Learning from a Great Man: Bob Woodson, R.I.P.

Bob Woodson has died. 

Those words don’t seem right. He was truly a man who I thought might never die.

I remember first encountering him when I was a Heritage Foundation intern while I was in college. I immediately saw: This is the conservatism that people don’t realize, when they caricature the thinking. This was the conservatism that was focused on human flourishing, in non-flashy ways.

I remember later on recoiling at the phrase “compassionate conservatism,” because as far as I could ever see, this is what conservatism was. It didn’t need a modifier. It was building and supporting the backbone of society: the family. Getting men in line, knowing what their gifts are and how they can steward them responsibly. These are the things people need. This is how you build and nourish a healthy culture.

I remember, too, one time being on a panel at Georgetown University about poverty, and something Pope Francis had recently said — probably about going to the peripheries. The hostile disbelief was palpable as I mentioned the Anti-Poverty Forum at the Heritage Foundation at the time as something that was very much in keeping with the pope’s challenge — the challenge of the Gospel to serve one another in love. Of course, those hissing didn’t know Jennifer Marshall (now Patterson) there, who had been raised in public policy by Bob Woodson, among other great men.

I wished that I had cracked the nut of telling stories of the kind of life-changing work Bob Woodson devoted his life to in ways that would capture the imagination.

Bob Woodson’s life was in no small part devoted to what conservatism really is, really can be. It’s subsidiarity. It’s stewardship. It’s reverence. His was a life well-lived. May we continue to learn from him, as we thank God for him.  

In remembrances, no doubt Paul Ryan’s name will come up, and Woodson will seem like some kind of inner-city whisperer to the right. More like a conscience of the conservative movement.  

Here’s a recent conversation with Woodson that Ian Rowe hosted for students for Vertex Partnership Academies. Among some of the wonderful points Woodson made to the students were:  

1. Approximately 10% of the challenges we face are due to external circumstances, while 90% is determined by how we respond to them. 10% is what happens to you. 90% is how you respond. 

2. Values are not taught; they are caught. We must offer ourselves as examples of what people can become. 

3. We should produce evidence that people can achieve, not arguments.  

4. A cycle of lived example is more powerful than advocacy alone.  

5. Confront people with the evidence and values you stand for. 

6. We need to focus on our strengths — how we have managed to thrive even in the midst of adversity. Look for the exceptions to the rule. Seek out those who have overcome the greatest difficulties and learn how they did it. 

7. Never allow yourself to be defined by the challenges in your life. Take enough strength from those who love you to overcome those who do not. 

8. Recognize when you need help and ask for it. Accept your vulnerabilities and seek support.  

9. Cleanse yourself of self-importance. Be patient with yourself — difficult days will not last. 

10. Surrender is not defeat; it is faith, and often the beginning of something greater. 

Vertex, by the way, is education rooted in the virtues of courage, justice, temperance, and wisdom.

In the coming days, there will be many remembrances of Bob Woodson — all opportunities to learn from a great man who lived life well with courage and clarity. 

A WSJ profile in 2021 explained: 

Mr. Woodson, who was raised Baptist and says his work with grass-roots leaders deepened his faith, turns to Christianity to explain America’s racial polarization. “You’ve got those who are crucifixionist, who look at life through the lens of crucifixion—slavery, then Jim Crow.” They would “limit America’s definition” by its past sins. “Then you’ve got the people on the right who want to only look at resurrection.” That’s a mistake because “the resurrection has only had relevance when it’s understood against the crucifixion.”

He’s hopeful of redemption even though he says “continued emphasis on race is taking us toward chaos.” He says the 1776 curriculum has been downloaded 21,000 times and alludes to a sermon by Bishop Fulton Sheen (1895-1979) who preached that just as eagles push their young out of the nest and rescue them before they hit the ground, God is deliberately “bringing us to the brink of danger” ahead of our ascent.

“America is thirsty to reward grace and virtue,” Mr. Woodson says. “I believe that there’s going to be a revival coming soon, and that revival is going to come from low-income black neighborhoods, because those neighborhoods are untouched by wokeness.” No one there, he says pointedly, claims that “fathers are not relevant.”

Mr. Woodson’s successor at the center hasn’t been chosen. He says he wants to “let some younger leadership take it over the next 40 years”—that is, until 2061. Mr. Woodson’s hope for the future is that America can “get race off the table, so we can deal with the moral and spiritual free fall that is consuming all races of people,” he says. “The emphasis on race now is acting as a primary barrier for us to address the deeper malaise facing this country.”

Your choices are not to be “villain or victim.” Lean into love and make sure others around you have that option.

Thanks be to God for Bob Woodson. As a priest friend of mine often pleads: God, be good to him!