Van
Cliburn died last month. I was reading some obituaries. They make for sad
reading. I don’t mean they are sad because they are obituaries. Not every death
is an occasion for sadness. I wasn’t saddened by the death of Hugo Chavez, Gore
Vidal, or Ted Kennedy.
The obit writers were sad for a different reason than I was.
They lamented the fact that van Cliburn never fulfilled his artistic promise.
For various reasons, that doesn’t sadden me. To begin with,
even if he had fulfilled his artistic promise, that’s a very ephemeral
achievement. A worldly distinction. Like cut flowers.
For that matter, I don’t know that he had any great artistic
potential to realize. Maybe he never had it in him to be a probing interpreter
like Artur Schnabel, Rudolf Serkin, or Daniel Barenboim. Maybe van Cliburn was
simply a technician. A pianistic athlete. You can do a lot with great pair of
hands, youthful energy, and dogged practice.
Initially he seemed destined to be the American Horowitz.
The virtuoso of his generation. But he didn’t have the temperament of a
natural-born showman. He was shy. Insecure.
Once you acquire a certain reputation, it’s hard to live up
to inhuman expectations. Laurence Olivier suffered from stage fright at the
peak of his career. How can the “world’s greatest actor” suffer from stage
fright, you ask? Well, it’s precisely that title which contributes to stage
fright. You become a very self-conscious actor. The audience counts on you to
pull rabbits out of the hat every night. You can’t stay in character.
What I find sad is that, as I read the obits, it’s easy to
see how, had his formative years taken a different turn at two or three
crossroads, things would have come out for the better–in this life and the
next.
I’m alluding to the fact that he was homosexual, and it’s
easy to see how his homosexuality figured in his lack of self-confidence. His
nerves. His self-doubts.
Mind you, self-confidence isn’t always a good thing. Arthur
Rubinstein was very self-assured. A man of the world who lived for the world.
But in the case of van Cliburn, it’s not hard to see how a
few wrong turns during childhood and adolescence put him on the wrong road for
life. And I doubt social life at the Julliard helped.
The obits say more about his mother than his father. That’s
telling. He was clearly closer to his mother. And it’s not unusual for sons to
be closer to their mothers than their fathers. That’s unfortunate, but not
inherently unhealthy. Claudio Arrau was very close to his artistic mother. It
didn’t harm his maturation, that I can tell.
But it looks like van Cliburn’s mother was a frustrated
concert pianist who vicariously fulfilled her own abortive career ambitions
through her son. And it seems as if his father was not an adequate
counterbalance to the mother. She was the central person in his life, all his
life.
How would van Cliburn have turned out had his father been a
stronger emotional presence in his life? That’s one fork in the road. One
missed turn.
Likewise, how would van Cliburn have turned out if he had
one or two brothers? That’s another fork in the road. Another missed turn.
One obit also mentions the fact that he was excused from
P.E. for fear he’d injure his hands. That’s a final fork in the road. Yet
another missed turn.
In each case, he was deprived of natural, normal male bonding.
The things that help a boy develop his masculinity.
Apparently, he wasn’t close to his father. He never had
brothers. And he missed out on the rough-n-tumble of male camaraderie in junior
high and high school. Seems
reasonable to suppose those deprivations predisposed him to homosexuality. With
a left turn instead of a right turn, or a right turn instead of a left turn, at
just two or three crossroads in his boyhood or adolescence, he might well have
avoided that dire outcome. And these were decisions made for him, not by him.
This, in turn, led to the true catastrophe of his life.
Having boyfriends posed an impenetrable barrier to his ever taking the Gospel
truly to heart.
From what I’ve read, van Cliburn was a lifelong churchgoer.
And I suppose it’s something of an achievement for an active homosexual to a
regular churchgoer in the fundamentalist stronghold of Dallas-Fort Worth
metroplex.
It’s almost like his life was a Faustian bargain, only his
parents brokered the deal. Selling his soul to the devil in exchange for a
glittering life of fleeting fame and fortune. Not that they consciously doomed
him, of course. But what if they had allowed him to be an ordinary boy?
Sacrificing the superstardom for a normal family life and a glorious afterlife?
When I read the obits, there’s a part of me that feels sorry
for van Cliburn. In my mind’s eye, I can see a young boy who might have turned
out very differently, for the better, with a few simple changes in his
upbringing.
Someone might object that it’s inconsistent for a Calvinist
like me to feel sorry for van Cliburn. But I’m not questioning the wisdom of
God’s plan. To the contrary, reflecting on the trajectory of van Cliburn’s life
makes me appreciative of how utterly dependent all of us are on God’s
providence, for weal or woe. How easily, with a providential adjustment here or
there, that could just as well have been you or me. We are at the mercy of
forces beyond our control. Unless God controls them, unless God
arranges–indeed, prearranges–events large and small for our ultimate good, then
we are utterly lost.
I know you have said in the past that some sins are more damnable than others, but why should homosexuality be more damnable than any other sin? Aren’t all sins damnable?
ReplyDeleteActually, what I said is that any unatoned sin is a damnable sin.
DeleteFrom what I've read, van Cliburn was an impenitent, practicing homosexual. There's no reason to think he was a genuine Christian.
Lots of heterosexuals go to hell as well.
One doesn't have to do anything special to be hellbound. One doesn't have to do anything extra to be hellbound. Absent divine intervention (e.g. election, regeneration, justification), humans are born lost. We don't have to do anything to be lost. Rather, something must be done for us to rescue us from our lost condition.
DeleteThanks for the reply.
ReplyDeleteWhy couldn’t a practicing homosexual affirm that, “justifying faith is nothing else but confidence in the divine mercy which remits sins for Christ’s sake; or, that this confidence alone is that whereby we are justified” or be a person who is “convinced by a firm conviction that God is a kindly and well-disposed Father toward him, promises himself all things on the basis of his generosity; who relying upon the promises of divine benevolence toward him, lays hold on an undoubted expectation of salvation”?
Saving faith isn't antinomian. And there's more to salvation than justification. Although justification is by faith alone, salvation is not by faith alone. Salvation includes regeneration and sanctification.
DeleteA practicing homosexual is a defiant, impenitent sinner. Just like a philanderer.
What is antinomian about confidence in the divine mercy which remits sins for Christ’s sake or the firm conviction that God is a kindly and well-disposed Father toward him, promises himself all things on the basis of his generosity; who relying upon the promises of divine benevolence toward him, lays hold on an undoubted expectation of salvation?
ReplyDeleteAn overeater is a defiant, impenitent sinner. Do you look around the congregation and assess all the morbidly obese people as lost.
You're being duplicitous. It is antinomian to profess Christian faith while having no intention of living by Christian standards of sexual morality.
DeleteRead Jn 15 on the necessity of obedience as well as faith.
The Bible has next to nothing to say about overeating. Is morbid obesity unhealthy? Yes. But Scripture hardly ranks that with sodomy.
You’re being ambiguous. What specific proposition(s) of justificatory faith is an impenitent sinner incapable of believing?
DeleteSo constant overeating is only unhealthy and not sinful?
Why couldn’t a practicing murderer or a practicing rapist affirm that, "justifying faith is nothing else but confidence in the divine mercy which remits sins for Christ’s sake; or, that this confidence alone is that whereby we are justified" or be a person who is "convinced by a firm conviction that God is a kindly and well-disposed Father toward him, promises himself all things on the basis of his generosity; who relying upon the promises of divine benevolence toward him, lays hold on an undoubted expectation of salvation"?
DeleteAJ
Delete"So constant overeating is only unhealthy and not sinful?"
You're grasping at straws:
http://www.robgagnon.net/GluttonyComparisonToHomosexualPractice.htm
AJ
Delete"You’re being ambiguous. What specific proposition(s) of justificatory faith is an impenitent sinner incapable of believing?"
Are you trying to misunderstand? God doesn't justify anyone he doesn't regenerate or sanctify. Impenitent sinners never exercise justifying faith in the first place. They are nominal believers.