A good name is more desirable than riches; to be esteemed is better than silver or gold. —Proverbs 22:1
Last year America lost one of its greatest comedians with the suicide of Robin Williams. This year it’s losing another, although Bill Cosby is still alive.
Bill Cosby’s sense of humor, acting talent, handsome face, and rascally imagination endeared him to five decades of fans. He broke into television with the mid-60s thriller I Spy, costarring with Robert Culp. It is still a late-night cult favorite and broke ground at the time for giving a black actor a lead role in prime-time television. He worked nightclubs ceaselessly, and his recorded stand-up comedic routines became the content for more than 20 record albums. In the 80s he played well-to-do physician Cliff Huxtable on the Cosby Show, a wise husband and daddy portraying a stable and loving family that rose above cheap stereotypes of the usual ghetto portrayals of black life. It was the number-one show on television for an astonishing five years.
One of the characters in his stand-up routines was a street wise guy named Fat Albert, who became the star of an animated TV series that lasted an even more astonishing 13 years. Cosby received a lot of national support and compassion when his son Ennis was shot to death in 1997. He would often talk about Ennis in his lectures and speeches. In recent years, Cosby traveled the country exhorting his fellow African-Americans to take more responsibility for their own lives, for absent fathers to show up and take better care of their children, and for young people to stay in school. He has a bright pink star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
All that goodwill, admiration, and respect built up over decades of achievement is sliding into the sewer because of emerging information about how Cosby treated women throughout his career. Much of that information is still in the form of allegations—over 40 women have alleged some form of sexual assault—and some of it is old enough to have passed the statute of limitations for prosecution, but even old news can damage a reputation. In legal depositions years ago, Cosby admitted giving women with whom he wanted to have sex the sedative Quaalude (though he insists that they were aware of taking the drug and agreed). That case was settled out of court, and although many of his accusers have attorney representation today, there are only two active lawsuits.
One by one his supporters have dumped him. NBC canceled plans for a new TV show. He was pressured to resign from the board of trustees of his alma mater, Temple University. The Navy took away his honorary “Chief Petty Officer” rank. Creative Artists, his acting agency, dumped him. I grieve for his wife, Camille, to whom he has been married over 50 years. Even apart from the drugging and assault charges, the man has admitted many, many adulterous sexual encounters, every one of which must have wounded his wife.
So sad. So sad. I live and work in the middle of a larger city and see the destruction caused by absent fathers, education dropouts, and the drug trade every day. Cosby had a great message to deliver, and now he has completely lost all credibility. His reputation is shot. The Associated Press commented that the many allegations of immorality have made a mockery of his calls for decency. The judge who released Cosby’s legal depositions about Quaalude use did so “because of Cosby’s role as a public moralist.” Nobody is going to listen to Bill Cosby speak about morals anymore.
Three things are on my mind right now:
1. It doesn’t matter how wealthy or good-looking or famous you are. Satan will tempt you to throw it all away and cave to your appetites. We all carry around the seeds of our own destruction.
2. Cosby’s behaviors were not all that different from anybody else’s in the industry; the difference with him was that he tried calling people to a more moral life. People will guiltily listen to a moral scolding, knowing that he was right, but they have only contempt for a hypocrite.
3. Bill Cosby needs Jesus right now more than he needs NBC or Creative Artists. The Son of God lived, suffered, died, was buried, and rose again for just such fools as Bill Cosby.
And me.
Content originally posted by Time of Grace.
