American culture and the Tiger Woods scandal

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Tiger Woods’ wife woke up to a stark reality recently with the revelations of Tiger Wood’s infidelity. We all did in fact. The once loved and revered golf superstar lived in high regard among people around the world and especially in the United States and Europe. But it’s all changed now; probably for good.

Tiger Woods wife, Elin Nordigren, has said nothing publicly, and various sources have reported both that she has left her husband and that she is staying with him to work things out. And one report states that Nordigren and Woods will leave the country for a private island near Norway to be close to her family and out of the public spotlight. As more and more mistresses come out of the woodwork, the tragedy increases. Wood’s corporate sponsorships, initially secured by supportive statements by Nike and others, may be slowly pulled away. All prime-time spots featuring Woods have been recently taken off the air. And Gatorade dropped a Tiger Woods labeled product just this week though Gatorade said in a statement it had been planned for months. But at the heart of this controversy is a bigger question about Western–and specifically American–culture. Every family facing the tragedy of infidelity does so with a stubborn neglect of the clear consequences of this choice on the part of the offending spouse.

Tiger Woods wife suffers because Tiger ignored the clear warnings offered in similar public infidelities by other notable celebrities. Most celebrities who act foolishly as Woods did suffer for years. Some like football star David Beckham, though, are able to repair their images. But always at a tremendous personal and financial cost.

There are other clear warnings apart from the tragedies which play out in the media. In Proverbs 5, we read about the consequences of the man who goes to “the door of the house” of an adulteress.

Proverbs 5:8-12 NASB Keep your way far from her And do not go near the door of her house, (9) Or you will give your vigor to others And your years to the cruel one; (10) And strangers will be filled with your strength And your hard-earned goods will go to the house of an alien; (11) And you groan at your final end, When your flesh and your body are consumed; (12) And you say, “How I have hated instruction! And my heart spurned reproof!

These warnings can be ascertained by mere observation. It takes no special understanding of scripture to come to the conclusion that infidelity is a destroyer of hearts and lives. But I maintain our culture would do well to seek biblical wisdom from the early years and in schools to bring about a change in our society where we avoid (I don’t say we would eliminate) the types of scandal and mishap we hear about in the tabloids and the news daily. And I further maintain the wisdom we find in scripture would help us understand and avoid the horrendous policies coming out of Washington, DC. A knowledgeable and wise public may still be split between Left and Right, but they will tend to support the principles of freedom upon which this country was founded.

John Adams said:

[This] Constitution was made for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other.

Individual liberty is a concept which blossomed in governmental form during The Reformation. It is a uniquely Judeo-Christian concept that all men of any station in life are born free and their liberty should be protected from birth.  History shows us that men yearn for freedom and though we see the tendency in man to allow government to meet their needs, the yearning ultimately overtakes them. The Enlightenment carried this tradition forward in a secular fashion. But I maintain that the Christian George Washington and John Adams sought biblical truth with the same vigor as the deist and (supposedly) atheist Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin. All the leaders at the founding generation in the United States believed biblical wisdom was important for life and free government institutions even if they didn’t strictly consider themselves Christians.

Tiger Woods’ wife–at this point I would guess–must agree that a little moral teaching might have gone a long way in preserving their marriage and public perception. I discuss this thesis in the attached podcast. And I seek your comments below to my observations.