searching the sunsets

"Christian University has been a disillusioning and Disheartening Experience for Me." Quoted for Truth

I found this quote out in the blogging world recently. I'm not going to link to the author because I'm not sure he or she would want to expose his or herself or the college to the scrutiny that might come from it (Hi Ken, and Sara from Salisbury--BTW, did you see Super Nanny last night?). I've asked but haven't heard anything back yet.

I've often told people that I think Bible college came close to ruining me. Thus the series of posts called, Bible College Ruined Me!!! (Almost). You can read the first posts of that series here and here. Even if you don't, can I tell you that this quote resonates with me as an alumnus, and it scares me as a parent.

"Christian university has been a disillusioning and disheartening experience for me. I came here hoping for so much both from my education and from the Christians here. Instead I feel like I found Christ’s bride in bed with another lover. She’d given up on the Good News and abandoned her call to be a witness and live a life worthy of her calling. And after three years, I found that I’d given up myself."

I want to be sure to proclaim that some really good things happened to me at Bible College. I met my wife. I made two phenomenal friends (Ted Boykin and Matt Mileski) who I still talk to today. God did a good thing in my life so if you're invested in that particular Bible college please don't consider this is personal attack.

Why I Stay in Church; What if It's About Becoming Holy?

I walked out of church during a service with no intent to ever go back.
Once.
I was twelve, maybe thirteen. We were visiting my Grandma and she went to a church that believed in “faith healing.” The guy preached a “good” sermon (I say good because every time I hear the story I hear that it was a good sermon). He preached, he prayed, and then he started healing people. He’d call one guy up and then he started talking about him and whatever his disease was. Then he hit the guy upside the head, said some word I’ve never heard of and BAM the guy fell over. I remember my brother’s eyes got really big. Then the preacher called up another person (I think a woman this time). My mom grabbed my wrist and started pulling me towards the door.  We were Baptists and we didn’t believe in what was happening so we were leaving.

As an adult, I’ve thought about leaving the church. I’ve thought about just walking away and calling it a career.  I’m serious. My “reasons” list is long and colorful:

1. I’ve been lied to in church
2. I’ve been lied about in church
3. I’ve been hurt in church
4. I’ve had things stolen from me in church.
5. I’ve heard some of the meanest, nastiest, most terrible things in church
6. Some of the meanest, cruelest, nastiest people I’ve ever met have been in church.
7. I’ve seen grieving mothers told to “just suck it up and get over it” at church.
8. I’ve seen relationships stop because of where someone went to church
9. I’ve seen mass emails sent out as prayer requests because of church
10. I’ve sat through numerous gossip sessions prayer request times

I’ve tried to paint the broadest of strokes there in order to protect the innocent and the not so innocent.  After our last church, I really thought it was time to leave. There were so many problems, my wife felt used and abused and I wasn’t too far behind on her that path.  The truth is there are so many problems in the church. Right now, I have at least five friends that are all thinking about getting out of ministry completely. Not just leaving their church but leaving church completely.

Here’s the problem. They can’t. You and I can’t. Seriously, we are the church. We are this thing that gives so many of us so much trouble.. We can no more leave the church than we can leave the human race. We’re in it. We ARE it. Short of death, it’s still there. Even if I stop gathering with other believers weekly, I’m still part of the body. There is no “out clause” in Scripture. It’s a vicious circle. Railing against the church is like railing against oxygen. It just isn’t all that profitable. Now, I know it’s cool to do it now a days. I even realize that I’ve done it too often. Kary Oberbrunner is the first one to make me stop and think about how I do it.
And how God might view it.  In his book, Journey Toward Relevance he says this:

    … a couple of years ago I found myself badmouthing somebody else’s girl. The first time it happened , I was sitting in a coffee shop with a few of my buddies. I didn’t intentionally bring it up, it just happened.  We somehow got on the topic of a guy we all knew. Pretty soon we started to talk about his girl and negative comments started flying.

    I kind of felt bad for the guy. We all liked him; he was our friend. His girl just really annoyed the heck out of us. … I suppose degrading this girl was pleasurable because it made us feel separate from her.  …

    I think the problem was that this girl was so ugly. It was an ugliness that was both internal and external. …

    It went on like this for several months. In fact more people knew her than I first thought. It became an opening line to talk about this girl. I even went to parties and initially met people by communicating my distaste and shame for this girl.

       Then one day I ran into her guy. It was not cool, let me tell you. I didn’t expect to see Him. I just kind of bumped into Him. He turned around and just looked me in the eye. He said to me, “Kary, why? How could you talk about her like that?”

     I felt really low. I could see how much He loved her, and I could feel how much I hated her. I guess I just felt wounded by her. I felt judged by her….
    pp. 58-59

That book started my healing and my wrestling. Because we have to wrestle with this animal called the church. We have to figure out how do we love the Bride of Christ when it just absolutely drives us nuts? If you haven’t read the book you should.

The problem is that I need the church. I need other believers around me. I need to be in community with those other people.  My list of things that I want to see change is long, but I’ve learned there just isn’t that much to be gained by going all “Ken Silva” about stuff I don’t like.

About two years ago a friend recommended a book where the central question of the book was/is “What if God designed marriage to make you Holy not happy?” That question changed much of my life. It also drove me to change how I view church. I’ve already talked about how I think you will be marked by regularly gathering with other believers if it is important to you. But this goes further than that. What if God designed church to
work like marriage? What if God designed church more to make us holy than he did to make us happy?  Now, hang with me here; God could have done this thing we call church any way He wanted to do it. He is God after all. 

I mean He didn’t have to create church this way. He could have done it another way.  How many people in church annoy you? How many people in church are just irrelevant to your life? How many people are lying to you? How many are cheating on their spouse? How many could care less if you can’t pay your bills this month?

So why did God design it this way and why should we stay. What are some common problems in the church and how might we wrestle through them? I hope to address those questions and more over the course of the upcoming weeks.  I am going crazy busy with school, work and family right now, but I think this is important. What would happen if we looked at church more as a means to make us holy than we looked at it as a means to make us happy?

Confessions

For my Sys The 1 class, we are supposed to write out our "confessions"--those things we believe. Actually, as a lowly, not so smart counseling student I have the option of doing my confessions or a case study. I'm going to do the case study, so here are a few of my confessions for you to enjoy.

I confess that...

1. I am sick of people using Jude 3 to justify their crappy little blogs that they pass off as "ministries." Based on their writings, and theological skill level I would say they have no idea what the word "contend" actually meant to the original hearers.
2. I find great amusement in people gossiping talking to other people about us and telling them what we believe when the only interaction they have had with us in years has been in a few internet interactions. Come and see, is all I can say
3. If I could be I would be a full time student and only do that.
4. I believe there is a difference between Theology, Doctrine, and preferences.
5. I love naps
6. I believe the modern  church was extremely influenced by Plato and somehow believed that the point of salvation was just to rescue us from this terrible world. This cost the church dearly
7. I believe the church missed the mark when we decided to try and explain our faith based on science. Simply because we cannot explain something does not mean that there is not sufficient evidence to believe it.

P.S. Before anyone gets on and makes a comment about how each one starts with "I" and tries to draw some deep conclusion about it, that is written that way because that is how you are supposed to write confessions.

X Marks The Spot. How do You Win at Life?

    Whenever I am out I ask people a simple question. Now, I want to ask you. The question is simply, “In X amount of years you will be one hundred years old. Whatever X is for you, you are preparing to die. Looking back at your life, how do you know if you have won at life?” I almost invariably get the question rephrased to me with a look of “what’s this guy trying to pull?” I assure them that I have no agenda other than to hear their thoughts and opinions.  Most of the time, I hear things like happiness or I don’t know. What intrigues me is I follow this question up with “OK, whatever that win is for you are currently living in a way to pursue that?” It astounds me how many times I hear, “No, not really.”  That amazes me! Why would you spend your life pursuing something that you know is not what you want for life?   
Let me put it another way. Bear with me and do the following exercise. 

   

Take a deep breath and hold it. One...two...three...OK, let it out.  You are now one step breath closer to your last breath. Now, the purpose of this isn’t to discourage you, rather I want to cause you to think. Think deeply about that day. What do you want to accomplish between now and the time you die? In short what is a win for your life? I’m obsessed with this question. It was posed to me a number of years ago, and has stuck with me ever since. The Psalmist asks God to teach us to how to number our days so that we might have a heart of wisdom  so the idea of thinking about our last day on earth is a Biblical one. I don’t want you to get fatalistic, but stop and think about that day. Will family surround you? Will you regret your life?
Now, go one step further. If you died right now would your life have been a success? Would you have won at life? Do you know anyone who has lost at life?  What is something you hope you would have accomplished by this time in your life? Have you done it? Why or why not?

    As I age, it seems that life goes faster and faster and while I am not trying to rush the day that it comes I want to know I was successful with the whole of my life on that day.  We’ve got one shot at this wonderful, messy, complex, crazy thing called life. I am amazed at how many people just kind of float through life without having a plan. Too many of us spend too much energy doing things that will not take us anywhere near our dreams and goals. In fact, too many of us come to the point where we stop dreaming and just start existing.  That is a tragedy. I believe it is sin. We are given this life as a gift from God and God has expectations for our management of it. To be sure, there are a lot of unhappy people out there from all perspectives but how many people who are from a religious persuasion are as grumpy as anyone else? Why is this? I believe it is because we have stopped numbering our days. We’ve stopped thinking and dreaming about what matters. We’ve moved into “just get through today” mode.
Too often we live with a shallow hope. Sure, we have a hope that things will work out in the end but that doesn’t help us today. We’re depressed about yesterday, today and tomorrow. We’re stuck doing things we hate but we’d rather do those things than pay the price to change. Too many of us don’t even know what the cost of that change is; we just know we don’t want to pay it.  We’re afraid of the pain that comes with the rejection of failure.  

    How many people want to change, but don’t see long lasting effective change? No doubt, the answer is too many. Recently someone told me they believed that everyone is afraid of that which they want the most.  At first I balked at the idea, but the more I think about it the more I think she might be right.  I mean think about it. How many people go back to the same thing over and over again, even though they know that going back can and probably will kill them? One of the early church writers agrees with me, he told us that just as a dog returns to its vomit so a fool to his folly.  This brings up an even more interesting question for the Christian. When that day comes, will God look at your life and consider it a win? Will He look at my life and say, “Well done” or will He say something else. This is also where the issue gets the messiest.  

    I love sports. I especially love baseball. Just a few miles from where I live a man named Chad Curtis lives. If you are a Yankees fan, Chad Curtis has some special meaning for you. In 1999 he smacked a game winning home run against the New York Mets in the World Series. “Game winning home run”—just the phrase brings shivers up a baseball fans back. But imagine, what if there wasn’t a way to keep score. What if the Mets had said, “We don’t care that you have more players who have touched home plate than we have, we have more players who have touched first base than you, so we win!” You’ll see this in sports. One of the all you can handle sports stations will be touting all these different statistics when the only one that really matters how many points you score.  I ran across a story recently about a young player and his coach having conversation hours before their game that night.  The story goes that the coach, a grizzled veteran of multiple world series winning teams asked his young superstar what the most important thing was that he wanted to accomplish that night.  
    “Hit a Home run?”
    “Nope”
    “Get two hits”
    The patient manager rolls his eyes as his head shakes a negative
    “Uh, get three hits?”
    “[expletive] how about win the [expletive] game?” Piped in another coach who has also won a few World Series but has less patience than the first coach. 

    I laughed when I heard that story, but isn’t that how most of us live life? We focus on good stuff, but not the stuff that really matters. If a baseball player goes 4 for 4 and his team loses, did he somehow win? Of course not, he lost just like the guy that went 0 for 4.  I am convinced that is how most of us live our life. We worry entirely too much about what happened yesterday or what could happen tomorrow. We fail to ask ourselves if what we are doing is going to help us win or just feel good about ourselves.  We worry more about our stats than we do about our outcome.  Over the next coming days and weeks I want to look at this idea of winning at life. I want to examine it, kick around a few ideas and get your input.  

Let's Say You're American and a Muslim

So, let’s start Monday morning off with a bang. Let’s talk Politics. Not gay marriage (Sorry my Lincoln Lake stalkers—I’ll get to you guys another day). I don’t even want to talk about Barack, Hillary, McCain or Ron Paul. I don’t want to talk about how the rhetoric from each side is absurd. I don’t even want to talk about Ken Silva. Let’s talk about Terrorist. Let’s talk about profiling. I admit it, I like the show Numbers. It’s a bit contrived but it tells a decent story and the good guys usually win. More importantly, they usually do the right thing.

Friday wasn’t necessarily different. Truth is, I’m writing this while I’m watching the show. Wherever the show goes from here, it brought up an excellent question. Let’s talk about how our government is handling Muslim Americans. When you see one dressed as their religion calls for them to be dressed what goes through your mind? When I worked in the auto auction business there was Pakistani Americans who paid extra money to put my white face up on the auction block so that their cars would get sold.

Now, I realize you’re not responsible for how car dealers work.
Let’s talk about how our government treats Muslim Americans.  If they are suspected of being a terrorist, the government can lock them up and throw away the key for a long time. In many ways, we’ve thrown out the constitution and we’ve stated that our reason for throwing it out is because we’re defending the very thing we’re throwing out. Does that make sense to you? Because I have to be honest, it doesn’t to me.  Somehow, in this war, we’ve lost our way. We’ve changed the rules to say that it’s okay if we look like the bad guys. What if they were African Americans? How would that change our thoughts on this? Maybe for many it wouldn’t.  I don’t know.

What I do know is that we’ve done some really dumb things as a country over the last few years. We made reactive policy and I think reactive policies are almost always bad.  We’ve condoned racism and we call it profiling (side note here I’m not sure how I feel about profiling completely).  The line between protecting our country and losing the very thing (freedom) we’re trying to protect is razor sharp, and I’m not sure our country has done a very good job navigating that mess all that well.  Just my thoughts...

Assumptions; Making something out of you and me

    My wife and I were talking about assumptions. We both know a guy who a lot of people assumed was less than smart in college. He did nothing to change this assumption and in fact he encouraged it. I knew a girl who was a virgin but people assumed she was a little loose with her morals. She never did anything to persuade them differently. Both of these people felt that most people had their own assumptions and agenda's and attempting to change someone else's mind was and is a waste of time. The guy that Erica and I knew believed that if people took the time to get to know him they would realize he wasn't dumb and the people that didn't take the time to get to know could think whatever the heck they wanted to think.

    On the flip side, we also know people who try to cultivate an image that they are smart--by this I mean in the upper echelon of brain function--when in reality they are average or below average.

    All of this caused me to stop and think about who's responsible in these situations. Are all three people guilty of deception? Are all three "guilty" of nothing? Are the assumers the guilty one's? Chris O had an interesting post about assumptions today which in some way ties into this, I'm sure.

    The thing about assumptions is they are necessary. I get that. But they have to be held as assumptions and not fact. Until we can test them and prod them we have to remember they are nothing more than an assumption. They may be accurate, but they may not be. They may be completely wrong.

    One of the things that always cracks me up is the assumptions I hear about Mars. Our congregation is young, we only play CCM as worship music (this one cracks me up the most as we often play only hymns). One guy actually says we're offering children to Molech but I think he might have a brain disorder. There are so many assumptions and so many of them are wrong.

    It kind of makes me wonder, how many of my assumptions are way off base. Don't get too comfortable because the next obvious question is about your assumptions.

What's Non-negotiable About Your Faith?

So I've been part of a discussion where the original question was what is and is not negotiable about our faith. The actual question was what is non-negotiable. What's been interesting to me is there has been quite a bit of discussion over what it actually means to be non-negotiable. So, I'm not that interested in your list of non-negotiable beliefs but what I do want to know is what does that mean to you? My list is extremely short because I believe that term means something I'd be willing to do for--which is not how other people understand it. So, what do you think?

Power You Cannot Buy...

    The other day I talked about life being tough. In fact life is downright hard. Some people got really ticked off at me and some had some interesting questions. I confess now, that to some extent it was a set-up. Yes, I wanted to explore the reality that life is hard and in my opinion, too many people spend too much time complaining about the consequences of the poor choices that they made or are too focused on “something” else making them happy.
    I’ll spend quite a bit of time this week surrounded by hurting people, the truth is that you will too. I’ve had the opportunity to get to know a guy who if you met him you’d never know what I’m about to tell you. He’s a good guy, who works hard and loves God. He’s married with no kids. So what’s the problem? His wife is pregnant with another man’s baby. Yes, you read that right. Now, he’s told two people at the seminary. Why? “I’m afraid they’ll be stupid Christians” were his exact words to me.
    Then there’s the girl who moved out of her house because her husband beat her. I know a young man who lost both of his parents to cancer by the time he was 6.  These situation are tragic, they’re heartbreaking.  There’s a girl that my daughter knows that talks about her mom’s boyfriends and different situations that make my daughters eyes bug out of her head. I’m sure if I just created a blank page for you the reader to fill in, we could list story after story of people who are around us and hurting. 
    Sometimes the hurt is because of something that we’ve done. For a long time in my life I carried hurt because of choices that I made. I walked around with hurt bubbling just below the surface.    
    Sometimes, the hurt is because of what others have done. Somebody hurt you. Maybe they rejected you, maybe they abused you. I don’t know, but I can almost guarantee that the vast majority of people who will read these words have been hurt by someone. Usually, if I’m talking through this it is at this point that some people’s head start to shake up and down and I can see them thinking about it. Yes, they have been hurt. But that misses the point I’m making. Think about all the people you’re going to come in contact with today. They’ve been hurt. They’ve been abused, misused and discarded.
    I sometimes hear people say that our society is getting angrier and angrier every year. I wonder if that is because as a society we are not able to help people heal at the same level hurt is being afflicted on people. I wonder if as we focus more on our life and the short comings that are there in it we fail to see the hurt in other people and it somehow doesn’t become a vicious cycle. I mean think about it. How many people haven’t been hurt? Who hasn’t had someone mis-use them? Probably almost no-one.
    They are walking all around you today. They were walking all around you yesterday. They will be walking around you tomorrow. All around us are people who’s life is a mess either because of choices that someone made. I’ve been reading the gospels for one of my classes. Think about it, who isn’t messed up in the Gospels? Jesus. That’s it. Everyone else is an absolute mess. 
    Think about the woman at the well in John 3. You talk about a woman who’s life is blowing up around her. She’s on her fifth husband. What do you think her self view was? Do you think she looked at herself as a whore? Do you think she hated herself? Do you think she had a longing she couldn’t she couldn’t get filled no matter what she did? How about the woman caught in Adultery? What do you think was going on in her heart? How about Zaccheus? Do you think he felt that everyone hated him? Did everyone hate him?
    The entire entourage that followed Jesus was a jumble of broken people.  Somehow, they found a home with Jesus. Somehow they found acceptance. Somehow Jesus talked past their hurt and anger and spoke to their deepest fears that they really were accepted. That they really were loved. That there was hope.
    The writer of Hebrews deals with this very issue.  Brilliant writer that she was, she says this, “But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.” (See Hebrews 3:13) He also says this, “And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”
    These verses talk about us focusing on others. Notice there is no exception clause there for those people who also have it hard. We’re all supposed to be encouraging each other. Encouraging them onto to “love and good deeds.” It talks about avoiding the hardening effects of sin by encouraging one another. This is the power you have; this the power that God has entrusted you with. It seems to me by even the most cursory examinations of the New Testament reveals that God has entrusted us with the task of encouraging one another.
    Now, we can all think of ways that other people can encourage us more, but I want to challenge you to consider how you can encourage others. What will that look like for you? What will it look for you to encourage and spur others on to good works? Think of at least one person you can encourage by tomorrow. Then go do it.
    May you see the power of encouraging others no matter what is happening in your life, and may you be encouraged today that no matter what has happened in your life, God has given you a tremendous opportunity. He has given you tremendous power. You can be a catalyst for those around you to live as God intended them to live.

Here's the Memo: Life is Tough, Be Tougher

    One of the things I love about my relationship with my wife is the fact that we talk. I mean we really talk about a lot of things. We don’t just talk about “the business” stuff that needs to get done we talk about life. One of the things that we often talk about is the fact that so few people seem to get the fact that life is hard. It’s even harder when you do dumb things. (See my post yesterday). It amazes me how many people think that life is about them. One of the things that cracks me up is when my wife and I get talking about different situations that we hear about and we’ll often talk about how I would handle the situation if I was counseling that person. We’ll usually laugh because often Erica will come back with, “Really? I’d just tell them to buck up and deal with life.”
    While we laugh, I really think she’s onto something. Somehow, we’ve failed to prepare people to deal with life.  It always amazes me when people think they just need to achieve something to be happy. The single person thinks once they get married they’ll be happy, the married (and still unhappy person) thinks that once they become a parent they’ll be happy. The parent thinks once he or she can leave their spouse and get out of their current situation they’ll be happy. This is crazy and dangerous thinking. Not only is it just flat out wrong, it’s dumb.
    We know a guy that studied his whole life to do a certain career. As long as I’ve known him, he wanted to do this one thing. The girl he married knew he wanted to do this one thing. He went to school thousands of miles away from his home so he could do this one thing. Now he works at a job he hates because his wife couldn’t handle the demands his dream job put on him. He hates his job and to be honest, he sounds like he hates his life.  Now, to be sure they both knew what the other person was like before they were married (the wife complained loudly about how much she hated the job before they were married) but to me this illustrates so completely what I’m driving at here. 
    We’ve raised an entire generation that thinks life is completely about them and the casualties of this particular hubris can found everywhere and is extremely high. Nowhere are the casualties more prevalent than in our relationships. How many of us know a husband or a wife that manipulates their spouse to get what they want to the detriment of their overall relationship?  They always do what one spouse wants to do and then one day things just blow up and a separation or a divorce happens and everyone wonders what happens.
    Let me change direction here for a minute, what about the people who complain all the time? You ask them how whatever was and no matter what the question they respond with a complaint? They get a gift and complain because it’s not the exact one they wanted. I know a guy who was able to pay cash for a brand new mustang and complained because he didn’t like the tires.  There are entire blogs that are nothing more than gripe sessions. The whole blog talks about how things don’t turn out to the person’s expectations. Isn’t that the ultimate indicator of self obsession?
    Do you still need more proof? How about the people who always share the “bad” things that are happening to them? You know those people that you’re afraid to even say Hi to because you never know what their going to come back with.
    Here’s the point: everyone has hard things happen. I’m not saying people shouldn’t share, in fact I think not sharing at all is another sign of self absorption. It is equally devastating to relationships. It comes down to what you choose to focus on.  Some people didn’t get the memo: Life is hard. It requires perseverance. It is not about you. It is not about me. We have too many people who have sun disease--that affliction that causes people to think that the sun rises and sets on their backside.
    The more we can teach people (and I include myself here) that life--especially the Christian life--is hard and difficult the better off those people will be.  It’s also very rewarding, no doubt. What do you choose to focus on? What do I choose to focus on? Everyone has bad things happen and almost everyone has good things happen to them.
    What is the focus of our life? Really and truly. Not what do we give lip service to being the focal point but what do we really focus on? Life is hard, and life is good. For most people, it is both. I’m not naive, I know that for some people life is nothing but hard, but let’s be honest those people probably are not sitting in this country.  It’s time we all take some inventory of our lives and ask ourselves what our actions say our values are.  It’s hard to say that you love someone if you are manipulating them. It’s hard to say that you’re concerned about others when you’re actions are all about you.    
    Life is an opportunity. What are you doing with that opportunity?  Life is tough, be tougher. Do something with your opportunity.

What is Cheating? My Thoughts on "SpyGate"

What is cheating? I had a fun conversation with a friend of mine where I called Bill Belichick a cheater. My friend told me that he didn’t consider him a cheater. He asked me how it was different than scouting a team. My answer was simple, “Scouting is legal, taping the other teams coaches is not legal.” I have quite a few New England fans, and they all seem to be deflecting rather than defending their beloved coaches actions. One guy employed the, “Well, they thought they were being taped, too!” defense.  Numerous others have told me, well they didn’t gain an advantage in the game they were caught in, so it’s not a big deal. I have to admit this bothers me. Maybe, I’m naive. Maybe, I’m just dumb, but I really believe that honor matters. That winning inside the rules of the game matters. To me, if I knowingly break the rules I’m cheating. If there are rules that don’t make sense, then I say change them but until they do, if I break them in an effort to get an advantage I am cheating. If I fail to get an advantage then I am just inept at cheating, but it’s still cheating.
Now, most of these conversations happened before the alleged taping of the Saints Super Bowl walk through. I’ve always wondered how Belichick went from what he did in Cleveland to what he did in New England and I will be the first to admit that ascribing all of his recent success to cheating would be sophomoric and over simplistic but for those Bellicheck defenders I have a serious question. If it turns out that these allegations are true and that they did videotape the walk through was that cheating? How many rules can you break before it’s cheating? One of the most remarkable things about this run by this team has been those plays where the defender seemed to know better than the receivers what was coming. Those last minutes drives where it didn’t seem the defense could muster anything to keep the Patriots from methodically marching down the field and winning the game. If --and I realize at this point it’s merely allegations-- the Patriots did indeed videotape the Saints walk-through then they should be punished. Belichick should be suspended for at least a season. To me, it is irrelevant if they gained an advantage or not, they broke the rules.
Ok Pats fans and those who wish to defend Bill, tell me these three things:
Was videotaping the coaches hand signals, which is blatantly spelled out in the rules as illegal cheating?
Was video taping (again if it happened) the Saints walk-though cheating?
How many rules can you break before you’re considered to be cheating?

I’ll get to the whole Bellicheck getting out-coached last night another time.