It is just too easy to become jaded these days. The last two blogs have perhaps revealed a bit of my personal frustration about living in an age where it seems that ideas (admittedly only ideas)—sometimes known as “values,” such as truth, goodness, justice, which Plato called the “forms”—are no longer valued by folks so much. Rather, personal goals seem to come first, no matter what they might be. In other words, what is deemed valuable is any individual’s personal agenda, and facile applause follows achieving that, with little thought given to the value of that enterprise or its value to the common good. The idea of community is lost, it seems, or at least placed far behind the notion of the individual’s personal growth, even if that growth is in a direction that just may in fact be harmful to those around that individual, or at the very least, in conflict with what had hitherto been regarded as transcendent values.
Assuming I am even partly right about what I have suggested above, then one might have every right to ask the following tough question: “How can I, in the face of changing values or, better put, the devaluation of traditional values, do or even say anything of value?” And I spent some time thinking about this very thing this week, and it came to me that there really is only one thing that one can do to make a difference in an Orwellian world such as I have described.
That difference can be traced, I’m sorry to say, to a source. I say sorry because the notion of any source aside from the individual is, these days, rather unpopular. The individual, it is believed, has the capacity and, more importantly the right, to determine for him or herself what is right, or should I say to determine what is right for him or herself. These palindromatic notions seem, as I hint at in the opening paragraph, to be essentially the same thing. But for those of us who might want to suggest a different, less popular and, yes I’m afraid traditional, perspective, we will look to find the source that I speak of.
That source is a mountain. Not one of the seven hills of Rome, not Athens Mars’ Hill, not Dharamsala in the Tibetan Himalayas, not even Mt. Zion in Israel. No, it is a much smaller “mountain,” really only a hill, one you probably have never heard of, known as Har HaOsher. It lies between Capernaum and Gennesaret, where once, it is said, were spoken by an itinerant rabbi something called the Beatitudes. These teachings can be summed up with any one of a number of quite positive words like grace, compassion, even love. Among those summary words, to me one, however, stands out: redemption. They are redemptive teachings, blessings on those who seek to practice even a fraction of them. That rabbi broke that blessing into bite-sized pieces. They’re not hard to do, they don’t lie “beyond the sea, that thou shouldest say, ‘Who will cross the sea, get it and proclaim it to us so that we may follow it?’” No, “the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it.”
If there is a solution to a world whose values are in dissolution, then, it seems to me, that the way through the chaos may just be to speak redemption, to show compassion and kindness to everyone we encounter. That rabbi did that very thing when the world he inherited was in at least as much disarray as ours is today. He chose to bless, to redeem. Perhaps we can, too, if we put our mind to it. After all, if we look for it, that redemptive word may just be very nigh unto us, already in our mouths and our hearts. And if it is, perhaps we should just speak it, for redemptive speech might be the first step toward a better world, precisely as it was quite a long time ago on a hill in Galilee.
I’m afraid the title of this blog is a bit misleading. It sounds like I really know something about the old country, Wales—that I know specifically what it was like for the Jones clan, the Evans clan, the Hughes clan or the Eynon clan. I don’t. In fact, I can only imagine what it must have been like in mid-nineteenth century Wales. I can get a rough idea, though, from a piece by Chris Evans (a distant relative?), who in 2012 wrote a for the BBC on mid-nineteenth century Wales. Evans describes the most difficult of living conditions, living conditions that, even if they were not quite as harsh in Llwynhendy, a hamlet contiguous with Llanelli, as they were in Merthyr Tydfil, were undoubtedly hellish nonetheless.
How do I know? They left. By “they,” of course, I mean the Jones’ and the Evans’. The Jones’ didn’t bring much with them—just the contents of a black trunk marked with the name of Lucy Jones on the lid. But they most certainly did leave, and to cross an ocean, surely never to return, takes more than courage.
Courage is only the first step. It is not borne out of a desire to see the world or a quest for new opportunity. Rather, it requires a desire to get away from something, a strong desire. And what would the Jones’ and Evans’ have been fleeing? Well, if the article cited above is correct, it was the oppressive industrialization of Wales, from coal to ironworks, and the concomitant lack of opportunity for even the brightest to break out of the virtual caste system that they had been born into. If your father was a miner, you would almost certainly be one, too. If your father worked in the iron industry, chances are, were you a young man, you would, too.
And if that were not push enough, add to it a notable lack of educational opportunities. Now I’m not talking just about a robust liberal education, the kind I wrote about last week—the kind that allows the student to learn English literature, mathematics, science, art, and offers two years (at the very least) of language study. Rather, I’m actually speaking about education on a much smaller scale—what we would refer to as a basic high school education, or even a technical education that permits the person who receives it to move up the social ladder one or two rungs, not ascend it all at once. But to say that such educational opportunities were scarce in the mining towns of Wales would be a gross understatement. They simply did not exist. Yet how did David Evans, whose musical influence upon the family was profound—my daughter owns and still plays his violin—learn to play the violin, you might ask, and how did he get his hands on such an instrument in the first place?
The answer to that is shrouded in a bit of mystery, but suffice it to say that David would seem to have been born in America; whether his mother or father had been able to play the violin in Wales, we shall never know. But we can imagine. While we can imagine that he was likely not to have been the first person in the family to have musical ability—any Welsh miner could sing good Welsh hymns at Sunday service or even as he walked to work on a weekday morning—it is likely that David Evans was the first person in the family to play the violin, or even to be able to afford one. He would, himself, go on to write lovely Welsh hymns, one or two of which he co-wrote with a certain Reverend Hugh Griffith, whose name figures prominently in the Curious Autobiography of Elaine Jakes.
After such struggles, the descendants of David Evans, through the Jakes line, have had the great privilege of studying music at a major university in Texas with an excellent school of music and liberal arts. Sadly, even as I write this, however, that very university’s college of liberal studies is considering severely reducing its core requirements—the pitiable indulgence of the constant Sirens’ call for “practical” education. Hopefully, as there is more at stake merely than joi de vivre and simply beauty—there is, too, at stake truth, not the Keatsian parallel of truth and beauty but the truth that lies deep in a man’s soul, the profound truth that a woman like Lucy Hughes Jones was willing to travel across the sea to obtain—that truth is at stake, as it is, and must always be, the central goal of true liberal education. It needs to be preserved for a new set of dreamers, a new generation of immigrants longing to discover through music, art, science, mathematics, literature and language study the eternal Truth that has formed us and continues to shape us, and ultimately that binds each and every one of us together in complex, yet profoundly simple, humanity.
Prominent on the Harvard Business Review’s website, one finds an article by James R. Bailey entitled, “The Difference between Good Leaders and Great Ones.” Now one should not quibble at the uncomfortable plural of the word “one” on display for all to see in the title; I confess that I myself have, on rare occasions, used that false plural, though never in such a conspicuous position, of course. Still, the article is worth perusing, if for no other reason than to contrast it with what great leadership actually is. Large stretches of that article sound about right in no small part because the entire article is partially true. If one were to think evenhandedly, one might conclude something along these lines: “a partial truth is better than no truth and certainly better than a lie. It’s better than evil. It’s an improvement on bad. At least it’s something that is practically complete, almost right, virtually true.”
But one would be wrong, for something can’t be “virtually true.” Truth is necessarily complete in and of itself. Partially right is wrong; practically complete is incomplete; virtually true is false. So I begin by suggesting that what the famed scholar James R. Bailey, the Hochberg Professor of Leadership Development at George Washington University’s School of Business, and coauthor of Handbook of Managerial and Organizational Wisdom, has written is, in fact, a mean sort of lie.
That expression “a partial truth is a mean sort of lie” (meaning, of course, an intentional partial truth) is penned in the back of the Bible that once belonged to my grandmother, Blanche Evans Jakes. After her death, I happened upon that old book, and I have never forgotten her personal notes scrawled within it. Yet if that saying sounds a bit pointed, even piquant, nevertheless that very piquancy is why, I suppose, I have never let it slip from my memory. And one must understand that in the phrase, “a mean sort of lie,” the word “mean” does not convey the sense of “belligerent” but rather “cheap,” “inferior.” In other words, partial truth fails even to measure up to being a clever lie. It’s a second-rate lie, one that is base, vulgar and vile.
Now you might be thinking that I’m being petulant. But I am not. Yet if not, why would I want to vilify the work of one James R. Bailey, work presumably so profound that it bedecks the HBR website? Well, vilify is a strong word, and I’m not out to do that. But I suppose the reason I am calling attention to his work is because his article contains a number of facile suppositions that, unexamined, might tame the docile reader into submission, causing the reader to believe that, just because that professor has an elevated position, he must be right. Dr. Bailey writes:
“It’s tempting to think leadership … follows a continuum, one anchored by bad and great, with good somewhere in between. … I dispute … the stubborn resolve that great and good are points along the same stream. That just isn’t so. Great leadership and good leadership have distinctly different characteristics and paths. … great is a force. True, great also means “excellent,” but that is not its primary meaning. As for “good,” we usually reference morality, virtue, and ethics — “a good person” or “a good decision.” Good can refer to the quality of something — contrasted against the commonly understood opposite, bad — but in this context good refers to the direction in which behavior is compelled. Great leadership is powerful, dominating, often overwhelming. It can sweep people along through sheer animation. Great leadership excites, energizes, and stimulates. It’s a rousing call, shocking complacency and inertia into action. It’s one of the most potent pulls in human history, and as such accounts for much of humanity’s progress, as well as its suffering. While it ignites collective action and stirs passion, its direction depends largely on those that wield its power. Great has no inherent moral compass, and thus its unpredictable potency can just as easily be put toward pugilistic and peaceful purposes.”
According to Professor Bailey’s argument, someone like Adolf Hitler could be classified as a great leader. But, do we really want to say that? Can you imagine yourself standing there at a cocktail party with a glass in your hand and say to group of your friends, “Well, you know, Adolf Hitler really was a great leader.” And then when everyone looks aghast, perhaps you could add, “Well, I got that off the Harvard Business School’s website.”
Then if you’re remarkably fortunate, an equally hoodwinked interlocutor might say, “Well, yes, I saw that article! Indeed, according to—was it someone named Bailey’s?—definition, I think you have a point.” But in truth, it is very unlikely that any of the ones (sic) at that party will be aware of Professor Bailey’s droll redefinition of the almost trite expression “great leadership,” his prominent place on the Harvard Business Review’s website notwithstanding.
For he has forgotten that good and great, though not technically on a continuum, are contiguous ideas in English. “Great” is related, of course, to the German gross, meaning large, derived from the Indo-European root *ghreu- which seems to have meant “grind” (though according to the OED that etymology is far from certain).[1] One thinks of great as referring to size when, for example, one thinks of an appellation such as the Great Lakes or World War I as the “Great War,” or the description of St. Mary from the second chapter of Luke, “… Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea … 5 To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child.”
Ever since the middle of the nineteenth century, however, the word has primarily meant “excellent.” Now Bailey is right to note that good and great are not the same idea. Good’s comparative is better; great’s is greater. Yet both adjectives currently imply something decent, something right, something noble, not something simply powerful. In fact, I cannot think of a sentence in which great could be substituted for “shocking complacency and inertia into action,” to use Bailey’s words cited above. No I think Dr. Bailey is simply wrong. Hitler was not great, nor can any leader be who, to use Bailey’s words again, has “no… moral compass.”
But leadership can be a neutral term, and maybe that’s what Dr. Bailey really meant to say. Leadership can be good or bad. A good leader will be driven by decency, will be compelled to action by a sense of the divine imprimatur, whether he or she knows it or not. That gracious mark on the good leader’s life will evidence itself in a profound moral sense, a desire for justice not for self-aggrandizement. When one finds a good leader, it is rare. When one finds a great leader, one who has such characteristics to an even greater degree than the good leader, that is rarer still.
Harriet Tubman
And while it is obvious that no great leader will be perfect or have an unblemished record of leadership, one can quite often sense a great leader when one hears that person speak or reads what he or she has written. One might disagree with that leader’s political vantage point, but one should, nonetheless, sense that greatness from his or her palpable courage, thoughtful command of words and principled execution of deeds. One might here think of presidents such as Lincoln or Kennedy, or famous figures such as St. Teresa of Calcutta or Harriet Tubman. And there are many others, from Queen Victoria to John Paul II, from Pericles of Athens to Mahatma Ghandi. (Notably not on the list are Pol Pot, Josef Stalin, or Adolf Hitler).
So it would seem that leadership can be either good, great, or bad, and greatness, pace Dr. Bailey, cannot be bad or good. One portion of Plutarch’s description of Cicero, of which I here in closing render but a brief snippet, sums up well the portrait of a truly great leader:
“For [Cicero] especially revealed to the Romans how much pleasure rhetoric adds to the good, and that justice is unassailable if it is rightly spoken, and further that it is incumbent upon one engaging in the business of civic leadership ever to choose the good instead of merely the agreeable, and by his words to remove the bothersome from that which is advantageous.” (Life of Cicero, 13.1)
With so much negativity in the air these days—it is an election year in America, and election years are poignantly negative—I might have decided to write a blog about how if you say something unscrupulous, it is quite possible to come back upon you at some point. In fact, even removing the word unscrupulous, the phrase might still work, and even if you reverse the valence of the verb—say if something bad happens to you—your words could still come into play, even after your death! Take, for example, the case of the Michigan parrot. Now that may sound like a new installment in the Sherlock Holmes series, but in fact it is a news story that broke very recently. Apparently a parrot overheard the last words of a murder victim and now has been repeating them for the police.
I can imagine the interrogation of the parrot at the police station, at least if it were to be anything like those old police shows that used to be on television—say “Hill Street Blues” or the like. The parrot is put in a chair and told to wait for a moment while the officer garners his clipboard. Two prostitutes awaiting booking are escorted nearby; the parrot inappropriately whistles and repeats “Sexy Lady” twice in a parrot accent. The interrogating police officer returns.
“Now,” he says in all seriousness, “Can you state your name?”
“State your name!” “State your name!”
“My name?” “I’m Officer O’Malley.”
“O’Malley!” “O’Malley!”
“That’s right,” says the officer looking at his clipboard. “Now, I have here that your name is Polly.”
“Polly!” “Polly!” “Polly want a cracker!” says the bird, riffing off the memory trigger Polly, inducing the officer to provide a snack.
And so goes the conversation until the police officer brings up the tender topic of the murder, with regard to which the parrot spills the beans, recounting the details from his master’s last words necessary for a conviction. Who knows, maybe it will actually even come to pass, as this is a real story in the news these days (albeit not the preceding dialogue, obviously, between O’Malley and the bird).
As amusing as the cross examination is to imagine and as delightful it would be to construct, I will move on to the main point: what you say can be very important, for it can be remembered, in this case by a bird. But more often it will be remembered by a person. Yes, sadly, to return to the negativity of this election year, something deleterious that you say might be remembered, to your chagrin. But I prefer to reflect for a moment on the obverse of that same coin, for my wife and I had dinner last evening with two friends whom we knew some thirty years ago when we were living in Philadelphia. And some of the words they said had such a profound influence on us that we decided to share that with them now, all these years later.
John and Sarah are presently missionaries to India. They live in Delhi and work with struggling families, urban poor—they understand a movie like “Slum Dog Millionaire” in profound, first-hand ways. They have lived on the subcontinent for over twenty years now, ever involved in this or similar ministries to the poor. They gave up the happy, rich, over-stuffed life of the typical American to serve others.
Yet it wasn’t just their life and example alone that touched ours all those years ago before they were missionaries. It was their words, too. Words of kindness, words of challenge, a small study of the old and these days not-so-often-read book of Proverbs, rich wisdom literature. In the midst of that study of Proverbs there this couple was, having a weekly dinner at their house, chatting with us and a group about the fine points of living an honorable life, seeking justice and truth above personal satisfaction—seeking the very face of God, to honor Him in one’s life, not merely to fit Him in around the edges. Their words made a lasting impact; their words changed lives, ours among them.
I will close not with a recipe of how they did that but with a Proverbs-like, wisdom-literature-style charge: Consider the parrot. Your words provide evidence, in the case of our parrot, of “what actually happened that night.” Words offer evidence of what is in one’s hearts, what is in one’s soul. John and Sarah’s souls are rich and when we spent the evening with them last night, we again partook of that same richness that they had shared with us all those years ago, a richness that changed our lives and made our souls then, and now, the richer for it. Words and the lasting friendships they produce are powerful witnesses, inspired and inspiring. So, setting aside the negativity of this election cycle, I prefer to think of how words can promote love, preserve friendship, and inspire good character. Here’s to old friends and the words they bring with them, and to parrots!
I have a friend who has a beloved uncle whom I also know quite well—he might as well be my own uncle. Indeed, he allows me to call him by that familiar title. Yet he does not believe in miracles. I would like to say that it isn’t the case that he doesn’t believe they can happen as much as it is simply that he has never seen one. But, in fact, it is the case that he does not believe they can happen at all.
Now I myself am as skeptical as he is about faith healers on television who ask you to send money for a prayer cloth that they have anointed with some kind of healing oil. I am not sure whether this is just an American phenomenon; perhaps some of you who might be reading this in another country are not familiar with this phenomenon—I mean televised miracle workers, not miracles per se. Yet for those of you who may not know, I can tell you this much: at certain times of the evening in the States you might just flip to a certain television channel and find a certain man (for usually it is a male) who will touch some certain person in a crowd and (likely by some prearranged agreement) that person will throw their crutches aside and begin leaping about on the stage (for usually it is a stage) and declare that they have been healed.
Yet I don’t count such a spectacle as a miracle. Rather, it is precisely a spectacle, something that the (possibly well intentioned, possibly not) televangelist has put together (whether to entertain or, more likely, to obtain donations). This is not a miracle. Instead, I count as a miracle a baby.
I write this on the very date, twenty-three years ago to the day, that a friend of mine had to deliver his own child because the doctor had gone out to have a smoke—I say nothing here about doctors ought knowing better—at the very moment that the child was appearing. My friend told me that he had the unique opportunity of receiving nearly half of his daughter’s body before the nurses came charging in to help. The doctor, in the meantime, was enjoying an unsanctioned rendezvous with the Marlboro man. That, to me, is a miracle—not the smoking doctor, but the daughter, choking, gurgling, gasping for her first breath as she entered rapidly into this world.
To look closely at a newborn baby is a startling act, for it is to behold a miracle. It is amazing to think that the child has grown so rapidly in the mother’s womb. Indeed, it is more amazing to think that it has grown in another person at all. If you are lucky enough to behold it immediately after birth lying upon its mother’s chest, with tiny grasping hands, its look of new life, and the image of its mother’s love, you will witness perhaps an even greater miracle than the child’s birth. G.K. Chesterton once wrote “… we cannot say why an egg can turn into a chicken any more than we can say why a bear could turn into a fairy prince. As IDEAS, the egg and the chicken are further off from each other than the bear and the prince; for no egg in itself suggests a chicken, whereas some princes do suggest bears.”[1] In short, like that of the egg producing a chick, the idea of a human being, a mother, producing a baby is rather fantastic, at least if we suppose for a moment that we had never known how babies came into being. If we are not amazed by this, it is only because we take it for granted.
Now this is not the only kind of miracle that I believe exists, but I do believe that it is particularly miraculous. My friend has never quite gotten over his catching that child as she came into the world; he still talks about it, especially when he waxes nostalgic over a glass of wine and a bite of Swiss cheese, whose holes themselves, too, might just be particularly miraculous; else why would there be at least two theories about the holes in the cheese?).[2]
But beyond the particularly miraculous, the “that’s-amazing-when-you-think-about-it” type of miracle, there are also miracles that are peculiarly miraculous. It is that type that the charlatan televangelist tries but fails to emulate with his smoke and mirrors on television every week. That type is the kind that people all too often crave, about which someone might say, “now if I saw that kind of (peculiar) miracle, I would believe that miracles can happen.” But of course those miracles, indeed any miracles, particular or peculiar, hardly ever appear to those folks. There are two reasons, I suppose, for that.
First, miracles are, by definition, miraculous. They don’t happen often or they wouldn’t be so. Second, the people about whom I am speaking can’t see the miracles when they’re right in front of them. They miss the particular miracles because they don’t recognize in the face of a baby a mind-boggling sight, a fantasy come alive. Nor would they see, of course, peculiar miracles, nor accept another’s account of them, such as Elaine Jakes catching the scent of cheese in a church in Stockton, NJ, and beginning to go to that church regularly soon after that.[3] Nor would they accept a story, even from a known source, about someone encountering an angel.[4] They may even believe that love is merely a chemical reaction of the brain and that forgiveness is something unachievable, especially in certain egregious circumstances. They might even say there are no such things as truth or justice. And they certainly don’t believe in Superman, or at least the archetype that he represents in the comics.
Surpassing tragic picture from the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin. Photo by Jorge Láscar
And my dear uncle might say, “Well, for every ‘miracle,’ you produce, I’ll show you ten non-miracles, and worse yet. How do you explain the Holocaust alongside your so-called miracles?” And he would be spot-on right. This is the most vexing question. What he is essentially asking is why children die, why genocide happens, why there is human suffering, why there is such sadness in the world.
I cannot answer these questions. Rather, I can only revert to miracles. I start with the Italian adverb-adjective combination, molto particolare. I learned this expression from a dear friend who studies art. He uses it to describe the finest workmanship. It is a kind of Italian code word for “very beautiful, very well made.” Now, perhaps I am but stating the obvious, but I believe particular (i.e. the Italian particolare) miracles are often overlooked simply because they are the rule.
Mt. Blanc
One takes the beach for granted if one lives by the shore. One takes the Alps for granted if one lives on Mont Blanc. Babies are born every moment, colorful flowers bloom in green fields, peaches are succulent, and a true friend…—well you’ll know that when you find one. I made such a friend a long time ago at Dickinson College; his name is Tim, and he is a lawyer now in
Tim and H.R. at Dickinson
Harrisburg. I spoke of him to a dear colleague just yesterday; even after all these years I described him as closer than a brother. Such friendship is a particular miracle, too.
I am not so far off topic as you might imagine. If human suffering somehow mars particular miracles—certainly it does for my dear uncle and I believe for many others with whom I’ve spoken about the possibility of life having meaning—peculiar miracles, if not quite offering an answer, nevertheless somehow offer a response to the problem of human suffering. Such miracles are no less beautiful than the particular, everyday miracles, but they are strange in a different way than a chicken coming from an egg is strange. They are peculiar precisely because they defy natural laws. I take one (click here) or two (click here for another) recent examples from the news. If you look at these clips, you’ll see that they both record children coming back to life when they were dead. Not near death; dead. Now one could say that that kind of thing happens somewhere in the world everyday. But, first of all, it does not. Secondly, it does not happen to you every day. It does not happen to your neighbor or friend every day. And when it does happen to you, there’s a chance then that you’ll recognize that you were party to a peculiar miracle.
If particular (i.e. beautiful) miracles are tarnished by humankind’s inhumanity and the grief engendered by natural disasters, peculiar miracles are not so much a response as perhaps an antidote to the vexing question of human suffering. This would be especially true if peculiar miracles should be construed as messages from another world. If that were to be the case, the adjective peculiar would indeed be a good descriptive term for them. But that is the stuff of another blog, a blog about life—and wine and cheese, of course. And now that I think about it, perhaps the holes in Swiss cheese are a peculiar miracle after all.
That source is a mountain. Not one of the seven hills of Rome, not Athens Mars’ Hill, not Dharamsala in the Tibetan Himalayas, not even Mt. Zion in Israel. No, it is a much smaller “mountain,” really only a hill, one you probably have never heard of, known as Har HaOsher. It lies between Capernaum and Gennesaret, where once, it is said, were spoken by an itinerant rabbi something called the Beatitudes. These teachings can be summed up with any one of a number of quite positive words like grace, compassion, even love. Among those summary words, to me one, however, stands out: redemption. They are redemptive teachings, blessings on those who seek to practice even a fraction of them. That rabbi broke that blessing into bite-sized pieces. They’re not hard to do, they don’t lie “beyond the sea, that thou shouldest say, ‘Who will cross the sea, get it and proclaim it to us so that we may follow it?’” No, “the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it.”
If there is a solution to a world whose values are in dissolution, then, it seems to me, that the way through the chaos may just be to speak redemption, to show compassion and kindness to everyone we encounter. That rabbi did that very thing when the world he inherited was in at least as much disarray as ours is today. He chose to bless, to redeem. Perhaps we can, too, if we put our mind to it. After all, if we look for it, that redemptive word may just be very nigh unto us, already in our mouths and our hearts. And if it is, perhaps we should just speak it, for redemptive speech might be the first step toward a better world, precisely as it was quite a long time ago on a hill in Galilee.
Prominent on the Harvard Business Review’s website, one finds an article by James R. Bailey entitled, “
y’s words cited above. No I think Dr. Bailey is simply wrong. Hitler was not great, nor can any leader be who, to use Bailey’s words again, has “no… moral compass.”
John and Sarah are presently missionaries to India. They live in 
