlier this week redefines lifetime ban. Listen to this, “The phrase ‘lifetime ban’ has often been used to describe the punishment agreed to by Mr. Rose and the Office of the Commissioner. However, the use of that phrase is not accurate. Instead, the accurate language was permanently ineligible.”

He goes on to say, “Lifetime ban, well, that would presumably, we might say just off the letter, that might be limited to one’s lifetime. But the question is permanently ineligible, as a list referenced in baseball’s now famous Rule 21.” The commissioner went on to say, “In my view, a determination must be made regarding how the phrase permanently ineligible should be interpreted in light of the purposes and policies behind Rule 21.” He said, “In my decision on Mr. Rose’s last request for reinstatement, I set forth the following standard for deciding that request.” He’s quoting himself. “I, as Commissioner of Baseball, must determine the risk that Mr. Rose will commit a violation of Major League Baseball’s rules, most significantly Rule 21, following his reinstatement that might impact the integrity of the game.”

So this letter indicates that the Commissioner is saying, “Look, while Pete Rose was alive, the last time he made this request it was turned down because in the discretion of the Commissioner he still represented a threat to the integrity of baseball.” But now Pete Rose is dead, so does permanently ineligible refer to Pete Rose dead? Well, the word permanently would seem to indicate so. But Mr. Manfred is clearly saying that he is, well, on the one hand, acknowledging that there are problems with this definition, and in another sense, I’m just going to say he’s washing his hands of this. He went on to say, and I quote, “Obviously, a person no longer with us cannot represent a threat to the integrity of the game. Moreover,” he continues, “it is hard to conceive of a penalty that has more deterrent effect than one that lasts a lifetime with no reprieve.”

Well, I’ll just say I think actually it’s quite easy to imagine a more significant penalty, and that would be a permanent, as in permanent statement of ineligibility when it comes to such an honor. I think, of course, the big issue here being made by proponents for Pete Rose being taken off that list is, look, he’s dead and so he’s no risk to baseball now. But the argument on the other side is permanent means permanent, and nothing has changed about the offense that Pete Rose committed, an atrocious offense, not only against the rules but against any basic understanding of morality when it comes to the essence of the game. 

But on the other side, people are arguing, look, Pete Rose is dead. He wasn’t honored during his lifetime, but this is about the sport and there is no question that Pete Rose had an historic role of incredible achievement in the sport of baseball. And so even though they’re not using these words, they’re basically saying, for the good of baseball, Pete Rose should be taken off the permanently ineligible list such that he can be honored with such recognitions as the Hall of Fame.

But the Commissioner does come down with a decisive statement, at least in terms of his responsibility. He said, “Therefore, I have concluded that permanent ineligibility ends upon the passing of the disciplined individual. Mr. Rose will be removed from the permanently ineligible list.” Very interesting. So it looked like he was going to avoid making a decision, but then he ends up making a decision and that is deciding that permanently doesn’t mean permanently. It just means so long as the censured person is alive. Now, one of the obvious ramifications of this is that the judgment will not be limited to Pete Rose. If this is establishing a rule or an interpretation of the rule, then there are a lot of people who were rendered ineligible in times past who conceivably are no longer ineligible. So it could be a very interesting process in terms of the historical reckoning with baseball.

My point in raising all of this is, this is really interesting, and I think from a Christian perspective it’s very interesting to note that I think everyone sees this as a moral issue. The people who are arguing for Pete Rose to be in the Hall of Fame, they think they’re making a moral argument. It is about achievement, and he met and exceeded standards of that achievement. People, on the other hand, who are against even removing him from the permanently ineligible list, much less honoring him in the Baseball Hall of fame, they’re making the argument, look, morality matters and the fact is that what Pete Rose represents is not what we want to honor in a Hall of Fame. The Commissioner concluded his letter by writing, “In closing, I want to emphasize that it is not part of my authority or responsibility to express any view concerning Mr. Rose’s consideration or possible election to the Hall of Fame.”

And he goes on to refer to Bart Giamatti, former Commissioner, by saying that, that decision lies with the Hall of Fame alone. I think the eventual impact of this decision is going to be that Pete Rose will probably be in the Baseball Hall of Fame, at least I say probably because that is a matter that has to be voted on by those who have such responsibility. But it is a fascinating moral question, and those who make this decision are going to have to live with the consequences. But it is also interesting to note how the entire problem of gambling has now exploded such that some of the very sports that said they wanted to have nothing to do with it are now quite deeply and directly involved in it. And in that sense, the Christian perspective tells us that it is just a matter of time, just a matter of time, until the next massive gambling scandal in that sport or in any sport that participates so much in gambling. The reality is that’s most of them these days, and so get ready for an avalanche of scandals.

Part II

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Russia’s New ‘Frankenstein’ Missile: Russia’s Latest Missile is Sign of the Times, and Things to Come

Next, I want to shift to the fact that there’s so many headlines, appropriately so, necessarily so, about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and now the war between Ukraine and Russia. And a couple of very interesting things. Number one, at least one report coming out after the death of Pope Francis indicated that he had said he had a secret plan or secret negotiations to end the war. Well, that didn’t happen. But it’s also interesting to note that the current President of the United States, Donald Trump, when he was running for election to this second term in 2024, he indicated that he believed he would have been able to avoid this war in the first place, Russia wouldn’t have invaded Ukraine, or that he would be able once elected to bring about a successful conclusion negotiation to the end of the war.

It appears that the President is very frustrated about that process and it is also interesting that his frustration has now seemed to shift from the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to the Russian President Vladimir Putin. And so the President has even said that he’s not sure that Putin’s not basically toying with him. But as much as that’s fascinating to watch, there are a couple of other developments that ought to have our attention. And one of them, for example, is what was reported on in the British press just in recent days. The headline is “Russia’s New Frankenstein Missile is Terrorizing Ukraine.” All right, very interesting developments in this war and it’s a reminder to us that the crucible of war, particularly a protracted war, reveals things we otherwise wouldn’t see. And I can guarantee you that armies and national security leaders all around the world are paying very close attention to what’s going on in the struggle between Ukraine and Russia. And there are huge developments here.

For instance, this headline is just one of them, a new Frankenstein missile that Russia is using to terrorize Ukraine. Okay, we think about such things as the tariff war that is now going on between the United States and other countries, and you could put China at the top of that list, and interesting developments in recent days. That’s not my main concern. My main concern is that, that debate illuminated some basic facts for a lot of Americans who otherwise wouldn’t ever have thought of them in terms of say, what are the moral consequences of buying something cheap from China rather than made in the USA? All kinds of complicated factors behind that, but at least the issue was put on the table. And, of course, that controversy continues. But a similar thing is going on right now, for example, in this article, because this new Russian missile described here as a Frankenstein weapon that is now terrorizing Ukraine, Ukrainian authorities have indicated that it has been used on attacks in Kyiv as well as other cities causing considerable damage.

It is actually called the Banderol, or the S8000. It’s translated as small parcel in English, and it’s described “as a lightweight, low cost small cruise missile that reaches speeds of 400 miles an hour and can hit targets more than 300 miles away.” Okay, you can see one of the developments made very visible here. On the other side, what you’ve had coming from Ukraine is an unprecedented use of drones, and that includes some drones that in another context would be described as toys or hobbyist projects. These drones are now being used not only for intelligence, but also for warfare. Some of these have been weaponized in a way that frankly has caught the Russians off guard, but has also caught the attention of just about every other government, and we have to fear at the same time just about every terrorist group around the world.

But when it comes to this new Frankenstein missile, the Banderol, the small parcel of this cruise missile, there are a couple of things in here that are absolutely shocking. And I think most Americans and most Christians aren’t thinking about these kinds of things at all. For example, the article in the Telegraph is suggesting that Russia has been able to build this new, very deadly but inexpensive cruise missile, going around all kinds of restrictions and embargoes that have been put on Russia from being able to obtain these kinds of weapons. So rather than obtain the weapon, they’re obtaining the parts and the parts are coming from a disparate group of nations, including, by the way, the United States. According to the Telegraph, more than 20 key components are coming from 30 companies located in places like the United States, Switzerland, Japan, Australia, and South Korea.

Okay, so one of the interesting things about this missile is its jet engine. Its jet engine is absolutely deadly. It is the SW800 Pro Jet Engine. It is built by a Chinese company and, I didn’t have any clue about this, it’s available online. You too can go online and buy this jet engine for in the British currency about 12,000 pounds. Well, you can say that roughly equivalent that means just several thousand U.S. dollars. You too can buy such a jet engine evidently online. Okay, folks, this tells us we’re living in a brave new world that quite honestly is bringing surprises just about every day. And one of them is that evidently you too can go on the internet, and I’m not going to tell you how, and try to put together all of these pieces you can get from several different countries, most of them available openly and online. And the next thing you know, you too can create a very deadly cruise missile.

Now, obviously, just having the parts is not going to solve the problem, and some of the parts are not available, we are told, through readily available supply chains. On the other hand, the reality is that Russia was able to go around existing sanctions in order to buy this equipment. So that’s a pretty good signal, as Western intelligence organizations are acknowledging, that just about evidently anyone with enough money could do the same. According to the telegraph, “The Banderol reportedly contains a U.S.-made motion tracking device, a microcontroller from Switzerland, an Australia-built information exchange model, a battery pack from Japan, and a South Korean servo drive. Add an online available Chinese jet engine, and you’ve got a cruise missile.” It’s just a fact of history, and Christians should take note of this, that when it comes to a lot of developments including technological developments, war is one of the most crucial incentivizers.

And so you certainly see this. You saw this in World War One and you saw this in World War Two. Let’s just say at one point you had a shift from coal-fueled naval vessels to diesel-fueled naval vessels and eventually to nuclear-fueled naval vessels. And when it comes to aircraft, the changes were perhaps even faster and more dramatic and also when it comes to missiles and other armaments. The sad thing here is that evidently most of these things are now available out in the world. And that just reminds us also that it is one thing to worry about nation-states, it’s another thing to worry about other dangers that come not from recognized nation-states, but from other groups intent on, let’s just say, proving their own point all around the world or just making headlines.

Part III

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The Prophet of Soft Power: Influential Political Scientist and National Security Official Joseph Nye, Dies at 88

All right, now let’s shift to something else just in terms of our understanding of the world. What does power mean in the world context? Well, we’re talking about war so power certainly has to do with military power. 

Let’s just say that I think if you’re talking about great power struggles, the most important thing, the most high-priority thing people are going to think of is armies, air forces, bombs, nuclear power, nuclear weapons, and all the rest. I think people are going to look at power in that sense. But it is also true that on the global stage you have to talk about economic power, and so when you’re talking about economic and financial power, you’re talking about the fact that eventually, well, the military power and the financial power are tied together. Military power and monetary power, they’re eventually tied together. By the way, one of the main ambitions for war throughout human history has been to increase one’s financial position, to have what someone else has, whether that’s territory or resources and all the rest.

But when you’re talking about power, I think it is from a Christian perspective interesting to note that it’s not just armaments or finance, it also has to do with moral power. And that’s not something the world around us wants to talk about much. And that’s why an obituary of recent days does have my attention. That obituary is of Joseph S. Nye Jr., who died recently at age 88. He was long associated with the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. He led that school for some time and, as the New York Times had noted, he was sometimes considered the dean of American political science. Joseph S. Nye Jr. was known more popularly as Joe Nye. He was influential in the successive presidential administrations. His understanding of power struggles between nations and of the great power dynamic led at least in part to the nature of his influence.

Jake Sullivan, National Security Advisor to President Biden said, “Joe Nye was a giant, a giant because his ideas shaped the worldviews of multiple generations of policymakers, but even more so a giant because his personal touch shaped our life choices,” speaking of how many persons like himself had gone into foreign policy or into national military service and national strategic leadership because of Dean Nye’s influence. So what from a worldview perspective is drawing our attention here? It is the fact that Joseph S. Nye was the author of the term “soft power.” He wrote a very influential book published in 1990 that was entitled Bound To Lead: The Changing Nature Of American Power. And in that book, written now 35 years ago, he made the argument that a part of what has to be taken into the big picture calculation is not just hard power, money, armaments, machine guns, bombs, air forces, and all the rest. You have to take into effect soft power.

Because, in many ways, soft power can end up being just as powerful as so-called hard power. Soft power is about influence and the way that game is played well, it matters what nation is producing, what culture is producing the movies the rest of the world sees? What country, what culture is producing the stories the rest of the world hears and tells? Who’s producing what people wear? Who is presenting a picture of society that other societies see as admirable and want to follow? And in moral terms, here’s what’s really important to Christians, what power is seen as rightly morally directed? And what power is seen as the opposite? So one of the points made by Joe Nye, I think from a biblical perspective, this is just really important, it wasn’t just that the Soviet Union didn’t work. Its loss of face and loss of influence in terms of other nations around the world didn’t come about just because of economic failure. However, the economic failure was profound.

It also came about because it was recognized that in its oppression, in its repressiveness, in its totalitarian nature, in its autocratic dictatorial government, in its suppression of human rights and all the rest, the Soviet Union was a malign evil force. And one of the reasons the United States and our allies grew in influence during that period is that, with all of our national foibles and sometimes even with our own national inconsistencies, the fact is that the United States was seen as being on the right side rather than the wrong side. And the point made by Joseph Nye is that, that is translated into what can only be described as a form of power. It’s not the power at the end of a pistol. It is the power of ideas and the power of moral reputation.

Derek Shearer, a Professor of Diplomacy at Occidental College in California, said of Joseph Nye that his “seminal book on soft power is one of the very few books by a political scientist on international relations that had an impact on the real world beyond academia.” That’s an interesting statement. It has to do with the fact that an awful lot of academic literature is very self-referential. It’s of interest only to a few academics and no basic impact beyond that. It does tell you something that a political science professor can write a book that could impact world policy, and world affairs, and even the way you look at the power of a nation. But from a Christian perspective, I think that it’s also important we understand that he was onto something here. It’s not just about great power relations. It’s not just about which nation is gaining an influence and which nation is losing influence and why.

I think it comes right down to, let’s just say, even our understanding of leadership at the local level, our leadership in the family, our leadership in the church. There is hard power that comes with office and there’s hard power that comes with authority, but there is also the soft power of influence. And I think within the Christian Church we recognize that they had better be tied together in tandem consistently so. Our soft power had better be commensurate with the hard power, and vice versa. But we are in a struggle of hearts and minds, and that’s really interesting. It’s one of the observations Joe Nye made. If you want to have influence on the world scene, your hard power really does matter, he never denied that. Hard power really in some ways has to come first. But if it is not accompanied by soft power, the hard power simply becomes something people fear, not something they admire.

It is interesting to see that there have been successive Presidents who, confronted with the idea of soft power, have said, well, some of them said they liked it, some of them said they do not like it. I think it’s fair to say that President Trump is far more interested in hard power than in soft power. And as I say, I think in a fallen world, the hard power does have to come first. Otherwise, the soft power is not going to matter. But as Christians, we do have to understand we’re about a battle for hearts and minds, not just a battle in terms of territory and economic assets. And that’s just something to keep in mind. It is very interesting to note that when you had someone like Donald Rumsfeld, who was the Secretary of Defense under President George W. Bush, when he was asked about soft power, he dismissed it by saying, “I don’t know what it means.”

Well, I’ll just put it this way. I don’t think it goes well for an administration if, when it comes to the category of soft power, some of its leading lights say they don’t even know what it means. I think intuitively, once we hear it, we do know what it means. I thought of something else when reflecting upon the work of Professor and Dean Nye, who, by the way, also served in some crucial roles in government. And by the way, the application of his proposals is not always an easy thing to even figure out, but the fact that there is such a thing as soft power I think upon reflection is simply undeniable. And as Christians understand, it can’t be unimportant. And at least from a Christian worldview perspective, it reminds us that one of the crucial questions presented, for instance, just in the Old Testament, is not just who is in power, but what is he going to do with it? Those questions are no less pressing, no less cogent today.

From a historical perspective, perhaps one thing we should say in conclusion is that Rome was at its greatest as an empire when it was simultaneously feared and admired. Frankly, it’s not enough to be one or the other. Our aspiration would have to be to be recognized as both, and I think that’s translated into understandings of Christian leadership as well.