{"id":16952,"date":"2012-03-22T01:15:15","date_gmt":"2012-03-22T04:15:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/?p=16952"},"modified":"2012-03-21T23:42:36","modified_gmt":"2012-03-22T02:42:36","slug":"the-us-navy-king-david-and-bathsheba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2012\/03\/22\/the-us-navy-king-david-and-bathsheba\/","title":{"rendered":"The US Navy, King David, and Bathsheba"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Stars and Stripes <\/em>notes the US Navy has “sacked” 150 commanding officers over the last few years for misconduct.\u00a0 Of 80 instances over a five year period, half were for adultery, inappropriate relationships, harassment, or sexual assault.\u00a0 One of the solutions noted:\u00a0 Take a look at the Bible<\/a>.<\/p>\n

So how can the Navy abate this steady tide of offending COs? Perhaps by asking, \u201cWhat would David do?\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s King David, he of Old Testament legend and famed for toppling the giant Goliath. But the all-powerful leader of ancient Israel is also known for a stunning moral lapse in which he sent one of his soldiers to certain death in order to possess the man\u2019s wife, Bathsheba…<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Bathsheba Syndrome: The Ethical Failure of Successful Leaders,\u201d published in a business journal in 1993, asserts that the ethical failure of powerful leaders is often not the result of an individual\u2019s low morals, but the byproduct of success…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Navy has latched on to the Bathsheba Syndrome as one evil to fight in its battle against unethical and immoral conduct among its commanders:<\/p>\n

The Bathsheba Syndrome is now integrated in the Navy War College\u2019s ethics portion of the Major Command Course, a one-week program for officers going into O-6 command level, according to Martin L. Cook, an ethics professor at the college. The concept is also included in a course for junior officers \u2014 typically lieutenant commanders \u2014 who will likely have one more tour before assuming a command in a couple of years.<\/p>\n

Vice Adm. James Wisecup, now the Naval Inspector General, was president of the War College until April 2011 and became so enthusiastic about the concept of Bathsheba Syndrome that he sent a copy of the article to Adm. Gary Roughead, the chief of naval operations at the time, Cook said.<\/p>\n

\u201cRoughead liked it enough to send it to all of the flight officers in the Navy,\u201d Cook said. \u201cI think it\u2019s continued to circulate at that level quite a bit.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There are several takeaways:\u00a0 There is much one can learn from the Bible, even if one considers it a work of fiction, as some do.\u00a0 It would have been a fascinating survey to see who actually knew who Bathsheba was before reading the article — there’s almost certainly a generational gap in Biblical knowledge.<\/p>\n

It is also notable the US military can instruct and give guidance with reference to the Bible (or the Torah) without endorsing religion.\u00a0 Tough for some people to fathom, sure, but true nonetheless.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Stars and Stripes notes the US Navy has “sacked” 150 commanding officers over the last few years for misconduct.\u00a0 Of 80 instances over a five year period, half were for adultery, inappropriate relationships, harassment, or sexual assault.\u00a0 One of the solutions noted:\u00a0 Take a look at the Bible. So how can the Navy abate this steady tide of offending […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[3091,3092,23,86,1524,3094,3090,1155,2,36,3093,10],"class_list":["post-16952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government-and-religion","tag-bathsheba","tag-bathsheba-syndrome","tag-bible","tag-ethics","tag-gary-roughead","tag-james-wisecup","tag-king-david","tag-martin-l-cook","tag-military","tag-navy","tag-navy-war-college","tag-religion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16952"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16952\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}