By James Strong
People say stupid things when pushed into a corner. One of the latest examples of this tendency is Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson. The NFL superstar was recently indicted by the Montgomery County, Texas, District Attorney’s office for whipping his 4-year-old son with a tree branch.
The DA says that the whipping exceeded “reasonable discipline,” which is why Peterson has been charged with felony child abuse. Upon hearing about the indictment, the Vikings organization deactivated Peterson from team activities and from playing team games, for which the organization received praise from the league, fans, community and sponsors.
But after not playing Peterson for games one and two, the Vikings reinstated him for its third game. The decision was so shocking and so badly received that the Radisson Hotel dropped its sponsorship of the team, the beer company Anheuser-Bush publicly condemned the reversal and infuriated Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton trashed the decision as nonsensical.
Within 24 hours of the ruckus and complaints, however, Minnesota Vikings owner Zygi Wilf reversed his reversal and suspended Peterson indefinitely, admitting that “We made a mistake, and we needed to get this right.” Though some criticize this decision by Wilf as excessive, it still merits congratulations.
The Vikings fans, community and sponsors justifiably condemned the Vikings for the Peterson reinstatement. Therefore, the Vikings are justified in undoing their error and suspending Peterson indefinitely.
In a statement released by Peterson’s lawyer Rusty Hardin, the language presents a Peterson contrite and humbled: “It is important to remember that Adrian never intended to harm his son and deeply regrets the unintentional injury.” But as revulsion at the beating continued to spread like wildfire, Peterson tweeted this response:
“COME TO ME AND REST. Give your mind a break from its habitual judging. … But I created you to know Me and to live in rich communication with Me. When you become preoccupied with passing judgment, you usurp My role.”
The tweet quotes from Christian author Sarah Young’s book Jesus Calling: Enjoying Peace in His Presence. On NFL pregame shows and in other tweets, Peterson also sermonizes about God.
When Peterson publicly confessed that he was wrong to whip his son so severely and that he was not perfect, we all sympathized with him. But with a tweet as selfish as it is imprudent, we now realize that his public contrition was not an unselfish confession.
By condemning others for judging him, Peterson, in essence, judges others. And because of the flagrant hypocrisy, he invites others to judge him until their sweat becomes a storm.
He also gives the impression that he is using Christianity to soften or excuse his child abuse and defend a character full of glitches. Whipping your 4-year-old son with a tree branch such that it leaves welts on his thighs, bruises his battered buttocks and swells his testicles as though they had been munched on by flies clearly is criminal. But using Christianity to lessen guilt is the tendinitis of the Christian faith.
In this regard, Peterson’s actions rival that of megachurch prosperity gospel preacher Creflo Dollar, who also used Christianity as way of subduing criticism of a child abuse incident. Dollar was arrested and booked by Georgia’s Fayette County Sheriff’s office in 2012 for punching, slapping and choking his 15-year-old daughter. The police charged him with simple battery, family violence and cruelty to children.
Regarding the incident, Dollar wrote on his Facebook page pious words that themselves should be flogged, gagged and caged: “The fight has already been won. We are just walking it out. It’s already been determined that the devil is defeated through the victory Jesus won. Now we must walk in that victory in our own lives.” Dollar even forced his 19-year-old daughter Alexandria, who called police out of concern for her sister, to later deny the beat down occurred as she originally stated on the 911 call.
When ferried across a few hours of time, praise for Peterson’s confession sank before reaching the shores of final applause, all because of a sanctimonious tweet. We don’t know what Peterson hoped to accomplish with the tweet. But if he wanted to trumpet a plea for fairness and understanding, the notes he played were flat and sour.
When fed up with criticism, you shouldn’t soothe your anger with an angry response. Thus, Peterson’s use of religion to mitigate his crime and save his character –we say “religion” because we get the impression that if he were a Hindu or Buddhist or Muslim, he would do the same – Peterson’s abuse of religion has made all Minnesota puke.
And, after weighing his holier-than-thou attitude on the scales of honesty and sincerity, the whole sports world has seen that the merits of Peterson’s character do not match his exploits as a Viking.
