So I’m reading an article in the Sunday paper about Michael Vick (“Dungy’s aid made Vick’s path easier” by Les Carpenter and Mark Maske of the Washington Post) and I I’m all good with it until I reach the following:

Soon there would be more pilgrimages to leavenworth from people wishing to speak to Vick, to measure his soul. [Tony] Dungy, as the first, wanted to know about Vick’s faith. “Where was the Lord in all of this?” Dungy said Thursday.
Vick told him he had been a religious person before he reached the NFL but as he became a biger star he had abandoned his religion. Now, he told Dungy, who retired as the Colts’ head coach after last season, he wanted to bring it back.
“That’s when I felt this is a young man who is on the right direction,” Dungy said.

Obviously, you can’t be a good or moral person unless you’re a Christian. You have to wonder what Dungy (a well known conservative Christian with ties to some very unpleasant extremists) would have said if Vick had revealed to him that he was returning to the African religious practices of his ancestors, or was becoming a Buddhist or a Muslim or *gasp* a Pagan. You have to suspect that Vick would not have received such a ringing endorsement from Dungy under such circumstances. It wasn’t Vick’s contrition or his admission of guilt or his expression of remorse and promise to improve himself that told Dungy that Vick had turned the corner. It was his embracing “the Lord.”

What a sick world these people live in.

Don’t get me wrong. I have a great deal of respect for Tony Dungy as a coach and as a man. He seems to be a good, upright, and moral person. But it is a mistake to believe he could not also be this without “the Lord”. And that is the clear implication here. That is no surprise, of course, given Christianity’s ancient claim that morality is impossible without “the Lord” (obviously, these goons don’t pick up history books), but it’s sad to see it so prominently expressed without any “Hold on a minute. Can’t Vick be a good person without ‘the Lord’?”

I guess it’s up to me then: “Hold on a minute. Can’t Vick be a good person without ‘the Lord’?”

Of course he can. Millions of people are. Millions of people have been. Embracing “the Lord” is no guarantee of morality. Far from it. Ask some of the prominent evangelists who have provided proof. Ask George Herbert Walker Bush, 43rd President of the United States, who proved, while being a conservative Christian, to be one of the biggest thugs of the late 20th and early 21st century, a man with apparently no grasp of morality whatsoever.

And, of course, you can be a good person with “the Lord”. But “the Lord” is irrelevant to morality. Some scientists even believe morality is to some degree hard wired into “the system.” In that case, it’s “the system” Vick needs and not “the Lord.” It is society which dictates questions of morality, as the ancients recognized. Gods might bless the efforts made by kings to codify their laws, but except for a rather bizarre case put forth in the Hebrew Bible, gods didn’t dictate morality. And really, even the Israelite covenant with their god is written in the terms of a Hittite vassal treaty, a perfectly secular operation also blessed by the gods.

So no, Tony, Vick didn’t need “the Lord” to demonstrate to you that he was serious about reforming his life. “The Lord” is completely irrelevant. I’m disappointed that we are forced to see “the Lord” interjected so often in places that are completely fine without him. I’m disappointed that Tony Dungy seems to think that morality is impossible without him. Maybe Vick is sincere; maybe like me he understood what Tony wanted and needed to hear and is just gaming the system. Who knows? Who can say? Sincerity is not a pre-requisite for those who embrace “the Lord” as we all know.

What will truly show Vick’s sincerity are his actions, as my own ancestors understood perfectly well. Not claims of piety. It’s deeds, Tony. Not words. When you know Vick is “on the right direction” it’s because he has shown he is, not because he embraces your particular superstition.